LIGHT
Martin McLaren
Genesis 1: 3, 4 (to “good”)
We have already spoken in the reading about some of the beauty of creation, and I am sure everyone in this room will have an appreciation of the greatness and the beauty of God’s creation. We do not have to go far to see the plants and the trees, birds and other creatures, all of the things that we can read of here in Genesis that God, the eternal God, the only true God, created. He created everything that we can see and hear, every single thing that we see on this earth.
We read here that “God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good”. Every living thing in this world, everything from the grass to the trees and the insects, the fish, every creature, including you and me, depends on light. We all depend on the light and the warmth of the sun, and so when God created the light here, it says He “saw the light that it was good”. But God has a plan and a purpose for another realm, another sphere, something entirely new where God will shine in love on every saved sinner, every person who has ever put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what is offered in the glad tidings tonight, dear friend, that you can know God for ever; you can be in His presence for ever; you can enjoy a relationship with God; you can enjoy eternal life, to know God and to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the end of the Bible John says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev 21: 1), and then further down in verse 5, “And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new”. Everything in this earth will pass away - from the atoms and the elements right up, everything will pass away, and God will make new heavens and earth; it is very difficult to find words to describe this, but we know that it will be completely new. In Revelation 22: 5 it says, “And night shall not be any more, and no need of a lamp, and light of the sun; for the Lord God shall shine upon them”. A Man will be in the centre there. A Man will be the source of light and life. The Lord Jesus Christ will be there and, if you put your faith in Him tonight, you can be there. That One, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the One whom David spoke of in his prophecy at the end of his life, in 2 Samuel 23. He said about the Lord Jesus,
And he shall be as the light of the morning,
like the rising of the sun,
A morning without clouds;
When from the sunshine, after rain,
The green grass springeth from the earth, v 4.
Because in this creation, darkness has come into this scene. We are all sinners and we must all acknowledge that we are sinners, and so God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to this earth, and David could say that -
And he shall be as the light of the morning,
like the rising of the sun,
A morning without clouds.
We know at the beginning of John’s gospel it says, “In him” - that is the Lord Jesus - “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (v 4), and in verse 9 it also says, “The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man”. The Lord Jesus Christ was “the true light” and that true light would shine into your heart tonight. He “lightens every man”. The gospel is not just for one particular group of persons, dear friend; it is for everyone, for men and women and children, for every race, no matter what their age. God shone out in the Lord Jesus Christ and, if you let the Lord Jesus Christ shine the light of the love of God into your heart tonight, you can know what David was speaking of, this “morning without clouds”. The Lord Jesus Himself when He was here, when He walked on the earth, said, “I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”, John 8: 12. If you follow Him, if you put your faith and trust in Him, He can become the centre of your heart. If you allow His light to shine into your heart, if you follow Him today, you will receive the “light of life”, eternal life, and you can have a place secured in that wonderful realm, that eternal realm, where the Lord God will shine on you for ever, and you can know the God who created you as a God of love.
We first need to see what else it says here in the verse we referred to in John. It says, “And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not”, John 1: 5. Then further on it says, “men have loved darkness rather than light” (John 3: 19), and each one of us needs to see that there is darkness in us and that there is nothing in us that would deserve this wonderful blessing. There is nothing in me that I can bring before God and say, ‘Look at what I have done. I deserve to have an eternity in your presence’. There is nothing I can bring before God that I can say that I have done, or I can offer, for my sins. I think that is why we read “the darkness apprehended it not”.
There is a verse in Ephesians which says, “But all things having their true character exposed by the light are made manifest; for that which makes everything manifest is light” (chap 5: 13); and so when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, the light exposed the darkness that was in the hearts and the souls of men, and each one of us must accept that the only way we can come into blessing, the only way we can have our eternity secured, is by accepting the light of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus knew that there was nothing in us that God could accept, and so He gave His own life, dear friend. He died for you and for me so that we would not need to bear the judgment of God for what we have done. Wicked men nailed Him to a cross; we spoke of the cross in the reading, and we can see the greatness of all that was accomplished on the cross. They nailed Him to the cross and in the three hours of darkness on the cross, the Lord Jesus bore God’s righteous judgment for everything that I have ever done. Believers can say that all the sins that they have ever committed He bore in love for them, so that God could look down on them and only see the good of what the Lord Jesus has done. He would no longer see their sins; He would simply see the wonderful work of the Lord Jesus.
