Well, for our text this week,
I want to come back to the first epistle of Peter, the second
chapter, and the ninth verse. 1 Peter 2, verse 9. And let me read that to you now.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation,
a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him
who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. That's
the thing I want to focus on this morning. Called out of darkness
into his marvellous light. But who is the ye at the start
of the verse? Ye are a chosen generation. You
are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
peculiar people. Who is the you? Well, as I reminded
you last week, you need to look no further than back to the start
of the epistle, the very first verse. The scattered strangers
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia. Those, although
they're worthless in the world's eyes, they're scattered strangers.
They've got no status in the world's eyes, but they're elect.
Elect. They're chosen of God. They're
a chosen generation, chosen of God. According to what? The foreknowledge
of God the Father, which means that he chose out a people to
be the objects of his love before the beginning of time. The foreknowledge
of God the Father. And how do we know it? The Holy
Spirit. The sanctification of the Spirit sets us apart. And
how is it achieved that we who are sinners in the flesh can
know This blessing of fellowship with the living God, it's through
the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
For it is the blood of Christ that makes atonement for the
sins of his people. The blood. The life is in the
blood. Read Exodus, read Leviticus, read Deuteronomy. The life is
in the blood. What is it that pays the price
of sin? The soul that sins, it shall die. It shall forfeit its
life. He shed his blood. He poured
out his life-blood. Any old blood? No human blood,
for sure. But the blood, the spotless blood,
of a lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of the
Son of God. The blood of the Son of God is
what He shed on Calvary for the sins of His people, that we might
be numbered amongst these who are called ye. And how do we
know it? You believe it. You who have believed, you're
kept by the power of God through faith. You are the ones who is
this ye who are a chosen generation. If you believe the gospel of
His grace, if He's brought you to belief, if He's called you,
if He's brought you to belief, you are amongst this ye. And
what a contrast to the rest of unbelieving mankind, the unbelieving
generality of mankind. How different, how many people
we know in and around the world. Some are kind, some are good,
some are gracious, others are rough and harsh and coarse and
everything about them is unpleasant to be with, but yet All of them,
if they're outside of Christ, they're in the same boat. They're
in the same situation. A situation without Christ and
without hope in this world. But not his people. His chosen
generation. His royal priesthood. His holy
nation. His peculiar people. And how
have you got to that situation? Well, it's at the end of the
verse. He has called you. He has called you. called you
out of darkness into his marvelous light. When I was growing up,
and I was a little lad, we had a little pet dog, a little terrier
dog called Meg. And we lived on the edge of the
countryside, and so whether it was right or wrong, you know,
nowadays it's regarded as utterly irresponsible to let your dog
roam freely, but everybody in my village let their dogs roam
freely. And so the dog wanted to go out, you let the dog out,
and it would run away off up the fields, and it would go a
long, long, long, long way. And then we'd say, where's Meg?
And you'd go to the back door and you'd shout, Meg! And you'd
do a particular whistle. I'm not kidding. Within three
or four minutes, Meg would come charging down the field, through
a hole in the fence, and down to us. Because she heard her
voice being called. All the other dogs that were
out there were not called Meg, and didn't hear that voice from
one of us. She knew her family, she heard
that call. Is that not what this is like?
He's called you. He's called you. The living God
has called you, out of darkness, into his marvellous light. Now
then, What do you think of darkness? What do you children think of
darkness? Well, I'll tell you what I think.
I love darkness. Myself, I absolutely love darkness
for sleeping, but that's all. I don't like it for anything
else. At the time of year where we are now, in this part of the
world, 51 degrees north, the sun rises about 8 o'clock in
the morning, and the sun sets at ten to four in the afternoon.
