The Lord may graciously help
me. I return your prayerful attention
once again to the text that we had before us this morning in
the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 4 and
verse 6. The second epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians, chapter 4 and verse 6. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6. Well, those of you who were here
this morning will know that we spoke from this text and spoke
much from the book of Genesis, and indeed the first chapter
in Genesis, which is what Paul is referring to. How God commanded
the light to shine over that darkness that pervaded the scene. of the earth that was without
form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And this light shining and the
gracious effect it had. And yet it was not just this
light shining and then everything was fine. There was these processes,
these stages that God went through in creation to form the world
in these six days, to take it from a scene of barrenness and
desolation and darkness and voidness and emptiness, to translate it
into a populated world that had man formed as the very image. of God, that man that had communion
with his God in the cool of the day, one that glorified God until
the fall. But you see this is the end that
there was in this creation to make this. And I do believe if
you look at so many references there is in the New Testament,
picturing this work that went on in creation as being a picture
of what God does for his people. I read in Colossians, that chapter
that we read in Colossians, shows very, very clearly that the Apostle
Paul does not believe that once people are Christians, then that's
it. There's nothing more to be done.
No, he acknowledges that they were Christians and he thanks
God that they were Christians, but he prays that they may fill
with knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. He prays for a progression and
we have a progression you see in Genesis 1 in the progression
of God creating the different parts and how that went together
and what God was doing. Well we spoke this morning then
particularly of the first day where God said, let there be
light and there was light, we pointed out that God was the
prime mover, it was the voice of God, God said, and of course
the Word is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was all that took place
in the creation was hid in God. The Lord Jesus had it all as
it were within Him. As he had it from eternity, all
the creation and the complexity of life, all in him. And how these days of creation,
it was manifest. It came to be seen. And you see,
that is it for a child of God. It's what God has hid in Christ
for his people. is manifest to them little by
little. As they grow in grace, they see
something more of the beauties of Christ, more of what He's
done, more of what He is. Well, we spoke of then this being
hidden Christ, and we spoke of the darkness, and then I really
meant to mention this, but we've just had the hymn on it, that
the Lord Jesus, when He began His public ministry, spoke repent
for the kingdom of God is at hand. This was the message that
he began his earthly preaching with and that's really in a sense
the light shining, isn't it? Repent. Why do you repent? Something's
wrong. Something's wrong. And it's the light shines that
shows the darkness. The light shines that shows that
something's amiss. That there's something that needs
to be changed. There needs to be the repentance,
the turning away from Let the wicked forsake his way and the
unrighteous man his thoughts. But you see, the darkness, I
mentioned it I think in prayer, but that men love darkness. John 3.19, that men love darkness
rather than light. That's what they were naturally
happy with. Their natural habitat was darkness. Doing their own
thing, living to their own glory, fulfilling their own lusts. doing
what pleases them rather than glorifying their Creator. This is us by nature, but you
see it's God's work to give light. And I meant to mention in Ecclesiastes,
we have this word, Ecclesiastes 11 verse 7, it says, truly the
light is sweet. And you see as the light shines
into our hearts, And a pleasant thing it is for the eyes behold
the sun. But you see, on day one, there
isn't a beholding of the sun. We haven't yet experienced that,
you see. There was that lady that had
in her Bible T and P over the different verses, tried and proved. Well, you see, as the Lord leads
us on, more verses in the Bible should become tried and proved.
We've walked them out. To start with, none of them are.
But as we go on, we can say, that the Lord has done that for
us. There was another thing I wanted
to mention and that is the word night, it comes from the word
which is deviation or twisting from the light. That's what night
means. It's a deviation or a twisting from the light. And you see what
God did in the first day, he said that there was light And
God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. In other words, God gives things
the names that they are. And you see, it's God's purpose
in a Christian to bring that one in conformity to his will,
so that we call things what God calls them. You see, the world
love wickedness. They laugh at it. They think
it's good. God hates it. But you see, when
the light shines, we start to learn what God thinks of things. And what God calls good, we start
to see as good. By nature, we love pride. But you see, when God shows us
how awful it is, and how destructive it is, and how against God it
is, we start to hate it. So we start to see what God sees
about it, rather than what we think about it. The light has
shined. Night is a deviation, a twisting
from the light. But you see, we spoke of the
fact that in day one there was a bounding of the darkness. The darkness used to have a free
reign, but now there's a check on it. It could only be night. It is darkness that is bounded. It can't just keep going on.
