We're looking again at the latter
part of verse 18 of Acts chapter 26. The work of God and the description
of a Christian and the commission of the apostles and the commission
of us as a church is in preaching the gospel is to open their eyes
and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of
Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that
is in me. We will, as the Lord enables
us this morning, look to the power of that darkness, the depths
of that darkness, and the source of that darkness, but we also
want to look mostly at the wonder of the power of him who turns
us from darkness to light. It is nothing less than a sovereign
act of a gracious and merciful God that brings his children
to himself. Are we ready, Normy? OK, good. Well, welcome all. Let's begin
by reading Psalm 89. Sorry, 80. Psalm 80. You were
right where you were. OK. It says, he begins, the Psalm
of Asaph. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel. We want the shepherd to hear
us. Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, Thou that dwellest
between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin
and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come and save us. Save us
in the midst of your people. Turn us again, O God, and cause
thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Turn us again, O God,
and cause thy face to shine. That's what salvation is, isn't
it? When God turns us and he causes his face to shine. We shall be saved. O Lord God
of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of
thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread
of tears. Any of you who are believers
know something of that. And give us then tears to drink
in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto
our neighbours, and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn
us again, O Lord of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and
we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out
of Egypt. Thou hast cast down the heathen and planted it. He's
talking about bringing his nation Israel into the promised land. Thou preparest room before it.
Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.
The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs
thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs
under the sea and her branches under the river. Why hast thou
then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by
do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth
waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
Return, we beseech thee, O Lord God of hosts. Look down from
heaven, and behold, and visit this vine. This vine seems very
poor and needy, very fragile in this world, isn't it? and
the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch
that thou made as strong for thyself, it is burned with fire
and it is cut down. They perish at the rebuke of
thy countenance. Let thy hand be upon the man
of thy right hand, there's no question about who that is, that's
our Lord Jesus Christ, upon the son of man whom thou made as
strong for thyself. So we will not go back from thee,
Quicken us, make us alive, and we will call upon thy name. Turn
us again, O Lord of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and
we shall be saved. Let's pray to our great God.
Our great and gracious and merciful Father, we do thank you that
we can come with boldness into your presence, because standing
before you at this moment is our Lord Jesus Christ. And we
pray, Heavenly Father, that you would answer the petitions of
this song and this prayer, that you might turn us again, Heavenly
Father, unto thee. We are like sheep that are straying
all the time, Heavenly Father. Return us to the shepherd of
our souls, the shepherd of our salvation. Cause thy face to
shine, and we will be saved. Oh, our Heavenly Father, we once
again come before you as needy, helpless, mercy beggars. And we need a light from heaven.
We need you to shine a light upon the face of your dear and
precious son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might see his
glory yet again and see him high and lifted up and reigning over
all things, and that we might see ourselves, Heavenly Father,
in Him, and with Him, and complete in Him, and perfectly secure
in Him, and seated, as you promised, together with Him in heavenly
places. If your face shines, Heavenly Father, you will cause
your people to be saved, and we will see the glory of your
salvation. Bless our time together, Heavenly
Father, and bless the preaching of your gospel around this world,
that your people, your people might find themselves enjoying
the joy and the peace and the comfort of believing. Grant us
the faith, Heavenly Father, just to look away from everything
else and look to your Son. We pray your blessing on us this
morning, for we come in the name of your dear and precious Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We're going to sing a new
one. Normie's done very well with
our songs in these precarious times, as people might say. It's
called Precious Saviour. Thank you very much. Precious Savior, friend of sinners,
we ask such to Thee. Let thy spirit dwell within us
with that love that casts out fear. Matchless Savior, let us
know Thee, as the Lord our righteousness. Cause our hearts to cleave unto
Thee, come and with Thy presence bless. Open now thy precious
treasure, let thy word here freely flow. Give to us a gracious measure,
tis thyself we long to know. Come and claim us as thy portion. Let us all find rest in thee. Leave us not to empty notions. We would find our hope in thee. Do I need to do something with that? I'm nervous about technology.
I'm glad Norm is here to sort it out for us. Why don't we go back in our scriptures
to Acts chapter 26. I love the picture of our apostle,
the apostle to the Gentiles, and he is the pattern, he's the
pattern of the Lord's way of saving sinners. He's the pattern
of preaching the gospel. He is set before us here in Acts
as the most remarkable witness to the Lord Jesus Christ and
he is by the sovereign hand of God brought yet again into a
place in front of this probably a great crowd. It says that Agrippa
came in with great pomp They came in with great pomp, Acts
25, 23. And so there's no point getting
dressed up in great pomp unless you have an audience to be pompous
in front of and all dressed up. And so there was this vast crowd.
And it's a glorious picture, isn't it, that our Apostle Paul
stood as one man, stood there as a prisoner in chains. as the only believing man in
that place. And God, in his sovereignty,
has taken Paul on this journey. He's been sent. He says in Acts
chapter 26, that passage we've been looking at, he says in verse
26, 16, This is Paul's commissioning, Paul's appointing. He says, But
rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee
for this purpose. Everything that God does is with a purpose.
