We're in Luke chapter 11, and
today we'll be concerned with verses 33 through 36. And the
title of our message for today is called, They Which Come In. Interesting little phrase that's
found in verse 33. This teaching here today has
to do with light and the eye and such and we kind of covered
this a little bit in chapter 8 and we'll review that a little
bit this morning. But right now let's Let's read verse 33-36, and remember
that in context, this is associated with this dialogue that the Lord
has put forth. Remember the people accused him
of casting out devils by Beelzebub and some seeking a sign. And then he said, this is an
evil generation and there shall no sign be given them but the
sign of Jonas the prophet. And then the Queen of the South
shall rise up in judgment with the men of this generation and
condemn them. She came all the way up from Sheba to hear about
the wisdom of Solomon. And He says, and a greater than
Solomon is here. And so, that takes us up to verse
33. where he proceeds and says, No
man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place,
neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which
come in may see the light. The light of the body is the
eye. Therefore, when thine eye is
single, the whole body also is full of light. But when thine
eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed,
therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If
the whole body, therefore, be full of light, having no part
dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright
shining of a candle doth give thee light. And so this is the
fourth instance in the book of Luke that we've been studying
where this topic of light has been taught, has come up. And
if you'll recall in Luke 1, verse 79, the prophecy of Zacharias
about his son John. he said that in mentioning this
John preaching the gospel and he said God would give them a
light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to
guide our feet into the way of peace. So God giving a light
there in Luke chapter 1 verse 79 and then in chapter 2 we have
the prophecy of Simeon at the temple when he held the Lord
as an infant, and he declared him a light to lighten the Gentiles
in the glory of thy people Israel. And of course that came from
the Old Testament as well. And then the last one that we
looked at in chapter 8 of Luke, And it's interesting that this
is almost word for word the exact same words that we find in Luke
11, 33. There's just like one or two
words that are different. It says, they which enter in
instead of they which come in. But aside from that, they're
the same. Luke 8, 16. No man, when he has lighted a
candle, covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed, but
setteth it on a candlestick that they which enter in may see the
light. And so you may recall from chapter
8 that that chapter primarily dealt with the parable of the
sower and that parable of the sower mentioned
over and over and over again about the hearing of the word.
They that hear they when they hear when they have heard all
these talking about These ones various ones that heard the gospel
and yet rejected it well it fell on rocks and they that heard
it when it was like it fell on rocks and it never took root
and and And so we have all those examples of the rejection of
the Word, and yet it says, but they that fall on good ground,
those that, where there's a good and honest heart, receive the
Word and they believe it. So, that's followed up with this
parable of the light under a vessel in Luke 8.16, which deals primarily
with seeing. So, if you remember our two lessons
back then, hearing and seeing the Word. In both instances it says, no
man when he hath lighted a candle. And the man here, it's a metaphor
for the Lord Himself. No man lights a candle and then
covers it. He was very open in his ministry.
He never hid anything. And so we find that the one that lights a candle,
none other than Christ, the very source of life and of light. And light is often a metaphor
for the spiritual hearing of the Word and understanding of
it. So, as we see today, the circumstances
are virtually identical in chapter 8 of Luke and in chapter 11 And
we went over the seed of the parable of the sower in chapter
8 where there was four kinds of ground and it only took root
in the one. And here we have the ones that
Jesus was speaking to and He had cast out this devil and they
said, You cast out devils by Beelzebub, the chief of the devils."
And others said, well, we would see a sign. And he says, an evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall
no sign be given it but the sign of Jonas the prophet. So these
people that he'd been addressing, they had all these signs. He
just got through casting a devil out of a man, and he had healed
many, and he had given sight to the blind, and he had raised
some from the dead, and all these signs that they had seen. And
yet, we find in reality that those mean nothing unless they're
accompanied with some divine power that causes people to see
them for what they are. To many, they were just curiosities.
