The Great Darkness, Pt. 1 (11/05/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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Turn with me this morning to John chapter 8 If you're listening carefully to the lyrics in that song, you realize it was about a person who's

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Concerned about a loved one who's not saved and who's going through the trials of life and You don't know how they can make it

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And you have to think back to before you were saved to remember what that was like and it's very hard to do once you're

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Saved to think about what it was like but The message this morning is about Jesus the light of the world and so we struggle with how anyone can walk in darkness and survive and And yet we know that the vast majority of the world walks that way

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But praise be to God that he reached down and Loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son

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That whosoever believeth in him Could be saved and He is the light now.

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We've been talking about this Tabernacle feast or festival and I want you to go back and picture what it's like when you come into Jerusalem at this time of year

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First of all, everybody's dwelling in tents so you see little tents made out of brush and It pictures the

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Wandering in the wilderness. It pictures the provision of God. It pictures that we can do nothing without God and Then during these days they have the pouring of the water that we talked about where they mix wine with the water pictures the

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Lord Jesus Christ, obviously and just after the Last pouring of the water.

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I believe that Jesus stood up before the crowd and he said I am the water of life

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And they knew exactly what he meant and Then he comes to let's come into John chapter 8 in verse 12.

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He makes another statement the next day and Another thing that happens besides the pouring of the water is the lighting of the temple.

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Remember that we'll let let our train get by the lighting of the temple it was

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So bright that the whole city had light because of the lighting of the temple

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And in this atmosphere, I believe is when we come to John chapter 8 in verse 12

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So let's read it together read along with me just in your hearts. I'll read it out loud Then spake

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Jesus again unto them again means before he said I'm the water And he speaks again unto them saying

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I am the light of the world He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life and Today, we're going to talk about the little phrase where he says he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness

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And we're going to look at it from the negative viewpoint though of what happens if you don't follow him and you do walk in darkness and So we're going to talk about the light by contrasting it with darkness for a few moments today

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You know the Bible says in John chapter 9 verse 15

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That we came into this world blind Now I want you to think for a few moments this morning from the human viewpoint from the end time vantage point where You can't look at other people and tell if they're lost goats or lost sheep.

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All you know is they're lost You can't tell the difference they're just lost just like we were lost before we got saved

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Now the Lord Jesus could look at people and tell the difference he could look and tell if he was talking to Satan's children

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Satan seed or if he was talking to God's elect and he could tell the difference Which makes this far more serious when we understand that as we read what we're about to read

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Because he was talking to a group of people in this passage that were not going to see the light

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Not that they wouldn't choose to but he says you cannot And that is so awesome

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It's difficult for us to contemplate that because that jumps up into the outside of time viewpoint, which

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Jesus had both Jesus was God in time

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And I believe that the Father chooses to come into time either through Jesus or the Holy Spirit And that's what was occurring here when we read this but Jesus tells us in the scriptures that Before salvation now looking back at the end time viewpoint not with regard to elect or non elect

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But just talking about lostness Just talking about the darkness of being lost some of you may want to think back to a time before you were saved if you were saved later in life like I Was you can vividly remember it?

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The Bible says in John 9 25 that we were blind. We could not see

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The Bible says in Mark chapter 7 verse 37 that we were deaf and we did not have ears that could hear

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God The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 1 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins

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We had no life in us. Therefore. We could not perceive anything of life In Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 12

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It says about four things about us before salvation about those who were in darkness

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It says that they are aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel Being an alien from God what a thought

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It says we were strangers from the covenants of promise Being a stranger of God What a dark thought

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It says we had no hope in the world and Then lastly it says we were without God in the world.

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You can't picture greater darkness than that that'll be the hottest part of hell is God not being there and So that is a lost state that the

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Lord says we are in a state totally without light I'd like for you to we're gonna come back into this passage here in John chapter 8

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So keep your hand there But I'd like for you to go back into John chapter 1 and let's just look at a couple of things that the

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Lord has Already said about light before we get to this great proclamation that he made

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I believe as he revealed himself to the Jewish nation as water and light and they denied him and And did not see him.

