Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 112, particularly verse 4. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. Psalm 112 and verse 4. While we would look at this being an experience of the psalmist and a word for the Lord's people, that in their darkness there ariseth light, and that the Lord is gracious, full of compassion and righteous, Yet we must not lose sight that this psalm, along with many other psalms, are speaking of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is the one that feareth the Lord, as in verse 1, that greatly delighteth greatly in his commandments.

It's his seed, his people, that shall be mighty upon earth. The generation of the upright are God's children. They shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house, the Lord's house, his building, his people, his righteousness endureth forever.

That cannot be said of us except our righteousness is also his righteousness. And so then with our text, unto the upright unto the lord jesus christ there ariseth light in darkness and then he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous and we'll see that this verse is pointing right to calvary We think then of other parts of this psalm. Verse six, surely he shall not be moved forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. All the time we can see our Lord Jesus Christ, his triumph at Calvary and what he has done for his people. He is the good man. He is the upright one. He is the righteous one. All of these passages, they point to our Lord Jesus Christ. Upon my spirit this morning is the light arising in darkness. And I pray that it might be a help to any that have been walking in a path or are walking in a path of darkness at this time.

There are, in the word of God, three types of darkness in this world. And there is, most solemnly, that outer darkness, outside, beyond, under the judgment of God. But four types. In this world, there's the physical darkness, the night, and then the day. We know what it is at night time, we have the darkness. And sometimes God has used that darkness, and we'll look at those times perhaps a bit later, for either judgment or separation.

Then there is spiritual darkness. By nature we are dead in trespasses and sins and are not able to understand or comprehend the things of God. We are in spiritual darkness, intellectual darkness. A natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them. The understanding is darkened. In original sin, following the fall, we are separated from God. And it is as if the things of God, though we may have the Word of God before us, the things of God before us, They mean nothing to us at all. We read the outside words, but we don't discern the meaning. There's no application to ourselves at all. The natural man is just in a state of total darkness. That is spiritual darkness. And God's people, even when they are called by grace as well, do know those times have felt darkness upon their souls.

Then there is a moral darkness, that is the presence of evil, the works of evil that men do. Our Lord says that men will not come unto the light because their deeds are evil. Men love darkness rather than light. And so That picture of darkness is where there is evil things that are done and said and practiced in this world. And then we have, fourthly, the power of darkness. That is Satan, demonic, satanic darkness. God's people are said to be delivered from the power of darkness. And he is Satan that binds the hearts and minds of men. And he is really the prince of devils and prince of darkness. And these four things in this world, they describe that darkness. And when we read in our text, unto the upright, there ariseth light in the darkness.

In these four things, there is a real hope and expectation for God's people that even in this darkness, the Lord will give light and light will arise. So I want to look with the Lord's help firstly at darkness, a symbol of separation and difference. And then secondly, darkness that the Lord overcame at Calvary, and thinking especially of our text and of the different ways darkness is described as we set it forth. And then lastly, darkness felt by the Lord's people. But firstly, the darkness is a symbol of separation and difference.

When God created the world, we read that there was darkness, darkness upon the face of the deep, darkness everywhere. And it was the Lord that came and said, let there be light. And then when there was the light, he divided the light from the darkness. Later on, when he gave the sun, the moon, and instituted the division of day and night through that means, but right from the very start, even before the sun or moon was formed, it is God that divided the light from the darkness. That is God's power.

The apostle Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, he goes back to the creation, his second epistle and chapter four and verse six. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And the apostle takes that creation work of our Lord and applies it to illustrate in a spiritual sense this is the same God that commanded the light to shine out of that darkness. He has shined in a spiritual way in our hearts to give the light by the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So we have that separation right at the beginning in creation. Then we have when the Lord began to show his signs and wonders in Egypt, one of those signs was to give darkness over all the land of Egypt, a darkness that could be felt. But there's a separation because the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. A remarkable thing at first, some of those signs and wonders, the plagues that they had, the children of Israel, they suffered the same. But then it began that the Lord was putting a difference. And one of the differences was with the darkness, what the Lord did, giving his people light, but darkness upon the Egyptians.