They were just a sideshow kind of a circumstance. And so, there shall no sign be
given it but the sign of Jonas the prophet. Only those who had
been given a new heart, A heart to believe would believe that
Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead the third
day. And that's what that sign of
Jonas primarily dealt with. He says, as Jonas was three days
and three nights in the heart of the whale, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And that was yet to happen. And he said, there shall no sign
be given them but that. So that was the last remaining sign
that they were going to get. And you know what? They still
wouldn't believe. Isn't that what it says? They
won't believe though one rose from the dead. If they don't
believe Moses and the prophets, they won't believe even though
one rose from the dead. So it's a curious thing that
in spite of all the evidences, and we were just talking about
this earlier, You know, you could look up a word in the Scripture
and define it clearly as it's in Strong's or in the dictionary,
and give the clear definition of it, and people will still
say, yeah, but I don't believe that. It's just, they can't see
it. And that's what this scripture
we're in today has to do with. So, what a wonderful metaphor
we have here for the Lord himself lighting the candle of the glorious
gospel of his saving his people from their sins. No man when
he lighteth a candle Hides it Everything was he says I've not
spoken in secret from the beginning and So he was open he preached
everywhere the kingdom of God, you know, his light could not
be contained it was just evident, but yet we find that the spiritually
blind could not see it. You know, in Luke 4, verses 17-21,
when he went into the synagogue as was his custom, and he stood
up for to read, and they handed him the book of Isaiah, and he
opened it to chapter 4, verse 17, and said, The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach gospel
to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering
of sight to the blind. to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed
the book and he gave it again to the minister and sat down
and the eyes of all of them that were in the synagogue were fastened
on him." Isn't that an interesting thing? He says he was sent for
the recovering of sight to the blind and yet all these people
had their eyes on him and yet most of them could not see that
he was the light, the true light, that He was the Lord. And He
began to say unto them, this day is this Scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And of course, they took great
offense at that. And they said, what's He talking
about there? I don't get it. So in our text
here in verse 33 of Luke 11, there's a key phrase I think
that we should look to to understand this block of Scripture. And
we find the same thing in chapter 8, verse 16. So no man, when he hath lighted
a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel
but on a candlestick. for this purpose, that they which
come in may see the light." And you know in chapter 8, verse
16, it says, "...they which enter in may see." They're virtually
identical Scriptures. The phrasing is just a little
bit different in them, but they both give that same inference
that there must be a coming in to see the light. the first issue. Then we must address the fact
of the light in the person of Jesus Christ. And then next,
the issue becomes one of coming in to see that light. And we
have to ask, well, coming in from where? And those that come
in implies a they which will not come in. It implies that
just by the way the sentence is structured. What makes the
difference? Why do not all come in to see
the light? You think that they would, but
here we just read in Luke 4 where the eyes of all of them were
fastened on him and he read that scripture and said, it's fulfilled,
right? I'm here. And yet they didn't
see. And so can one, we have the question,
can one come in of their own ability any more than a blind
person can see." The next issue then is, in verse 34, it takes
on the next subject of, "...the light of the body is the eye.
Therefore, when thine eye is single, the whole body is full
of light. But when thine eye is evil, the body also is full
of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the
light which is in thee be not darkness." What do we do with
the light? And conversely, what is done
with the absence of light? And finally, in the last couple
of verses here, can there be a mixture of light and darkness? Can you mix those two? if thy
whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark."
You know, the Scripture says God is light and in Him is no
darkness at all. And if you think about it, if
you're in complete darkness, And then there's a light lit.
It's not dark anymore. But when the light goes out,
it's dark. So those two things cannot, they cannot mix. Our first issue then is the fact
of the true light, which presupposes that there's a false light, just
again by the phrasing there, which is really not a light of
all created and kindled by man in vain self-righteousness. I came across an interesting
Scripture in Isaiah chapter 50. If you want to turn back there
for just a moment. in Isaiah chapter 50. What a wonderful Scripture we
have here about the work of the Lord. He says, Is my hand shortened
at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?
And he goes on to describe the Lord in verse 4, The Lord hath
given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak
a word and season to him that is weary. and He hath opened
my ear, I gave my back to the smiters. It goes on to give us
some graphic detail about the things that the Lord would endure
in the place of His people in taking their sins upon Himself.
And then in verse 11, after all these things that describe the
work of the Lord, there's a curious verse here in verse 11. He says,
Behold all ye that kindle a fire. That's man kindling their own
light. Man kindling their own fire.
