Okay, well let's turn back in
our Bible to John chapter 12 and verse 35 and 36. Jesus said unto them, then, then,
Jesus said then, as a result of what had just previously gone
on, said unto them, and they ask a question which is not really
a question. Yet a little while the light
is with you. Walk while you have the light,
lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth. While you have the light, believe
in the light, that you may be the children of the light. Last
week we looked at light and the reality is that there is no gospel
There is no light without the gospel, and there is no light
in a false gospel. There is no light in a false
gospel. There is no light of who God is, and there is no light
of who man is, and there is no light of how God saves sinners
apart from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
what Timothy, we've just heard, heard from Timothy and just listen
to what he says. He speaks of this gospel and
he speaks of it in terms of light. And he says in verse 8 of 1 Timothy
chapter 1, he says, Be thou not therefore ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord, the declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. who hath saved
us, this is the gospel declared isn't it, he hath saved us and
called us, what comes first? The saving comes first, and then
the calling, with a holy calling, called into the presence of a
holy God, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. But is now made manifest, and
that word manifest is to bring to light. When something is brought
to light, it doesn't create something. If we rolled up that curtain
next to Col over there, and we saw those mountains and all of
the things out there, rolling up the curtain doesn't create
the mountains. Rolling up the curtain springs
the light so we can see the mountains. And that's exactly what happens
in the gospel. We are caused by God shining
the light of who the Lord Jesus Christ is according to the scriptures
into the hearts of his people. to show us what happened in eternity,
to show us what happened on the cross, to show us what happened
in the garden, to show us what's happening right now in heaven.
The heaven's rule is now made manifest by the appearing of
our saviour Jesus Christ. Don't you love that thought of
him appearing? He appeared in the Old Testament
Scriptures and He appeared physically in the Old Testament in many,
many cases. He appeared in all the promises
and all the pictures and all the types in the Old Testament
and then He appeared and He appeared as a man. And then He appears
when the gospel is preached, He appears. And it's Christ in
you in the hope of glory and it's this Christ that has to
be in you for there to be light. who is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death
and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Whereunto I am appointed a preacher,
an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles, that for which
cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed.
For I know whom, salvation's a whom, I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. The children of God, the children
of light, have seen this light, the light of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is, without the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ without
him being raised up high and holy and lifted up, without him
being declared to be a successful saviour, without him being declared
that saviour who did a work from before the foundation of the
world and came in the fullness of time but came with the purpose
of God. There is no light. There is no
light. It is the light of the gospel. that we're talking about here.
And I want us to look at some simple things that the Lord Jesus
Christ declares to us and encourages us. He says, it's just a little
while. There's a little while for this light to shine. Walk
while you have the light. There is a time when the light
shines. and individuals and churches. There's a time for the light
to shine. There is a time for the light to be withdrawn. The
Lord Jesus Christ hid himself from them. He hid himself from
them and departed from them. He goes on to say, walk while
you have the light, lest darkness come upon you. Darkness has a
power. That word, come upon you, means
to lay hold of and to possess, to seize upon people, to overtake
people. But then he tells us what the
sadness of this is, isn't it? The people who walk in that darkness,
if that darkness is seized upon people, they do not know where
they're going. They do not know where they are,
and they do not know where they're going. But then he says, and
it tells us so plainly and so clearly, what is it to walk in
the light? What is it to walk in the light? Verse 36, while
you have the light, believe in the light. Believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ is to walk in the light. And it's to be a child. of the Light. As I said, as the
scriptures so plainly declare over and over again, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the Light, and He is the Light for us. He says
and declares Himself to be, Thus saith God the Lord, Isaiah, 42, five, he that created the heavens
and stretched them out, he that spreadeth forth the earth and
that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto the
people and walk upon it, the spirit to them that walk therein,
I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness and will hold
thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant
of the people for a light to open blind eyes, to bring
out the prisoners from prison and them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are
come to pass, and new things do I declare. Before they spring
forth, I'll tell you of them. And those verses remind us of
what the Lord Jesus Christ is as a light. Verse four is just
wonderful, isn't it? He says, He shall not fail, nor be discouraged. If the Jesus that you have heard
about is the Jesus who can possibly fail, or possibly be discouraged,
then you haven't heard. If you haven't heard about the
light, because that's what he declares, this is the light to
the Gentiles. If you haven't heard about a covenant God, a
covenant making, a covenant promising, a covenant keeping God, and in
that covenant, a union, a covenantal union between his people and
the Lord Jesus Christ with bones of his bones and flesh of his
flesh, with members of his body, the children of God. He shall
not fail nor be discouraged till he has set judgment on the earth.
