Eradicate The Darkness By The Light Of The Truth
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”’ (John 8:12)
Around the world, and notably now in Great Britain, Ireland, and other Western European nations, the freedom of speech and expression is darkly curtailed. Anti-Islamic and anti-immigration speech, as well as expressions of Christian beliefs and even nationalistic pride are suppressed by UK law enforcement and judicial rulings.
Such suppression is ‘dark’, especially when some of these opinions that are covered under the veil of ‘hate speech’ are actually opinions of Truth. A woman arrested for praying, silently and standing alone, across the street of a London abortion clinic, is such an act of covering the Truth. When the Truth is suppressed, how can others know what the Truth is?
In the United States, while arrests for freedom of speech and expression are extremely rare, we also have those who throw a blanket over the Truth. Our public schools won’t allow the Bible to be read or quoted, but often allow the lies of the ‘woke’, secular worldview to be promoted. Our children are subject to ‘gender fluidity’ and LGBTQ teachings, in addition to socialistic, anti-capitalism expressions to steer them from Christian and American norms.
As our pastor mentioned, ‘Don’t be surprised when you allow your children to be taught solely by the schools of Caesar, that they turn out to be like Romans’. It is up to we the parents and grandparents, and to the overall Christian community, to teach our children the way of Righteousness by ensuring they hear the Truth, are taught the Truth, and see us as examples of living out the Truth through our actions.
Without us making such efforts, how will our children know? They cannot know the Truth unless they are exposed to it. It is much like shutting someone in a basement or cave, and having them live their life sequestered in darkness. If all they experience is darkness, how will they be able to see anything at all? In the darkness of night, we can’t see anything but forms and images, until the sun rises, and the window blinds opened, that we can see clearly what is around us and in front of us.
The darkness of night is much like life without Christ. We don’t know what ‘we don’t know’, until we can determine and know what ‘we don’t know’. Only then can we begin to gain knowledge and eliminate what ‘we don’t know’. When we were without Christ, we did not know any better the dangers of sin. For many of us, our sinful nature seemed to be fun, or the path that led to success. Little did we know that in reality our sinful nature was leading us to ruin, despair, and eternal damnation into Hell. The demons of our sins were all around us, ready to tear us to shreds as we were not able to see them.
We did not know that those demons existed or pitfalls were there in front of us until we accepted Jesus as our Lord. Like the turning on of our bedside lamp, His presence lit up and showed us that we were on the wrong path, that the pitfalls that would lead to our destruction were right in front of us, or perhaps we had already fallen into one.
Life with Christ is like the daybreak heading into noon; the darkness is gone and we are in the all-encompassing Light of His presence, and now we can see how to proceed. His Light also chases many of those demons back into hiding, like a cockroach running for cover when a light is suddenly turned on. Jesus is also our GPS as He guides us around the obstacles and is our winch that pulls us up out of our pitfalls and back onto the solid pathway of Righteousness.
With Jesus, as when the Light comes on, the mystery hidden by the darkness disappears and we can know for sure what is in front of us, even that which ‘we don’t know’, so we can begin our lessons to ‘know’. I can look out the window and see what is outside, and with Jesus I can see what is in front of me – everlasting Life with Him!