Behold all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourself about with
sparks. Isn't that an interesting comparison
to the light that's beyond understanding? The light that man kindles on
his own is just sparks like from a fire. They're just little tiny
embers that that shoot up into the sky and then they flame,
they disappear in just a second or two. And they don't really
give off any luminous light. You can see them, but they don't
really shed any light on anything. you compass yourself about with
sparks, you walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks
that you have kindled, this shall you have of mine hand, you shall
lie down in sorrow." So there's a good contrast that the light
that man comes up with by himself ends in sorrow. It's the word
of the Lord there. So, what an interesting contrast
there we find. So, you know, as we were talking about this
in relationship to there being a false light, this light that's
created by man. kindled by man in some kind of
vain self-righteousness. True light from God is declared
from the beginning. You know, we can go back to Genesis
1, and it tells us in Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without
form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God
said, In my Greek Interlinear, in my
raw text, it says, be light. God said, light be and light
became. And God saw the light that it
was good. And here's an interesting part
here, it says, And God divided the light from the darkness,
just as we find here in Luke chapter 11. God divided the light
from the darkness. So under this heading, it's declared
that all the world is exposed to this light, yet few can see
it. And we find that recorded for
us in John chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. In the beginning
was the Word. And this is kind of a New Testament paraphrase
of Genesis 1. In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the same
was in the beginning with God. And all things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made." And we could
go back to Genesis and read that account of that. In Him was life. And life, the life was the light
of men. So it makes this comparison between
life and light. They're synonymous terms. This
life was the light of men, and the light shined in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not. And you know the Scriptures
say, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God for their foolishness unto him, and neither can he
know them. The darkness comprehends it not.
He can't know them because they're spiritually discerned or understood. So what an allegory we have with
this issue of darkness. And you know, a lot of times
you look up in your concordance and you find darkness is synonymous
with error. bad error, and not only just
an absence of physical light, but error, spiritual error. And
then in verse 6 of John 1, there was a man sent from God whose
name was John, the same came for a witness to bear witness
of that light, that all men through him might believe. He was not
that light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light. And
that was the true light. Remember what we said? Well,
if there's a true light, then by implication there's a false
light. He was a true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world. And you know, having established
that the truth of the light in Christ which lights every man,
it becomes plain that the problem is not with the light. The problem
is with man. due to sin and the fall which
has blinded them spiritually. Every man is lighted by this
light." You know, Romans says that they're without excuse.
The heavens declare the glory of God. Creation, everything
about it declares this light. And so, And the question becomes,
why or how could someone come to what they cannot see or understand? And Paul goes into that about
the Gospel, and he says, if they can't hear, how can they believe
in one whom they've not heard? And so on and so forth. And he
says, that's why it's so important to preach the Gospel, because
God has used that medium of the preaching of the Gospel to save
them that believe. They can't see or understand
it without divine intervention. And so, firstly then, what is
the impetus for coming in that they may see the light? There
has to be a coming in to see the light. The scripture is plain
that the natural man will not come in of his own volition.
Jesus Christ said, how oft would I have gathered you, and you
would not. You will not. And you always
resist the Spirit. You know, in Job it says that
man desires not the knowledge of the light. Depart from us. We desire not the knowledge of
thy ways. They plug their ears and they
close their eyes. They don't want it. And that's
just how we are by nature. You know, the very opposite is
true in that man actually loves darkness rather than light in
our natural condition. And very much in context with
that truth is recorded for us in John chapter 3. As the Lord
had been speaking to Nicodemus, and he says, you must be born
again. Unless you're born again, you
can't see the kingdom of God. You can't see it. It's there. It's not hidden, but your eyes
are blind. You can't see it. And unless
you'd be born again, you certainly not only cannot see it, you can't
see it and you can't enter it. And so there's no coming in there
unless you're born again. There's no coming in. You either
come in to see the light. So as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness in John 3, 14, So must the Son of Man be lifted
up. And here's a picture of Him being
lifted up on the cross. And we all know that story of
what He did on our behalf. And that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. You know the
Universalists, they quote that all the time. But you go back
to the Old Testament and you read that, and people would not
look up. I'd rather die than not come."
