I want to look at the fourth
day this evening. Genesis chapter 1 will begin
in verse 14. Genesis 1 verse 14, And God said,
Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day
from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons,
and for days, and for years." Did that happen? There was a
whole bunch of atheists last year worried about 2020. We're
in 2021. What's that mean? Anno Domini,
the year of our Lord. And it's so. They deny God and
they mark it down what to do tomorrow on the calendar. Verse
15, And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven
to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two
great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser
light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And God
set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the
earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide,
to make a difference. to divide the light from the
darkness. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning
were the fourth day. Somebody reads, they sit down
with the Bible. And they read Genesis chapter one. And they
say, that's what happened on the fourth day. God made the
sun. He made the moon. He made the stars. And we got
light and we got day. We got night time, day time.
If that's all you got out of it, I hate that for you. You walk outside, stand there
for 24 hours, you'll see everything the Lord just told you. And Christ said, Moses wrote
of me. He meant it. That's what this fourth day is
about. I'm not scratching the surface on what I have for you
this evening. I prepared, really, three different
messages for the fourth day. And I thought, I'd like to really
just dwell three days on the fourth day. And I thought, if
I'd done that, if I'd spent preaching to you two hours at a clip, and
I spent six hours preaching three different topics in the fourth
day, I didn't scratch the surface. I still saw through that glass
dimly. Can you imagine that? When in
eternity we sit down at the feet of Christ and He begins to preach
to us, He opens the Scriptures. We cannot imagine how inexhaustible
we truly know the Scriptures to be. We have no idea. We haven't even seen half of
it. But He gives us a glimpse. He lets us see Christ in Him.
His children that sat under my preaching, We'll say, poor Kevin. Boy, he tried. He put in some
hours. He labored. He really did. But
he didn't even put a dent in it. He didn't come close. He
got the gist of it, but he didn't see all the details. He didn't
see all the facets of that diamond, did he? First, I want us to understand,
like we saw this morning, that our Lord rules and reigns over
everything. Everything in this earth. Everything
in the heavens. Everything in the seas. Everything
in the hearts of men and women. He owns everything. It's His. He sustains everything
and He controls everything, including the sun, the moon, and the stars. They're His. They're not mine. America might have made it to
the moon first. We don't own it. You can put a flag there
all you want. It's His. You can say, we own North America. Eh,
not if He changes His mind. You don't. You may live there.
It's His. There's always, throughout the
scriptures, a dividing. A war. Good and evil. Light and dark. Life and death. The prince of this world and
the king of kings. It's always one or the other.
It's pretty cut and dry, isn't it? People say, well, they're kinda. There
ain't no kinda. It's black and white. It's cut and dry. There
are two types of people mentioned in these scriptures. Did you
know that? It's not okay, folks. They don't exist. There is wicked
people and there is righteous people. That's it. They're saved and there's lost. There's the apostate and there's
the elect. The child of God and the child
of their father, the devil. It's always one or the other.
There's a dividing. There's a difference made throughout the Scriptures.
It says in verse 16 there, And God made two great lights, the
greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule
the night. It's day and night. He gave us
the sun and the moon. Then to verse 4 says, or in Genesis
1-4, and God divided the light from the darkness. He made light
first. You know that? And then He gave
us the heavens. And then He gave us dry ground
that plants come up. I'm a biologist. I cling on to
these things. And then He made the sun. What sustained those
plants? They couldn't perform photosynthesis
without the sun, could they? How did that happen? The power
of God. Get her head wrapped around that. Why am I alive?
Why is it daylight right now and it ain't gonna be daylight
soon? The power of God. His will. His purpose. It's what
performs these things. But He divided the light from
darkness. We saw that before when we looked
at day one inside of us. We're nothing but darkness. We're
void. We're without form. And He come in, His Word did,
and cut asunder. He said, let there be light and
there was light. There was a commandment there
of life to be given. And He says in verse 16, He made
two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser
to rule the night. Did God create His own enemy?
He did. Why? That way His purpose according
to election might stand? To the praise of the glory of
His grace? Yes. But He did it because He said
and it was so. It pleased the Lord to do that. Why would He allow darkness to
happen? It pleased Him. It's going to magnify His grace,
magnify His glory. Pleased him, does it do so. And
there was a greater light, the sun, and a lesser light, the
moon. A great light and something that
was not a great light. That's pretty plain, isn't it?
