Let's go to Ephesians 5, brethren. I think that Sunday when we were
here, it seemed to me that the message in the Bible class might
not have been clearly understood. It could have just been me, but
I want to go back here tonight. I'm thankful that the Lord has
given us some men that can preach because they believe the Lord,
so they speak. I listened to all three of the
messages that were preached when I was absent. The message from Thursday night
and the two messages from Sunday. And it's obvious whenever you
hear a message that the preacher is looking for light on the scripture
by looking to Christ. Because Christ is our light.
Everything we're going to learn in this book about God is going
to be seen in the light of Christ. Everything we're going to learn
about God's choice of His people and His love is in Christ the
light. Everything we're going to learn
about God's predestination and the adoption of His children
is going to be by Christ the Light. When you look at God's
goodness, you look at God's righteousness, God's truth, God's faithfulness,
you see it all in Christ the Light. That's where you see it.
And when you look to see how God redeems a people, how did
He purchase His people with His own blood, you're going to see
it by looking at Christ the Light. All the counsel of God Everything
God has to say from eternity to time to eternity is in Christ,
and it is Christ. That's what God would have us
to say, that's what God would have us to hear, and that's who
God would have us to rest in, Christ the light. He says here
in Ephesians 5.13, All things that are reproved are made manifest
by the light. For whatsoever doth make manifest
is light, wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest. That's the first word in our
title, awake. Here's the second word in our
title, and arise from the dead. Awake, arise, and Christ shall
give thee light. And Christ shall give thee light.
First of all, this is a simple statement of fact. A simple statement
of fact. All things that are reproved,
that is, everything that's discovered to us, everything that's made
so that we can see it, made so we can behold it, everything
that convinces us, everything that convicts us, is made manifest
by the light. For whatsoever doth make manifest
is light. Now, in order to be reproved,
we're going to have to be admonished for our sins. We've got to be
reproved for our sins. Now, our faults have got to be
made known to us. You don't know you're at fault
until it's made clear in the light. Our sins have got to be
made manifest to us. You don't know your sin until
light is shining. And you see, that's sin. There's
what sin is. We don't know that our works,
our very best deeds that we thought were righteous, we don't know
that those deeds are altogether filthy rags until we have some
light. We've got to have light to see
that. We don't know that even as believers that we're sleeping
and slumbering unless Christ gives us light and wakes us up.
We don't know that we fall into fellowship with workers of darkness
and with the works of darkness until Christ shines a light and
makes us see. You're far too much in fellowship
with works of darkness here. We don't know these things until
the light shines and says, Awake and arise! And then he tells
us this, and Christ will give you more light. He gives you
light to wake you. He gives you light to make you
arise. And he says, and when he makes you walk in his light,
he'll give you more light. Give you more light. Everything
we are by nature, everything we do by nature, everything we
say by nature, everything we think by nature, everything that
we are in our flesh by nature is unprofitable. It doesn't contribute
anything. Zero. Nothing. It doesn't help
you come to God. It doesn't help you believe on
God. It doesn't help you. It doesn't
help at all. No darkness helps. Darkness does not help. Darkness
won't make you see. It won't. And that's all we are
by nature is darkness. We need light to see. We got
to have light. Everything you're going to see,
everything you're going to know is going to be by light. Now, when
we're reproved, it means we're convicted and we're convinced
in our hearts. It's clear to us. We see it now.
I see it now. Now, it's not pleasant to be
reproved. It's not enjoyable. There's nothing comfortable about
it. And usually, when we're reproved, the first thing we do is shoot
the messenger. But when we're reproved spiritually and spiritual
things, it's not the messenger that's reproving us. It's God.
It's Christ, the light, that's reproving us. He's shining the
light on us. And we got a little bit in us
still as believers, a lot in us as believers, that wants to
jump back into that light, I mean into that darkness whenever the
light shines. Like a cockroach. You got a cockroach
in you. And I do too. And he wants to
scurry back in that darkness. We don't want the light. We don't
want the light shining on us. But reproof is absolutely necessary
if we're going to see our sin, if we're going to continue walking
with Christ to light. It's absolutely necessary. It's
the first step to being saved. And that's not just in the first
hour, that's in every hour. We're being continually saved.
