Today, when I was preparing for this sermon, I started to skip over this little passage and go straight to 8, 9, and 10, because it's so familiar with all of you, and it's so often referred to, and it's so well known to you. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I shouldn't skip over it for the very reason that it's so familiar to you. It's so often referred to by you, but maybe it's not as well known as it could be, so it could be more used by you. So, if we are going to refer to it, and we are, then God would have us use it properly. So, when we read 1 John 5, it says this, this is the message which we have heard. The message that is from God, that we have heard from Him, He says, and declared to you. So, God gave it to John and the apostles, and the apostles gave it to us. The apostles are all dead. They are all gone. There are no apostles anymore. And therefore the Bible is the final word of God, and when the last apostle died, the canon was closed, the scriptures were complete, and they were gathered and delivered to us. And that's what we have in the 66 books of the Older and the Newer Testaments. So that is the message that we heard from Him, meaning God, and declared to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Now, what is this phrase that God is light that we read about in verse 5? Well, that is John the Apostle's way of explaining that the message we have been given in the first four verses was all about Jesus Christ. You remember Jesus Christ is described in those first four verses, and we know from Jesus' own lips, He says that He is the light of the world in John 8, 12. So we not only know that He is the light of the world, but that is also a way to express His divinity right there. We're told here that God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. So light is a word picture to show the nature and the character of God. And this, of course, fits perfectly because all light comes from Him. At the beginning of time, He created the light to pierce the darkness and drive it away, Genesis 1, 1-5. He then created the lights in the sky and the sun and the moon and the stars, says Genesis 1, 14-16. You see, He is so powerful, all He had to do was to speak. and light came into being. And let me just challenge you, why don't you try that? Why don't you just speak light into existence? Why don't you just speak a world into existence? Why don't you just speak anything into existence? You know why you don't? Because you can't. And you know why you can't? Because you are little, like me. We have not been given that kind of power and authority to speak things into existence. It doesn't reside with men. That is God's prerogative. So with that in mind, why would we ever live our lives our way when we can't really do much for ourselves? Why don't we follow God and God's ways who can do, He can simply speak and make our way for us? Because we're foolish and we're sinful and we're fallen and we need to be convinced of our sin and our misery. We need our minds enlightened in the knowledge of Christ. We need our wills renewed and we need to embrace him as he was offered to us in the gospel. So he spoke and light came into being. And then in these verses we also see the opposite of light. We see something mentioned here that's never been able to be compatible with light, and that thing is called darkness. Now here darkness represents everything that is anti-God, that is contrary to God. Darkness represents the wicked. Proverb 2.13 speaks of those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness. Darkness versus light. Wickedness equals holiness. It's incompatible. And darkness is the Hebrew word that can literally mean darkness, but it usually is figurative. It's almost always figurative, and it usually means misery, or destruction, or death, or ignorance, or sorrow, or, as here, wickedness. Also, darkness represents judgment. In Exodus 10-21, we have the ninth plague. Does anybody remember what the ninth plague was? The plague of darkness. The plague of darkness. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt. Darkness which may even be felt. Have you ever felt the darkness? I've never I've never had experiences like, experiences that I've heard people tell me, of them experiencing the darkness. But I felt darkness. But there must be a darkness that is so dark and so desperate. that it's unimaginable. Going on, Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. Wherever they were lying, wherever they were sitting, wherever they were standing, they didn't move for three days. That must have been a real soul darkness. I had been in a cave diving one time and we would go down 99 feet, we'd turn a curve and we'd start back up and there was no light reference and you could put your hand on your face mask and you couldn't even see your own hand. Now that's dark, that's dark. This is dark. This is that kind of dark. And then one more phrase in Exodus 10, 22, it says, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Isn't that great? You see, God will take care of you. God will come to you. You will not be left alone. Light represents God's blessing. But going on, darkness represents aloneness. I don't know if you've ever been alone. I've been alone, but I've never been alone alone. Psalm 88, 18 talks about God sending loved ones and friends far from Him. acquaintances into darkness. You see, when we talk about light, we're thinking about friendship and fellowship, but darkness represents that aloneness. And darkness also is mentioned for ignorance. Ignorance of God, and ignorance of his ways, and ignorance of salvation. I wonder how many people are ignorant of God. You know, I think that would be the majority of people today on earth. They're ignorant of God. And why are they ignorant of God? Because do they have to be ignorant of God? No, they don't have to be ignorant of God. They're ignorant of God because they're willing to cruise through this life and be casual and go to hell doing their own thing all day every day without really any attention to the things of God and the gospel of God. They do not read their Bibles, they do not pray, they're not hanging around people who are Christian people who have some wisdom about God and do know God. They're hanging around the wicked, the evil, the casual. And one of the most deadly things in all of the world is the casualness that we see in particularly America, particularly in Savannah. The casualness. How fast can I get to church and get out? How fast can I... Even if you're a Bible reader, if people are Bible readers, I just saw somebody that shocked me. He's a real Bible guy, a real genuine preacher, but