There's going to be the day arising. And this is what God does. Well,
then we move on to the second day in verse six. And God said,
let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it
divide the waters from the water. So the world was covered with
water. But God was going and we can
think of the waters as like the affections. We read that the
wicked are like a troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt. Their
affections, their desires are all against God. But you see,
and that's us by nature, but you see it's God's work to change
the heart. change the affections, to separate
the waters that are below, the affections that are below to
those things which are above. We read in Colossians, if ye
then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
And God teaches us. He gives another instruction.
Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it
divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament. and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. If we look in Ephesians 4 verse
18. You see this is man by nature.
Ephesians 4 verse 18, having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through ignorance that is in
them because of the blindness of their heart. This is us by
nature and it's God's work you see to separate and to make this place heaven
is to give us some understanding of that fact, understanding that
we are in darkness and an understanding of what God is. In Romans 3 verse
11, we just look that up, Romans 3 verse 11, we read, there is
none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. This is us by nature, but this
is what God is going to do. He's going to divide this. There's
still going to be that part that's below the firmament. There's
still going to be that that's going to remain. There's still
going to be the water for a time. But you see God is going to separate
something and he's going to call that heaven. He's going to call
that something high. And that's what's going to be
those heavenly affections. And again we read that the evening
and the morning were The second day, again, the evening and the
morning. Evening, a time of growing darkness,
isn't it, evening? But you see, God works in his
stages to go from growing darkness to growing light so that we can
come out of the darkness into his light. But then we go into
darkness again, don't we, at times? But it's God's work to
speak and to turn our darkness into light, our night into day. It's not his work to turn our
day into night, it's his work to turn our night into day. That's his work, the work of
God and we thank him for it. In Colossians 1 verse 9, which
is what we read together, let me just look that up. Colossians
1 verse 9, We read this, for this cause we also, since the
day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire
that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding. That's
what we need. And this is what God does, you
see. He separates the heaven from
the waters that were below. Pictured I believe in day two,
what God does in day two, again separating. In a sense he didn't
create so much as, well there was a creation but in a sense
it was separating, it was bounding and restraining. And you see
in the early stages of a Christian's life it's more bounding and restraining
than it is adorning and perfecting. There needs to be a realisation
of what darkness is and calling things in God's way. You see,
it's like Joseph, you see, when Potiphar's wife came to him,
then she wanted to have that time with him. But he said, how
can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? He called
it what it was. And you see, we need to call
sin, sin. The world will have its nice names for it. Names
that make it attractive. But you see, we need to call
things what God calls them. You see, we need the mind of
God. We need to think God's thoughts after him. We need the mind of
Christ. And if we have the mind of Christ,
we're going to love what he loves. And we're going to learn to hate
what he hates. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus. Well, in the third day, which begins
in verse 9 of Genesis 1, and God said, let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together unto one place. So here now we
have the waters have already been separated, some above the
heaven and some below, and the atmosphere created. But now there's
going to be a separation, you see, between the waters, and
the dry land. There was no dry land before.
It was all covered with water. There was no place of stability.
There was no place where one could put their foot on. There
was no place for the plants to grow in that sense, was there?
And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place and let the dry land appear. And it was
so. In Psalm 104, Psalm 104, verse 9, we read this. Thou hast set a bound that they