And it's the first step to being saved is to see by the light. Now, all things that are reproved
are made manifest, they're made open for us to behold by the
light. Because whatsoever doth make
us see is light. Now you think about it. When
our eyes are darkness, you can't see. You ever just turn the light
out and try to see? You've been in a cave and they
turn the light out? You just can't see. I mean, you can't
see nothing. Your eyes are seeing, but they... But there's nothing you can see.
You can't see anything. That's a man by nature. He's
in darkness. Our eyes are dark by nature.
Our heart is dark by nature. So that we can't see. We can't
see the light. We can't see who is the light. We can't see our sin. We can't
see anything. Everything about us is darkness. That's our natural born condition. Now, the very nature of light
is to make you see. That's the nature of light, to
make you see things, to make you behold that which previously
was darkness. Now, all things that are discovered,
that are made to be seen, are by the light. For whatsoever
doth make us see is light. Now, what's this light, spiritually
speaking? What's the light that reproves
us? What is this light? There's three
things in Scripture that's given. Really, it's one thing. But the
two other things get their light from this one thing. The first
thing is the one thing. It's Christ is the light. Christ
is the light. God said of His Son, and Christ
said when He was in this earth, in John 9, verse 4, He said,
I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.
And He said, the night cometh when no man can work. As long
as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. Now, I've
always looked at that and thought, well, as long as Christ walked
this earth, He was the light of the world. Christ is the light
of the world now. Christ is still in the world
right now, just like He was when He walked this earth. He's in
the world spiritually now, like He was in the world physically
then. And now the works that He finished when He was in this
earth, are the works of fulfilling all the prophecy concerning that
earthly work he would accomplish. He established his church. He began sending forth the gospel
while he was here. He went to the cross and on that
cross he declared God just by him to himself. Being put under
the justice of God and bearing the penalty that justice required
for his people, Christ Jesus declared God just. In other words,
He Himself ate up and swallowed up and bore in His own body all
the suffering of that second death for His people so that
God's just. And at the same time doing that,
He justified all His people. That's what He did when He was
here. It's God that justified. That's God on the cross. That's
God justifying His people. That's God doing the justifying.
And there He justified His people. And then, He reconciled His people
to God. That means everyone He died for
is in friendship with God that will never again be broken. Now,
they didn't know it, we didn't know it then, but it was done
then. He did that work. He did that
work. And Christ on that cross, He
saved all God's elect. And that's when He said it's
finished, the work was finished. That was finished. So what works
he doing now? Well now, those sheep of his
that he's redeemed, those children that he's bought, those that
he's justified and reconciled, there's a bunch of them still
in darkness and he's calling them out. That's his work. And
the work of the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He's on the cross. He's the one that sends forth
the preacher. He's the one that blesses the work, praying the
Holy Spirit, sending forth the Spirit into the heart. He's the
one that makes the light come on. He's the one that makes you
see he's the light. He does that. And he's going
to keep doing that work till he calls out every single one
that he's redeemed. And he won't lose any of them.
He's going to save every one of them. And all this work that
he does, he does it by his light. Now this is the day of grace.
The night's coming. The night's going to be here
when the day of grace is going to be over. As long as this day
of grace is going, Christ is the light. He's the light. Alright,
secondly, the gospel we preach is the light. The word that we
preach is the light. And the reason the word we...
Now, not every gospel is the light. Here's what makes the
Gospel the light. We preach Christ and Him crucified.
We preach the light. That's what makes the Gospel
the light. And the light, Christ Himself makes the Gospel light
in the heart of His people. That's what has to take place.
