Good evening. I invite your attention to Second
Corinthians, chapter four. Quite a few years ago. A pastor in the islands asked that
I would come and bring someone with me. So that we could minister
together. And I asked Todd, and he has
proven to be one of the most delightful companions, and we've
done it over and over, as he just said, and I have always
just thoroughly enjoyed his fellowship and the ministry the Lord has
given unto him, and I'm thankful to the Lord for all that Todd
means to me. that in the will of God, he is
responsible more than anyone else for my being at my present
pastorate, and I'm thankful for that as well. But it is such
a pleasure to be with you folks tonight. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, therefore, which is a conjunctive
connecting this passage with the preceding. And in the preceding,
Paul set forth two different kinds of ministries, a ministration
of death and a ministration of life, a ministration of the old
covenant and a ministration of the new. And Paul says that the
Lord has made us able ministers of the new covenant, and that's
the ministry we have received. Now he connects this fourth chapter
to the third by saying, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry,
as we have received mercy, and only as we have received mercy,
we faint not. Fainting creatures we are, apart
from God's mercy. But have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness. nor handling the word of God
deceitfully." Observe those three things. We want to be honest with you. And with regard to these things,
we are not smart enough to be crafty. We tremble when we preach. Our words are not enticing. We
have no golden tongues. I have observed that in many
cases, golden tongues are forked. We do not handle the Word of
God deceitfully. Your salvation depends upon it,
and God holds us accountable for what we say. But by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God, and that's all I want to commend me, the Word that
I preach. But if our gospel be hid, and
to some it is, it is hid to them that are lost. Why is it hidden
to them? In whom? The God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. Why? Lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. And now here's my text, verse
6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. I want to preach to you, God
willing, on the subject of the shining God. The Lord, evidently, has been
pleased to use my son to declare his gospel, giving him quite
a few opportunities of late to preach and Every Saturday night before my
son's to preach, I get a telephone call. Pa, can I run this by you? Pa, I'm going to preach on this.
Give me your thoughts. It's one of the most blessed
conversations I can ever receive. My son asking me for advice. And so he will share with me
his thoughts and maybe his outline and what he hopes to bring forth. And then you'll say, what are
you preaching on tomorrow? Last night, I said, well, I'm
going to preach in Lexington tomorrow night, and I'm going
to preach a message and a text I have wanted to preach for years. Now, you may ask, well, if you've
been wanting to preach for years, why is it taking this long? Well,
quite frankly, There are a few thousand of these texts I've
been wanting to preach for years and just not near enough time. We get so few opportunities in
this book, this book is just full of these glorious texts,
but tonight I want to preach on the shining God. From 2nd
Corinthians, chapter four, verse six. Paul here speaks of light. Light and darkness. are naturally
direct opposites. Where there is the absolute absence
of light, there is absolute darkness and chaos and fear. Where light enters, darkness
is dispelled according to the brightness of the light, because
light is stronger than darkness. And where there is absolute light,
There is absolutely no darkness at all, but you'll never see
that in this creation. Absolute light. There is absolute light, but
it is not of the creation. Not only are light and darkness
naturally direct opposites, but they respectively represent things
that also are direct opposites. When Paul writes this second
epistle to the Corinthians, he says in chapter 6, verse 14,
what light, what communion does light have with darkness? None. Your pastor read a moment ago
that God divided the light from the darkness. They naturally
divide themselves. There's no communion between
them. And in that passage, Paul speaks of light and darkness
and compares them with other things and says these also are
direct opposites. He compares and associates righteousness
with light, lawlessness or iniquity with darkness, Christ with light,
Belial or Satan with darkness, a believer with light, an unbeliever
with darkness, God's temple with light, idols with darkness. And
throughout the scriptures you find these direct opposites presented
unto us. Elsewhere, light is associated
with good and sweet, darkness with evil and bitter. Light with
day, darkness with night. Light with wisdom, darkness with
folly. Light with knowledge, darkness
with ignorance. That's in our text. Light with
peace, darkness with calamity. Light with salvation, darkness
with condemnation. Light with life and darkness
with death. They are direct opposites, light
and darkness. And this contrast continues here
in our text tonight. For it is the God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness. Note the opposition. who has
shown in our hearts to reveal the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ." There is a contrast here between
light and darkness. Now, notice that Paul begins
