Sermon Illustrations on Darkness — page 2

It's A Cultural Thing: Light a Candle

One of my favorite quotes by Chuck Colson is one he might have spoken again after the November elections: “The kingdom of heaven will not arrive on Air Force One.”

In other words, if we want to change our culture for the better, we should not put all our eggs into a political basket. It’s a lesson we Christians must remember as we begin another year.

Over the last thirty years or so, social conservatives have invested much time and effort in the world of politics. And that’s a good thing. But the recent Election Day losses on the issues of same-sex “marriage,” and the legalization of marijuana are reminders of the limits of politics. As far as I’m concerned, these losses came about because we’ve not been paying enough attention to influencing our culture.

One man who knew the importance of this was Dutch statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper, who said, “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

And that includes the domains that most influence modern Americans: The arenas of television, films, newspapers, novels, the theater — even the world of advertising. We’ve neglected bringing God into these parts of His creation, and have pretty much left them to the secularists. So we should not be surprised that most new films and TV shows tend to come from a pretty uniformly liberal, secular humanist point of view.

And these arenas deeply affect the ways Americans think. For example, how much influence do you imagine the Ellen DeGeneres show has on voters’ views on same-sex “marriage”? Well, I can tell you, a lot. Why? Because it’s brought a very clever, very entertaining and likeable person who just happens to be gay, into the mainstream of American culture.

But instead of cursing the darkness of Hollywood and New York — which we do too often — we should light a candle. We who embrace a biblical worldview need to get serious about creating art and culture or supporting those who do.

Not that our works of art should be overtly Christian, complete with an altar call. Not at all. But the art we create should reflect our fundamental values. Redemptiveness and beauty and truth and goodness may not speak of Christ explicitly, but they always do so implicitly.

Think of films like “It’s a Wonderful Life” or TV programs like “The Andy Griffith Show.” There’s nothing overtly religious about them, but they reflect a Judeo-Christian point of view. And even when viewers don’t share this point of view, they often love these types of films and TV programs — perhaps because they point them toward the One true God who is constantly seeking them.

As many BreakPoint listeners know, I’ve written some thirty children’s books over the years, including the three in my Uncle Mugsy Series. Now these three books are certainly not overtly Christian, but they ARE beautiful — mainly because somebody else did the illustrations! They are intended to be fun and redemptive and wholesome — the sort of books I’d want my own daughter exposed to, rather than a lot of the dark or politically correct stuff that’s out there. By the way, if you’re interested in checking out the Mugsy series, come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary.

Now, in the coming year, I hope more Christians will learn the importance of getting involved in creating culture — and helping those who create culture to do so. Again, quoting Chuck, “the problems of our society are moral and spiritual in nature. Institutions and politicians are limited in what they can do.”

And of course he’s right. The stories we tell and the art we create are every bit as important — if not more important — than the laws we attempt to pass or the politicians we elect.

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The Death of Darkness

John 1:9

I saw my friend James at a church supper after being out of touch for several years. It was like we’d never been apart.

We talked, laughed, hugged, sang and prayed together. I met his wife for the first time and celebrated with them over the way God had healed wounds in their marriage and family. It was a great evening; we didn’t want it to end. We said goodnight, promising each other we’d meet again soon.

A few weeks later, James was dead. Chronic illness caught up with him. He hung on for days in the hospital, but his body was worn out.

This life seems so strong and sure for a season -- and then it’s over. We try to escape death, delay it, appease it, fight it and deny it. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” the poet Dylan Thomas advised. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Rage all you want; death will come for you one day. But darkness, its close companion, is a choice.

“There was the true Light, which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. ... But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” the Apostle John declared of Jesus Christ (John 1:9-12, NASB). “And the Word become flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14a, NASB).

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus Himself said, “This is the judgment, that the Light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19, NASB).

Men love the darkness, but God sent His Son, the Light of the world, to rescue us from eternal darkness. By His resurrection, Christ put darkness to death. Two millennia later, however, not everyone knows the truth. That’s why missionaries and other servants of God go to places of darkness, no matter the potential cost. They bring the Light of the Gospel not only through their words and actions, but by their presence.