I know that precisely. I have a little app on my phone
that tells me. There's not much daylight this
time of year, and we start to yearn for the long day, because
in the summer, of course, we get the very opposite. It's light
at three o'clock in the morning, and it's not dark till eleven
o'clock at night. That kind of thing. We get loads of light
in the summer, but it makes up for it this time of year, when
there's very, very little. Very little. And we love to light
up. these dark days. I'll do my little aside about
Christmas again, I won't spend long on it, but I just see so
much of people very piously telling believers that you're engaging
in a pagan festival if you celebrate Christmas, and the right and
true thing to do as a Christian is to go bar humbug like Ebenezer
Scrooge and have nothing to do with it, and don't decorate your
house or your garden, and don't get together with friends and
family, and don't have nice food, and wander around with a long
face going, bah humbug, we don't celebrate Christmas. I'm sorry,
I completely do not accept that philosophy. This is a winter,
a mid-winter festival, to brighten up the dark days of this particular
time. It used to be said, and probably
still is, oh let's keep Christ in Christmas. Do you know what
I say? Oh no. No. Let's not try to mingle the
true Christ of Scripture with the world's festival of Christmas,
because that is paganism. No, but let's celebrate with
our friends and family. brighten up these dark days,
string out some nice lights if you want to, to shine brightly
in the darkness. We celebrate the birth of Christ,
the incarnation of Christ, all the time, every day of the year. That's when, all the time. Like
we celebrate his resurrection, not just on what's called Easter
Sunday, but all the time. We rejoice in the fact that he
came, was born, was brought up, lived as a man. died as a man
for his people and was risen from the dead and ascended to
heaven. We rejoice in all of that all of the time, but I don't
want anything to do with this bar humbug spirit about not trying
to be friendly and convivial with friends and family
at this time of year. Anyway, that's the aside about
Christmas over. Now children, you children, you like light,
don't you? You know when you go to bed And
I know, what did Isaac say to us the other night when we put
him to bed? He said, don't put that light off, but leave that
one on out there. Just leave that one, I just like
the comfort of knowing that there's a light on. And you boys, you
like having a light somewhere, don't you? You don't like to
go to sleep without a light on, do you? You don't like it pitched
up. We like light, you like it. It's reassuring, it's comforting.
Because darkness hides possible dangers. Everybody, except those
who are totally blind, like the light. And God agreed. Let's
read what God said in the beginning of the Bible. In the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. And in verse 3, God said,
the very first thing, and God said, let there be light. And because God said it, and
there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good. God saw the light that he created,
and it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. God likes the light. He created the light. but that
was natural created light and that's not what Peter is talking
about here when he says he has called you out of darkness into
his marvelous light he's not talking about natural light what
he means is what we read in 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 6 God who
commanded light to shine out of the darkness Genesis 1 in
the beginning God said let there be light and there was light
God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness has shined
in our hearts, the hearts of his believing people, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the
face of Jesus Christ. That's where it is, that's what
it is, it's spiritual light that he's talking about, and it's
perceived in the face of Jesus. Light that is only sensed by
those with spiritual discernment. For you know, I quote it often,
the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. They're foolishness to him, for
they are spiritually discerned. This is spiritual discernment.
Faith, the sight of the soul, the taste of the soul, the hearing
of the soul. that sees these things that the
natural man doesn't see. And it's only the ye, to whom
Peter writes, that have the spiritual sight to sense this spiritual
light. And if and when you have sensed
it, if you have sensed it, have you sensed it? Have you sensed
spiritual light from God? You know that it is marvellous. It is marvellous light. It is
marvelous light. What is it that makes this spiritual
light of God so marvelous? Well, I'll give you some reasons.
That's the purpose of the message this morning. It's marvelous
because, first of all, it's marvelous because of its contrast to the
former darkness that we lived in. When I was a young lad, and
actually until probably Well, I think the last one's only just
closed, but up until about the early 80s, 1980s, this country,
like so many other parts of the world, had hundreds, hundreds
of deep, deep coal mines, deep coal mines. And you used to drive
around the country and you'd see the big winding wheels pulling
the lifts up the shafts, and some of these shafts would go
down 3,000 feet into the ground, where they'd find coal seams,
and then they'd mine the coal, and there'd be tunnels and galleries
where they'd get the coal out, and they used to build little
railway lines with trucks on. But ponies, little horses, used
to pull the trucks. Before they had electric motors
to do it, and the last pit pony I was reading, only retired very
recently, it's quite remarkable, but they had... These ponies
lived underground. They were fed underground. They
got their water underground. They did their day's work underground.