And they did. Whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have eternal life. For God, here's their verse
that they like to quote. And there's nothing wrong with
this verse in context. with what we read before it and
what we read right after. But in verse 16, God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God
sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the
world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not
condemned. Hallelujah for that. But he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son. And he says, And this is
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Everyone that doeth evil hates the light, and neither comes
to the light, because it His deeds will be reproved. And we
find that very principle here in our block of Scripture, here
in Luke 33-36. Boy, when that light shines in
and the fullness of it comes in and the whole body is filled
with light, we find out a lot of things about ourselves that
Ezekiel said, when that happens, you're going to loathe yourself.
And it you know what happens when that happens when that light
comes in and floods your whole body with the complete light
of Christ and you see that which You say oh my god. How did I
do? It just makes you more desperate For the Savior that saves you
from that. It makes you so much more appreciative
this. Thank God. He saved me from that
That yesterday I didn't even see that and even your very thoughts
and the intents of the heart that we think are hidden maybe
from God and certainly from others that we dwell on, those are exposed
and we have to deal with them under that light. And the only
way we can deal with that is saying, God have mercy on me,
a sinner. Everyone that doeth evil hates
the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that
his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought in God." Now
that's an interesting sentence there. He that doeth truth. one that believes. And that's
all that doeth truth amounts to, is believing that Jesus is
the Son of God and He came to pay for the sins for His people
and save them. And when that happens, when that
belief is given, they come to the light. They come in, just
as it says here, they which come in may see the light. They come
to the light that his deeds may be made manifest." Well, what
deeds are those? It's not the deeds of, well,
I accepted Jesus, or I wrote my name on this piece of paper
here that pledges that henceforth I'm going to do this or that.
all these ceremonial things, the baptism or partaking in communion
or circumcision or any series of religious things that people
have been engaged in since the beginning of time. We bring our
own lettuce and melons and say, here's what I've done, my deeds. You know what we find out? Our
deeds are manifest that they are wrought in God. And that
main deed is belief in the truth. And that is wrought in God. He
has caused that to happen. And that's so important. This
should be underlined in your Bible. They are wrought in God. It's a disservice to the truth
to select verse 16 out of this block and build an entire false
doctrine from it when it's completely surrounded by the truth of the
depravity of man and the grace of God. Isn't it interesting
that right in the middle of that we have this man-loved darkness
rather than light? And the only thing that we have
is belief, and that is wrought in God. And in the middle of
that, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son. So context is everything. Context is all there is. On the other side of that verse,
you know, the truth of the fall, our nature without regeneration.
We love darkness because our deeds are evil and we don't want
light shined on them. Now, because of not rightly dividing
the truth of God and extracting verse 16 and using it as a sole
basis for universal salvation and thus free will to accept
or reject it, you just have to leave off verse 19 through 21.
You just have to take your your mark out pen and redact that
as the government's so fond of saying all the time. That's redacted.
Can't read that. But you know, if you don't have,
if you've not been given eyes to see it, it won't really matter
in the long run. But if you have been given eyes
to see it, you say, man, that's true. That is the truth. You know, in John 321, it's. The deeds are manifest that they
are wrought of God, it says in the scripture, not of him that
willeth. Not of him that runneth, but
it's God that shows mercy. In Isaiah 42, verse 16, he says,
I'll bring the blind by a way they've not seen. They can't see it because they're
blind. And he says, and I will make darkness light. He that
doeth truth. He comes to the light and He
embraces it. One that doeth truth. He comes
to that light and embraces it. And embraces Christ totally for
salvation and He comes to the concluding truth that all their
deeds or all their works in believing in Christ for salvation are wrought
in God. You know that's what it says
in Ephesians 119. We believe according to the working of His
mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead. How much plainer could that be?
But you can't see that because the skin of flesh is pulled down
over your eye. I was thinking about that yesterday
when I was kind of going through my study and adding a few things. But isn't it interesting that
the Lord in making us, He gives us an eyelid. And when it's closed,
it emits no light. But when it's open, the light
comes in. What a picture. It's just kind
of like the picture of circumcision that we find in the Old Testament.
Remember what you mentioned in Jeremiah, their ears were uncircumcised. a fleshly covering over them
so they couldn't hear the word. And then they stuck their fingers
in there and made sure, doubly sure, they couldn't hear it. So, back to our question, what
does it take to overcome this love of darkness and rejection
of the light of the truth? You know, both those light and
truth are synonyms for Christ. He is, He says, I am the light. And He says, I am the truth.
