WILL YOUR LAMP BE PUT OUT?
[p. 76] WILL YOUR LAMP BE PUT OUT?
Proverbs 20: 27; Proverbs 24: 20; Proverbs 31: 18; Luke 8: 16
Each of these passages speaks of a lamp. The first passage speaks of man’s spirit being the lamp of Jehovah. We each have a spirit, and we received it from God. We do not receive our spirits from our parents; we receive our spirits from God. God Himself is called the Father of spirits, and in truth He is Himself a Spirit. As having breathed into Adam’s nostrils Adam received a spirit; by this means God had an avenue to approach Adam and speak to him as it says in this scripture: “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Jehovah”. By it God searches man’s inner parts. Animals do not possess that element; God did not breathe into the animals, and He does not speak to animals in the sense that He speaks to men. When God walked in the garden, it is not said that the animals heard His voice. Adam and Eve heard it and were afraid. Why were they afraid? Because they had disobeyed God’s word, but God had a means of speaking to them, and God can in that way speak to every person who is found here, regarding Christ. God does not address Himself to the beasts of the field; He addresses Himself to men. Men possess within them that which corresponds to God. Each of them has a spirit, and that spirit is the lamp of Jehovah. He would make use of that lamp today to enlighten each one of us, by speaking to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel relates to Christ. It is called “God’s glad tidings ... concerning his Son ... Jesus Christ our Lord” Romans 1:1, Romans 1:3-4. Thus God would manifest Christ and His work to each of our hearts. He desires that the light of the gospel should penetrate into our most secret parts. When He was down here, the Lord Jesus said: Repent and believe in the glad tidings. Now the light is that it is possible for man to repent. When man sinned, God might have allowed him to continue in his course [p. 77] and that would have been eternal alienation from God; but God has opened the door of repentance. Thus the Lord Jesus addresses men, and says: Repent; the time is fulfilled; believe in the glad tidings.
We see in many instances which the gospels give us, that God addressed men by means of their spirit, and how they were enlightened and believed! At the very moment of the crucifixion of our Lord, the dying robber was enlightened in his spirit as to the One who was nailed to the cross, and he could say: “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom” Luke 23:42.
I wonder if there is any one here who has addressed the Lord Jesus in those terms. He is waiting for you to speak to Him. According as the light enters into your soul, He desires to hear you speak to Him. And the Lord answered the robber: “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” Luke 23:43. If there is someone here who is convicted of his lost state and who addresses himself to the Lord, he will be answered immediately. On another occasion, a woman of the city went to find the Lord in a Pharisee’s house. She went in there because Jesus was there. She stood behind at His feet, weeping and washing His feet with her tears. What did those tears mean? That the love of God had penetrated into her inward parts. She had discovered that she was a sinner, and that a Saviour was in the Pharisee’s house, the only Saviour, for there is no other name than the name of Jesus, which has been given among men, whereby we must be saved. This woman recognised Him as such, in an attitude of repentance. She washed His feet; she wiped them, and she anointed them. All that she did witnessed to what was in her heart; all was the fruit of the light that was in her spirit, “the lamp of Jehovah”. And the Lord said to her: “Thy faith has saved thee” Luke 7:50. He would say the same words to anyone who repents, to anyone who turns to Him this evening: “Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace”.
