Turn with me to 1 John 1. 1 John 1. We began this blessed book last
week, and I'd like for us to look at one verse, verse 5. 1 John 1. In verse 5, this then is the message which
we have heard of Him and declare unto you that God is light and
in Him is no darkness at all. The Apostle John had written
this general epistle to the churches. And he wrote concerning the fellowship
that we have with each other, yes, but with the Father and
the Son. And in writing, his prayer was
that the joy of God's people would abound. That settled walk,
belief. You know there's a, I said last
week, there's a difference in happiness and joy. Happiness has to do with environment. Either I'm happy, I'm not happy.
Joy is believing God. Resting, resting. I think joy
in the Lord and being in a situation that's not happy, that your joy
may be full. Now, John the Apostle wrote this
book under the inspiration of God. And this is what he's saying,
this then is the message. which we have heard of him."
This is the message that we've heard of the Lord Jesus Christ,
is what he's saying. John was with him. John said,
we looked on him, our eyes beheld him, we touched him. And he said,
this is the sum, the substance, this is the full instruction
and the announcement. This is the promise concerning
Almighty God to His people. This is the message. John was
saying this is the totality of the message. This is what he
preached. One who was from God who is God,
the only begotten of the Father, who was in the bosom of the Father.
This is the message. This is the message concerning
our reconciliation. This is the true proclamation
of the prophet himself. This is the message. You know,
I read that and I thought, I want to hear. This is the totality.
This is everything. that the Lord Jesus Christ had
to say. And concerning this being the
message, that verse I just quoted in the last service, this is
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. John said, this is the message
which we have heard of Him and declare unto you that message
that the Lord preached is the message that God sent preachers
preach. Preaching is just repeating what
the Lord has said. That's preaching. We don't, we don't, not God sent
preachers, they don't come up with new stuff. What does God
have to say? What does the Lord have to say? We preach the glorious gospel
of God's grace in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
declare or we disclose. We're not here to argue, to debate. You know, somebody said, well,
I want to debate. We don't argue. No, I don't have
time. This is what God has to say.
This is what we preach. He told us, as he told his disciples,
you go into all the world and preach the gospel. Now listen,
here's the message. Here is the sum and substance
of the message from him. God is light. And in him is no darkness at
all. Nothing hidden. There is nothing
undisclosed. Now, if you're like me, I read
that passage of scripture, I've heard that passage of scripture,
and I'm going to be honest with you, that's a That's a lot of
scripture. There's a lot. If that's the
sub... Well, no, not if. This is the sum and substance
of the disclosure of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning God. And I thought to myself, oh,
the wisdom. of Almighty God, the mercy of
Almighty God to bring a revelation to men concerning Himself. That God would not be silent
concerning Himself. You're sitting here, many of
you have sat, you sat under Brother Scott for years and years and
years and years. And think what the Lord was pleased
to teach you. What God was pleased to reveal
to you. Do you realize those things that
God has taught you? Many in this world never hear.
Never hear it. Never heard it. Never heard it. I never heard the gospel. until I was in my late 20s. I
never heard it. All I ever heard was a false
religion about, you know, God wants to save everybody, you
know. I never heard the truth till
I was in my late 20s. And that Almighty God, Light
Himself, this is the message, God is Light. Light in the Scriptures relates
to Almighty God setting forth, being a description as, being
an emblem for, relating to His holiness, His glory, His purity,
His truth, His knowledge, His wisdom. And darkness is the opposite
of Almighty God. Now here the Holy Spirit sets
forth through the Apostle John that God has manifested Himself
to His people. That manifestation to us through
the Lord Jesus Christ and through His preachers is that we might
know Him. Now I'm going to just try to
be as simple as I can and Set forth what is being said right
there. God is light, and Him is no darkness
at all. Light is that which reveals everything. Without light, there would be
no knowledge of anything. It would be absolutely Darkness. So light is set forth as who
God is. Light is invisible. I don't want
to go into a long discourse. It's irrelevant. But without
light, I've told you this before. Light shines upon an object. And the shape of that object,
the color of that object, there's a color wheel. Red, yellow, blue. Three primary colors. All colors
are made from red, yellow, blue. All colors. Red, yellow, blue. In that spectrum, you've seen
the triangle and it shows light and it comes in here and it shows
all the colors of the rainbow coming out of it. Light shines
on an object and the color that is in that object. I see red
on those pews right there and it's because the yellow and the
blue basically are taken out. Not all of it, but because of
the shade of that color. That's the only color that is
reflected back to my eye. That's the only reason I see
red. If it was blue, then the red and the yellow would be out
of it. And all I would see is blue. Light exposes everything. Light. Light is invisible. God Almighty is spirit. No man has ever seen God, the
only begotten of the Father. The Son has declared Him, manifest,
speaks of Him. Naturally speaking, light requires
an organ. Something to be able that is
adapted to receive that which light is exposing. I hope I'm
being simple here. Without an eye, I don't care. All the light in the world is
not going to do you any good if you don't have an eye. If
you don't have a receptor to be able to see. If I were blind,
and could not see. All the light in this room is
not going to do me a bit of good. It's going to have to be received
by a receptor. I'm going to have to have an
eye. The sun is shining. I can see it. I see the sun shining.
