LIGHT
A. B. Parker
I was thinking as our brother was speaking of the way in which the apostle was in the gain of the realities that he had come to embrace which began with the glory when the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus road and a light brighter than the sun shone round about him. So here he is about to speak about the tremendous pressures that he and those with him were under and goes on to the point where he says, “so that death works in us, but life in you”
(2 Corinthians 4: 12). He can speak about these things in power because he is related to the glory and the Man in the glory. This verse, “the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine”, takes us right back to the very beginning of our understanding of the creation, when everything was dark, darkness covered the face of the deep, and Paul carries right through in his thoughts to the completion of every matter in the death of Christ and His being raised from the dead, and being in glory, the glory of God expressed in His face. What a tremendous leap, you might say, spiritually from the commencement of Scripture, the introduction of a scene of darkness and chaos, right through to a settled, ordered matter where the Man of God’s choice is seated on the throne and everything is under divine regulation.
It is a tremendous matter, and it began with glory. You may say it began with light, yes, light I believe is closely related to glory. “Let there be light” (Genesis 1: 3); it was light that was commanded and shed out of the darkness; it was not light shining from heaven exactly, but I would think it was light from the blessed Spirit of God who was there in the darkness. I say that reverently, and subject to correction, but it does say “darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”, and the command was that out of darkness light should shine. It is not only that the light shines into it and dispels the darkness, but that out of darkness light shines.
So it speaks, as we know, of the way God operates, the way He comes into our histories, when we are going on in darkness and without any thought for God; we have been that way.
Some of us know what it is to be moving in darkness, and whilst there had been parental care and some appeal through the Scriptures, yet our souls were dark and it was necessary that something should take place. So the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God take on a very appealing and personal bearing upon us. We can raise a question with ourselves, and it is wholesome to do it, whether there was an answer to God’s word, “Let there be light”, in our souls so that when light came in there was a change. This matter of change is so important, a change is when light comes into the soul, our eyes are opened and we can see.
It just occurred to me as our brother was speaking about the sons of Ephraim in Psalm 78: 9, how well we can see that the characteristics that marked them affected us, at a time when it was a time of battle, a time when there should have been manhood with us, at a time when there should have been the bringing in of light instead of the absorption of darkening influences. We have to face all this in our souls. It is one thing to say, ‘Well, we have faced it and let us put that behind us’. I do not think we would ever put it behind us in the sense of not being ready at any time to acknowledge the
extent to which things went from light into darkness and we went with them; it is a terrible, terrible matter. Not that I want unduly to dwell on that, but we do learn by contrast and we do not appreciate the light if we have not come to realize the density and power and awfulness of the darkness, darkness that could be felt.
Well. God wants to preserve us in the light, and tonight is a good night to talk about glory because it is the opposite to what it is outside, and we would go through the outside conditions with the glory in our souls. And where is it? The glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. It is a wonderful thing to know that that glory is concentrated in the face of a Man. What expression would be in the countenance of Jesus! May we just get some impression of the face of Jesus, the glory of God shining in His face. We need to know Him in this character; we need to know Him better in every character; we need to know what it is to resort into His presence. I challenge myself constantly, how much do I do it? How little I do it!
There is a wonderful comfort and a sense of warmth that comes into your soul, a sense of something radiating, as you get into the presence of the Lord and can just spread matters out before Him, and He gives you the sense that all is under divine control. These are wonderful things. These things take place, as in Psalm 78, where the sons of Ephraim turned back in the day of battle; their wills were active, they were engaged in other things which caused them to set the will of God aside. It is a terrible thing when this happens. But it is that same psalm that finishes up with a man David—leading the people and feeding; skill and integrity characterized that man. He was not turning back in the day of battle, he never did;
David knew how to go forward and he did it in the power that God gave him because he was in contact with God. Shall I go up? Will they deliver me up into the hands of the enemy? He asked these questions of God and he got the answers, and we need to practise more and more to get a sense of divine direction in all our matters so that there can be integrity marking us, not just profession but integrity, and then skill will come with it.
We just need encouragement, dear brethren. I am not criticising in any sense; if I am critical at all it is of myself because I realize the need for more energy spiritually and physically, to be committed to the will of God. May the Lord just encourage us.
Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
13 November 1979