Walking in Darkness

Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayer for attention to Isaiah chapter 50, and reading from our text, verse 10. Verse 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Isaiah 50 and verse 10. A question, a question pointed to a particular people, those that fear the Lord and walking in a specific way. and encouragement through such. May it be this afternoon a word from the Lord to those that are walking in this path in darkness.

The Prophet begins this chapter with a question as well asking the Church of God to pronounce or find out, show a veil of divorcement. Right through scripture we find the tendency of the Church of God, of God's people, to very quickly get discouraged, very quickly come to the conclusion that they are not the Lords, that they never were the Lords, that He has cast them away, that He has broken His covenant with them. and we find this reinforced. And if your experience and your tendency is like that, then you're not a stranger to what the people of God have walked in in the past. And that's why the prophet, the Lord through him challenges Israel, challenges the people of God to actually produce some evidence for those thoughts that they have and the conclusions that they've come to?

Well, the answer is there was no better divorcement. There's none that, no creditor that they've been sold to, but the Lord then does highlight why, why they're in the condition that they're in because of their inequities and their transgressions. Here he proves that when he calls that there is none that answer and there's none that hearkens to his voice.

But then we come to pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ, pointing to his sufferings. Verse five, the Lord God hath opened my ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned back, I gave my back to the smiters, my cheeks to them, and I plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Verse four, the Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned. He's pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ.

But again, the church of God and the people of God see these passages, see these prophecies and setting forth of Christ and yet they then look at their own state and own condition and think why are all these blessings and these promises and these expectations of blessing but I am not blessed and I am not favoured.

It's almost a similar spirit that those on the way to Emmaus had. We trusted it should have been He that should have redeemed Israel. They were looking at the Scriptures They were looking at what had been said of Christ and what they thought should happen, but what had happened didn't come in line with what they had expected, and they were very discouraged and very low, very despondent, and yet the very things that they'd seen, things that they'd witnessed, was the salvation of the Church of God, their own salvation, and yet they thought, why is this? On the one hand there's promises and expectation, on the other hand there's how I am, how I am walking. They don't seem to add up.

And of course as we have the Gospel preached to us of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there's that hope that is raised up constantly, as often as we gather together, Our Lord is set forth that there isn't another name given among men whereby we must be saved. And the expectation of the people of God that there is salvation in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But then we see a very different case in the world and in the Church of God and in our own Psalms. It is like Asaph in Psalm 73, he said that his steps had well nigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Now that there were no bans in their death, their strength was firm. They were not like other men, they were not like God's people. And it really stumbled him. Why were God's people in bondage and trial and weakness and afflictions? And the wicked were prospering and getting on well. And it wasn't until he went into the sanctuary, the house of God, that then he understood their end. Now death was like, as it were, a veil, and when they passed through that, then they were consumed with terror. They could not see what was beyond the grave.

One of the worst judgments God can give to any people is to leave them alone. Leave them to have their pleasure in this life, no trouble, no affliction, nothing to cause them to call upon the Lord, to just let them go. Now he's not a son of the Lord's favour, but really the Lord just leading us to go our own way. Much better that we are brought to trials and troubles and be brought to pray and to cry unto the Lord, than to be left on our own.

With the Church of God then, has these things that really trouble her, that doesn't seem to balance. On the one hand is all of these promises and blessings and the coming of the Lord, on the other hand is her experience of what she's actually going through. And so we come to the character in the text and the question that is in our text. I want to look at three points.

Firstly, to whom the word is addressed, and I want to just confine it to the description, those among you that feareth the Lord. Then I want to look, with the Lord's help, at what is said of the experience of those that fear the Lord, and obey the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light. And then lastly what is given, the advice, the direction and encouragement given which is let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Firstly there's this question, who is among you that feareth the Lord? Now of course You get the full description, you may include the rest, but I just want to think of that first and think among you.