And he goes on to say, in verse 21 of that chapter, the Lord
is well pleased for his righteousness sake. For the sake of his righteousness. Our God is well pleased for the
sake of his righteousness. He will magnify the Lord. He will magnify the law. He alone
will magnify the law, and he alone will make it honorable.
And how do you keep the law? How do you walk? Keeping the
law of God. I'll turn this, turn this into
Romans chapter three, and we'll see what God says about how you
walk, keeping the law of God. I'd love to have time to read
these glorious verses in Romans 3 which declare the righteousness
of God. That God might be just and the
justifier. That God might be just and the
justifier. of them, of him which believeth
in Jesus. This is to walk in the light.
Unless we get these, who is the light and walking in the light
right, we won't understand what the darkness is and we won't
understand and we'll put ourselves back under a bondage of doing.
To declare, verse 26, to declare His righteousness. Verse 25,
God set forth His Son to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to
declare His righteousness. for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time His righteousness, that He might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded by what law? Of
works, nay, by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. You're
justified by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ without
your activity. If that's not good news for you,
brothers and sisters, you're still in the darkness. How do
we walk? That's the question that I want
us to answer because otherwise we'll get confused and the Lord
doesn't want us. He doesn't want any mixture of
law and grace. Is he the God of the Jews only?
Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles I only sing. It is one God which shall justify
the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. We establish the law of God,
we magnify, we cause it to be magnified and honourable by simply
trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one person that's
ever kept the law of God. There's only one person that's
ever magnified and honoured the law of God. That's what the psalm
says. The psalm once says, blessed
is the man. And all the blessed people are blessed in him. He
has done it all. That's what it is, to walk in
the light. And that's the evidence of being
a child of God. That's the evidence of being
a child of God, isn't it? Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
is the evidence. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
one, Galatians chapter four, and we'll see what it is to be
a child of God. It says in verse four of Galatians
4, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Galatians 4, 5. And verse six
says, and because This is what the children of
light do. This is the evidence, isn't it, that their children
of light, they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And because
you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant but a son, and if a son, an heir. of God through Christ. And how does that happen in the
hearts of these children of God and how do they come to be the
children that walk in this light? Well, Paul tells us the story,
and Paul tells us in 2nd, God tells us in 1st Timothy 1.15
that Paul is a pattern. Listen to the pattern. You know
the story of Saul of Tarsus. There he was. He wasn't seeking
God. He was seeking to murder him.
He wasn't seeking fellowship with the children of God and
the children of light. He was trying to destroy them,
as many as he possibly could, and receive the esteem of the
righteous. of those people in Jerusalem
that we're reading about in John 12. But, he was very zealous
for the vision of his fathers, but when it pleased God, how
do you become a children of light? How do you walk in light? But
when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, you
think of all of the evil and all of the sin and all of We should look around at people
that we know and see and deal with, with a sense of hope. If God can save a wretch like
Saul of Tarsus and a wretch like Angus Fisher, then I have every
reason to look over the horizon and around with expectation When it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's worm, He called me by His grace to reveal in me, that I might preach him
among the heathen. I might preach him among the
heathen. We preach him, we just have no
other purpose, that's what we gather here. So walking in the
light, is to simply believe in the light, to believe the Lord
Jesus Christ as this book declares Him to be, to believe the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit has recorded, to believe the
Lord Jesus Christ as God the Father speaks of Him, believe
the Lord Jesus Christ as He speaks of Himself. Would you ever want
to change a single characteristic about Him? Don't you just love every single
thing, every contemplation For me it's just a heave a sigh
of relief. He's done it all. He's done it
all and he did it a long, long time ago. And he's doing it right
now amongst his people. To believe in the light is to
be the children of the light. To be the children of the light
are to be the children I wish I loved them more, but
I do just love them. I just love what they say, and
I love being able to say what they say. This is what God says.
