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Transcript

Greetings, everyone. I hope you’re doing well and having a profitable Sabbath.

In Ohio, we are experiencing one of the freak weather phenomenons that happen in Ohio. There is sunshine. Right now, there is actually sunshine. About three days a year that happens in Northeast Ohio, so it’s very much enjoyable, especially in the wintertime. It’s definitely a rare breed or thing. You feel different, though, don’t you? Just to kind of run with the weather here a little bit, you feel different when you go outside, and there’s sunshine. It could be bitterly cold, and no matter what it is, it could be summer, winter, if it’s cloudy and dark and gloomy, especially in that transition period of the fall when it can be wet and cold, you feel differently, you perceive things differently than when you walk outside, and it’s sunshine. It’s light. It’s bright out. When it’s warm and nice and there’s sunshine, people do things outside.

It’s hard for me to get up on a gloomy day or if it’s cold or rainy to go outside and go for a run, but if it’s nice and bright and sunshine, there’s something in that, that builds us, that gives us the energy we do. People do it, too, all out there. They go to beaches and go to amusement parks. You do those things when the weather is nice, when there’s sunshine, when it’s bright. There’s also a reason why. If I tell you, without giving any description, and I say, “Wow, it’s a beautiful day out,” you’re not going to, in your mind, think, “Oh, wow, it must be raining and dark and cloudy.” No. If I say it’s a beautiful day, in your mind, you’re thinking, “Oh, sunshine, good weather, beach weather.”

Okay, come back into this room, not outside. We’ll come back into this room. What makes this room beautiful? Here at headquarters, is a special place. If you’ve seen pictures or been here, our main hall is a gorgeous room. What makes it beautiful, though? Is it the furniture, the woodwork, the carpet, the chandeliers, the lighting? These are all different elements of the room, but I dare say, if I had our sound team over there turn off all of the lights in the room right now, if it was completely dark in here, we could block the sunshine from outside, but completely dark, like cave dark, suddenly, no matter how beautiful the chandeliers, the woodwork, the fixtures, the carpet, the accoutrements in the room, all of them would disappear. All of them would be gone. You wouldn’t be able to see anything because it would be dark. You wouldn’t be able to appreciate the beauty.

So I could dare say the thing that changes this room the most, that makes the difference the most, is the fact that it’s lit, that there’s light. That light makes everything else stand off, stand out, show more. Lights and sconces and pin lights and all of that’s done on purpose to bring light into the room. That changes the characteristics of it. So if I had a light and it’s dark, that light stands out. It’s a beacon. You think of a lighthouse guiding ships in. That light is critically important. So today I’m going to dig into, and we’re going to go through, we’re going to explore light and its connection to our spiritual lives.

We’ll get a little sciency today. I’ve not done a sciency sermon in a while, so I thought I’d dig back into it. But the Bible has the word light about four hundred and sixty-nine times, or exactly four hundred and sixty-nine times, or variations of it, lights, light, et cetera, over the course of about four hundred and fourteen verses. So it’s throughout the Bible, Genesis to Revelation. You may think in your mind, “Let there be light,” right at the beginning.

I could go to Revelation, and we will, to look at verses there too. Just me talking about light probably has many of you starting to think of the verses that come to mind when you think about light. I’m a light of the world, let there be light. All of those verses that may strike you in the Bible that talks about light. So let’s start right at the very beginning. Let’s go to Genesis chapter one. Every time I go to Genesis one, it reminds me that I have to potentially rebind my Bible because it’s starting to fall apart.

Genesis chapter one, let’s start at the very beginning, verse one. Verse one of Genesis one, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Verse two, the big gap, time gap between those two verses, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the earth. And the Spirit of God moved upon the faces of the waters.” It says waters here. It’s not ice. That’s a different Hebrew word. So this means water. There was liquid water. You can picture kind of the planet covered in water.

“And God said, Let there be light:” Verse three of the entire Bible, God introduces this concept of light. “Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” This is fascinating because it says a lot about the universe, too. So if you have a planet that there’s water, all covered in water because it was, the waters surrounded the earth, that meant several things, and this also proves the whole gap theory between verse one and two, is if there was liquid, that means there was a sun. Without the sun, the entire planet, if it had water, would be frozen solid.

It also means there was an atmosphere, because without an atmosphere, all of that water would have evaporated away. So you had a planet that was something at a point, you had the sun, you had the planet, and then Satan’s rebellion, and turned it into a watery, basically mass, that God then started to separate. There had to have been a useful atmosphere, or it would have evaporated away. You wouldn’t have had surface water, or it would have been frozen. That’s fascinating. It’s an interesting look, and it also proves that the earth was recreated, if you will, or rebuilt between verses one and two. But it also shows that there was an intense atmosphere. Because God said, “Let there be light.” So heat was getting through the atmosphere, enough to keep those waters liquid. But it was so dark, it was so thick, the light was diffused away from the sun, that the planet looked dark, because God had to separate it.

He had to change how much light was diffusing through the atmosphere. So He created the atmosphere, allowed oxygen, everything that we have and understand that we experience when we walk outside today, had to be redone. The less focused, the more diffused light becomes, the darker it gets. And, again, this will be important later. You and I, we’re programmed to enjoy the light, as I said in my introduction. When it’s sunshine outside, it’s a beautiful day, because you and I gravitate toward light.

Unless you’re trying to scare yourself, or we never do things, you think, “You know what, I want to go do this thing in the dark.” You tend to do things in the light. I remember the darkest thing I’ve ever done in my life, in the sense of light, was I was in New Zealand and I was spelunking. So you went into these caves, you basically rappelled down to what is essentially a hole in the ground. It was in the middle of a field. You would never would have known, but it’s the middle of the field, and then we dropped probably sixty feet down into the earth, where we rappelled down.

