Remain standing for the reading of Holy Scripture. Our New Testament lesson comes from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5. Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 8. For you were once darkness, but now You are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore, he says, awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. This is the word of the Lord. We'll turn now to its Old Testament antecedent. to the gospel according to Isaiah chapter 60, reading the first three verses. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people. But the Lord will arise over you, and his glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of his inspired, inerrant, infallible word. Amen. You may be seated. If you go to First Baptist of Lake Waccamaw, I'm told that on their pulpit they have engraved on it the words post-tenebrous lux. And I know this in part because the Andals have been there and because I've talked to the carpenter who built that pulpit who's also working on our pulpit in the coming months. But post-tenebrous lux, why would they put that on the front of their pulpit? It's a Latin phrase, and it means after darkness, light. After darkness, light. This was one of several mottos, you could say taglines, of the 16th century Reformation, as the reformers, coming out of much error, ignorance, and sin, were forging ahead with a movement of reformation and revival in Europe, a movement from darkness to light. And this pattern, this movement, as we've already seen in our studies in Genesis, goes all the way back to the beginning, where we have primordial darkness, darkness on the face of the deep, the Spirit hovering over the face of the waters, and then God the Father, through His Word, as the Spirit hovers, declaring, let there be light. And there was light. Evening and morning were the first day. And on the other side of Adam's fall, it's not just the physical darkness, but moral darkness. And that's really what the Reformers had in view, the darkness of sin, ignorance, and misery. And into that darkness shines the light of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. And sometimes in the Bible, we almost have both the physical and the moral light and darkness motif brought together. For instance, in John's gospel, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, physical night, to talk to him about that great moral transformation from darkness to spiritual light. You think of R.C. Sproul's little allegory for children, the lightlings. There's a reason why we have grabbed on to this theme of after darkness, lights. And that's precisely what we find in the next passage used in Handel's Messiah. Tonight, we continue in Isaiah, moving from chapter 40 to chapter 60. And if you go to Handel's Messiah, the libretto, our text actually spans part of the 9th and all of the 10th movements. It's the chorus of the 9th and an accompaniment of the 10th. So that's its context within Handel's Messiah. But for our purposes tonight, there's also a context in the book of Isaiah. Within the sevenfold chiasm of this book, Chapter 60 falls in the final section, chapters 58 to 66, which at least one commentator calls the glory and ministry of Israel among the nations. These chapters are about Israel's vocation to be a light to the world, a light to the nations. And they correspond to chapters 1 to 12, the prophecies regarding Judah and Jerusalem. And the key text of this passage The one that is highlighted in Handel's Messiah is verse one. Verse one, which has back-to-back commands followed by a reason for the exhortation. Arise, shine, for your light has come. Tonight, I want us to lean into light imagery in this passage and in the rest of the Bible. In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton published a work called Optics, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colors of Light. Or you could just call it Optics for short. But it's a study of the science of light. And somewhat borrowing from Sir Isaac Newton, tonight we are going to engage in what I've called gospel optics. Gospel optics. We will look at four aspects of gospel light. Direct, refracted, reflected, and magnified light. Let's begin with direct light. Direct light. the white light of God's simple glory. God is light, and in Him is no darkness, none at all. Although that is not the primary theme of the passage, it's talking about the coming of the Messiah, this idea of God's Simple, glorious light is presupposed throughout all these verses. Look at verses one and two. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people, but the Lord will arise over you, and his glory will be seen upon you. Now, there's a parallel here. Your light has come. The glory of Jehovah is risen. Then there's another parallel. Jehovah will arise, his glory will be seen. In these parallels, there is a close connection between God's glory and an outshining light. C.S. Lewis picks up on this idea in his famous essay, The Weight of Glory, when he says, glory suggests two ideas to me. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. And that's true, biblically speaking. On the one hand, the Hebrew word for glory means weight or heaviness. It suggests honor and fame. But on the other hand, passages like Isaiah chapter 60, Connect God's glory with radiant light, luminosity. To quote theologian Michael Reeves, the beautiful glory of the triune God is radiating, self-giving, and loving. It is a shining out light. God's glory shines forth. He dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see. Just think for a moment of the ways in which created light is a dim picture of God's glory. When you turn on a light switch, when you watch a sunrise, or you gather around a warm fire, you are getting a creaturely, creational, dim picture that suggests the simple white light of God's glory whom no man has seen or can see because it would burn out our retinas. This is what I mean by direct light, the white light of God's simple glory. And this idea of it being unapproachable actually comes up in a lot of our hymns. Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light, inaccessible, hid from our eyes. Or one of my children's favorite hymns, based on Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5, holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see. Now that's true. If God's light is so powerful, if his glory is so concentrated that to behold it would be to blind us, if not kill us, then how can we benefit from the light of God's radiance? And that brings us to refracted light. From direct light to refracted light. Already mentioned in the introduction, the outshining of God's glory on day one of creation. We've said this many times about how God took that task and then delegated it to sun, moon, and stars on day four, these creaturely expressions of light. But there is an interesting image where the glory spirit of Genesis 1 returns in the appearance of a cloud. pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that accompanied the children of Israel in the wilderness. And if you look at those passages, probably the fire shone through the cloud, probably burning continually, but you were only able to see it in the dark. What you have here is an expression of God's glory, His light, His radiance, but it's also veiled in a cloud. It's veiled, but seen. It's mediated through the cloud. And this mediation, or we could say refraction of light, points ultimately to the coming of the Messiah, one who would be a mediator of the glory of God. And that's primarily what this passage is talking about. It's talking about refracted light. coming through the God-man mediator. Look at these verses again. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. The Lord will arise over you, and his glory will be seen upon you. Interestingly, Isaiah says, has come, is risen. Now, from Isaiah's standpoint, had the Messiah appeared? No, he hadn't. Had he come? Not yet. And yet, he uses what E.J. Young calls verbs that are in the prophetic perfect to telegraph to us the certainty of the fulfillment of these prophecies. It's as if it's a past event. It's a done deal. So certain is the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies that Isaiah can say, it's already come. The Lord has arisen over you. And we know that's a description of a future event because later on he talks about the same thing in the future tense. Jehovah will arise, his glory will be seen. And this, from our standpoint, happened in the coming of the Christ, the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. the eternal son of God, the brightness of his father's glory, entered time and space. He is the bright and morning star, the day spring from on high, the light of the world. And that's how Isaiah wants us to think about the incarnation. He wants us to think about it as the earth, the people covered in darkness for thousands of years. And then with the coming of Jesus upon the scene, We have the morning star and then the dawn rising. Although we cannot see God, although we cannot directly behold the white light of his simple glory, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The incarnate Christ mediates the glory of the Father. If you've seen me, Jesus said, you've seen the Father. And that brings us to the idea of refracted light. If you're familiar with Sir Isaac Newton, he conducted experiments using prisms, where he would pass white light through this crystal. And when you do that, what do you see? What do you see when you pass white light through a prism? Well, it refracts the white light into a visible spectrum of colors. And those of you in school should remember Roy G. Biv. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. And you might think, what does this optical theory of prisms have to do with Jesus Christ? Well, I think it does by analogy. At the cross, the white light of God's glory was refracted through the prism of the cross. The white light, the unapproachable glory of God, was at the cross where hung the God-man. It passed through the prism of the cross, revealing unto His creatures a multicolored rainbow of divine attributes. In the death of the Son of God, according to His humanity, the Lord is revealed to be spiritual, infinite, simple, glorious, blessed, perfect, all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. All of the adjectives, the attributes, that I just read from the Westminster Larger Catechism. These were put on radiant display at the cross, where God's holiness and his love meet together, where God's mercy and his justice are both satisfied at the cross. This is the refracted, multicolored light of God's glory as it passes through the prism of the cross. The congregation on this visible spectrum, there is one color that stands out, a kind of theological red shift. Because at the cross, the moon turned the color of blood as Jesus poured out his red blood for sinners. I call it a kind of theological red shift because at the cross, it is stained, it is sealed in red blood. And that's atonement. And that's salvation. And that's reconciliation. And that's justification. That's cleansing. That's acquittal. And the resurrection is no less bright and no less colorful, for the Son of Righteousness arose with healing in his wings. Though we cannot behold, The simple white light of God's glory head on, unmediated as finite and indeed now fallen creatures. Yet in Jesus Christ, that light is refracted through the prism of the cross and we behold all of God's attributes. It's been said there are no good isms but prisms. And quite seriously, we don't need ideologies. We don't need isms, whether they be Marxism, communism, or socialism. What we need is the gospel. What we need is the gospel of refracted light, the gospel of God's justice and mercy, of his love and his holiness. As Paul says, it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. As we sing in our Christmas carols, O holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. And with the day spring, from on high, with the bright and morning star, with the Son of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings, congregation, the world has never been the same again. The world that lay in darkness, the people under the cover of darkness, none of that's ever been the same again. Just a fact