Look at Isaiah 51.4 and I want you to hold your place there
because we're going to come back to this in a moment. Isaiah 51, verse 4. When you
read the Old Testament, you can read the Old Testament speaking
of Christ just like the New Testament speaks of Christ. Here Christ
is speaking to His people. The work is put in the hand of
Christ before the foundation of the world, and it's Christ
speaking, telling what He's going to do. Now look, He says, Harken
unto Me, My people, and give ear unto Me, O My nation, for
a law shall proceed from Me. And I will make my judgment to
rest for a light of the people. Now you understand that law that's
proceeding is the gospel. And that one it's proceeding
from is Christ. And he says, I'm going to make
this gospel proceed for me, and he says, and I'm going to make
this gospel rest on my people for judgment, for light, for
discernment, so they understand and rest in me. Look at 2 Corinthians
4.4. You hear me read this a lot,
quote this a lot, but this is exactly what he just said in
Isaiah 51. This is put in New Testament
language. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4. He says there, at the second
part of it, he calls it the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. The light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, Christ who is the image of God, and he talks about
it here, shining unto his people. For we preach not ourselves.
We don't get up here and preach men. We don't preach man. We
don't preach us, ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord.
We preach the light. This is the means of the light
and the subject of the means is the light, Christ the light.
We preach Christ Jesus. And ourselves, nothing but servants
for Jesus' sake, ministers, sent forth just like you go to a restaurant
and there's somebody back in the kitchen that's preparing
the food and he sends somebody out to your table and they come
out as a waiter and they just bring you the food. That's what
a preacher is. He's just a minister. He's just
coming from the head that has the food and bringing it to you
and putting it on the table. We're ministers of Jesus for
Christ's sake. For God, look at verse 6. For
God, that's Christ, the Son of God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. You know who made the first creation?
Christ did. He said, let there be light and
there was light. By Him all things were made. Look, and that same
God has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, and here's where we see that light, in the
face of Jesus Christ. You see, he says, we just have
the treasure in earthen vessels. We're just that tea pitcher in
the hand of the person bringing it out that's just pouring it
out into your cup. We're just an earthen vessel.
He said, the excellency of the power is of God and not of us. Christ said, I'll do this. I'll
make I'll make the light shine forth. I'll send it forth. I'll
give you the discernment. So He's the light. So first,
Christ is the light. Secondly, the gospel we preach
is the light, because we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
thirdly, you who believe, you've been called by His grace, you're
children of light. You're children of light. Now
listen to this. Look back at our text, Ephesians
5. You're children of light. You
don't have any light in yourself or of yourself. We're just earthen
vessels, the lights of Christ. But you are children of light.
Look at Ephesians 5 verse 7. He says there, Be not partakers
with them. That's the children of disobedience,
the children of darkness. For you were sometimes darkness.
You used to be darkness. But now are you light in the
Lord. Now he doesn't say there, now
you are Children of light, you know,
say, use that phrase. He says, I think you are like
you were darkness. Now you are like you are like
you are like. Now, Paul, down in verse 14,
he talks about this work of Christ. He says, wherefore, because everything
that makes manifest is light. You've got Christ the light,
you've got the gospel which is the light, and you've got His
child of light. Everything that's going to make
sin discovered is light, he said. All right, now look, wherefore,
and Paul puts all this together. Wherefore, he said, the Lord
said, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light. So here, put this together. Christ
the light. He sends forth the gospel of
light. And he sends it forth by a child
of light. Everything that's going to make
manifest is light. All right, and through that gospel,
through that child of light, Christ reproves. He reproved
us of our sins. He reproved us of our self-righteousness. He said to us, Awake thou that
sleepest. There came the reproof. We were
dead. He said, Awake. And when He says,
Awake, affectionately to you, He'll give you the light in your
heart and He'll regenerate you and you will be awake. You'll
be awake. But He don't stop there. He don't
stop there with just, Awake thou that sleepest. It's not enough
for you just to wake up and stay where you're at in the darkness. He says this, Arise from the
dead. Arise from the dead. Get up,
come out from among them, come out from among the dead, touch
not the unclean thing and I'll receive you, saith the Lord.