may not pass over. This is Psalm 104, verse 9, that
they turn not again to cover the earth. See, God was going
to put a restriction to bind things. And you see, we read
that all the forces of this universe are held together by the word
of his power. And he has set a bound, you see,
he comes to a child of God, he works in their hearts, and he
sets a bound to the evil, a bound to the affections that they're
not allowed to completely consume him. He's not allowed to be completely
flooded by those things that once were the very way of his
life, and yet they're not completely taken away, and that's a very
important point. You see, we might think, well,
we still see those things, we still have those affections at
times, and you think, well, are we any better than when it was
everywhere, all over? Well, you see, that's why we
need to have an understanding of what God is doing. And God
said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto
one place. In Ephesians 4 we have those
words regarding, I can just find it, it talks about
not being blown about by every wind of doctrine. You see, there
needs to be stability. It's Ephesians 4 verse 14 and
15. We read verse 13 this morning.
So Ephesians 4 verse 13. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
that We henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine. You see, if you're
on the sea, you get tossed about by the waves, don't you? There's
no stability, there's no place for our feet to rest. But you
see, what God does in his work, he establishes his people on
that rock, the rock Christ Jesus. There is that stability that
the earth becomes visible for the first time. And what a blessing
it is that God does these things for his people. He does them
for their eternal good. And this is the work of God.
Job 38 picks up a similar theme. Job 38, verses 8 to 11. Or who shut up the sea with the
doors when it break forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
So this is talking about creation, you see, and there's a picture
of the Lord stemming the tide of iniquity in the hearts of
his children. when I made the cloud, the garments
thereof, and the thick darkness, a swaddling-band for it, and
break up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said,
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy
proud waves be stayed. It goes on, hast thou commanded
the morning since thy days and caused the day spring to know
his place. But you see, this is what God
does. There's pictures of in the Bible is very pictorial.
There's things going on here, but it's pictures of spiritual
things in our experience, how the enemy comes in like a flood
and would engulf us and ruin us. But you see, God who commands
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, has
done this creation work in the various stages to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
that we be not people blown about by every wind of doctrine, that
we be not overrun with the lust, the pomp, the pride of life,
that we be people that know Thee, know the Lord. And God called
the dry land earth. You see now there's another name
and you see it becomes the earth, it's called the earth. And the
gathering of the waters called his seas. And God saw that it
was good. So there was a seas, there was
that area that was still where the waters flowed, but there
was another area where there was dry land. A wonderful picture
of what God makes a habitation for his people in their hearts. He works in their hearts so that
there is, as it were, ability to not be overrun by Satan. But I come back to the point
I made this morning. It wasn't that he deleted all
the seas. It wasn't that there was no wrong
lusts anymore. There still was, but it didn't.
Let not sin therefore reign. in your members. You see it's
all about dominion and reign. Who's in control? Yes, we still
have sinful hearts, but who's in control? Are we seeking to
serve God, or are we seeking to serve Satan? Who is in charge? Is sin something that sadly we
fall to at times, or is it our intention to sin? Is it our life? Is it our intention, our delight,
to fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind? Or when
we do, are we always sorry and sad that we've done so? You see, to a true Christian,
it's against what he wants to do, although he does it at times. God saw that it was good. There was no plants, there was
no fruit, but God saw the bounding of the sea, that it was good. And you see, when in the child
of God, when God works and is changing us so that Satan hasn't
got that hold on us that once he had. We're not the slave to
Satan that we were. God saw that it was good. There's
not any fruits of righteousness yet. They will come. God saw
that it was good. It's interesting on this third
day there's two parts, two commands from God. The other days there's
just one, but here there's two commands. God said first of all
about the dividing of the waters and then the fruitfulness. First
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. You
see, if you look in Hosea, Hosea has a verse, Hosea 6, lovely
gospel text. Hosea chapter 6, I'll read the
first few verses. Come and let us return unto the
Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us. He hath smitten
and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive
us. In the third day he will raise
us up. And we shall live in his sight. Is that not a picture of what
happened in creation? After two days, two days of this
light shining, this separation between the waters below and
the waters above, all the separation, it seems there wasn't much joy
in it in one sense, there was much sorrow and much realisation
of our own sinfulness. After two days, will he revive
us? There wasn't any life yet. After
two days he will revive us. And in the third day he will
raise us up and we shall live in his sight. Life! And life
comes on day three. It doesn't come before. Life. And the first life is the plant
life. Then shall we know if we follow
on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as
the morning And He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter,
and form a rain unto the earth. Oh, the rain, you see, it's a
blessing, isn't it, to the crops, to grow on the... You need the
dry land, but you need water on the dry land, but it doesn't
want to be completely engulfed by the salty water of the sea,
does it? That won't make it fruitful.