of history. Not only do we mark history by B.C. and A.D., but God's people have changed from a lunar to a solar calendar. Everything has changed with the coming of Jesus, the bright and morning star. And this is a great comfort to God's people. This doctrine that God's glory comes to us through the mediator, covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ, is very comforting. As Micah says, do not rejoice over me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. When I sit in darkness, the Lord is a light to me. Like the phial of Galadriel, may the gospel of Jesus Christ be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out. We've seen the direct lights, the white light of God's simple glory. We've seen refracted light, the multicolored attributes of God on display at the cross. We turn now to another aspect of gospel optics, reflected light. Reflected light in the witness of the church. If God's glory in Christ Jesus is the intrinsic light of the sun, then our witness is the reflected light of the moon. And we see that witness in this passage, in those back-to-back commands. Arise, shine, for your light has come. E.J. Young, paraphrasing the great commentator Dalich, claims there is a creative force in these two words. Arise, shine, a creative force in which as God utters them, they grant what they command. They're efficacious. When God tells you to arise, you stand up. When he tells you to shine, you break forth with lights. It's like Jesus' words, the lame, arise, take up your bed and walk. Arise, shine. Similar to another set of commands in Isaiah 26, 19, awake and sing. Well, here it's arise, shine. And clearly, this is in part a call to worship. As we reflect the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and he tells us to arise, this is a call to worship, to ascend, to lift up our hearts to heaven. But it's also, congregation, a call to battle. This word, arise, is a call to battle. In fact, worship and warfare go together. Just think of Theoden's speech. Arise! Arise, riders of Rohem! Fel deeds awake! Fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken! Shield be splintered! A sword day! A red day! E'er the sun rises! Ride now! Ride now! Ride to Gondor! Now, when he uttered that speech within the story, the first words he said were, Arise! Because that word is a call to battle. Yes, it can be a summons to worship, but also a call to arms. And on the battlefield, your primary weapon is your witness. Your primary weapon is your witness. It's arise, shine. Take up your arms and shine. God's glory is to your witness what the sun's light is to the moon's reflection. You shine with a reflected light. Because congregation, you are called to be salt and light. And remarkably, the same words that are used of Jesus are mysteriously applied to his people. Jesus is the light of the world. Those great I am statements of John's gospel. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And yet the same Christ said to his people, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And he gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Jesus is the unique. unmatched light of the worlds. But we, like orbiting moons, receive the same title by reflection. We can only reflect light that we are given. I think that's what Paul had in mind when he called the Ephesians to walk as children of light. He said, Awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Christ gives you light, and then you reflect it to the worlds. The church, in union with Jesus, is a lighthouse to the drowning nations. That's what this congregation is. In Wilmington, in the King's Grant community, we are a lighthouse. The fact that we're meeting tonight, we are basically lifting up a lampstand saying, all you who are drowning, here is a place of refuge. Here is a place of safety. Here is a place of salvation. Come to the light. A light that is not ours by nature, but a light that we have received from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. We are a lighthouse to drowning nations. To arise and shine is to go and make disciples. This is another way of talking about the Great Commission. Instead of teaching and baptizing all the rest, now it's the language of arising and shining. It's through witness. And I've said this before, but one of the ways that we can shine brightly to the world is by telling better stories than the world. Telling stories that not only are true, but that are good and that are beautiful, that are compelling, that not only appeal to the intellect and to the will and to the conscience, but fire the imagination. Christians, of all people, are called to tell better stories. Stories marked by a deep gravity, but also a compelling gladness. Because we are carrying the fire to the world. We are carrying the fire to the nations. We are arising and shining. Finally, having spoken of gospel witness, we're gonna talk a little bit about gospel fruit. As we move from direct refracted, reflected light to finally magnified light. Magnified light in the salvation of the nations and their kings. Think of it this way. You have the white light of God's simple glory refracted through the prism of the cross reflected by the catch basins of the church's witness. And that is now magnified in the conversion of the nations and of their kings. And we see this final component of the magnification of God's light in verse three. The Gentiles shall come to your light in response to your witness, in response to your reflection. The Gentiles shall come. and kings to the brightness of your rising. Congregation, this was Abraham's promise. In you and in your seat, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This was Israel's vocation to be a light to the nations. This was Solomon's proverb. Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men. This was David's expectation for the kings and judges of the earth to serve the Lord with fear, to rejoice with trembling, to kiss the sun. Whether it's Solomon or David or Israel or Moses or Abraham, there's always been an emphasis throughout the Old Testament that the nations are going to come. to your lights, that even kings shall be converted. And congregation, this is what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do until he comes again on the clouds of heaven. We get just foretastes, prefigurations of this in the Old Testament where Melchizedek, the priest king of Salem, blesses Abraham. Or when Pharaoh receives the blessing of Jacob. We see this in Nebuchadnezzar, who served the God of Daniel. Cyrus, who decreed the rebuilding of the temple. The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. And here and there, it actually happens in a specific instance. And yet... Not fully, not yet. It's not until we get to the New Testament, when Jesus, King Jesus comes, that truly it's time for the floodgates to open and the nations to stream in, and including their kings. Paul stood before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, bearing witness to the risen Christ. Although Nero and other emperors persecuted the Christians and Deuces, and kings began to kiss the sun, lest they perish in the way. I'll mention a few of them. Tiridates III, the king of Armenia, bowed the knee to Christ so that Armenia became the very first Christian nation. Ezanza of Aksum, the king of Ethiopia, bowed the knee to Christ, making Ethiopia the second official Christian nation. Constantine I, the emperor of the Roman Empire, Clovis I, king of the Franks, Ethelbert of Kent, king of the Saxons, Vladimir the Great, King or Prince of Keeve. Edward VI, King of England. Now some of these conversions were genuine, others only formally, but in each of these cases, the crown rites of King Jesus were publicly acknowledged. Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. And in one sense, I have to say it, this reality is already accomplished. As John says in his apocalypse, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Christ has won. When you go forth with a gospel message, with the weapon of your witness, you're not telling people to make Jesus king. You're telling people that he is king, that he has won, and it's time to lay down your arms and worship him, to bow the knee to King Jesus. That's why Athanasius said, when the sun has come, darkness prevails no longer. Any of it that may be left anywhere is driven away. So also now, the divine epiphany of the word of God has taken place. The darkness of idols prevails no more, and his teaching enlightens all parts of the world in every direction. The light has come. The Gentiles have come, and kings to the brightness of your rising. And yet, you have to wonder, when Athanasius said that, were there any idolaters still in his neighborhood? Of course there were. Were there still tribes that didn't know the name of the Lord Jesus? Yes. And that's why, although Jesus is crowned and is enthroned, there are still pockets of rebellion. There are still holdouts loyal to the enemy. The gods of this world have been dispossessed, and yet they still want to exercise an influence on the nations. The demons are still active. I mentioned this in the intercessory prayer this morning, In this land, a land that was a broadly Christian republic at its founding, it has become plausible in the minds of professing Christian lawmakers to defend the presence of a satanic altar and idol in the Iowa Statehouse. The fact that that's even on the table shows you that the battle is not done. There's still a need for Bonifaces to cut down, to cut down Donor's Oak, to cut down the Oak to Thor, and to raise up a lampstand for Christ's crown and covenant. The battle is not done until all the nations stream to Zion, until every king bows the knee. And it's not just kings out there. It's not just nations far away. But to anyone here tonight who doesn't know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, this passage is screaming to you, come to the light. As you feel the weight of your sin, your ignorance, your misery, realize that you who dwell in darkness have good news. Come to the light. Embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to you in the gospel. Bow the knee to his kingship. Come to the light. And even as believers, we keep on coming to the light. We keep on coming to Jesus. We don't get over our need to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone. Now when you do, if you do come to the light, I should warn you, You will not be able to hide your sins in the light. When you walk into the light of God, all your sins have to come out of the closet, under the rug, out of the shadows, and they're there. But part of the good news is the gospel redshift. If you trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, his blood will cleanse you from all sin. The same light that reveals your sin will cover your sin and shine upon your face. In the meantime, the battle is not done until that great day when Jesus comes in glory. I've read these verses before. But I'll read them again from Revelation 21, because this really takes us to the end, not only of the light imagery, the gospel optics, but the conversion of the nations, the salvation of kings. All of it comes together in Revelation 21, where John records, I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are His temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, but the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light, and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day, there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. Not only on that great day shall every knee bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, there'll be no more need of sun or moon. The lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. On that day, we as God's people will take the place of the stars in heaven to join the great dance. For those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. And those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father Indeed, the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. After darkness, light, direct, refracted, reflected, magnified light that to our transformed eyes in resurrection bodies will shine only brighter and brighter, glorious and more glorious for all eternity. Even so come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Let's pray.