And when He speaks this in light, He gives you light to do it. And Christ shall give thee light. When He starts giving you light,
He don't stop giving you light. When He begins to make you walk
in His light, He gives you light for the next step, and light
for the next step, and He gives you more light. And when you
walk in it, He gives it to you. You walk in it, He gives it to
you. You stop walking in His light, He's going to again speak
in reproof and say, Awake, thou that sleepest! Arise from the
dead! You've laid down again, back
down with the dead again in fellowship with the workers of darkness
and with the works of darkness. Awake and arise from that dead
and He'll give you the light to do it and I'll give you more
light. And He'll keep giving you light.
This don't ever stop, brethren. Once He starts doing this, from
then on, this is what Christ does for us. All right, so secondly,
let's hear this exhortation Christ gives us through the Apostle
Paul in our text. Back up in verse 8, he said now,
in verse 7, I'm sorry, he said, now don't be partakers with the
children of disobedience. And he says there, because you
were sometimes darkness, but now you are light in the Lord,
walk as children of light. In verse 11, he says, have no
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather
reprove them. Verse 13, he says, and remember
this, all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light,
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore, now get
this now, here's a word to us now, Christ right now says, right
now he says this, to you and me who are children of light,
who are asleep, in this privilege He's given to us right now. He
says to you and me, Awake thou that sleepest, arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light. When Christ makes us like
the Lord, He sends us forth to do one thing. He sends us forth
to be children of light. He sends us forth to shine as
children of light. Now, He said the way you do that
is by the gospel of the light of Jesus Christ. That's the way.
That's the way. And he tells us here that you
do this by not being in fellowship with workers of darkness, by
not being in fellowship with the works of darkness, but by
being separate from them, coming out from them, arising from that
dead, And by holding forth this light, that's how you do it.
That's how you do it. So he says, Awake and arise from
the dead, come out from among the children of darkness and
walk as children of light. And how do I walk? I want you
to get this now. Number one, having no fellowship
with the children of darkness. He said in verse, there in Ephesians
5, he says in verse 7, Be not partakers with them. And then,
down in verse 11, I walk as a child of light by having no fellowship
with their works. Verse 11, have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness. I walk as a child of
light, thirdly, by reproving them. You know what reproving
means? Reproving is like, tonight we were on our way here,
and Robert and Will were riding along in front of us in the Jeep,
and there was a deer on the side of the road. And that deer was
in darkness. And all of a sudden, their lights,
their high beams shined on that deer. They reproved that deer. They brought that deer out in
the light. That's what reproving is. Bring it out in the light.
Bring it to the light. That's reproving. Reprove them. And he says, but now remember
verse 13, all things that are reproved, all things that are
brought to the light are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever
doth make manifest is light. It is light. So he says for this
reason. Wherefore he said. That's the
reason Christ says to you and me who are children of light
right now. He says now you wake up. You're
not going to prove anybody or walk as a child of light when
you're slumbering in darkness. You can't do it that way. You've
got to wake up. And he says and arise from the dead. You can't
do it by being in fellowship with the workers of darkness
or in fellowship with their works. You can't do it that way. He
says, but awake from the darkness, arise from the dead, from the
darkness, and Christ will give you the light you need. Christ
is that light. He gives you the light you need.
All right? That's what he's telling. Wake
up. He's saying, you're in too much fellowship with darkness.
This is what he was sent with Paul to tell the Ephesians. And
he's done it over and over through the years to churches. He's had
preachers preach this passage in churches. And now I'm here
preaching it. And Christ is continually through the ages from Ephesians
to the church in Ephesus to now. He said, wake up now. You're
in too close fellowship with the workers of darkness. Arise
and come out from among them. Leave the workers of darkness
and remember who the light is. It's Christ and He's the one
that's giving you the light to do all these things and He'll
continue to give you the light. Alright, now I want you to go
over to Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58. I want you to see a passage here
where the Lord sent His messenger to say the same thing to a people
and He reproved them and He told them the same exact message.