He is and always, and those have an eternal application there. He is light and truth. So what does it take to overcome
that love of darkness and the rejection of it and come to the
light, to come to Christ? Well, you notice it says, no
one can come to Me except the Father which sent Me to draw
him. It takes that drawing of the Father. Nothing short of
a divine work of grace, electing eternal love, saved by grace,
called in time, all those things come into play. In 1 Peter 2.9
it says, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people. And that peculiar doesn't mean
we have three years and an extra long nose or something. It means
we're bought and paid for. It has to do with redemption. We've been bought with a price.
that you should show forth the praises of Him who hath called
you out of darkness into His marvelous light." So that's what
it takes to come in to the light, where it says, that they which
come in may see the light. that they which enter in may
see the light. You have to be called out of
the darkness and into that marvelous light. You know by nature we're
born spiritually blind and in truth We are darkness. Isn't that an interesting thought
there? Because that's what it says in
Ephesians 5, 8. For ye were sometimes darkness. At one point in your
life, up until the time He called you out of that darkness, you
were darkness. You were the error. You were darkness. But now, Are
you light and not of yourselves? You are light in the Lord, it
says. So walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit
is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what's acceptable
unto the Lord. So what makes the difference
then is the work of the Father. And that's what it tells us in
Colossians 1 starting in verse 12. It says, giving thanks unto
the Father which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, coming into that light, who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of sin." So there's that work of
the Father again. enabling us, empowering us to
come in to see that light delivered from the power of darkness and
translated, converted. When you translate something,
you change it from what it was to something else. When you translate
Our New Testament written in Greek, it's translated. It's
changed from Greek into English so that we can understand it.
It's not what it formerly was. It's different now. It's the
same, but it's changed. It's translated. Having then established that
the ones which are they that come in, so they may see the
light, are they which God hath called and drawn to his Son,
whom he hath delivered from the power of darkness and translated
into his kingdom." It's a particular work. And, you know, we have one of
our doctrines that we believe in is particular redemption.
And, you know, there's a great example that we find of that
in Exodus. It's metaphorically illustrated
there in Exodus chapter 10, where the Egyptians, which oftentimes
in Scripture we find that Egypt symbolizes the world at large,
and the children of Israel symbolizing the church. In Exodus chapter
10, the Lord said unto Moses in verse 21, Exodus 10, 21, The
Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand toward heaven, that
there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness
which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his
hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the
land of Egypt." How expressive is that? Darkness that could
be felt. Darkness that was so dark it
was thick. That's how bad it was. And Moses stretched his hand
toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land
of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither
rose from any of his place for three days. But all the children of Israel
had light in their dwellings." Isn't that interesting? It didn't leak out. So now we come to verse 34. The
light of the body is the eye. Therefore, when thine eye is
single, the whole body also is full of light. But when thine
eye is evil, thy body is also full of darkness. The eye itself
does not create light, but it's the entrance to the body for
light physically and as a spiritual symbol. And it's interesting,
we mentioned earlier that in the design of God that we have
eyelids of flesh that when the eyelid is closed, covering the
eye, no light is admitted, and when that flesh is removed, the
light comes in. And now we come to this truth
about light within ourselves, and this main truth contained
here is that when the glorious light of Christ shines in our
hearts, there can be nothing else. He is the fullness, He
is the completeness. The whole body is full of light.
And we mentioned earlier how that illuminates things in us
that make us more appreciative of ever of Him saving us from
our sin. And therefore, it says, when
thine eye is single. I like what Spurgeon wrote about
that. He says, when the eye is single, it doesn't look at two
things at the same time. Isn't that an interesting way
to look at that? But really that word single means,
it's a word that means union and it kind of gives an example
of how when things are braided together they become one. You
have two strands of something but you braid them together they
become one. And that's when we become one with Christ and He
is our all in all, He is our fullness, then that's what we
see. The whole body is full of that. And we just can't tolerate anything
else. And so we have this metaphor
about this eye, the physical organ through which light enters,
and spiritually the same. When the eye is single, the whole
body is full of light. It means to shine luminous, to
make manifest, to make known. We make known that we're full
of Christ. And that's what it tells us in
2 Corinthians 4, verse 6 says, 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. What a way to put that. You know, when our eye is single,
it doesn't look at two things at the same time. It sees only
Christ. And in union, it can only admit
completely and in fullness that which is shined into it. It has
nothing of its own. And in that, what Paul said in
1 Corinthians 15, he says, First, that which I also received. I
didn't come up with any of this on my own. How that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried,
and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
Just as Jonah was three days the sign of Jonah the prophet.
