The Gift from God
Stand with me with your bible.
Say this with me,
This is my Bible.
I am what is says I am
I can do what it says I can do
Today I will be taught more of the word of God
I boldly confess
My mind is alert
My heart is receptive
I want to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever living seed of the word of God
I will never be the same
I will never be the same
In Jesus Name
God is good. All the time.
All the time. God is good.
The suffering we have in this world is because we live in a world that has been cursed with sin, and if you think that I’m going to line up against God in favor of the devil, and line up with the one who has wounded me in the past, you are so wrong.”
Open your bibles to James 1:17.?Say, “Amen” when you are there.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation, or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”
What does He mean by the Father of Lights?
The writer, James is comparing God to the sun that shines in the sky. You know the Bible says that God put the sun in the sky and the moon there as signs. There is a lesson there, there is a lesson in all of nature.
Elizabeth Barret Browning said that “Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. The rest surround it and pluck blackberries.”
You know if you would just see that God is in nature. God shows Himself as the Father of Lights, and when you see the sun shining in the sky today, there are some lessons I want you to learn about our great God.
John also said in first John chapter 1:5 “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”
So I want you to think about the Father of Lights today. I want you to think about this good God today.? The Father of Light. And understanding that, just seeing who God is I am going to share with you so we can learn to live in the sunshine.
Now, I’ve been thinking over the past several months about light.
I remember a doctor I had said the best thing I could do each day was to spend some time in the light of the sun. 10 minutes would be good for my whole body.
Today I am going to share some wonderful things about light. The very first thing I want you to see about God’s light is, that it is pure light. Pure light.
Some of what I am going to share in this message came from a man who made a big impact on my life years ago when I had found out that my previous wife had had an affair. I went to a pastor’s conference and I met a man named Adrian Rogers. Even though he was pastoring a very large church, he always had time for me. He became a big brother to me for a few years until the Lord called him home.
I have a question for you.
Did you know that that there is nothing known in the universe as pure as light? Nothing as pure as light. You see, it is absolutely impossible for light to be messed up. You can pass light through any medium, it will not pick up the properties of the medium through which it passes. It’s just as pure as when it comes out the other side as it was when it went in. You cannot stain light. You can shine a light on the ground, and the light will shine upon the ground, but the light will not be the ground. You can put some disease germs there, and the light may shine upon those disease germs but the light cannot catch that disease. It is absolutely impossible to soil light.
Now, when the snow falls on the ground, after a little while the snow gets muddy and dirty. It may be crystal white when it comes down, but after a while, it’s dirty. I remember when I lived in Northeast Pennsylvania and it would snow. It was beautiful. Then the plows would come by to clear the roads and I would shovel off the sidewalk and clean the driveway and the snow would be dirty quickly.
I had a stream by the house I used to live in in Pennsylvania. Water may bubble up from a pure stream, but after it runs along the banks of the stream it picks up the minerals and dirt and the slime that’s in the base of the course it takes. You see, everything else can be defiled, but light can never ever be defiled.
What a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks of Jesus and which was the true Light which lights every man that comes into the world.
Go to 1st John 1:9 and say” Amen” when you are there.
“He is the true Light.”
We see that Jesus Christ, while He could touch sinners, sin could never touch Jesus. Jesus was here on this earth. Jesus walked the shores of Galilee. Thank God for this pure light.
Light may reveal sin, light may expose sin, but light can never be contaminated by sin.
Light is pure, therefore it’s a symbol of light. This light is pure light, but wait a minute.
Secondly, this light is powerful light. Have you ever thought of the power of light? In John 1:5, the Bible spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ as being light. And then the Bible says, “And the Light shined in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Now what does that mean? It doesn’t meant that the darkness did not understand it. What that really means is that the darkness has no defense against light. What is the enemy of light? Darkness. What is the enemy of darkness? Light. Now in a battle between light and darkness, who always wins? Who, what? Light. Light always wins. You can never go into a light room and turn on the dark. There’s no switch where you can turn on the dark.