Is it to be thought that in a congregation that everyone fears the Lord? They don't. This is a searching thing, isn't it? among us here this afternoon fears the Lord. There are people amongst another people, some they have no fear of God before their eyes and others they do fear the Lord. Think of that, cry over that, what is it to fear the Lord?

There is a reproof in one scripture that God says of Israel that they taught the fear of God by the precepts of men. In other words, they made up their own laws and own precepts as to how to act, and God taught them to act in that way. He came to a people that had laid aside the commandments of God, and in their place they put the precepts and commandments of men. And he said that they laid burdens on men that were too heavy to be borne, that they would not take those burdens off them. They made laws, the Tide, Mint, and Cummins, some 638 laws or so that the Jews made.

That is not the fear of the Lord. That's religious rules and commandments decided by men. You know, there's countless congregations or denominations that do that. You've got to do this, and this, and this, and if you obey all of these things, and walk in all of this way, and how you dress, and how you act, and what you say, and what you do, then that's the fear of the Lord. and is replacing what actually is set forth in the Word of God. Not taught by men, but taught by God. He told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. He that believeth that he is, he that cometh to God must believe that he is, that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And really in all the revivals in the Church of God, the fear of the Lord has been prominent. We have it in the Old Testament with David bringing up the Ark of God to Jerusalem. And it was a joyous occasion. They made a new count. They put the Ark on him. And they were dancing, they were singing. bringing the ark up. They got to the threshing floor, and then the opposite.

They shook the cart, and Uzzah put forth his hand to steady it, and the Lord struck him dead. We read that David, he feared the Lord. Who can stand before this great He realised what had happened. Why? Because later on when they brought up the Ark, he charged the Levites and said, you carry the Ark. He did it not at the first in due order.

Therefore the Lord made a breach upon us. And so he learned by what God did. Now God didn't say, the people are all happy, they're joyful, they're bringing up the arm. We'll just pass over the fact that they're copying the Philistines and putting it on a cart and not doing as I told them the Levites to carry it, but the Lord didn't do that. He didn't just pass over it, He marked it.

Great blessing for the Church of God where the Lord marks when we copy the world, and when we start to slowly go away, happy, joyful it may be, that away from the Lord's pattern, and the Lord marks it. For the fear of the Lord wasn't just taught by one aspect, by the judgment of the Lord.

It's not a slavish fear. Heimleiter says, my soul stands trembling while she sings the honours of her God. It's to be a childlike filial fear, like with a child that has a father, parent, that they know loves them, that will do everything for their good and health, but they also know that if they transgress, if they do something wrong, that that parent is capable of bringing a rod and bringing punishment in love upon them. And they have that balance between a loving that parent but a fear of realizing the potential of the correction and dealings that they have with them.

And so the Ark of the Lord then went to Obed-Edom and was three months in his house. But the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom. So on one hand we had the Lord's judgment, on the other hand we had the Lord's blessing, and that's what taught David the fear of the Lord. That's what encouraged him to again bring up the ark of God.

Mark that out in your lives where the Lord gives you those things that you tremble at what the Lord is capable of doing and will do. But also mark where He shows mercy and blessings and goodness to your soul as well. It's the same hand, the same God that deals with our blessings, that also chastises and cracks.

Remember the end of Psalm 107. Psalm where we find the people of God going down into the depths for their sin, and they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses. Not long, they're back down into distresses again, and then they call upon Him again, He delivers them again. Right through that Psalm, And at the end we read, Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. Judgements, mercies. That is what told David. The fear of the Lord. But what about the New Testament Church?

When there was those three thousand blessed at Pentecost? when they were favoured with the Holy Spirit poured out upon them and so favoured that many of them they were willing to sell lands to give their money to the poor and then there was one Ananias and Sapphira that also wanted to appear righteous, wanted to be seen as the Lord's people and be blessed like them but they still wanted their riches. They could easily have sold their land and said to the apostles, we have sold our land for this much, we are giving half to the Church of God. That would have been fine. But they sold it and they made out they were giving all, but they were only giving half. Peter, he says that they had lied to the Holy Ghost. and first Ananias and then Sapphira, they were struck down dead when it was found out each individually that they had consulted together to lie to the Holy Ghost.