That was something that was light, the only source of light in this
whole universe, and something that had no light. Without form,
just ugly. Had no warmth in it. A great
light has its own source of heat, it's light, it's energy, it's
power. And a lesser light that has no warmth, it has no light
of itself, there's no energy in the moon, there's no power
in the moon. That could be us, huh? In our natural state and
atom. Turn over to Colossians chapter
1. Colossians chapter 1. Begin in verse 16. Colossians 1.16, For by Him were
all things created. that are in heaven. What's in
heaven? Angels. He created those. Cherubims
and seraphims. That's what Satan and his demons
were, wasn't it, before they failed? The Lord created that.
The sun and the moon. That's what's in the firmament.
He created that. The stars. Christ created those
things. And that are in the earth. Man,
beast, flowers, rocks, beautiful streams, snowstorms. He created
them. Visible and invisible. Microbes. Before death, microbes. Viruses. Atoms. Electrons. Neutrons. Protons. Things that are smaller
than that. We can't even see. We don't even
know that they're there. He created them. He rules them. Whether they be thrones or dominions,
principalities or powers. Ideas. Intangible things. Principalities and powers. Governments.
He created them. All things were created by Him,
by and for Him. for him, and he is before all
things, and by him all things consist." Christ is the greater
light, speaking in Genesis chapter 1. He has preeminence in all
things. That means he's over the demons,
he's over the elements, he's over men, he's over ideas, philosophies. He has preeminence over all things.
None can stay his hand. I can ask him what he's doing.
Why are all these bad things allowed? People ask me that more
often than I care to have it asked of me. If there's a God,
why would so many bad things be allowed to happen? What fools? Who are you? You're on this earth.
He's in the heavens. Why are you asking what God's
doing? Hush is what I want to say. Stop saying that right now
and plug my ears. I don't want to hear that nonsense.
So many people, they give place and power to Satan that he does
not have. If we're afraid of something,
we're putting more place and more power and prominence, pomp
and circumstance, into that than a government or a person or a
thing or a virus or whatever than we are in a God who controls
it. Who has preeminence over that thing, aren't we? We don't
need to fool with Satan. You ain't gonna win. Don't take
him on. Don't try to fight him. But the preeminence is the Lord's.
We saw it in Job 1. Satan reported. to the Lord. The Lord didn't come to his house
whenever he set the time. He said, I set the time, you
come to me. You work for me. That devil is the Lord's devil. Proverbs 16 tells us, The Lord
hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the
day of evil. Why? Why did the Lord make his
evil things? It pleased him. It's His will. It's for His glory, for His namesake,
for Christ's glory, and it's for the good and benefit of His
people. Who am I to question it? That's in everything. Everything. Right now I've got
a pain shoot down from this side all the way down to my toes.
Don't go away. You know why I'm hurting? Because
it pleased the Lord to do it, and it's going to be for my good
and His glory. For the good of all His people, His whole church.
Now back in our text here in Genesis 1, Verse 16, And God made two great lights,
the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule
the night. He made the stars also, and God set them in the
firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over
the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the
darkness. And God saw that it was good. What he did, what he
said, it was good. Just as he purposed it. He's
God. So what happened? I purposed
to do a whole lot of things. I thought, man, it didn't turn out the way
I really wanted it to. I painted a wall. I can't paint for nothing.
And I thought in my head it's going to turn out beautiful.
And then there's streaks and it didn't turn out good. What
the Lord says, He says, this is what I'm going to do. And
He says, that's good. Every time. Have you noticed
that? We're on day four. Give you a hint what day 5 and
6 is going to do. God's going to say, and it was good. That's
what He purposed. That's what happens every time
the Gospel goes forth. His Word does not return to Him
void. When He divides, and that two-edged
sword goes out, it returns to Him exactly as He sees fit. No
matter the angle that we scratch the surface. That gives me a
lot of comfort. and the position the Lord gave me, the task at
hand that He's given me. I've told several of you, the
gospel is like looking at a diamond. If there's all kinds of facets,
a bunch of flat spots perfectly carved into it to showcase that
diamond. And if I'm looking at a flat spot, I see light coming
out of it. And you're on the other side, and you see a whole
other facet, a whole other flat spot. You see a different angle
of light. We're looking at the same diamond, ain't we? And every
time we turn it, oh, it's just something precious and new. And
you're still looking at the same thing. First thing I saw in this
text here, you can preach this as we are the moon, the Lord's
people are the moon, and we only reflect the light of Christ into
this dark earth, into this dark world that we walk in. We have
no comeliness. Nothing's attractive about us.