And do you know the only light that they saw was the dim, flickering
light of a miner's lamp that was the only light they saw until
they got too old to do the job and no doubt there was some cruelty
but on the whole people were very kind to them because they'd
done a good job and when they got to a certain age they were
brought up to the surface having spent all their lives all their
lives not just their working time all their lives in darkness
they were brought to the surface can you imagine the contrast
where they spend all their lives with no more than a glimmering
miner's lamp for light, and they come out into the brilliant sunshine
of a glorious summer's day. Can you imagine the contrast? What a contrast. I heard not
long ago of some fantastic medical treatments for blindness, only
certain kinds of blindness, where they have been able to put artificial
sensors into the optic nerve, And although people who have
been blind from birth don't have perfect vision, I saw a case
of a woman who saw, she saw an image of her son that she'd never
seen. Can you imagine the fantastic
contrast of going from complete darkness to seeing shapes, even
if you don't see clearly, seeing shapes, she saw some. Amazing,
amazing. Many are born blind and I don't
know if you're like me, but the one sense above all others that
I would dread losing is my sight. I think I'd hate to lose any
sense, but the one I'd hate to lose most of all is my sight.
And many, many blind people, or those made blind, born blind
or made blind, they impress me greatly with how they cope with
it. But how they must long for the restoration of clear vision. How they must long to be able
to see like the majority of us can. To see what sighted people
see. You see, I remember one day in
Switzerland, many years ago, and it was a clear, gorgeous
morning. We were in the village of Murren.
in the high alps and it's a beautiful place and it was our last day
there and before we got the train and the cable car back down to
take the flight home etc we went up a little funicular railway
to a very high point and there in this absolutely glorious clear
blue sky was the eiger and the munch with the morning sunshine
shining on them and you know i think i've rarely seen anything
more beautiful Those of you that use our bathroom upstairs, there's
a photograph on the wall. It was absolutely beautiful.
Now, I'm telling you, I could have a blind person with me there,
and I could say, oh, look at that, isn't it gloriously beautiful? And the blind person would say,
I can't see anything. Sorry. You're talking about it,
but I can't see it. I love walking the Cornish coastal
paths. On a sunny day, looking down
in that gorgeous blue turquoise water, it's absolutely beautiful.
And I could have a blind person with me, and they might be smelling
the sea air and enjoying the breeze in their face, but I say,
oh look at the blue of the sea, and they say, I'm sorry, I just
cannot see it. They're incapable of seeing it.
It's the same with spiritual light. You talk to people, what
do you think about God and the gospel of his grace? Nothing,
rubbish, absolute nonsense, I don't know anything about it. The fact
that they can't see it doesn't prove it doesn't exist, does
it? The fact they can't see it, that doesn't prove it doesn't
exist. You see, the scriptures speak often of natural man being
spiritually blind, in darkness of soul, without the knowledge
of God. Isn't it interesting that one
of the plagues, the ten plagues in Egypt, that Moses and Aaron
were to bring upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians because they would
not let the people go. One of them was darkness that
was so thick and dark it says it's darkness that could be felt. We live in a world that there's
so much light that even when it's dark it's not dark. There's
light all over the place. But sometimes you find yourself
in a place, I remember once down a country lane on a night when
there was no moon, and there was cloud cover, walking with
some colleagues from a restaurant, and it was a little country village
down in Dorset. I tell you, that felt like it
was darkness, you could feel it. You couldn't, however hard
you tried, you could not see your hand stretched out in front
of you. We're talking darkness darker than that, thicker than
that. And God's word says in Isaiah 9-2, the people that walked
in darkness. Do you know that by nature, in
our human flesh, as we're born, regarding the things of God,
and true life, and true spirituality, we are the people that walked
in darkness. But bless God, for his people,
they have seen a great light. The reason people walk in darkness
is because they have no knowledge of the One who is light. Jesus
said Jesus said, Matthew 6, 23, if therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, you know, people have wisdom, people have
light, they have the world's light, they have the light of
human wisdom, there is light and wisdom in this world, there
is some, but if that's all you have, That is a darkness compared
with the light of God. He says, if therefore thy light,
the light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? What does he mean? What is it
to be in darkness? Spiritually speaking, what is
it to be the people that walked in darkness? What is it to be
in darkness? It's to have your understanding.
your natural wisdom, the rules and regulations, I'll use that
word again, paradigm, the rules and regulations by which you
order and live your life, darkened, darkened. diminished, not seen
clearly. Ephesians 4, 17 and 18 says,
walk not as other Gentiles walk, because he's writing to Gentiles
who've been saved. He says, don't walk like them
in the vanity of their mind. Listen to this, having their
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness
of their heart. What do I mean? Let me give you
an example. You know, I think many of us in this country have
been watching the BBC series Blue Planet 2 and the marvellous,
it's absolutely glorious photography, it's wonderful, it really is.