And we went to this cave, we were walking through, though, it was a stream. And we all had lights, and all the lights were turned on. And at one part of the cave, they stopped us, said, “Everyone get your bearings, get comfortable. Turn off your lamps.” And that was the time when I have never experienced darkness like that before. And your brain plays tricks on you. Because your brain’s not designed to be in the dark. It starts to go squirrelly. You start to see things. You start to get perceptions of light.

It becomes a very interesting thing when it’s an extended period of time. That was actually the same trip. We went about another two, three hundred feet, and we did it again. But this time, the ceiling was covered in glow worms. So that has nothing to do with a sermon about light, except for it looked really neat. But you appreciated... I guess it does in a way. You appreciate the light, even from those glow worms, and how our eyes adjusted to them, and we were able to see more. But we’re programmed to enjoy light.

So let’s go to Ecclesiastes chapter eleven. Expand on this more. Ecclesiastes eleven. Start in verse one again. Ecclesiastes eleven and verse one. “Cast your bread upon the waters: for you shall find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for you know not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: If a tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where it falls, there it shall be.”

Trees aren’t getting up and moving. When they fall, they fall. “He that observes the wind shall not sow; and he that regards the clouds shall not reap. As you know what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so you know not the works of God who makes all.” God’s behind everything. “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand: for you know not whether you shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.”

Verse seven, “Truly the light is sweet.” All that set up, all that God talked about, the atmosphere and looking and examples of doing hard work comes down to, “Truly the light is sweet, and pleasant.” That’s the same word as good that God used in Genesis when he said the light was good. It is a pleasant thing or a good “Thing is it for the eyes to behold the sun,” because that’s what makes a beautiful day. Verse eight, ‘But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness;”

Darkness is the same word again that was in Genesis. “For they shall be many. “All that comes is vanity.” Some days are dark, some days are light. In the day of adversity, consider, and in the day of goodness or positive things, rejoice. That’s the cycle of life. You and I will go back between light and dark and the things we experience, but it shouldn’t be that way, as we’ll see in who we are. So let’s talk some facts about light, because it is a fascinating particle, and photons and the spectrum.

So you’ll often get arguments that you’ve got creation on one side, and you have science on the other, and I’m a huge proponent that those two marry. They are perfectly compatible because God created science, the laws of physics, the laws that govern the universe, and laws and aspects of the planet that we’re just starting to understand now in this modern age. So they don’t fight each other. You get into biology, and science gets a little wonky. But when it comes to basic facts, some of this is just fascinating, because visible light is really just a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

So you and I see a little sliver of light. Some people have better vision, but none of us are seeing the far side of it, or the infrared light, or the other side, ultraviolet. You’ve got ultraviolet on one side, you’ve got infrared on the other, and then we’re in this visible light spectrum that you and I can see. We now can measure these things because we can measure light in the spectrum of it, and there are animals that can see into the infrared spectrum and ultraviolet, and both.

So they have more of an expansive visible light spectrum for them. But for us, and for most of what science talks about, visible light means what human eyes can see. When those little particles bounce off the back of our eyes and hit the retinas and go into our brains, that’s visible light. We’re getting bombarded with a lot of other particles, but our little sensors in the back of our eye don’t pick up those particles. So it goes from radio, to microwave, to infrared, to visible, to ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays.

That’s your full spectrum of light. Again, we’re just that tiny little bit in the middle is what we focus on. Light has both wavelength and frequency. It’s how fast it’s moving up and down. So if you think of that as a sine wave, that it moves up and down, if it moves up and down really fast, that’s high frequency. The wavelength is how far each of those up go up and down, but we don’t have to go too deep into that. Usually, when you think about light, you’re thinking about its color temperature.

It’s measured on that Kelvin scale, and then you go everything from red, which is about a thousand Kelvin, all the way up to about ten thousand, which is light that looks very blue. And of course, the sun’s right in the middle of that. You get that full spectrum of light. I never thought of this. Back when everything was incandescent light bulbs, you just bought the light. It was maybe a soft light or a white light, but they’re pretty much the same. Incandescent bulbs can only really produce a small spectrum of different color light.

Now with LEDs, you remember when they first started coming out, you screw them in, and it looked like a clinical surgical office, those first LED bulbs, and now you can pick the color temperature that you want on them. So we’re much more cognizant of this than probably we’ve ever been before. Then you have the brightness of light. Visible light is measured in lumens. So that shows how bright a light produces, what its amplitude of that, how many photons are coming out of it, and it changes the brightness.

And then you have the speed, about three hundred thousand kilometers an hour, or a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, or kilometers per second. It’s moving much faster than that. That means in about one second, a photon can go around the Earth about seven and a half times. That is inconceivably fast. So in the second that it takes me to say second, a photon can travel the Earth seven and a half times. That’s to you and I, a speed that we can’t imagine.

Photons are interesting because they have no weight, which is why they can travel at the speed of light. Any time things get faster, they get heavier, so having no weight is crucial. And these are often what we call quantum particles. The quantum mechanics and quantum particles are very interesting, and they don’t make sense to a lot of our modern physics and models, but they behave in a way that’s different but consistent, which is, of course, because God made them.

When things move that fast, they experience the universe very differently than you and I do. The time and speed, and space and time starts to change. They wouldn’t age in the same way if they were like people who could age, but it’s outside of our normal experience. So photons see the world in a very, very different way, if they could see the world at all. You understand the analogy. Let’s go to John chapter nine. So a little science to back... It’s very unique, photons, light particles.