This has always been the way Christ is saved. He did the same
thing right here using Isaiah as the preacher. Now we're going to come to this
pretty soon in our Isaiah series so I'm not going to comment a
lot on it. But you know me better than to know I'm going to read
it without commenting on it. I'm going to say something about
it. Here we go. Isaiah 58, verse 1. He says, Cry aloud, spare
not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions
and the house of Jacob their sins. Christ sends His child
of light, that's Isaiah. Christ the light sends His child
of light, Isaiah. And He says to them now, you
speak the light that I give you to speak. And this is how you're
going to reprove them. This is how you're going to make
their sins be seen in the light. Alright, here it is. He says
in verse 2, He says, Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to
know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness. He said, you
think the way they like to seek me and the way they delight in
my ways, you think they do righteousness? And he says, and as a people
that forsook not the ordinance of their God, they ask of me
the ordinances of justice, they take delight in approaching the
God. Now, this shows us they are religious people. They are
religious people. And that tells us, brethren,
that when we look at our text over there in Ephesians, primarily
that's what Paul's talking about is unfruitful works, religious
works of darkness. Now, they delighted to approach,
they delighted to ask, they delighted to even ask about judgment. But
they didn't delight to do what God told them to do, what Christ
told them to do. Now next, this light is going
to expose their works of darkness. What was it they were doing?
They would hear Christ speak, but then what would they do?
Alright, listen to these questions that these professing believers
ask the Lord. Verse 3. Wherefore have we fasted,
say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and thou takest no knowledge? They're speaking to the Lord.
Why do we fast and you don't pay us attention? And here's
the Lord's answer which he commanded Isaiah to reprove his people
with. Verse 3. Behold, behold. That word means you see by this
light I'm giving you. Take this light like a lantern
now and look. Look at this. He says in the
day, in the day of your fast you find pleasure. You find pleasure
in the day. And you exact all your labors. Now, here's the reproof. True
separation from the world, true separation from the world, from
the works of vain religion and from all vain sinful works is
a fast. It's a spiritual fast. It's to
not feed on it anymore. It's to be separated from it.
That's what a true fast is. Now look at this. He said, but
they were calling it a fast to separate themselves and to approach
God on one day. Just one day out of the week.
And they delighted in that one day. Just that one day. And on
that day they exacted all their labors. They kept up with everything
they did on that day. And they exacted the labors keeping
up with everything other people didn't do on that day. And he
said this, He's saying if our reason for fasting from the works
and the false religion and from the free will works religion
is just for one day, on one day out of the week to come in and
do what we're doing right here and to keep up with everything
we've done on that day and mark those that don't do as we do
on that day, if that's what our religion is about and our worship
is about, it's vain. It's a work of darkness. We worship
God every day of the week. We want to follow Him and do
as He says every day of the week. Alright, now look at verse 4.
Behold, you fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the
fist of wickedness. You should not fast as you do
this day to make your voice to be heard on high. They did without
one day. They did without everything.
called it worshiping God, but their purpose of doing it was
so they could strive with those that were different and debate
with those that were different and smite those that were different.
Now if that's what our worship is about, if we love the doctrine
of grace, the doctrine of God's election, of His particular redemption,
of His predestination, of His sovereignty, if we love those
things just so we can strive with folks that preach a false
gospel, and so we can debate with them and smite them, then
brethren, that fist we're smiting with them is just as wicked as
theirs is. It's darkness. That's all it
is. I know folks that seem like, and it just, you run into folks
like this that claim to believe the gospel, and it seems like
if they weren't able to strive against false religion and debate
false religion and smite false religion, they wouldn't have
any delight. But you see what Christ is telling
us, that's darkness. That's not what exposes darkness. Light exposes darkness. You can
talk about what people do wrong all day long, and it's shameful
even to speak of the things that they do. That ain't going to
bring them to Christ the light. Preaching Christ the light is
going to... Remember the old saying, I don't
know who said this originally, but if you want to see a crooked
stick, lay a straight stick down beside it. You want to see darkness,
speak light. That's how darkness is seen.
That's what He's saying here. And when you're reproving somebody
by striving with them and debating with them and smiting them and
just speaking of all their works of darkness, you're making your
voice heard on high. We're not going to bring anybody
to the light of Christ by speaking our word. We've got to speak
Christ's voice. We've got to speak His word.