[p. 78] It might be that someone has come here with a troubled conscience. We who serve the Lord are always glad when we learn that someone is troubled in conscience, for man has not only a spirit but also a conscience. He did not receive a conscience and a spirit at the same time. His spirit was given him when God breathed into his nostrils; but he had a conscience when he ate of the forbidden fruit. He discovered then the difference between good and evil. Every person has a conscience, as well as a spirit. The spirit is the divine element by which God addresses Himself to man. He spoke to him before he sinned; but as soon as man had sinned God spoke to him through his conscience, and the conscience judges sin. In proportion as divine light enters into the inward parts, conscience begins to be in exercise and one becomes troubled. We bless God when conscience troubles you. When you are anxious about your sins you are ready to receive the gospel. The man who went up to the temple to pray had a troubled conscience; he was so concerned as to his sin that he would not lift up his eyes to heaven. The lamp of Jehovah was lighting up his inner being; and he said: “O God, have compassion on me, the sinner” Luke 18:13. Such is the effect of the light penetrating. It is not only that I am a sinner, but the sinner. He said “on me, the sinner”. And the Lord says of that man that he “went down to his house justified”. How could he go away justified? Because Another was going to bear his sins; the Saviour was about to die for him, and on account of His death and resurrection, he was justified, and the gospel announces that God justifies him that believes in Jesus. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood, for the showing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God; for the showing forth of his righteousness in the present time,
[p. 79] so that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus” Romans 3:24 - 26. No one can lay a charge against someone who is justified. “It is God who justifies: who is he that condemns?” Romans 8:33 - 24 How glorious the gospel is! Is there anyone here who could refuse it? Those who refuse the gospel will be punished with an eternal destruction from the Lord. Most of us are christians, and have proved the truth of these things, the enjoyment of forgiveness, that God regards us as righteous, having poured out His Spirit into our hearts.
To show how solemn it is to refuse the gospel, it says that “the lamp of the wicked shall be put out”. In the book of Job (chapter 18: 5, 6), we read a similar passage: “The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the flame of his fire shall not shine. The light shall become dark in his tent, and his lamp over him shall be put out”. These scriptures allude to persons who have light. Every person who takes the place of a christian has a certain light; but how terrible this word is! “The lamp of the wicked shall be put out”. A time will come when every light will have disappeared from your soul. God will send men a working of error, that they should believe what is false. Falsehood is not light; it is darkness. Satan is the father of falsehood, and those who believe in falsehood are in darkness. They will be banished far from the presence of the Lord, in an eternal destruction.
In the third passage it says of a certain person that her lamp goeth not out. That is a woman of worth, a virtuous woman, a symbolic person who represents a believer, or a certain number of real believers. God finds no pleasure in persons who are not real, who lean to the right or the left, like reeds whose heads bend to one side or the other. There are thousands of persons in that state, in the church or chapel and elsewhere. If there is anyone here who leans like that, first to one side, then to the other, I give them a warning: God does not find pleasure in the way you are going on.
[p. 80] God looks at the heart. You may observe every religious rite; there is no value in them if there is not reality. Is there anyone here this evening who is only outwardly religious, without having ever shed tears like the woman in the seventh chapter of Luke? Are there any who have never gone into their rooms to kneel before God in the confession of their sins? God calls you to renounce all that is not real, to be real before Him.
The virtuous woman is the opposite of what you are, if you are not a true christian. She is real. She had judged herself for all her sins. Now, her lamp goeth not out by night. And your lamp will not go out if you humble yourself and believe in the Lord Jesus, from this evening. The salvation that we preach this evening is an eternal salvation. The Lord Jesus said that he that believes on the Son has life eternal.
In the fourth passage we read the Lord’s own words. They refer to a true believer. He is to be a light in the world. How wonderful it is to be able to be a light in this world of darkness. So the Lord says: “No one having lighted a lamp covers it with a vessel or puts it under a couch”. It may be that someone speaks like this: Now that I have believed in Christ, I can launch out into business and think of my own comfort and pleasures. The Lord Jesus reproves such language. He says: Your whole body is to be full of light. You are not going to put that lamp under a couch. That lamp is to shine, as the stars shine in the heaven. He calls each star by name. Think of the millions of stars: God has given each one of them a name. He needs them all. Those who love righteousness will shine like the stars for ever and ever. How necessary it is then that christians should be in their place to shine in this world of darkness, so that where they have lived in sin, they should now be light-bearers! The apostle said to the Philippians. “That ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in the world ...” Philippians 2:15. With your sins, you have darkened this scene; henceforth you are to illuminate it, for God who commanded light to shine out of darkness is He “who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” 2 Corinthians 4:6. That is what the Lord Jesus means in the passage we read in the eighth of Luke: “No one having lighted a lamp covers it with a vessel or puts it under a couch, but sets it on a lamp-stand, that they who enter in may see the light”.
May God bless His word to us all!