Let's get our Bibles and go back
to John chapter 8. And let's deal with the subject
this evening of light and darkness. That's our subject, light and
darkness. Our Lord Jesus has been teaching
in the temple. He has been in attendance. at the Feast of Tabernacles. That has now ended. It's about
six months before his substitutionary death. After he had finished
teaching the people, at the end of John chapter 7, he went up
into the Mount of Olives, which was a place he was accustomed
to go. He often went there to seek the
face of the Father. And as we studied last week,
now as we get into chapter 8, he goes very early. About the
time the sun was coming up the next morning, he goes back to
the temple And as he was beginning to instruct the people in God's
Word, and indeed the Scriptures say,
others said of him, and this is recorded in the Word of God,
that never a man spake like this man. My, what a teacher he was
as he broke open to those who assembled to listen to him. He
broke open the Word of God and said before them, their needy
condition and then told them about himself. I'm sure he went
back into the Old Testament as he did every time that he preached
the Word and he instructed them in the things concerning himself. He talked about his upcoming
sacrifice for sin and oh what a great teacher he was. as he
set before them the Old Testament pictures and types of the sacrifice
for sins that he would be himself. And so he goes back to the temple
to instruct these people and as he begins to open the Word
of God, he's interrupted by the scribes and the Pharisees who
bring before him a woman who was taken in adultery. I would remind you that the Pharisees
and the scribes, they often mocked him. They often ridiculed him. They often attacked him. The
Pharisees, they were the legalistic sect of Judaism. The word Pharisee strictly means
those who are separated. The people of Israel, they named
them Pharisees, the separated ones. These are the ones who
believed that they kept God's law and that their justification
was based upon their deeds. And of course, that is absolutely
against the Word of God because the Scripture says, by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. If a sinner is to be justified,
he's got to be justified by God's free grace. He's got to be justified
by the sacrifice, the bloody death of our Lord Jesus. And we receive that justification,
the fact of it. We receive it by faith and we
give evidence of it. as James says, we're justified
by works. We give evidence of justification
by our works. But these Pharisees, they believed
that salvation was by works, which they made sure that the
works that they did were observed by others. They did their works
to be observed and seen by men. And our Lord in Matthew chapter
6 says that those who do that sort of thing, they receive the
reward that they want as people congratulate them for their good
works. He said they have received their
reward. These are the Pharisees. And
then there are the scribes. Indeed, as We've studied before
concerning those who are the scribes. They were the ones who
wrote the scriptures. That is, they wrote it again,
copied the scriptures. They studied the scriptures.
They sought to interpret God's law. And they were the so-called
experts on the Bible. And they with the Pharisees often
ganged up on the Savior along with the chief priests and the
elders and the Sadducees. They were always at odds with
Jesus of Nazareth from the very start because he exposed them
for what they were. He showed their utter incompetency
of the Scriptures. They didn't know the Scriptures.
In fact, on one occasion, the Lord said, you don't know the
Word of God, you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know
the power of God. They professed to know the Scriptures.
They professed to understand the Word of God. And indeed,
they did know the letter of God's law, but they didn't understand
the sinfulness of themselves, and therefore, consequently,
the sinfulness of others. And they didn't understand the
necessity of a blood sacrifice for acceptance with God. These
were people who believed that they were accepted by God upon
the basis of their own works. And our Lord often exposed them.
He exposed their hypocrisy, He exposed their ignorance, and
they just absolutely detested Him. So, throughout our Lord's public
ministry, there's been this kind of ongoing conflict. between the scribes and the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the chief priests, the rulers of the synagogue,
the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court in the land. And our Lord
Jesus, they are always at odds with one another. And they've
got to be at odds with one another because works and grace just
can't get along. It's just no way that those who
believe in salvation by works, salvation by the deeds of the
law, they just cannot abide those who believe in salvation by grace
alone. through the substitution or death
of the Lord Jesus alone. The two cannot mutually coexist
in fellowship. As we read in the book of 1 Corinthians,
the Apostle Paul says, fellowship with darkness. They just can't
do that. So, it seems that everywhere
our Lord went, the Pharisees and the scribes, they managed
to show up and they always raised some point of controversy with
our Lord Jesus. Well, here in John chapter 8,
they bring before Him very early one morning a woman caught in
adultery. They made their accusation to
the Savior, to Jesus of Nazareth. They stated what the Law of Moses
said, and they waited for His response. If He says, release the woman,
then they'll say, Well, you don't love the law of Moses. If they
say, stone the woman in accordance with the law, then they'll say,
we knew he wasn't really the friend of sinners. We knew he
wasn't really the savior of those who have broken God's law. And
so they think they've got him over a barrel. They think they
have backed Him into the proverbial corner and that there would be
no way out for Him. But our Lord Jesus is infinite
wisdom. In fact, He's the one who makes
us wise. We read in 1 Corinthians chapter
1 that It says, God has made him to be to us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Our Lord is the
very wisdom of God. He has all wisdom. He has the
Spirit of God without measure, this man Jesus of Nazareth. And so, our Savior Rather than
having the woman stoned, he dealt with his situation in a way that
only the Son of God could deal with it. As we went through last
week, he knelt down on the ground and he began to write. And of
course, there was a little exchange of words. And then he said, he
that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. men who brought in this woman
began to leave from the oldest to the youngest. And our Lord
Jesus then said to the woman, woman, where are those nine accusers? They all left. And of course,
the law of God said that there had to be two or three witnesses
for every word to be established. And this accusation against the
woman, it could not stand unless there were two or three witnesses
who were in agreement that indeed she had been caught in adultery.