We've got to speak the light. That's what we've got to speak,
not our voice. Alright, look at verse 5. Is it such a fast
that I've chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to
bow down his head as a bull brush and to spread sackcloth and ashes
unto him? Wilt thou call this a fast and
an acceptable day to the Lord? True separation from darkness
is a separation of our entire life. Broken and contrite-ness
of the heart is in the heart, it's within. It doesn't mean
you go around all the time with your head hanging down and acting
so humble. There is no greater pride in
that mess than to go around acting like, oh, well, I'm just nobody
else. You're so proud of that. That's
just, that's pride. That's not, and that's what these
folks were doing. They were spreading out this
sackcloth and these ashes and they were acting all humble on
this day and acting like they were so down and so, so contrite,
so broken. and it was not submission to
the Lord, because the Lord said, I didn't command you to do that.
I didn't command you to do that. We can act humble, but if we
have this pride of thinking that we can expose works of darkness
by our voice, by smiting and striving and doing those things,
and by acting all humble, you can act humble as you want to.
But what it's proven, brethren, is a person is not in submission
to Christ's light. She's not using the light that
Christ sent to you. He alone does the work through
the light of the gospel. Now, that's for proof, isn't
it? That's for proof. Now, here's the work Christ does
through the light of the gospel. This is what He does through
the light of the gospel. We're said to do this here, but
the reason that we're said to do this is because we're just
preaching the light of Christ. It's Christ that does this. Watch
this. Now, we do this in the sense
that physically you can do these things as well. And we ought
to do these things temporally, physically as well. But this
primarily is what Christ does in the heart through the gospel.
Look at this, verse 6. Is not this the fast that I have
chosen? This is true worship, true separation
from the world, true delight and submission to Christ, right
here, is to loose the bands of wickedness. is to undo the heavy
burdens, is to let the oppressed go free and that you break every
yoke. That's what Christ does in the
gospel. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry? and that
thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house, when thou
seest the naked, that thou cover him, that thou hide not thyself
from thine own flesh." That's what Christ does in the gospel.
Everything written there. And that's what He makes His
people willing to do physically as we are able in this world
to follow what He did for us spiritually. We want to break
the yokes off of people. We want to bring them out of
oppression. We want to cover them. We want to deal bread to
them. We want to bring them to our house. We want to do for
people whatever we can do for them physically. But the greater
important thing is the spiritual thing. Preaching the gospel will
do this to them in the heart by Christ doing it for them.
And next, the promise is, now if he says, now there's your
reproof, there's your light. He's saying to them, awake from
your darkness and arise from being fellowship with workers
of darkness and from being in this darkness. And he says, and
Christ shall give thee light. Now look what he says right here,
verse 8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and
thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness
shall go before thee. The glory of the Lord shall be
thy reward. For you personally, if you preach
Christ the light, people are going to see Christ, our light,
breaking forth like the sun rising in the morning. They're going
to see Him. And for you personally, Christ says, I'll give you light
just like that too. And then if you preach Christ,
they're going to see Christ as our health. He's our life. They're
going to see that. and not see us. And he says,
and I'll be your life too. He says, before those to whom
we speak, they'll see that Christ is our righteousness going before
us and that He's the glory as our rear ward. He's the glory
all around us. But Christ is our righteousness.
That's what they'll hear in the gospel. And he says, and also,
I'll make you see it more. You see what he's saying? You
see when light shines, it blesses everybody to see and it blesses
the one that's holding the light. Everybody's blessed by the light.
So look at verse 9. And thou call, and the Lord shall
answer. Thou shalt cry, and He shall
say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst
of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speak
in vanity. And if thou draw out thy soul
to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy
light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day.
and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy
soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be
like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters
fell not. And they that shall be of thee, those that are born
of you, through preaching this gospel, shall build the old waste
places. In fact, they themselves will
be the living stones that Christ has built up of His house, that
were broken down in Adam and in sin. And he says, And thou
shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou
shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of
paths to dwell in. That's all done by the gospel.