John chapter nine. Verse one. John nine, one. Let’s look at a different kind of light here. Verse one. “As he passed by,” Christ, “He saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he would be born blind? Jesus answered, It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents: but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, as long as it is day: the night is coming, when no man can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

God says He is love, several aspects of who He is. He says who He is, what He’s made of. That’s what He is. This is clear that God says, or in Christ in this particular instance, who is also God, “I am the light of this world.” And also, stop for a moment and sometimes just consider verses that it’s not necessarily applicable to the sermon, but you can’t help but read this, and picture God who figured out you and I and where we would be before the foundations of the world or the universe. Here’s a man born with a specific purpose.

He was born blind, so at this moment, then he was healed, of course, shortly later in that same passage, so that the work of God, the power of God, should be shown. This is a being that plans things so beyond what you and I think. It’s why sometimes when life gets difficult, or we’re going through a trial, or we have whatever issue that we’re experiencing, step back and think, God can work with people to get them where he wants them, so someone can be born blind.

How many years did that man live blind for this moment? Imagine how he felt after his vision was restored. We need to stop sometimes and remember, “Oh yes, that’s right, God is in charge of everything around us.” But again, importantly to where we’re going is Christ is light. He doesn’t give off light, which He does, because light gives off light, but He is light. It’s one of the ingredients of who He is. Let’s go to First John. First John chapter one, again, and verse one, First John.

So Christ is light, First John one, one, “That which was from the beginning, we have heard, and have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handles, of the Word of life;” the Bible, “(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto;)”. Verse three, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you also may fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ. And these things I write unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message that we have heard, and declare unto you, that God is light.”

So we saw Christ is light, context here is the Father, “God is light, and there is no darkness in him. If we say,” verse six, “We have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,” so God is both... and we can say the same to Christ. Both are light, Christ is light, God is light, but they also are in the light. “We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” So God is light, Christ is light. They produce light. You could kind of say it in a certain way, they light each other, and each other walks in their light, and we’re commanded to also walk in that light and have no darkness in us. Because if we have darkness in us, we lie, we do not the truth.

Brethren, light is so important of what you and I are as Christians, the things we need to do so we can produce light. And you’ll see it’s even more than that. Let’s go to Acts twenty-six. Every time you turn on a light bulb or the switch that turns on the light bulb, every time your phone screen comes on or a computer screen comes on, we should think about what’s happening. All those photon particles coming out of that device, that’s producing light. And always in the back of our mind realize how tied that is into our Christian walk. Acts twenty-six and verse fifteen, Acts twenty-six, fifteen, “And I said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I’m Jesus whom you persecute.”

About to change some perspectives here, if you will. “But rise, and stand on your feet: for I have appeared unto you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen, and of those things which I will appear unto you.” So this is the conversion here of Paul, “Delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, and to whom now I send you, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light.” Ministers of Jesus Christ, our job is to help people turn toward light.

It’s what the apostles did, it’s what every minister tries to do, because turning towards light is turning towards Christ, is turning towards God, is being more like Him, than is having us walk in their light. And it declares it in this verse, “Turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.” Satan, darkness, God, light. “That they may receive forgiveness of sin, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” That’s our job, to turn from darkness to light.

And brethren, that is a process that does not happen overnight, it is not the light switch. I could turn the switch, and suddenly the room is dark. I could flick that switch, and now suddenly the room is light. It’s not so easy as a Christian, because we’re flesh, we still have the prince of the power of the air broadcasting to us, trying to make us trip up, make mistakes, get into things that are dark. Meanwhile, we’re working and striving and making all the effort we can, so what we do is actually in the light. How?

Psalm one nineteen, one-o-five. Verse one-o-five. I know it’s a harder one to get to, so Psalm one nineteen, verse one-o-five. How do we do that? Probably know this passage, it’s a bit of a memory verse. Psalm one nineteen, verse one-o-five, “Your word is a lamp,” or light, “Unto my feet, and a light to my path.” What does a lamp do? It produces light. The Word, God’s Word, the Bible, the instruction book of how to live for human beings, is a Word, the Word, the Bible, is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.

Brethren, that’s how we walk this way of life. We carry this lamp with us to make decisions, and it doesn’t mean walking down a path, of course not, because on its own, physically, unless you have something attached to this book, it does not produce light, not physical light, no, of course, we’re talking about spiritual. God’s Word, His instructions, His teachings, His standards, the statutes, the judgments, all the aspects from Genesis to Revelation becomes what lights our path.

Because if it’s dark, imagine you’ve gone at night. I remember in that cave when we turned off our lamps, not the glow worm section, but the dark section, there is a panic that goes into people when it goes pitch black dark, because you can’t see your hand. And they had us do it, put your hand in front of your face, and we had gloves on because it was a little chilly in there, so you couldn’t even feel your breath on your hand. It was inches away from your face.

I remember pulling it closer and further away, and it would bump my nose. I could feel my hand bump my nose, and I wouldn’t have realized it was just mere centimeters away from my face. But you feel a little bit of panic because we’re not designed to try to navigate in the dark. What do human beings do? As soon as it gets dark, what do you pull out? I remember, it was a couple months back here at headquarters, and we lost power for, I think it was about eight hours, seven, eight hours, but it was in the afternoon, and then it had gone into the evening. I think it came back on at like one AM.