You see, there needs to be the place for fruit. We just read in Romans chapter
6. Romans 6 verse 22. But now, this
is Romans 6 verse 22, but now being made free from
sin, and become servants to God, ye
have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. that bit of earth that now is
not overrun with the waters. It's not overrun with the lusts
of the flesh anymore. Yes, there's still stuff around
the waters, there's still the coastline, there's still the
raging of the waves against the coastline, but there is an area
that's given over to God. And you see here, it's a strange
thing, isn't it? The bounding of the seas gives
freedom to the child of God. Freedom. You might say, well,
if you've bounded something, surely that's restraining them
and that's going to be a negative thing. You see, the wickedness
was a bound and therefore they were no longer a slave to their
lusts. They were no longer driven by
their lusts anymore. They were free. They were free
to serve the Lord. And then we immediately have
fruit. The sun hasn't come yet, but
there's fruit. And the Lord said, let the earth
bring forth grass. Grass, in a picture you see all
flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof is the flower
of the field. You see, it's one of the lower
forms, and grass often is talked about, you see, in a more fleshly
way. The Corinthians, although they
had all these gifts, they were yet carnal, Paul says. And you
see, this child of God, there's lots of carnalness, as it were,
in their fruit. But God says it was good. You
see, he doesn't despise the work of his hands. His work goes on. He's going to perfect it. Another
picture is that idea of the refiner and purifier of silver. He puts
the metal into the refining pot and he heats it up and he takes
off all the scum and keeps going until his own reflection can
be seen in that top of the pot. And then he knows all the dross
is gone. His own reflection. This is another picture of what
God is doing in creation. Well, God said, let there bring
forth grass, the lowest form, the herb, yielding seed, and
the fruit tree, yielding fruit. What a blessing fruit is to others
and to be able to eat from, after his kind, whose seed is in itself
upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth
brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind,
the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his
kind. And God saw that it was good
again, a lower fruit, but it was good. And you see, God loves
the work of his own hands. And he does that work. You see, Satan, one of Satan's
names is the accuser of the brethren. So he'll be able to take a child
of God and he'll be able to see something wrong with what you're
doing. Something evil, something sinful in what you're doing and
in the work that you're presenting. And probably he's right. In other
words, there is imperfection in us. But God sees that which
is the work of his own hands. And therefore I believe in that
sense it's God-like to see what is good. And you see you have
that in Paul as he writes to the Corinthians and he has some
pretty severe words for them on some points. There were some
points they were way out and doing things totally wrong. But
he doesn't start his epistle to them like that. You see he
commends them for what was right and then speaks to them about
what needed to be changed. But you see God saw that it was
good. In Philippians 1, verse 11, we
have these words, being filled with the fruits of righteousness
which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. You see, you think of what some
of these fruits would be. Well, you see, it's interesting
to note here, and of course we know it's true in nature, isn't
it? If you have a sycamore tree, its fruit or its seeds would
produce other little sycamore trees, wouldn't it? Or if it's
an oak, it has an acorn, and if you plant that acorn in the
ground, you get an oak tree. That's what it's saying here.
And the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding
fruit, whose seed was in itself. That means it had self-propagation
of that fruit. And there's something here for
us then. You see, what is our fruit? You see, if we lie and
cheat, what's the fruit of that? Well, more lying and more cheating,
it self-perpetuates. That's a negative fruit. But
if we have that love, that joy, that long-suffering, Well you
see that perpetuates as we give an act of kindness and love to
our brother, that can be the seed is in itself to then go
on and for others to do that to others. And how we know that
naturally if often people are seeking for kindness and love
and yet all they output is unkindness and bitterness and they don't
therefore receive what they want. But you see, if we have that
fruit unto righteousness, then you see it self-perpetuates.