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And so therefore the kingdom age was from a human vantage human vantage point

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Postponed from God's viewpoint. It was right on time but from the end time viewpoint, they could have started it right then

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I believe and The offer was made. He said here I am Receive me and they didn't do it but let's go back and we see the

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Some hints that this was going to take place this way in the early chapters of this book of John Remember now the book of John is a little bit different than Matthew Mark and Luke in the sense that Matthew Mark and Luke were

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Written about Jesus from the vantage point of his relationship to the nation of Israel primarily

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John is not written from that vantage point it's written about Jesus from the viewpoint of who he is who he in and of himself is and so we see in John chapter 1 in verse 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was

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God The same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and look at this the life was the light of men but look at the next verse and the light shineth in darkness in the darkness of the world and the darkness

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Comprehended it not This word comprehend

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Kata lumbano in the Greek language means to seize something

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To possess it but with the connotation of seizing it eagerly seizing it It literally means in in the the root meaning to take

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Eagerly to take eagerly it has been translated in the

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King James Version into some other words I'd like to read to you so you get more sense of what this word means when it says that the darkness

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Comprehended not the light it can be it has been translated into the word attain

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The darkness attained not the light It has been translated into the phrase to come upon So you could think of it this way the darkness did not come upon the light

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It has been translated into the word find so you could say it this way the darkness could not find the light

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It's been translated into very simply to obtain So you could say the darkness did not obtain the light

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Isn't that a sad way to start talking about light in this marvelous gospel of John and yet that's where we begin

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And we come in and we began to talk about John the Baptist there was a man sent from God whose name was

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John The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light

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That all men through him might believe it doesn't really say all men in verse 7

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That's in italics the word men so it's not in the Greek So you might read it this way he came to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe

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He was not that light in other words John the Baptist was not the light but was sent to bear witness of the light and that's the same way we are sent

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Into this world, but look at verse 9. That was the true light Which light is every man that cometh into the world?

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He was in the world the world was made by him, but the world Knew him not he came into his own and his own received him not but as many as received him to them

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Gave you power to become the sons of God the Bible speaks of two types of light the light of understanding the light of conscience and secondly the spiritual light of salvation and Those verses the usage of the word goes back and forth from one to the other and it's clear

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Clearly understood by the contact text which is being used. So then when we come to John chapter 8 in verse 12

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Jesus stands in this place in the public and full view of the nation of Israel and he says as they look at the beautiful Lighting of the temple and he said unto them

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I am the light of the world he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness

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But shall have the light of life the Pharisees therefore said unto him thou barest record of thyself thy record is not true and They go on and the battle begins all of a sudden we begin to see darkness in its truest

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Form and its greatest definition as we go through and we look at these Pharisees But before we do that, let me stop just a moment and talk to you a little bit about light

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It's interesting that Jesus uses this term as a physical example of a spiritual thing

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I Think it goes beyond that However, because I think we're going to find out when we get over into the kingdom age that Jesus is in fact the light

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I mean that we're going to be talking about the physical light as well as this spiritual truth But let's talk about light just for a moment.

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It's interesting thing to learn about light. I did a little bit of studying about it this week

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Light is merely a form of energy It is radiated by moving charged particles

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Light from the Sun provides the energy needed for plants to grow and the plants convert this light into energy through a process called photosynthesis now what's interesting about it and you know, this is true, but you may not have thought about it this way if you go back before the

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Great Flood and you take all of the plant life and the animal life that was destroyed in the flood and put under enormous pressures of The movements of the earth and in the weight of this water upon the earth throughout this time period and so forth

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We have some interesting things that take place is we have a thing called petroleum and a thing called coal

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Natural gas all of these things that we have today that we use to burn and create energy the interesting thing about it is that when you burn the coal or you use the gasoline in your

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Automobile the energy that comes forth from that came from light You don't think about that when you're driving your car around but it's light that Makes your car move

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It was light That makes the coal Have energy in it when you burn the coal to heat your home

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Now when you want to look at it this way when you eat food, whether it be animal life or whether you're a vegetarian

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What you're doing is you're eating light you're eating you're gaining energy from light

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So everything that you use in this world that has to have energy Including your own physical body that we talked about in Sunday school this morning

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Indirectly anyway, we talked about the physical body as well The only way any of that works and functions is by light.