“There have been several attacks recently,” wrote a worker who lives in one such place. “Often the gunfire and explosions would cease, and I would think it must be over, but it would start again. I was sharply reminded that we are here to pray,” and not only pray, but to be, to love, to speak and to lift up the flaming torch of Christ amid great darkness.

On a recent plane trip, [Southern Baptist] International Mission Board President Tom Elliff struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger who asked him, “What do you do [for a living]?”

“I chase darkness,” Elliff replied.

Bewildered, the passenger inquired, “Are you in lighting?”

“In a way,” Elliff told the man.

Reflecting on the encounter, the International Mission Board leader said, “We are indeed ‘chasers after darkness,’ looking for the black holes of sin in our world and thrusting into that darkness the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ.”

My friend James experienced darkness in his life, but when Christ filled his soul with light and salvation, he became one of the most joyful witnesses I’ve ever known. This Easter, I know James is celebrating the resurrection in the presence of the Risen One.

Light Enters Through The Cracks

John 1:5

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”: The story of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”

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Leonard Cohen, the legendary 82-year-old Canadian poet and singer is well-known for a set of powerful lyrics from his song “Anthem,” off the 1992 album The Future. The message, of hope in darkness, is particularly striking for many:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

Cohen, who didn’t like explaining his music, reportedly made a rare statement about “Anthem” on The Future Radio Special, a special CD released by Sony in 1992:

The future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. “Ring the bells that still can ring”: they’re few and far between but you can find them.

This situation does not admit of solution of perfection. This is not the place where you make things perfect, neither in your marriage, nor in your work, nor anything, nor your love of God, nor your love of family or country. The thing is imperfect.

And worse, there is a crack in everything that you can put together: Physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where the resurrection is and that’s where the return, that’s where the repentance is. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things.

New England’s Dark Day

Joel 2:10

May 19, 1780: New England’s Dark Day

That Friday in May started out like any other, with the sun rising and bringing daylight with it. But if you happened to be in the northeastern United States or small parts of southeastern Canada, the sky was yellow by midmorning and completely darkened by noon. This would be disorienting at best even today, but in the 18th century, without the benefit of modern science to explain what happened, it was even more harrowing.

People left work and school and flooded into churches and taverns. Some believed it was the second coming of Christ. Others decided to stay put; one state legislator famously said, in response to his colleagues calling for adjournment, “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

The moon came out around midnight that night, much to the relief of those who thought it was judgment day. Nobody knew what caused the darkness at the time, but the likely culprit, based on reports from the period and physical evidence on older trees, was wildfire smoke blowing in from Canada.

A Hollywood Plot Twist

Luke 18:13

Joe Eszterhas has written dark Hollywood thrillers such as BASIC INSTINCT and JAGGED EDGE, but now he has written a book about his own conversion to faith. In CROSSBEARER: A MEMOIR OF FAITH, Mr. Eszterhas describes how his life got turned around during the summer of 2001.

He and his second wife, Naomi, had just moved from Malibu to a suburb of Cleveland - where he had grown up; she was from nearby Mansfield. They felt Ohio would be a better, more wholesome place to raise their four boys (he had two grown children from his first marriage).

A month after the move, Mr. Eszterhas was diagnosed with throat cancer. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic removed 80 percent of his larynx, put a tracheotomy tube in his throat, and told him he must quit drinking and smoking immediately.

At age 56, after a lifetime of wild living, Mr. Eszterhas knew it would be a struggle to change his ways.

One hot summer day after his surgery, walking through his tree-lined neighborhood in Bainbridge Township, Mr. Eszterhas reached a breaking point.

“I was going crazy. I was jittery. I twitched. I trembled. I had no patience for anything. ... Every single nerve ending was demanding a drink and a cigarette,” he wrote.

He plopped down on a curb and cried. Sobbed, even. And for the first time since he was a child, he prayed: “Please God, help me.”

Mr. Eszterhas was shocked by his own prayer.

“I couldn’t believe I’d said it. I didn’t know why I’d said it. I’d never said it before,” he wrote.

