THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Walk as Children of Light"Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) |
Dear
Radio Friends,
Our program today brings the
Word of God as we find it in Ephesians 5:8. There
we read, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”
We understand that when the word
“for” begins a verse in the Scriptures, it means that there is a reason that is
being given for something. In verse 7 of
Ephesians 5 we read, “Be not ye therefore partakers with them.” The “them” goes back to verse 6 of the
chapter, the children of disobedience. God’s
Word says to us that we must not share in, we must not partake of, we must not do the
things that the children of disobedience are doing. Instead,
we are to walk as children of the light. Why? For this reason:
ye were sometimes darkness. Then you
lived in the same disobedience. But now are
ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the
light.
We are, therefore, to walk
distinctively. We are to walk as the children
of God in the midst of His light because of what God has done, because by His grace we
have been taken out of darkness and are now light in the Lord. Let us look at that together.
The Word of God is telling us,
first of all, what we were. Ye were sometimes
darkness. If we are to walk in the joy of the
light, then we must understand that we were at one time darkness. Let us not be fooled by the word
“sometimes.” That does not mean
that in the past, periodically, from time to time, you were in darkness and at times you
were not. But it means, at one time in the
past. At a given point in time, ye were
darkness. That is what you were, says the
Word of God. The Word of God is speaking to
the child of God who has been brought into the life of Jesus Christ, and is saying to that
child of God (to us, then), that we were darkness. Not
anymore. That is finished. But formerly you were darkness.
When was that? For almost everyone in the church of Ephesus, to
whom the apostle Paul is writing this epistle, they could well remember that time, for
they had been brought up in the darkness of paganism and unbelief. They had been brought up in homes that worshiped
idol gods. It had been through the preaching
of the gospel by the apostle Paul that the Holy Spirit had transformed them and the power
of God’s grace had reached down to change them and to bring them to the light. That is always true.
The Scriptures also teach us of
the truth of the covenant of grace — that God’s children are often born in
believing homes and are, therefore, brought up and nurtured in the faith of Jesus Christ
and from earliest childhood are brought to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, with equal force, and with equal truth, it
may be said of all (you and me and every child of God), “Ye were darkness.” That is, according to our own nature, as we are
born of ourselves, out of Adam the first father, when we were conceived, when we were
born, we were, of ourselves, darkness. We
were born with a spiritually dead, dark nature.
What is meant by darkness, then? Darkness is the absence of any light. It is the antithesis, the opposite, of light. Therefore, spiritually darkness means that we were
not able to see and did not want to see God or the things of God. The apostle Paul has explained it this way in
Ephesians 4:18, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” You see, the Scriptures do not teach that man is
born neutral. That is a proud heresy. That is a lie.
The Scriptures teach that all men are born in darkness of themselves. They do not know the living God in love, but they
hate God by nature and live in the darkness of their own pride. Of ourselves, we are unable and we do not desire
to know the living God. That is what it means
that we were darkness. We were in the dark
spiritually.
And that darkness manifests
itself, it shows itself. The apostle has been
speaking about that in chapter 5 of Ephesians when he talked about the children of
disobedience and the life that they live as they perform the deeds of sin and darkness. Even in the physical sense that is true. Darkness is so often the cover that men use for
sinning. When the sun sets, the crime rises. Beer parties at night. Sinful deeds in the darkness when the lights go
out. So darkness refers to our own spiritual
depravity, to the ways of sin and of pride. And,
finally, darkness refers to hell. For the pit
of hell is absolute darkness, unending, just wrath of God for those who have rejected Him
and who live in the disobedience of their sins.
Ye were darkness. That is what we were. Everyone who is saved was, of himself, darkness
— sinful, depraved, deserving of eternal condemnation in hell. That was the truth about you. That is all that could be said about you. Ye were darkness.