To make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou
hast seen and those things in which I will appear unto thee,
delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom
now I send thee. And this is a description of
a Christian. It's the glorious commission
of Paul. It's the commission of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's the commission of the church. To open their
eyes, to turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power
of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins
and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith. that
is in me. Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first
unto them of Damascus, and of Jerusalem, and throughout all
the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should
repent, and turn to God, and do works, meet, do works suitable
for repentance. And for these causes the Jews
caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. But he's
standing there, verse 26, 22. Having therefore obtained help
of God, I continue to this day. Witnessing both the small and
great, saying none other things than those which the prophets
and Moses did say should come. He's sent on purpose. We are sent on purpose. There
are no accidents. There are no ifs or buts, there
are no tries and maybes in the sovereign purposes of our great
God. One thing we need to note, and
I had a chat with Tom about it last week, the proclamation of
the gospel is about the proclamation of the glory of God. The salvation
of sinners is a secondary thing. It's a declaration of the glory
of our sovereign God, the declaration of the glory of his son, the
declaration of the glory of his grace. It's a declaration of
the glory of the power of God to come into this dark world
and to save people and to gather his flock to himself. See, in
the salvation of sinners, God is glorified, God is magnified
in all of his character. He's magnified and glorified
in his word and he's magnified and glorified particularly in
his word made flesh. But you might note with me that
a third of the Book of Acts is a history of Paul in his journey
from Corinth to Ephesus to Caesarea to Jerusalem to Caesarea to Malta
in a shipwreck to Rome. And there's not one story of
the conversion of a sinner. There are pictures of conversion,
but there's not one story of the conversion of a sinner. There
is not one church planted in all of that time. Paul spent
all that time. And you might say, did he fail? you might say, did the purposes
and the promise of God fail? This is his last conversation
in the land of Israel and at the end in Acts chapter 28 he
has a conversation with some Jews who actually proved themselves
to be unbelieving and he quotes Isaiah chapter 6 to them. Isaiah
6 reminds us, and we'll look at it in weeks to come, reminds
us that again the proclamation of the gospel is about the declaration
of the glory of God. And here we have these remarkable
promises. We have a sevenfold work of our
God, but I want you to note the pronouns in it. See, this light
has come to a particular people. This light has come to Paul. The light came to Paul in a particular
and powerful way. There is a light from heaven
that shines. There is an opening of their
eyes. there is a turning of them from
darkness to light. There is a turning of them from
the power of Satan unto God. So God comes and he turns people
to himself. He makes his face to shine and
he turns people to himself. And then Having done those remarkable
things, then the gifts of God flow, the gifts of the forgiveness
of sins, the gifts of being inheritors, along with the Lord Jesus Christ,
as Paul says in Romans 8. We are joint heirs with him.
What does the Lord Jesus Christ inherit? He inherits a place,
doesn't he? The home of the righteous, the
new creation. He inherits a people. We are
joined one with Him in all of His inheritance. We are rich
beyond imagining, brothers and sisters, but we have the greatest
riches of all, which is the glory of His presence with us. And
that's the greatest riches, that's the joy and that's the glory
of the new creation, isn't it? That such is the intimacy of
the relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that He comes and
He wipes the tears from your eyes. and the wonder of a new creation
is every look and every glance and every thought will be nothing
but glorifying him. Imagine looking at this creation
through those eyes and seeing the glory and the power of our
God. It takes a new creation to see. It takes a new creation to see
the old creation. It takes a new creation to see
this creation with any clarity whatsoever. It is the joy and the privilege
of the church to be led into places where we get an opportunity
to declare the glory of God and the salvation of sinners is a
secondary thing. You would have to say that Luke
writes the story of a man who is unsuccessful, but here he
is before this vast audience in this courtroom in Caesarea
before King Agrippa. And we never get to hear of where
these words went and where they went to the heart of particular
people. But we have a promise from God,
isn't it, that his word comes and his word does its work in
this world. And just like the Word made flesh, the Word comes
and He does His work in this world and it returns to Him.
And the Lord will get glory from it. See Christ's commission in
Luke chapter 4 is the same as Paul's commission in so many
ways, isn't it? The Lord Jesus preached, he said, the spirit
of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovery of sight
to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are bruised. To set at liberty them that are
crushed. Them that are beggars. Here we
have Paul's commission. in Acts 26. I just want us to
briefly look in Colossians chapter 1 at this same pattern and Colossians
is one of the letters that Paul may well have written from that
jail in Caesarea. And the Colossians is written
to a second generation church. There is no record of Paul having
been to Colossae. He may well have in his time,
his three years he had in Ephesus. but there is no record of it.
And he talks about those who haven't seen his face. And he
talks about the fact that Epaphras had come with the gospel for
them. And see, this is the commission of the church today. We have
the opportunity, as God permits, for us to declare the great praises
of our God, to declare the fact that he's the one that comes
as a light that shines, and he's the one that comes and opens
blind eyes, and he's the one that turns people from darkness.
to his marvelous light, and he's the one that sets those who are
captive of Satan free, and he's the one that gives, and gives,
and gives. He gives inheritance, he gives
forgiveness of sin, and sanctification and salvation is all in him. You listen to what Paul, writing
to these Colossians, speaks of. He says in verse 12 of chapter
one of Colossians, I do love Colossians. Colossians was the
first book we ever did as a church in our journey. It was such a
wonderful, wonderful way to begin our time together. It says in
verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father, he strengthened,
go back to verse 11 with me, he says, strengthened with all
might according to his glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering
with joyfulness. Oh, if God would grant us patience
and long-suffering and joyfulness, it would be a great evidence
of His power at work in us and amongst us. Giving thanks, verse
12, unto the Father which hath made us meet, made us qualified,
that means, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. That's opening eyes, isn't it?
