LIGHT IN DARKNESS

Peter Mutton

John 1: 1-11; Matthew 17: 1-8; Acts 26: 1,2, 11-19; Revelation 21: 21-24

The Scriptures start pretty much in the same way that John begins his gospel. The Bible starts with a condition, a world, in which darkness prevailed. God's creation of the world would in itself have been perfect but something had happened in that opening clause of the book of Genesis which had turned the whole vista into one of darkness: "darkness was on the face of the deep", and the Spirit of God is recorded as "hovering over the face of the waters", Gen 1: 2, that is, there was nothing with which God could communicate or commune upon the earth. The whole thing was under a blanket of darkness, a pall of darkness. John begins his gospel with a world as plunged into a night time of darkness, moral darkness. Even in the very place where God had set His mark and His promise, there was darkness and moral decay. There were a few lights, a few saints, "awaiting the consolation of Israel", a few true souls to whom God could communicate His mind and they were there waiting and ready for the birth of Jesus. But they were only a few. When God wanted a regal and a royal testimony as to who His Son was, He sent to the east for the magi. When He wanted some men who would take a lively interest in the birth of His Son, He had to go out to the fields to find some shepherds. There were a few, but they were precious to God. Malachi speaks of the few that feared Jehovah, that “thought upon His name", (Mal 3: 16} and God has them written into a book of remembrance. God has those with whom He can communicate His mind and who commune with Himself, the spiritual. There is a lot to think about, a lot in scripture, that bears examination, but what a challenge for man, because in the time in which we are God has shone out so powerfully in the Person of His Son. The glory of God has shone out in the face of a Man, in the face of Jesus. And yet Isaiah says, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?" Isa 53: 1. There were very few. He says "we esteemed him not"; we did not give Him a place. And do you know, beloved brother, beloved sister, beloved young person, much is unchanged in the world. No place is given to Christ. You will not find Him in business. You will find a dearth of moral and Christian principles in business. It has been said that the further up you get in this world, the nearer you get to the god of it - and that is not Jesus. The prince of this world is Satan, the great deceiver of men. People think they are living in good times, times of prosperity, certainly in the western world. But God has a very different view and John writing here says, "And the light appears in darkness". Matthew, quoting Isaiah, describes the light springing up in the place of darkness, "in the country and shadow of death" (Matt 4: 16). But there was no answer. I wonder if we have answered to the light in Christ. I wonder if you have seen it, glimpsed it. How do you see Him? You need a single eye to see the light of Jesus. That is to say you have to fasten your eye on Jesus to the exclusion of everything else. John says, "and we have contemplated his glory", chap 1: 14. John sat and looked at Jesus and what did he see? He saw something that was to burn into his soul, into his heart. Jesus was revealed in him. He became alive in the presence of Jesus, just as did Peter and James and the other disciples. Some went away backwards, those who had not taken time to contemplate and comprehend who was here went away back, and Jesus said to His disciples, "Will ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal", John 6: 67,68. He could not think of going anywhere else because the light had shone into his heart.

How important it is that we come to the light and that we are affected by it. We sometimes speak about light in a doctrinal way and it is dangerous. I have light as to this scripture or that one, but the truth is in Jesus. He is the One of whom we speak. If we speak about the light of the truth, it is only meaningful so long as it refers to Himself. Remember those two who went gloomily back to Emmaus and Jesus joined them and spoke to them, and their hearts began to burn? "And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself", Luke 24: 27. The scriptures can become a dead letter. The only thing that makes them meaningful is when you have a glimpse of a Person who is the "light of the world" (John 8: 12).

We read about Paul again, Saul of Tarsus. What a dreadful man he was! He speaks of himself, "an insolent overbearing man", 1 Tim 1: 13, and he said, "I indeed myself thought that I ought to do much against the name of Jesus the Nazaraean", Acts 26: 9, and here he is at his defence. Where did it lead him, his devotion to Jesus? It led him to the dock and he was in chains. Oh, but he loved the opportunity. King Agrippa said, 'You can start now, Paul'. "It is permitted thee to speak ..." And he stretched out his hand and he said, "I count myself happy". Was he happy on the road to Damascus? No! He was miserable! He had been kicking against the Christian, kicking against the name of Jesus and every time he stubbed his toe because he was kicking against a rock that God had set, an immoveable obstacle, a stone of stumbling ... a rock of offence to the Pharisee: you cannot change it. Daniel, you will remember, speaks about a stone cut out without hands and it smashed the whole of the edifice of the civilised world. It all becomes as nothing before Jesus. "The stone which the builders cast away as worthless, this is become head of the corner", 1 Pet 2: 7.