I'm not quoting... Who cares about Angus Fisher's
opinion about anything? God's opinion, God's words are
just so precious, aren't they? And it's just so important that
we lay a foundation again and again of what is the gospel,
and the gospel is a person. The gospel is the declaration
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. and there is no light, there
is no light of salvation where he is not declared in his glory.
Isaiah 8 verse 16 calls on the preachers to bind up, chapter
8 verse 16, you bind up the testimony, you bind up the testimony, you
seal up the glory, it's just like sealing up jewels in a bag
and you bind it up, you bind up all the jewels of who God
is and who the Lord Jesus Christ is in revealing God. You bind
up the Testament, you seal the law among the disciples. And then he says, and I will
wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob
and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom
the Lord has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from
the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion. And when they
say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and
unto wizards that peep and mutter, Should not a people seek under
their God for the living among the dead? Then he says these
remarkable words, to the law and the testimony, to what we've
been reading in the scriptures about the Lord Jesus Christ,
to the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to
his word, it is because there is no light in the world. In our fullness we want to give
people who preach false gospel and declare things that are lies
about God. We want to give them the benefit
of the doubt. God says there is no light in them. There is
the light of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, as declared in this
book, and the rest is darkness. The walk in the light is to be
thankful and to be amazed at the grace
of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to be thankful for
a little light. We would love to shine a light
more brightly, but in a dark world, if we have just a little
light, we have all the light that there is around. It's to
be thankful for a little light. It's to call upon God to bring
more light. to bring the light of His word,
the light of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to confess
Him, isn't it? It's to confess Him publicly
before people. It's to commit ourselves to Him. It's to lay all of our eggs in
one basket. All of the hope of all of my
salvation, all of the hope of all my life, in all of this world
and into eternity, is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.
completely and utterly. It's to confess Him, it's to
commit Him. It's to rejoice in grace revealing
light. It is a kingdom of darkness that
the Lord rescues us from. Let's turn back to Colossians
chapter one and see how the Apostle Paul has described this coming
out of this kingdom of darkness. As I said, this darkness has
a power. This darkness is active. This
darkness is epitomized and most particularly revealed in the
religion of this world. If you want to see what darkness
looks like, you don't go into the brothels and the bars and
the depraved places. You think you go to the pulpits
and the churches of this world, and that's where you'll see the
darkness. And Paul says, in verse 12 of Colossians chapter one,
giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet. Made, it means to qualify us,
to shape us perfectly as a living stone to be fitted into the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. To make us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who has, delivered
us from the power of darkness, verse 13, and translated us into
the kingdom of his dear God. Hence, brothers and sisters,
which means that we are passive and someone was active to make
it happen. It's the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, isn't it? Who has delivered us from the
power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear
son, in whom we have redemption through his blood. is to be delivered, 1 Thessalonians
speaks of, delivered from the wrath to come. It's to be delivered
from every evil and preserved unto a heavenly kingdom, 1 Timothy
4.18, where God gets all the glory. God is able, God is able
to deliver the godly, to bring them into a kingdom of light. Those who walk in the light of
who the Lord Jesus Christ of is in the gospel are aware of
the darkness. They are the only people that
are aware of the darkness that is within them. Every righteous
person that's ever and ever will walk this earth will only ever some righteousness, being able
to do some righteousness, to be able to work some righteousness
into the future. We see the darkness. And Ephesians chapter 5 speaks
of what it was to be in that darkness. He says, You were sometimes
darkness. Darkness is not a place. Darkness
is a being. But now you are the light in
the Lord. Work as children of the light. The power of darkness. Ephesians 4.18, having their
understanding darkened. Their understanding darkened.
Being alienated from the life of God. What did Adam do in the garden? What did Adam
and Eve do when the darkness came upon them, when they were
taken captive by the wiles of the devil? Did God really say,
is God really just? Will God really punish sin? Will you really die? Satan deceived
our parents and immediately, when their eyes are open, what
do people in the darkness do? They run as fast as they possibly
could to the darkest place in the garden. And in the darkest
place in the garden, they're stitching together that which
culls their shame. And such is the way of all of
Adam's children in this world. It's nothing less than the power
of God Almighty that comes and rescues these people. As I said
earlier, that darkness is active. The Lord says, lest the darkness
come upon you, treasure the light. Treasure the gospel light. Treasure the gathering of God's
people. Treasure the opportunity to hear
about the light. The light has been withdrawn.
