Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
WALKING IN THE DARKNESS
Sunday, January 12, 2003 AM
Isaiah 59:8-9, "The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness."
As I knelt to pray for this morning’s service and to ask God for a fresh anointing and a message for those who would be attending, God began to speak to me concerning the fact that so many of his children continue to choose the path of darkness and obscurity. We all claim to desire to walk in the light of the gospel and to see and experience the brightness of the glory of God in our lives but we often choose those paths that are unsure and dark. We fail to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and we continue to walk in our own understanding.
Illustration:
If there is one thing that I do not enjoy very much, it is driving at night. As the years pass, I find that I am unable to see as clearly at night for the darkness seems to overpower my vision and many times it appears as though the headlights on the car just do not penetrate the darkness well enough.
While the years can make a difference in our ability to see things in the darkness, none of us can see very far down the highway on a street that is without street lamps and it is so very easy for an accident to occur.
Not only is it harder to see at night, but add in some inclement weather and the potential for an accident are increased exponentially because now you not only have the normal limitations but the slippery highway that makes it far more likely that we can lose control and find ourselves driving where no automobile was meant to travel.
A car was never meant to travel upside down in the middle of a ditch. The laws of physics, instituted by God at the time of Creation, tell us that it is impossible to two bodies of matter to occupy the same space at the same time. Yet how many times have we seen people who try to make two cars fit in the same space at the same time with terrible results?
It never ceases to amaze me that people who live in our area of the country, where it rains regularly, just seem to go around driving just as fast in the bad weather as they do in the good weather. It seems to me that common sense would tell us to go a little slower lest we find ourselves in a situation that we have no control over.
Running fast on wet highways, and in the darkness where we know not what is in the highway ahead, or where the turns are is asking for tragedy.
Yet, that is exactly the same condition that we live in when we do not seek counsel from
God nor follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
If you will examine your own life and the way that you live you will find that you often choose the path that leads to destruction. We are creatures that are filled with pride, self-reliance, and often, absolute disregard for God’s Word or His will.
Every person I talk to has their own opinion on how to make their life a success. We often talk about the people who are living in sin and the fact that they refuse to see that the end of their journey leads to everlasting fire and eternal pain. We look upon them to pity them and try to reach out to them. The plight of the lost is certainly something that we should ever be mindful of so that we can feel the urgency to witness to them about the saving power of Jesus Christ.
But that is not specifically where I want to focus for now. I want us to look at the lives of those who call themselves Christian and still make daily decisions that only lead them deeper into the paths of darkness and away from the light of God.
Isaiah says…”The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
Have you ever wondered why it is that we fail to experience the peace of God that we all seek so much? Well this verse contains your answer!
The problem is that we do not judge our “goings” and continue to walk a crooked path. Let me give you some examples:
Illustrations:
1)Haggai 1:5-7, "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways."
Every week I hear Christians who are hurting financially and whose wages seem to just evaporate into thin air. No matter how much they earn, no matter how hard they try to budget, no matter how much they try to control their impulse spending, the money they earn just flies away like an eagle into the wind and the bills continue to go unpaid.
Why does this happen? Well look at their faithfulness to the laws of God in the area of financial management!
Malachi 3:9-11, "Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts."
Therein lies the answer to this dilemma! What we have is cursed even though it may seen that it should be more than enough because we fail to walk in the light and continue to walk in the darkness of disobedience.
If we would give to God that which belongs to him in the first place, God will then see to it that what you keep is far more blessed. When we don’t give to God what we owe him, then we are saying, “God, I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, and I don’t believe that you can meet my needs!” Wow! You’re either more brave than I am or you have a “death wish” because God won’t bless those that curse him in that fashion.
Can’t you remember what Jesus did with the bread and fish that were not enough in the mind of the disciples to feed the 5000 and yet Jesus did it and there were plenty of leftovers for next time?
If Jesus can multiply the bread and fish and make it stretch to meet the needs of his people, don’t you think that Jesus can do the same with your paycheck?
2)What about in the use of your time? Every day we continue to live in the same pattern that has proven so very unsuccessful in the past. There is never enough time in the day to accomplish what we need to accomplish. Life is made of time, one second at a time, one minute, one hour, one day at a time, life passes by and we are soon left to look back upon our lives and wonder what we missed. Why am I here? What did I really accomplish?
The suicide rate is rising, especially among the young, because life seems to have lost any purpose or meaning for them. Despair rules over them and live is no longer worth the living. How many of our kids have given up a life of great promise because Satan fooled them into believing that there was nothing in it for them?
Matthew 10:39, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."
You see, there is the key, we “find our own life” by choosing to walk in our own understanding never giving it a thought that we are walking deeper into the night and farther from the light!
We find our own life by default when we don’t surrender that time to Jesus for his will to be done in us!
How many of you know that it is always God’s will for you to be in his house when the time for worship and gathering together comes? It is always God’s will that you spend time in prayer, Bible study and service to God’s Kingdom.
But it’s so easy to get caught up in doing our thing that the will of God is forgotten until we find ourselves walking in a dark place where the darkness chokes us and covers us and we don’t know what to do next. The troubles, trials, tests, and problems are multiplied and we don’t know which way to turn.
It’s only when we turn back to Jesus in repentance and start following the paths of righteousness under the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that life begins to make sense again and we have a true sense of purpose for living.
…”Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness."
The farther we walk from the light of the Word of God, the more our judgment is clouded by sin until we reach the place where we begin to justify everything we do by perverting the Word of God and believing our own lies!