We read that great fear came upon the church. All that heard what had happened, who can stand before this God that marks lying Marxist thieving in such a way. And then they had a persecutor in the Church of God, Saul of Tarsus, who was holding men and women to prison, causing havoc in the Church of God. I know that many thought, what shall God do to him? If he did this to Ananias and Sapphira, what shall be done to him?

I wonder how many were praying that he might be converted. If we had one that was causing trouble in our church, that was in the neighbourhood, when we had services, disrupting that, causing the trouble, or taking us off to prison, locking us up in prison, would we pray for that? Conversion? The Lord had blessed them, would we pray and the Lord had judged them? cut them off, where the Lord answered and Lord delivered by converting Paul, bringing him to be the apostle to the Gentiles, making him a great blessing to the Church of God.

On one hand judgment, on the other hand mercy. One no mercy at all, and the other great grace and mercy. If that is not something to make us fear, by the Lord's sovereignty, that He raises up one and casts down another, I will show mercy upon whom I will show mercy.

He is a sovereign God, and the Lord reveals Himself to Moses in that way, and reveals Himself to His people, that they fear Him, He has power to cast into hell. He has power to bless. He has power to save. And the soul that knows what they deserve, and knows their sinnership, and knows what they are in the sight of God, they go fearfully and prayerfully and are very mindful of God as a reality, not just in their minds, really feeling deep within there that this God is a true and living God. He knows my thoughts, He knows what I'm doing, He knows where I am, He knows the motives of my heart, He knows all of these things. My soul is in His hand, my eternal destiny is in His hand.

He is the one that has set forth salvation through His beloved Son. There's another aspect of the fear of the Lord as well, in the very gift of His Son, that rather than pass by iniquity and sin, He would cause His own Son to be crucified and slain, and to endure the wrath of God in the place of His people.

The fear of the Lord is a very real thing, a thing that begins even before a soul perhaps realises that the Lord is beginning with them and certainly before they have any assurance that they are God's people or that they are called by grace. They have that which God puts within them that keeps them from light trifling things and from mocking or saying light things about our God. How many times you might hear from the world is that God is just looking down on you or perhaps someone that's passed away, they'll say, well, they're in heaven and they're looking down. The things of God will be something you cannot trifle with or speak lightly of. They'll be real things. the fear of the Lord.

This question, who is among you the fear of the Lord, that has that real knowledge and persuasion of the existence of the God in whom they have to do before whom they stand now, even though they cannot see Him, is to them very real. How many among them fear the Lord? many others, including myself. Secondly, what is said of their experience? This is what God knows about. that obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness and hath no light. Now something additional of the fear of the Lord.

I bring that person to obey the word of the Lord. An ear is opened unto the word, unto the scriptures, Think of the beautiful promises that are joined in the covenant. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. Great shall be the peace of thy children. My sheep, they hear my voice and they follow me. Thou shalt hear a word behind thee saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it when ye turn to the right hand, when ye turn to the left.

Immediately those that have the fear of the Lord and apprehension of the Lord that had the response that Paul had. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? That desire to know the Lord's will and to walk in His ways. There's another question, isn't there? Maybe you couldn't properly answer the first and say the Lord has given me the fear of the Lord, You may be able to say before God, I do desire to know His will and to do His will and to walk in His ways, to be obedient to the Word of God.

It's a blessed thing where that is found amongst men. Instead of going their own way, wanting their own words and doing their own thing, There's wanting to be conformed with the Lord. The Lord said, this people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. There is a first beginning of a turning from our own way to turning to the Lord's way.

