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Walking In The Dark?

No one I know likes walking around in the dark.  We’ve all done it. We enter a dark room and fail to turn the light on and then  stub our toe or run into the door facing.  The consequences are usually not too bad,  a sore foot or a bump on the head.  But the consequences are much more serious for those who walk in the dark spiritually.

Psalm 119 describes the word of God as a “lamp” or a “light.”   In the Psalm the writer continually praises and exalts the word of God.  Speaking to God he declares, “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (v.105).  Solomon stated, “For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light…” (Prov. 6:23).  Those who are ignorant of God’s will, His teaching and His commandments found in the Bible, are truly living in darkness.

Sin is darkness and the sinner lives under the power of darkness.   Paul, writing to Christians declared, God has “delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1Jn. 1:5). Men sin against God separating themselves from Him, finding themselves in the darkness of sin. Only God can provide the light that is able to guide man out of that darkness.  That light is provided in Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament Scriptures foretold of the coming Messiah who would provide spiritual light for all men.  “Arise, shine’ for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you, and the nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isa. 60:1). This Messianic light came to the world that was lost in the darkness of sin.  John the Baptist was a witness of this light. “There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.  He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man”  (Jn. 1:6-9).  Jesus is that light. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:4). His example, teaching, and commandments that are divinely recorded in the Bible which lights our path to guide us from the darkness of sin.  As Jesus exclaimed, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Some people claim to be in fellowship with God while living unfaithful lives in the darkness of sin.  But “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1Jn. 1:6-7).

Are you using the lamp of God’s word as a light for your path, or are you walking around in the dark?

PS

 

About the Author
Paul Smithson is the evangelist for the Westwood church of Christ in Tullahoma, TN