Afraid Of The Dark

o Purpose of today’s message:

? Give us hope and encouragement to move out of the darkness into His marvelous light!

Although we won’t get absorbed into darkness today, I’d like to examine some aspects of it.

Genesis 1:2- The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

• Wow, pretty early on we are introduced to darkness in the bible.

• In fact, it was mentioned before light!

v.3 Then God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.

Now this one is crazy!

Exodus 10:21 My heading says The Ninth Plague: Darkness

Then the Lord said to Moses “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt with a darkness so thick you can feel it”.

-Ever been in darkness so thick you could feel it?-

I’d like us to consider three things about darkness:

• Darkness is real

• We can’t fight it on our own- We can’t walk in our own strength

• The light came to rescue us.

What are some reasons we might be afraid of the dark?

We are talking about spiritual darkness.

I’ve reduced it to three things:

• Unknown

• Unseen

• Uncertain

For me, in my fear of the cow skull, it was none of these.

• I knew that skull was there in the darkness, just as it was in the light.

• I had seen the skull in the light.

• I was certain it would come to life and come after me in the darkness.

What comes to life for you in the darkness?

One definition of fear:

• An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Ephesians 6:10-17 (read from my bible) Stand with me as we honor God while reading His word.

Touch on a few things:

• v.11 “whole armor of God”

o I think some days I pick and choose, you know like “today I only need my breastplate of righteousness”!

o v.13- just to be sure we didn’t miss it, Paul repeats “the whole armor”

• v.12 Paul tells us why (read it again from bible)

o We are not putting on the armor of God to fight in the physical world!

Listen to me- The darkness doesn’t want anything to do with the light, and vice versa!

Genesis 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.

• They do not mix!

Peter puts it this way in:

1st Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

• Good and evil don’t mix!

• Peter leaves no doubt as to the devils mission.

Watch what Paul says in Ephesians 5:11:

• And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

o Wow- chew on that a minute!

? Not only are we to stay away from darkness, we are to expose it.

? Jesus said we are the light of the world.

12

In addition to putting on the Armor of God daily, we must keep in mind that we can’t do this in our own strength.

We probably would all agree that Solomon, Samson, and David were all men of God.

Yet they all had their downfalls when they tried to do it on their own.

Paul struggled as well.

Romans 7:15 (ask everyone to go to this scripture) For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

• Ask others “what does your bible say?”

If you are wrestling with darkness today, I want to encourage you to read Romans chapter 6,7,8 today. I could just say read chapter 8 to get to the good stuff, but sometimes we have to go through the bad stuff to truly appreciate the good stuff!

Jesus confirms this struggle that we all have. These are read letters y’all:

John 3:19 “And the judgement is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but the people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil”

• So, we must realize the darkness is real, and put on the Armor of God daily

• We must realize we can’t do it on our own strength

• Here’s the last one:

o The Light came to rescue us (that’s a capital L in light)

I’d like to confirm this with scripture. You might just write the addresses down, don’t worry about going to each passage.