That's light coming. in whom who has delivered us
from the power of darkness, verse 13, and has translated us into
the kingdom of his dear son. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness and he's not just delivered us to nothing, he's
delivered us into the kingdom of his dear son. What a king
to have. The world says we won't have
this man to rule over us and the believer says please rule
over me more powerfully, more strongly, more clearly, more
evidently. Make me your bond servant, make
me your slave. Make me your willing slave, his
dear son. Make him dear to us. In whom,
verse 14, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. And then Paul can't help himself
when he's writing Colossians. There's not a single verse in
the first chapter of Colossians where he doesn't mention the
Lord Jesus Christ in some way. It's a glorious way. Can't help
himself, isn't it? This is who He is, who is the
image, verse 15, of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or power. All things were created by Him
and for Him. And He is before all things,
and by Him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence, for it pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And this is what he's done, having
made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile
all things unto himself. He is a sovereign ruler over
all things, All things exist because of him and he rules and
controls all things. By him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, this
is sanctification, to present you holy and unblameable and
unapprovable in his sight. That's our great God. See the
commission of the Lord Jesus Christ is the commission of Paul.
It's the commission of the church, it's the work of the church and
it's the glory of the church to in faith declare the gospel
no matter what the audience is and no matter what the circumstances
is and no matter what the response is. to declare his glory, and
then wait, and wait to declare his glory yet again. Let's sing
again, we're going to sing for the glory of his grace, number
26 in our hymn books. you We were ruined by the fall, Adam's
sin defiles us all. By our deed as by our birth,
we deserve the law's great purse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. But the blessed Son of God Came
as man in flesh and blood He fulfilled the law's demands And
in death stretched out his hands On the cross of Calvary Christ
redeemed and set us free In the time which God had set, the Spirit
came for His elect to regenerate and call from the ruin of the
fall. By His power and by His grace,
we were born for God's own praise. Now your purpose we fulfill,
Saved according to your will. Sing this song of joyful praise,
For the glory of your grace. Blessed Holy Triune God, Hear
our praise through Christ our Lord. Let's turn back to Acts chapter
26. Just want to spend a little time this
morning looking at what it is for us to be delivered. To be delivered. To be turned. To be turned from darkness to
light. to be turned from the power of
Satan unto God. There is, there is in the salvation
of sinners, there's a turning from, and there's a turning to.
And the first thing we need to look
at briefly, if the Lord will allow, is this, the reality of
the darkness. And you would think You would
think that the total depravity of man, the total alienation
of man from God, the total blindness of man, and the total depravity
would be something that would be the easiest thing in the world
to convince people of. And yet it is the hardest thing
for people to get any sort of serious understanding
and some biblical understanding of it. See man has imbibed Satan's
poison in the garden and you shall be his gods. I remember
when I was doing a Bible study on Ephesians with the days and
I was looking at all the examples in the book of Ephesians of the
depth of the darkness of man and his captivity Satan and the
inability of him to do and say anything else. Then there's a
verse in Ephesians says, when the days were evil. And it caused
great mirth at the time. But one of the things that has
become more and more evident as time goes on, that the only
people in this world who will ever see themselves as evil,
the only people who will ever see themselves as real sinners
according to God's description, are those who are God's people.
It's only when the light of God's light shines do we have any understanding
of the darkness. No matter what circumstances
man is in he always believes that he just needs a little bit
of time, a little bit of money and a little bit of education
and he can fix it. You think of all the problems we have in
this world now that people are talking about all the time. Climate
change, they think the planet is going to be burnt up but we
can fix it. We can fix it. All we need, all of the problems
we have in society, if we can just get enough education, if
we can get just enough of the right things in society, we can
fix it. We can get it right. When God saw man doing that at
the Tower of Babel, he came down and confused their language. Man is in reality dead and lost and captive, and the darkness
is much, much deeper than we can possibly imagine. The darkness, as I said, is only
seen when the light came. If you looked around and across
that room that Paul was speaking in, in Ephesus, and you asked
which of those men had plunged into the deepest of darkness
before God, and there's Festus, there's no great hero. Agrippa,
what a heritage he had. His grandfather tried to kill
the Lord Jesus. His father put to death James
and was eaten by worms. Before a crowd of people he was
very happy to have himself proclaimed as God. The Herods, you would
think, are almost the epitome of wickedness in the world. The darkness is only seen when
light comes. And the person in that room who
had plunged into the deepest darkness of all was the Apostle
Paul when he was a Pharisee. And if you'd seen him, if he'd
come back to this world today as he was in his pharisaical
garb, he would be ahead of a denomination of a church. He would be esteemed
for the extraordinary knowledge he had of the scriptures. You
would be in awe of the morality and the holiness so-called of
his life. When the light comes, it's only
when the light comes that we see spiritual darkness. Paul called himself the chief
of sinners and he wasn't playing games with words and he wasn't
using hyperbole, brothers and sisters. See there is a necessity
for spiritual light to come, this light from heaven to come
and to reveal what we are and to put us in our right and proper
place in the dirt and in the dust at the feet of a sovereign
God. Spiritual light is before and
over all this creation and spiritual light is needed to come, that
uncreated light of God to come Such that men would see what
they really are and they'd only ever see what you really are
in light of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And that applies to
unbelievers and it applies to believers. You only ever see
who you really are in the light of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. There is. a kingdom of darkness and there
is a kingdom of light. That's what we read in Colossians
1. There is a transfer out of a
kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light. Everyone in darkness
is subject to that kingdom of darkness and Satan rules in that
kingdom of darkness. The glory of the Gospel is that
when the Gospel comes The gospel comes as a revelation from God. When John the Baptist came, he
said, I've come preaching, I've been sent of God to come preaching.