When the light hits us, nothing's seen but all these potholes and
valleys. You go out and see the moon and say, that thing looks
beat all to pieces. That's a rough looking place. I don't want to
go there. But it's light. You can read a book about it
some nights, can't you? In the middle of the night. But we reflect
that marvelous light of Christ. It warms our cold core and we
project it. It bounces off of us. Not under
our own power, but willingly. The moon doesn't desire and ask
the sun to come to it. The sun comes to it in power.
It reflects it. And it does it willingly. Into
a dead, dark, sin-cursed world that we're just alike. Isn't
it? There's so many good illustrations
for that too. Every time the world gets between the moon and
the sun, there's less light on the moon, isn't it? It blocks
the sun from the moon. That's a good description of
our life, our walk in this world. Every time we start looking at
this world, we're not looking at Christ. We're not seeing Him.
Heaven forbid, when I get between... Thankfully, the moon is a whole
lot smaller than the sun. When I get between this world, those
that are here and looking at Christ, I block Him out. He still goes all the way around.
It's still coming around. It still blinds you. I don't
want to be a hindrance. Another way to look at this text.
We take day 4, let's turn it 90 degrees and scratch this way.
Let's see what that is. Satan is the ruler of darkness,
isn't he? He's the moon. We're on this
world. We're on this earth. He has no light. He has no warmth
to offer. He has no power of his own. And
he dictates to this dark, dead world by falsely using the scriptures. He misquotes the Scriptures.
He bends the Scriptures to his own advantage. And he appears
to be an angel of light, doesn't he? He's got just enough light
on him to think there's warmth in that thing in the middle of
the night. Or you're freezing to death. If it were possible,
he'd fool even the Lord's elect. Did you know that? There's certain
crazy, off-the-wall fables that the Lord tries to trick His people
with. Oh, it's as close as death. It's a drop of poison. It's one
piece of leaven. We be in the earth. If we preach this as Satan's
at moon with a false light and no warmth in him, and we're this
earth, God must turn us from darkness to light. Can you spin
the earth? I can't. He turns it every day. My child's in darkness. Just
turn to earth. And He points us right to Christ.
That's what has to happen for the saving of a soul. We must
be turned to the S-O-N and the S-U-N. When we're taken home
to glory, there'll be no more darkness. We won't have to be
turned for nothing. We'll be in His marvelous light
for eternity. There'll be no more seas of wrath.
I don't know if there'll be lakes, ponds, fountains, and streams.
I don't know. There won't be any more seas. He said so. Only
Christ our light and that satisfied judgment that He earned for His
people. That's all that will be left.
Thirdly, what's another way I can turn this a little bit, scratch
it, and not even penetrate the surface? This greater light and
lesser light, this is internal. This is inside the heart of every
believer. It's a war that now takes place
inside of a believer. Before, we were only darkness.
There was no light. Just darkness, void, empty, without
shape. Now there's light. Just like
a earth, like a ball. Most of you can see the ball
is half of it. We get 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness
it seems, every day, every moment by moment it seems sometimes.
This earth travels 19,000 miles an hour and that's about how
quick my thoughts come in and out of my head. Just reflect on the
Lord, who He is, what He's accomplished for His people, what peace there
is, what happiness, what comfort. And then a hiccup or sneeze or
a fly goes by and whoo! And then back to him and just
fades, comes in and out. I don't like his breathing. A
Hebrew writer said, for the Word of God is quick and powerful
and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder. There's going to be a dividing
there, just like this light and darkness, of soul and spirit. A dividing of a soul and a spirit. Every person born of Adam that
comes into this world has a soul. Everybody. Everybody. Every human
being does. Ecclesiastes 12 says you and
I, that's us. Us dusts. This red dirt, Adam,
that we are. We're made from this dirt. We're
going to return to the dust. And our soul is going to be required
of us by God. It's going to go back to Him.
This body is going to turn to absolute nothing. Worms are going
to consume it. You won't be able to distinguish me from a pile
of dirt. There won't be no difference after a long enough period of
time. But there's a soul given to every person born of Adam.