But that evening I got home, and the first thing I did as it was starting to get dark is I went out and got all of our flashlights. We had a bunch of camping ones that were charged, got them all charged up, and I had a Maglite, if you’ve ever seen a Maglite. I think if I asked for a show of hands, everyone would know. They’re those big, huge metal flashlights, they have like big D batteries in them, like you could beat someone with them. I’ve had it for thirty-five years, I think now, and it was dying, it had an old incandescent bulb in it, and I thought, “I want to get a new flashlight because all these fancy LED flashlights work so well.”

But I looked online, here’s a pro tip for you if you have a Maglite, you can buy replacement bulbs that are LEDs, and that thing’s a torch now, because it’s got those big huge D batteries, and I did it... I did this before the blackout, but I remember turning it on when the house was dark, and it didn’t just light my path, it lit the house. I ended up sitting it just down on the kitchen table, letting it shine at the ceiling, and as broad as it could, and the room was lit.

It wasn’t bright lit, but it was lit. You didn’t need any other lights in that room. But if I turn it off, I couldn’t get around, and even in a space that I knew well, I’d be feeling, trying to find my way in the dark, and that’s a space I know. I would, in effect, be blind. But God’s Word does the same thing as that flashlight. It illuminates the path we are supposed to walk. It sends us down the trails that allow us to do the things that we should do. Let’s go to Matthew five. Matthew chapter five, start in verse twelve.

Matthew five, twelve. Okay, so we’ve seen Christ is light, God is light, the Bible is what produces light to guide our paths. Verse twelve, “Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. You are the salt of the earth: but if salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and be trodden under the foot of men.”

Verse fourteen, “You,” me, all of us, “Are the light of the world. A city that is set upon a hill that cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; to give it light unto all that are in the house.” My flashlight, I didn’t hide it underneath the sofa. It would have still produced the same amount of light, but it wouldn’t have shone across the entire house. Verse sixteen, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,” that’s how light shines, “And glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Brethren, you and I are also called light. Of course we are, because we’re trying to live this way of life. We have God’s Spirit in us. Where do we think God gets His light from? Where does it come? From within Him, because of the Holy Spirit that produces and distributes and builds all this analogy of light. We are the light of this world, just like Christ said He was when He was here, and He carefully phrased it, because He was there, He was the light of the world, but He’s now no longer here, so that duty fell to you and I to be lights. That’s our job now.

How do we do it? By our good works. And what does it do? It glorifies your Father, our Father which is in heaven. Christianity always comes down to knowing what to do, and then choosing whether or not we’ll do it. And you could say the opposite of that, knowing what not to do, and choosing whether we choose not to do it. When we choose to do the thing God has us do, or avoid the things we don’t, the darkness, and do the things we should do, the light, we ourselves are releasing that light, distributing light, shining that light unto men.

So it’s not a question of whether or not you or I are lights, that’s the Bible’s plane. The question comes down to what kind of light, how pure of lights, how effective of lights, how bright of lights. How much is our light being put on the hill, on the mountaintop, open on the candlestick, or how much is our light being stuffed under a bushel, hidden under the sofa, stuffed into the pillow, so it’s not shining? So, as the rest of this message, we’re going to look at different ways that we can be better lights, more effective spiritual lights, by looking at how light itself works.

I said we’d go sciency. It wasn’t just a little bit about light, and there’s a reason why I explain light, because we’re going to look at it in a little bit more detail, and then see the incredible analogies, and the comparisons, and the similitudes, if you will, between physical, if you can call it that, it’s quantum, but let’s say physical light and spiritual light. So number one, light exists in two states. It’s a wave and a particle. So not a lot of particles, or various substances, live in two states. So it’s a wave and a particle.

A photon is the particle, and light moves in waves. Remember that light wave frequency, that’s a wave, but it’s also a particle. In some experiments, and this is when light gets really weird, and quantum particles do in general, it spreads out in a wave, in certain experiences, in others, it acts like individual packets of energy, like what hits our eye. We wouldn’t be able to see if it wouldn’t be for photons hitting our eye, and then that being translated into the reality that you and I see.

Modern physics treats quantum particles differently because they can show either, depending on how you look at them. So how we look at particles, or waves, or light, changes what it is, and that’s where quantum physics gets really interesting, because observation changes what they are. We still don’t quite understand why, and it’s amazing how advanced mankind is, and how far we’ve come, that there are still simple things like light, which is fundamental for you and I to do what we do, and we don’t really fully understand it. So like light, we have to exist in two states, don’t we?

There are two states that you and I live in. We’re living our lives, fulfilling our responsibilities, expecting Jesus Christ, doing all of those things, getting our roofs fixed, our cars repaired, taking care of our children, planning for the future of things that we have to do, and then conversely, or not conversely, but almost complementary to this, but sometimes it can feel like a polar opposite, but it’s got to be both. Remember, we’re lights, we exist in two states.

So we do all those things we should be doing, all of the things that show more light to the world, and then we’re also expecting Jesus Christ at any moment. We have to do both. That’s a funny place to walk. One foot says, “I know Christ can return and God can return any moment.” We can see God setting up His kingdom in preparation for the Millennium, and letting Christ rule all that we’ve learned. So one foot is expecting that, never letting down, never letting ourselves become complacent with what God is giving us through His apostle.

Being excited for not just the what, because that’s easy, but also the when, and not letting that flag. But at the same time, on the other side of the same coin, you and I have to be getting the car fixed, our teeth done, our roof repaired, all of those things. We have to live in what seems like almost a dichotomy of two different positions. But of course we do, we’re light. We have to exist in two states. Ephesians chapter five. Book of Ephesians, chapter five. Ephesians five, and we’ll start in verse one.

