Heralding the Word Part 5

So pray for the Magnusons, they
are away as well. And we look forward to having
them back next Wednesday. If you would take your Bibles
and turn back once again, I just squandered my three minutes. Turn back to the Gospel of John
once again. We are looking at these first
five verses in this opening section where we have seen John is heralding
the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s heralding the Word. We’ve
already discovered that what he’s really talking about there
is the Lord Jesus Christ. John is alluding to Him. He is
speaking of Him as the Word, but what he is pointing to is
Christ, there’s no doubt. We have seen the first six of
seven astounding representations of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
have seen that Christ is heralded, first of all, in His eternal
nature. In the beginning was the Word. We saw that Jesus was
heralded in His relational position, that the Word was with God. The third feature that we saw
was His divine identity. The Word was God. And we saw
that the Lord Jesus is heralded in His distinct personality.
When we read verse 2, it almost reads as if it’s just summarizing
everything that’s been said. But John’s point there, I believe,
is that Jesus Christ was separate and distinct from the Father
throughout all eternity. He had a distinct personality.
The fifth thing that we observe, the fifth thing that John heralded
was the Lord Jesus’ creational power. Verse 3, all things came
into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being
that has come into being. The Word who is eternally existing
in communion with the Father is the co-creator of everything
that has ever been created. And then last Lord’s Day we looked
at the 6th. astounding representation of
the Lord Jesus. And that was his gift of illuminating
light. We had to take some time with
this one. We had to first figure out what life was there in verse
four and how in or in what sense was that the light of men. We’ll
review that briefly here in a moment. If you would though, look at
verses one through five one more time. where John declared, in
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was, in the beginning, with
God. All things came into being through
Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come
into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did
not comprehend it. verses four and five go together
and that’s why it’s absolutely crucial that we have a clear
grasp of what the life is and what the light is, what that
representation is there in verse four before we begin to really
grasp what John is saying there in verse five. What kind of light
is John referring to? Well, there were many different
options, and we looked at a number of different suggestions. Some
said that it was the Shekinah glory of God. Well, we quickly
dispelled that. It can’t possibly be that. Some
said that it was the light of revelation, and there is absolutely
something to that. It’s not completely inaccurate,
but there’s more to it than that. Some said that it was the light
which came from God’s revelation by creation, and there’s absolutely
something to that. In part, yes, that’s true. Ultimately,
what we saw, though, was that it’s the light of conscience
that is being spoken of there, because it isn’t light just separate
and distinct, but light or conscience that was produced by life. And
we saw that that life referred to all kinds of life, all manner
of life. The very physical life that you
and I enjoy was the means, the producer of this life, this conscience. This life that Christ has given
by way of creation, is that which produces in us an awareness,
a God-shaped vacuum. We know that something else exists. We have a conscience. It cannot
be dulled to the point where we can excuse away any thoughts
or considerations of God. It isn’t the word here in verse
4 that is said to be life. and I’ll talk more about that
in a moment but life that is said to be the product of life
or the producer rather of life in him was life and the life
was the light of men creation the birth into this world is
what gives us that light And while Jesus Christ is the source
of all life, physical and spiritual, what John really is saying here
is the life that we have been given is a light. It is a producer of conscience. It is a producer of revelation,
just by being born into this world. One of the happy privileges
that I have is to go back and find anything that I hadn’t already
read, and I think I’ve got 32 different sources on John’s Gospel. But I went back and I found one
more testimony to this very point. Matthew Henry said it this way,
listen. Reasonable creatures have their light from Him, that
is Christ. That life, which is the light
of men comes from Him. Life in men is something greater
and nobler than it is in other creatures. It is rational, not
merely animal. When man became a living soul,
his life was light. His capacities such as distinguished
him from and dignified him above the beasts that perish. The spirit
of man is the candle of the Lord, and it was the eternal word that
lighted this candle. The light of reason as well as
the light of sense is derived from Him and depends upon Him. That’s what John is saying in
verse 4. I absolutely believe it. Now,
I want to make a note as we glide into verse 5. Regarding this
light. It’s the light of conscience
as I have suggested. And the light, the light of conscience
shines in the darkness. We’ll talk about the darkness
in just a moment here. But first, if I may, I want to
introduce a very important feature of this section. And it doesn’t
matter what Bible translation you have. If you have someone
sitting next to you that has a different Bible translation,
I suggest that you scooch closer so that you can get the full
treatment here of what is taking place. I want to introduce a
very important feature in verses 1 through 14. Please note that
the word light is used repeatedly throughout this section, six
times, as a matter of fact, just in verses four through nine. So, depending on your translation,
You may very well have a device embedded in the text itself that
tips the hand of the translators regarding their own interpretation
of this section. Now, if you’re translating the
scriptures, you want to avoid that as much as you can and tell
them what Paul said or what, in this case, John said. Some
of the translators can’t help it and they either italicize
words or they do a number of different things in order to
help us to understand what they believe the author is saying.
