Monday, November 1, 2010

Have You Noticed the Light?


See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Isaiah 60:2

Have you ever noticed the opposing characteristics of light and darkness? Light penetrates and repels darkness, which retreats before it. Light dispels and scatters darkness, and darkness cannot overcome it. Have you ever watched the dark of night recoil westward before a cloudless sunrise? Light displaces, replaces darkness, but darkness cannot respond in kind.

You are probably aware that Scripture uses light and darkness to symbolize truth and falsehood. Today’s text uses “thick darkness” to symbolize the prison of lies propagated by the evil one. Can you imagine a world without Christianity? Judaism would be a fading faith and Islam unthought of; it is an aberrant offshoot of the Bible. Would the world be atheist, animist, or drifting in the mysticism of the east?

Perhaps the whole world would be Satanist, seeking truth in the occult, chicken entrails, or the stars. Where would you be, what would be your position in life, would your family still be intact? What would be your view of life, or hope for the future? Where would you gain an ethical view of life? What would be your first priorities?

Eventually, fabrications about this life and the next cannot stand against the truth, as darkness cannot exist in lit space. We may live in a culture of confusion as the devil attempts to oppose the truth, but truth establishes itself as the Gospel continues to redeem society and the men and women that populate it.

Discovery of truth leads to those “aha” moments when the “light goes on.” When has that happened for you?

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