"Step Into The Light"

“Step into the Light”

I remember when I was very young, probably three or four years old. I had a re-occurring problem, and this problem always surfaced at night... It happened like this; we kids would all be down in the den watching television and mama would be somewhere in the back part of the house doing something else. Now one of mama’s pet peeves was

keeping the lights off in a room when no one was in it, even the kitchen. It never failed that sometime during the middle of a movie, I had to go to the bathroom . Problem was, I was at one end of the house and the bathroom was at the other. But the worst part about it was....that I had to go through the dreaded dark kitchen to get to it! I can remember standing

there at the doorway, peering into the darkness wondering what kind of evil monster was lurking there, just waiting for me to make a run for it so he could pounce on me. But I would always eventually get my courage up and run as quickly as I could through the kitchen until I reached the safety of the light coming from the dining room. And what a relief it was to

finally be back in the light! Darkness, how I hated it--- in fact I feared it and wanted nothing to do with it.

What is it about darkness that scares us so much? Why do we--even when we’re all grown up hold on to this enmity towards the dark? Webster’s Dictionary defines darkness as “a low concentration of or the total absence of light.” And where there is little or no light, obviously we have a very hard time seeing what is around us........we might

miss things that would be very pleasant to behold and at the same time we are not be able to see things around us that might harm or even destroy us if they continued to go undetected. So basically, we dislike the darkness because it limits our ability to assertain --- much less protect ourselves from the world around us.

Today, I want to talk about another form of darkness that doesn’t really seem to bother a whole lot of people-- in fact, most people choose to abide in this darkness....unaware that this particular form of darkness is much more serious and potentially deadly. This lethal form of darkness that we will attempt to shed some light on this

morning is called spiritual darkness.

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4; “The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.....”

Now, what did we say was the definition of literal darkness? It is a low concentration or the total absence of “light.” So, spiritual darkness must be a low concentration of or the total absence of Jesus who is, of course the Light of the World.

So these people, who have not allowed Jesus into their lives...these people walking and living in this darkness are at a terrible disadvantage because that’s all they know-- they can’t see the Light of the World......why? because over time, they have allowed Satan to fit them with some extremely effective “Son” glasses that prevent the Son of

God from illuminating their lives. But listen to what Jesus tells the Apostle Paul at his conversion; In Acts 26:18 He commissions Paul to: “...to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”

Jesus is working even now to remove those things that Satan employs to impair our spiritual vision.

In the Gospel of John 12:46 Jesus says; “ I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should stay in darkness.” Let me ask you; do you think that it is possible to believe in Jesus yet still abide in darkness? Not only is it possible, but it is actually very common. But the people don’t realize that they are in the dark.

You see, there is some confusion among Christians today between the True Light and a widely accepted counterfeit or artificial light, which is actually not light at all but rather darkness in disguise.

In fact in 2 Corinthians 11:14 Paul informs us that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. Allow me illustrate what I mean; let’s compare the tanning bed with the sun. People pay good money to go to this “giant microwave” of sorts to get a quick tan so it will appear that they have spent a considerable amount of time in the sun.