You can always go into a dark room and turn on the light. You see, darkness always has to flee in the presence of light. Light absolutely, totally cannot be stopped in the fight against darkness. By the way, if you want to get darkness out of your life or you want to get darkness spiritually, if you want to get darkness out of a room physically, how are you going to get the darkness out? You going to shovel it out? You going to curse it out? You going to take a broom and beat it out? No! Just turn on the light. And the darkness cannot stay. You see there is such power in light.
Think about the light that we are talking about now. We’re talking about the light of the sun. The light of the sun in the physical world is only an illustration of the light that we call Almighty God, and how powerful that light is. No one would ever think of going to the sun, you wouldn’t last.
Man may talk about going to the Moon and Mars, and but they only reflect the light of the sun. And on the brightest moonlit night, the light of the moon is only one eight hundred thousandth as bright as a sun shiny day. One eight hundred thousandth as bright as a sun shiny day.
Man may go to the moon where there is reflected light, but who would ever think of going to the sun?
Of course, you couldn’t do it. You can’t even look at the sun at high noon without covering your eyes.
You see, the Bible speaks of God in 1 Timothy 6:16
“He is the only one who cannot die. He lives in light that no one can come near.”
Think of the powerful energy in the sun. In my preparing of this message, you know what I found out? That in one second, one second, that much time, the sun puts out as much energy as the earth has consumed.
In all the history of mankind. One second. That’s how much energy the sun is putting out. Four million tons of hydrogen are consumed every second in a nuclear power plant. Incredible, incredible energy is coming from that sun. And that speaks of the power of God, “No one has seen Him, nor can they see Him.”
And yet, you know, as Newton said, “The mighty sun that holds the planets on orbit, ripens a little bunch of grapes like it had nothing else to do.” And the great God who runs this universe, knows of the number of hairs on your head. And the sun that shines on you today, tells me of the love of God, and God is concerned about the smallest matters in your life.
Oh, the power of light. Darkness cannot stand against it. What incredible power there is in our great God.
Now here’s the third thing I want you to think about. Not only the purity of light but it cannot be defiled. And it speaks of the holiness of our God. The power of light speaks of the power of God.
And then, James says, “This light this light has no variableness. It has no shadow of turning.” Now, what does that mean? I read quite a bit about that. Now what it means is that this sun never sets. It’s always high noon with God. Now if I stand perfectly straight, and the sun is right over my head, there is no shadow. But if the sun is rising, or the sun is setting, then there will be a shadow.
But the Bible says that with God, there is no variableness, no shadow or turning. What He means is with our great God, it’s always high noon. It’s always high noon. God’s love never stops shining.
But with God, this sun is always at it’s zenith, it is always high noon. Now look at it. “Every good gift, every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of Lights, in whom is no variables.”
Now, what does that mean? It means there is no change.
Now, let’s talk a little bit about Einstein’s Law of Relativity. May I tell you first of all, that Einstein didn’t come up with it? He could have learned from James, the Theory of Relativity. It is right here. You see, Einstein said that the reason that he could construct the Theory of Relativity, he literally said this is, because there is one thing and one thing alone in the universe that is unchanging and unchanging.
Do you know what that is? Light. The speed of light. But traveling at that speed it never varies. It is constant.
Now this is why we call this the Law of Relativity, because everything else is relative. For example, if I’m on a train traveling along, and you’re standing by the tracks and you have a stop watch and the train is traveling at a hundred miles an hour, you can put your stop watch on that train and say well, David went by at a hundred miles an hour. Now, if you get on a train on the other track, and you’re traveling a hundred miles west, and I’m traveling a hundred miles east, when we pass, relatively we are moving at two hundred miles an hour. You a hundred miles this way and I a hundred miles this way so relatively is like one of us is traveling at two hundred miles an hour.
You get the idea?
That’s the relative speed, but now if our trains are on parallel tracks, and I’m traveling at a hundred miles an hour, and you are traveling a hundred and six miles an hour and I look out the window at you and you go by me at six miles an hour. Relatively, you’re traveling at six miles an hour faster than I am, you see. It it’s all relative. It’s all relative. I’m going to tell you what I learned about light.
The Bible says that God dwells in light that no man can approach it.