Now, you see what he said there? It's just what he's saying in
our text. He told them, now here's the reproof. Awake out of this
slumber and arise from this death and I'll give you more light.
He'll have to give them the light to make them do it. And he said,
and I'll give you more light. Your light will shine forth if
you obey Him. That's what he's saying. All
right. Now, let's go back. Let's go
back to our text. I had another passage in Isaiah
to show you, but we'll see it when we get to it. Let's go now
to Let's go back to Ephesians 5. I just want to look closely
here at these last two verses. Verse 15 and 16. I just want
to look at those. This is now what he says. He
comes to this and he says verse 15. See then, take heed, that
you walk circumspectly. It means accurately. It means
exactly as Christ teaches us to walk. in the gospel and using
the gospel. He says, not as fools, not like
children of darkness, using their means and their methods and sinning
all the while, but as wise, as those that has Christ for our
wisdom. Now the world's full of traps
and the ways narrow, and so for our own safety, we got to walk
cautiously. That's what he's saying. Walk
cautiously. Always be looking to Christ for wisdom. It means,
don't just come in here now, tonight, and just one day out
of the week, go, all right, I've gone in there. If that's a fast,
God said, that's darkness. If that's your religion, that's
darkness. But leave here looking to Christ, seeking to walk cautiously
through this world, following Christ, our wisdom. That means
we're going to have to look in His Word. We're going to have
to ask Him to give us light. We're going to have to be clinging
to Him. How would you follow Christ if He was walking this
earth physically? Wouldn't you hang right on his
heels? Wouldn't you listen to every word he said? Well, we
can't do that physically, but spiritually, every word he says
is right here. You want to hang on his heels?
Keep this book close by and read it and study it. And just ask
him. He's right near you all the time.
He said, just ask me. And I'll give you some light.
Just ask me. All right? And also, that we
give no offense to others. Because we're sent forth. He
said, I light a candle that's lit. You don't light it and you
put it under a bushel on the bed. He said, you light it and
hold it up on purpose because you want people to see light.
And he said, now you're a city on a hill. You're lit up now.
And a city on a hill, you see it way off. And so he's telling
us, everybody in this world that's in darkness, they're going to
see you. They're going to see you. I have people all the time
come around me that I don't even know. I don't even know how they
know. Maybe they've heard. I don't
know how they know that I'm a preacher. But they've heard it. Maybe they
went online and listened. I don't know. But every time
they come around, I mean, without me saying a word, they'll start
talking religious language. Every time. You know. And it's, they see you. They
know who you are. Even when you don't know them
and don't know how in the world they know who you are. you know
that man that man came here not too long ago he's come to three
times as a preacher uh... and he stays over at the uh...
church at uh... princeton college when he came
you know how he found us the librarian in the princeton library
told him about us he told him what he was looking for and she
said here's where you want to go how did she know that i don't
know but she knew it they see you they know where you are so
don't do anything to We've got our big brothers watching
right here in this room all the time now all over the world.
Everywhere. And they see everything. That's
what he's saying there. All right, now look. I had this
illustration. I'll give this to you quickly.
Two men traveling along a path and it's full of robbers. It's
got sharp curves and steep cliffs and a real narrow path. And there's
two men, and they start out, and they've been told from the
beginning about what this path's like, about the robbers, and
the traps, and the dangers, and the cliffs, and everything. And
they take off riding along. And one man, he's asleep on the
trip. And by sleep, I mean he's got
his mind on his occupation. All he can talk about is his
spouse and his children and all the responsibilities he's got
and everything that he's got to do. And he's talking about,
he's running down false religion. He's running down free will works
religion. He's running down the devil. And he's running down
all these things and talking about how evil all these things
are. But he's not even looking at where he's going. The other
man heard the word. And he's looking, he's looking
at the map, he's looking at where the pitfalls are, he's looking
at where the curve is, he's reading that map, studying that map,
he's repeating what he's heard, the warning that he's been given,
he's focusing all his attention on on the instruction he's been
given, the way he's been told to go, he's focused on that.