But you know, all the time, as much as everybody reveres Sir
David Attenborough, and he's a very nice man, and he's a very
kind and gentle man by all appearances, yet his understanding is darkened. Because he looks at what we look.
I look, as a believer, I know many of you as believers look,
and you see, oh, the glorious things that God has done. You
see there written in it all, the hand of a glorious creator. The design that is there. David
Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, he looks and he sees nothing.
He sees nothing other than the product of blind, random, pointless
evolutionary processes. His understanding is darkened. His consciousness, like the rest
of humanity, is darkened. His human wisdom is so darkened
compared with what it could be. Morality. morality. Without the
light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
morality, basic right and wrong, has no clear compass, it has
no clear touchstone, it has no clear reference point. And so,
as I've said in other places, the last 30 years, more than
any other time, I think, in history, good has become evil. It's been
turned on its head. Everything has been turned around.
That which was regarded as an evil abomination 30 years ago
is now regarded as good. In actual fact, that which was
regarded as good is now regarded as highly suspect and shouldn't
be tolerated. And justice in today's society, the upholding
of right and wrong, so often is turned completely on its head
because of the lack of understanding, the lack of the light of the
knowledge of God. In contrast with that, the spiritual
light that shines in the knowledge of God in Christ's face is marvellous,
isn't it? In contrast to that darkness,
you who have experienced the light of God, if he's called
you out of that darkness into his marvellous light, You know,
this is marvellous light. This is marvellous light. You
know when you say anything about it, it's largely falling on deaf
ears, or on ears that will revolt against what you're saying, but
it's marvellous light. Secondly, Why is it marvellous? It's marvellous because of where
it comes from. Where does this light come from
that we're talking about? This spiritual light. It says
it there, in the verse, in the phrase. Into his marvellous light. Called you out of darkness into
his marvellous light. This light is from God, who is
the only source of life and light. You only have life and consciousness
because God gave it and sustains it. Yet, the natural man, in
your natural state, in your flesh, you choose to believe Satan's
lie of goodness without the justice of God being established. That,
fundamentally, is Satan's lie. Goodness without the justice
of God being established and accomplished. That's his lie.
That's always his lie. Will you acknowledge that you're
in spiritual darkness? Will you? Yes, I'm in darkness. Lord, I'm in darkness. I know
I'm really groping around in darkness. Psalm 1828. The Lord,
my God, will enlighten my darkness. He will do it. It's entirely
of him. You can't switch the light on
yourself, you can only plead to him. Lord, enlighten my darkness. How do we sinful creatures obtain
this light of God? No man in his sinful state, no
man can see God. This is what God said to Moses.
No man can see my face, no man shall see my face. Man in the
flesh, you and I, even as believers, as we are in the flesh, cannot
see God, but by faith. in Jesus Christ. By faith in
Him, we look at Him, and we see God. We see the fullness of the
Godhead, bodily, in Him. Nobody has seen God. We read
it, John 1, verse 18, no man has seen God at any time. No
man in his flesh You know, why do people not accept that there
is a God? Because they're in their flesh. They're in their
sinful flesh, they're blind, they cannot see the things of
God, even though they are there and obvious. To leave them without
excuse, they're open to them, they can see them, it's all around.
But they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and they
can't see Him. But it says in John 1.18, no man has seen God
at any time. The only begotten Son, who is
in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him, or made Him
manifest, or made Him known. It's in Him. It's in God's Son
alone that his people, by whom I mean those who are reborn with
the new man, you must be born again, said Jesus to Nicodemus.
Why did he say that? Because you must be born again.
You must, you must have these senses from God. to sense the
things of the living God, and to see his light. To see this. Where does this light come from?
Jesus said, John 8, verse 12, Jesus said, can you imagine?
