Turn The Light On

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friends. How in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, I trust so. Bless your heart. This is your good friend, Bob Cook, and I’m glad for the privilege of sharing with you from the Word of God. I try to share, not shout. You get enough people yelling at you in a given day, don’t you? You don’t wanna be shouted at. But I’d like to share from God’s Word something that has blessed my own soul. I pray everyday before I approach these microphones that God the Holy Spirit may bring something that is tailor made just for you so that you’ll be able to say, “That was for me.” If that happens, then I’m really satisfied because that’s what I wanna do, wanna put a handle on the Word of God so that you can get hold of it for yourself.

Last time we got together we were looking at the story of this embarrassed woman who had been caught in sin, dragged into the presence of the Lord Jesus there in the temple with all of the eyes of people upon her, and they, having carefully laid a trap for Him, said, “Now, are you gonna uphold the law of Moses? Or the law of Rome? Moses said she ought to be stoned. What do you say?” If He said, “Stone her,” they could report Him to the Romans as breaking Roman law. If He said, “Don’t stone her,” they can say, “See, you can’t possibly be the Messiah because you’re not upholding the law of Moses.” They thought they had it either way. Well, you know what He did, He wrote on the ground, and finally He lifted up Himself, and looked at them. He said, “Now, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone.” “And they were convicted,” it says, “by their own conscience and went on out.”

The Lord Jesus said to this lady, “Where’s your accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” She said, “No man, Lord.” And He said, “Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.” Before we move on from this story, let me just remind you that forgiveness carries with it the obligation not to repeat your folly. “There’s forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared,” said the psalmist. Another passage says, “God forgives but let them not turn again to folly.” You can’t play games with God. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. You can’t just say, “God, I was only kidding.” He doesn’t do that. And so, if you want really a change in your life, there has to be the willingness to be changed. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things passed away, behold all things have become new.” Now my problem through the years has been, I wasn’t always willing to be different. How about you? Are you in that group as well? Paul the Apostle said, “The good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. Oh, wretched man that I am.” Our problem oftentimes is that we would like to be forgiven, but we’re not willing to be different.

Jesus said, “Go, and sin no more.” He said to the man who had been healed on the Sabbath day, “Behold thou art made well, sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Forgiveness carries with it the obligation to let Jesus change you. Now you’ll never get over this side of the glory, that is. You’ll never get over the fact that you and I live in bodies and a human nature that is fallen. There will always be temptations, there will always be solicitation to evil. And even from our own minds, oftentimes there come thoughts that have no business being there. You and I are living in bodies that, until we get to glory, are going to suffer the results of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” And that’s the fact of it. The other fact is, as I quoted for you a moment ago. “If any man be in Christ, he’s a new creation.” “The law,” Paul says in Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” And you have within you now God’s wonderful eternal life which carries its own law.

My old theology teacher in seminary, Dr. John Champion, used to say as he walked back and forth. I remember his mannerisms and everything about him, what a dear man and a tremendous intellect as well. He would stride back and forth at the front of the classroom, and bring his hand up to stroke his completely bald head and say, “Every life has its law. The tadpole, and the acorn, and the grain of corn. All of these have a different life, and every life has its law, and it develops according to that law.” Well, that’s true. And you have in you today, if you’re a believer, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, Paul says, “Hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” How does that happen? Take a simple illustration. You know about the law of gravity, that’s always in effect, isn’t it? You let go of something, and it falls. Now, that same object that you let go of, pick it up, and you bring it from the floor where it was resting a moment ago, and you lift it, and put it on a shelf, or in your pocket or whatever. Was the law of gravity still in operational? Yes. But there was a stronger law in operation. The law of the force you were exerting, greater than the force of gravity. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free, is greater than the law of sin and death. Jesus said, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”

So, this all came about in discussing the fact that our Lord Jesus when He forgives, expects you and me to be willing to be different. And the way to be different is to yield to the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. “Yield yourselves unto God,” says Paul. You’re built to surrender to something. As ye have yielded the members of your body, servants to unrighteousness, even so now yield the members of your body, servants to righteousness, and the end will be holiness. Get that in Romans chapter 6. Yield, surrender, give up to Jesus because He’s greater than the power of fallen human nature. Good news, isn’t it? Because it’s so blessedly simple, you don’t have to have a lot of complex theological machinery in operation. It’s just a matter of giving up to Jesus who is stronger than sin. “Go,” said He, “and sin no more.” [chuckle] Have you heard Him say that to you, beloved? All of us have some skeletons in our closets, I’m sure. All of us wish that things had been different in the past.

Anybody listening who never made a mistake? [chuckle] I doubt it. But the Lord Jesus looks at you and at me today, and He says, “You can be different.” Let Him change your heart, and your life, and your desires, and your perspective, your point of view, your motives. Let Him, Christ in you, be the hope of glory. Paul said, “I live the life now by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Christ liveth in me.” Let that be true of you, beloved. It can be so blessedly, realistically true. You don’t have to kid yourself about these things. Jesus is real. His power is real. All you have to do is yield to Him in faith.

Interestingly enough, then, comes verse 12 of John chapter 8. This is one of the verses I learned as a child, “Then spake Jesus again unto them saying, ‘I am the light of the world.'” I can remember my sister, Mildred, reviewing me on some of these verses, and, inevitably, I stumbled on the beginning phrase of that verse. I don’t know why. John 8:12, and I would start, “I am the light.” No, that isn’t the way it starts. “Then spake Jesus again unto them saying… ” I remember being reviewed on that. Thankful for a godly father and a godly sister who took care of this motherless boy in those early years and plowed the Word of God into my heart. Well, this was one of the verses. Jesus was saying, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” Now why should he say that right after what had just happened? Number one, the feast of tabernacles was over. The lights that had been burning brightly in the temple courtyard and before the holy places were extinguished, the water from the pool of Siloam was no longer flowing, all of the festivities now had ended, and Jerusalem was in the process of a gigantic hangover.

Did you ever see a parade ground the morning after the parade? It looks sad, doesn’t it? A nightclub the morning after looks sad, and a whole city after there’s been a huge celebration, the next day there is a… Well, I just used the word ‘hangover’. People just, they need a little something special to get them going again, and Jesus said, “The lights are out, the water has stopped flowing, the festivities are over, and even the wretched results of sin that have been dragged before me, all of this,” said He, “can be wrapped up in the statement I’m going to make now, “I’m the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” What you need is not celebration, and what you need is not vindication, and what you need is not a chance to prove something about yourself for somebody else. What you need is light, God’s light shining around you and through you to make every step of life, every moment of life, a continuing miracle.

“The just,” the Bible says three times, “The just shall live by faith.” Live is a continuing concept. You don’t live a week at a time. You live a moment at a time, a heartbeat at a time. What does life consist of? Get up, get dressed, get ready for the day, take care of all these million things you have to do during the day, come on home, have dinner, take two aspirins, go to bed. You live a moment at a time. “The just shall live by faith.” Jesus wants to be invited into the living process. “He that eateth me,” it says, “shall live by me,” Jesus said. Huh? How do you do this? Through His Word, feed on His Word. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart,” said Jeremiah. Feed on the Word of God. Pray day by day. Commit yourself to God in faith. Walk, trusting God through the day. Pray your way through the day. Obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God. The refreshing, sustaining power of the light of Christ will make your life a continuing miracle. We’ll talk a little more about this the next time we get together.

Father God, today, may we walk in the light of Him who said, “I am the light of the world,” Jesus our Lord. I pray in His name, amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!