And that wasn't the only thing. When they were eventually brought forth out of Egypt, then they came to the Red Sea. And the Egyptians, they pursued after the children of Israel. The children of Israel were very concerned. They cried unto the Lord. They felt that they would be destroyed there with the Red Sea in front, the mountains either side. the Egyptian armies after them.

But the Lord came and he put the cloud between the children of Israel and the Egyptians. and he was light to the children of Israel but darkness to the Egyptians and they came not one at another right through the night season. God put that, he put that difference and used that darkness to actually preserve his people and mark out again the blessings of light.

There ariseth light in darkness. And then when they came to Mount Sinai, we have Moses drawing near to the thick darkness where God dwelt. It was at Sinai where the law of God was given. And we might think, how is this possible? that we read that God is light, a light that no man can approach unto. But Moses is said to go to the thick darkness, but the darkness there was used as a veil so that Moses was not consumed, the people were not consumed. They weren't to see the bright light. Moses later on, when he came down from the mount, His face shone. But the Lord used that picture or used the darkness as a protective barrier so that they were not consumed.

Darkness then is a symbol. It's a symbol of separation and difference. And this especially is seen. in the difference that God makes with his children. We said of the natural darkness, the unbelief, the fallen nature of man. And God comes and he makes a difference. He separates darkness to light.

And often that will separate between families, between those who have been friends, coming out from among them, touch not the unclean thing. One has light, the other does not have light, and it separates. The Lord gives his word to his people, and those that are still in darkness, they hate that word, they rise up against that word, and it brings about a separation.

But it works for good, because the apostle Paul He says, the world is crucified unto me, and I am crucified unto the world. When God works, then it makes his people not want the world and the things of the world, but it makes the world not want God's people, which makes it easier for them to separate. and to also see whose they are and whom they are serving. And so we should realize and understand how God uses this particular thing, the illustration, the symbol of darkness, and how it can be used for the people of God to show them more clearly whose they are and whom they serve.

And I want then to look secondly at the whole foundation of this, where we come to Calvary, we come to the Lord's work, what the Lord overcame at Calvary. The darknesses at Calvary. We read in our reading where there was darkness over all the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. So that corresponds to that which we said of a natural darkness and yet a darkness that was used and very symbolical, very evidenced same as it was in Egypt, so that you have there at Calvary. In fact, you could go and you think the darkness when the Lord worked the works of creation, then when he formed his people out of Egypt, and then when he redeems his people, remember the Passover that was instituted in Egypt, Passover just before the Lord suffered. And then we see with the darkness that the Lord endured. And the Lord's cry in that darkness, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But that wasn't the literal darkness. But that literal darkness, the light arose in that. It didn't always remain that. Light came afterwards.

But the other light that was overcome was that darkness due to sin, our original sin. The Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us that we might know the righteousness of God in him. He was put in the sinner's place and the wrath of God, which was due to be poured out upon his people, was poured out upon him. And so in that wrath, in that darkness of what was felt in the very soul of our Lord, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? If we just look at the Lord's literal sufferings of the pain, great as it was, of the cross, with the nails, with the crown of thorns, with his whip back against the cross, all that he endured on the cross, that is nothing compared with the wrath of Almighty God. Really, our Lord there was set forth as enduring the wrath of God against sin so that men could see it.

They could see it in a very tangible, a very real way. For a man that said there's no cause of death in him, his innocent man, and yet he was silent because he knew what he was standing for. He knew the sins of his people laid upon him. He knew what he was enduring. And the prophecy is that They shall look upon him whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for him.

And I, if I be lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me." If ever there is a time and a spectacle that God would say, this is what sin is. This is what darkness is. This is what is due to sin. This is my wrath against it. upon my beloved son. In Psalm 80, let thy hand be upon the man at thy right hand, the son of man, whom thou made a strong for thyself. Awake a sword against my shepherd, the man that is my fellow. And that is what is being seen at Calvary.

That is how sin is set forth. in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so darkness, the darkness of sin, if any soul is to be given light, to be given spiritual life, to be raised from spiritual death, it is because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done at Calvary. He has paid the debt, he has settled the debt, he's taken away the sentence against his people, fulfilling the law, but also enduring that wrath for them. And it is because of that that light ariseth. For any sinner to be given light in their soul, any sinner to be saved from the darkness of spiritual death, it is because of what Christ has done at Calvary, what He has endured. The payment is settled.