I have no idea who he is, even though he's my cousin and I may
have known him for 30 odd years, I have no idea who he is. God
sent me, God sent me that by preaching, By the preaching he would be
made manifest in John 1. He says, I knew him not. John
1 verse 31. I didn't know who he was. I knew
him as a man. I knew him as my cousin. I knew
the stories about him. I may have even heard the story
of Mary visiting and me living in my mother's womb. But I didn't
know who he was. I'd had all these experiences. that he should be made manifest
to Israel. Therefore I am come baptizing
with water." He came preaching the Lord Jesus Christ to have
him made manifest. He is one who came He came as a witness, verse 7
of chapter 1 of John's Gospel. He says the same came for a witness.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came
for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through
him might believe. He was not that light but was
sent to bear witness to that light and this was the true light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was
in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew
Him not and He came to His own and His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become
the sons of God, even to them which believe on His name, which
were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. And the word was made flesh and
dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. That light, that light shone,
shined in the darkness. Verse five of John one, and the
darkness has not comprehended it. The darkness has not apprehended
it. The darkness has not understood
it in any way at all. The darkness lives in enmity. This is the reality of the darkness,
isn't it? The depth of the darkness is
revealed when the light comes. This is the condemnation. the
Lord Jesus Christ goes on to when he's speaking, maybe possibly
continuing his conversation with Nicodemus, but he says, this
is the condemnation, this is the judgment. That word is the
word from which we get our word crisis. This is the crisis that
confronts every human being. This is the condemnation, that
light has come into the world. This is how bad the darkness
is. And men loved the darkness. What do men love? They show what they love by what
they spend their time and do other things, don't they? They
love the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because their
deeds were evil. They actually love it. They love
it. Their enmity against God because
they love the darkness. So what is the darkness? The
darkness is anything that is turned in any way away from the
Lord Jesus Christ. When you have imbibed Satan's
poison, which we all did in the Garden of Eden, You see if you
turn from the light you can turn 360 degrees from the light and
you're in darkness. You can turn from the darkness
in loving the wickedness and the evil of this world and gathering as much gold as you
can before you have to leave it all behind. You can love the
darkness by loving the reputation that men have of you in this
world. You can love the darkness in the depths of depravity, no
matter what that depravity is. And you can love the darkness
in the depths of religion, where religion esteems you and still
leaves you on the throne. Let's go to Genesis 3. Let's
have a look briefly at the reality of this darkness. As they say,
all of our friends, if you're wrong on the fall, you're wrong
on it all. If you don't understand With
spiritual light from God, what Genesis 3 is saying, you'll never
understand anything of the rest of the Bible, you'll never understand
the power of that darkness, you'll never understand the glory of
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know you know the verse as
well, but it's good for us to see. Now the serpent was more
subtle, we know that the serpent fell This serpent fell, there
was a darkness in verse 2 of chapter 1 of Genesis. There was a darkness upon the
face of the deep and maybe that's a reference to the fact that
before there was a fall of man there was a fall of Satan. This
subtle beast that Rome's about now as a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour. Where did the devil come from?
He came from an angel. Where did the Judas come from?
An apostle. In every created place where
a creature has been placed, they have fallen. and they have always
fallen. Satan and a third of the angels
fell in heaven and the only reason the others didn't fall was because
they were elect angels, they were chosen of God. You put Adam
and Eve into a garden, this garden that we'll read about in a minute,
and they had the most extraordinary company in the most extraordinary
environment you could ever wish for people to be in. They walked
with God. They walked with the Lord Jesus
Christ. We can't imagine how extraordinarily
intelligent they were, and you can't imagine as a husband how
extraordinarily beautiful Eve was when she was brought to him. What company they had. The say it certain was more subtle. He came to them, didn't he? Let's
read in Isaiah 14 about the fall of Satan. How art thou fallen from heaven? Isaiah 14 verse 12. How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou
cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart. Imagine Satan, this Lucifer,
he was an angel in the presence of God. We have no description
of what that was like. But the wonder of it would have
been extraordinary. In his heart. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will ascend into heaven. He was
preaching free will. It was the fall of man in the
garden. These are the words that we repeat, don't they? I will
ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mound
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the cloud. I will be like the Most High. Hold those words in your memory
as we go back to Genesis chapter 3 and we'll see that this is
where Satan led his people. This is a picture isn't it of
the power of this Lucifer, the power of this man from which
only the power of a sovereign God can rescue anyone. First,
let's go back to Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he
said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of
every tree of the garden. So he begins with a subtle lie. God didn't say anything about
every tree in the garden. He said something particular
about a particular tree. And the woman said unto the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it,
lest you die. Satan begins with a subtle lie.