Notice, the Word of God does not
simply say, “Ye were in the darkness,” but “Ye were
darkness.” That is, we were not just in
the sphere of darkness, with darkness all around us, but we were darkness. The Word of God, there, is teaching that sin is,
first of all, not a matter of the life outside of us and around us, but is a matter that
arises within us. I may be in darkness,
physical darkness, but have light inside. I
may have understanding, hope, love, and courage. But
the Word of God is saying that we were darkness. The
darkness was within us.
So the teaching of the Word of
God is that we are not a little good, part-way bad, not so bad, not so bad as someone
else, pretty bad but able yet by our own decision to accept Jesus. None of that is the teaching of the Word of God. That is all the invention of men. That is all heresy.
The Word of God is very straightforward. You
were spiritually dark. As dark as dark can
be. Ye were darkness.
Of yourself, you do not see and
do not want to see God. Of yourself you would
live in disobedience and pride. Of yourself
you would have no hope. And of yourself you
are worthy of the pit of hell.
Now, if you believe that that
assessment of mankind and the assessment that is made of you by the Word of God is too
much and you say, “That cannot be,” do not bring your argument to me. You will have to bring that argument to
God’s Word and to God Himself. For the
judgment expressed is the judgment of the living and the true God. “Ye were sometimes darkness.” That is all that can be said of us. We were in the darkness of sin and worthy of the
pit of eternal death.
“But now are ye light in
the Lord!” Praise God! There is the gospel. We must pay attention to the glory contained in
those words “but now.” The apostle
Paul is very fond of that construction. He
used it time and time again. He would say,
“But God, but now…,” that is, on the one side of those words is all of the
hopelessness and ugliness and shamefulness of what we were of ourselves, and on the other
side of those words is all the transforming and recreating power of the Almighty God. Ye were darkness, but now ye are light in
the Lord — a declaration of a glorious difference that God has made by His own grace.
What is light in the Lord? It is the opposite of darkness. It is spiritually, then, to know God and to desire
to know God. It is the life of sweet
obedience to God. It is hope. It is fellowship with God and His people. The Bible says that God is light (I John 1:5). In Him is no darkness at all. God is light — not simply has
light. He is light. Therefore, apart from God is only darkness. For there to be light there has to be God. And as the light, God knows Himself. The light, therefore, is all that God is as He is
the blessed God, the perfect and holy God. God
reveals His own light through the holy Scriptures. He
reveals that light especially in His Son Jesus Christ, for His Son declared that He is the
Light of the world. He revealed the light,
the wonderful, warm, glorious light of God, the light of God’s grace upon the cross. On the cross He took the eternal darkness of His
elect children upon Himself. He was swallowed
up in three hours of darkness. He took our
darkness. Now He is risen. And He sends forth the Holy Spirit into our
heart. By that Spirit He shines into our
hearts the knowledge of the love of God, so that now ye are light in the Lord — not
merely in the light, not merely in a church or in a Christian home or
among other Christians, but ye are light, ye are children of the light. God has created in you the light of the glorious
gospel, the light of the knowledge of God. You
were darkness, you were spiritually dead, living in enmity against God. But now are ye light in the Lord. You have been given, by grace alone, the life of
Christ whereby you might believe and know and love and trust and live onto God. Now are ye light in the Lord.
Do not jump in, now, as we are
prone to do and say, “Pretty good for me! I
asked the Lord to shine upon me, and now I know.”
No, it says, “Ye are light in the Lord.”
We remember what we read in John 15:5, where Jesus said, “without me ye can do
nothing.” In the Lord you are light.
The Christian is a new creation. The light of God has been created in you as in
the beginning. When God spoke, you were not
there. The creation did not ask, “Please
create us.” Of course not. You say, “That’s absurd. There was no creation. So how could the creation say, Lord, create
us.” Of course not. So also for you.
You did not ask God to be your light. This
desire was not born of you. But it was born
of God. As God spoke in the beginning and
said, “Let there be light” and there was light, so the light of God has been
placed in you by a powerful and mighty work of God.