Another aspect, he overcame the powers of darkness, that is Satan. The very first promise was that he shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. It was the time of Satan's power and strength at that time, this is your hour. But it was when the Lord overcame Satan, when the accuser of the brethren was cast down, when those powers of darkness, demonic darkness, were overcome and destroyed, and that Satan has no power against the people of God.

All they need to do is to point to that precious blood, point to what Christ has done, point to the redemption, the price, the deliverance that was wrought at Calvary. What a mercy that we may view there, that darkness overcome. But there was another one as well, perhaps more evident, more open, and that was the moral darkness. We think of the Jews, God's own people.

He came unto his own, his own received him not. They rose up, they accused him, they took him and by wicked hands crucified and slew him. And yet in the midst of that darkness, and it may be so you can't find in the history any such acts so morally wicked and so horrible as to what they did to the Lord, the Lord who had only done good, who had healed the sick, raised the dead, who had preached the gospel, who had set the truth before them, but they hated it. They rose up against him.

They cast him out, as it were, of the vineyard when the Lord tells the parable of them casting out the sun, the air from the vineyard. And yet in what they were doing, they were fulfilling the counsels of God. Him that was delivered from the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God, ye have taken by wicked hands, crucified. and slain. And so the light in that darkness, in that moral darkness that was there, the light that shone, was God perfecting and fulfilling His determinate counsel. Men thought that they were fighting against God, they were putting an end to the Lord Jesus of Nazareth, but in actual fact, they were fulfilling His will.

This is what we need to remember. In this world we have these darknesses, and these darknesses all culminate at Calvary and what the Lord Jesus Christ has done there. It may be truly said of the words of our text, unto the upright, unto the Lord Jesus Christ, there ariseth light in the darkness. In the midst of that darkness, literal, natural darkness, satanic darkness, moral darkness, spiritual darkness, there arose the light of eternal life, the light of the truth of God, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, all arising at Calvary. So when we read in our text, unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness, And then we read, he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. How precious to view that as flowing from our Lord Jesus Christ.

That which he suffered was not for himself, but for his people. It was that he might receive gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious, also that the Lord might dwell among them, that he might be able to give to his people graciously, freely, sovereignly. Give them what they didn't deserve, but give them what he had purchased, and give them eternal life. He is gracious, but in what he's done at Calvary, he made a way that he could Give that grace in the very way that God's people need it. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be made rich.

It is through what Christ has done. He is the executor of his own will, and he then graciously gives to his people that light, that light that he has purchased for them, those blessings that he has given for them. If you and I ever have spiritual light, if we're delivered from the moral darkness of this world and delivered from satanic darkness, it is through the Lord Jesus Christ, justly, righteously, delivering us from it, and graciously giving us those blessings.

And full of compassion, the Lord knows the path of his people. We read in Hebrews that he is a sympathising high priest over the house of God. He remembers them, he knows them. We think of that time with the disciples on the lake, it was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them. And how he came to them walking over the sea, how he saw their fears, how he calmed their fears with his word, how he stilled the waves, how he brought them immediately to the land where they went. What an encouragement, where the path that we have, with all of its sorrows, all of its difficulties, all of the darkness that we may feel, to know that the Lord is compassionate. He feels for his people.

He knows our sorrows. He knows the trials. He knows those things that we are laboring underneath. And he is righteous. Everything that he does has been paid for. Nothing is unfair. everything is done righteously and is imparted to his people not only to put away their debt but to give them a righteousness to stand before God faultless before his throne.

This text beautifully speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ and it's these words especially that ariseth light In the darkness, in it, not after it, but in it, in our darkness, in our trials, in our unregeneracy, in our difficulties, in our perplexities, there ariseth, in God's time and in God's way, there ariseth light, understanding, help and blessing, comes from the Lord.

I want to look at the darkness felt by the Lord's people. The first one I'd speak of is that spiritual darkness. When the Lord first begins with a sinner, then they first begin to understand their fallen state and their fallen condition. They first realise the darkness that they are under.