Eve responds, in judgment of God's word, with an outright
lie. God said nothing about touching
the tree. You could spend all day touching that tree. You could
live underneath that tree in the shade of that tree. You just
were not to eat the fruit of it. You see how he weaves his
spell. Paul said to the Galatians, he's
bewitched you. Who has bewitched you? Who's
cast a spell over you? This is what's happening in the
garden. And the serpent said unto the woman, now that he's
got her in a debate where she's able to debate and discuss the
things of God and the character of God, you shall surely not
die. You shall surely not die. God had
made a promise, hadn't he? He says when you eat of the tree, The day that you eat this thereof,
thou shalt surely die, chapter two, verse 17. For God knows, for God doth know
that in the day you eat thereof, this is his promise to us. And you were there, read Romans
five, chapter 12. You were there and you did all
of this and you heard these promises and you enjoyed them. Because
God does know that in a day you will eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil. You'll be able to know what's
good. They had no idea of what evil was at this stage, had they? They were about to encounter
evil in extraordinary ways, weren't they? He's saying to them that
you'll be able to make judgements, you'll be able to make free will
judgements, you'll be able to decide what's good and decide
what's evil and you'll be able to choose the good over the evil.
You shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good to food and that it was pleasant
to the eyes and the tree and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave
also unto her husband with her. And he did eat. And the eyes of both of them
were opened. What an extraordinary history
mankind has. of evil and wickedness and depravity
and enmity against God and enmity against one another. Every sin
that's ever been committed in all of human history had its
beginnings and its genesis right here. And the eyes of both of
them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they
sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. The first activity of man, isn't
it, is to get busy working to cover his own shame. And that's
exactly the activity of all the fallen men in 2008. Our God speaks truth. And they
made themselves apron and they heard, verse 8, they heard the
voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife, this is what eyes opened in sin
does, isn't it? This is what happens when you
seek to make fig leaves to cover your own shame, to create some
righteousness for yourselves. Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden. And man has been doing the same
ever since. Such is the nature of darkness, isn't it, that our
hearts are alienated from God, our minds are alienated from
God, our deeds and activities are wicked. In Genesis 6, God
gives a description of all he's looked. God saw, verse 5, Genesis
6, God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth,
And listen to it, listen to God's description of humanity, that
every imagination, every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually. And you might think, like lots
of people do, well if these people had some more education, if they
actually saw the judgment of God, which was about to fall
on those people. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Noah, his wife, his three sons,
and their three wives were all put in that ark. And they saw
the judgment of God fall upon all humanity. And they saw the
judgment of God fall upon that ark as well. And they were protected
and safe inside that ark. God caused them to build the
ark. God shut them in the ark. And he put them in the ark before
there was a drop of rain to fall. If the rain had started falling
beforehand, Noah would have been in that ark with a whole bunch
of false converts. They would have fled. But you
would think, wouldn't you, after the months and months of the
deluges and the extraordinary cries they must have felt as
people struggled for existence, as they saw that ark floating
away, don't you imagine you would try and get on any bit of wood
that you possibly could and you'd get as close to that ark as you
possibly could. You would think, as Noah and his sons would be changed men. Bit of
education. They've seen the judgment of
God. Genesis 8 verse 12. Noah at the end of it builds
an altar unto the Lord, verse 20, took every clean beast and
every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
He knew that he was saved by a blood sacrifice. He knew that
he was saved by that propitiation, that pitch that covered that
ark inside and out. And the Lord smelled the sweet
savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse
the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of
man's heart is evil from his youth. You see, the imagination
of man's heart. These transformed people, these
people that have come out of the ark and have seen all that,
is only evil from his youth. Nothing is changed with man. Nothing is changed with man.
It requires an extraordinary sovereign act of God. Our great
apostle John finishes his remarkable letter in 1 John 5. He speaks about what we know,
what we believers know. We know that we are of God and
the whole world lieth in wickedness. The whole world is held in subjection
to the wicked one. The whole world, the whole world
is in subjugation to the wicked one. So no wonder when Paul comes to
write his letters, there's someone who's been part of that darkness.