We’ll build some context here. Verse one, “Be you therefore followers of God, as dear children: And walk in love, as Christ has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanliness, and covetousness, let it not be once named among you,” not once, “As becoming saints; Neither filthiness, or foolish talking, or jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.” That’s what we should do, be thankful, gratitude, grateful.

Verse five, “For this you know, that no whoremonger, or unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater,” if you covet something, that means you’re making it your idol, doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t have to be a cross or a picture of Jesus. Whatever takes our attention turns us into an idolater if we covet that thing. You can enjoy things, but it shouldn’t be the center, God should be. Continuing here, “Is an idolater,” if you’re any of those things, “Have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God and of Christ.”

Verse six, “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not you therefore partakers with them. For you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light.” There’s a world full of darkness. There are people who have darkness. So we “Are light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”

There’s a lot to unpack in this verse. Because you and I are in the world, not of it, but in it, we interact with people on a daily basis. We have to work with people in our jobs, in our schools, in our interactions. There are a lot of people out there who mean you no harm, who are just doing their job, who are just interacting with you, who are, I guess you could say, neutral. And that’s usually what the right and the left, and every country in the world, but I see it more here in America, just because of the nature of being here. And you get to the extremes, but it’s every country.

The noisiest, the loudest, the most problematic on the political spectrum are the folks on the far left and the folks on the far right. Most of the folks are in the middle and a little bit more balanced. Doesn’t matter if they lean left, lean right, but it’s the two extremes. Most of those middle folks, for our comparison, are the ones that you’re just going to interact with on a daily basis. They’re not going to hand you the crack cocaine. No, they’re going to hand you a receipt in a grocery store.

They’re not the ones that are trying to kill, and murder, and hurt. They’re just going to be the ones that say hello, and they greet you and have no real concept, or they’re at your work, and you work with them. They’re not the ones that are going to be stabbing you in the back or going out and getting drunk. Most people are going to be in that swath in the middle. That’s why you and I are in the world, not of the world. That’s why we’re lights, because we’re not lights to the extreme.

And the spiritual comparison is essentially you have God on one side, pure light, nothing but light. Then you have Satan on the other side, darkness, pure darkness, no light at all. And human beings are somewhere in the middle. Most of them are in the funny middle space. They don’t have the light because they don’t have God’s spirit in the same way, but they’re not black darkness. There are some people that are. Those are the folks that you stay away from, that you don’t allow to be the individuals pulling you to things that would bring you back to where I would go back to darkness.

But what’s amazing is what does light do? Light makes darkness go away. And that’s where, if you keep showing your light, those who crave the darkness, who go towards the darkness, who want the darkness, they’re not going to want to be around you because your light illuminates on what they’re doing. Continuing in verse twelve, in the same passage, Ephesians five, “For it is a shame to speak of those things which are done in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever does make manifest is light.”

You and I will cause people to see their actions. And if those actions are dark, then they’re going to not want to have you around or try to pull you towards them, because it makes people feel better if others go along with what they’re doing, especially if those individuals make what they’re doing seem wrong. Verse fourteen, “Therefore he says, Awake you that sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” Brethren, light is everywhere in the Bible.

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Christ takes us from this place where you and I walked in darkness. That’s what we did. We were ignorant. That’s what the world is. It’s easy for us, especially if you’re raised in the church, or you’ve heard this for years, it’s easy for us to look and see the world as black. That’s naive, because the world is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s both. People can do good things, humanly speaking.

They can do evil things because it’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s both, and we have to go out there and be a light to those who aren’t completely dark, shine upon them, let them see the example that you and I are because we are lights, and then pull ourselves away from those who would pull us into or back into darkness. Again, that was just point one. Light exists in two states, and as lights we must do it as well.

Another one here, photons travel in a straight line. In everyday life, light travels in a straight line. You can bend space-time with really, really heavy objects like stars and certain galaxies. It’ll curve space-time. But technically, light is still following that straight line, but that line was just curved. But on a human scale, when we’re not working with stars or galaxies, for what you and I do on a regular basis, light travels a straight line across this room as those photons come flying out of the chandeliers.

It’s bouncing off the floor and bouncing off all the surfaces, but it just keeps moving in a straight line. You can kind of think of a rubber ball. If you had a small room and you throw that rubber ball, [onomatopoeia] and going everywhere. That’s what light is doing, which we’re expected to do too, aren’t we? Matthew chapter seven. Some of these are really simple concepts, but hopefully, as we tie this all together with light, you never look at that lamp differently. You always look at it differently, excuse me. You see it in a different context.

Matthew chapter seven, and verse seven. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom his son ask bread, and you give him a stone?” Of course not. “Or ask for a fish, and you give him a serpent? If you then, being evil,” It’s a pretty intense thing to hear, isn’t it?

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your Father which is in heaven give good gifts unto them who ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, you do them to them:” Golden rule, as they often call that. “For this is the law and the prophets. “Enter you in at the straight gate:” straight, “For wide is the gate, and broad,” and you can say, meandering, “Is the way, that leads to destruction, and many be which go in thereat.”

It’s easy to go to the wide gate. It’s easy to get to the big opening. It’s easy to meander the path that everyone else is going. Verse fourteen, “Because straight is the gate, narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few be that,” walk it? No, “Few be that find it,” because we seek it out. We follow that straight line because we have the light of the Bible teaching us how to walk the path that’s straight. It’s easy to get distracted.