this verse with the conjunctive four. This means that he is connecting
this sixth verse with the fifth verse. But now scholars are divided
as to which part of the fifth verse he connects this sixth
verse to. Paul makes two statements. We
preach Christ. We are your servants. Some scholars
say that when Paul here in verse six speaks of what he does, he
gives the reason why he is the servant of others. We are your
servants. Why? Because God has shown into
us that we may shine unto you. This is cross-referenced in Galatians
chapter 1 when Paul says, God called me through His grace to
reveal His Son in me that I might preach among the Gentiles and
therefore I am your servant. God has given a revelation to
me and I as your servant give that revelation to you. Others
connect this sixth verse with the first part of verse 5 where
Paul says, we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord. And
here, according to these scholars, Paul gives the reason why he
preached Christ Jesus the Lord. It is through preaching Christ
Jesus the Lord and through that alone that men are divinely blessed
to see in His face the knowledge of God's glory. Now, as I said,
the scholars are divided. I'm not a scholar, but I do have
enough sense to know that when two different statements are
both true and neither contradicts the other, then I'm going to
take both of them. Here in verse 6, Paul does two things. He gives
us a reason why he is the servant of others, and he gives the reason
why he preaches Christ. Why? For it is the God who commanded
light to shine out of darkness who is shown in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And because I'm His servant,
that's what I want to tell you. And because I preach Christ,
that's what I'm going to tell you. We're going to do four things
tonight from this text. Observe four things. First of
all, we're going to observe the shining God identified. Then second, the shining God
distinguished. Third, we're going to observe the shining
of God in the original creation. And fourth, the shining of God
in the re-creation. So let's go to that first point.
The shining God identified. Four things concerning Him. First
of all, the shining God is life itself. 1 John 1, 5, God is light. That is to say that God is light
in His very nature and essence. All that God is is light, and
light is all that God is. God is absolute and perfect light. I said a moment ago, there is
such a thing as absolute light, but you will not see it in the
creation. It is only in God. Only of God is it said, in Him
is no darkness at all." The sun comes as close to absolute light
as there is in our created universe, and yet you can go out light
years away, we are told, and there the sun is but a flickering
light that dims and may not be seen because it is not absolute
light. Where there is absolute light,
there is absolutely no darkness at all. And God is that absolute
light. Furthermore, in God, who is light
itself, is found all that light represents, as we just cited.
In Him is found goodness, not evil, sweetness, not bitterness,
wisdom, not folly, knowledge, not ignorance, peace, not calamity,
salvation, not condemnation, life, not death. When God reveals
Himself in His glory, He is all that light is. Not only is God
light itself, but He is the Father of lights, James says in James
1, verse 17. That is to say that God is the
Creator and the Sustainer of all kinds of lights. I'll give
you three kinds. First of all, God is the Father
of physical lights. The sun and the moon and the
stars. He created them, as your pastor read just a moment ago.
They exist because he said, let them be, and there they are.
He's their father. God is furthermore the father
of intellectual light, such as the light of reason. All men
are not reasonable because God's not given reason to them. James,
having said that he's the father of light, then says this, if
any man lacks wisdom, Intellectual light? Ask of God who gives liberally
to all men. He not only is the father of
physical light and intellectual light, but he's the father of
spiritual light. Especially that regarding salvation
in Jesus Christ who himself is called the true light. Do you want to know what light
truly is? Look at Christ. He is the true light. And God is the father of light.
Third, God is dwelling in unapproachable light, 1 Timothy 6, 16. God is
so gloriously bright that no man with naked eyes can behold
Him, and no sinner can approach Him. Dwelling in unapproachable
light. Moses says, Lord, let me see
Your glory. And the Lord said, You can't
see my glory and live. Tell you what I'll do. I'll hide
you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand. and
I will pass by and you will see the light of my glory. And when
I'm gone, you'll see my afterglow. But you can't see me and live.
God dwells in unapproachable light. The brightest light Saul of Tarsus
would have known would have been the noonday sun when God appeared
To Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, Saul says, I saw
a light brighter than the noonday sun. It knocked me to my knees
and blinded my eyes. And he saw only a portion of
what God is. Dwelling in unapproachable light.
Not only does God dwell in light, but we read in Daniel 2, verse
22, light dwells with Him in God's house. no darkness, no nooks and crannies where you
cannot see. He dwells in light, pure light. Furthermore, God is light itself,
the Father of lights, dwelling in unapproachable light, and
He is clothed in light. The psalmist says you cover yourself
with light as with a garment. So God in Himself is light, dwells
in light, is clothed in light. Everything about him is light.
