All right, Matthew, chapter six,
titled our lesson this morning, Light and Darkness. We'll just
look at two verses in Matthew, chapter six, beginning in verse
22. The light of the body is the
eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be
evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? Light and darkness. Light is
what enables us to see. I find the older that I get,
if I'm reading a book or something, the more light that I need. I
used to, I remember sitting in a room reading and my dad would
come in and say, how come you're reading in the dark? It's not
dark. Now that's what I say. I need more light to be able
to read and see. We know the same thing's true
spiritually. We need spiritual light to be able to see. And when we talk about seeing,
we're talking about understanding spiritual truth. We need God
to give us spiritual light to see God, to know who God is,
to understand what God's like, his character. He's not like
we think he is. He's how he is, how he's revealed
in his word. We need spiritual light to see
who we are. We're not who we think we are
either. We need spiritual light to see how sinful that we really
are and how much we need God to save us. We need spiritual
light to be able to see and to understand how is it God saves
sinners. Now we need spiritual light to
make us be able to see, to understand these great truths. But you know,
we also need spiritual light to be able to love these truths. It's not just seeing and understanding
with a head knowledge, it's to love these truths. The Lord,
when he speaks of light, he talks about light and life. It's light
to see and life to love. That's what he's talking about.
And darkness has to do with death and unbelief. Now look at John
chapter eight. We need this spiritual light. And you know that the Lord Jesus
Christ is that light. He is the light that we need.
We'll see everything as it is if we see it in His light, in
light of who He is. John chapter 8 verse 12. Then
spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the
world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but he shall have the light of life. See,
He's talking about light and life, and darkness is death. Look at John chapter 1. If we
have Christ, we have both light and life. John 1 verse 4. In him was life, and the life
was the light of men. He is the light. And this tells
you how blind, how dead we are. That light shined in the darkness,
but we couldn't see it. God has to reveal that light
that's shining. That's what verse five says.
And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended
it not. That just shows you how dead, spiritually dead and blind
we are. The light shined in darkness
and we didn't know it. God has to reveal that to us. So light
has to do with life. Now look in Acts chapter 26.
Darkness has to do with unbelief and death. Acts 26, verse 18. The apostle Paul says,
this is why Christ came and why the Lord was sending him out
to preach. Verse 18, to open their eyes and to turn them from
darkness to light, from darkness to light. And the darkness is
the power of Satan unto God the light. that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified
by faith that is in me." That's how we're turned from darkness
to light, from Satan to God, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now look at 2 Timothy chapter 1. The way that God has ordained
to give life to his people, the way that he has ordained to turn
his people from our darkness to his light, is through the
preaching of Christ. This is how Christ is revealed.
Christ the light is revealed through the preaching of the
gospel. Second Timothy one verse nine, who has saved us and called
us within the holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. This was determined by God before
the world began, but we didn't know anything about it, did we?
That's why he says verse 10, but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death
and he has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Christ the light, Christ the
life is brought to, is made manifest, is seen through the preaching
of the gospel. Now, back in our text, Matthew
chapter six, the Lord is teaching him. He talks about this light
and darkness. He's teaching us how much we
need Him. That's the point of these verses,
how much we need Christ. We are either filled with light
or we're filled with darkness. There's no in between. There's
no shades of gray. And by nature, we're all darkness. We have a nature that will not
believe God. We have a nature that hates God. We're all darkness. And since we're all darkness,
we refuse to come to Christ. We refuse to trust him. We refuse
to love him. We refuse to beg him for mercy.
We're full of darkness. So if we're going to have light,
we need God to fill us with light or we're going to stay in our
darkness. Now here's something that's very
sobering. A human being can be fooled on this matter of life.
That's what the Lord says. You can think you have light,
but really what you think is light is darkness. We can think
we have light when we don't have it. Well, if that's the case,
if we think we have light and we don't, we're in great darkness,
in great danger. And I tell you what great darkness
is. Dan mentioned it in his prayer. It's having a head knowledge
of spiritual truth. Great darkness is having a head
knowledge of Christ is having a head knowledge of the ABCs,
the technical ways that it is that God saves sinners is to
have a head knowledge of those things without an experience
of grace in the heart. That's great darkness. Great
darkness is knowing who the Lord is, is knowing some facts and
figures from from scripture, but it's not knowing him. It's
not trusting him. And I'll give you a perfect example,
the demons. They knew the Lord Jesus was
the Holy One. That's what they called Him.