Think of it, think of it. Here is one who looks like a
mere man. He looked like a, there is no
comeliness that we should desire him, says Isaiah. He looks like
a mere man, and here is a man that stands up in the midst of
them, and he says this. I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. What would
you think if you heard a man say that today? You'd think he
was either a deranged lunatic, or he must be who he says he
is. He can't be somewhere in between. I am the light of the
world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but have the light of life. John 12 46. I
am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me
should not abide in darkness. Don't you like that? I don't
like darkness. I don't like spiritual darkness. Well, what should you
do? Abide in him. abide in him, believe on him,
and then you'll not abide in darkness. You see, there is no
higher source of light than God himself. That is why this is
marvellous light. He's called you out of darkness
into His, God's, the Supreme Being. He's not someone sat on
the touchline of the universe, of this earth, while it does
its thing. He is over all and in all and through all. He is
the one who rules in the affairs of men. He is the one who, you
know, the heart of the King, even in these days, is in the
hands of God. Don't ever forget that. Brethren,
as you look at this world with its hodgepodge of leaders professing
wisdom and spouting nonsense, professing great power and proving
that they have absolutely none in reality except it were given
them, don't be concerned. Our God is on the throne of the
universe, controlling all things. Thirdly, Why is this light marvellous
light? Because it outshines all other
light. It's the brightest of lights.
I don't know, children, you're very impressed with torches,
aren't you? Which child is there amongst us here today who does
not like a torch? I bet if I said, I'll go and
get some torches for the children to play with, we'd all be dazzled
in our eyes because they'd be flashing torches at us all over
the place. They love torches. But these
days, we've got these modern LED torches. Wow. Have you recently, you know the
old ones that you used to have, the little maglite ones with
the little tungsten filament bulb, and we used to think they
were such fantastic torches about 20 years ago, didn't we? And
you set it alongside one of these tiny little lead ones that you've
got, light-emitting diode ones. There's no comparison. I've got
a head torch, and when I put new batteries in it, I can stand
at the back door on a pitch dark night, and I can see the plants
down at the end of the garden. It's absolutely brilliant. It
is so bright. Who wants an old, inefficient
torch nowadays? Well, it's like that with spiritual
light. Compared to the highest wisdom of man. What do I mean
by the highest wisdom of man? Well, the works of Shakespeare,
they've got quite a lot of wisdom in them. But compared to the
highest wisdom of man, God's light, God's wisdom, is like,
it's like comparing the sun to a candle. Children, again, if
you've seen a candle lit in a dark room on a winter's night, you
think, oh, what a lovely thing, what lovely light it's giving
in this room. You take it out on a midsummer's day when the
sun's shining brightly and you hold it up, you won't be able
to see it burning. It's so dim compared with the
sun. That's like God's light compared with this world's light.
We have wonderful medical advances. And then we overlook the fact
that it was God who designed the very processes that science
strives to understand. God's wisdom is so much higher
than man's wisdom. Oh, we thank God for the fact
that in medical advances men and women are able to discover
things and produce superb treatments. We discovered one for haemophilia
this week and another thing that was in the news the other day.
That's very wonderful. But what I'm trying to do is
I'm trying to contrast the fact that God's wisdom is the wisdom
that made and designed all things. Look at this quote, I put it
in the bulletin from James Clark Maxwell who was a brilliant scientist,
James Clark Maxwell I personally as one who did a physics degree
I revere the wisdom of James Clark Maxwell probably above
just about every other, I think in terms of what his laws of
electromagnetism led to, there isn't a thing that we do in our
everyday lives today that isn't in some way fundamentally dependent
on that pioneering work that James Clerk Maxwell did. They
talk about Charles Darwin being the greatest scientist that ever
lived. That just displays the darkness that those that say
it are living in. Of course he wasn't. Of course
he wasn't. Yes, he did a lot of good research
with classifying different living things that he found, but as
far as a man with any wisdom is concerned, he was a fool.
He was a fool. The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God, no God for me. No, listen to this. This is James
Clark Maxwell. who, I guarantee you, every one
of you, everything that you do every day, in and around the
home, the car, going to work on a train, everything you do,
to some extent the work of James Clerk Maxwell underpins that.
And he said, while we look down with awe into these unsearchable
depths, he's talking about the science and electromagnetism
there, and treasure up with care what with our little line and
plummet, he means our little tiny minds, a little line and
plummet we can reach. We ought to admire the wisdom
of Him, God, who has so arranged these mysteries that we can first
find that which we can understand, and then the rest in order, so
that it is possible for us to have an ever-increasing stock
of known truth concerning those things whose nature is absolutely
incomprehensible, because they're made by God. Now that is true
wisdom of a true scientist. True wisdom of a true scientist
there. Romans 1, 21 and 22. Their foolish heart was darkened,
professing that... This is the likes of Darwin and
everyone that's come from him. Sir David Attenborough even.
Their foolish heart was darkened. Why are they fools? Because the
fool has said in his heart there is no God. Their foolish heart
was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
You who have seen something of God shining the light of the
knowledge of his grace in your heart in the face of Jesus Christ.