In him is no darkness at all. Now let's distinguish him. Let's
distinguish this shining God. The shining God is distinguished
from the prince of darkness, as Satan commonly is called.
We that have seen the light have been delivered from the power
of darkness, where Satan reigns, and translated into the kingdom
of God's dear Son. We've been brought from that
Prince of Darkness. Here in our passage in verse
4, He is called the God of this world, or the God of this age,
who has blinded the minds of unbelievers in order to keep
them in darkness. And that's where He would keep
you. And He will until God shines. We distinguish the God of Light
from the Prince of Darkness. Furthermore, we distinguish this
God of Light from the idols of men. Behold the idolater. He takes a piece of wood and
he'll make an idol. God evidently has a sense of
humor. He says the idolater takes a piece of wood that he would
have to make his idol and he starts carving away, chipping
away at wood. And then he takes the chippings
and what he does, builds a fire and he warms his hands and bakes
his bread. And then what's left? He makes a god out of it. What's
left? Then what's he going to do? He
wants to be able to see his God. So he shines a light upon his
God. God shines lights upon others. Idols depend upon someone else
to shine a light on them, and they don't even know the light
is there. We distinguish this God from the idols of men and
from the prince of darkness. Now let's go to the third point.
The shining of God in the original creation. Paul says, for it is
the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. In reference
here is to the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis
chapter 1, which was read to us just a moment ago. Four things
I'd have you to say about the creation of light originally.
First of all, God created the light by what we call a fiat. A fiat Latin word meaning the
command to let it be done. That's what a fiat is. He that
rules by fiat, rules by command, let it be done. Here's what I
want done. God commanded light to shine. On the first day of creation,
God said, let there be light. And there was light. Oh, such
sovereignty. I don't have that kind of sovereignty
even in my own house. Does any man here claim to? Honey, why don't you just hop
on out of bed and help your sweet self over there and turn the
light on? I'll be in darkness till sometime
next week when I wake up. My wife says, Your wish is my
command, and I believe it. But I will not dare express my
wish as a command. Honey, I'd love to have meatloaf
for dinner. You're going to get it. I wouldn't dare go up to
my wife and say, Honey, I can prepare the menu for next week,
and I command you to cook these meals. I don't have that kind
of sovereignty. God does. He speaks, and His
very wish is a fiat. Let it be done, and it is done. Furthermore, he created the light.
Another Latin term to use theologically, ets nihilo. It means out of nothing. Out of nothing. How did God create
the light? The Greek text here changes the
order of some two phrases here, and it says, It is the God who
commanded out of darkness the light to shine. He created the
light without the use of preexistent materials. Things that exist
were made of things that did not exist. He just spoke and
there's nothing but what God speaks and there it is. God did not need the use of preexistent
materials. He spoke it into existence. Third,
He created the light perfectly. God saw the light that it was
good. He makes no mistake. God brought
it the first time without a manual, without a book. He got it right. It was perfect. Perfect. I had
trouble putting a light bulb in perfectly. God commanded light
out of nothing perfectly. And furthermore, He did it alone
and unassisted. No one was there to help Him.
All by Himself, without help. Now that's how God signed in
the first original creation. Now observe the fourth point.
The signing of God in the recreation. And to be sure, the things we
just observed about the first creation apply here in the recreation
as well. The re-creation is, if any man
be in Christ, he is a new creation, a new man created in righteousness
and holiness. The work of the creation is the
work of salvation, and God does this work the same way he did
the first creation. He speaks by fiat. I walked by you and
saw you dead, struggling in your blood, and I said, Live! I gave
the fiat, and you lived. I just spoke, and you did it.