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Isn't that amazing? We really don't think of light Running our car. Do we we don't think of light is what makes our bodies move, but if you hadn't had photosynthesis

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Then the plants would have had life and the animal that ate the plant wouldn't have had energy and when you ate that animal

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You wouldn't have gained any energy and you would have no energy. It all comes from light. So light represents life in Its purest form and even in the physical realm

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It's interesting to take a little bit of a look at the study of light through the ages We know that light

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Not all light can be seen. I don't know if I should put it down. Not all the energy can be seen I guess if you call it light, that's the visible part, but you have wavelengths of light and I got to ask bill a question is in em nanometers

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Good I just wanted to make sure before I said it all I see here is in EMS And I thought that was nanometers, but the longest wavelength that we can see with our eye is a deep red

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Which is about 700 nanometers in wavelength The shortest wavelength that humans can detect is a deep blue or a violet which is about 400 nanometers

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And this is assuming you're not colorblind like me I can see more colors than you can and it just puts them all together into one nice color gray

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If you see that I don't smile all the time It's not because I don't have the joy of the Lord's because I'm colorblind and everything's gray

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How would you like it if everything was if your world was gray? I'm kidding. It's not really that way.

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I see colors I just have a different opinion with you as to what they look like and my opinion is right to me

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Most light sources do do not radiate What they call monochromatic light if you want to think of white light, it's not really just white light

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It's a mixture of all the colors that we can see when you see light from the Sun. That's what it is

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It's a mixture of these it was very interesting to me to learn this week that the human eye responds best to the color green

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Don't you think it's interesting that God has painted the vast landscapes that we look at the predominant color is green if we look at the earth and the wavelength of that is 550 nanometers, which is exactly halfway between the 400 and the 700 and it happens to be the brightest color of Sunlight if viewed from the earth's surface through the atmosphere

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So the the color that is the most predominant color that comes from the Sun as viewed from an earth perspective is green and the human eye responds to it best and God has painted virtually everything around us outside that man didn't make and it's some form of green some coincidence, isn't it?

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We know that light can be observed in two different ways as waves or particles of light called photons it was a

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German scientist Max is it how you say it plank? planks theory or plonk

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We're gonna call it plank It's PLA and CK But he discovered that light also can appear with properties similar to particles before that all they thought was that light appeared as waves

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And he discovered that light moves at 186 thousand miles per second Now what's interesting is you go back and you study how the philosophers have studied light

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Because they've always known it was unusual in something mysterious You go back to the

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Greek philosophers Pythagoras who came up with a Pythagorean theory and Plato Both believe that vision proceeded out from the eye

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Now think about that for a moment they thought that the organ the eye was

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Sending out some type of particles that created vision so that vision came from the eye out

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This was commonly believed all the way in through the Dark Ages into the early times of even before the

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Renaissance period so for a thousand five hundred years after Christ or somewhere in that ballpark

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Science of the day felt that sight came from the eye going outwards

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It's interesting when we read in Matthew 6 25 22 over a thousand years prior to this scientific thought

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Jesus Christ said the light of the body is the eye if Therefore that I be single thy whole body shall be full of light

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He pictured light coming into the body rather than vision going out from the body

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But if that I be evil our whole body shall be full of darkness The Lord Jesus Christ explained scientifically how vision works along 1 ,500 years before science figured it out, but finally a man an

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Egyptian named all Hazen figured out that Plato and some of the earlier people were wrong about how light worked

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Einstein even worked on this and he showed that Planck's theory could be could explain the photoelectric effect

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The speed of ejected electrons was related not to the intensity of light but to the frequency

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And as man has studied light, he's never been able to totally understand it because from one one type of receptor it appears to be particles and From another type of receptor it appears to be waves and it acts as waves and man cannot figure out light

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At least he was smart enough to figure out that the light goes in not coming out from the human eye

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Well, I want to jump forward for a moment and read to you revelation 22 20 I'm sorry, 21 22 revelation chapter 21 verse 22

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The study of light began Earlier than Plato I'm sure but we have it recorded going back that far.