We blow our cash instead of paying the bills because we “worked hard all week and we just have to have some fun sometimes.” That’s just an excuse to spend frivolously and do what we want to do in the first place!
We waste our time in front of the TV instead of doing something constructive with our time and then we wonder why none of the important things get done and there is no time to work in God’s ministry that he desires for us to do.
Have you ever noticed that the characters on TV don’t just sit around watch TV? How boring would that show be? I couldn’t thin of a more boring existence than to sit and watch someone else on TV, watch someone else on TV, watch someone else on TV and on into infinity! If that’s all we did, there would be no TV to watch shortly because we would all be watching one another do nothing.
I dare say that we spend more time watching the news than we do praying for those who make the news. We really should be praying for our leaders and our nation. And we certainly should pray for those who report the news because we never get the whole truth in anything reported.
We spend more time studying the lies of the newspaper than we do in studying the truths of the Bible. We spend more time meditating upon a fictional novel than upon the Word of God. We spend more time following the lies of the devil than the leading of the Holy Spirit.
It’s no wonder that our judgment is clouded and we can’t seem to get a grip on the will of God for our lives.
Perhaps I need to preach on how to find the will of God for your life because too many people think that God will audibly speak to them, or strike them with a spiritual bolt of lightning straight from the Throne of God before they will make a move to serve him. They are so afraid of doing something wrong that they don’t do anything at all! Now that’s what I call walking in darkness!
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Does your life seem filled with impossible circumstances? Do you feel that you are groping in darkness, walking on a dark path, constantly running into obstacles, tripping over everything that Satan can throw in front of you, and falling into the traps of temptations on a consistent basis, while you are trying to find your way back into the light?
I believe that your answer would be what is said in Proverbs! Quit leaning on your own understanding and start leaning on Jesus!
Illustration:
Man has learned of some great technological advances and has created things that make his life easier and more secure. But for all of those discoveries and inventions, mankind still gropes in darkness!
Our military, and most avid hunters, have equipment that allows them to see in dark through the use of Starlight Scopes that take the light of the stars and magnifies it to give everything a green glow but allows us to see in near total darkness. We have infrared equipment that allows us to see movement and see things that were invisible in the darkness. We have cameras that can pick up the body heat of a man and track him from 25,000 miles in space. We have satellites that can read the license plate of your car from outer space. We have spy satellites that can track any launch of any missile from anywhere on the face of the earth. Yet, for all our technology, we are still groping in darkness.
We have automobiles that are equipped with GPS Satellite service that can pinpoint your location within a few feet, then transmit back to your car through your radio and GPS, exactly where you are and give you exact instructions on where and when to turn in order to help you reach your destination. Why would we even need such things in the first place? We need them because we are a people who are walking in darkness and living in uncertainty and we need all the help we can get.
Those inventions help us to find our way in the natural world but they cannot do anything to help us find our way in the spiritual darkness of disobedience and sin.
The light of the gospel, the Word of God, and the leading of the Holy Spirit are our only spiritual “lights”. If you want to find your way into the light of God it must come through those means only.
You can’t figure it out on your own. None of us are that wise. Remember though, that God knew about our technology long before we ever considered searching for new ways to see. God knows more than we will ever understand or discover. His ways are far above our ways and he sees what we cannot, knows what we don’t know and is able to lead us in paths of light and understanding.
Proverbs 3:7,8 “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.”
Instead of relying on our own understanding and trying to work things out our way, why not just obey the word of God and let God work out his will in your life?
God’s plan for your life is so great. His plans for your success are already in place. His plans for your prosperity are just waiting in the wings for you to begin to obey him. God’s path, where there is light and security, will lead you through a life that is absolutely with purpose and fulfilling. You won’t come to the end of your journey and wonder why you even lived because Jesus will make your life, your work, your efforts and your dreams really count for something eternally great.
Yet, for all that God can do and is willing to do for his people, this is what Isaiah has to say about those who will continue to refuse to obey God and follow him.
Isaiah 59:10, "We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
We all have spiritual eyes but not all of us have our spiritual eyes open for they can only be opened by obedience to God’s law.
The brightness of the glory of God is ever present but we will not see it if our spiritual eyes are not opened!
The grave is a dark place and there is no hope or prosperity in physical death but that is how the life of a disobedient and spiritually blinded Christian is described!
Like Proverbs says, let’s get away from that life of disobedience and darkness and get back into the light of obedience to God’s holy Word! We need to be attached to the “umbilical cord” of God’s Word, even more than a child in the mother’s womb must be attached to her body by the umbilical cord.
Through this channel of obedience we receive God’s best! Through this channel we receive prosperity, forgiveness of sin and eternal life. That channel is connected through the Blood of the Lamb. Through that “umbilical cord” of obedience we received strength and our spiritual bones are made strong!
So, don’t lead on your own understanding, lean on the Word and will of God! He will never let you down.
If you are walking in darkness and confusion, its time to come back to the lighted path.
If you are living in disobedience, its time to turn around in repentance and let Jesus begin to lead you in the paths of righteousness.
Then and only then will you begin to experience the miracle working power of God that Jesus manifested in the miracles of the loaves and fishes.
Give to God what belongs to him - your life in service to Him. Then he will give your life back to you and make everything you do more productive. He will stretch what you have left to go farther than ever and your need will be met. Prove Him! Believe in his promise! He will never fail!
