So Lord, may you graciously help
me. I'll turn your prayerful attention to the New Testament,
to the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter four
and verse six. The second epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians and chapter four and verse six. 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. The second epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 6. Paul, in this epistle, is likening
the work of God in creation that we read about in Genesis 1 and
2 to the work of regeneration of God shining out of darkness. And so as the Lord helps, I want
to trace this regeneration that takes place in the hearts of
God's people from the account given in Genesis and how God
worked so powerfully and mightily And may that be an encouragement
for us here today. I've noticed in the hymns that
we've had so far, they're particularly aimed at encouraging those that
are fearful, those that are weak, those that are feeling the difficulties
and troubles of the way and questioning by reason of the way. And I believe
there's some gospel nuggets and some encouragements in these
verses. because you see, you might say,
but your text is very bright. 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. It's very bright, it's very positive,
it doesn't seem any darkness there at all. Well, if you look
in the account in Genesis, realise that God commanding the light
was not the end of the darkness. You see, there's this day and
there's night. There's this light and darkness
and the coming of the light didn't remove darkness completely. And you see there's something
there for a child of God. When God is working it doesn't
mean that, you see, if you'll get told that God that commandeth
the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts and
from then on you've just nothing but shining of God's light into
your heart. Well you might say, I don't experience
that. I don't feel that and therefore
I'm discouraged. But you see that isn't what the
account in Genesis says, and this is what Paul is referring
to. And if you were to go and ask the Apostle Paul, and say,
Paul, when that light shined on the Damascus road, that light
shined above the brightness of the midday sun, what did it feel
like, Paul? I fell down and I cried out to
God. And then you'd say, Paul, what
did it feel like in the next few days? Oh, it was darkness,
darkness. I couldn't see for the next three
days. I didn't know where I was. I was in a complete confusion. The one I thought
I was serving, I had completely missed the point. I thought I
was doing God's service and now I find that the Lord Jesus has
appeared to me and turned my world upside down. It wasn't
very bright all the time for the Apostle Paul. After God that
commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
the Apostle Paul's heart, it did not mean that he walked in
the light of God's countenance immediately and continually. You see he knew times of darkness
but he was going to know the light. You see in Genesis we have this,
in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and
the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. This is often pictured as the
unregenerate soul. This is us by nature. Darkness. Pitch darkness. I don't know
when we were younger we went into some of the caves in the
Lake District and they take you down into these caves and obviously
there's electric lights but they turn the lights off at one point
and it was absolute darkness. You couldn't see absolutely anything.
Darkness like that often we think if we go out in the night You
can see a bit you can't see obviously as much in the day, but you can
still see it's worth opening your eyes but if it's pitch darkness
whether you open your eyes or not you see nothing more and
That is a pitch you see and the earth was without form and void
so there was this the the world had been created, but there was
It was without form and void and We're not told exactly how
it got that way. That's hidden. And darkness was
on the face of the deep. God is light. This did not come
from God, the darkness. But there it was, the darkness. But you see, and this is a picture
of us by nature, dead in trespasses and in sins, in darkness. We do not perceive God. We do
not perceive heaven. We do not realize the seriousness
of our condition, oblivious to it all in darkness. That's what
we are by nature. But this is a wonderful blessing.
And the Spirit of God moved. upon the face of the waters.
The only life there was, there was no life in the waters, there
was no life anywhere apart from God. God is the source of life
and he, we read, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters. God was near to this darkness
and this barrenness and the waters just covering the entire globe. Well, you see, Paul is saying,
for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, God
spoke. And there was light. God spoke. And you see, God is
the prime mover. It was not that this scene of
desolation suddenly decided to breed fish or any life, no. God was the prime mover. There
was nothing. It's like that valley of dry
bones with Elijah, Ezekiel. A valley of dry bones. Can these
bones live? Well, you see, God could make
them live, and God made, you see, this hopeless, impossible
situation. He formed everything out of it,
and he went right from that time of no life at all to filling
the world with life, and then to eventually, on the sixth day,
making Adam, forming man in the image of God. What a transformation. But it wasn't all in one go,
was it? We don't have Adam on the first
day. We just have light. God is light and in him is no
darkness at all. God is light and he said, let
there be light. Let there be light. There was
this command of a king and God gave light. Now he didn't give
the sun, not at this stage. He didn't give the moon. We read they came later. But
God commanded light. And you see, in our hearts, We
need the light of God, and when God commands the light, you see,
then there's a perception of things that we didn't see before.