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Let me show you the end of the study The end of the study of light occurs in Revelation 21 verse 22 and it takes place when the thousand -year millennial period begins and it says

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I saw no temple therein For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it And the city had no need of the

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Sun neither of the moon nor to shine in it For the glory of God did lighten it and the

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Lamb is the light thereof Now we go from just learning a spiritual truth to the physical light literally is

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Jesus Christ and the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it and The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it

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Now don't you find it interesting that it says that the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it

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The lost nations are now at this point in history in darkness They are in the pit of hell

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Which is described as a place that is so dark it defies our definitions of darkness is the place of eternal darkness and eternal falling a place of eternal loneliness a place of eternal separation from the light of the world the

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Lord Jesus Christ but the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light and The kings of the earth to bring their glory and honor into it and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by Day for there shall be no night there

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No darkness there and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it and there shall in no wise enter into it

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Anything that defileth we talked a little bit about that in Sunday school Neither whatsoever work of abomination or make it the lie

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But they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life are the ones who will be dwelling in this light

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Commonly known as the elect and 22 one says and he showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and out of the

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Lamb So we see the water and the light that is celebrated in the festival of tabernacles

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Right here at the end beyond where we are out into the future in the millennial period both the water and the light emanate from the

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Lamb himself the water of life and the light of life

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Now as we go into John chapter 8 verse 12 and we look at the second part of the verse It says he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness there is a strong implication there that he that does not follow him shall walk in darkness and we see

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That as we go on into this passage The whole passage becomes dark and I want to use this as we complete our study on light this morning

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And we complete our study on the Feast of Israel I want to use this to launch into a new study that we'll be doing in days to come on The great doctrines of the

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Bible Not just purely from a doctrinal point of view but from from an application point of view

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But we will study through the Bible in a systematic fashion and study systematic theology for a while together

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The first doctrine that you'll find in any most systematic theology textbooks will be the doctrine that's called the depravity of man and There is no better place to study this than in the following verses in John chapter 8 because as we began to look at a group of people

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Who will not and cannot see the light? We see the utter depravity of natural man

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Now we have to realize that from an end time vantage point we can't tell the non elect from the elect but We can look at lostness

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We can look at darkness and so many of these attributes also apply to the lost sheep before he finds his shepherd

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Jesus said my sheep will hear my voice and follow me You need to be concerned about false doctrine and cults and all that but you don't need to be overly concerned about it

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Because Jesus said my sheep will hear my voice and follow me. They will find me why because the shepherd is calling

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The shepherd is there and putting out the message and the sheep can hear the message and he comes but before that sheep comes

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I like to call him a lost sheep That's what you and I were before we got saved and in our lostness

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We were in the same type of darkness that we find these people in it describes our lives very well

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But Jesus brought us out of that darkness into his marvelous light and we of all people on the face of this earth

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Should have a heart of thanksgiving and praise Because we can see both worlds

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They can only see one they cannot see the light. The light is in the world, but they comprehend it

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Not the light is in the world, but they do not seize it. The light is in the world, but they cannot find it

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We'll be into them and so we look at verse 12 and it speaks of these people who

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It implies these people who are walking in great darkness like to read a quote to you from Arthur Pink Dealing with light.

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He says He speaks of these people who have the light of intelligence the light of conscience, but they lack spiritual light

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This is what he says, but spiritual light they do not have Endowed with intelligence and moral discernments, but spiritually they are in darkness

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That's just the common natural man He says the Greeks with all their wisdom the

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Romans with all their laws were spiritually in the dark The great crowds see not the true character of God the worth of their souls the reality of the world to come

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John chapter 3 verse 19 says and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men loved

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Darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light

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Neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doeth truth

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Cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God You understand what it means that your deeds are wrought in God.

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It means your deeds are worked in God It means God works the deeds in us and that's the only reason we came to the light

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So now let's look at verse 13 We'll begin to see some of the attributes of darkness some of the depravity of man

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As brought out by Jesus Christ as he talks to these religious Pharisees in verse 13

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The Pharisees therefore said unto him thou barest record Of thyself thy record is not true.

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The first thing that darkness will do is accuse God of lying Darkness when the dark mind that does not have eyes that can see spiritually

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When they see something go wrong in the world, they will blame it on God. It is God's fault

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And God is lying Every time that we act in unbelief we can only do that through the old man.

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Our new man won't do that We get off in the old man and allow our body to tell us what to do.

