Walk in Light (Part 2 of 4)

By nature, each of us is spiritually blind. Our sin has us trapped in darkness. So, how can we see? Well, today on Truth for Life, we'll learn how the lights get turned on in our lives and what happens as a result.

Here's Alistair Begg with part two of a four-part message titled, Walk in Light. We're in Ephesians, chapter five, verse eight. At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Paul is unequivocal. He's already used these categorical terms. You will recall back in chapter 2, at the beginning of chapter 2, he says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. See the walking again? You were dead, but now you are alive. It's a antithesis. It's in keeping with what he is saying here. And I say to you, it is vitally important that we understand this. You were, you are.

There's no halfway house. You're not half dark or half light. Dark light.

By nature, dark. By grace, light. As long as we remain outside of Christ, we remain in darkness.

Let me put it in even more straightforward terms. We're either Christians or we're not. We are either in Christ or outside of Christ.

We are either spiritually dead or spiritually alive. Now, where else are you going to find this kind of statement in our world today? Think of all of the explanations that are given for the human condition on a routine basis, as we get up to a new day in the morning and we're confronted by the drama of life, the unfolding story of individual life, men and women's attempt to make sense of their existence, and all the way and out at the limits of all that social media can bring to us.

I need my Bible to adjudicate on the world in which I live. Lord Jesus Christ, is our culture completely gone? Jesus, you're a sovereign Lord and King! Jesus, how is our culture to be impacted? Well, in the same way he says to me that Ephesus was to be impacted.

And how was that? Not as a result of Paul taking to the streets of Ephesus to condemn the darkness. Not as a result of him taking on the culture and pointing out everything that was wrong.

Not as a result of him preaching the gospel, telling this wonderful story that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, that he was making a whole new one out of the two of before, that people from a Jewish background and a Gentile background had been brought to the very same place in an understanding of who and all that Christ is. Then he says, how we'll make an impact on Ephesus when we live out, when we walk out, and people say, You got something deep inside, something that this world can't hide. Baby, you got soul. You got Jesus in your soul. That's the impact.

That's the impact. You're here this morning. You don't believe. You don't understand. You wonder. You're trying to make sense of your life.

You're going down the road that is just marked out before you. I don't want to bring you here to say unkind things to you or anything. No, this is written to the church.

This is written to the professed believers. You mustn't be involved in this sexual nonsense. It's shameful to think about it. It's worse to do it.

And your mind will be impregnated with it unless you are fueled by the truth of Scripture. Because, he says, think about it. You were, but you are. Not perfect, but making progress.

Now, think about it. When the human condition is expressed as it is in our culture today, then it is understandable that men and women have got to try and come up with a solution. You cannot change the human condition by simply educating or legislating or manipulating the issues from the outside. That's why we have the gospel. That's why the story of the Bible is focused entirely upon Jesus. At the end of the nineteenth century, William Booth was at the heart of engaging with the poor in London, and on one occasion they asked him, you know, What is it you're actually doing? And what does it really mean for somebody to be converted? Or in the terminology of the time, what does it mean for them to be saved?

Incidentally, it's still the terminology of the time. His reply was, To get a man or a woman roundly saved, it's not enough to put on him a new pair of trousers, or to give him regular work, or even to give him a university education. These things are all outside a man. And if the inside remains unchanged, you have wasted your labor. Who can change the inside? Who can change the inside? Well, I've changed it myself.

No, you won't. You've tried. It's not working, is it? How many years have you lived? How many New Year's resolutions have you had?

How many new leaves have you turned over? At your attempt at self-renovation, it doesn't work. You say, Well, I'm a little dim. In fact, you just learn a little more. I mean, if somebody could really explain to me what happens in the nature of lung cancer, then I'd never smoke another cigarette. Goodness gracious, they put on the packet, You're a dead man if you do this, and you still do it.

So how's the education program working? No, you're gonna have to be changed from the inside. And that's exactly what Paul is describing here. You say, Well, I have a lot of friends, and if I ever would speak to them in this way, they say something like, Well, that's all very well for you, but I don't see it that way at all.

And that may be you here this morning, and that's perfectly understandable. And the Bible tells us why. Because you're dark. Because they're dark. Because you're spiritually blind.

It's dreadful, isn't it? It's not simply that we live in a dark world, but that the darkness is within us. That the darkness is internal, and the darkness is inescapable.

It is impossible to exist except that we are by nature dark. That's what the Bible says. Now, think about this. You may pride yourself on your intellect, and you listen to this kind of thing, and you go away and say, I can't believe Ben comes up with that stuff, and the rest of them, they're all the same, tarred with the same brush. I mean, I don't mind the services.

Some of the songs are pretty good, but I can't believe that they would say these kind of things. And you've convinced yourself that the reason you do not believe is because you have a size-fourteen brain. Number one, you're arrogant, and number two, you're wrong. The reason you don't believe is not because of your intellect. The reason you don't believe is because you are dark. You are dark. You are blind. You are blind, and you can't make yourself see.

