The Discipline of Darkness | Part 1

Can God's people experience times of darkness?

Listen to Adrian Rogers. Sometimes we as God's people go through darkness, and we just don't seem to be able to make sense of anything. Now, we've listened to our preaching, we've learned our little formulas, we've written down our promises, and just about the time we have it all figured out, we are plunged into deep perplexity and despair. What do you do when the lights go out?

Welcome to Love Worth Finding. You know, sometimes darkness falls upon even the most devout believer. We experience deep perplexity, even despair, and we may not know why.

But as pastor, teacher and author Adrian Rogers said, sometimes we may not know why in order that we might know who. What can we do when the lights go out? How can we remain faithful to God and honor him in the midst of darkness?

If you have your Bible, turn to Isaiah chapter 50. We'll begin in verse 10 as Adrian Rogers reveals the discipline of darkness. Sometimes we as God's people go through darkness. Sometimes we can't see ahead. Sometimes nothing seems to make sense. Maybe we have a wayward child. Maybe there's been a financial reversal.

Maybe there is a broken fellowship. And we just don't seem to be able to make sense of anything. Now, we've listened to our preaching. We've studied our lessons. We've learned our little formulas.

We've written down our promises. And just about the time we have it all figured out, we are plunged into deep, deep perplexity and despair. I suppose a question that pastors ask more than any other question is this, why? Pastor, tell me why should such a precious little girl die at such an early age? Pastor, tell me why I could not carry this baby to turn. Pastor, tell me why my wife has treated me this way and walked away from a perfectly wonderful marriage and her children. Tell me, pastor, why, why, why? Well, after preaching for a long time, I found out that why is not our question. God has an answer to that. How is the important thing to us.

How are we going to react? What do we do when the lights go out, when nothing seems to make sense? Well, you know, we feel like we could bear up under almost anything if we just knew why.

But when we're suffering and it doesn't make sense, then that's hard. Well, our scripture today is a wonderful, wonderful scripture. And I pray God, he'll write it upon your heart. Isaiah chapter 50, beginning in verse 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant? Now let's just stop right there and we would say, if somebody's fearing God and obeying God's servants, we would think they would be walking in the light, wouldn't we? We could say, well, the next step is that they'll be walking in the light, but listen to it. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?

Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled, this shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. Now here's the question. What do you do when the lights go out? What is the discipline of darkness?

Well, I want to give you some propositions. Number one, those of greatest devotion may know the deepest darkness. Those of greatest devotion may know the deepest darkness. Now, if you look at verse 10 again, you're going to find out that God is not talking to someone who has wandered far away from home and needs to come home as we've just heard. We're talking about someone who fears the Lord. That doesn't mean he cringes at the idea of God.

Fear is love on its knees. It is a reverential all for Almighty God, a person who has great respect and reverence for God and who obeys the voice of God's servant when the word of God is preached. He says, yes, Lord, I will obey you.

And yet he seems to walk in darkness. Now, there's no fine print in the contract. And I want to tell you if you're considering becoming a Christian, it is not all sweetness and light. Sometimes I think we overpromise in order to somehow get people to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a distorted idea that if you become a Christian, it will be all joy and all light and all sweetness and just roses all through life. There'll be no sickness. There'll be no sorrow. We're just going to go through life in an ever ascending scale of health and success. And then we're going to die the serene old age and then have a glorious exit and go to heaven. It'd be nice if it happens that way, but folks, it generally does not.

It generally does not. There's no need to deny it. There are thousands of saints that fear God and obey God who are walking in darkness. Now, as we study the Bible, we're going to find out that was true of the Bible saints.

For example, Job, the Bible says Job was an upright, a perfect man. He feared God and yet Job was in darkness. Put in your margin in Job 19 verse 8, Job said, he has fenced up my way that I cannot pass. Modern English, he's headed me off at the pass and he has set darkness in my paths.

Who has done that? God has done that. God set darkness in the path of good old Job. And Job said, Lord, I just don't understand this. I was reading about Habakkuk, the prophet. Habakkuk went to God, wanted to get some answers, things that he could understand. Habakkuk chapter 1 in verse 2, he says, Oh Lord, how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear? Even a cry out unto thee of violence, but thou will not save. Habakkuk says, God, I have stained heaven with my prayers. Where are you God?

God, it doesn't make sense. I read in the Bible about John the Baptist. Was John the Baptist a great man?

You better believe it. Jesus said there was not a greater born of woman than John the Baptist. And yet John the Baptist got down in a dungeon and he's in darkness and he can't understand.

He got so perplexed. He even sent messengers to ask of Jesus. Are you really the Messiah? Are you really?

Or should we look for somebody else? Now that's not a bad man who was saying that. That was a good man, a man who was deeply perplexed. I read about the Apostle Paul. Not a greater Christian ever lived than the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 8, we are perplexed. You say, oh Paul, come on man, you must be backslidden. He wasn't backslidden. He wasn't backslidden at all. He said, we're perplexed and troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We're perplexed, but not in despair. Paul knew that darkness need not put him in despair. I'll tell you something else. If you read outside the Bible, just read the biographies, the history of the great saints. There's not a one of them or hardly a one of them that does not speak sometime of what we call the dark night of the soul when they have gone through darkness and despair.