And it's going to return to the Lord. All of mankind is going
to face the Lord. And it says, the soul that sinneth,
it shall surely die. But the child of God Those put
in Christ before time, those whose names are written in that
Lamb's Book of Life and that Covenant of Grace before this
world was, before day one, they're given a new spirit. They're given
a new spirit. Our souls were justified because
a new spirit was given, a new creation in us. What's that new
spirit? His spirit. He gives us His spirit. How? Through the preaching of
the Gospel. His light, Christ the light, is revealed in you
by God, the Holy Ghost, through the preaching of the Word. That
comes in power. It says, let there be light. And He divides us internally.
Light and dark, isn't it? Used to, I thought I wasn't nothing
but light when I wasn't nothing but darkness. Now I've got the
light turning on, I can see the darkness. I have soul and spirit.
And they war. Now there's darkness and light.
An old man and a new man. There's dividing and warring.
That wasn't there before. It's happening now. Who manages
all this? Is that my responsibility? Do
I need to keep... Do I need to herd these cats?
What's going on inside of me? Christ, the greater light, rules
and reigns. He rules in the hearts of his
people. It's my comfort knowing I don't divide light from darkness.
That ain't my business. I'm telling you who the light
is. I caution you and warn you against the darkness that's in
every man that's born of Adam. In us. I don't separate the wheat
from the tares, my Lord does. And no matter how poor of a job
I do, preaching the gospel, He uses it as it pleases Him. There's times I've stood up here
and attempted to preach to you all and just wanting to get done
as fast as I could because I knew it was horrible. It didn't even
make sense to me. People come up with tears in their eyes.
Thank you, I needed that. He proves to me, it ain't of me,
He does it. He divides the light from the
darkness. Every one of us were born in darkness. That's how
we come into this world. We are not the greater light. We think we are, but we ain't.
And through the preaching of the gospel and the command of
God, through His Word, He begins to open the sinner's eyes and
we begin to see light. But the Lord has put a difference
between Israel and Egypt, hasn't He? Not everybody sees that light. I don't think we do, but we don't
see it. He has made us to differ. He has made His people to differ.
On day 1, there in verse 3, it says, let there be light. Now,
for the first time, we see our sin exposed in that light. It's
like when you turn the light on and the cockroaches run. We
see our sin. We see what we truly are. And
in that light, in His light, we see His true holiness. The
light's been turned on and it can't be turned off. It can't
be unseen. And we see that we've sinned
against the Holy God. And we don't want to meet Him
face to face. Something needs to be between
me and the God I offended. There must be a covering, an
atonement. That's when day 2 happens. There
in verse 6, Christ is our firmament. He's our buckler, our covering,
our atonement, our coat of righteousness that the Lord put over us, that
made us differ. The waters above and the waters
below. He's our mediator. He's our shelter from the God
we offended, our hiding place. He's a cleft of the rock. That's
another facet we ought to look at sometime. I look forward to
going to Exodus. When Moses told the Lord, he said, Lord, show
me your glory. Man gets hung up on the Lord saying, I'll be
merciful to whom I'll be merciful to, and I'll be gracious to whom
I'll be gracious. And they stopped there. He was just saying, OK,
I'll show you. And you know what he did to Moses?
He put him in a cleft of the rock. He said, don't you look
at me face to face, you'll kill you. But being in Christ, what's
God's glory? Putting His people in Christ,
isn't it? Now you can see God. You can see the backside of Him
in this earth. Boy, that's miraculous. That's His glory. We're going to see more of Him.
We're going to trust Him. We're going to be fed by Him.
Day 3 there, verse 9, we're gathered together like those seas continually
with the Lord's people to learn of Christ, to see more of Him
one more time. One more time to see our Redeemer.
To hear that judgment that He's satisfied once again. One more
time, poor Brother Davis down there has been preaching for
60 some years. You know what he asked the other day? How can
a man be just before God? I preach that to you. I try every
time I get up here. I want to hear that one more
time. You tell me. How can a man be just before
God? Christ is going to have to be that firmament. He's going
to have to be that covering, that atonement. That's what it's going
to take. He's going to gather us together to hear that one
more time, to make us bear His fruit. Make us feed on that tender
grass. It's like in Psalm 73. And then
day four, the more we come to this gathering, the more He teaches
us, the more He exposes us to, He divides us internally. He
divides us in our homes sometimes. He divides us in our place of
work. He divides us in this world. It happens more and more. And He turns us from darkness
to light. He sets us apart. It's called
sanctifying somebody. He sanctifies us, and He begins
to reveal more of Himself to us, and reveal more of ourselves
to us. The longer I walk in this world,
the longer I learn more of my Lord. I don't care what they're
doing at an abortion clinic downtown. I wish they'd quit it, but boy,
I see what's inside of my heart more clearly every day. I'm getting
worse. On the outside, I probably don't
look like it. I'm getting tired. I can't do as much as I used
to, whether I wanted to or not. This mind's wicked. This heart's
wicked. I see how more precious my Lord is every day, too. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.
