Worship - Sunday at 10:30AM
Bible Study - Wednesday at 6:30PM
2002-11-03 Communion Dedication - Baldwin Christian Church
LIGHT PERCEPTION
Genesis 1:1-5, Genesis 1:14-19, Revelation 22:5
Last week I sought to remind us of the blessed hope we have in Jesus, and how this hope will never make us ashamed. The dictionary says hope is a desire and expectation of something yet to happen. Faith is a belief in something unseen. Hope and faith both include as part of their definition the word "trust." Without trust, hope cannot possibly survive. Without trust, faith has no foundation, but trust cannot exist without truth.
If you will, please open up your Bible to the last chapter in the book of Revelation, chapter 22. Hold a finger there, and turn to the first chapter in the Bible, Genesis one. Jesus said He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the first and the last.
One evening last week I had an interesting discussion with the wife of a good friend while we were all dining out together. Both my friend and his wife appear to be atheists, and both have expressed having bad experiences with "religious people." I won't mention by name what denomination those "religious people" belong to. Suffice it to say that they were horrible witnesses to my friends, and it seems like they rely more on their magazine than on the Bible.
One of the questions my friend's wife posed during dinner was presented in such a way that it was obvious she didn't expect an answer. You know this type of question, the one usually followed by a smirk and a lifted brow. She asked, "If there is a God, why wouldn't he allow himself to be seen?" Then she went on to explain that if she were God, she would make herself known in an obvious manner to all people. A God who stays hidden is very cruel in her estimation.
Genesis 1:1-5, 1:14-19
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3. And God said, "Let there be light": and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
(Now let's skip down to the fourth day in verse 14)
14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Now, a lot of things happened between verse 6 and verse 14. On the second day He created the atmosphere, and on the third day He created the oceans, the continents and lots of plant life. Morning and evening are mentioned for three straight days before the Sun was set in the sky. In fact, "light" came to be on the first day, so the Sun was not the earth's source of light for the first three days.
God created two types of light for us. The second type of light allows our fleshly eyes to see, but the original light allows our spiritual eyes to see. To shed a little more light on this subject, let's turn to the last chapter in the Bible, Revelation 22, where it speaks of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which will come down from God out of heaven.
Revelation 22:5
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
At that time in the holy city we won't have any need for the second type of light because we will be in our spirit bodies, as it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. At that time, Jesus, the original light of the world, will be the shining glory by which we see, and we will finally see His face.
Revelation 21:23
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
Back to the question from my friend's wife. She told me that she didn't believe in God because she couldn't see any evidence He exists. In her mind, those "religious people" were telling her that she would go to hell if she didn't bow down and worship something she can't even see. It stumbled her that a loving God would send anyone to hell. She said it would be terribly cruel if basically good people who didn't believe in God would go to hell because He hadn't made Himself known to them.
In a way, I had to agree with her.
If I were God, I would probably blab it to everybody, and if they didn't believe me, I'd whoop a miracle or two on 'em so they would.
This is how our fleshly minds think.
We all naturally want to receive love and adoration. God does too, but He possesses a far greater degree of longsuffering and patience than us. When she posed the supposedly unanswerable question to me, my flesh wanted to respond by quoting scriptures (Deuteronomy 29:4, Ezekiel 12:2, Romans 11:8). I wanted to say that she hasn't perceived God yet because she doesn't have "eyes to see or ears to hear," whether it be caused from her own rebellion, or because God has given her the "spirit of slumber." Thankfully I was convicted before my mouth opened up.
(To paraphrase God's word in Isaiah 65: ...those people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face...which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense...)
The bad witness of "religious people" had already given her a skeptical attitude toward God, which was evident in the tone of her questions. I couldn't help but feel sorrow for the "religious people" who soured her away from God, and I had to thank Him for showing me the side effects of being a bad witness, of being a smoke in God's nose.
Right or wrong, here is how I answered her...
God doesn't send anyone to hell. You have to make the choice to go there. He doesn't "pop up" in front of you and make himself known because He respects your freewill choice. He could easily make everyone love Him, but how meaningful would that love be?
She had no response. She came into that conversation armed with what seemed to me a howitzer compared to my bean-flip. Her questions made me want to step backward, and step away from even trying to answer them, but Jesus told us that we are the light of the world. We are told to let His light shine. I've known this couple for several years, but this opportunity to witness just suddenly appeared. Without God's word as a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, her howitzer surely would have leveled me, but with His word of truth, a bean flip can sink a battleship of deception.
Either this week or next we're going to start a new book in our Wednesday evening Bible studies. No matter what chapter or what book, we always come away with a new appreciation of Jesus. The word of God tells us: study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The word of truth builds up our trust in God. This trust fortifies the foundation of our faith, and breathes life into our hope. Remember what Jesus said, be a beacon of hope.
Each Wednesday evening when I see all those extra chairs still in the rack against the wall, and I open up the word of truth, I wonder where everybody is. Let's all ask ourselves, "Which type of light do I rely upon the most? There never seems to be enough hours in the day to do everything I need to do, and the days just seem shorter as I grow older. If we're honest with ourselves, we are all a little like my friend and his wife. We all need to rely less on the light that we perceive in our eyes, and rely more on the light we perceive in our heart.