You're the Holy One. They knew who He was, but they didn't believe
Him. They were begging for mercy, and that is great darkness. Now, I would say this, and I
would venture to say everybody in this room would say this.
I'm pretty sure I've got some light. Pretty sure God's given
me some understanding. He's given me some good teachers.
I feel like he's given me some understanding of Christ from
the scriptures. But a man can be fooled about
this, this matter of light. So how can I know if I have light
or darkness? How can I know if what I think
is light, is it light or is it darkness? How can I know? Well,
the answer is simple. And really it's the answer to
every question about salvation. The answer is the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you believe Christ alone,
you're full of life. If you believe Christ alone without
anything that you do to be added to it, your body's full of life. But if you think salvation is
Christ, plus even the smallest thing you do to make it effectual,
you're full of darkness. I don't care what it is that
you know, you can know true facts from scripture, but if you think
you've got to do something to make that effectual, that one
little thing that you think that you can do, or that you have
to do, and I guess if you think you have to do it, you think
you can do it, makes your body full of darkness. That's what
the Lord meant when he said the light of the body is the eye.
I looked up that word eye, it means vision, But you know, it
also means envy. It means envy. It comes from
the word, which means to gaze upon. And that fits just exactly
in context with what the Lord's been teaching. He's been telling
us true religion is from the heart. It's a motive. It's not
the outward act. It's from the heart. And we saw
the verses last week. The Lord talked to us about our
treasure. What's your treasure? What is it that is your heart's
desire? That thing which is our treasure
is the thing that we want more than anything else, and we'll
give up everything to get it. That's our treasure. Well, if
the Lord Jesus Christ is your treasure, you'll gaze upon Him. You will envy having Him, so
you won't look away from Him. And if you're looking at Christ
alone, and you're trusting Christ alone, then your whole body's
full of light because he is the light of the world. The Lord
says if your eye is single, if you're looking to Christ alone
with one single focal point, your body's full of light if
you're looking to Christ alone. And that word single means exactly
what you think it means. It means single. It's a single
focal point. And it comes from the Greek word
meaning alpha. the first and foremost thing.
If Christ is the first and foremost thing to us, if he's our single
focal point, then our whole body is full of light. And everything
becomes simple when you're looking at one thing. Everything becomes
simple. When all you need is one thing,
everything becomes simple. It's simple because nothing else
matters. That's why scripture calls the gospel the simplicity
of Christ, because Christ is the single focal point. He's
the single subject of it. I heard a quote from Brother
Chris Cunningham this week. He said, if every message that
I preach should be, you should be able to entitle it, Christ
and Him crucified. And if you can't, it ought not
be preached. because Christ is the single focal point. He's
the single subject of the gospel. And if our single focal point
is Christ, suddenly the gospel becomes simple. The gospel is
the gospel of the eternal God. The gospel reveals the glory
of God. The gospel is the most majestic,
all-encompassing story that there is. It's so great, the gospel
is, it's so great that the best human minds cannot comprehend
it. But the gospel is so simple,
a little child can understand it and believe it. Because the
single subject, the single focus of the gospel is the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we're not wrong. It's not
presumptuous to say we have spiritual light if Christ is our single
focal point. And that's what the whole gospel
tells us. Christ is our hope. Christ is our single object of
faith. He's the giver of it. He's the
sustainer of faith. And he's also the single object
of our faith. We don't hope in anything else
but Christ. We trust in nothing else but
Christ. Christ is our single hope of the forgiveness of sin. How is it a sinner is forgiven
of our sin? by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's forgiveness
in him and only in him. Christ is our single hope of
redemption. We're not redeemed with corruptible
things. Silver and gold aren't redeemed with corruptible things
that we can do or give up, but we're redeemed, Peter said, with
the precious blood of Christ. He's our sole hope of redemption.
In whom we have redemption. In whom, it's all in him. The
Lord Jesus Christ is our single hope of righteousness. I've said
this many, many, many times. Righteousness is not a thing.
Righteousness is not a thing that Christ gives. It's not a
state before God that he gives. It's not a standing before God
that Christ gives. Christ is our righteousness. Righteousness is a person. And
when we see that Christ is the single focus of the gospel, the
gospel is a person. The gospel is not a set of doctrines.
The gospel is a person and you'll understand it and you'll see
it if he's your single focal point, if you're looking at him
and him alone. Christ is our righteousness. For he, God the
father, hath made him, God the son, sin for us, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Him because He is our righteousness. Jehovah said, Kenu, the Lord,
our righteousness. So this is really the question
of questions. Is Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is He your only righteousness? Is He all of your righteousness?