The sun is out there. But I need an eye to be able
to behold what is around me or all of the light from the sun
is not going to do me a bit of good. If man is physically blind,
Is it the sun's fault because that man can't see? If a man
has no eyes, is it the sun's fault because he can't see? No. It means the man has no object
to perceive that which the sun is revealing. God is light. Spiritually, man as he's born
in Adam is incapable of receiving that which the light himself
is revealing. Without spiritual eyes to see,
you know the spiritual eyes and the hearing ear and the Lord
has made both of them? Without that, man cannot see
that which God Almighty is revealing. Let me ask you this. God is light. God exposes everything. I'm going to tell you about this.
I'm going to keep this short. But I'm going to tell you what
God is exposing. God Almighty is light exposing
everything. concerning himself. Is it God's
fault because man rebelled against God and he's dead spiritually
and he can't see? Is it God's fault? No. Man rebelled against God. Almighty God shines in this word,
declaring His holiness, and His glory, and His sovereignty, and
His mercy, and His compassion, His justice, His hatred for sin,
His eternal purpose to save sinners. There's no hiding of Himself.
God is light. And in Him is no darkness at
all. There's no obscurity. But apart
from having the capacity to be able to hear and see what God
Almighty is declaring concerning Himself, His declaration is hidden. Men don't know what God is saying
because they can't hear. They can't see. And left to themselves, they
don't want to. I don't want to see. 1 Corinthians 2.14, The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. God's people, regenerated by
the grace of God, do receive the things of the Spirit of God,
because God Almighty has given them eyes to see, and they're
called children of light. This is this John 12, 36. While
you have light, believe in the light, that you may be children
of the light. So here's the marvelous declaration
from the Lord Jesus Himself. God is light, exposing all, declaring
all concerning Himself. And there's no obscurity, there's
no darkness in Him at all. Men can say, he just never told
us. Oh yes he did. Oh yes he did. I tell you this, the scripture
declares, we have the light of nature and that declares God's
power. Let me ask you this, is there
anybody in this room today that has eyes, physical eyes? Can you see outside? Can you
see those trees? And you see that road and you
see the stuff that's out there, do you see that? Do you know
that that declares the order of God, the power of God, the
wisdom of God? You realize, you look at the
time of year, coming up here in just a few more days, we're
going to come to the longest day of the year. Whatever it
is, June 22nd, 21st, 22nd, whatever it is. Okay, the day is going
to go back the other way. Do you know the timing of that
is just right on schedule, it's just exactly, it just loses the
same minute, it starts gaining the same minute, it loses the
same minute. The sun, they can tell you what time, you know,
they already figured it out. You know, the daylight is going
to be coming up here next week or so, it's going to be at this,
this, this minute, right there, right there, right there. Almighty
God is light. declaring his power, declaring
his glory, declaring his honor, and there's no obscurity to it
at all. So we got the light of nature.
How about the light of our conscience that declares right from wrong?
There's a conscience in every man. And He knows right from
wrong. Like I said, you go in the most
remote places of wherever you want to go to. And I'm telling
you, never heard the gospel, very possibly never heard the
truth, but I'm telling you, they know if they're offended. They
know. They know right from wrong. There's
a conscience in every man. God is light. And there's no
darkness. Nature is light. Our conscience is light. Light
itself. But let me ask you this. Was
the light himself not completely manifested at Calvary? Let me ask you this. Did not
this world behold the glory of God in the crucifixion, the Lord
Jesus Christ? That scripture that I just read
a few minutes ago, Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son
that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. At Calvary, God, who is
light, who is the manifestation of Himself, and no darkness whatsoever,
was glorified by the Son concerning the Father's love, at Calvary,
His light Himself. There's no obscurity to it. Wide
open. There it was. God's love and
mercy and compassion for a people that He everlastingly loved and
purposed to save. There was the Lord Jesus Christ
dying for them. There He was on the cross. He
said, John 10, 15, I laid down my life for the sheep. And at Calvary, God, who is light,
said, there's the Redeemer, right there. Dying for all that I ever
gave Him in everlasting love and electing grace. There He
is. And there was no darkness at all. How many people saw it? Only those that God Almighty
gives eyes to see. There's no obscurity to it. But
it wasn't God's fault because men didn't see it. By His crucifixion,
distinguishing grace. At the crucifixion, God's law
was honored. There's a full declaration. The
honor of God's law, it must, must execute justice and judgment
where sin was found. The Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture
declares, 2 Corinthians 5.21, He hath made Him sin, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
There He was, made sin. Full disclosure, God is light.