Wow! Think that one out for just a moment. Listen to how Paul puts it as he writes to the Corinthian believers. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

You think about this. That is why in the teaching of the Bible—and we are committed to the teaching of the Bible—you teach the Bible, you do your best to explain it, and two people can be sitting side by side, and one person comes out and says, you know, I both understand and believe. And the other person walks out the door and says, I haven't got the foggiest idea what the fellow was on about. Why was he getting so upset about it?

Goodness gracious! What's wrong with the chap? What's the difference? The difference is the illumination of the Spirit of God in the darkness of a human heart. Now think about it just in relationship to the unfolding story of life. You take again the human condition and what the Bible says about the fact that we have spurned God's law, that we have rejected his love, that we have decided that we'll go on our own. And the Bible actually calls that sin, that we have erred and strayed from his ways, like lost sheep, that we have missed the mark, that we are involved in iniquity, that our lives are like a bowling ball in crown bowls, which is played mainly in England, I think.

If you've ever used one of those things, it is impossible for it to run straight, to run true, because it is biased. Therefore, you have to deal with the bias. Luther says, That's the problem, that we are turned in upon ourselves. That's what the Bible says. What does our world say? Well, no, we may be a little naughty as a result of our environment, or we're suffering from a disease, or we're just a human machine. There's nothing we can do. We're just a kind of programmed mechanism.

Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. Just another brick in the wall. You wonder why it is that people can't make sense through their lives. They get in their car on a Monday morning and drive off, and they reflect upon the moments that have passed in the weekend.

They're trying to make sense. They may not be thinking about sin, but they're probably thinking about the fact that they were unkind, that somehow or another they're gonna have to deal with their jealousy, that if only they could stop cussing the way they do, if only their mind in default didn't always go to the dark and to the empty side of things, if only there was significance, if only there was a reason, if only there was a purpose, if only somehow or another I could unscramble this, if only I could believe that this journey through life is set within the context of the purposes of an eternal God who is prepared in the mercy and majesty of his love to draw people to himself. You see, when we sing these songs as we sang, they're either true or they're not true. We don't make them true by singing them. This Christ is going to return in robes of white, I think we sang. The picture from the book of Revelation—that there is actually an end, that there was a beginning and God created, and there will be an end when God wraps up time and history as we know it. That there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which there dwells righteousness.

And those who are there will not be there as a result of our own endeavor but as a result of God's amazing grace. Then the story of the Bible is that from the Garden of Eden, sin, if you like, has put out the light in man. Put out the light! And only the Spirit of God turns the light back on.

Can I ask you, has the Spirit of God turned a light on in you? You say, well, how would I know? Well, there's a number of ways you would know. You wouldn't be saying things like, well, I believe the creeds, and I'm good on the ethics, and I'm trying my best.

No, you'd be saying things like this. Amazing grace! How sweet the sound! That saved a bum like me! I once was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. You'd be singing songs like, I once was lost in darkest night, but thought I knew the way.

Past tense, but now. And you're about as amazed as your family is amazed and your work colleagues are amazed. Because you're not that nice half the time. And some of the times you're a pain in the neck. And you looking on yourself and you say, I'm not sure I'm really making any progress in this thing at all. And your friends say to you, you know, there's other people in the office that are a lot nicer than you, and you're tempted to say, Oh, no, they're not. You just don't really know me. If you knew me, you'd know how wonderfully nice I am.

But then you can hear your wife in the background going, I don't think you should say that. Because what is the answer to that question? The answer to that question is, I am amazed at the grace of God. I am amazed that while I am still a sinner, Christ died for me.

I am amazed that he puts his treasure in old clay pots. I am amazed that he has promised to bring to completion the good work that he has begun in me. In other words, we are amazed by the fact that the light was turned on.

We've used the analogy before. When your mom used to wake you up in the morning, if you're in a good sleep, all you can hear at first is a noise. And then you can hear a voice. And then you can hear your name. And then you're awake. That's a bit like what happens when the light turns on.

You're reading the Bible. You're hearing the sermons. It's kind of a noise. And then suddenly it's a voice. Not a voice of a man. It's a voice of God. And then you realize, He actually got my name. He called my name. You see, loved ones, Paul is not talking here about how and when that happened. Our preoccupation is so often with that. Tell me how.

Tell me when. Paul is not concerned about whether this happened spontaneously, instantaneously, gradually, or whatever else it is. He's not talking about where they were in the pilgrimage of their lives. What he's saying is this. This will be the shared reality, that when the Bible is read, when the songs are sung, when Christ is lifted up, deep in your heart you will affirm the reality of this. And in doing so, you say, You know what? I once was, but now I am.

Because again—and I must stop, again. In 1 Corinthians, I quoted you to 2, 2 Corinthians 4. Similar.

Similarly to 4. Here, listen to this. And even if our gospel is veiled—which it is—the gospel is veiled. He says elsewhere, you know, when the law is read, when he's thinking about all his Jewish friends—and we have lots of Jewish friends.