He talks about the Gentiles, he talks about this creation
in Romans 121, All the people, their foolish heart was darkened. Ephesians 4.18, he says, and
having their understanding darkened. We read in Colossians 1.21, their
enemies in their minds by wicked works, they're alienated. Ephesians
2, Paul gives a list of what it was like to be a Gentile in
those days. He says, They were at that time
without Christ, being alienated from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. The darkness, the darkness is
a deep darkness. The darkness, as our text in
Acts 26 says, the darkness is a darkness that's controlled
by the power of Satan. The darkness is only penetrated
by a light from heaven. And that's the glory of these
verses, isn't it? These verses are a promise of
what God is going to do in the lives of his people. He's opened
the eyes of our understanding. He opens the eyes of our hearts
and we actually see the Lord Jesus Christ as God shines a
light on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why Paul goes preaching
and even when there's an audience which is in opposition to him
in every way possible, he's just going to preach the Lord Jesus
Christ. If God would just grant us As Paul asked the Colossians,
he said, pray for a door of utterance to be open, that we might proclaim
him. It's interesting, isn't it, Paul
in these examinations in these latter chapters of Acts is standing
before Felix and standing before Festus and now before Agrippa
and the Sanhedrin. And to Felix and Agrippa, who
were notoriously wicked men, he never mentions a single thing
about their sin. What he does is declare the glory
of God and declare the lostness that he was in and declare the
wonders of God's salvation that he comes, he sovereignly comes
to sinners like them and saves them. There is an extraordinary darkness. When the Lord Jesus Christ is
talking to the people who followed him and flocked to hear him at
the Sermon on the Mount, he speaks of people whose eyes are evil. He says, says to them, he says
in verse 19 of chapter 6, lay up not for yourselves treasures
upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves
break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where
thieves do not break through nor steal, for where your treasure
is, there will be your heart also. It's exactly like loving
the light and loving the darkness. The light of the body is the
eye, and therefore if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall
be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy
whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness. He's talking to religious Jews
here. He's not talking to pagan idolaters. If the light that be in thee
be darkness. How great is the darkness. No man can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one
and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. There is a kingdom of darkness,
There is a blinding in that darkness. You see, when someone's in the
dark, they have no idea where they are. Have you ever been
into those caves where they take you down to the Djanolan caves
and all the places and they turn the lights off? It's unbelievable
darkness, isn't it? There's a little bit of light
almost everywhere these days. These fancy machines we have,
everywhere there are little lights on them. We've got light instantly
all the time, but in those places you have absolutely no idea.
You have no idea where you are. You have no idea which is left
and right. You can't see your face. You
can't see your hand. It's just nothing. You have no idea what's around
you. You have no idea of the dangers
befalling you, that might befall you. You have no idea of the
enemies that are around you. You have no idea of your friends.
You have no idea whatsoever of anything in that darkness. And
in the darkness you can be led. And that's exactly what Satan
does, isn't he? He leads his people. He keeps
them in the darkness. He's a liar. and a murderer,
and he keeps his people in darkness. You might recall that lovely
story in 1 Kings 6, isn't it, where Elisha's servants looks
out and he's surrounded by this army. And Elisha, I don't think
Elisha even got off his bed. He said, Lord, open his eyes
that he might see. And he goes out and he looks,
and what are the hills are full of the chariots of God. And then
Elisha says, Lord blinded them. This whole army of the Syrians
was blinded. And then they were led like lambs
right into the middle of Samaria. And then the Lord said, open
their eyes again. They might see that they were captives.
It's a great picture, isn't it? Blind people can be led. They can be led by the nose anywhere
they wish to go. No wonder when Paul was speaking, In Ephesians chapter 2 we spoke
of the way he walked. He says, and you he hath quickened.
You might, you know the verse as well, Ephesians 2.1, who were
dead in trespasses and sins. Dead? That's what happened in
the garden. People died. That's what happened in the garden,
people were blinded. They just didn't lose a little
bit of sight, they were blinded. This silly notion that man can
now exercise his free will and having the Lord presented to
him he can exercise his faith and therefore the Lord will turn
around and save him because of his activities. There's not a
hint of that in the scriptures. Read what he says. Wherein in
time past you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So that's what
you were. He's saying to you Gentiles,
that's what you were. And then he says, among whom
we all. See, there's no difference. There's
no difference in the darkness between a pagan idolater in southwestern
Turkey and a self-righteous Pharisee in the courts of Jerusalem, among
whom we all, we all, religious and profane, had our conversation,
that was the way we worked and the way we lived, in time past,
in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. But God, but God, who is rich
in mercy, It's a but-god. Oh, child of God, you get to
love the but-gods of scripture. You get to love the but-gods.
Who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved
us. Here we are in Acts chapter 26.
And we've listened to sermon after sermon, we've seen this
history. Never once in Acts is it ever mentioned once that God
loves everyone. The modern gospel and the book
of Acts are so much at variance, the best you can say about modern
Christianity, that it's in darkness and it's captive to Satan and
it does his will and it blinds people and deceives people and
lies to people and murders people. And murders people. He loved
us. It's great love. It's effectual
love. It's love that comes as a light.
It's love that opens blind eyes. It's a love that rescues out
of that darkness. It's a love that takes people
and turns people to the light. It's a love that delivers people
from the power of Satan unto God. It's a love that's effectual. It's everlasting love of God. Even when we were dead in sins,
has quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved,
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Do you realise that's the most
common description of believers in all of the New Testament?