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All of a sudden we're accusing God of lying Because God has already told us the right way and we said

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I don't believe that I'm gonna try this way The second attribute is found in verse 14

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Jesus answered and said to them though. I bear record of myself yet. My record is true

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For I know whence I came and whether I go But you cannot tell whence

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I come or whether I go the second attribute of darkness Is that this person cannot tell where Jesus came from or where he's going to him.

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He is just a good prophet He is just perhaps a good man Perhaps he was a good leader or perhaps he was an utter failure

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But he doesn't know that he proceeded forth and came out from God He doesn't understand what

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Jesus meant when he said you shall die in your sins for if you believe not that I am You shall die in your sins.

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This darkness doesn't allow a person to see this Now we go into verse 16.

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We see another attribute Let's start with verse 15 actually you judge after the flesh

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He says I judge no man now to understand the sense of this verse. We have to understand that Jesus is saying this

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You judge after the flesh You being the darkness judged according to what you see and he is saying

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I judge no man according to the flesh He's not saying I judge no man. We know that Jesus does judge men.

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He is the judge of men Everything will be judged by his gospel So it doesn't mean that he doesn't judge what he means in verse 15 is

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I don't judge after the flesh Are you with me? He says that's what you do though You're in darkness you judge after the flesh, but I judge no man after the flesh now look at verse 16 and yet If I judge this shows very clearly that he does judge my judgment is true

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For I am not alone, but I am the father that sent me in other words Jesus's vantage point even when he was on the earth was from the heavenlies ours cannot be that way.

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We're not God We don't know all the details of life. We don't know that, you know, the old Indian says before you judge somebody walking their moccasins

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Isn't that a pretty good statement? Jesus is saying well You don't have the perspective that I do

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So therefore you judge differently you judge after the flesh you judge according to what you see

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He says I don't judge anybody that way. So another attribute of darkness now look at verse 19

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We see the fourth attribute of darkness is that they do not know the father

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He says then said they into him. Where is thy father? Jesus answered he neither know me nor my father if you had known me you should have known my father

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Also now I want you to remember as we proceed through here that Jesus is talking to the seed of Satan He is talking to people who will never ever see the light

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But in the process of this he is describing to us a perfect example of the natural man

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Which is our old man that we still carry about like a dead body attached or tied to us

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We are not that man anymore. We're the new man. We're saved today. We're the new man

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However, this physical body this tabernacle this tent that we live in is one of the very three enemies of our lives

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Satan the world and the flesh We live in one of the enemies the tabernacle the tent that we live in the outermost part of it the shell

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That will be left here if we die today or the shell that will be obliterated and put back together right at the rapture that is an enemy and So when we get off into a place in our life where we allow the body to control us

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And we make the new man a slave to the body which ought not to be so it's totally outside of God's correct order according to Romans chapter 6 and 7 and 8

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But we do that from time to time and when we do that We can have any one of these attributes if not all of them

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I don't think we'd have them all at one time, but we can have any one that we read about here

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Be very careful when we catch ourselves judging one another It is an attribute of the flesh

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Be very careful when we find ourselves Thinking that God is lying

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That's when we think we can do better. That's an attribute of the flesh so even though we're speaking here in the

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Context of people that aren't going to ever be saved and they're in utter darkness and always will be Remember that there was a time when we were in that darkness and God saved us brought us into the light

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But the body is not saved yet the outer shell goes against you as much as the world does it fights against what you want to do for God as much as Satan does and When we go off into that body

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Now let me stop a minute and tell you what the right order should be and I think we all know that but let's review The right order is this the new man is in perfect fellowship with the

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Holy Spirit and they become one Like a husband and wife we have to talk about the devil. We get two trains

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Isn't that right? We're gonna talk about the enemy. We're gonna get two or three trains today, I guess but When we get to the place where the new man is in complete fellowship with the

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Holy Spirit, which is the way we ought to walk But you know The amazing thing is

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God gives us that choice moment by moment every day and we make that choice and The Bible says that we ought not ever to be slaves to sin again.

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We've been freed from it We never have to walk in the flesh Slavery is merely walking in the flesh

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We never have to do that but we choose to do it but in those wonderful times when we choose not to and we link our spirit up with the

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Holy Spirit and he links himself with us and we become one in spirit Then the new man create causes the body now.