he challenged his congregation to read the New Testament in a year. I used to challenge my congregation to read the whole Bible four times a year. Do you realize that you can read the whole Bible once a year by reading about 15 minutes a day. About 15 minutes a day. You can read the entire Bible out loud. If you were standing there and I had my Bible, and I do, and I took my Bible and I started reading, and if you could stay awake for 78 hours, and if my voice would last for 78 hours, I could read the entire Bible to you out loud at the same rate that the news people give the news in 78 hours. It's not hundreds of hours, it's not thousands of hours, and yet, you know, 2,000 pages of small print and no pictures, what do you do with this thing? Well, we put it on the coffee table and we dust it once a week. That's what we do with it? No! If you were to go to a bookstore and you buy tapes of the whole Bible, and you turn over to the back, test me on this, test me on this, And it says, recording time, it'll say somewhere between 75 and 78 hours. Pretty amazing. Jesus said, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. Why don't you know the scriptures? Because you don't want to know the scriptures. Why do they not want to know the Scriptures? Because they'd rather be playing golf than worshipping God and learning the Scriptures. Also, darkness is a reference to death. Psalm 107.10 talks about those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and irons. And Lamentations 3.6 says, He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago. You see, the light of the life of God is the opposite of the darkness that is evil. Light of life. And throughout the Bible, light is regularly associated with the Word of God. Psalm 119, 105. Most of you could probably quote that one. The Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Light is associated with salvation. Isaiah 9, 2. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Light is associated with goodness. Genesis 1-4, God saw the light and that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. They can't be together. Light and truth. Psalm 43-3, O send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to the place where you dwell. And the place where He dwells, I want you to know this, that the place where God dwells is the place of light. 1 Timothy 6, 15 and 16. He who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light. That's where He dwells. It's associated with His commandments and laws, for the commandment is a lamp, and the light is a law, says Proverbs 6, 23. And it's associated, of course, with life. Psalm 56, 13, I will render praises to you. For you have delivered my soul from death. Have you not kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living? And then some very comforting words for even somebody like David, King David. You may remember that King David wasn't a choir boy, was he? He betrayed a friend. I don't know if you've ever betrayed a friend. Sadly, I have. He murdered somebody. I haven't quite gone that far except in my heart. He committed adultery. In my heart, in your heart. All of those are absolutely horrid sins. And yet, what does he say? He came to repentance and faith because God had sent Holy Spirit to him, transformed him, convicted him, and he says in Psalm 27.1, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? So walking in the light is to be The lifestyle and the life experience of all of us as Christians, as well as light, is to be our destiny. Walking in the light is our calling, it's to be our reality. And walking in the light means that we're to be living in holiness and to be living in purity. And I want you to understand that living in holiness and living in purity is not just going to happen to you. You've got to attend to the means of grace, the Word, the sacraments and prayer. You've got to attend to those things. You've got to give your mind to them. And at the same time, you've also got to push away, push aside, get out of the darkness. A Christian must be characteristically holy. He must be a holy man, a holy woman. You're supposed to be a light in the world and you're supposed to be demonstrating who you are and what you are. Because who are you? You're God's child. What are you? You're God's child. You belong to Him. You're supposed to be living out, living an example life for the glory of God. But walking in the light also means walking in the truth. Because darkness is the error. It means to be walking in faith, which means you're to have courage, and you're supposed to be a person of action, and that means there's no place for fear, there's no place for inaction, there's no place for inertia. Walking in the light means that you're to be walking in Christ. Not just in your carnal flesh. It's not walking according to how you want to walk, unless how you want to walk is because you've been transformed, you want to walk in Christ. Again, the means of grace. You want to be walking in knowledge, not in ignorance. John 17, 3. This is an amazing little verse that a lot of people just read through John, their favorite book. And they go to John 17, and they go, oh, what a great, what a great... And then they think, they missed this verse. John 17, 3. And this is eternal life. Anybody here want eternal life? I do. Both hands up. I want eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know you. Not know about him, but know him. the only true God, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So for you to have eternal life, you've got to know God. For you to have eternal life, you've got to know Jesus Christ. Now, does that mean that we're Gnostic? Does that mean that there's a special knowledge? Does that mean that you have dreams and visions, and those dreams and visions not only get you into heaven, but they give you the authority to lead other people? No! The Word of God, through the Word of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, as He quickens you to life, as He causes you to be born again, He raises you from the dead, He gives you that life, He gives you faith, and He gives you repentance, and He gives you the Scripture so that you can know about Him. He gives you the church, the biblical church. so that you can know about Him and worship Him. That's how you come to know Him. That is what, that is His means, that is His method of saving our wretched hides, our wretched souls. And it's a sin to be wasting the time and the energy and the brain power that God has given to us, and not be growing in a clear understanding of biblical truth. You have available to you as a Christian something that the unrenewed man on judgment day is going to say, oh, I want that, I want that, but it's too late for him. You have something available to you that the non-born again, the man still dead in his trespasses, the man unconverted, does not have available to him. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 3 and 4. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." You see, in their deadness, they're in darkness. In their darkness, they're in deadness. And they are there because God is withholding the light from them. Is that a hard statement? It is. But it's a true statement. It's there. But us, the positive side. We have grace, and we have love, and we have light, and we have truth. The same chapter, 2 Corinthians 4. One more verse down. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown into our hearts to give us the light, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God determined that you would be His and that you would be in His light. The light of the knowledge, of the glory, of the God in the face of Jesus Christ. What a litany here. This will almost preach. This is almost worth listening to and reading and thinking about, huh? Yes, it is. And what, you know, you read that in The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has been given to me? Me? What do I deserve? I deserve to be a crispy critter. I deserve to be in hell. I don't deserve any good thing. Given to me? Given to you? How can this be? The only way it can be is because God decided it would be that way for some reason that's only in Himself and is nowhere else. It is not because He looked at you and saw in you that you were going to do anything or be anything. If God were to look down the corridors of time and look at my life, and He examined every detail of my life, what would He ever see before He took over and raised me from the dead spiritually. He would see only sin, rebellion, hatred for Him. He would see only the fact, as Paul said in Romans, that I would kill Him if I could. And that's what people would, they would, wouldn't a lot of people love to kill God? Nietzsche tried to kill, he wanted to kill God. J.J. Althauser tried to kill God. Lots of people have tried to kill God. Because if God is dead, that means they can at least live until they die. But you see people are walking around dead. People are the walking dead today. I just want to fall on my face and say, oh thank you God, that you sovereignly chose me for reasons in you. And you will keep me for reasons in you. And you will never let me go for reasons that are in you. And I am your child for reasons that are in you and none of them are in me. And I just want to follow my face and worship. And that has to be our attitude. We are people who need to walk in the light. You could do your own soul a lot of good today by going home and looking at all the references to light and seeing how God uses that word, light, about himself. You could also do your soul a lot of good by going home today and looking at your calendar, and your phone record, and your prayer list, thinking about what you do in your life and correcting some of your priorities. You could do yourself a lot of good today by going home today and measuring your life and asking just how many lumens are you omitting? Just how many lumens are you omitting? Are there people sitting at home today not worshiping because you didn't invite them to be with you here? Are there people who are going to go to hell who need to hear the gospel from you? A little small sideline here. I believe that God designed that there was only one person who could have led me to the Lord. And it was a little over a year process. I saw the guy. I knew he had something to say to me. I couldn't get to him because he was an upperclassman as a cadet. And I tried to, and things kept interrupting. And finally, when I had the opportunity, and then it took him twice, because I was hard-headed. But there's somebody in this world that you can speak to, and only you can speak to. that needs to hear you speak to them and tell them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't let them go to hell. Are there people who are wasting their time because they are focused on the things of the world along with you? rather than focused on the things of God by you. Are there people confused by watching you walk in darkness out of this darkness which you whisper, I'm really, really a Christian, but you know, too much light hurts my eyes and exposes my sins. And if there's too much light in my life, it might drive you and your darkness away. See, what is your effect on others for Christ? Ephesians 1.18 says, "...the eyes of your understanding are being enlightened." And this is not in visions, but in understanding. and in following the written word. What is your testimony? Not what you say, but how you shine. Not your words, but your walk. If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you by a jury of your peers? Your life message, you see, is either telling the truth about God or telling a lie. Your life message is either a message that presents the good of God, or it is a message of badness. Your life message is either one that honors God or dishonors God. And then you look at verse 6, the last part, and it says, If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie. We lie. Is our lives lies? Are our lives lies? If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie. And do not live out the truth. It says in your Bibles, it says, do not practice the truth. The word there is live out. And we're not living out the truth. Brothers and sisters, we have a small church with great potential. We have a small church with all the promises that God can give, the largest church. There's nothing that is not here. We had music, your voices were music. We have truth, the Scripture is the truth. We have two preachers, piddling as they are. We have you. We have you. a congregation. We have all of the resources that God can give and we have the light of God. We can grow together, we can learn together, we can be the light of the world together. And that's what I'm calling us to do. Let's be the light together. Because when the light comes, it will drive out the darkness. When the light comes, the shadows will disappear, and our shadows need to be exposed to the light. The light of Christ, the light of worship, the light of the Word, the light of fellowship with those who are in the light. So let's get serious about the life of this church, and let's tie in, and let's get busy, and let's be what we ought to be together. as the light of the world and the light of this community. Amen? Amen. Amen. Please prepare yourselves to receive the Supper of the Lord.