You see, the Christian is not a
patch-up. He is not a make-over. But He is a new creature. God has given our darkness to Christ. And God has placed in our hearts the light of
Christ. You say, “I love God. God is my God.
I understand Him, I love Him, I believe His Word, I belong to Christ. I want to follow Him, I want to walk as a child of
the light.” Praise God! That is because the light has shined into the
darkness. That is because by mighty grace you
were made light in the Lord. Give glory to
God.
Therefore, that means you will
live in the Lord, that you will understand that you are nothing without the Lord Jesus
Christ. You will abide in Him. And you will draw all of your life spiritually
from Him.
We have all had the experience
of drifting in our spiritual life, of allowing ourselves to become detached from spiritual
things and to become enamored with the things of the world.
What happens? Everything begins to
fall apart. Family relationships begin to
explode. We have clashes with our parents. We have problems in marriage. Why? Because
we have allowed ourselves to become detached from the Lord and have set our eye upon our
own sin or the world. Or, maybe there is a
part of our life on which we do not want His light to shine. So the Word of God says, “Ye are light in
the Lord.”
As He created that within us, so
also He preserved that within us through a living union to Himself in which we are called
to walk in dependence and in consciousness of our Lord.
“Walk as children of light.” There
the Word of God is saying, “Live consistently with what you have been made. You are now in the light of the Lord? You were darkness.
Then you walked in the darkness. But
now you are light, light in the Lord. So live
consistently with that light in the Lord.” You
see, your walking in the light does not make you light.
Your walking a Christian life does not make you a Christian. Your obedience, your holiness, your good works in
Christ, your prayers, your repentance do not make you a child of God. No, but walking in the light shows that you
have been made a child of God, shows that you are light in the Lord. It is the fruit of what He has made you to be. The life of the child of God is not the cause of
his being a child of God, but our life is the fruit of our having been made the child of
God. Therefore, give glory to God. Walk as a child of the light.
The word “walk” in the
Scriptures looks at our life as a progression. You
take a step, now you are at a different point. You
were there, but you made progress. You
proceed. It means that every day we must go
forward, we must proceed in the light of the Lord. We
must repent of our sins. Every time we walk
in sin that sin leaves a scar. But now we
must walk in the light of the Lord. We must
live out of the Lord moment by moment as a child of the light. We must walk in the light of the Lord.
What does that mean? That means: Be
faithful. Be faithful to the Word. Be faithful to prayer. Be faithful to the church. In all of your life, never forsake the true church
of Jesus Christ. For in the church of Jesus
Christ, as she preaches the Word of the gospel, you see the light. And you receive, by grace, the power to walk in
the light. You cannot walk in the light
alone. I want to point out to you that the
plural is used: ye — plural, more than one, the church — ye are children of the
light; walk in the light. It is spiritual
arrogance and pride to live separately from the church, to say, “I don’t need
the church, I can be a Christian without the church.”
That is arrogance. A great war is
going to be waged in your life, which is going to try to remove you from the church, from
your place in God’s covenant. Walk as
children of the light, hold fast and love the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Still more. Read the Scriptures. There you shall be renewed in the light.
Still more. Pray.
Still more. Walk as children of the light by not partaking in
the activities of disobedience.
Walk as children of the light by
partaking in all the wonderful spiritual activities of the child of God.
Ye were sometimes darkness. But by a marvelous grace of the Creator God, ye
are now light in the Lord. Walk as children
of the light. Let the light of God be seen in
all of your life. In the midst of the
darkness of sin in this world, let the light of your life be your confession. Let your life and your words be seen as the light
of Christ in order that God might be glorified in you.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank Thee for Thy
holy Word, a Word that teaches us the wonder of salvation by grace alone, of the great
power of salvation, and of our calling to live in thankfulness to Thee. Bless Thy Word to our hearts, in Jesus’ Name,
Amen.
Last
modified: 21-Oct-03