You had light because I said so. He gives this light ex nihilo,
without the use of preexistent materials. He does not reform
your old man. He makes an entirely different
new one. And he does it perfectly. The
lie he gives never goes out. And he does so alone and unassisted. God does not say, I need some
help here now. You do your part and I'll do
mine. I've done all I can. Now the rest is up to you. No,
alone and unassisted. God speaks and there is a new
creation created in Christ Jesus. But we're going to look at this
text and expound it the way that Paul presents it. First of all,
Observe the place in which God shines in our hearts. What is your heart? It's not
merely that physical organ in your left breast that pumps blood
to your body and sustains your life. The heart in which God
shines is your entire moral and spiritual being. It is what makes
you a person. Satan tries to prevent that. He's the God of this world who
has blinded your minds lest you believe. God overthrows Satan
by shining in your heart your whole spiritual person, including
your mind. God shines in our hearts, overthrows
Satan's dominion of darkness. And thereby, he says, Satan,
you tried to veil him. Watch this. And the veil is removed. We behold God shining in our
heart. And now we can understand it. He gives us life to understand
in our hearts. Observe, second, the manner in
which God shines. Now note very carefully Paul's
words, and words mean things. He has shone in our hearts. Paul does not say he has shone
into our hearts. Don't that be true? That is true. God Himself shines in the hearts
because that's where He is. He is shown in our hearts. He
Himself shines in our hearts. He is not only the believer's
illuminating One, He is also His luminous One. God is this
in the person of His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Light, who takes
residence in the dark heart of men who have never believed the
gospel, so that they may believe. and the spirit of light takes
residence, and in that manner God shines in hearts. It is also through this act that
believers are made to be partakers of the divine nature. Think about
that, folks. The divine nature is in the hearts
of God's people. And that divine nature shines
in our hearts, because that's where God shines, in our hearts. He Himself is shining in our
hearts, unveiling the gospel to us so that we may believe. Notice, furthermore, the manner
in which God shines. Pardon me, we just dealt with
that one. Notice third, now, the reason why God shines. To
give the light of the knowledge of God. God shines in the hearts
of the new creation so that they may know something of His glory.
Not only the glories of His glorious person, but especially what Paul
here speaks about as the life of the gospel of the glory of
Christ. God shines in our hearts so that
we may know Him and His gospel, who He is and what He has done. He shines in our hearts so that
we may know the glories of His salvation. so that we may know something
about our redemption, forgiveness of our sins, our justification,
our sanctification, our glorification. These are subjects we do not
understand until God shines in the heart and reveals them to
us. Notice forth the result of God's
shining. He illuminated, behold the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God. in the face of Jesus
Christ when God shines, when God shines. And you'll never
see that until He shines. Your natural light is darkness.
It will never reveal these things until God shines. There's a lady here tonight I
met for the first time. I believe it was in 1984 in Michigan. She was attending some worship
services, and as I recall, at the time she was unconverted. And prayer was made that the
Lord be pleased to save her. There was a conference. We heard
the preaching Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, the
Lord's Day. This glorious gospel was preached,
and yet Belief had not been expressed.
She may have heard the gospel many, many times. I did. For about 27 years. Lost as I
could be religious, but lost. I dare say not one of you believed
the gospel the first time you heard it. Over and over and over
and over. And you heard that plain, simple
gospel message. Why did you not believe? I dare say that though I was
not there, the lady of whom I spoke earlier, in some fashion or manner,
there was one day she heard the gospel and she says, I see! You do when God shines. When
God shines His light, then you see the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When God reveals something, it
is in Christ's face. All the glory is given to Christ.
And God ascertains that be true even in our conversion. He reveals
the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Christ
is revealed to be not only the glorious God, but the glorious
Savior. He is the salvation. He is the
redemption. He is the forgiveness. He is
the justification and its righteousness. He is the sanctification and
its holiness. And He is the glorification.
All these things revealed in His face. God revealed His glory in another
man's face one time. In the previous chapter, chapter
3, Moses walked up on a mountain to talk with God. He did. came back down the mountain,
didn't know it, but his face was shining. The presence of
a glorious one does that. My face lights up when my wife
walks into the room. You can tell her I said that.
But it does. It lights up. My wife has walked
into the room. See the glory of her, her glory
in my face. When Moses comes down the mountain,
And the glory of God still shining on his face and the people begin
to tremble. Because they live under law. And he'd been to talk
with the law giver. And they said, oh Moses, do you
not know the glory of God is shining in your face? Veil your
face and hide it. But when God reveals the light
of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, we say remove the veil.