But if you think of what it was like on day one of creation,
it was pretty disordered. There was chaos. You see, if
you think of it, on day one of creation, in a sense, nothing
changed to this earth at all, in the sense that It was still
the waters were covering all the face of the earth, still
there was no separation between the atmosphere and the waters,
but just God had come with light. God had shown light, indicating
something of the situation. And you see, it was when the
light shone in Saul of Tarsus' heart that he saw something of
the awful condition he was in. He thought he did God's service.
And you see, that's the work of God is to enlighten us to
see something. But you see, if you think that
the light shining means that, well, everything's easy and everything's
bright and shiny, then it wasn't. You see, because we have this,
the days and nights. And as we go through this account,
in these six days we have the evening, and the morning. You
say, why is it always backwards? Why is it not the morning and
the evening? That's how we refer to a normal
day. But it's always the evening and the morning. You see, God
works in stages and he works from a time of growing darkness. That's what the evening is, to
a time of growing light, which is the morning. He works from
darkness to light. And you see, when that light
shone, you might think, well, The light has come, but there
was going to be a time of darkness again. The night was going to
come again. And it seemed that perhaps the world was going to
go back to the same state as it was before the light came.
No, it wasn't. You see, the light, the darkness
was now bounded. It had a bound. It wasn't going
to be there all the time as it was before the creation. It was
going to be bounded. And you see, in the hearts of
God's people, As God works, there is a binding of the darkness
of this world, a separation between that which is dark and that which
is light. And it's the first ray of sunshine
that comes into a living soul, is to separate between what is
of God and what is of us. God is holy and we are unholy.
No, we don't understand much of the word of God, we don't
understand much about heaven, we don't understand much about
the Lord Jesus Christ, but we just get this revelation from
God, because God is light, that there is that which is of God
and that which is of us. And you might say, well, that's
not a very high level of Christianity, just to be able to discern that.
There's no mention of God in that, of Jesus in that sense. It's a very low understanding,
you might say. But here I want to point out
an encouragement. Does God despise the day of small
things? Does God despise the day of small
things? Listen to what it says. And God
saw the light. that it was good. The light was
good. You might say, but there's water
everywhere. There's no life. There's loads
of problems still. It's far from created Adam in
the image of God. We're miles away from that. But God saw the light, that it
was good. You see, Here, this is where
I want to encourage the seekers and those that I believe, that
those of you who the Lord is beginning and has begun to work,
has begun this work of regeneration in your hearts, but you haven't
come to the stage of bearing fruit. You haven't come to the
stage of recognizing the sun and the moon and all
that that means. You haven't come to those higher forms. but
you have come to this, you've seen something of the light.
Like that blind man, whereas I was blind, now I see. I see
something, I don't see everything, I don't understand everything,
but I see that the light has come, and I see now that I was
in darkness, and I see that God is light. Well, you see, this
is what the Lord does as he works in the hearts of his people,
and he's leading them on, you see, to make Christ precious. In Philippians 1 verse 6 it says,
He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. And I believe Genesis 1 is a
proof of this, in the sense that God began his work by saying
let there be light, but he didn't finish his work until he had
formed Adam and Eve and all the creation and said it was very
good. And you see God's work is good.
And you see you might have somebody who the beginnings of the work
of grace is going on in their soul. They can't say great things. And yet you see God says, that work is good, that work
of separating evil from good. Not understanding so much more
but understanding that there is evil and there is good, there
is darkness and there is light and calling them what God calls
them. You see this is so important in our lives. You see and the
whole end you see that it's pointing us towards is to be conformed
to the image of God's Son. You see Adam was created as that
image to, let me just look it up in 2 Corinthians
10 verse 5. In 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5,
we have this verse, casting down imaginations and every high thing
that exhorted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. You see, and this is the work
of God. This is God creating us in his
image. to be in dominion, to be ruling. You see, Adam was to rule all
the creation. And you see, the new man is to
rule. It is not to be a slave to lust,
it is to rule. You see, sin shall not have dominion
over you. In other words, sin is not going
to reign. You see, at the beginning when there was this, the earth
was void, what we read, the earth without form and void and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. evil reigned. Evil was in control. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts
of the eyes, the pride of life, that was in the driving seat.