So, in verse 35 it says, Take heed therefore that the light
which is in thee be not darkness. Now, in truth, if the true light
of Christ be in you, there can't be any darkness. God said in
the very first chapter of Genesis that the light is divided from
darkness. They can't intermingle. This must speak to a light that's
not from Christ, but originating within man himself as a feeble
imitation, and truth is really no light at all. And we read
that in Isaiah 50, verse 11. You kindle your fire, and you
walk by the light of your own fire and your own sparks, and
the end is woe, is sorrow. And you know, the Scriptures
Kind of describe this condition is common and it's written about
quite a bit in the New Testament in Jude chapter 1 There are certain
men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men that turn the grace of our God into
lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus
Christ. You know, lasciviousness there
is mostly thought of in terms of sexual content, but it also
conveys a definition of opposition. And in Vine's New Testament dictionary
it says it means shameless conduct. And maybe that has to do with
sexual stuff, but there can't be anything more shameless than
denying the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the condemnation
that men love darkness rather than light. What greater condemnation
could there be? What conduct could be worse than
that? And certainly the religious leaders of then and now were
guilty of denying the very Christ in front of them, denying grace
and substituting works or the keeping of the law, substituting
man's free will in the place of sovereign grace. You know,
a key phrase we find here in verse 36 is, having no part dark. having no part dark. You cannot
claim grace and then attempt to mix some sort of darkness,
some self-righteousness, some other works, keeping of the law,
what have you. We mentioned some earlier. You're
saved by grace, but as an example in the New Testament, you still
need to be circumcised. We know you're saved by grace,
but when you put that but in there, it kind of erases everything
that goes before it. So, not to dwell on that, but
it's an error which Paul called out in the Galatians. He said,
I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called
you. to a gospel that's not even another
gospel. Where did that come from? So
conversely, if the eye is evil, that means it's devoid of all
light and truth. Then the body also is full of
darkness. That's in 34b there. When the eye is evil, the body
also is full of darkness. You can't add a little work of
darkness onto grace and make it whole again. It can't happen. It can't be done there. God divided
the light from the darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the
light which is in thee be not darkness. We all know ones that they seem
to have light, but do not. They say all the religious stuff,
they do all the attendance and the things that you associate
with religion and God, but they have no life. As long as I live,
I'll never forget that pastor in Two Rivers that said, I asked
him, I said, well, what does it mean in Ephesians chapter
1 then? And I can see him putting his
foot up on that chair and putting his elbow on his knee and his
head in his hand. He says, I know it says that,
but I just can't go there. He had no light about that. He
just absolutely did not. You just can't tear that chapter
and the next one and the next one and the next one out and
say, well, that's not right. You seem to have light, but you
do not. You go about as the Pharisees dispensing in error and calling
it truth. Woe unto them that call evil
good and good evil, but that put darkness for light and light
for darkness, Isaiah 520. Woe unto them that are wise in
their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. You put darkness
for light, bitter for sweet. and call it
good. Woe to those that teach works
in the place of grace. The two can't be mixed any more
than darkness can be mixed with light. So we'll close in Romans
chapter 11. Verse 6, where the apostle wrote,
and if by grace, then it is no more of works. And otherwise,
grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more works.
If by grace, not of works. So we'll stop there, and next
time we'll pick up starting in verse 37. And he has supper with
some Pharisees that kind of exemplify all the things that we've been
talking about. And they said, you're talking
about us. I perceive you're talking about
us when you're saying all these bad things about us Pharisees
and scribes and lawyers. And he says, woe to you. Woe
to you. So, woe to them that put darkness
for light and bitter for sweet. So thank you for your attention.
As always, be free until next time.