In Christ Jesus. Him in us and we in him, an eternal
union, a vital union, a union in which he gets the glory as
the surety of his people. He'll bring them back. He'll
bring them back to his father, said Judah, unless I'll suffer
the blame forever. He brings them back. He's raised
us to get up together with him and made us to sit. together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. See only light Only light will
illuminate that darkness. Only light will show the mercy
of our God, the riches of his mercy, the unsearchable riches
of his mercy, the greatness of his love, the power that he displays,
the riches of his grace in kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved, through
faith And that not of yourselves. Is the grace not of yourselves
or is the faith not of yourselves? Both of them are not of yourselves.
You'll read about it in Acts 26. Go and have a look at it.
It's the faith that's in him that sanctifies us. It's the
grace that's in him. It's sovereign grace. It's merciful
grace. It's loving grace. It's eternal
grace. It's covenant grace. And it's
always successful grace. That's not of yourselves. It
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we, we are his workmanship. They're his workmanship. They're
the trees of righteousness. They're the planting of the Lord.
It's his workmanship. It's his work to come into that
darkness and shine a light. It's his work to go to that strong
man that Luke 11 talks of and holds these prisoners captive
and he keeps them in peace. What better way to keep people
in peace in religion these days than to tell them that God loves
them and that Jesus died for them and the Holy Spirit wants
to save them What lies? We are His workmanship. So it's not of works lest any
man should boast. We're His workmanship. If you're
His workmanship, you've got nothing else to boast in. All of your
boasting is in Him, created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath foreordained, has ordained that we should walk
in Him, walk in Him. He said, the darkness of this
world and the darkness of religion can't see. The things of God,
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
They are foolishness to him, for they are foolish. Neither
can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. 1
Corinthians 1.27 But God has chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise, God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things that are mighty, and the
base things of the world and the things which are despised
are God chosen, yea, the things which are not, the things which
are set at naught, the things which are nothings. That's what
we are brothers and sisters. In the world's eyes we're absolute
nothings. to bring to naught the things
that are. See, Paul was made a nothing
on the Damascus road. He was made a nothing. And the
things that he thought were important were brought to nothing. That
no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. That's what he's done. That's
what he's done to all of his people. He's made the Lord Jesus
Christ those things to us. We have all the wisdom of God.
If you're in Christ, you have all the wisdom of God. John says
you know all things. If you know Christ, you know
all things. You know all things in providence, you know all things
in redemption, you know all things in glory, and you know all things
in this world. Our God reigns. And this world is held in darkness
and held in captivity. Why on earth do we think that
the world is going to operate in any way that's sensible? All
God has to do is stir it up a little bit and anything that they ever
thought they were going to put together came to nothing. And
that's exactly what's going on in this world with this virus. Why do we expect them to behave
rationally and sensibly? The whole world lies in the wicked
one. And our God reigns. Our God reigns. I can rest in
all of that. I don't have to know what he's
doing in the future. All I know is that he reigns. I don't have to trouble myself
unnecessarily about the things of this world because he's overcome
the world. I don't have to worry. I can
rest. We're going driving this afternoon.
One of the things I love about driving these modern cars is
I've got cruise control on. I don't know if you've driven
much with cruise control on. Nor me, and I love it. I'm sure
some of you others love it. I just love getting out on that
freeway and I can click on my thing that says 100 kilometers
an hour or whatever it is it might be, or 60. I drive down
to Terraria with it on, so I don't have to think about it. When
it's on cruise control, I'm sitting back there and the world can
pass by and 50 police cars can go by with all their lights on.
It doesn't matter, it's work to me. I'm just on cruise control.
That's what resting in the Lord Jesus Christ is. See, we turn
back into the darkness. It's unbelief, isn't it? When
our Lord Jesus Christ is dethroned. So that's the wisdom, isn't it?
He's made Him the Lord Jesus Christ to be our wisdom to shine
in this darkness. To be our wisdom to see the schemes
of Satan. To be our wisdom to show us the
wickedness of religion of this world. To just leave us, leave
us alone. with no place else to go but
to lie back in the arms of our Saviour. John leant upon his
breast. By faith you can do exactly the
same, brothers and sisters in Christ. He's our wisdom. He's
our righteousness. He's all of our righteousness.
You won't have any other righteousness. And if you have him for righteousness,
you'll never need any other, and you'll never have a righteousness
that you have to defend and pretend that you have before other people.
Satan is a liar and those held captive for him are liars, aren't
they? They're wanting to go around pretending that they're righteous.
