Turn on the Lights

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” -Genesis 1:3-4

“God divided light from darkness in the first four verses.”  Said a young brother at a revival weekend in Jemison, AL to which I attended.  From the beginning, God has put division between light and dark.  This motif runs throughout the scripture. As in nature, so it is in our own hearts, God wants light and darkness separate; sin and holiness.  They cannot co-exist.

The scripture tells us in Matthew 6:22 that if thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.  Paul desired that Christ would open the eyes of the lost and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.  He also wrote to the Corinthians for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Peter wrote of the daystar, which was Christ, which should arise in our hearts. John told of Christ being the light and the life of men.  From the beginning, God divided the light from dark.  The light is good. In a natural sense, we need light to exist, to survive, and to prosper. People are naturally drawn to light, we were not meant to live in darkness.  God’s creation is a creation of light. We need light in a natural sense, and we need the light within in a spiritual sense. Darkness is not God’s intention.  The darkness is synonymous in the world of God with sin. In a spiritual sense, we are in darkness when you have sin in your heart, and if you have sin in your heart, you have sin in your life. Therefore, you have darkness in your life. Sin will cause you to be lost in that darkness.  Stumbling about from one thing to the next, groping blindly for that which cannot save. The only thing that can help is the light. The light will banish all darkness, because darkness and light have been divided from the beginning. Jesus is the light, he is the Savior, and he is holy that will bring holiness.  When Christ comes into your heart, he will banish the darkness.  He will drive out all sin. You cannot have sin and righteousness mixed within. One must go. When you are turned, from darkness to light, when Christ comes in, he will bring light.

In 1944 towards the end of World War II, over two hundred navy pilots were on a return trip to their aircraft from a successful bombing raid on two Japanese ships.  The pilots, flying in the dead of night could not locate the aircraft carrier and were lost in the vast Pacific Ocean with little fuel. When Admiral Mitscher of the United States of America realized many pilots would be lost unless something was done; he ordered all navy aircrafts in the area to turn on the lights (at great risk, obviously, to his fleet, for in doing so he would expose them to the Japanese).  The lights guided the pilot’s to safety in the vast darkness of the Pacific; ultimately, more than one hundred and eighty pilots were saved. If your lost in the sea of sin and darkness, trying frantically to find salvation. Jesus can save you; Jesus can turn on the lights.