But he felt an overwhelming peace. His heart stopped pounding. His hands stopped twitching. He saw a “shimmering, dazzling, nearly blinding brightness that made me cover my eyes with my hands.”

Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Mr. Eszterhas had been blinded by God. He stood up, wiped his eyes, and walked back home a new man.

In a phone interview this week, Mr. Eszterhas said it was “an absolutely overwhelming experience.”

He went from doubting if he could make it through life without tobacco and alcohol, to knowing that he could “defeat myself and win.”

He and Naomi have been faithfully attending Catholic Mass on Sundays ever since, and as the book title states, Joe carries the cross down the aisle. He asserts his nonconformity, however, by wearing jeans and Rolling Stones T-shirts when he does it. Despite the rebel attire, he says he carries the cross with more reverence than most.

Eszterhas is a devout Catholic, though he is disgusted by the church’s sexual scandals. It is the power of the Mass that keeps him in the church. He says, “The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It’s almost a feeling of a kind of high.”

He has turned down hefty offers to write scripts for movies with sinister plots and dark themes like the 16 other ones he wrote that made it to the screen - some paying as much as $3 million a script.

Mr. Eszterhas said he spent too much of his life exploring the dark side of humanity and does not want to go there anymore.

He was born in Hungary during World War II, grew up in refugee camps, and then moved to the United States and lived in an impoverished neighborhood in Cleveland.

He worked as a police reporter in Cleveland and “was always fascinated with the darkness. I covered countless shootings, urban riots, and in several situations I was there before police were because I had a police radio and used to drift around the city until something happened,” he said.

But after his spiritual transformation, he said, he had had enough of death, murder, blood, and chaos.

“Frankly my life changed from the moment God entered my heart. I’m not interested in the darkness anymore,” he said. “I’ve got four gorgeous boys, a wife I adore, I love being alive, and I love and enjoy every moment of my life. My view has brightened and I don’t want to go back into that dark place.”

Mr. Eszterhas’ love and appreciation for life was magnified even more last year when his surgeon told him he didn’t need to schedule another visit.

“He used the word ‘cured,’ a word that oncologists generally don’t use,” Mr. Eszterhas said. “He said I didn’t have to come back for any checks, that my tissue had regenerated to the point where you cannot only not tell that there was ever any cancer there, but you can’t tell that there had been any surgery there.

“Naomi and I were, of course, overwhelmed when he told us. I think it’s truly a miraculous blessing.”

Christ Turns On the Light

One dark night while I was driving down a winding hill in Western Kentucky, our younger daughter accidentally pushed the knob controlling the lights. Suddenly there was pitch darkness. There was a great deal fo excitment as we rushed down the twisting road until we managed to ge the lights on.

Sin brings dangerous darkness. The situation is hopeless until Christ turns on the light.

Why Doesn't God Come Into the Darkness Today?

Luke 1:79

New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes:

When I was young I always found the Christmas Eve service to be the most meaningful worship experience of the year. The sacred hymns and carols, the prayers and praises, the solemn readings from Scripture, the silent reflections on this most powerful of nights, when the divine Christ came into the world as a human infant....

What moved me most, however, was the congregational prayer, which did not come from the Book of Common Prayer but was written for the occasion, spoken loudly and clearly by a layperson standing in the aisle, his voice filling the vast space of the cavernous church around us. “You came into the darkness and made a difference,” he said. “Come into the darkness again.” This was the refrain of the prayer, repeated several times, in a deep and sonorous voice. And it brought tears to my eyes as I sat with bowed head, listening and thinking. But these were not tears of joy. They were tears of frustration. If God had come into the darkness with the advent of the Christ child, bringing salvation to the world, why is the world in such a state? Why doesn’t he enter into the darkness again? Where is the presence of God in this world of pain and misery? Why is the darkness so overwhelming? ...