Let me see if I can illustrate it first. Very graphically. And then I’ll come back and I’ll
explain what I believe the difference is in these sections. Let’s stick with the more popular
translations. If you’re reading the ESV or
the NIV, remember out of habit I correct the NIV once or twice
a year whether we need to or not, just to keep them humble. If you’re reading the ESV or
the NIV, and there’s a number of other translations that do
this, the interpretive help from this particular device that I’m
going to point to is very subtle. In those two translations and
a few others, You will notice the word light in verses four
through nine is never capitalized. Very significant term, and yet
in verses four through nine it’s never capitalized. But John isn’t
talking about just any light, like light from a light bulb.
He has something very specific in mind. Nevertheless, the translators
of these two particular versions are just allowing the reader
to identify the significance of that word, light, and they’re
allowing them to distinguish whether light means the same
thing all the way across the board. They don’t make a distinction
between light in verse four and the light in verse nine. It’s
very subtle. They let you decide that essentially
in not capitalizing them, any of them, they’re basically letting
you completely decide They’re suggesting, essentially, that
light is light according to these translators. If, however, you’re
using the New American, now scooch closer and look. If you’re using
the New American Standard, and a few other less popular translations
do this as well, you will notice that every time the word light
occurs in 4 through 9, it’s capitalized. Every time. Look at this. Look
at verse 4. In him was life, and the life
was the light, capitalized of men. Same thing in verse 5. The
light, capitalized, shines in the darkness. Jump down to verse
7. He came, that is John, to testify
about the light, capitalized. Verse 8. He was not the light,
capitalized, but he came to testify about the light, capitalized.
There was the true light, capitalized. We’ll talk about what those refer
to in a moment. Every time the New American Standard,
as I pointed out, every time it translates the light here
in verses 4 through 9, it capitalizes. And the New American Standard
wasn’t the first translation to do this. At the turn of the
20th century, translators caught on to this device of capitalizing
and it became very popular. In 1902, Arthur Way’s 20th century,
remember our class a couple of weeks ago, the history of the
written word, we looked at these translations. Arthur Way was
the first one to do this. He was modern, right? Well, in
1902 he was modern. He put his title of his translation
was the 20th century New Testament was the latest, greatest thing.
And so he seized upon this device of capitalizing the word light. And for a short while after that,
everybody followed suit. Fenton in 1903, Weymouth after
him, Moffat in 1913, Berkeley in 1959, and the New American Standard
in the 70s. All that to say, the New American Standard wasn’t
the first translation to do this, it just happened to be the most
popular of those bunch. But when they did this, they’re
capitalizing of this word, they’re using it as an interpretive device. This is all I’m really wanting
you to see, a simple point. They’re basically telling you,
look, this word Light is a term. And a term is a very important
word. It’s a significant word that has a particular reference.
And they’re saying all the way in verses four through nine,
this is a very important word. So important that we’re capitalizing
it. See, all terms are words, but
not all words are terms. Does that make sense? Write it
down if you have to. So remember, capitalizing this
key term, Light, is something that the ESV and NIV don’t do.
