1. A company’s test for the ingenuity of potential employees included: (adapted from sermon, “Light of the World” by Martin Dale)
You are in a plane flying over the desert and as you are sitting near the cockpit you hear the Captain giving his co-ordinates to the tower at 1500 hours. Half an hour later, however the plane crashes in an uninhabited part of the desert in which the only vegetation is a few cactus trees. But before the plane crashes you hear the Captain sending off an SOS message to the tower and you hear them reply – but you can’t make out what they have said.
The plane crashes and no one is hurt but the radio is totally destroyed and it looks as if the plane is going to explode in a few minutes time. In the plane there are only ten things that you can see that you can take out of the plane – but you can only take three of them. What three items would best ensure your survival and why. You have one minute to get into groups to decide:
The ten items are:
1. A bottle of water
2. A box of salt tablets
3. A parachute
4. A knife
5. A sun hat
6. A lady’s vanity mirror
7. A watch
8. A compass
9. A First aid box
10. Sunglasses
Question: What are those three most important items that you would take from the plane to ensure your survival? What did you decide?
The answer- according to the US Military’s top survival expert was as follows:
3. The third most important item was the knife – because it can be used to cut the cactuses to provide drinking water
2. The second most important item is the parachute – because once the plane blows up you will have no shelter from the sun
1. The most important item is the lady’s mirror, because you can use it to reflect the sun and so attract the attention of any plane sent out to look for you.
2. Yeshua (Jesus) declared that he was a light to the world – John 8.12
3. Consider the Light for us:
I. Antidote to Darkness – John 8.1-12
[Broad Level – Good vs. Evil]
A. The Cancerous Tumor of Sin (takes on many aspects) – Psalm 74.20
Have regard for the covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
1. A story of immorality
2. A story of judgment
3. A story of entrapment
4. A story of forgiveness
B. The Conflict of Treacherous Sinners (John 8.12-20)
1. Feast of Tabernacles (7.2) – ceremony in court of the women with brightly lit Menorah
2. Light represents the presence of God
a. Burning bush
b. Fiery Pillar
c. Menorah
3. Yeshua (Jesus) Compares himself to God’s light -- guidance
II. Assistance to the Blind – John 9.1-12 (especially v. 5)
[Personal Level]
[Rose Crawford Story (from Sermon, “ I Am the Light of the World” by Michael Wiley)
Rose Crawford had been blind for 50 years. Then she had an operation in an Ontario hospital. She said, “I just can’t believe it,” as the doctor lifted the bandages from her eyes. She wept - when for the 1st time in her life she saw a dazzling and beautiful world of form and color greeted her eyes and she could now see.
The amazing thing about her story, however, was that 20 years of her blindness was unnecessary. She didn’t know that surgical techniques had been developed, and that an operation could have restored her vision at the age of 30.
The Dr. said, “She just figured there was nothing that could be done for her condition. Much of her life could have been different.”
The Significance of Spit
Now why did Jesus spit in the blind man’s eyes? This is similar to another time when he spit in some dust and made clay, with which he anointed blind eyes (Mark 7:33). If a modern evangelist or missionary followed Jesus’ example in this, how well received would it be?
Jesus, contrary to what many modern commentators suggest, was not adverse to following tradition, so long as it did not render the word of God "of none effect." From ancient times in Judaism, there was a tradition that the saliva of the first-born son of a father had healing properties. Writes A. Cohen, "For eye-trouble spittle was commonly used, but we are told there is a tradition that the spittle of the first-born son of a father has healing powers…" (Everyman’s Talmud, p. 253).
A. Blindness of Ignorance – the Progression
1. Unaware of Yeshua (Jesus)
2. Believed in his healing – 9.24-34
3. Believed in Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah – 9.35-39
B. Blindness of Iniquity
1. The question – This man or his parents?
a. Reincarnation? – Pagans and some Jews
b. Punishment by heredity – You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, Exodus 20.5
c. Consequences of Adam’s sin
d. Sin in the womb
2. No fault, God is in control – Psalm 37.1-5
Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
2 For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb. 3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him, and he will act.
a. Some things we can change and some things we cannot
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
b. Ultimate glory to God – 9.3
Conclusion
1. In 1996 in Somerset County, PA, nine men lay trapped more than 200 feet beneath the ground in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. A nearby older mine - filled with tons of water - had been breached and now that water had forced these miners to a dead end shaft, an 18 x 70 foot air pocket that was illuminated only by the lamps on their helmets. They rapped on the rock ceiling- 9 taps every ten minutes - hoping someone using specialized listening equipment could hear them.
The leader of the miners gave it to them straight: In another hour, he estimated, all of them would be dead.
There was quiet.
There were tears.
There were silent prayers.
Another one of the miners asked if anyone had a pen. He wrote a note on cardboard to his wife and kids, telling them he loved them. He put the note in a white plastic bucket and offered the pen to the others.
Each man wrote his goodbyes to loved ones.
When nine notes had been placed inside the bucket, the lid was snapped on and the bucket lashed to a boulder so it would be found.
A 3rd miner then grabbed steel cable from the materials normally used in a working mine He looped it onto their belts saying that if they were to die, they would do so as a team, as a family.
APPLY: Nine men; 200 feet below the surface; Unable to dig their own way out to freedom; Facing the prospect of certain - and inevitable - death in a dark world.
But in their heart of hearts they just knew there was someone up above them. And if that someone could just reach them, that someone could save them.
But they had no way of knowing whether or not that someone actually was there.
They had hope... but they also had to face reality.
Theirs was a dark world with no real promise of salvation.
And there are people who walk around us every day who see this world the same way - as a dark and harsh place to live.
But Wait, there’s more!
Nine miners – 200 feet below the surface of the earth; Trapped in a dark world; Unable to free themselves from their tomb; They knew they had minutes left to live; They had said their goodbyes and roped themselves together to face death with dignity.
And then they heard a voice.
“Can you hear me?”
They almost couldn’t believe it. They didn’t speak for a moment out of fear it was an illusion. Then they heard the voice again: “Can you hear me?”
"Yes… we can hear you."
And thus began the rescue of nine miners who had long ago given up hope.
It was when they heard the voice… and responded… that they knew someone WAS up there. (The first and last illustrations came from stories in Readers Digest, November 2002 and Guideposts November of 2002).
2. If Yeshua (Jesus) is the Light of the World (as claimed in scripture) – John 1.9
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
a. Come to the Light – John 1.4-5
b. Walk in the Light – 1 John 1.7
c. Display the Light – Matthew 5.16
1) In Dark Places – Philippians 2.15
15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
a) Stars shine when the sun is up – can’t see; only in darkness
b) Dark place in history – not about political ideologies; Good vs. Evil and the destruction of those created in the image of God
2) As a Lighthouse to the world – Acts 13.47
For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