They even did that to the Lord Jesus Christ. They sent a man
who came to the Lord Jesus Christ fainting, pretending to be righteous. What foolishness! What blindness! After all the evidence that had
been presented before them. We have a righteousness and our
righteousness is in heaven. We have a righteousness that
God accepts. It's the very righteousness of
God. Do you realise that Adam, outside of the garden, was infinitely
better than he ever was inside the garden? Inside the garden,
Adam's position in that garden was dependent upon his righteousness
and his obedience. Outside of the garden, Out past
those flaming swords, clothed in the robe that God had given
him, Adam was better off. It wasn't his safety and his
security and his standing before God in this dark and fallen world
was not based on his righteousness and his obedience, it's based
on the righteousness and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what it is to be justified. A justified sinner is a sinner
who has never ever sinned. That's what God says. All of
the sins of all of God's people were laid upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. And they can't be in two places
at once for God to be just and the justifier of them that have
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam was better off. We are better
off now, infinitely better off than Adam was walking around
in that garden. Because God looks to his son, and his son's faithfulness,
and his son's obedience. And all the believers who've
been taken out of darkness into light, they look to exactly the
same place God looks to. They look to his son. Which is
why, to go back to 1 Corinthians 1.30, he's our righteous, he's
our sanctification, he's all of our holiness. He's all of
our holiness before God. And he's our redemption. He's
our redemption, that as according as is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
salvation of our souls, went into that darkness, that darkness
in Gethsemane's garden and that darkness on Calvary's tree. And
that darkness was a purposeful darkness because the transaction
of salvation, the transaction of the salvation of our souls
was just between two people, between God the Father and God
the Son. As witnessed by God the Holy
Spirit, the three of them were there. And the darkness had another
purpose, I think. was that man wouldn't gaze upon
it. That man wouldn't gaze upon it.
We would know that the judgment of God fell upon the Lord Jesus
Christ as the judgment of the law came down on Mount Sinai
in that thick darkness and that trembling. It's not something for man to
ogle. In that darkness, because of
that darkness, we now look to the word of God. to give us light
in a dark place. He, he suffered in that darkness. The sun turned off its light.
God turned away with eyes too pure to behold iniquity. The full horror of sin, the sins
that were on the Lord Jesus Christ, he groaned in agony. He sighed
with horrors indescribable. In his soul and body he bore
the punishment and hell. He went to the outer darkness
of hell, brothers and sisters. And if you ask me whether I understand
that, I don't have a clue. But God says he would not leave
his soul in hell, which means that he went there. They were his sins. They were
his sins. God in justice was punishing
the Lord Jesus Christ for his sins. They tortured his soul. They broke his heart. And there he was alone with none
to pity. He trod the winepress alone.
And it says that he stained all of his raiment. The flames of
hell entered his holy soul. and he quenched them in his heart's
blood. The sacrifice consumed the flames. You see, we'll see the depth
of darkness when we see the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory on
Calvary's tree. And our blessed Redeemer, when
the sun shone again, they took his body down to prove that it
was dead. that he really was dead. And then he was put in
that tomb, into that darkness, and the angels came and they
rolled that stone away. They rolled that stone away,
not so he would get out. They rolled that stone away so
that we would see him, that he's risen, that he's risen, the Lord
of glory, the light of the world rose victorious. He did it all,
he did it all. And the risen Lord Jesus Christ,
this is the point I started with and I want to finish with, the
risen Lord Jesus Christ comes to his own. He comes to his own
personally and he comes to his own individually. The sheep hear
the shepherd's voice and through the eyes of faith we see the
shepherd. There are in that verse that
we are looking at in Acts 26, in every glorious description
of the salvation of a sinner, there's a pronoun, they're personal
pronouns, aren't they? Attached to them, it's the them
and the they that have their eyes open. The them and the they
that are released from the power of Satan. And when the Lord Jesus
Christ rose, what a glorious thing he said to Mary. He says,
I'm going to my father and your father. I'm going to my God and
your God. And when Thomas, in the darkness
of that week of unbelief, had the Lord Jesus Christ come to
him, what was his reply? My Lord and my God. It's the pronouns of salvation,
aren't they? And in the blessed gospel, for
the children of God, they are personal possessive pronouns. My God, my Saviour, my Lord,
my Christ, my Father. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do. Thank
you for the glory of salvation, the wonders of the glorious work,
Heavenly Father, that you, your Son, and the blessed Holy Spirit
must do in covenant grace and mercy to your chosen people. Oh, our Father, we thank you.
We thank you for revealing your Son to us. We thank you for causing
us to stand for his glory in this dark world, Heavenly Father,
to stand against all the oppositions and being made to stand. We stand
because of who you are and because of your work and the Spirit's
work in us who takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, these
glorious things of his being and his person, his promise-fulfilling
activities and his glorious presence. with his people, his glorious
presence in his people, the glorious security and salvation that we
have in him. Oh, our Father, we pray that
you would illuminate our darkness. You would turn us to yourself
because we can't turn ourselves, Heavenly Father. You would turn
us again, as the psalmist says, turn us again and cause your
face to shine and we'll be saved. Oh, our Father, make his blood
precious to us, make his being and his person precious to us,
Heavenly Father. Make us to be willing bond servants,
as the Apostle Paul says, that we might be found servants of
just one master. What a master we have, who performs
all things for us and then carries us in his arms through this world. across the swelling Jordan and
into heaven's glories. What a glorious Saviour. Cause
him to be made precious to us again and again, our Father,
and please forgive us our unbelief, our turning back and looking
at the things of this world as if somehow they are out of your
sovereign control. Forgive us, Heavenly Father,
for imbibing the lies which cause us to think that our God doesn't
reign and rule purposefully and sovereignly and successfully.
Bless your word to your people's hearts, our father. Cause us
to find our rest in your dear and precious son. For we come
to you in his name, for his glory. Amen.