And how is to correct and how is to know what that way is, but to obey His voice and His word. Be not silent unto me, lest thou be silent unto me, or I become like them that go down into the pit. There is another aspect of this as well, that obey the voice of His Servant.

One way of looking at the Lord's Servant is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Another is to look upon the people of God, the Lord's servants and ministers of the gospel. The Lord said to his people, to his ministers, he that receiveth you, receiveth me. And he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. It is on faith, when one has been reproved by a pastor, then they can turn around and say, I will not be told by man what to do when the Lord has told me to do something different.

But what they are saying the Lord has told them to do is contrary to the Word of God. Never come to pass that they can stand and withstand a pastor and a Lord's servant is bring His Word because they look upon Him as just being a man. Don't ever do that with the Lord's servants. The Lord's servant is speaking to you the Word of God. You are to obey that, not your own thoughts, not your own interpretation of it.

If one fears the Lord, jointly with that will be an esteem the Lord's servants and esteem those who bring the Word of God. It won't be holding them to contempt and disregarding them or the Church of God on earth because they are so ransomable to God. Yes, there may be those times that the Church and the Lord's servants are in error, but it should be really the last resort and we prove from the Word of God that it is so.

Now the Lord joins these things together. He says when He sends forth His servants, if you enter into a city and they receive you not, then shunk off the dust from off your feet and you go to the next city. Now joining together, obeyeth the voice of His Son. A good thing to have a teachable spirit He blessed those who were deacons or elders or a mother in Israel and those who were able to direct in the way of the Lord and be followers of the Word of God.

But what the Lord knows of these, though they walk and obey the voice of His servant, yet they walk in darkness. Even though they're walking in darkness, they're still walking. Remember that. We're not to follow the things of God just when we have spiritual light and understanding and enjoyment in those things that we're walking in. What is meant then by walking in darkness and have no light?

You think of the example of Job. Job was a blessed man, one that feared God. One that feared God. Eschewed evil, hated evil. And Satan accused him, said that he only served the Lord because he put a hedge about him, and that if the Lord took away that hedge and cursed all that he had, then he would turn and curse into his face. The Lord gave Satan permission to do that with Job. Poor Job, he lost his family, he lost his goods, and eventually he lost his health. He said, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Then the trial got deeper. His friends that came to comfort him, they thought, well, if this trial continues on, He must have done something wrong. There must be a reason why the Lord's chastening his hand is upon him. We know there wasn't. They didn't know. And so they persecuted him. Miserable comforters are ye all. They had lots of things to say, not of right things, but wrongly applied. They weren't right concerning Jeremy. How easy it is for us to come to a wrong conclusion about another's path of affliction and sorrow and their trials. And it's easy for us to come to a wrong conclusion to ours as well. But Job had to walk that path. But the hardest part was when he comes and he says, Oh, that I knew where I might find him. And he was looking for the Lord on the right hand, on the left, even when he did work, but he couldn't find his God. Darkness was over his mind, he hadn't communion, he hadn't fellowship.

We might put it in the way, instead of reading the Word of God and being like those two in the way to Emmaus, that wherever we read we see Christ and our heart burns within us and we delight in the Word of God. We read it, I've read that before, read that before, and there's no interest in that, there's nothing, I can't see Christ in that portion, I can't see anything encouraging for me, the book seems just like any other book, and there seems a real darkness over the word of God, no light to shine upon it, to open up the word, to see the way of salvation. You know, the Lord is he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth, When the Lord first brought me into soul concern, it was as if the Lord shut the Gospel out of the whole Word of God. Wherever I read, there was the Lord.

It condemned me every page. I hardly read a verse. It didn't cut me down as a guilty sinner. When the Lord blessed my soul, He turned it the other way around. I could hardly read a page or a verse, but there was the Gospel. It was a blessing. Is this the same book? Is this the same way? It was, but it is how the Lord, what the Lord made it to me to see those things in it. And if the Lord then takes away that line and takes away that we are to see the Gospel, we cannot see.