It is important to realise this. Remember we said how the Lord makes a difference. He made a difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites. He made a difference at creation. It is that difference that marks out the very beginning of a call by grace. If you're awake early enough and you see the day start to dawn, it gradually comes, doesn't it? Gradually light comes, and then it ends up to be full light. But the Lord has made that difference between the night and the day. He does this in a spiritual sense.

If any poor sinner, if you feel in any way the darkness on your soul, the unbelief, the alienation from God, the distance from God, the hardness of your hearts, how sinful you are, how ignorant you are of the things of God, You look at the doctrines of grace, you say, I hardly understand them, I know them. You look at the word of God, you can't see, you can't understand it. You know, when the Lord Spirit sent Philip to the eunuch, there is the eunuch reading the scriptures, but is there light upon it? Understandest thou what thou readest?

How can I accept man Some man guide me. Who is the prophet speaking of? Himself or some other man? And Philip, he begins at the same scripture and preaches unto him Jesus. And the light was given through that sermon. At the end of it, he could testify that Jesus is the Son of God. He could desire to be baptized and to walk in the way the Lord would have him go. What a difference, what light was given in one sermon. And yet the very first evidence, you might say, of life was that he realised his darkness, he couldn't understand the word.

The Lord always spoke with parables and the disciples even, they couldn't understand them, they came to him. expound unto us the parable, show us the meaning of it. And the Lord highlighted, he said to them, what, do you not know these things? If you do not know this parable, how will you know any parables? He spoke that especially the parable of the sower, which is regarding hearing the word of God. If we are strangers to that, how shall we know anything?

But the disciples were. And they needed to be taught by the Lord. But the difference between them and the multitude, the multitude, they heard the parable, but didn't discern that there was aspects of it that they did not know. They were in darkness spiritually. They'd heard a natural story. That was all. They could go away. But with the disciples, they wanted to know what it meant. They wanted to know the spiritual teaching and they asked the Lord for it and were given it.

Light has come into the world but that light is not in ourselves, it is in the Lord and it is to be realised then and first realised by a sinner and do be really encouraged in this because perhaps we can look back to a time that you never realized your ignorance.

You never realized your distance from God. You never realized any darkness upon the world at all. But the Lord has made a difference and then it is felt, then it is realized. And where there is light with the unit, our text, there ariseth light in the darkness.

You think of how it was with Saul of Tarsus, Paul, and the path that he walked. Now he thought he was a righteous man, he was a Pharisee, but did not realize the darkness he was in. But when God met with him, and he was blind for three days, then he knew that darkness. But then God gave him light, and you see the clarity, the difference between before and after the Damascus road.

Light upon the word of God, then opened to their understanding that they might understand the scriptures of what the Lord did when he rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples. Light from darkness makes known our interest in Christ's death. But then there's also that darkness that is felt by the Lord's people through their lives, and especially in a spiritual darkness.

You read in the book of Job, and remember that Job was an upright man. He hated evil. walked in an upright way. And God said to Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job? And he accused Job of only serving the Lord for what the Lord did, hedged him about, kept him from evil, prospered him. So God gave him permission to try Job, to test him. Because Satan said, you touch all that he has, and he would turn and he would curse thee to thy face.

That is what natural man would have done. But under the grace of God, Job's reaction was the Lord gave and the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But that trial got harder and harder, harder because his own friends who came to comfort him, they falsely accused him. They couldn't understand his position. He said miserable comforters are ye all.

You know, in the book of Job, there are 34 times that dark or darkness is mentioned in the book of Job. The nearest it comes to it is 25 in the Psalms and 24 in Isaiah. But in the book of Job, so much. Job, he, oh, that I knew where I might find him.

Now he found, even though he was an upright, righteous man, that darkness was upon his whole walk. He couldn't work out what God was doing, what a dark providence and path that he walked. And you can read through that book all that that dear man experienced and went through. If you are walking in darkness, If you can't understand the things of God, and you know we get like that, and we do in the ministry, and sometimes we don't realise the light we've had until it's taken away.

Just take it for granted that the Lord gives one text after another, and you can open up and you can preach from it. But then when the Lord comes and he makes the whole Bible as if you can't find a single text in it, And it's completely dark, and you can't understand one passage or another passage. And you think, well, I've read all of those passages, and I know all of that history. And it just seems, nothing seems special. It just seems ordinary, and there's no life in it at all. And then you realize that The light you've had was given, and that by nature this is how man views the Word of God.