That was in control. But you see, when the Lord starts
to work, you see, the end of that work is to cast down imaginations
and everything that exalted itself against the knowledge of God
and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. You see, another beautiful text
we have in Ephesians 3 verse 9 Ephesians 3 and verse 9 and I believe this is what was taking
place in creation and this is what is taking place in the new
creation in the hearts of God's people. Ephesians 3 verse 9 it
says, to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who
created all things by Jesus Christ. If you think about it, when the
earth was without form and void, there was nothing. There was no creatures, there
was no life, there was nothing. All that we know today, there
was nothing of it. There was just God. And everything
that we have today was hid in Christ. It was in the mind of
Christ. And He created it. Everything
was from Him, you see. He's the prime mover. As He is
in the new creation, so He was in the original creation. He
created everything by the Word of His power. And you see, the
Word of God becomes everything to the people of God. The Word
of God. As you might remember, the Gospel
of John starts with similar words to Genesis 1. I just turned to it. In the beginning
was the Word. And the Word was with God, as
the Lord Jesus was with God the Father, and the Word was God,
Jesus was God. And he was in the beginning with
God. All things were made by him, and without him was not
anything made that was made. This is true of the original
creation, it's true of the new creation. And just as God in
the new creation is showing us in the original creation what
God is doing in each of our lives, each of the lives of those who
he is quickening out of nature's darkness, out of this void where
there's darkness, where the lust of the flesh, the pride of life
rules the day. It may be on the clean side of
life, or it may be on the filthy side of life, but whatever it
is, it will not be for the glory of God. In the beginning was
the Word. But then we read, And the light shineth in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it. You see, you might say, well,
if you've got darkness and you've got light, surely then it will
just go into dusk, won't it, or something? But you see, there
was a separation, and that's what God did in creation. He
set bounds. If you think of the first three
days of creation, the major activities were bounding and dividing. This darkness that was pervasive
everywhere, over the face of the entire world, no life, no
light, that was bounded. It was bounded because there
was going to be light now from God. There wasn't going to be
the sun and the moon just yet, it was coming. And you see, I
mean, when Jesus, Jesus talking to his disciples, He said at
one point, he said, you believe in God, believe also in me. As if you've seen the light of
God, but you need to see the son of righteousness. And that
hadn't yet come, you see, they hadn't yet understood that. And
you see, as there is a progression in creation, there is a progression
in the hearts of God's people so that they may be formed in
the image of his dear son. And God said, let there be light.
And there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. So you see, he created the light,
and he then divided it. And then he named it appropriately,
and God called the light day and the darkness he called night. There was a separation. So there
was going to be a night time, there was going to be a day time.
And you see now there wasn't going to be darkness all the
time. There was going to be a time of light and a time of darkness.
And you see in our lives, you see the lives of God's people,
they go through these stages. The darkness and the light. And
you see, when the darkness comes, it seems, well, we're back where
we were, aren't we? We're as dark as ever it was.
But you see, the darkness is now bounded. God has bounded
that darkness. What a mercy for us he has. Because
if he hadn't, it would be pervasive everywhere. But God binds the
darkness, you see. Let me just refer to some other
texts that illustrate this in 2 Peter 1 verse 19. 2 Peter 1
verse 19. We read here, we have also a
more sure word of prophecy where unto you do well that you take
heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. And that's what
when God said, let there be light, it was a light shining in a very
dark place. But listen to what Peter says,
until the day dawn and the day star arise. in your hearts. There was going to be something
coming. There was going to be something Christ in you, the
hope of glory. There was going to be something
formed in them. But until then they were to cling, as it were,
to that word of prophecy. So we have the idea here that
there was, in day one of creation, there was not the creation of
the sun. There's an indication there of You see, we had light,
but we didn't have the distinctness of where it was coming from.
We didn't understand God. We didn't understand what these
things were. We just knew that there was light. And the God
that gave light has promised to fulfill everything in that
chain of events that brings us to the fullness and completeness
of Christ. You see, in Ephesians 4, verse
24, let me just look that up. I'm sorry, there's lots of text. Ephesians 4, verse 24. We read here that, And that ye
put on the new man, you see, the one created for God's glory,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. This is, you see, what is intended,
that we be, as it were, like all the lower forms of life and
it was culminating in the creation of man. I believe that's a picture
in us, as God is working in us to bring us to that place where
the fullness of the stature of Christ, that we may glorify Him. And you see, but until then,
you see, until while we are still on this life, there's still the
days and the nights. There's still the darknesses.