Here we have Saul of Tarsus in his fury and rage. The more he trampled on the name of Christ, the more it was in evidence, and here he is at Damascus, consumed with zeal and passion against the very One whom God has set for all time and for eternity. I love this passage because Paul who is given to speaking at great length and at great speed, without commas, paragraphs, full stops, starts to 'wind down' as he relives this experience. And he says "And when, engaged in this, I was journeying to Damascus, with authority and power from the chief priests, at mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king ..." - you can just see him looking up as it all came back to him - "a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me". Mid-day, on the way, oh, dear friend, it is essential that we know something of the outshining of this Man, Jesus. We may not have had this experience on the road to Damascus that Paul had. Your conversion to Christ may not be so dramatic but there must be one. Saul as far as the pharisaical mind was concerned was perfect. He had not transgressed the law. In everything he was blameless. If you were to look at chapter and verse for Saul of Tarsus he would get an 'A' in every category. Had he not sat at the feet of Gamaliel? Was he not destined for great things as a Pharisee of the Pharisees? Had he not a great career because of his zeal and doubtless his charisma and his power? But suddenly there shone on the way, at mid-day, a light above the brightness of the sun, and everything slowed down for Saul of Tarsus into a moment of time. He came up against that immoveable object that was bigger than he was. Dear friend, I do not know what you are like, but if there is hope for Saul of Tarsus, there is hope for you. You too can become a spiritual person, a person devoted to the Lord and to His service, a man that can be happy in the dock, happy in prison, happy in chains, because he has found something that is out of this world that empowered him to live in it. He was one to whom the arm of Jehovah had been revealed. Where does he find himself? He finds himself on the dusty desert road on his knees before a God who was so great, so omnipotent, and yet in the Person of His Son was taking time to speak to him in grace. "It is hard for thee to kick against goads". "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest". Well, may we cry to the Lord! If we have not had this experience in our souls, we need to get on our knees, we need to look with a single eye that we might have light in our vessels, a single eye of contemplation, of desire, fixed on Jesus.

There are many of whom we can speak in this context. Mary of Bethany was one such, a single eye for Jesus as she sat at His feet and heard His word. She was there drinking in what He had to say, and that, I believe, is the first step, just to listen. You say, I have never had an experience with the Lord. He has never spoken to me. But have you bothered to listen? Saul of Tarsus had never listened. He had read the prophets and they had gone straight over his head and suddenly he is confronted by someone that he had to listen to: "Who are thou, Lord? ... I am Jesus whom thou persecutest". And where may I see you, Lord? You have seen me in my saints. They are Mine. I am identified with them and I want to be, Saul, identified with you. I want you to identify with me. And he takes him up and stands him on his feet and sends him. There he goes, led by the hand, into Damascus to await God's time. There we have an example of a man who saw the light that is radiant in the face of a Man, the face of Jesus. How attractively God has resented Himself to us, in His Son, that lowly gracious Man who went about doing good! Did He turn away those who came in their need? No! He was there always ready and available for those in need, but above all He wanted them to know the Father and the love of God.

We read too in Matthew of a glimpse that the disciples, Peter and James and John, had of the Lord. I am sure they were somewhat confused at this time and we must remember that John wrote his account many years after this event. His impression of Christ became developed with time, contemplative time, much of it spent in isolation in Patmos, John's gospel probably being the last book written in the scriptures. But here Peter was still, you might say, an unpolished stone, not set in its final setting. And Peter was always, perhaps, that rough diamond that the Lord esteemed and yet some of us maybe look on and say, Well, why Peter? Surely there was somebody a bit more responsible, a bit more trustworthy. Oh, thank God, the Lord has taken up those who were not naturally trustworthy, those who spoke before they had really engaged their minds, their thoughts. He has taken up people like you and me and he has set us together. He has taken up those who were in the dung-hill and He has set us among princes. What a princely company, not because of anything we were, but because of what He has desires. If we are anything in the things of God,

