Perfect, Brilliant Light

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright today? I trust so, bless your heart. Yes, this is your friend, Bob Cook, and I’m glad to be back with you to share from God’s word. I think of these times that we spend together not so much as my talking to you as talking with you. I visit with my dear friends, and if you’re driving I’m sitting beside you in the car, and if you’re fixing breakfast I’m standing in the corner of the kitchen staying out of the way, but being with you. And if you’re already engaged in some task or other, but you’ve taken a break to listen, I’m there just to be with you. Most of the times we get yelled at enough, don’t we? So that you don’t really need somebody to shout at you. [chuckle] You need somebody to care about you, and someone to share God’s eternal truth with you. And that’s what I wanna do. I pray everyday, just as I’ve prayed before I started this broadcast, I pray everyday that God may put His truth, and His love, and His compassion, and His tenderness, but most of all His power, His transforming power into what is said here, so that it may make a difference in somebody’s life. And I trust that might be so with you today, bless your heart. We’re in the Book of John. I suppose if I were asked, “What is your favorite book of the Bible?” I would have to say the Gospel of John, because I began reading and memorizing verses from that Gospel just as a little boy.

Now before I was seven I had memorized 50 verses, and I can say them all today, I can tell you that sticks in your mind. Parents and grandparents, put the word of God into those young minds, it will never leave them. Be sure that you encourage your children and grandchildren to memorize Scripture. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” It’s not merely a matter of conditioned reflexes, it’s a matter of the indwelling word of God in the heart and mind and memory of a person. Anyhow, I love this book, and I’m glad to be in it with you for a little while. I’m looking now at John 1:9, the writer has been talking about John the Baptist, saying, “He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light.” Then we come to verse nine, “That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” The way you read that, because there’s a little change in the Greek pronouns, He came to His own things and His own people received Him not. “But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

All great scriptures, well think about it with me for a little while, he says, “That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Does that mean that everybody in all the world knows about Jesus? Well no, of course, the facts would seem to be otherwise. And you come straight up against the old, stubborn question, “What about the heathen?” And the answer has to be that God will be righteous, and you read in the Book of Romans that “Those that have sinned without law will be judged apart from the law, and those that have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.” God is a just God. But this matter the light, the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, what about this light? Christ’s light is the light of natural reason, which He has given us to cultivate and to improve for the benefit of ourselves and others, especially in the great concerns of the faith. This light, which even the Gentiles had was sufficient to have led them to the knowledge of the true God and by the visible works of the creation to understand His eternal power and Godhead, as we read in Romans, chapter one verse 10.

And second, there’s the light of revelation, by this light, His will has been known to us in the Holy Scriptures. The religion of nature commenced revealed and the lesser light of natural reason was not extinguished by but absorbed in revelation. This further light was typified to us by the shekinah glory in the tabernacle and by that bright cloud by day and pillar fire by night, which conducted the Israelites through the wilderness. And third, there’s the light of the Gospel and this is represented by that noblest and brightest of all the heavenly and luminaries, the sun itself. Christ himself, who was therefore styled the Son of Righteousness, having now risen on his church with healing in his wings; this is the light which constitutes our present day. And then finally the last and most perfect light of all will be that of glory which will never set nor ever change. But this light none will behold who neglect the use of the other lights, who advance not gradually from reason to revelation, from revelation to faith, from faith to glory, but who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that I was reading from an ancient preacher of another century. His name is Wogan, and when I get to Heaven I’ll look him up and thank him for that. [chuckle] That was the true light. Paul the Apostle says in Romans 1, “That which may be known of God as manifest in them, for God hath showed it to them.” That’s conscience. And he said, “The invisible things of Him are from the creation of the world clearly seen.” That’s the light of the world around. Now I’ve travelled a little, as you know, by Gods gracious provision I’ve been in many countries, and I’ve always found that there were those who knew. They knew because there was a stirring in their own heart, they knew because of having looked into the heavens, they knew because of the pricking of their own conscious that they were responsible to a living God.

I remember a meeting we had in Calcutta with Hubert Mitchel. He had an accordion, I had a trombone, I had a Martin trombone in those days. It had been through the wars and had several nicks in the slides so that it was a little difficult to play, but I managed it. I had long since run out of trombone slide oil, you have to have a little oil to oil the slider. I ran out of that, so I used nasal jelly instead. So every time I blew the trombone it smelled as though somebody had a cold. [chuckle] The menthol in that nasal jelly perfumed the air around me. Well, it was antiseptic anyway, wasn’t it? [chuckle]

But Hubert played his accordion and I played my trombone, and we went thought the various, standard gospel songs like “Power in the Blood” and “There’s Within my Heart a Melody” and so on. And the crowd gathered. We brought them in then from the street into an auditorium inside, which was located as I recall, right next door to the University of Calcutta. We had numbers of students and we had business people, a very fine crowd, and we preached to them, gave a gospel invitation. And at the close as we were praying with people, there was this very tall, distinguished gentleman from Kashmir who was in Calcutta on some kind of business. Richly dressed and highly educated and a real gentleman in every sense of the word. And as we talked with him he looked into my eyes and he said, “This is what I’ve been looking for all my life.” That hidden hunger in the heart, God has ways of satisfying it. And we have stories of people who have travelled hundreds of miles across jungle or forsaken areas of other lands, seeking, finding finally the truth about God. The light that lights every man that comes into the world. God will not leave Himself without a witness to fallen human nature. So, the true light.

Now, when you’re speaking about the Lord Jesus and the light that He gives, that’s a precious body of truth. We go back into Isiah 9 “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” And then of course, we already looked at John 1:4, “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” We’re talking about light, we’re actually talking about eternal life that makes a difference in a person’s entire existences, as great a difference as day and night. The life was the light of men. John 8:12 was one of the verses that I said I learned just as a child. “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying ‘I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.'”

“Then he said to his disciples, ‘Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knowest of not whither he goeth.'” Then Paul in speaking of our Lord Jesus said, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,” that’s in creation, “hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Then of course we’re going to that blessed, heavenly city, spoken of in Revelation 21, verse 23, “The city had no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb… ” That’s our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, “the Lamb is the light thereof.”

Yes, that was the true light. Now what of it? All of us listening, I’m sure, most all of us at least agree that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed what He said He was: The light of the world. And that when He comes into the life, He makes a difference and lightens it up. People often ask, “How do I get rid of this or that bad element in my life?” And the answer is, “Let Jesus come in and turn on the light and the darkness goes.” When you come into a dark room, you’re aware of darkness, but when you turn on the light the darkness somehow is gone. You don’t have to chase it out, it’s gone. And so I’m speaking to somebody today, no doubt, who’s having difficulty in your own life and you say, “How do I get rid of this? How do I change?” And the answer is, “Turn on the light, let the Lord Jesus come into your very life.” He Himself is the light, and when He enters, darkness goes.

Dr. Pettengill, I guess it was, who used to talk about the expulsive power of a new affection. You cannot give yourself completely to two different entities at once. And so you let the Lord Jesus Christ into your life, and as He enters to take control, as He enters any given area of your life to take control, the immediate result, beloved, is that the darkness goes. You don’t have to chase it out, it’s gone. And so, yield to your blessed Lord. That’s what Paul says in Roman 6, “Yield yourself to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and the members of your body as servants of righteousness unto God.” Let the Lord Jesus in. He brings the light and when the light’s turned on, the darkness goes. A blessed, wonderful, personally transforming truth.

Dear Father, today, oh, may the light be turned on in our lives through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing.