Keep The Lower Lights Burning

KEEP THE LOWER LIGHTS BURNING

We must live as children of the light, not as children of the darkness. If we are dark and sorrowful, how is the world to know that we are children of peace, and joy, and gladness? Our determination must be to keep our lights burning. A few years ago, at the mouth of Cleveland harbor there were two lights, one at each side of the bay, called the upper and lower lights; and, to enter the harbor safely by night, vessels must sight both of these lights.

These Western lakes are more dangerous sometimes than the great ocean.

One wild, stormy night a steamer was trying to make her way into the harbor. The captain and the pilot were anxiously watching for the lights.

By and by the pilot was heard to say, "Do you see the lower lights?" "No," was the reply; "but I fear we have passed them." "Ah, there are the lights," said the pilot; "and they must be, from the bluff on which they stand, the upper lights. We have passed the lower lights, and have lost our chance of getting into the harbor."

What was to be done? They looked back, and saw the dim outline of the lower lighthouse against the sky. The lights had gone out. "Can’t you turn her head round?" "No; the night is too wild for that. She won’t answer her helm." The storm was so fearful that they could do nothing. They tried again to make for the harbor, but they went crash against the rocks, and sank to the bottom. Very few escaped; the great majority found a watery grave. Why? Simply because the lower lights had gone out.

And with us the upper lights are all right. Christ Himself is the upper light, and we are the lower lights, and the cry to us is, keep the lower lights burning, that is what we have to do. In the place God has put us He expects us to shine, to be living witnesses, to be a bright and shining light.

(From a sermon by Dwight L. Moody, Christ All in All, 10/26/2009)