But all the men left. They were convicted in their
consciences of their own wrongdoing and convicted by the Spirit of
God. It wasn't evangelical repentance, but it was a repentance that
God gave them so that on this occasion they were so disturbed
and so moved in their hearts about their own guilt that they
couldn't pick up a stone and stone the woman. And they left. Our Lord Jesus said to her, neither
do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. Our Lord, you know,
He has found the way whereby those who are ungodly, those
who are sinful, can be justified, made righteous, forgiven of all
sin, and yet God's law and God's justice is still honored. There's a verse of scripture,
I want you to turn to it as you hold your place there in John
chapter 8. Look at 2 Kings chapter 14. I'm sorry, 2 Samuel chapter 14. 2 Samuel chapter 14. No one but God in His infinite
wisdom could arrive at a way whereby the sinful could be justified
and yet no damage done to His law. God's law, we said last
week, is so strict, it's unbendable. The law only knows Life and death. If you're innocent, you live.
If you're guilty, you die. That's all the law of God knows.
It doesn't take into account, it will not take into account
any excuse that is offered for violating one of the commands.
It won't take into consideration any extenuating circumstances. The law of God only knows this.
This do and live, disobey and die. when God told Adam back
in the garden. He said, in the day you eat thereof,
you'll surely die. If you disobey, you die. And
that's the way God's law is so absolutely clear cut. There's
no misunderstanding this. And the only reason we would
ever misunderstand this is because we're not listening. Here's what
the law says. If you obey, if you're perfect,
if all of the commandments of God are obeyed perfectly, you'll
live. No question about it. But if
you break God's law, even one point, you're guilty. You're guilty. And the guilty
have to pay. Interesting verse here, 2 Samuel
14, 14. For we must needs die, and are as
water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.
Neither doth God respect any person, yet doth he devise means
that his banished be not expelled from him. We're banished from
God's presence just like Adam and Eve were banished from the
garden. And rightfully so. They had sinned. And we've been banished from
God's presence. And isn't that justice? That's
rightfully so. We have sinned against God. We haven't lived up to perfection. We've come nowhere near perfection.
In fact, we don't even know what perfection is. We don't know
what holiness is. We don't really understand what
it means for somebody to exactly obey the law of God. We don't
know what that means because we're sinful creatures. We violated
God's law over and over again and we're banished from God.
The Lord said to Israel, your sins and your iniquities have
separated you from Me. Here's this great mountain between
us and God. We can't go to God, we won't
go to God. And God, because of sin, He can't
come to us, because God's a consuming fire. He must devour us if He
comes to us in strictest of justice, because of our sinfulness. So we must be banished from Him,
and yet in God's wisdom, He has devised the means whereby we're
not expelled from Him. What has that means? And that's
the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're not expelled
from Him. In fact, God in justice, in justice,
He embraces us because His law has been honored by the doing
and the dying of His dear Son. It isn't that God sets law aside. It isn't that God says, well,
I'm going to be merciful at the expense of my justice. He cannot
do that. He must honor His justice, and
He has honored His justice in the punishment of sin, in the
death of His darling son. The Word of God says the wages
of sin is death. God got death from His Son. He's the only worthy substitute
who could die in our stead and His death stand good for everybody
for whom He died. All of those that God gave Him
before the world began, All of those whose names were written
down in the Lamb's Book of Life. God's Book. Every name written
there. Our Lord Jesus. He came to this
world. He had taken the responsibility
for all of our sins. He said, put it on my account.
I will repay. When that debt came due in due
time, Christ died for the ungodly. God has found the way to restore
His banished ones. That we be not expelled from
Him forever. Expelled. Remember back years
ago, you used to expel students from school. Well, they still
do that maybe every once in a while. They do that. That means put
them away. Put them away. You can't come
back. Why is it that we're not expelled from God? Why is it
that God doesn't say, listen, you've sinned against Me, so
you're put away from Me forever and ever? The reason is because
of our substitute. God sacrificed for sin, and this
is just the sacrifice we need. This is just the Savior we need.