“You came into the darkness and you made a difference. Come into the darkness again.” Yes, I wanted to affirm this prayer, believe this prayer, commit myself to this prayer. But I couldn’t. The darkness is too deep, the suffering too intense, the divine absence too palpable. During the time that it took for this Christmas Eve service to conclude, more than 700 children in the world would have died of hunger; 250 others from drinking unsafe water; and nearly 300 other people from malaria. Not to mention the ones who had been raped, mutilated, tortured, dismembered, and murdered. ... And where is God?

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Bart Ehrman, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer.

Holes In the Night

Luke 1:79

Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island) as a boy lived in village where streets had gas lights. At dusk lamp lighter would go around lighting the lamps. RLS watched out window as this happened one p.m. and got excited, "Look mom, a man is coming down the street making holes in the night."

The Beacon From the Graveyard

1 Corinthians 15

J. R. R. Tolkien, one of England's literary greats from a generation ago, wrote about a fantasy world called Middle-Earth - and that world has now captured the imagination of millions of people in this generation. Tolkien's trilogy of books known as “Lord of the Rings” has now been widely popularized through these three blockbuster movies based on them. The final book and movie, “The Return of the King,” portrays a world where the armies of darkness, made up of vicious subhuman beings, are moving to destroy the last bastions of human life in Middle-Earth. But as the rightful king of Middle-Earth begins to emerge, the humans are rallied to what becomes the decisive battle against this advancing evil. In one drama-packed moment, one of the main characters climbs to the top of a daunting mountain, where a massive pile of wood awaits ignition. And there, he takes a torch and lights the signal fire. A waiting sentinel sees that fire and lights the fire on his mountain. And the summons-by-fire spreads across the kingdom, from mountaintop to mountaintop and the sentinels shout the triumphant news - “The beacons are lit!”

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “The Beacon from the Graveyard.”

Two thousand years ago, it appeared that the forces of darkness had won their ultimate victory. The Son of God was dead, buried in a tomb. Those who followed Him were in total despair. That was Friday. Sunday was coming. And when it did, Jesus blew the doors off His grave and walked out under His own power, leaving death - man's ultimate enemy - vanquished and powerless. And that Easter morning, the beacons were lit. From the mountaintop of that generation, the message that Jesus is alive and death has lost has ignited a fire on the mountain of the next generation. And today, twenty centuries later, we are the ones left here by Jesus to light the beacon for our generation.

Listen to what the resurrection of Jesus has done, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 54. “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? ... Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I love what one of my friends often says: “If non-Christians want to know what belonging to Jesus is really all about, let them come to our funerals.” Well, it's there - the beacon from Easter morning shines the brightest when everything from earth has no answers. It is there, at our moments of greatest loss, that we win because Jesus wins.

In Revelation 1:17-18, our word for today from the Word of God, the living Christ appears to the Apostle John in all His glory and He says: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” The blazing beacon of Jesus' victory over death means there is nothing in your life that is bigger than He is, and if you belong to Him, nothing can defeat His plans for you.

Today, He's counting on you to light the fire for the people in your world. They can't see Jesus, but they can see you. Tell them that He died for them. Tell them He's alive for them. Don't let the fire die in your hands. Don't let them die without a chance at Jesus.

And if you have never given your life to your rightful King - if you've never committed yourself to the King who died and rose again for you - then let this be your day to trade your guilt for His forgiveness and your death penalty for His eternal life. You don't have to live in the darkness anymore. From the empty tomb of the Son of God, the beacons are lit!

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The Heathen World Without Excuse

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world His invisible [attributes] are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify [Him] as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:20-21 NKJV)

The Heathen World Without Excuse

• invisible…him — Exod 33:20, John 1:18, 6:46, 1 Tim 6:16 — existence, attributes — “Thyself invisible or dimly seen but through Thy works.” (Milton)

• world — Gk., order, arrangement

• seen — “creation the mirror of God”

• understood — inferred reasonable deductions

• things made — Ps 19:1–3 — the visible creation — “The landscape has its praise, but not its Author.” (Cowper)

• Godhead — Divinity, Godlike perfection — “His supreme perfections in essence and action.” (Bengel), “Divinity” (Ellicott), “Divine goodness.” (Tholuck), “Totality of Divine attributes.” (Meyer, De Wette)