But even after the Lord had died there were still those who tried to work against the light that had shone out. There were those who said when the Lord Jesus was still on the earth, “When will he die, and his name perish?”, Ps 41: 5. We know there was one, Saul, who even after the Lord Jesus had died was trying to extinguish the light that was shining in the hearts of those who knew the Lord as their Saviour, and Saul says, speaking to king Agrippa in Acts 26, “I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me and those who were journeying with me. And, when we were all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against goads. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest”, v 13-15. There was “a light above the brightness of the sun” shining out of heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven; after He died, He remained in the tomb for three days, and then He was raised, and He is now in heaven, enthroned on high, and He is still shining out from heaven. The light of the Lord Jesus Christ is still shining out today, dear friend. The love of God is shining out from heaven and would shine into your heart. If you open your heart, it will become the light of your life. We can read in Isaiah chapter 60 verses 19, 20: "The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended”. I would just draw to your attention that in verse 19 it says, “The sun” and “the moon”, but in verse 20, “Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself”. If you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, He can be your Sun; He can be the Light of your life. It was said in the reading that all those who come to the Lord with a need, He will meet their every need, and He will be the light of the entire sphere that God has planned for eternity.
There is another scripture I would like to refer to in Corinthians which sums it up very well: “Because it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God”, 2 Cor 4: 6. “The God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine”, the same God who created the heavens and the earth, and the God we read of at the beginning who said, “Let there be light. And there was light” is shining into your heart tonight; the reason given is: “for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”, John 17: 3. You, dear friend, can come to know the God of love, the One who sent His Son to die for you, the One who has done everything so that He can have you in His presence and you can know Him now, experience something of that “morning without clouds”. You can experience it now.
Now, when the Lord Jesus was here, He also said to those that followed Him, “Ye are the light of the world”. This is something I find very testing, but in Matthew chapter 5 the Lord says in verses 14-16, “Ye are the light of the world: a city situated on the top of a mountain cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lamp-stand, and it shines for all who are in the house. Let your light thus shine before men, so that they may see your upright works, and glorify your Father who is in the heavens”. Your heart has been filled with the light of the love of God. Does it shine out, dear friend? When I am at work, do my colleagues, or my friends, see the light that is in my heart? Is it shining out, or does it only shine out when I am here in the meeting? It is something that is very testing but I was greatly encouraged in a reading we had recently in Dundee. We read the first epistle of John chapter 2. It covers a lot of what I have mentioned already, that our sins have been forgiven and that we have a Man in the glory; there is a Man in heaven. It speaks of “a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (v 1) and it says that the young men have “overcome the wicked one”, v 14. It also says that we have “the unction”, v 20. The Holy Spirit has been given who will teach us and help us. Dear friend, if you are uncertain about whether or not you have the gift of the Holy Spirit, you can ask God to receive Him tonight; He will give you the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit will help you. He will help each one of us in our pathway down here. He can help us to appreciate what God has done for us and to spread abroad the light that is in our hearts.
There is one other verse in that chapter which affected me. It says in verse 8, “because the darkness is passing and the true light already shines”. I would just like to draw attention to this verse in closing to add a note of urgency to the word because “the darkness is passing”. Everything in this world is passing. It says, “the first heaven and the first earth” will pass away, Rev 21: 1. We know that everything in this world will come to an end but “the true light” is shining already. The light that will lighten that eternal sphere, the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, the One whom we can all spend eternity worshipping and praising, the light of the love of God is already shining now, dear friend. I pray that each one here will let the light shine into their hearts and pray that we would all be helped to let the light shine out.
May the Lord bless the word.\
Edinburgh
18th August 2019