2 Corinthians (Program #39) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (12)

The book of 2 Corinthians is the book of the New Testament that’s not that well known, not frequently quoted and not really that well understood. One passage however that is familiar to most believers is found in chapter 6 in verse 14, where Paul tells the Corinthians,  “Do not become dissimilarly yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?”

It’s good to consider this verse in any context but better is to consider it in the context to which it was delivered to us in the divine revelation.

Here 2 Corinthians chapter 6 is in the context of the New Testament Ministry, the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry where Paul under his commission by the Lord charges the believers in Corinth to be fully reconciled to God.

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Exodus (Program #61) – The Negative Aspect of the Giving of the Law and Its Function (1)

God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Yet the law that He gave to His people in Exodus chapter 20 sometimes may seem to bring us darkness. What determines whether it’s light or darkness is not God – it’s all the time dependent on our condition. We will see why sometimes we experience God in the light and other times when we touch His word, we are brought into darkness.

Throughout this series of messages related to the law as it was given by the Lord through Moses to His people Israel, a metaphor has been used to help convey two opposite functions of the law – this is an analogy of day and night. Between God and man or between His word and man seems like there’s always these two aspects.  Mainly we’ve been focusing on the “day” aspect of the law up until today.  more…

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John (Program #45) – Life’s Prayer (4)

Because of the deceit of religion and the darkness of politics, He was delivered to death. He was proved to be without fault, but religion and politics were exposed to be dark, deceitful, and corrupt.

We’ve come today to the section of John 18 through 20 dealing with the Lord’s death on the cross and His resurrection. Generally, we consider the Lord’s death in relationship to the work of redemption. But we will see once again today that this Gospel, though certainly not minimizing the redemptive aspect, has another emphasis; the release and multiplication of life which resulted from Christ’s death.

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Mark (Program #41) – The Death and Resurrection of the Slave-Savior for the Accomplishment of God’s Redemption (3)

On the day of His crucifixion, the Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross for six hours, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon.  During the first three hours, He suffered mocking, slander and humiliation at the hands of all manner of men even though He was dying to redeem.

But beginning at twelve noon something remarkable happen and is recorded in Mark chapter 15 verses 33-34, “And when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is interpreted, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

During the final three hours of His time on the cross, the Lord Jesus was no longer been judged by evil mankind. He had taken upon Himself the sins of mankind to such an extend that God the Father even had to turn away from His beloved Son in righteous judgment, as Christ offered up Himself, an eternal sacrifice for all.

As believers we cherish this story and never tired of hearing it. But beyond this message of redemption and hope, this story also bears consideration for what it says about the inner relationship of the three divine persons in the Godhead.

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Jeremiah (Program #11) – A Word concerning Israel’s History

On Mount Sinai, Israel was in the dawning of a divine revelation. God had revealed the law to them as a portrait, a picture of Himself. And opened His heart’s desire to them that He would be everything to them, even a Husband that they would be a people to Him and eventually become even His duplication. But the history of Israel reveals how quickly they have departed from this revelation and this sunrise soon became a sunset, leaving Israel in darkness and under the chastising hand of Jehovah. This was the situation when God had to call a young boy to be a prophet for Him. Jeremiah was raised up by the Lord because Jehovah found no one among His kings, princes or even His priests that would be faithful to Him and speak His word to the people. To see Israel in the sunset of the divine revelation becomes a sober warning to us today – never to forsake Him, the fountain of living waters.

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Isaiah (Program #30) – The Great Light for the Shining in the Darkness

Darkness.  Just the word conveys a lot of images.  It’s one thing to be in a dark room, a room void of light.  It’s another thing to feel darkness within.  It’s possibly the most graphic symbol of what it is to be without God.  We have all been there, may be you are there right now.  Isaiah 9 says “The people who walked in the darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death Light has shined.”

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Matthew (Program #12) – The Beginning of the King’s Ministry

In the Old Testament, Isaiah give us a wonderful prophesy concerning the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ that would take place hundreds of years later.  The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali…the way to the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles.  The people sitting in the darkness have seen a great light; and to those sitting in the region and shadow of death, to them Light has risen.  So it was Christ began His earthly ministry not in the religious capital Jerusalem, but in the despised region of Galilee.

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1 John (Program #10) – The Divine Light and the Divine Truth (2)

1 John 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth;”

What is truth?  John 4:23-24 says “But an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him.  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”  So, truth or truthfulness is very related to our worship of God.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #15) – Cooperation with the Divine Operation (1)

As we are caring for new believers, we likely often follow the pattern of the apostle Paul as he cared for the young Church in Thessalonica by giving them encouraging and hopeful passages from the Bible.

In the Thessalonians, it was Paul’s word concerning the coming rapture of the believers at the end of the age and the Lord Jesus promise return from the heavens to the earth that fill them with hope. But if we are fully faithful  to the pattern of the apostle will also bring them to the words of warning and sobriety that Paul concluded the book of 1 Thesssalonians with Chapter 5. Listen to this lengthy passage at the beginning of Chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians 1-11:

“But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to you; For you yourselves know perfectly well that like a thief in the night, so the day of the Lord comes. When they say, Peace and security, then sudden destruction comes upon them, just as birth pangs to a woman with child; and they shall by no means escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief; For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So then let us not asleep, as the rest do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep during the night, and those who get drunk are drunk during the night; But since we are of the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us in order that whether we watch or sleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore comfort one another, and build up each one the other, even as you also do.“

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Colossians (Program #4) – Delivered out of the Authority of Darkness And Transferred Into The Kingdom Of the Son Of His Love

The Lord Jesus declared in John chapter 8, “I am the light of the world, he who follows me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” What is it to walk in darkness? We all likely have our own set of mental images that are initiated by such a question. But the darkness that may be blinding us today may not be so obviously evil or sinister as you might think. Colossians reveals that anything, even any good thing, that occupies us that is not Christ Himself is likely an instrument of the authority of darkness.

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