Isn't this the Savior you need? And if you do need this Savior,
then come to Him. He's a worthy Savior. He's an
able Savior. The Scripture says He's able
to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. You
say, I'm such a sinner. I shared this with you in a message
a little while back. I talked to a man at a restaurant.
He said, I'm such a sinner. I said, well, Christ Jesus is
the Savior of sinners. This is His specialty. You say,
I'm so terrible, I'm so rotten. Well, that's a fact. But no need
to despair about it. No need to say, there's no hope
for me. There is hope for sinners in
that One who is Christ Jesus the Lord. He is our hope. We have an absolute confident
expectation of future glory because of who he is and because of what
he's done for sinners. He is our hope. He is our hope
of glory. Here's what the Apostle Paul
says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We have a good hope through
grace. Is that right? We have a good
hope through grace. We have a very confident expectation
of glory, of heaven, of everlasting life, of being with the Lord
God of heaven forever and ever and ever. We have it through
grace. Through grace. We read in Romans chapter 5,
Paul says grace reigns through righteousness. Through righteousness. So back here in John chapter
8, our Lord didn't make void the law of God. He didn't do
that. There were no accusers. He saw
to it in His magnificent providence. There were no accusers to cast
a stone at her. Then we get to verse 12, where
our brother began his reading this evening. Then, then, he had been interrupted by these
scribes and Pharisees who accused the woman, but now he resumes
his teaching. And here's what he says, I am
the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. What does
it mean to follow the Lord Jesus? To follow Him? Well, that's faith. That's faith. To follow Him. He said, my sheep, what do they
do? Hear my voice. And I know them,
and what do they do? Follow me. What does that mean?
We come to Him. We trust Him. We embrace Him. We cast our souls upon Him. We follow Him. Revelation chapter
14. Who are these that have washed
their garments? These are the ones who follow
the Lamb whithersoever He goes. We follow Christ Jesus. We believe
Him. We rest in Him. We trust Him. Now, as I was looking at this
passage of Scripture, it sort of dawned on me that the Lord,
in the Gospel of John, He has made use of natural things in
order to teach spiritual truths. Back in John chapter 4, He sat
down on Jacob's well and he was thirsty and he was weary. And a woman of Samaria, one of
his elect, back up about verse 4 in chapter 4, it says, he must
needs go through Samaria. Why must he needs go through
Samaria? Well, because one thing, he was
written in the book of God's decrees. And in that book of
God's decrees, there was her name. She's one of God's elect,
and she must learn the gospel from the Savior. She must be
confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ. But she sees him at Jacob's
well. And that which is obvious in
the story is water. Water. And He uses that as a
kind of a starting place to teach her about the water of life,
that if she drank of that water of life that He would give her,
she'd never thirst again. A little bit further over, we
get to John chapter 6, and our Lord feeds 5,000 men plus women
and children. A couple of fishes and five little
barley loaves. The subject is bread. The first
subject back there in John 4 was water. John chapter 6, the subject
is bread. He used that in order to instruct
them in this fact. He said, I am the bread of life. I'm the bread come down from
heaven. And now here we are in John chapter 8. Early in the
morning. That's what the scripture says. Look at verses 1 and 2 of John
8. Jesus went unto the Mount of
Olives and early in the morning He came again into the temple. The sun is rising. The day was
beginning. The sun was beginning to shed
its light, casting its beams upon the city of Jerusalem. It's
October. There's a bit of an autumn chill
in the air. And now that autumn chill is
giving way to the warmth of sunshine. And as the rays of the sun begin
to shine in the temple, he's in the treasury area. As the sun began to come up and
the rays came down, that gave him an opportunity for another,
for another sermon. And he says, I am the light of
the world. I'm the light of the world. Oh,
what a need there is for this light. We've got to have this
light because we're in darkness. We're born in darkness. In fact,
we don't even have spiritual eyes to see. The Scripture says
that. That's the reason we read in
Proverbs chapter 12, the hearing ear and the seeing eye comes
from God. You can't see light unless God
gives you eyes to see it. Because we're in the dark. We're
in spiritual darkness. Ephesians chapter 1 talks about
that. Darkened minds? That's us by
nature? What does darkness stand for
in the Bible? Darkness stands for ignorance. Ignorance. You see, faith isn't
ignorant. Faith believes that with which
it's instructed. Ignorance is the mother of superstition. Ignorance is the mother of false
religion. You see, as we look into the
Word of God, as the Spirit of God enlightens our minds, the
light of the knowledge of God comes in. And this ignorance
goes away. But by nature, we're ignorant
of the things of God. We're ignorant of who God is.
Remember what the Lord said to Israel? He said, you thought
that I was such a one as yourself. You thought I was just like you.
We're ignorant of God. We're ignorant of ourselves.