Think in terms of when you walk down a path... My son was doing this recently when we’ll go for a walk, and he’ll try to walk the curb. So the curb is what, just six inches wide maybe? He’ll try to walk on the curb, and when he gets focused, when he gets good, I could say something to him, and he won’t hear me because he’s focused on that curb. He wants to not fall off that curb. Just like you and I, when we walk our Christian path, when we are focused on that straight path, what we’re doing step after step after step, looking for the city of far off, looking to the Kingdom of God, it’s hard to get distracted, isn’t it? Harder.

But when we lose that focus, when we allow ourselves to meander a little bit more, to let the world, its interests and activities and all those things get into our mind, of course we’re balanced in what we do, but when they get into our mind, it becomes easier for us to get distracted, for us to meander, for us to stop walking in a straight line. We can’t let the world focus us on the wide path. It’s a narrow path, a straight path. We have to walk that curb, if you will, of our spiritual lives and stay so focused, outside things don’t bombard us and pull us off of it.

Okay, another point here. Photons behave differently depending on what they come in contact with. I’ll say that again. Photons behave differently depending on what they come in contact with. Basically, when a photon hits a surface, it does one of three things, roughly. It reflects, think of a mirror, bounces off, you see your reflection, so there are photons bouncing off that mirror. It’s transmitted, so it goes through a substance, think about a window, it’s essentially what a window does, or it’s absorbed.

Usually, that turns that... the byproduct of that absorption is heat. Summer day, you go to a white car, a lot of those photons will reflect off of that white surface, or go to a black car and put your hand on the black car quickly, on and off quickly, because it’s hot. That black surface, those dark surfaces absorb those photons. These are things you want to ask God. Did He create the universe with these properties, and then draw those analogies to put into the Bible about how light interacts with surfaces, that blackness, that darkness? Because it’s not purple that absorbs all the light.

It’s not white that absorbs all the light. White reflects the most. No, it’s darkness, blackness, absorbs the light, basically taking the light’s power to illuminate away. You’re going to run into people who reflect your photons, if you will, because your light, you’re pushing that light out in three of those ways. Some reflect it right back. The easiest example of that is God’s people. Those people around you who are also producing light, who are trying to be white, who are trying to be pure, who are trying to also be lights, they can reflect it right back on you.

It becomes a positive feedback loop where you’re all doing that. Any congregation, anywhere in the world, people get excited to go to services because you’re in an environment where all the light is reflecting back and forth. There are some that transmit it. You can say that’s the world, kind of goes through them, most people. They may get a little reflection back. They may ask why there’s this hope in you that you have to answer, but it mostly goes through them. It’s that kind of lost in the sauce sort of thing.

They interact with you, you seem like a nice person, you’re different than most, they see something different in you than they see with those around them. That’s the light reflecting back a little. But generally, just go about their business. And then there are those who suck the light, life, light right out of you. There’s people you work with, there’s people you run into, people around you that just absorb all of your light. Those are the same ones whose acts are dark. They subdue the light.

Go to Second John chapter one. Second John one. Second John one and verse six. Verse six, “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ has come into the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” If you deny Christ, you’re an antichrist. You’re against Christ.

“Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresses, and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, has not God. He abides in the doctrine of Christ, he has both Father and the Son.” If we obey God and we obey Christ, they are one, so we are with both of them. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine,” the doctrine of not walking in the light of God, the Father and Christ, “Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God’s speed: For he that bids him God’s speed is the partaker of his evil,” or you could say dark, “Deeds.”

Brethren, the longer you are walking Christianity, the brighter you become, or should be. The brighter we become, the more we stand out. The more we stand out, the more there will be those who want to see us fail. That’s just the nature of it. They’re the black, the darkness. They’re not everyone, and they’re not even the majority of everyone, but they are there, and they’re the ones that are the most dangerous to you and I. Those are the ones we have to stay away from.

Those are the ones we have to be careful because they can absorb the light. It doesn’t bounce off them at all. It doesn’t go through them. It gets absorbed. Let’s go to Romans... Actually, go to Proverbs twenty-six, jump back to the Old Testament here. Proverbs twenty-six, near the end of the book of Proverbs. This is a wise proverb, but it explains what we’re talking about. Proverbs twenty-six and verse four. It tells us that... The previous verse says, when you should answer a fool.

Verse four, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like unto him.” Don’t let yourself get pulled into people or with people, even arguing or explaining or anything along those lines that pull you into it because you become like them. They take away your light. It’s a fine line that we walk, brethren. We have to be in the world. We have to be the city set on a hill. We have to be the candle that’s on the candlestick. We need to be the example of what it means to be light to the world.

But we have to be aware of, cognizant of, and avoid those that take the light away. That could be a variety of things. If you go to hater sites and look up trash about anyone, any of the Splinters, anything in Restored, you’re going to the place where people want darkness, and it will take your light. If you hang out with people in your lives that go get drunk, that party, they will take your light, and you’ll be more like them. Photons, light behaves differently depending on what we come in contact with.

Conversely, another point here, because light has no charge, it’s unaffected by fields around it. So it’s a little bit of both, okay? So that’s how you interact with things, but because light has no charge, it’s unaffected by fields around it. Light has no electric charge, so unlike charged particles, protons, neutrons, all the ones that you think of normally, it’s not pushed around by electric or magnetic fields. So you see plasma in a reactor, and it’s being held by magnets, because those are charged particles, so they’re affected by those magnets.

Some of the fusion reactors where you have the super-hot plasma that’s hotter than the sun that they can keep away from the edges of the contraption by using powerful magnets, because they’re charged particles. Gravity can change the path of light, because it’s changing space time, which is an indirect change, but everyday fields can’t grab a hold of light and change its path. Second Thessalonians two. Second Thessalonians two and verse one.