And all the other things that's important in his life, they're
all in the background. He's focusing on the way he's
told to go. Which of these two men is the
wise man? The Lord said this, Whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which
built his house upon a rock. And he said this, And every one
that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall
be likened to a foolish man which built his house upon the sand.
He says here to us, brethren, See then that you walk circumspectfully,
not as fools, but as wise. Now look here. Redeeming the
time because the days are evil. This is real simple. Redeeming
the time means this. It means the time of our life
is filled with daily and even hourly. It's filled all the time
with opportunities that God gives us to speak as Christ has told
us to speak and to walk as Christ has told us to walk. Every day
opportunities are given to us by God for that very reason.
The wise man is looking for and recognizing the time. He's recognizing
the opportunity. And every test and every blessing
and every sorrow and every gladness is an opportunity that Christ
has put before us. And the wise man's looking and
he's going to pay, he's going to redeem whatever price he has
to pay. Whatever he has to, that means
whatever he has to let go of, even as much as he might love
it, want to do it, or even, or whatever he needs, that he needs
to bear, he's going to do it. He's going to redeem the opportunity.
He's going to take advantage of the opportunity to teach the
light of Christ, which he has been taught. Alright, I'll give
you an example. Yesterday, yesterday, I found
out that today, my kids would be out of school all day and
be at home. And that my wife had meetings
all day and she'd be gone. So I woke up this morning and
I still had a lot of work ahead of me, a whole lot of work to
do. And I was awakened, literally, awake, awake! But it wasn't the
Lord speaking, it was my son speaking. And he was ready to
take advantage of the day that he had off and he wanted to He
had been already planning it. He wanted this friend and this
other friend and they were all going to get together and do
this and that and whatever. And so he came to me and I was
the critical part of this because I had to do the shuttling and
get everybody to every place and everything else. And I got
all this work to do. And I'm thinking, all this is
going to stop me from doing what I have to do. And it was like
the Lord said, Awake now that sleep is. Arise from the dead. I started losing my patience.
I really did. And he was like saying to me,
awake, you're asleep, awake, aroused, get up from the dead
and take advantage of this opportunity. And so what I ended up doing,
this is only by his grace, this is only by his life, because
I've been studying this. And it was like, all of a sudden
I realized this is just what I've been studying. Just what
I've been studying. Here's an opportunity. Here's
an opportunity that the Lord has given me. An opportunity
to show, to teach him patience by being patient. An opportunity
to teach him what's more important, play or the word of the Lord. What's more important? Why is
it so important that I need to get a message to bring to God's
people? Because Christ is our life. We've got to have Christ.
We can do without the other things. We've got to have Him. We've
got to have Him. And so the very thing that I
thought was going to hinder me from getting the message was
the thing the Lord used to give me the message. To give me the
message. He does that every day of our
life, brethren. He gives you something and He
gives you an opportunity. And He tells you why to take
the opportunity. Because the days are evil. The
devil is taking advantage of every opportunity he's been given.
to teach darkness, and the world and the workers of darkness are
using everything they can to teach our children darkness.
So he tells us, you look for every opportunity, you look for
every opportunity that God's given you to speak the word.
I won't read it now for sake of time, but if you'll go home
tonight and read Colossians 4, you'll find there in about the
first seven verses The first six verses Paul says that exact
same thing. Redeem the time. And he says
why. He says take the opportunity. Speak as you ought to speak.
Now, let's read it together. And Christ said He'll give you
more light. Walk in that light and He'll give you more light.
I just paused this morning. I went and talked to Will. We worked it out. He got to play
with his friends. But I sat down with him and talked
to him about this first. And then when I went back and
sat down to study, it was like I couldn't write fast enough.
Just God gave me the light. He said, walk in the light I've
given you. I'll give you more light. Let's read it. Wherefore
he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because today's are
evil. Amen. Alright brethren, let's... Eric, if you'll come close, lead
us in a closing hymn.