Well, I'm not so bad. There are others worse than I
am. Like this woman here in John 8 called an adultery. Well, I'm
not like that, you dear ladies in here, with your virtue and
your Good living? Moral living? Say, I'm not like this woman.
If you don't see that you're a sinner just like this woman,
it's because you're still ignorant. I don't want to offend you, but
you're just ignorant. You're in the dark. You're in
the dark. And you see, those who are in
the dark don't realize the dilemma they're in. They don't realize
the danger that they're in. You're on a broad road that leads
to destruction. You're in the dark. You're in
the dark. You don't know there's a great
big pit waiting for you at the end of that road. And you don't
even know where the end of the road is because you're in the
dark. Darkness in the Bible stands
for ignorance. You don't know who God is. We
don't know who God is. We don't know what we are. We
don't know the remedy for the ruin of sin. We don't know that no man can
come to God except through the Lord Jesus Christ. Darkness stands
for ignorance. Darkness speaks to us of that
which is satanic. That which is demonic. That which
is of the devil. It's the Lord who has to deliver
us from the power of darkness and translate us into the kingdom
of His dear Son, which is the kingdom of light. Satan has a
power over us that we can't break. It's going to take a will greater
than your will, a will greater than my will, to break the will
and the bondage that Satan keeps us in. It takes the will of God! Talk about man's will, free will,
from now till the proverbial cows come home. But Satan holds
men captive at his will. That's the Word of God now. Read
2 Timothy chapter 2, that's what God says. Satan holds men captive
at his will. And there's only one will that
can break the will of Satan, and that's the will of God. That's
God's sovereign will. That's God's effectual will.
That's the will that gets things done. That's the will that overcomes
our will. Thy people shall be willing when? In the day of thy power. Darkness
in the Bible stands for sin and unbelief. Darkness in the Bible stands
for error. And men love darkness rather
than light. That's what it says back in John
chapter 3. And I'll tell you this, if we
die in spiritual darkness, we're going to enter into everlasting
darkness. That's a darkness that will never
end. But you know what? The good news
is, our Lord Jesus, He's come to give light, and He does give
light because He is the light. This is one of His great I Am's. I am the light of the world.
Yes, we're in spiritual blindness. Yes, we're in spiritual darkness.
But bless the name of Christ Jesus. He who is the light has
come into this world. God sent light into the world.
In Isaiah 42 we read, And the light shineth in darkness. You know what He did? He has
entered into the darkness of this world. And He even entered
into the darkness of the wrath of God for us. That's why none of His people
will ever experience everlasting darkness. Because He went into
that darkness for us. When He died as our substitute. Then He sends Christ Jesus who
is the light of the world. He sends His Spirit to give us
eyes of understanding. He gives us the light of His
grace. We don't walk in darkness anymore. We walk in the light. Isaiah 9 verse 2 says, The people
that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, on them hath the light
shined." Here's a woman here in John chapter 8 who walked
in darkness, and you know what happened? The light shined on
her! The light was drawing her unto
Himself all along, as we said last week. And He even used the
scribes and the Pharisees. He used these hypocrites to bring
this woman into Him. And there she is in her darkness,
her spiritual darkness. But she's standing before Him
who is the light. And He gave her light. She's
not in the darkness anymore. Where are those thine accusers?
No man, Lord, no man, Lord, neither do I condemn thee." You're in
the light now. You're in the light. He sends the Word of God to us. That's the light that shines
in our darkened hearts. Psalm 119, 105, Thy Word is a
lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Isaiah 9, 8, the Lord sent a
word unto Jacob, and it hath lighted, it hath enlightened
Israel. He's enlightened you. Why do
you understand the gospel? Why do you grasp this very basic
of all? the greatest of all messages,
and you understand the basics of the gospel of how God can
be just and justify the ungodliness, because you've been enlightened!
You've been enlightened! He has illuminated your darkened
mind, just like He's illuminated mine. The light has shined in
our hearts. And someday we're going to enter
the everlasting light of His presence. Because it says in
the book of the Revelation that in heaven, there's no need of
the sunshine there. Because the Lamb is all the,
what is it? Light in the city of God. His glory enlightens all of heaven. What kind of light is the Lord
Jesus Christ? He's the most glorious of lights.
He's the preeminent light. He's the glory of God. And like the sun that shines
its beams on all of us, He shines on all kinds of people. He's the fountain light. All
light comes from Him. And you know what? He's the light
that doesn't cost you anything. In your house, you burn the lights
like we're burning in here. And I'll say to somebody in the
household, don't forget to turn that light switch off. Because it costs money, but this
light It's free, absolutely free. And as I said, He's the light
in the city of God. Our Lord Jesus said, I am the
light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Light and darkness. And the light
has overcome our darkness, hasn't it? He has overcome our darkness
and we're not in the dark anymore. There's a song in the song book
I want us to sing now. I think it's 213, is that right?
213. The light of the world is Jesus.