But you see, as we go on in this account of the creation, there's
the moon created. What does the moon do? The moon
shines in the night time. It's a cold light, not like the
sun. It's a reflected light. But it
gives light, you see, in the darkness. Even the darkness now,
you see, is being encroached upon by the light. The darkness
which was all pervasive, now there is the moon, and in the
darkness also there's the stars. We see the stars, don't we? We
see what God has done. And so we see what God is doing
in the hearts of his people. And God said, let there be light,
and there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good, And God divided the light from the darkness. He separated it. He gave bounds
to that darkness. It couldn't just carry on everywhere. But it was still there. And you
see, if you take the idea that 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, that there's no now darkness ever in our lives
anymore in this world, You see, it's not, that wasn't like that
in creation, was it? God commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, but he bound the darkness. He didn't delete
it, he bound it. But you might say, this darkness
then, have we always got this darkness? Well, you see, every day we're
told the six stages that God goes through, we'd say the evening
and the morning, the evening and the morning, the evening
and the morning, goes through six times. Then we get to the
day of rest, the seventh day, and we never read of an evening.
We never read of an evening. If you go into Revelation chapter
22, And verse 5, we have these words, Revelation 22 verse 5,
and there shall be no night there. There is coming an end. Darkness
will be gone for the church of God then. Here below, they're
plagued with it, they struggle with it, but it's bound. But there's coming a time when
darkness will be forever gone. But it's not here below. And
there shall be no night there. And they need no candle, neither
light of the sun. You see, the sun, that's why,
you see, if God had created the light and said that was the sun,
it would almost seem that that was the light. But God is the
light. The sun is just there for God's purposes in creation. And it's obviously so vital to
our planet. I'm not trying to diminish it
in any way. but it's passing away. It's a picture of something
that will not pass away, God himself, and what he's doing
as a son of righteousness for his people. There shall be no
night there. They need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord giveth them light. and they shall
reign, reign, listen to it, reign forever and ever. How often we
find that we are conquered by our own wrong desires and wrong
thoughts, but they shall reign forever. Everything, let me just pick
it back up, it's 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, let me
just re-read that. casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exhorted itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. We shall reign. We shall be as kings. We shall
not be ruled by these lusts, by the pomp, the pride of life.
We shall have gained it, but you see here, We're still on
enemy territory. There's still the darkness from
time to time. The Lord's people are to walk
this world through the days and through the nights. But you see,
God provides encouragement in those times. Well, and God saw
the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness, and God called the light Day, gave it a name,
and where to give it, where to call things what God calls them.
You see, Paul, the Saul of Tarsus, when he was met at that Damascus
road, he was totally confused. The things that he'd lived for,
he realized were worthless. Those things I counted, again,
all those things I treasured so much, I count but, dung, that
I may win Christ. He had a complete change round.
But that's what the light did. But I don't think it felt very
light to him when he was blind. But God saw that it was good. If you have the Lord starting
to work in the hearts of us, And yet there's so much wrong.
Yes, there's so much that the sea still covers the whole earth.
There's still the lust, the pomp, the pride of life. Seems to be
raining the day, but the light's beginning to shine. The light's
beginning to shine. God says it's good. You might
say, but what about all this water everywhere? What about
all these lusts? What about all these wrong thoughts
and all these wrong deeds? that hath begun good work in
you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. This is God's
work. And he won't stop his work until he gets, you see, to the
end. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. And what
does he say after that, when he's done that? And God saw everything
that he'd made And behold, it was very good. Every other time
it was good. But when he made man in God's
image, it was very good. It glorified God. And there's
a picture you see here, but you say, but this is so cryptic.
This is strange. I would just point you to Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter one and verse
16. We read these words. The appearance
of wheels and their work are like unto the colour of a barrel."