We have darkness. Those who are on the way to Emmaus, until the Lord came and walked with them and opened up the Scriptures, they had darkness. the Apostle Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And though he knew the letter of the Scripture, he knew the Scriptures well, until the Lord visited and blessed him, there was that veil upon his heart. And later on he speaks of that with his own countrymen, a veil was over their hearts. And God's people, when he begins working with that, and sometimes right through their lives, come into times that they walk in darkness and have no light. Sometimes the Lord may do this as a way to show His people whose they are and who has given them life and light in the first place.

Instead of thinking, well, you might be trying to think, well, it's only natural, my religion's only natural, my faith's only natural. I only understand by natural way, it's not the Lord. And you might be plagued and tempted on that, so the Lord says, well I'll answer you that. You think you are like in verse 11, that you are kindling a fire, encompassing yourselves about with sparks, He says of those who walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled, this shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. A solemn position that we can be in charge of our own light. We can be in charge of our own blessings. And we can just kindle them and there's no changes. They that have no changes fear not God.

But if our light is not from us and must sovereignly come from God, and God says, well I'll prove that light does not come from you, and I'll put you in darkness for a time, for a season, you won't be able to see, you won't be able to understand, you won't have that enjoyment, you won't have those comforts. And as you go into that path, He's showing you where the source of your light was. He's modding you.

How many of us have known blessings and afterwards the devil says, that was just a mantra, that wasn't a real blessing at all. Well thankfully sometimes the Lord has so joined a providence with the blessing, well what we've done under that blessing we cannot deny. We say to Satan, that was just a mantra, why did I do this?

Why did I come forward to the church? Why did I confess thee? Why did I make this move in Providence? Why did I change churches? Or whatever it is, things that were drawn. Why did I stay where I was instead of moving with the family away from the house of God?

Now those things were drawn with those blessings, but other times it's not so clear. We might be really tempted, was it really the blessing of the Lord? Well if it was just ourselves, why can't we bring it back? Why can't we read the same portion and command the same blessing again? Why is it that we need some extra light? Some light not from ourselves?

This is what the Lord will teach in that part. What is set before us here, what we call a Christian experience, that which God's people walk through, in their lives, in their thoughts, in their feelings, in their exercise of their soul, they're looking for the Lord to guide them, instruct them, to bless them in their souls, to give them a knowledge of Himself, of union and communion with Himself. And when they can't see that, then it is a trouble to them, a distress to them. It's a good thing. where the Lord makes us dependent upon Him, and looking to Him, remembering the Lord, does withdraw, does cause us not to be able to see. Then to have this token, we are dependent upon the Lord.

Often like with dear Jacob, we might say, well how can we make a move when or in darkness. Sometimes we have to. Maybe moving a house or moving job or things have to be done. We say, but Lord, I really want to be in a blessed state in my soul before I can do this. How can I walk in this dark condition? I like it with dear Jacob.

When he left home, he ventured, he left home, he said, where's your blessing, Jacob? Yes, you're obeying your father and your mother, you're leaving, you're going back to labour. Now where's that anything from the Lord that you're going on? But the first night, stones for his pillow and the Lord blesses him and favours him, he ventured. And you find that just about every move that dear Jacob made, when the Lord enabled him to move and then he blessed him. going to Egypt.

He saw the wagons, he heard what his son said. He said, Joseph my son is yet alive, I'll go and see him before I die. But he was just going off the providences and what had been told him by men. But the first night the Lord comes and blesses him and says that Joseph is alive and he shall see him.

And it's good. Sometimes there is that we are to venture Even in darkness, and we can truly say I'm hedged up with Providence. There's another thing with Joseph. In Joseph's life, there was hardly a single time that you might say Joseph had to make a decision. Did you have to decide, Joseph, whether you went to see your brothers or not? Yes, I obeyed my father. Did you have to decide whether you were put into a pit? No. Whether you were sold? No. To whom you were sold? No. How you came to be in prison? No. How you came to be out of prison? No. It was all taken out of his hand.