Or do you have to do something to add to it to make it effectual?
It's one or the other, isn't it? Well, If something that you
do has to be added to the righteousness of Christ, to Christ our righteousness,
you'll be damned. I will too. If I've got to do
something to add to Christ, I will be damned because everything
I've ever done, everything I ever will do is completely sinful. That makes me unrighteous. But
if Christ is all of your righteousness, He's your only hope of righteousness,
then your body's full of light. You are righteous. Christ is our single hope of
sanctification, of holiness. We don't become holy because
we live a holy life. Nothing we do is holy. Christ
is our holiness. Christ is our sanctification.
Ye are in Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. It's all here. Christ is our
single hope of not being condemned. Does that ever scare you to think
I just did something awful and God's going to get me for it?
What is our single hope of not being condemned? It's Christ. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. There is therefore no condemnation
to them which don't sin very much. That's not what it says,
is it? There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. He's our single hope of not being
condemned. Christ is our single hope, our
single source of peace with God. We can't make our peace with
God. Christ did. He hath made peace for us by
the blood of his cross. The blood took away the sin that
made God angry, and there's peace. But it's only in Christ. Christ
is our single source of reconciliation with God. Now, Adam caused this
division between men and God. Well, there's got to be reconciliation.
Who can bridge the gap between God and men? only the Lord Jesus
Christ who came by him, Paul said, to reconcile all things
unto himself. Christ reconciled his people
to God. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and he's given to us this ministry of reconciliation
that says, now you stack your arms, you surrender, and be reconciled
to God. Look at Colossians chapter one.
Colossians, the first chapter. Verse 20. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto
himself by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven and you, Even you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in
the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unapprovable in his sight. See, Christ is
our single hope of reconciliation. It's all in Christ, what he accomplished
in his flesh for his people. And those people are reconciled.
They're reconciled to God. They're friends with God. Because
Christ, by his obedience and by his death, made those people
holy without sin. He made them unblameable. Nobody
can blame them for anything. Christ took it all away. He made
them holy, unblameable, and unapprovable. Nobody can charge them with anything.
So they're reconciled to God. But that can only happen in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's our single hope of reconciliation. Christ is our single source of
life. Christ is our life. I've heard scientists and medical
people talk about physical life. They say it's so hard to define. What is it that's life in the
body? You can't touch it. You just know when it's there
and when it's not there. It's so hard to define. Well,
spiritually, it's not. Spiritually, it's not. Christ
is our life. Not only is He the giver of our
life, the sustainer of our life, Christ is our life. When Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with
Him in glory. He is our life. Look at 1 Timothy
1. Christ is our single hope. Whatever it is you're hoping
for, it's in Christ. He's our single hope. Christ
in you, the hope of glory. 1 Timothy 1 verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the commandment of God, our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ,
our hope. Now those words, which is, are
in italics. You just cross them out. They
were added by the translators and they did a lot of damage
to this passage. The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. That's exactly what Paul said.
The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. Our hope is a person. Christ is our single satisfaction. What is it that gives you satisfaction
so that you don't want anything else? It can only be Christ. David spoke for every believer.
As for me, David said, I'll behold thy face in righteousness. Now
that's my hope. And if Christ is my hope, that's
a good hope. I'm going to behold his face in righteousness. I'll
tell you when I'll be satisfied, David said. You think of everything
David had, everything David saw. And he said, I'll tell you when
I'll be satisfied. Not yet, but I'll tell you when
I will be satisfied. When I awake with thy likeness. then I won't want anything else
because I'll have it all. Christ is our single satisfaction. And if something else would make
us satisfied, if we think, I'm going to rephrase that, if we
think something else would make us satisfied, we'll never be
satisfied because it won't. But if Christ is our satisfaction,
we'll be satisfied. Christ is the single reason that
Almighty God would give us anything. You think of that. Everything
we have has come from God's hand. He gave it to us freely, didn't
he? Everything. You think, well, I went to the
store and bought that. You know, I went, I signed a
mortgage on my house and I bought that. I'm going to work to pay
for that. Well, that's true. Who gave you the job? Job is
a hard thing to find. Who gave you the job? Who gave
you the health to get up every morning and go to that job? Who
did that? Everything we have, God's given us. Well, can you
think of a reason God would give you anything? Can you think of
a reason that anything you've done would cause God to give
you anything? Not if we're honest. Christ is
the single reason that God would give us anything. He that spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how should
He not with Him also freely give us all things? Everything we
have that God gives to His people, He gives to them for Christ's
sake, for Christ's sake. And if Christ is your single
hope of all these things that we've just talked about, without
anything that you add to it, is that true that Christ is your
only hope? He is your only source of peace. He's your only source
of righteousness. He's your only, the only way
you'd be satisfied. If that's true, then your whole
body is full of life. But if you think you've got to
add something or you've got to do something to make those things
effectual for you, then my friend, you're in great darkness and
great danger. Salvation is in a look. Look and live. Look to one place. Look to one person and live. Don't look to Christ plus your
repentance. Don't look to Christ plus your
baptism. Don't look to Christ plus your moral life. Don't look
to Christ plus your good works. Don't look to Christ plus your
good doctrine. Look to Christ and Christ alone. Trust Christ
and Christ alone and your whole body will be full of light and
life. But if you look to Christ plus
anything you've done, no matter how small it is, that one small
thing, blocks out Christ completely. Blocks out the light completely.