This is the sort of vision that Ezekiel had. And they four had
one likeness and their appearance and their work was as it were
a wheel in the midst of a wheel. In other words, we're dealing
here with the creation of the world and yet in the middle of
this creation is actually a picture of what the whole of the life
of a child of God. The whole of the purpose of God
in creating new into a new man. The recreation of God is pictured
in this first creation. And don't you see the power of
God? Don't you see God? You see, Paul,
as he speaks in Ephesians so many times, he's trying to grasp. Let me just look at it again
in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 verse 13 he says
this, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God. When the light first shined we
didn't know that. Knowledge of the Son of God unto
a perfect man, that's a complete man, unto the measure of the
stature of of the fullness of Christ. You see, that's the end
goal that God has for his church. To make them a glorious church. Not overrun with the lusts of
the flesh and the pride of life. He's going to change that. He's
going to work. He's going to divide the waters. He's going
to make land. He's going to make the mountains
rise. He's going to make dry land. He's going to make fruitfulness.
He's going to do all these things in his time. for God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. Paul could say this, Hath shined
in our hearts. Now, if I ask you, is that true
of you? You might say, but I haven't
got to the fullness of the stature of Christ. But has the light shined? Has
it shown something of what we are by nature? the lust, the
pomp, the pride of life, and how obnoxious that is to an enlightened
soul. Has it made us hunger and thirst
after righteousness? Have we seen something of a separation
between the waters that are below and the waters that are above,
the affections that are set on things below and the affections
that are set on things above? Do we know something of that?
And you see it isn't really until the third day of creation when
there's actually a fruitfulness. The rest of the days, the beginning
of days one and two were dividing and bounding, bounding the waters
from below and above, but you see on the third day, and so
often in scripts you see the third day, the resurrection,
the day when Christ appeared. And then there's fruit. It's
the first day we have fruit. The first day we have these lower
forms of life, you see. Not the animal kingdom, but all
the things that support the animal kingdom. All the vegetation.
First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.
We have it, you see. In creation we're told that first
of all, bringeth forth grass, and God
said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is
in itself. So there you see there's fruit
being brought about. Herein is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit. We ought to be fruit-bearing
branches, but What I want to say to you is
this. God said it was good when there was no fruit. God said
the light was good when there had yet had produced no fruit
whatsoever. Because he saw that the work
was going to go on. He saw it was what God was doing
to bring about the fruit. It was a necessary It was necessary
for them to see the awful state that they were in by nature,
that they were overrun with these waters, that there was no life. And God needed to bound those
waters. You see, I mentioned that there's no night. in eternal glory. There's no
more night. But there's another thing there's
no more of as well, another thing that God bounded, and that's
the sea. There's no more sea. We read
there was no more sea in Revelation. You see, God has set the bounds
of the sea. to make the dry land so that
we can live, we're not drowned. God set those, and that was his
work on the second day, bounding the sea that it couldn't go everywhere
that it wanted to. It had limitations, and it could
have the storm. You think of the storms we have,
tremendous storms sometimes. Waves come crashing into the
beaches, but we here in Ryegate or Red Hill, we're just fine.
We're high enough out of the way, it's not a problem. You
see, God is able to keep the waters away. And so that is spiritually,
you see, that God is able to keep us. And God has set the
bounds. You see, this is God's voice.
This is what God has done in creation, and he's doing it in
the hearts of each one of his dear people. Now I ask you again,
I'm not asking you to say, have you come to the fullness of the
knowledge of Christ. I am not asking you to say, 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. It's a shock of corn ripe for
the harvest, about to go into that eternal Sabbath. But has
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shined
in our hearts? Do we know anything of God opening
our eyes to the emptiness outside of God? The fact that He needs
to speak the word, that His word becomes everything to us. You
see, let me just close with that beautiful psalm. Psalm 1, Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. But his delight is in the law
of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. The
word of God is precious. And you see, as we're in the
word, then we grow. You see, if we ignore the word,
then nothing was accomplished. It was God's word that accomplished
it all, and we need to be And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season. In his season, not immediately,
in his season. See, this is what God's Word
says, the Word of God. So when it comes and shows us
our emptiness, and slays us like it did the Apostle Paul, and
shows him that all his righteousness was as filthy rags, probably
didn't seem very bright light at that point, it seemed pretty
dismal to him. But 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. He's giving this light to show
us our emptiness. and to open our eyes to the fullness
that is hid in Christ for his entire church. You see, he that
began in creation with that complete mess, complete void, complete
darkness, created a world that was very good. And every child
of God, starting lost and ruined in the fall, is worked upon by
the power of God to make him conformed to the image of his
son. It's the end in view and it would
be their occupation then to glorify God throughout a never-ending
eternity. May the Lord have his blessing.
Amen.