“A Light Has Come – The Need!”
Sunday, December 3, 2023
Isaiah 8:19-22; 9:1-2(NIV)
When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress… The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
We are in the season of Christmas… the season of lights! Not just Christians, but Jews look at Hanukkah as being the season of lights as well… even the entire lost world recognizes that most celebrations center around things being lit up… Light up the town square… the Christmas tree lighting… driving around the different neighborhoods to see all the lights.
We have called this series, “A Light Has Come”. Our key verse here in Isaiah 9:2, “those living in darkness, have seen a light… for a light has come!”
Which brings us to God’s plan… Everything was to be governed by the presence of light.
Genesis 1:3-5 (NIV)
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.
Genesis 3:22 (NIV)
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”
Before sin became a part of humanity, man only knew Holiness… God’s presence… Living out God’s plan… God’s provision… God’s perfect design! But with sin… man was introduced to something more sinister, spiritual darkness, and when God proclaimed, “man now knows good and evil”, He was saying man is now going to have to navigate, spiritual light and darkness!
Darkness becomes the antithesis of Light and Life, and Biblically, darkness becomes the descriptor of our broken spiritual state before the Lord.
Deuteronomy 28:29 (NIV) – The Curse of Disobedience
At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
Psalms 88:6-7, 18 (NIV)
You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.
Proverbs 2:12-15 (NIV)
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, who paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
Proverbs 4:18-19 (NIV)
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining even brighter till the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.
We LOVE the Light… but DARKNESS has become our reality…
Darkness isn’t just in our heads!
Seasonal Affective Disorder – John’s Hopkins University
“less daylight triggers, a chemical change in our brains that leads many people to depression.” The solution? There are many who during these dark days of winter will actually have “light therapy”… you may be one of these individuals.
Physical Darkness is just a part of our reality… but a worse reality is that Spiritual Darkness is just as much a part of our reality… with greater consequences!
We are God’s creation… now struggling between right and wrong; darkness and light… and it’s not a passive battle, it’s aggressive… why? Because eternity is at stake. Life with a Holy God forever… life apart from a Holy God forever!
Genesis 4:7 (NIV)
“[Cain] if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Jeremiah 17:5-6 – “The Heart of Darkness”
This is what the Lord says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8 – “The Heart of Light”
“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
The Problem…
Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV)
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9 (The Message)
The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful…
Isaiah 8:22-9:2
Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness… Neverthless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress… WHY? …The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has come.
Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…
Spiritual darkness is still a reality… But because of Jesus, it’s not a certainty! A Light Has Come to our Darkness…