God is light. This world has no excuse. No
darkness, no obscurity. This thing wasn't done behind
closed doors. This wasn't done, you know, in
secret. Full disclosure right here. By
Christ's obedient suffering, God's righteousness, justice,
and hatred of sin was openly revealed. And there was no darkness
to it. Full disclosure, yes, God is
light. And in Him is no darkness at
all. But there's one other declaration
that's absolutely for us right now. All these things God has
declared, the light of nature, conscience in a man, the crucifixion,
Let me ask you, let me ask myself, we that sit here, how about the
disclosure of the Holy Scriptures? What about God's Word? Now let
me tell you something. I would dare say there's not
a person sitting in this room this morning that don't have
a Bible. Probably multiple Bibles. Probably bunches of them. I like to have a Bible pretty
close. I want one sitting there next
to my My chair in the living room, I want one by the bedroom.
I want to have a couple of Bibles here. I just want to be able
to pick it up and read it. Here it is. God is light. Here's the full disclosure of
what the Spirit of God has been pleased. And there's no obstruction
whatsoever. You have the Scriptures. Psalm
40 verse 7, Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book.
It is written to me. The book of the law. concerning
the sacrifices, the shedding of blood of bulls and goats in
the wilderness, was God Almighty as light, not declaring the great
atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, were not all these
things pointing to Him? God is light. There's no darkness
at all. And here's man reading the Old
Testament thinking that he's got to go back to the law to
keep the law. And God is light, saying that
Christ finished the work. All of those laws and rules and
regulations, they're done. They're done. It's finished.
It's over. There's no darkness at all. And all the prophets was not
the Spirit of God declaring Christ God's prophet. He who is from
God, who is God, concerning His character and sufferings, the
one who would suffer as God's Lamb. Remember the two on the
road to Damascus? The Lord said, beginning at Moses,
all the prophets expounding unto them in all the Scriptures, those
things concerning Himself. Is there any darkness at all
concerning the Scriptures? and you that God has given eyes
to see and ears to hear. I remember when the Lord was
pleased to teach me the gospel, teach me of Christ, the glory
of Christ. You know the amazing thing, that
which was so amazing to me? As I began to read these scriptures
and I began to see the truth, of God's sovereign mercy, sovereign
electing mercy, redeeming, sovereign redeeming mercy. Irresistible
grace. I looked at that and I thought,
that's everywhere. And I never saw it. I've read
that before, I never saw that. I was reading the scriptures.
And I could not see it. But when the Lord gives a man
light, and you realize there's no obscurity whatsoever, it's
everywhere. God Almighty has fully disclosed. And I just, before the Lord was
pleased to call me out of darkness, I just excused it, you know.
But I can tell you what I know. I am in myself a sinner. I'm a sinner. And I need a Savior. I know that now. I mean a Savior. Not somebody that's wanting me
to help him. I need a Savior. I need Him that
came into this world to save sinners. who died at Calvary
putting away my guilt. My guilt was actually put away. That the Spirit of God now has
powerfully and irresistibly called me out of darkness. Almighty
God has disclosed this and is disclosing it today. This whole
world lies in darkness. And the light himself is setting
forth the glory of himself. And there's no darkness at all. And the scripture says, this
is the condemnation. That light is coming to the world
and men love darkness rather than light. Because their deeds
were evil. But according to God's everlasting
covenant of grace, mercy and compassion, that He has shown
to sinners. Let me tell you why. If you believe this at all, if
you believe that Almighty God has truly saved you by grace,
through faith, and that not of yourself, it's the gift of God. Here's the reason. For God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Men and women are saved and enlightened
by the grace of God. And I'm going to tell you something.
If you know that, blessed are your eyes, for they see, and
your ears, for they hear. May the Lord bless this word
to our heart for Christ's sake. Amen.