From Darkness To Light

All of us has a default hatred in darkness!!!! We don’t like being in the dark!!!! We don’t want to be in the dark!!! We get annoyed when we are put in a dark place! No one wants to be in dark! Yet, this is the dilemma of the world! This is the dilemma of human nature. We are in darkness!

With the wars in Europe and other parts of the world, we know that we live in a dark world. With floods, calamities, and natural disasters in various places, we know that we live in dark world. With soaring interest rates and taxes in many places to try and recover from the effect of COVID-19, we know that we are living in dark times. We are not insensitive to those families who are doing it very tough whether be it loss of loved ones due to carelessness of others, we sympathize in their dark times.

John 8:12, Jesus … said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” The light that He is alluding here is much more than literal but spiritual.

IF CHRIST IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, then a world without CHRIST IS DARKNESS.

Darkness in the Bible:

• A symbol of evil

• A symbol of sin – spiritual blindness

(SLIDE 4, then back to 3) - 2 COR 4:4-6 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

• A symbol of ignorance - Ignorance about God’s will – Saul/Paul thought that he is doing God a favour in his attempt to kill Christ’ followers when he was still ignorant of Jesus

Acts 26:15-18 15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

• Judgement (John 3:19) 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

• Distress and anxiety, disaster, confusion, depression, and destruction, feeling of worthlessness

(Job 3:4-6) Let that day be turned to darkness.

Let it be lost even to God on high,

and let no light shine on it.

5 Let the darkness and utter gloom claim that day for its own.

Let a black cloud overshadow it,

and let the darkness terrify it.

6 Let that night be blotted off the calendar,

never again to be counted among the days of the year,

never again to appear among the months.

• Feeling that God had abandoned him (Lamentations 3:1-2) When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and deported much of its population to, those who were left behind in Jerusalem expressed their lament to God. In Lam 3:1-2, we read these people of faith expressed their disbelief. They struggled to understand how God could have allowed the once great city of Jerusalem they love to be devastated and shattered by their enemies. They thought that God had abandoned them and what happened to them was a punishment of an angry God!

[a]I am the man who has seen affliction

by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.

2 He has driven me away and made me walk

in darkness rather than light;

3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me

again and again, all day long.

Some of you can identify with these things. The truth is you don’t have to stay in darkness because God promised a very clear path out of it. BECAUSE IF THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT DARKNESS, IT ALSO TALKS ABOUT THE LIGHT

Matthew 4:16; ) - The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.