He said, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
has shined in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We can't fully
see the fullness of Christ. We saw this morning, it pleased
the Lord that all fullness dwell in Christ. But we believe it. I don't know what all that entails.
And in this life, I won't fully understand it, but I believe
it. And I understand a little bit more every time He teaches
me something of Himself. That fullness of the Godhead
in a bodily, in a human body that walked this earth. What
a thought. Made like us, our kinsmen redeemer.
He was able to redeem His people. He was kin to the people. He
was willing. We saw this morning Job. He said, the Lord revealed some
things to me and they're just too wonderful. It's just so sweet
I can't hardly take it all in. And you know what? The Lord's
majesty ain't going to run out. How majestic salvation of the
Lord is. How majestic our Redeemer is.
His worthiness. His holiness. If I just took
in all this feeble little brain could possibly hold, it ain't
a drop in the ocean. It doesn't diminish. That's why
glory's gonna be for eternity. Been there 10,000 years and ain't
even been a day, has it? Turn over Psalm 19. Try to hurry. Each one of these days, David
or Asa wrote about in the Psalms, We're going to look at Psalm
19 today. David's speaking of the fourth
day of creation here. Psalm 19 verse 1 says, "...the
heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth his
handiwork, day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night
showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language,
for their voice is not heard." This sun and this moon, these
stars, the creation of the Lord is heard and seen on every tribe,
kindred, nation, tongue underneath that sun and that moon. Everyone
knows that. This creation the Lord has made
is wonderful and even a small child knows that someone made
it. Someone set that moon, someone
set those stars, someone set the sun, someone makes the earth
rotate around the sun and the moon around the earth. It didn't
just happen. I met several atheists in my
life, and most of them, not all of them, a good chunk of them,
many of them, they're very intelligent. They have very high IQs, if you
will. They seem very smart, but what
they believe in is just dumb. I don't know any other way to
word it. It don't make no sense. They make fun of my faith? Well, that's some faith right
there to believe in nothing. There's no logical proof of any
of it. But we, we have a more sure word of prophecy, don't
we? The Lord told us, I set the greater light and I set the lesser
light. That's where it comes from. That's
who hung it. And it was so. And every morning when that sun
comes up, it declares that God is in the heavens and he's ruling
and reigning. Man must go out of his way to
willfully ignore the creation and declaration of God. You've
got to try real hard to ignore it, to say you don't believe
in it. All those smart people. What does scripture say? The
Lord's hid these things from the wise and the prudent. Those
who seem so smart and those who seem so correct and wise. David had a good handle on this
fourth day and the motivation and the product of God's purposing
to save a people. Look here in verse 1 again. The
heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth
its handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech
and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone
out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world. In them hath he set the tabernacle for the sun, which,
as a bridegroom, cometh out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as
a strong man to run a race." His going forth, we haven't changed
topics yet. His going forth is from the end
of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there
is nothing hid from the heat thereof. That is the dividing
of the Lord, making one different from another. To those chosen
before time, cross the S-U-N and cross the S-O-E. He comes
as the bridegroom, as a husband, a spouse to one wife, and He
comes rejoicing to run the race set before Him, willingly, willingly,
for His bride, for all those dark, empty, hell-deserving souls
that He was given. willingly comes, and He warms
them. There's no light without the
sun. There's no warmth without the sun. On this earth, if the
sun was to turn off, I think it said in grade school it would
take eight minutes or whatever before we knew about it. If the
sun turned off, it wouldn't take us ten minutes, there'd be starvation,
they'd be freezing, and none of us would see anything. We'd
be blind. We'd be in darkness. How long
has that S-U-N been hanging there? since the Lord said so. That's
how long it's been there. How long is the S-U-N gonna be
there? Until Christ comes back. As long
as the Lord sees fit. The sun will not be moved and
it will not be extinguished. It ain't gonna be used up as
long as it pleases the Lord to keep it there. So many people
worry about the sun, the solar flares and grand solar minimums
and all these things. We don't need to fear creation,
we need to fear the God of creation. That does a whole lot better,
wouldn't it? For thousands of years, smart men, the wise and
the prudent, they've been staring at the stars and the sun and
the moon, trying to figure out what it all means. Can we navigate
by this? Can we tell when to plant corn
because of this? You know, you're supposed to
quit smoking cigarettes in the thighs. Well, I don't even know what
that means. Nonsense. What does all this mean? Look
here in verse four. Their line has gone through all the earth
and their words to the end of the world. In them hath set a
tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out
of his chamber and rejoices that a strong man to run a race. His
going forth is from end of heaven and his circuit completion thereof,
continuance, unto the ends of it. And there is nothing hid
from the heat thereof. This is Christ coming, living,
dying, and rising again for His people, setting on His throne,
making intercession for His bride. That's the context that we're
still in. What is declared from that? Verse 7, the law of the
Lord is perfect, converting the soul. He got soul and a spirit. That's what happened. He did
something. How is His law perfect? I can't keep it. Christ, the
fulfillment of the law is perfect. Isn't that what His people say?