But one day we’re going to approach it because Jesus is the Light of the World and we’re going to be made exactly like Him. And when we’re made exactly like Him, we’re in eternity for us, there is no more time. Time stands still. We’re just like Him.
But in hell, those in outer darkness, for them time never ends. For us time stands still. We are like our Lord, we come into the presence of Almighty God, we are made like Him.
James says, “With God, the Father of Lights, there is no variables”. No change. No change. You see, the Bible says in Malachi chapter three, verse six, “For I am the Lord, I change not.” The Bible says in Hebrews chapter thirteen and verse eight, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” God is the Father of Light, whom there is no variableness, there is no shadow of turning.
What have I said about light? Light is pure, it’s impossible to defile. Light, light is powerful, darkness can never stand before it. Light is persistent, it never changes. Never changes.
Spiritually, as well as in the physically.
Thank God, for our God who says I change not therefore, you sons of Jacob, are not condemned.”
Now, I want to say something else about light. It’s also pleasant. Oh, listen, look at our scripture here, where the Bible says here every good gift and perfect gift is from above which cometh down from the Father of Light.
I read scripture some time ago from Ecclesiastics eleven, verse seven. I’ve never noticed it until I saw it. I guess I’d seen it before, and I’d probably read it, but it never made an impact on me. And this is what it says, “Truly, the Light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun.” Truly the Light.
Every good gift, every perfect gift comes down from above.
Now, we thank God for any light, but artificial illumination can never match the sweetness of sunlight. Did you know there’s seven colors in light? Seven colors in the spectrum. All the way from infrared to ultra violet. There’s seven colors. But if you put them all together, it’s pure white. It’s pure white. But if you look at light through a prism, then you can see all of those colors that are there. Did you know that without light there is no color?
We saw that there’s seven hues in the spectrum. Seven is the perfect number, isn’t it? But look at what James has said here. Look, “Every good gift and every” what? “perfect gift”, every perfect gift “comes down from above, from the Father of Light, in whom there is no change no variableness, nor shadow of turning.”
I want to say something else about this light. Not only my dear friend is it pleasant light. It is productive light. Productive light. Did you know that there can be no life without light? There can be no life without light. If the sun would cease to shine, forget life here on this earth. You see, the Bible says of the Lord Jesus, you might put this verse in your margin: John one verse four. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of the world.” In Him life, and that life is light.
Are you afraid of the light? Some people laugh at children being afraid of the dark. Far more ridiculous than a child being afraid of the dark,? is a grown man afraid of the light. And yet there are those that are afraid of the light, and there are those who hate the light, and despise the light.
It is because they don't think they deserve forgiveness. That is wrong..
Ask Jesus.
Let Jesus give you the answer.
John chapter three, beginning in verse eighteen. Here’s what the master teacher, the Lord Jesus, who said, “I am the Light of the world. I am the light of the world.”---Here’s what He said. “He that believes in Him”, he that believes in Jesus “is not condemned.” Friend, if you would trust Jesus, every sin, every stain, every blot, every blemish, I don’t care what you’ve done, you’ll be washed whiter than snow. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. He that believes in Him is not condemned, but He that does not believe is condemned already.
Have you ever thought about the things that love darkness? Owls, and toads, and spiders, and bats? When the sun is shining many more things awaken.
Louie the fourteenth, was a man so full of himself, so proud, he gave himself the name Louie the Great. He lived in regal splendor. When asked about politics, Louie the Great said, I am the state.
He had his own funeral planned. When he died, he was laid out in a golden coffin. Pure gold. He was put in a massive cathedral, and he gave orders that one candle would light the cathedral, placed right above his golden coffin. What an ego. One candle.
Bishop Masselen came to preach the funeral of Louie the Fourteenth. Louie the Great. There in that massive cathedral, that candle flickered over the coffin of Louie the Great.
The bishop who did the service, Bishop Masselen, went plitt...and put out the candle and said, "Only God is great. Only God is great."
One day, your candle will go out and there will be nothing but darkness. Unless you know the God who is a good God.
God is good.
All the time.
As we go through life there are going to be trials, hardships, and turmoil, but if we put God first in our lives, He will be with us always. Let us pray.