Now we're talking about a man who fears the Lord, who obeys God. If you're in darkness right now, if you're plunged into darkness, if things don't make sense to you, that does not mean that you have sinned or you're out of the will of God. Remember our proposition that those of greatest devotion may know the deepest darkness.

Now let me give you another proposition. Number two, the faith that is born in the light is often developed in the dark. May I ask you a question? When have you grown the most spiritually? When it was all sunlight and roses or when there was darkness and difficulty and despair and heartache and tears? Are not those the times in the darkness that you've grown the most?

Faith like film is developed in the darkness. Let me give you the names of three men named John and see what happened to these men when they were in darkness. For example, one is John Milton who was blind. John Milton in the darkness of his blindness wrote one of the greatest books ever written, Paradise Lost. Another was John Munyon who was put in Bedford Prison and suffered there and languished there in darkness and despair in many ways. But John Bunyan in this time of darkness wrote Pilgrim's Progress, again a book that has blessed the world.

Another man named John was on the island of Patmos, exiled on the island of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus Christ. That John there wrote the book of the Revelation. I'm telling you folks, there's faith that is developed in the darkness. Now God wants to develop your faith. A wise man said never doubt in the dark what you've learned in the light. Your faith born in the light grows in the dark.

By the way, the test of your character is what you do in the dark. Now how does God develop our faith in darkness? Well look again at verse 10 and it tells you to do two things if you're in darkness. Look right now at verse 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord that obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkness and hath no light?

And here's what it tells you to do. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Number one, look to the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Warren Wiersbe has said, we live by promises, not by explanations.

That is tremendous wisdom. We live by promises, not by explanations. Don't demand that God explain something to you.

Just stay on his word. Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Just because it doesn't make sense to you now does not mean it will not make sense to you later on.

Another great man of yesteryear, Thomas Watson said, where reason cannot wade, faith must swim. Just trust God. Just keep on trusting. Just keep on obeying God. Now if you're praying and darkness comes, don't stop praying. Just keep on praying, even when you don't feel like praying.

As I've said, don't bring to God the brass of your emotions. Come even in the darkness with both hands filled with the incense of his worth and just keep on praying. If you've been witnessing and darkness comes and nothing seems to make sense to you, don't stop witnessing. Just keep on witnessing. If you've been giving, you've been a tither and now everything goes upside down and you lose your job and everything seems to be wiped out, don't stop tithing. Just keep on tithing. If you are a wife and you've been trying to win your unsaved husband to Jesus and he seems to get meaner and meaner and more and more difficulty comes, just keep on loving him.

Just keep on submitting. If you've been praising God and then everything seems to go wrong, don't stop praising. Just keep on praising when you don't understand and when you don't feel like it. Lift your hands by faith and praise him. Trust him.

Trust him. Look to the Lord and then lean on the Lord. Look again in this verse. It says, let him stay upon his God. Now that word stay is the word that is used. It's the root of the word that is used in the 23rd Psalm when it says, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. A staff was something the shepherd would stay upon that he would lean upon. Stay upon God.

When you're in the dark, you don't need an explanation. You need God. Stay upon God. Lean upon God.

Listen to me. It is better to be in a dark valley leaning on God than on a sunlit peak without him. Just stay upon your God. As a matter of fact, sometimes we may not know why in order that we might know who. Sometimes God removes all the answers to give us himself. There's a great gospel song.

You know it when answers are not enough. There's Jesus. For example, David in Psalm 23 was talking about his theology when he says, the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. He's talking about God. But then when he gets in the dark valley, he says, yea, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. He's not talking about God. Now he's talking to God. I mean, he's having a relationship with God that he could not have had in the light. Just stay upon God. Standing somewhere in the shadows, you're going to find Jesus. This is what God's taught in the book of Job. Job said, God, you've headed me off at the pass.

You've sent darkness into my path. God, you owe me some answers. Job says, I wish I could see you and talk with you. It's almost like God, I'd like to bring you into court. Where are you God?

God, you owe me some answers. The book of Job ends with Job never ever understanding. You understand what happened to Job because you read the book of Job. But Job didn't have the book of Job when Job was going through all that darkness. But at the end he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him? And Job discovered what I want you to discover, that a relationship is more important than a reason. When you don't have the reason, you just have God. You're walking in darkness.

Let him trust in the name of the Lord and let him lean upon his God. Now, you say, Adrian, I'm not in darkness. Well, just hold on. Just wait a while.

This is some good medicine to keep on the shelf. And there will come a time when you will find out that not only is God necessary, you'll find out that God is enough, that God is enough. Now, here's a third proposition. Some things are seen in the dark that cannot be seen in the light. You're going to understand some things in the darkness that you would never have understood in the light. Now, you're in verses 10 and 11.