I want to see it all. Remove the veil from me that
I may behold him. Remove the veil from him that
I may behold him." Furthermore, believers with unveiled
faces, we are told, behold Christ's glory and are being changed into
the same image of glory from grace to grace. And then we say,
in your light, we see light. When I was a lad in West Virginia, a number of
us were standing on a street corner one night. The street
light was not working very well. And I remember someone saying,
that light is so dark that I think we need to shine a light on that
light to see if it's lighting. And we laughed. You know, that's
humorous. But wait a minute, there's a truth to that. There
is a truth to that. In the light of Christ, we see
light. He shines His light that we may
see light. And there are other results as
well. God has kept His promise in Isaiah 42, verse 6, when He
says to His Son, I, Jehovah, have called you in righteousness,
and I will hold your hand. And I will keep you and give
you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles. Now,
what are Gentiles? People say, well, they're non-Jews.
Well, not necessarily. That's true. The word Gentile
means heathen, pagan. And yes, that applies to all
non-Jews, but I've known some who were Jews to whom that applies
to. Heathen, pagan. That's who we are by nature.
I give you as a light to a bunch of heathen people." Why? To open
blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit
in darkness from the prison. Now, so God takes His Son by
the hand. I will lead you. There's old
Moose Parks. He's blind in the prison. It's
dark. He doesn't even know where he is. Shine the light on him. Christ shines a light on me,
gives me the light, and then leads me out by the hand. into
the glorious light of a gospel day. That's fulfilled because
God is shown in my heart to reveal the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. God makes another promise in
Isaiah 42, verse 16, and He kept it. He says, I will make darkness
light before them. Well, He's done that. He's done
that. Fulfilled is the prophecy. In
Isaiah 9, verse 2, that the people who walked in darkness have seen
a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of
the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. That's Christ. He's the shining light. And we
live in the land of the shadow of death by nature. He has shined. The illuminated confessed that
Through the tender mercy of our God, the Dayspring, the first
light of day, the Dayspring from on high has visited us to give
light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death to guide
our feet into the way of peace. And the Lord is my light and
leads me in paths of light. Furthermore, We obey the exhortation
to proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light. What do we sing tonight? Hymns
of praise. Why? We have reason. We have
reason. God called us out of darkness
and His light is marvelous and we like to sing about it. And
we like to sing about Him who is our light. Furthermore, we are told that
you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Notice
that the Lord is light in us, and we are light in the Lord.
Walk as children of light, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather expose them. And then God says,
Awake, you who sleep. Awake. We've been delivered from
darkness, and oh, how often do we go back to visit. and are
lulled to sleep in the darkness that we are supposed to reprove
and expose. What do you do when you awake?
Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. How will
Christ give you light? God will shine in your heart
to reveal the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. A few years ago, my son called
me at 2 a.m. one Saturday morning. He was
going to school in Orlando at the time. In the darkness of a midnight
hour, he called. He said, Pa, I'm lost. I said,
well, son, how long have you been lost? Well, all my life,
but I didn't know it until now. Well, that means some light has
been shone. And I said, son, I want you to
think back to the time when you were six years old and you first
expressed to me a concern about spiritual things. Now, I could
have gotten a profession of faith out of you, no problem at all,
and I wouldn't do it. But I gave you a certain piece
of counsel at that time when you were six years of age and
you were concerned. Now, do you remember what I told
you? And he said, yeah, you told me to pray that God would reveal
Christ to me. Well, son, I can think of no
better counsel to give you tonight. Are you lost? Pray that God would
reveal Christ to you. I prayed that prayer for years
every day for my son. I have a daughter. She's the
apple of my eye. I love her so dearly. She's sweet
as she can be. Lost in darkness. And there is not a day in my
life, but what repeatedly. Pray Lord. Shine her heart. She does not know the darkness
she lives in. Shine in her heart. And revealed
your son to her. How about you? Maybe you've heard this gospel
time after time after time, and you're still in darkness, and
you still don't understand it. Oh, that God would shine tonight in some darkened mind, deceived
from the devil, who's trying his best to keep that light from
shining. But remember, light is stronger
than darkness. Oh, that God would shine in your
heart, that He would shine, He Himself shine in your heart. And if He does, He will give
a revelation, a revelation of His own glory. And He'll do it
in the face of Jesus Christ. Oh, God, arise and shine. Oh
God our Father, as you commanded light to shine
out of darkness in the original creation, do so again tonight. Souls are around us in darkness
and don't even know it, blinded to their condition. Satan has
blinded their mind. We can explain this truth and
explain this truth and preach it and preach it and they still
don't understand until you arise and shine. Do so, we pray this
night. To your glory in Jesus' name,
Amen.