It goes on, the seed in itself. So that act of kindness, that
act of charity, it goes on to others. You see, if you know
in your life, if you've had kindness to you, you may perhaps go on
and do that to somebody else later. You can't perhaps pay
the person back that's been kind to you, but you can do it to
others. The seed is in itself. And you see, we are to be followers
of Christ. And there's such a list of the
fruit of the Spirit. And we are to manifest those
fruits by God's grace. We read in the evening and the
morning were the third day. just briefly speak of the fourth
day. And God said, let there be lights
in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs and
for seasons and for days and for years. So where we've come
so far, we've had, as it were, the resurrection day, we've had
fruits. Then there's a realization of who God is. Start to be a
realization of darkness and light, a realisation of good and evil,
a realisation of what God has done in our hearts. Then you
see there's going to be a further realisation. You see, we read
in Colossians, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things that are above. We're to look up. And you see
as we look up we see the light of the sun, don't we? We're to
look up at these things. We're to seek to be guided by
them. We're to seek to receive those blessings from them. And
God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven
to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and
for seasons and for days and for years. And of course, you
see, as we as we have these lights in the heavens, they're great,
aren't they? They're so necessary. Of course,
I mentioned this morning, I think that The sun, of course, produces
its own light and heat, doesn't it? But the moon is but a reflection. It's but a reflection of the
sun and yet it still intrudes on the darkness of the night. And it's been pointed out that
like the moon is like the sun of righteousness is like that
Christ himself but the moon is like the people of God they're
to reflect the glory of Christ they're not their own glory but
they're to reflect the glory of God and like faith is like
That moon, in the night time of the soul when there's darkness
all around, it's faith you see that they hold upon the hope
set before him. Though there's no light, the
sun has stopped shining at that time. It's darkness and yet that
faith in the soul gives light in the soul in the darkness.
And you see there's another thing in the darkness. Some people
like to go to areas where there's not light pollution. Why? Because
if they're interested in the skies, they can see so much more
in the darkness. And you see, in some of the dark
pathways that the Lord leads his people in, they see fresh
beauties of the light of God in his various stars. that he
has created. He made the stars also. Such a throwaway phrase, but
the vastness of the heavens. This is the God we serve. And
he's done this as a picture of what he does in his people's
hearts. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Well, you'd speak to people and
you'd say, all these things are vast, the heavens and the greatness
of them. But beloved friends, those things
are passing away. The things that God made in creation
are passing away. But it's a picture of something
which will not. pass away. The son of righteousness
that arises with healing in his wings for the people of God is
a son that will never set. You see these great things that
the world thinks so much of and rightly so to a certain extent,
they are so important to our solar system and everything.
But you see as the child of God is led into these things, they
see something more of Christ, something more of what he is
doing for his people. how that God is providing for
them in these dark places, making darkness light before them and
leading them on. You see there's another aspect
as there's this progression going on. You see, as we know about the
movement of the stars and everything and the sun and everything, we
might think to start with that the sun goes round us. But you
see there's a realisation that we're journeying. We're journeying. Not the sun. The sun is stationary. But we're journeying. We're the
travellers. You see in this, we have to realise
it's for times and for seasons that we have here no continuing
city but we seek one to come. So much is in these things. Well, our time has come to an end.
Beloved friends, we have some great, huge miracles and power
and might of God in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. We have the greatness
of God manifest. But here He spoke and it was
done. He commanded and it stood fast.
But to bring about the new creation in the souls of His people, He
didn't speak and it was done. He left heaven's glory and came
to this earth to suffer, to bleed, and to die, to make an atonement
for His people. See the Lord of glory dying. Hear Him groaning. Hear Him crying. See His burdened bosom heave. Look, ye sinners, ye who stung
Him. Look how deep your sin has stung
Him. Dying sinners, look and live. God that commanded the light
to shine out of darkness in all his power and glory left heaven
to come to this earth to work out a righteousness for his people
that he could give the new creation in his people which will never,
never end. Creation that we have here is
going to pass away Peter said the times coming when the elements
are going to melt with fervent heat The Sun is going to stop
shining the moon's going to go away. All these things are passing
away But God's work of new creation in
the hearts of his people will never end For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, and that will be forever. For never ending
eternity, to know something of the treasures that are hid in
Christ Jesus will be the eternal occupation of the Church of God. May we be amongst them. Amen.