Just back up to verses 3 and 4 and notice what he says here. God says, I clothe the heavens with blackness. See, it's God who sends the darkness. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth. They're covering.

Sackcloth is just dark cloth. God says, I've just pulled a veil over the sun. The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He waketh morning by morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned.

Well, what does all that mean? You're going to wake up and you're going to realize that in the darkness you were learning some things. There are some treasures of darkness. Now, when the Bible uses darkness, sometimes the Bible uses darkness as a symbol of evil. But sometimes the Bible uses darkness as a symbol of perplexity and the treasures in darkness.

If you were to go backward to Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 3, you would find out that God is speaking to a Persian King named Cyrus. And God said to Cyrus, I will give thee the treasures of darkness. Think of that, the treasures of darkness. There are some things that are seen in the dark, treasures that cannot be seen in the light. For example, have you ever heard anybody say the stars are out tonight?

Friend, they're out in the daytime. The stars do not go away in the daytime, you just don't see them in the daytime. The only time you can see the stars is at night. And the stars are there to praise the Lord.

But you would never have a star to praise God if it weren't for darkness. Those stars that are there like a chandelier on the velvet blackness of night, those stars are there and you could not see the stars were it not for the darkness. Now, in the light, we see that which is near. But in the dark, we see that which is far away. In the light, we may see more clearly. But in the night, we see further. There's just certain things that you see in the darkness that you can't see in the daytime. You may think your brightest thoughts in the daytime, but you will think your deepest thoughts in the nighttime. In the times of darkness, there are going to be certain treasures of darkness. There are things that are seen in the dark that you will never see in the light.

Let me give you another proposition now. If these things are true, then it is better for you to be leaning on God in the darkness than standing alone in your man-made light. It is better for you to be leaning on God in the darkness than standing alone in man-made light.

Now, look in verse 11. Behold all ye that kindle the fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks. Walk in the light of your fire, underscore this, of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled, this shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. Now, one of the great dangers of darkness is that you may be tempted to light your own fire. Now, remember that if this darkness comes to you and you are fearing God and obeying God, and then the darkness comes, that means that darkness has been ordained of God.

Remember what verse 3 says of this chapter? God says, I clothe the heavens with blackness. That is, the darkness is ordained of God. Now, don't ever get the idea that darkness can chase away light. If you're in a lighted room, you can't open the door and let in the dark.

No, no. The light always chases away the dark. The dark can never chase away the light. The only way, therefore, that darkness can come is what?

For light to be removed. So, if the light has been removed, that means that God in His sovereignty has allowed you to be in the darkness, that God has a reason for you to be in the darkness. It is God who has clothed the heavens with sackcloth. It is God who's done that. Now, if God has done that, don't you be so foolish as to light your own fire. When you light your own fire, you're going to get into difficulty because you're going to try to undo what God has done. Now, the sad thing about the man-made fire is it is deceptive. If you walk in the light of the fire, the sparks that you've kindled, you're not going to have a sure guide. It's kind of like taking your flashlight and going out at midnight and looking at a sundial to see what time it is. You see, God says, if you do this, if you do this, when you're in darkness, if you light your own fire, this will you have of mine hand, God says, you're going to lie down in sorrow.

You're asking for it. You're going to have great difficulty when you, in a time of God-ordained darkness, light your own fire. And we'll hear the conclusion of this important message coming up tomorrow. Maybe today, as you listen, you have a prayer request that you want to share with us. At Love Worth Finding, one of our greatest honors is to come alongside you and pray with you and for you. Go to our website homepage at lwf.org slash radio and scroll down to find our prayer wall. You'll find the option to either submit a prayer request or to pray for others. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another's needs. We can't wait to hear your prayer request. Again, go to lwf.org slash radio and scroll down to our prayer wall. If you'd like to order a copy of today's message in its entirety, call us at 1-877-LOVEGOD and mention the title of the Discipline of Darkness. This message is also part of a powerful series, Standing for Light and Truth. For that complete collection, all 11 insightful messages, call that number 1-877-LOVEGOD or go online to lwf.org slash radio.

Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Thanks for studying in God's Word with us today. If you're in darkness right now, remember, don't try to light your own fire.

Look and lean on God. And be sure to join us again next time for the powerful conclusion of the Discipline of Darkness, right here on Love Worth Finding. One of our Facebook friends reached out to us recently with this message you may relate to. He said, Pastor Rogers' sermons always remind me that even though we find ourselves in difficult times, the Lord is still enthroned, working in ways we cannot fathom.

I, along with millions of Americans, find myself suddenly unemployed after years of service. And it's the encouragement of Love Worth Finding and many other brothers and sisters in Christ that keep me tethered to our Lord. May our Lord be with you in all you do. We love having the opportunity to equip listeners like you with resources to help you in these dark days. This month is a thank you for your generous gift. We want to send you our Standing for Light and Truth book. Request the book Standing for Light and Truth when you call 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or you can give online at lwf.org slash radio. And again, thanks for your generous support of Love Worth Finding.