Verse one, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as the day of Christ is at hand.” Brethren, we should not be shaken by the things going on around us. We should not be affected by the energy fields that are around us. We’re light. We follow a straight path. We do the things that allow us to stay on that path.

The world is a mess. Countries are a mess. Human beings are a mess. They can’t solve their problems. Man’s problems need spiritual answers, and they can’t solve them, and we cannot let those problems pull us from our path. We can’t get involved in politics or get involved in associations that will pull us from our path. We can’t let that change what we are, because as soon as we start being affected by those outside forces, we’re less light, because as pure light, it wouldn’t affect us.

If we focus and say, “No, our foundation is Christ,” we’re built on that rock, we understand God’s role, we understand all the things that we do, the problems, the pressures, the tribulations, the arguments, the bickering, all of that becomes silly outside noise, and it shouldn’t affect us. It shouldn’t change how we shine. When it starts to, we have to stop, re-examine, and go back to think, “No, I’m on a straight path. I’m light. I’m going in a straight line. I have to refocus and become more like God, more like Christ,” living this way of life the way we’re meant to, because outside fields, forces, should not affect us.

Next point. A single photon is invisible to our eyes. It could be bouncing around, and the room would still be dark; it would appear dark. Those light bulbs that are in these lamps or cans in the ceiling or everything else needs a power source behind it. So it’s not producing a photon, it’s producing millions and millions of them on a constant way. You and I are not light sources; we are light conduits. We’re not the source of light; we are light. Lamps produce light. But without a power source behind those bulbs, they’re dark. That’s why everyone in the world without God’s spirit is described as dark. They do not have a power source. You and I do.

Excuse me. We’re more like... You can think of a fiber optic cable, if you know what that is. That’s a cable that is made of glass, and they’re really effective because it’s sending light signals down it, so you get a bounce of photons on and off, on and off, and a sensor on the other side detects that, and that gives you the ones and zeros that would go down a data cable.

Let’s go to Second Timothy chapter one, Second Timothy one, and verse six. Verse six, “Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.” Brethren, our power is God’s spirit. What changes us from being dormant, dark bulbs, if you will, conduits, fiber optic cable, whatever analogy you want it to be, but if you think of a light bulb, what changes us from being that dark light bulb that’s not emitting anything of light to becoming light is the power source, God’s spirit behind it, spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.

“Be you not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but be you partakers of the affliction of the gospel according to the power of God.” That spirit lights us. It allows us to shine. It changed us. That’s what made us different than where we are today. Go to Matthew chapter three, Matthew chapter three, and verse sixteen, three, sixteen, Christ’s baptism. Verse sixteen, kind of jumping in the middle of the context here, “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightaway out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

The Spirit of God coming on Christ, coming on us when we were baptized, becomes our light source or becomes the source. It’s almost better. You can think of us... We are not the sun; we are the moon. We reflect the light from a source that comes through us by God’s Spirit. So you and I are really that... we’re in that time of year. We heard Mr. Pack preached about the super moon. When that moon is full, especially when it’s this close, it’s bright. And if we have a clear night when we can see, oh, it’s bright, but we’re not the source of the light.

We’re simply the conduit of the light. We are the light bulb. We’re the fiber optic cable. We’re the moon. Whatever analogy rests in your mind, the best, stick to that one. Think about that one. If it helps you become a better reflector, a better conduit, that’s the one you should strive to keep. And we have to be careful because, again, if you are a reflector, that’s why the moon’s a great example. You look up at the moon, there are darker spots in the moon because there are parts of the moon that do not reflect light in the same way. That’s why you get the man in the moon picture that you’ve seen so many times when you look up to a big full moon. Those are imperfect spots.

When they sent the James Webb Telescope out into space, the purity of those reflectors to be able to get any particles of light back to it and reflect off the thing was critical. Those had to be perfectly shiny. No imperfections because any imperfection would reduce the amount of light that that telescope in that case would be able to see. Brethren, any imperfections in you and I reduce the amount of light we can reflect back. We have to purify ourselves so we become better reflectors. We have to obey God, do the things that we should do, avoid the things we shouldn’t, stopping the world from spotting us and becoming less effective.

That’s how we become the best reflectors of light, the best tools that God can use, as He is our power source, and how much we can emit is lacking the imperfections. I remember, you don’t see this anymore because quality has improved, but it used to be, when you bought a computer monitor, it was allowed, which, to me, seems like such a wrong concept, but to have a couple of dead pixels on those monitors.

And generally speaking, you never noticed them until you did, and then you can never unsee them. There was always that one pixel. You wanted to throw the monitor away because you would see it. You would see the imperfection because that imperfection causes what’s coming out of the monitor light to be broken, or the picture is not the same.

You and I individually are each of those little pixels. Collectively, as the church, we are that screen. Let’s make sure none of us are a burnt-out pixel. Make sure none of us take away from the picture that God means for us to do because, in our individual lives, we produce that light, but as a collective, as a congregation, as a church worldwide, as God’s people, as those who are converted, we create a picture and that picture should reflect the Bible in our lives, in our conduct, especially more apropos when we’re at the feast or we’re gathered together in a large group. So individually and collectively, we have to make sure we don’t let the world spot us, as the verse says, and become less effective lights.

Another point here. Light can be harmless, but if it’s focused, it’s completely unstoppable. Think of it two different ways. Go back to the introduction, where we were talking about how the atmosphere was so diffused, the light, the planet was dark. So light can be harmless. If you’re sitting in this room right now, you see the light from the chandeliers; it’s harmless, it’s helpful, but it’s not burning and hurting. But if you take that light and you focus it into a pinpoint, and that pinpoint is tighter and focused and focused, you have a laser, you can burn through steel. There are big machines now that they cut thick pieces of steel with light. Focus light through a laser, and the intensity can be so powerful that it can cut through steel.