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Listen to me the physical body becomes a slave it becomes nothing more than a servant in the hand of you and therefore of God and God and the real you working together can move that body anywhere

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It needs to be at the right time in the right place to get spiritual work done in a physical world

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The only way it gets done is in that manner starting from the inside out Most religions and most

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Christian religions try to work from the outside in and clean up that old man All right

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Let's stop the smoking stop dancing stop the swearing unless all ladies wear long dresses all the men cut their hair real short

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We've been there and done that if you've ever been an independent fundamental Baptist you start from the outside try to make it work inward

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It doesn't work does it? It never works But God starts from the inside and outward now.

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The problem is when we make the choice to allow the dead man to if you will resurrect himself and take control and Tell us where we walk where we go what we do and on and on Then all of a sudden we're in darkness in a sense and any of these symptoms can come forth from our lives

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So we have to guard against this Now we go into verse 19. We saw very clearly that they did not know the father

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Jesus said you don't know me, but you don't know the father now I'm gonna tell you this that in a sense your flesh doesn't know the father because it doesn't treat him as Lord The flesh treats itself as God That's why it becomes idolatry when we walk in the flesh.

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That's why the Bible in the New Testament defines Idolatry as covetousness. It's the flesh the urges of the flesh taking over John 644 says no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the

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Last day it is written in the prophets and they shall be all taught of God Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned from the father comes to me

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But these people in verse 19 have never been taught of the father and have never heard from him

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And therefore they don't come to Jesus and therefore they don't know God Then we see a fifth attribute found in verse 20

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Now we're gonna find this in several places this is an awesome Truth for those of us in this church because we understand this

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I think better than most in fact You become the enemy of those that don't understand it. You become the heretic to those who don't understand this just understand that Same thing happened to Jesus You go over into John chapter flip back there

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I want you to see this John chapter 6 Verse 65 When Jesus begins to teach

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The sovereignty of God look what happens John chapter 6 verse 64 and there are some of you that believe not for Jesus knew who they were

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I look at verse 65 and he said therefore said I unto you that no man can come to me

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Except it were given unto him of my father From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.

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Then he looked at his own Apostles and said will you leave also? That's how serious this was

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He began to teach that God was in control and they began to leave him Same things gonna happen in your life folks.

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You start to teach Election you'd start to teach that God is in control You start to teach that God has a right to choose who his own children are and all those things people gonna walk away from you and That's what happened.

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Now. Look what happens here when Jesus begins to describe darkness in verse 20

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He says these words spake Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple and no man laid hands on him

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For his hour was not yet come. You know what that implies. They wanted to lay hands on him Now if you go into chapter 7 verse 30 and you go into chapter 7 verse 44

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You go into chapter 8 verse 59. We're in chapter 8 So look at the last verse in the chapter because this is where we're gonna end

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I can see we ain't getting there today, but we're we're gonna end here Then took they up stones to cast at him

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But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through the midst of them and so passed on one of the only times

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In life where somebody tried to get away from somebody by passing right through the middle of them But Jesus could do that and then again in chapter 10 verse 39 we see the same thing

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They're trying to cast stones at him They're trying to take him and what this shows is that darkness really truly believes that they have free will

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They believe that they can exercise their will and accomplish anything they want to do and Jesus says the reason you think that is because you're in darkness and Let me show you a great example that's given here

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In John chapter 19 in verse 10 if you want to go look that up.

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We're kind of close pilot finds himself in darkness and believing this

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Thought of darkness that man has a free will you have to understand the word free means sovereign

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So if you have a free will that means you are sovereign Your will is sovereign it means it can choose anything

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It wants to choose and make it happen and pilot believed this way because he was in darkness in John 19 10

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Then said pilot unto Jesus Speakest thou not unto me

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Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee

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Pilot is saying I have the will to do anything I want and I can do it to you By snapping my fingers don't you know that and Jesus's response was verse 11

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Jesus answered thou could it's have No power at all against me

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Except it were given thee from above You see how the darkness feels that it controls everything.

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It feels it's in control of itself It feels it's in control of the world and it feels it can control you and if you get in darkness

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Yourself and walk in the flesh you begin to believe that rather than God Jesus said hey

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No It doesn't have the control When you get into the place in your life where you think you're about to be buried by the darkness you think you're about to Be taken under your family your children your wife your husband your pastor your church

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You think it's all about to be over and you can't go to sleep at night Oh, the church is just gonna fall apart.