I was with some of them the other night. Why do they not believe? Look at that whole Old Testament! And we've read it, and it seems that all the sacrificial system is pointing to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Why in the world do they not? Because their gospel is veiled to them, and only in Jesus is the veil taken away. Love ones, you see how important it is that we pray? Some of us think if we could talk for a month of Sundays we would fix everything.

If we would get on our knees and talk to God for a quarter of the time, who knows how many of our friends and loved ones and family would be radically converted and changed? No, I was quoting, wasn't I? Even if our gospel is veiled, is veiled to those who are perishing. Perishing? Well, I don't like the word perishing.

I don't care whether you like it or not. It's a Bible word. We're all perishing. You don't know you're perishing? Get a mirror. That'll help you. If you don't trust the mirror, trust your spouse.

Trust somebody who'll be honest with you. We're all perishing. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. It's veiled to those who are perishing, because in their case the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord. Let's allow Luther to close this out for us. For those of you who are gonna write to me tomorrow or send an email saying, Where was that quote from? Let me preempt that. This is from The Bondage of the Will, page 73.

Okay? Luther. Nobody who is not the Spirit of God Nobody who is not the Spirit of God sees a jot of what is in the Scriptures. All men have their hearts darkened, so that even when they can discuss and quote all that is in the Scriptures, they do not understand or really know any of it. They do not believe in God, nor do they believe that they are God's creatures, nor anything else. For the fool has said in his heart, There is no God. The Spirit is needed for the understanding of all Scripture and every part of Scripture.

The antithesis is clear. When we come together tonight, our opening song will be And Can It Be, God willing. And we'll be able to sing that wonderful phrase, Alive in him, my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine.

How does that happen? In this way, that God—says Paul again—who first ordered light to shine in the darkness in creation, has flooded our hearts with his light so that now we both understand the gospel and believe it, and by the enabling of the Spirit seek to walk in love, to walk in wisdom, and to walk in light. I had the privilege of conducting a wedding yesterday afternoon. I was struck again by how definitive it is, how clear it is, and how there was very little emotion in it, actually, in terms of the words that were spoken.

And nobody was really there to say how they were feeling. Nor was the idea broad that you could say to somebody who'd say, Have you heard about marriage? Yes. Do you like the idea of marriage?

Love it. Yeah. Would you like to be married sometime? Oh, yeah, sure. Well, you know what?

You are married. The person said, You lost your mind? No, you have to come to the point where they say, Do you?

And you say, I do. And some of you perhaps sit in there going, Okay, I get all this stuff, and I really do believe that the light got turned on for me, either now or four months ago or five years ago or whatever else it is. But I've been wandering around.

I mean, this gospel train has stopped at this station, goodness, fifty times, and I've been meaning to get on, but I never got on. Well, why not get on this morning? You say, Well, how would you get on? Well, just talk to God. You say, Well, I don't know what to say to him. Then let me end by a prayer that you can make your own. All right? Let's pray.

This may be helpful to some. Dear God, I know that I'm not worthy to be accepted by you. I don't deserve your gift of eternal life. I'm guilty of rebelling against you and ignoring you, and I need forgiveness. Thank you for sending the Lord Jesus Christ to die for me that I may be forgiven. Thank you that he rose from the dead to give me new life.

Please forgive me and change me that I may walk with Jesus as my Lord and Savior and Friend. Lord Jesus Christ, hear our prayers and let our cries come unto you. May your grace and mercy and peace be the abiding portion of all who believe, today and forevermore.

Amen. That is Alistair Begg, reminding us that only God's Spirit can illuminate a darkened heart. You're listening to Truth for Life. If you prayed along with Alistair at the end of today's message, and you'd like to know more about the Gospel, about God's plan for salvation, visit the Learn More page on our website. You'll find a couple of brief videos, some additional messages you can listen to for free.

Just go to truthforlife.org slash learn more. And if you're enjoying Alistair's teaching in this current study, you can own his teaching through the entire book of Ephesians. It's a series titled Grace and Peace.

For just $5, you get 83 messages on a convenient USB drive. Find it in our online store at truthforlife.org slash store. In today's message, Alistair explained that it is God's Spirit that enables us as believers to walk in love and light and wisdom.

This does not come naturally. For us to understand more about how spiritual growth takes place in our lives, we want to recommend to you a book titled Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Author Donald Whitney unpacks 10 spiritual disciplines, including less familiar disciplines like fasting or journaling or solitude. You'll find out how each spiritual discipline helps you grow in holiness. This version of the book is the 30th anniversary edition. It's been updated and revised to include in-depth discussions on Bible study and prayer, including methods for praying through and meditating on Scripture. Request your copy of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life when you give a donation. Just tap on the image in the mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate. And if you'd rather mail your donation and request the book, write to Truth for Life at P.O.

Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Be sure to join us again tomorrow when we'll learn how to live in the world without blending into the culture or isolating ourselves from it. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.