Isn't that what His bride says? I can't keep this law. This has
brought me to Christ. It's perfect. Why? He fulfilled
it and He's perfect. It's the Lord's law. Converting
of the soul. And the testimony of the Lord
is sure, making wise the simple. Everything he says in this word,
whether I understand it, doesn't matter. It's so. It's so. Making wise the simple. A wise
man may seem simple. A wise man in the Lord. He walks
outside and he looks up and he says, right there, you see that
son? God saved His people. He is saving His people and He's
going to keep His people forever in Christ and we're all going
to glorify Him. And they said, you're crazy. Look at that poor
simple man out there thinking that the sun hanging in the sky
or the moon at night has something to do with God saving people.
The Lord said so, didn't He? Look in verse 8. The statutes
of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. I couldn't have come
up with those things. My Lord did, and it's right.
Oh, it's perfect. And my heart rejoices in it.
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. When the Lord commands light
in the heart of His child, our eyes are open. Now we see Christ. Now we see salvation in everything
on our whole day long. Why? Because that's our life.
This ain't something we do on Wednesdays and Sundays. We don't
play church. This ain't something that's convenient. I like a certain
kind of cheese. That's pretty low on my totem
pole of things that I have to have in this world, isn't it?
Christ ate dinner with white. I like this kind of... This is
my doctrine. No, this is the life. Life. You build your... This is my life. I don't build
a life around nothing. It's Him. The whole thing. You
and I were made for the glory of that greater light. The glory
of Christ. And that is our purpose. That's our purpose. The Lord
told us in Matthew 5, You are the light of the world. A city
that's set on a hill cannot be hid. So many people say, Oh,
I'm a Christian. You don't know the Lord. You
don't care for His people. You cuss them. You don't serve
Him. You hate everything about Him
and His people and assembly of the saints. Don't sound like
it. The Lord said, that light's in you, it can't be hid. It can't
be hid. Philippians 2.14 says, Do all
things without murmuring and disputing, that ye may be blameless
and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst
of a crooked and perverse nation. What sounds like today, doesn't
it? Among whom ye shine as lights in the world. James told us,
every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh
down from the Father of lights. That's where this light comes
from. People say, it's a little light of mine. You ain't got
no light if He didn't give it to you. With whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. And it won't change. I'm back
in our text and I'll let you go. Where do we get this light?
It's only a reflection of Christ. Genesis 1 verse 14. And God said, let there be lights
in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night.
Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.
And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give
light upon the earth. And it was so. I don't want my
own light. I want to reflect Christ the
light. In preaching, I want to reflect Christ's light. In this
community, as I walk up and down the streets, as I talk to people,
as I interact, as I'm an example walking around this community,
I want to reflect Christ's light. In my home, to my children, to
my wife, to my in-laws, my family, I want to reflect Christ's light. I need to declare Him and Him
alone. We need to see Him and Him alone,
and we need to bow to Him. Bow to the Father that gave preeminence
to the Son, that thrice holy God. Verse 18 says, And God saw
that it was good, that it was good. And then verse 19 says,
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. What happened
on that fourth day? We was in darkness. We come to
Genesis chapter 1. My brother Moose says, we swam
out 14 verses and we dove down 19 verses. I used to just be God made the
sun, moon and the stars. The Lord made Christ preeminent
before all things. And anything that a sinner saved
by grace has that's profitable or good comes from Him. We're
only a reflection of Him, conformed to His image. We were in darkness. The Lord gave us this morning,
this light to see that. That's that general calling.