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It ain't it's not gonna be here tomorrow My family is gonna fall apart. I'm gonna lose my children I don't know how we're gonna make it through this awful

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American society Vote for Bush. No, I'm just kidding What you need to understand is that you're believing the darkness

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The darkness is telling you that it's in control It is sovereign has a will of its own and can

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Perform it and what you need to do is say dear Lord Jesus Give me your mind and when you get

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Jesus's mind, you'll say hey you have only the control It has given you from above Hallelujah, that's good preaching brother

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Mitchell boy. I Like that Amen I Said that for Diane I said that for Diane this morning.

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Hallelujah Now That could have been a favorite topic of the message

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I guess but it let me read to you from Arthur pink They had a will to take him but not the ability

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I Heard brother Otis holler. Amen over there on that one

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They were powerless Before listen, they were powerless before the decrees of God.

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Oh he says Men may boast of their willpower and of their quote free will but after all what does it amount to?

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And then he goes on and says Ah dear reader the

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God of the Bible is no mere figurehead Didn't he awesome you ought to get some books by pink.

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It'll make you think you're reading the Bible and understanding it wonderful and Pink himself quotes

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Jeremiah 11 23 in this text and he says Oh Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself

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It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps God is sovereign man thinks he is especially when he gets in darkness

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Now, let's go to a sixth attribute in verse 21 Then said Jesus again and to them

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I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins whether I go

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You cannot come And I think we're gonna stop for sake of time at this but I'm with this thought and the sixth thought is that people in darkness may well seek

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Jesus But just because they seem to be seeking does not mean that they've been saved

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Let me quote What pink says about this particular verse 21 the verse itself at the end if you'll notice

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Jesus says and they shall die in your sins Whether I go you cannot go pink points this out.

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He says Jesus did not say you will not come. He said you cannot come Sickness the fear of death a serious financial reverse

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The drying up of creatures sources of comfort these frequently draw out much religiousness pink says

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Under a little pressure a man will say his prayers Read his Bible become active in church work.

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Now. Let's search our own hearts this morning profess Christ and Become quite a different character

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But only too often such in one is but reformed and not transformed

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Let the pressure be removed let health return let there be a change of circumstances

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And how often we behold the zealous professor returning to his old ways

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He sought But his motive was wrong Because it was not the effect of a deep conviction of being lost and undone

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His seeking was in vain How many there are who under the superficial and temporary influence of the modern evangelistic meetings

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Come forward to the front seeking Christ For the moment many of them no doubt are in earnest and yet the sequel of their life proves that they sought in vain

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Why is this two answers? May be returned first with some it is because they were not in dead earnest

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Jeremiah 29 13 and you shall seek me and find me when you shall seek with all of your heart Second with others it is because they did not seek in the right place and he says

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Jesus said Search the scriptures for they speak of me And I want to stop there today because that's where I want to pick up next

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Sunday. Let's stand and have prayer together Jesus is the light of light of the world

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He came into the darkness, but the darkness Comprehended him not

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Father we can only come before you in praise and Thanksgiving this morning if we Know within our own hearts and your spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are your children

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We can only come before you in praise and Thanksgiving for we know that none of it came in and of ourselves

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That we never would have sought you had your first and great love not been upon us and So we thank you for our salvation this morning

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We thank you for the fact that with it came the light and we were brought out of terrible darkness and father our prayer this morning is that you would go with us and Cause us to be very thoughtful In our moments of our days

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That to succumb to the flesh is to choose to walk in darkness May we be as a person who if it were possible could walk the circumference of the earth and always stay in the light of the

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Sun and From a spiritual viewpoint might we be that way with the Lord Jesus Christ and walk in such a way that we're always

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Under your marvelous light and father if there be any one in our crowd today that is not sure of their salvation and and your light has

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Pricked through the darkness of their hearts and they've understood that most and predominantly in their life these

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Things that we've talked about are the things that are in their lives and therefore they've concluded that they were not saved

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Father if they're thinking these thoughts and having these concerns That's a wonderful sign