When we send forth the Bibles, do we really realise that we're sending it forth to men and women and children that look at the Word of God, and it means nothing to them? They're not touched by it, and they cannot be unless the Lord shines, unless He blesses it, and we are commanded to send forth the Word, and to go forth with the Word of God, because we know that God does make light to arise in darkness. So the Word is sent forth into a wicked world, a dark world, a world that knows not God, a world that fights against the Lord like they did at Calvary, a world that says, we will not have this man to reign over us, But the Word of God is set forth as a light into that darkness that God sovereignly touches this one or that one. Paul says of the Thessalonians that the Word came not unto them in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. They had to wait at Jerusalem until they had that power. But God's people are to be reminded sometimes of what they were like before the Lord began with them.

And it can be very frightening, frightening to realize that apart from the Holy Spirit's work, we have no inner light. And if the Lord takes it away, if the Lord withdraws it, we are left in darkness. We are left like Job and looking here and there and not finding at all that helps that we're looking for. Until the Lord's appointed time, the Lord did give Job life.

He did appear for him. It did come that his friends had to come. They had to offer sacrifices. Job had to pray for them. The Lord did vindicate Job. He made the latter end of Job better than his beginning. We think of in the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 50, verse 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant?

And we find an amazing thing, that walketh in darkness and hath no light." Now, without a text like that, you'd say, surely, if one is fearing the Lord and obeying His voice, aren't they walking in darkness? Aren't they in line? Aren't they converted? Aren't they saved? And yet, joined with that, in their own feelings, they walk in darkness, and they don't have light in their souls. But what is the word?

Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. And then immediately after there's this verse. Of those who manufacture their own light, behold all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled, This shall ye have at mine hand, he shall lie down in sorrow. In those two verses, you have a contrast. You have those that have no changes, therefore fear not God, because they make their own light, their own understandings, all natural.

But then you have the Lord's people that fear the Lord, and they're dependent upon the Lord for every bit of light, understanding. that they have. And they're to wait on the Lord, trust in the Lord. What a word for any of us here walking in darkness. Let him trust in the name of the Lord, stay upon his God.

But we have this of Jeremiah as well in the Lamentations, of course, Jeremiah saw the destruction of the temple and all that had gone on there. He says in Lamentations 3, I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He had led me and brought me into darkness and not into light. The experience of God's people brought into dark places.

And we see that especially sometimes in providential ways. They're dark paths and we cannot understand what is happening. Job, he says, is set in dark paths. And again, going back to Isaiah, we have a promise there in Isaiah 42 and verse 16. And I'll bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I'll lead them in paths that they have not known. I'll make darkness light before them and crooked things stray. These things will I do unto them and not forsake them. These promises are very precious because they're not only promises, but they show the reality of the path of God's people.

Did Joseph understand and have light and know all that was going on in his path? Did Jacob? Did even Abraham? How many? They've had to walk it out, and they've been dark paths. We sung in our hymn, why through darks and paths we go, we may know no reason. And we sometimes don't.

Until the Lord then gives light, gives understanding, brings us out from it. But the real encouragement with our text is that there's that light in the darkness. In one place we read about the treasures of darkness. And sometimes it is in these places that we learn lessons and we are taught things we'd never learn another way.

They're hard, they bring us low, they bring us dependent, but they magnify the Lord. They magnify His grace. They bring us to lean hard upon the Lord as our guide. If we were blind, literally blind, we'd need someone to guide us, someone to lean upon. And the more we felt our blindness, the more we'd lean and trust on them. And so with darkness, the darker the path that we're in, we are forced. We cannot go for our own wisdom. We cannot understand our own way. We must commit it to the Lord. We must bring it to Him.

And the encouragement here is to wait for the Lord to do it. And blessed be those times when that light begins to arise in that darkness. we might see some precious truths there we would not have found in any other way. Fellowship in one place with the Lord Jesus Christ and then with his people like Job and others. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion. and righteous. May the Lord bless this word, make it a help and a means of light to our souls. Amen.