It is His work, His workmanship that is going to shine. And so here we have these three and the Lord has taken them, has singled them out for a distinctive impression of Himself "into a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before them. And his face shone as the sun, and his garment became white as the light". For a moment they glimpsed something of the glory of Jesus. When we see Him, I am sure we shall see this, the light, the light of God in the face of a Man, His face there radiant. What joy to behold the face of Jesus! Not a Man of sorrow or suffering, not a Man amongst men bearing their weight or bearing their guilt as He did ultimately, not bearing their pain as He did throughout His life, but to see a Man there in the realm which belonged to Him, and these three men were privileged to see it. May we as looking away to Jesus with that single eye have some sense of Him now in His glory, sat down on the Father's throne, all things ordered and waiting the full end of time! This dark moral morass that surrounds us is only for a time. It will not continue. The time is set when it will all be done away. The great institutions of men will be dissolved. Finally what will be seen will be Jesus alone. The great Saviour of mankind will be seen as the Saviour of the world practically. But here they have a glimpse of Him and yet, again, instead of the single eye, they, especially Peter, became distracted. They started to think about what they should do. Oh, 'we are privileged to be here!' Let us make three tabernacles: one for Moses, one for Elias, but, Lord, of course, first, one for yourself! "Such a voice", they heard, Peter writes later, "uttered ... by the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son", 2 Pet 1: 17. What do we think of Him? Do we think of Him at all? Do we give Him any place? because God has given Him the very first place. Do not compare Him with Moses and Elias! Do not compare Him with Paul or Apollos or Cephas! He is beyond compare and we must needs contemplate Him and who He is. And so, here again, there is the casting down, "And the disciples hearing it fell upon their faces, and were greatly terrified". How often our impulses to do something for Him get in the way of what He is trying to do in us and for us. In an attempt to get hold and grasp our privileges, we miss the privilege! There is no detailed record of what Moses and Elias said. It is almost as though they were not ready for it, were not in a condition to receive these remarkable words that were uttered on the mountain. First, before we can receive any communication from God, we must feast our eyes on the One whom God has set for the fall, but for the rising up of many. And so these men fell there on their faces. They heard the voice, but the wonder and the grace of it that "Jesus coming to them touched them, and said, Rise up, and be not terrified. And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus alone". He is always there for us, the great Mediator, the great Intercessor, the One there with His hand upon the throne, the throne of God. He can sit upon it. He can speak for you, and He does! There is one who accuses, but here is one who defends. And God always listens to Him. And here He is, Jesus alone with themselves. What a comfort to know that the Lord Jesus is on our side, indeed, as God is Himself, but we see Him, we see there the face of a Man, and it is set towards us in grace, but the heart of God is behind it.

I just wanted to read in the book of the Revelation chapter 21 to see the end of the matter in verse 23. We have here the detail of the bride, the Lamb's wife, the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God, and when we get to verse 23, "And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by its light; and the kings of the earth bring their glory to it". Wonderful thing! No need of the sun or of the moon. We are in transitional times. The sun and the moon are indicative of that. There is the day: God has divided between the light and the darkness. In fact, in a physical way, just as He is dividing in time between the moral darkness and the light which is in Christ for us, God has given the symbols of it in the sky and we are reminded, I suppose, inevitably, of what happened at Calvary when suddenly the light went. God withheld His light for three hours. There was no relief during those three hours for the One upon whom God had settled the first place. There communion was severed. No man looked on at Him, and it is as though God looks on no man and turns away from the earth. What a terrible thing! a darkness, I am sure, which was like that which was felt in Egypt during the plagues, a darkness that could be felt. But that time is over. God now has a basis whereby He can come out in wondrous grace and blessing to men. But we too must distinguish between what is light and what is darkness. "The Father of lights" is One in whom there is no darkness, no "shadow of turning", Jas 1: 17, and we must feast our eyes on the standard of light that He has set forth in Jesus.

May we be encouraged in this. Let us not look anywhere else for satisfaction! There is nowhere else where we shall find satisfaction which lasts, it is found alone in Christ and He belongs to another world, another realm. The three disciples saw it for a moment, but we all shall see Him. We shall all be caught up to Him in the cloud and we shall see His glory. May the Lord hasten that time for His Name's sake!

KIRKCALDY

4 February 1995