The life of the gospel has significantly, and in judgment, been withdrawn
from nations of this world. England, a few hundred years
ago, was a shining beacon for the gospel. And if you read the
stories and the witness of all of those people that died for
the sake of the gospel and the amazing heritage that was left,
and the amazing way that in the midst of darkness coming upon
them in all sorts of darkness of deception, darkness that denied
the gospel, the darkness that denied the gospel in the most
subtle ways possible, darkness that came because people were
manipulating and manufacturing a way to see the scriptures where
the Lord Jesus Christ was dethroned just a little bit and man was
enthroned just a little bit and God's servants stood and were
counted and died for and wrote the most remarkable
things and lived the most remarkable life. One of the things that is so
troubling going there is how much light has been withdrawn
in the 15 to 20 years that I've known them. And what troubles
me even more is that in so many places where the light has been
or is being seemingly withdrawn, there doesn't seem to be an urgency
and a passion about it. My God, These religious people had their
scriptures. They had what they thought was
a righteousness before God and you tell walking in darkness
and the Lord Jesus Christ in judgment just up for election, brothers and
sisters. He's not trying to win a popularity
contest. He saved his people from before
the foundation of the world, and everything that happens is
happening according to his glorious purposes. He says in John 11,
10, he said, if a man walk in the light, in the night he stumbles,
because there is no light in him. The light of the gospel the children of God, and that
Christ in you the hope of glory. If our gospel's hid, 2 Corinthians
4, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this
world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine under them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. 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. Walk in the light. Believe in
the light. Rejoice in the light. Come to
the light again and again and again. Lest the darkness come upon you. There is a while He uses that
word three times in our text of scripture, doesn't he? A little
while. Walk while. Verse 36, while you
have the light, believe in the light. There is a little while
for the light to shine. Treasure the light that shines.
There is an eternity of darkness. And the path to eternal darkness
is never seen by any who go there. They'll turn up, as they are
at this very moment, before the Lord Jesus Christ, and they're
saying, look what we've done. Look what we've done in your
name. Look at the many wonderful works we have done. And he turns
to them and he says, I never knew. That didn't mean he didn't
know that they were born. He didn't know about their lives.
He just says, I never had a love relationship with you. There
is a time and a season for revealing of that light. As Ralph Barnard said, if you
walk in the light that the Lord gives you, he'll give you more
light. Walk in that light. There is
a time and a season for revealing. There is a time when the door
is shut. Those wise and foolish virgins
in the Lord's parable, they all looked exactly the same. They
were dressed the same, waiting the same. as if they were all prepared
and waiting to go in. The saddest thing to encounter
throughout the scriptures and an encounter throughout history
are gospel-hardened sinners. I'm challenged by these verses. God says, stand ye in the ways,
this is Jeremiah 6.16. Thus saith the Lord, stand ye
in the ways. There are many ways laid out before people in this
world. And see, you stand and see what's
going on. The only way you can see is in
the light of who the light is, in the gospel, in the word of
God. You see, and then you ask, you call upon God, you ask for
the old paths, and that's a path that goes back to eternity, before the foundation of the
world, and it's a path that goes as far, you'd find a path that
goes as far back as you can possibly go. Where it is the good way,
there's only one good, the Lord Jesus, and walk there in, and
use your fine rest for your souls. What was the response of the
people of God? The people who claim to be the
children of God, that they said, And God says, also I set watchmen
over you saying, hearken to the sound of the trumpet, the gospel
sound. And they said, we will not hear. This is a day of light, a little
while. This is an hour of light. What is it to walk? What is it
to respond? How do we respond? Our gospel
declares Christ to be the saviour. Lord, save me. Lord, save me
from myself. Save me from this world. Save
me from this religious world. Faith is the gift of God. Lord, increase our faith. Praying
for faith is a biblical thing to do. Lord, increase our faith. You can't come to the Lord Jesus
Christ in faith. Come for faith. He's the giver. Christ bore the sins of his people
in his body on the tree. Christ is a forgiver of sin. My unbelief is sin. Lord, forgive
me. We hear that the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ washes We come again and again as mercy
bingers. That's what talking the light
is, isn't it? Christ is the King who rules and reigns. Kiss the sun. O Lord, I come
bowing. I come as a mercy binger. pleading