You're like those retired pit ponies, you're like those retired
pit ponies coming up that lift shaft into a bright summer's
day compared to their poor colleagues who have to continue working
confined to a glimmering miner's lamp in pitch darkness And again,
why is it so marvellous? It's marvellous because it outshines
all other light, it's marvellous because of what it reveals. The
truth of the life of God in the gospel of his grace is what this
light reveals. Psalm 36 verse 9, in thy light
we shall see light. In the light of God, you see
more light. You know when you want to see
something, I'm looking, I just can't see it, get some light, let's
have a look with some light. In God's light, you see more true
light. That's what that psalm is saying
to us. In God's light, we see light. God's word declares God's
son. Who is God's word? Who is the
light of God, giving true, eternal life to those to whom he reveals
himself? John 17, verses 2 and 3. Jesus,
again, praying in the presence of his disciples, he says, thou
hast given him, himself, Jesus, thou hast given Jesus power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him. Note that. How many does he give
eternal life to? To the ones that the Father gave
to him. Not to everybody without exception.
Don't ever make that mistake. That's not the true gospel. those
that the Father has given him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. This alone is how we know God. It's how we experience eternal
life. It shows us God's holiness. This
light of God shows us God's holiness. It shows us our sinful nature. You might not think a room is
dirty when it's in darkness, but you put the light on it,
you shine the light into the corners, then you'll see the
dirt there. It shows us the demands of divine justice. It shows us
how Christ reveals true God to his reborn people. How Christ
has satisfied to the uttermost, it says, God's offended justice. How he has secured eternal life
for all who have come to God by him. How he has, listen to
this statement, my friends, listen to this statement, 2 Timothy
chapter 1 verse 10. How he has abolished death. For his people whom he came to
redeem he has abolished death. Is that not marvellous? To the
one called out of darkness. Why is the light that you claim
you see marvellous? Because in it I know that death
is abolished and that I've got eternal life. That's why it's
marvellous. And it truly shows the path to eternal bliss. The path there. Psalm 119 verse
105. Thy word your truth, your light. Thy word
is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Show us the way,
said Philip to Jesus. Philip, have I not been so long
with you that you have not seen? He who has seen me has seen the
Father. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to
the Father but my me. The light of the world, Jesus,
is the way, the truth, and the life to God, to eternal life. In thy light We see light, says
that psalm, and God's people are drawn to live in the good
of it. 1 John, chapter 1, verse 7. If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship, one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Walking in the
light of God. It's glorious, it's marvellous
because of what it reveals, the truth of God, salvation accomplished
for his people in Jesus Christ. What marvellous light it is.
But how long will it last? Here's the last point. It's eternal
quality. It never runs out, and I'll be
very quick. All natural lights need fuel,
which burns up, doesn't it? I mentioned my head torch, my
LED head torch. It's only really like that when
it's got brand new batteries in it. Several times of use later,
it still works, but it's noticeably dimmer. And if I don't change
the batteries, eventually the batteries go out altogether.
But not this light of God. The light of God is eternal. Can I show you? Isaiah 60, verse
20. The sun shall no more go down. He's speaking of heaven, of eternal
glory. The sun shall no more go down. In other words, there will be
no darkness. There will be no period of darkness. Neither shall
the moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting
light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Revelation 22,
verse 5. And there shall be no night there,
no darkness. They need no candle, neither
light of the sun, however small or great, they need no artificial
light. For the Lord God giveth them
light, and they shall reign forever and ever. Has he called you out
of darkness, the darkness of this world, the darkness of this
world's understanding, into his marvellous light of the knowledge
of God, of the knowledge of true life, which you only know in
the face of Jesus Christ. Those who try and preach up law
so much, do you know why I have so much against them? Because
they completely miss the point that you cannot be right with
God on the basis of law. You cannot be, you cannot be.
Only in the Lord Jesus Christ, only looking to him, only trusting
in him is there light and life and truth and eternity and the
hope and the promise of heaven. All the spiritual blessings in
heavenly places. What a blessed privilege to be
so called of God out of darkness into his marvellous light. Has
he called you? Is he calling you to call on
him while it is still the day of salvation? Is he calling you?
Is he calling your voice? Today is the day of salvation. Will you hear his voice? Oh Lord,
whilst on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Amen.