Others made the decisions, but God made the decisions. There's some things in our lives we do have to, in the light of God's word, God's light, make a decision. But sometimes it's providence that hitches us up, and it may be Even this afternoon, there's some of you that may be in darkness in your soul, you say Providence is shepherding me, it's pushing me in this way, but I feel dark, I feel I need the Lord's light, I need the Lord's guidance and blessing, but I'm in darkness. But our text says that walketh in darkness. You're still to walk, and you're still fearing the Lord. and you're still a feeling soul, one that is wanting to do what is right in the sight of the Lord. And then you can look back and you see that Lord has shepherded right, and even though in darkness, He's guided you correctly. We sometimes think, well, it's got to be our eyes, we've got to see the way. the children of Israel in the wilderness, the Lord was not only a cloud by day, but a pillar of fire by night. And they were to walk by day and night.

Maybe then the word this afternoon comes to a people that the Lord would say, these are my people. that fear the Lord, but also walk in darkness? And do I obey my voice, but still in darkness? But there's words of direction and comfort for that. I want you to look at these two words here.

The direction is, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon His God. Two words, firstly the staying upon the name of the Lord, that is Jehovah. God will never deny His own name. Of course in the Gospel we know clearly the name which is given above every name, the name of Jesus.

And that God's promise right through the ages was the provision of the seed to the woman that should bruise the serpent's head, it is My servant, the Lord's servant, that should come. And this is part of the covenant. Covenant engagement that the Lord Jesus Christ should take from the Father His people and to redeem them and to suffer for them and to save them. He shall save His people from their sin. And David, in all his trials, he said, Although my house be not so with God, yet it may be made an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, this is all my salvation and all my desire, though he make it not to grow.

Salvation, as Jonah said, is of the Lord. The soul in this position is to trust in the Lord. We so often lean upon ourselves, on our own understanding, our own lives, but here is the trusting of the Lord, and the Lord's covenant, and the name of the Lord, that which He can never deny. I am that I am, I am the Lord, that changeth not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever, as the hymn writer says, did Jesus once upon thee shine, and Jesus is forever mine. The Lord cannot deny His own name.

Then there is to stay upon His God. Of all the words that are very precious, in these last two words, His God. This is one that fears the Lord, that obeys His voice, yet walks in darkness and has no light, and is saying, He's God. He has got a God. The Lord is His God. He's not one that's been put away. He's not an orphan.

The beautiful words you know in Thomas, doubting as he was first, my Lord and my God. And when the Lord was ascending, he says, I ascend unto your father and my father, your God and my God. Blessed thing to know that this God is our God. He will be our God even unto death.

The end of Psalm 48. Beautiful words. The comfort for the people of God is to know that the Lord is their God. They don't want any other. And those things that they pass through, they reinforce this. To whom else can we go? Thou hast the word of eternal life. It makes it more precious to them. They don't have an alternative. They can't turn to sparks of their own kindling. They have no option.

There's many things in life that We might go and we're going to take a bus and we stand at the bus stop and the bus doesn't come. Well if you know the only hope of you getting where you want to go is that bus, you'll stay at that bus stop. But you say well it hasn't come. Well actually I'll go to my friend here and I'll take a car. And immediately you're looking at alternative ways.

But if the Lord brings his people into darkness and he is their only hope, there's no other is a looking to Him alone, that persuasion that it is the Lord alone who will do my soul good, and He is my God, and I will not look nowhere else. Will the Lord bless and encourage you, those that may be in darkness and fear the Lord at this time? Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light, Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his side. The Lord will appear for you. He will show you light in his time and his way.

Walking in Darkness

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Walking in Darkness

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About Rowland Wheatley

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