Matthew chapter ten. Matthew chapter ten and verse sixteen. Matthew ten, sixteen. “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be you therefore wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.” When we’re focused, brethren, spiritually, once we remove our distractions, we emit a light that is powerful, that stops us from being distracted, stops us from getting caught up in the ways of the world. If we have our light focused, oh, any obstacle in front of us, we can cut through it. We become like that laser, a spiritual laser that can cut through anything that’s in our way that’s trying to stop us from the kingdom of God. But we have to remove the distractions that would diffuse our light to be that strong.

Matthew six. Matthew chapter six and verse seventeen. Matthew six, seventeen. “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you appear not unto men to fast.” You shouldn’t go around moping and looking sad, “...but unto God, your father, which is in secret and any father sees in secret, and he’ll reward you openly. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and dust corrupt, where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth or rust corrupt and where thieves cannot steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

It’s the verse we read often for offerings or related to focusing on common and other aspects. Verse twenty-two, “The light of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye be single,” be focused like a laser, “your whole body shall be full of light. But if your eye be evil,” focused on darkness, diffused, “then your whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness?”

Brethren, our eyes, what we take in, what we allow our eyes to see, I’ve heard this so many times, when people start to fall away, or they fall away from God’s way or the truth, you see the light in their eyes go out. Their eyes dim because God’s spirit, the way it’s designed, you see the light in someone’s eye, and you also see when it goes. If we can focus, we keep our eyes single; oh, what comes out of us, the light is so focused. Our entire bodies are light. That makes us unique. Brethren, that makes us powerful and unstoppable sources of light.

Okay, one more here as we start to wrap up. Light removes darkness. Light removes darkness. You never hear anyone ever say, “You know what, I’m really afraid of the light.” No, they’re afraid of the dark. Or, “I was walking around in the light and bumped into something.” No, I was walking around in the dark. “I’m feeling my way around in the light.” No, I’m feeling my way around in the dark. It’s the opposite.

Go to Psalm twenty-seven. Twenty-seventh Psalm, verse one. Psalm twenty-seven, verse one. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is my strength of my life, and who shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat my flesh, they stumbled, and they fell because the Lord is my strength and my light.” God’s spirit in us.

Let’s go to Second Corinthians chapter eleven. Light removes darkness. I don’t care how dark a space is; you turn on any light. It could be a light on your watch, and it changes the room’s dynamic. You’re going to Second Corinthians chapter eleven. I should do the same. Second Corinthians eleven and verse ten. As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore? because I love you not?” Wherefore, question, because I love you not, question again, “God knows. But what I do, that I do, that I may cut off the occasion from them which desire occasion, that there in their glory, they may be found even as we.” Talking about... you’ll see what this means.

Verse thirteen. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.” How do they do that? “It’s no marvel, for Satan himself transformed into an angel of light. Wherefore, it’s no great thing that his ministers also be transformed as ministers of righteousness whose end is according to their works.” That means true angels are of light. Lights are individual. Again, that one pixel that burns out stands out, but lights stand out in darkness.

Brethren, the room, the world, what we live in is dark. You will stand out. You have to. It’s not just a byproduct, it’s your job. Our job is to stand out. Our job is to be lights. Our job is to portray what it means to live Christianity. And that means you’re going to remove darkness. You’re going to shine upon darkness. And people don’t like darkness or what they’re doing in darkness revealed. It could be added. It doesn’t have to be great, dark sins, just simply wrong attitudes. Good examples show wrong attitudes. It makes people feel guilty, which makes them not like you. But you have a power source that’s infinite.

Again, that’s why it’s important to understand when our eye is focused, we’re invincible. We have the power of God in us. And light continues to do that over and over and over again. There is no instance where darkness can snuff out light. That’s not possible. You can’t go to somewhere, no matter how black and dark a room is, you can get the blackest of black paint that will absorb all those photons, but where that light is, there will always win over darkness every single time. We can be more effective based on all that we’ve covered, but you and I are lights. And brethren, the only way that we can allow darkness to snuff out light, the only way is if you and I allow it to be turned off.

Final passage here, let’s go to John chapter twelve. The only way we lose our ability to illuminate any environment, any space, is if we turn off the power source. John chapter twelve and verse thirty. “Jesus answered and said,” John twelve, thirty, “This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. And this, he said, signifying what death he shall die. The people answered him, We have heard out of the law of Christ abides forever. And how say you the Son of man will be lifted up? Who is the Son of man?”

“And Jesus said unto them,” verse thirty-five, “Yet a little while, while the light is with you. Walk while you have light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walks in darkness knows not where he goes. While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be children of light. These things spoke Jesus and departed and did hide himself from them. Though he had done many miracles before them, they believed not on him.”

Brethren, if you walk away from God, if you walk away from his church, if you walk away from his government, his truth, his Bible, those are all tied together; you’re turning off your light. You’re shutting down your light. You go dark. And if you had light and you go dark, you lose God’s spirit completely. You can’t be lit again. It’s done. You’re done. It’s over. Endure. Stay connected to that light source. Ensure that you never allow God’s power source to get weak in you and I.

Remember all that we have learned, discussed, and seen today. Shine as lights. Be those lights. Become more like God. Be a light because, brethren, we aren’t just shining as lights. You and I must be lights.