The Apostle Paul said if you're circumcised, and that doesn't
just mean circumcision, it means any one point of the law. If
you try to keep any one point of the law to be saved or to
be more saved, the Word of God says Christ shall profit you
nothing. That one attempt to keep the
law made Christ profit you nothing. That one little thing walked
out Christ completely and left you in full, total darkness,
the darkness of death and unbelief. You know how Paul knew that his
countrymen were still in the darkness of unbelief? Oh, they
were religious, weren't they? Oh, they're so religious. I mean,
their lives, their society revolved around religion. They're very
religious. But Paul said, They're in darkness. You know how he knew that? Because
they were in ignorance. Going about to establish their
own righteousness and they would not submit themselves to the
righteousness of God. That left them in total darkness. In closing, I want you to turn
back to Genesis chapter 3. The gospel is single. The gospel does not present us
with a choice to be made. You believe Christ because you
have no other choice. God's given you a nature that
believes him and can't believe anything else. You look to Christ
because God's given you a nature that looks to him and can't look
anywhere else, can't find any comfort anywhere else. The gospel
single salvation is single. And if somebody presents that
to you as a choice to be made, I want you to remember what I'm
about to say. So I present this as a choice to you. It's satanic. It's satanic. This matter of
choosing started with Satan. Look at Genesis 3 verse 1. Now
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which
the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea,
hath God said, you should not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree, which is in
the midst of the garden, God has said, you should not eat
of it. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now God didn't
say that. Neither shall you touch it, lest
you die. God just said, don't eat of it. I don't know where
this came from. This is Eve's idea. If Adam told
her, probably a good idea. We don't even touch that. That
way we don't, whatever. That's not what God said. All
God said is don't eat of that tree. And the day you eat of
it, dying thou shalt die. And the serpent said to the woman,
you should not surely die. And I kind of wonder, where she
added to the word of God there, he didn't touch that tree. He
didn't touch that fruit. He said, see, I didn't die. See,
I didn't die. And he says in verse five, for
God doth know that the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened and you shall be as God's, knowing good and evil. Satan said, you eat this fruit.
This is what God knows. Your eyes are going to be open
and you're going to know good and you're going to know evil
and you're going to be able to choose between the two of them.
And you making that choice is going to make you more righteous.
It's going to make you more saved. It's not going to make you dependent
upon God because you make the choice. You're going to know
what's good and what's evil. And Eve ate that fruit. And not
one thing happened. Not one thing changed. Because
Eve was in Adam, her federal head. But when Adam ate that
fruit, Adam and Eve both died. They died. When Adam ate that
fruit, their eyes were opened. But their eyes weren't open to
good and evil. Their eyes were only open to
evil. They were filled with darkness. All they saw was evil. All they saw was hatred. All
they felt was unbelief. When that happened to Adam, that
happened to us. Just like it did Eve, because
he's our federal head. We're in him. When he took that fruit,
we were filled with darkness. So the only way we'll ever be
filled with light is to look to Christ and Christ alone. Now
I pray that the Lord would give us the faith to do just that,
to look to Christ and Christ alone. I pray that the Lord would
give us a heart like Mary, that we would seek that one thing,
which is Christ alone. And really, nothing else matters,
does it? Nothing else matters. Nothing
matters about me. Nothing matters about mine. Nothing
else matters. But looking to Christ alone.
And if we do, God will give us the grace to do that, our whole
body will be filled with light. All right, I hope the Lord bless
that to you.