• excuse — without apology, or self-defense

• when…God — knew what was knowable of Him, and in this way

• glorified — did not worship and obey

• as God — a personal Being to whom they were individually related

• thankful — attributing to luck, chance, etc., or to their own reason and skill, what they should have traced to God

• vain — 2 Kg 17:15, Eph 4:17-18, John 3:19 — foolish

• imaginations — speculations, conclusions

• foolish — wayward — “Nothing so absurd but has been maintained by a philosopher.” (Cicero)

• heart — understanding, affections

• darkened — with error. Only the wise: “With filial confidence inspired,

Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, ‘My Father made them all.’”

Gratitude — H. W. Beecher

Has thankfulness to God been in any proportion to the benefits received?

I. Let us look at man’s own organization and inquire in what way he is wont to receive that as a comprehensive and complex gift of God

II. Look at the gifts of God expressed in the human mind and dispostiion

Ill. Consider our social advantages.

IV. Our relations to the gifts of God in nature and in human society.

V. Consider the work of God in providences towards every one of us.

VI. God’s spiritual dealings with us:

1. The gift of Christ;

2 The ministration of angels;

3. The gift of the Holy Ghost;

4. God’s tenderness, and matchless delicacy m dealing with us, taking no advantage of power or position.

The harmony and order of creation — The famous astronomer, Athanasius Kircher, having an acquaintance who denied the existence of the Supreme Being, took the following method to convince him of his error upon his own principles. Expecting him upon a visit, he procured a very handsome globe of the starry heavens, which being placed in a corner of a room in which it could not escape his friend’s observation, the latter seized the first occasion to ask from whence it came, and to whom it belonged. “Not to me,” said Kircher, “nor was it ever made by any person, but came here by mere chance.” “That,” replied his skeptical friend, “is absolutely impossible; you surely jest.” Kircher, however, seriously persisted in his assertion, took occasion to reason with his friend upon his own atheistical principles. “You will not,” said he, “ believe that this small body originated in mere chance; and yet you will contend that those heavenly bodies, of which it is only a faint and diminutive resemblance, came into existence without order and design.” Pursuing this chain of reasoning, his friend was at first confounded, in the next place convinced, and ultimately joined in a cordial acknowledgment of the absurdity of denying the existence of a God

Cosmos — According to the testimony of all the ancients, it was Pythagoras who first used the word Cosmos to designate the order in the universe, and the universe itself; and Humboldt employs the word in this sense, in conformity with the Hellenic usage of the term subsequently to the time of Pythagoras, and in accordance with the precise definition given of it in the treatise entitled Declamolo, which was long erroneously attributed to Aristotle. It is the assemblage of all things in heaven and earth, the universality of created things constituting the perceptible world. Plutarch expressly says that Pythagoras gave the name of Cosmos to the universe on account of the order which reigned throughout it; so likewise does Galen. Plato designates the heavenly bodies by the name of Uranos; but the order pervading the regions of space he too terms the Cosmos. In Aristotle Cosmos signifies, “the universe and the order pervading it,” but divided into the sublunary world, and the world above the moon. Taken in a more limited sense, the word is also used in the plural, either to designate the stars, or the innumerable systems scattered like islands through the immensity of space, and each composed of sun and moon. It was not until long after the Ptolemies that the word was applied to the earth. Humboldt says:- It is by a separation and classification of phenomena, by an intuitive insight into the play of obscure forces, and by animated expressions, in. which the perceptible spectacle is reflected with vivid truthfulness, that we may hope to comprehend and describe the universal all in a manner worthy of the word Cosmos in its signification of universe, order of the world, and adornment of this universal order.” — John Timbs

“Infidelity is the beginning of sin, folly the foundation of infidelity, and the heart is the seat of both.” Bishop Horne

“How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up the world — of Him who has created, and who provides for the joys even of insects, as carefully as if He were their father!” — Richter

“A man finds in the productions of Nature an inexhaustible stock of material upon which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign Author of the universe.”

“Those who have obtained the farthest insight into nature have been in all ages firm believers in God.” — Whewell