Just to refresh our minds before
we go looking at some other passages of scripture for a little bit,
I just wanted to read the passage in John's Gospel that we've been
looking at lately. So if you turn with me to John chapter 3. The events of the conversation
with Nicodemus continue, so I thought I'd read from verse 15 down to
21. Let's start in verse 14, sorry. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. I want us, as we begin today,
to note that word, he. He that believeth is not condemned. Salvation and everything about
salvation is all personal. It's intimately personal. It's
personal between you and God. This is eternal life that you
know Him. But here in these verses we have
a remarkable description of this world. We have a remarkable description
of us in this world. We have a remarkable description
of all of God's children in this world. And there is, as you might
have noticed as we went through those verses, there's a great
dividing, isn't there? There are those that are condemned. And they're condemned already.
And there are those that are not condemned. There are those
that believe not. And there are those that believe
onto, believe into the Lord Jesus Christ. There are those that
perish, and those that have everlasting life. There are those that hate,
and those that love. There are those that love the
darkness and there are those that love the light. There are
those that do evil and there are those that remarkably do
the truth. We won't have time to look at
all that this week. But there is obviously a kingdom, isn't
there? There is a kingdom of God and this context of course
is about seeing the kingdom of God and seeing the kingdom of
God is to see the king of the kingdom. And you can't see unless
you're born again, and you can't see unless there's light, but
there is another kingdom, isn't there? And it's a remarkable
act of the grace of God that he sends light into this world. It's a remarkable act of God
personally for you that God sends light into this world. So what's the sin that so easily
entangles according to Hebrews? The sin that so easily entangles
is unbelief. Our unbelief is always an unbelief
against the light. But unbelief is an absence of
a light, isn't it? And it's a sin against the light. And in every situation, and we sin continually, and we
sin against God and God only, and we sin against our brothers
and sisters. If you think about every one
of those sins, in every situation what is encompassed in those
sins is a lack of light, isn't it? We don't see God, we don't
see ourselves, And we don't see other people very clearly and
every time we stand in judgement of our brothers and sisters we're
always wrong because we never know enough, do we? So sin and
unbelief and the pain and the hurt that we cause our brothers
and sisters is intimately linked to the fact that we have light.
And what we need again and again and again is light. We need light
from God to show us who God is. We need light from God to show
us who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and we need light from God
to show us what we are and how we save sinners, as wretched
as we are. Of course, the first words of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the scriptures are, let there be
light. In fact, in the original it says,
light be and light was. This is Sovereign. more a little bit later on, but
that light, that light is not the created light, the sun, the
moon and the stars weren't made until the fourth day. This is
the light of the revelation of who the Lord Jesus Christ is.
And if you turn with me in Revelation to Revelation chapter 21, there's
a glorious description of the new creation, there's this glorious
description of the Church of God gathered as a city to her
husband. in verse 22 of Revelation 21,
and I saw no temple therein. There's no temple in this city,
for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of
God And the nations of them which
are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth
do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it
shall not be shut at all by day, and there shall be no night there.
And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into
it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,
anything that comes from darkness, anything that creates darkness,
anything that defileth, whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh
a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I love to think, isn't it, we
are gathered to proclaim to each other the land of God. slain for the
foundation of the world, the Lamb of God who is the light
of the new creation, the Lamb of God who is the light of the
new creation in each of us when we are created, when we are made
a new creation through God taking His Word and His Spirit and causing
there to be a creation in us that didn't exist before. It's seeing the Lamb. It's seeing
the Lamb. And so the beginning of the Bible
begins, doesn't it, in the beginning God, and the first words of God
that we hear spoken are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let
there be light. In the new creation the Lamb
will be the light of all of our lives forever and ever. But also in the rest of the scriptures,
they are the bookends of the scriptures in a sense, the rest
of the scriptures are all about all about the Lamb, the Lamb
and the light of the Lamb. That was the light that shone
in the darkness of Isaiah chapter 9 in those dark, dark days of
Israel when Israel, Judah, because of its wickedness and its rebellion
against God and His people was plunged into deep darkness and
that darkness meant that they were cast away and that land
became desolate for those 70 promised years. It is the Light. In all those
intervening years, in every picture throughout all the Scriptures,
we have this picture of Light coming into the darkness. The
Lamb coming into the darkness. The Lamb and the Light go as
one. If you have Light from God, it'll
be a Light that shines on the Lamb. And if you see the Lamb,
you'll see the Lamb because Light from God has shone upon you. I love what Job says in In Job
29.3, only by his light, only by his light do we walk through
the darkness. Only by his light do we walk
through the darkness. Not by our wisdom and not by
our works and not by our worth. We walk only, only by his, his
light. Our God is faithful. We read that in Isaiah chapter
nine, he's faithful. God is faithful even in the darkness
and we can't see him. Even when he seems to be clouded,
he's faithful all the time. He who keeps Israel, he who keeps
the church, neither slumbers nor sleep. And he leads them
all the night with the light of fire. He says, I will bring,
Isaiah 42.6, I will bring the blind by a way that they know
not, and I will lead them in paths that they have not known,
and I will make darkness light before them. We walk through the darkness.
We walk through the darkness. For those of us who have seen
the light, we spend so much time for you. If you've seen the light,
you grieve for the light to have gone. The light of his countenance,
the light of that peace. One of my favorite passages in
the scriptures and they're growing and growing as I get older. I'm
more in need of reading them again and again and again. But
in Isaiah chapter 50 is a great description of that walk that
all of God's people have. It says, Isaiah 50 verse 10,
who is among you that feareth the Lord? He's speaking of an
individual in a crowd that obeyeth the voice or explain that in great clarity,
that obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness
and hath no light. That means no shining light,
no bright light to shine. And then it says, if you're walking
that way, if the bright shining light has gone, and you find
yourself and feel Let him trust in the name of
the Lord and stay upon his God. Let him trust in the name of
the Lord. Let him trust in all the very
character of our God as revealed in the scriptures and stay upon
his God. And then the description of those
who are in darkness. The people that are in darkness,
Nicodemus and the Jews of that day were in great, great darkness
and they thought they were walking in light and yet they were walking
in darkness. Listen to what God says, Isaiah 50, 11. Behold all
ye that kindle a fire, that compass, surround yourselves with sparks,
walk in the light of your fire. And in the sparks that you have
kindled, This you shall have at mine hand, says God. You shall
lie down in sorrow. We trust. We walk in this darkness
and we trust. We trust our great God. Again and again, he promises illuminates our path that we
can walk in His ways and walk with Him. Even when we can't
see Him, even when we can't feel that He's around, the Lord enlightens
our darkness. We're going to sing a couple
of So I trust that in this season,
when people are talking about lights and their lighting lights,
we'll actually get to enjoy the light of heaven. We might get
to appreciate the wonder of that light of our great God. I just wish everyone you too. Oh. Oh Yeah. Oh