So in capitalizing the word Light, these other translations are
telling us that this is a very important term. Light, in a very
special sense. And in short, what they’re doing
is telling us that this word is referring to Jesus Christ
from beginning to end. I think that’s exactly what the
NAS is doing, is telling us that in verse four, it’s referring
to Jesus Christ. In verse seven, it’s referring
to Jesus Christ. Verse nine, all the way through
this section, it’s referring to Jesus Christ. I don’t believe
that’s the case. Some translations capitalize
all six of the occurrences of the word light. Others don’t
capitalize any of the six occurrences. But there’s one translation that
has a blend. Some occurrences are capitalized
and others are not. They introduced this device of
capitalizing key terms very early in the history of English Bible
translation. And they absolutely used it as
an interpretive device. They were basically saying that
in one section light is being used in one way, in another it’s
being used in an entirely different way. And that translation was
the King James. And just as a courtesy, I will
tout some feature of the King James annually just to give them
credit. This was the first translation
to capitalize the word light anywhere in this section. But
they didn’t capitalize them all. The King James translators, for
the first time, used this capitalization as a device to differentiate
the light spoken of in verses four through five from the light
referenced in verses seven through nine. No translator up to that
point had done that. Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva, all
the rest. In verses four through five,
light is not capitalized. But in verses seven through nine
in the King James, light is capitalized. And I think that’s significant.
I think that what the King James translators were doing was tipping
their hand on their perspective on the issue, that in some sense,
or to some degree, they saw a distinction between the light in verses 4
and 5, and the light in verses 7 through 9. That’s crucial.
It’s crucial to even where we’re going this morning. A word doesn’t always have to
mean exactly the same thing. Do a study sometime of the word
world, and you’ll see how many different ways that word is used. From my perspective, I think
it’s crucial that we at least observe this word light. And the bottom line here is that
I don’t believe, in this section, that light always refers to the
same thing or, better yet, person. I’ve already told you what I
believe John means by light in verses 4 through 5. It’s the light of conscience,
remember? It’s the light resulting from Christ’s gift of life, that
just by being born into the world, we know that someone else is
out there. We know that there is a God,
even if we don’t know His name. We know that there is right and
wrong. We know that God is creative. We have a conscience. But I absolutely see that John
has something very different in mind in verses 7-9, look at
him. In 7-9 he’s talking about the
Lord Jesus. And thankfully, I’m not the only
one that sees this distinction. In verses 7 through 9, John clearly
transitions to a new and greater life. What he’s telling us here
in verses 4 and 5 is that, look, we have conscience. We can never
be completely absolved and say, oh, you never told me about Jesus.
You never showed me, you never proved to me that you were God.
Just by being born into the world. He echoes what Paul says in Romans
1. You’re without excuse. That’s why when we talk about
evangelism later on today, we don’t have to start by proving
God’s existence. We presume them. God does. It’s no longer the light of conscience
in verses seven through nine that is in focus. Now God shifts
his idea of light to a clear reference to Jesus Christ as
the light. Look at verse seven. That is,
John came as a witness to testify about the light. John didn’t
come to tell us about our conscience. He knew full well that our conscience
was fully active. John the Baptist had one job.
He was the forerunner to announce the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus
Christ was and is the light of verse 7, and the Apostle John
makes it absolutely clear in verse 8 what he’s talking about.
That John the Baptist cannot be confused with the light. Don’t
point to me, I’m not the light. And in verse 9, the Apostle John
makes it absolutely clear who that light was. It was Jesus
Christ. He was the true light. Look at
verses 10-11. He references the light, the word with the masculine personal
pronoun here, he was in the world. He’s talking about Jesus. And
the world was made through him. There’s only one person that
fits. And the world did not know him. He came to his own and those
who were his own did not receive him. That can only be the Lord
Jesus Christ. That’s what’s in reference in
verses seven through nine. So John is talking about Jesus
Christ here, no doubt about it. Jesus Christ is the light referenced
in John 1, 7-9. Light with a capital L. Back here in verses 4 and 5,
it’s light with a lower case. I agree with the King James here.
It’s light of a different nature. It’s light of a less bright bulb. There’s a difference even in
the light bulbs we buy today, right? I went to put in a 75
watt bulb. The package now says it’s equal
to a 75. It’s not 75 watts anymore, but
it’s equal to that. It’s light of a different kind.
And that’s exactly what John here is saying. There’s light. The conscience is a sense of
revelation, but it’s light of a different kind. It’s not anywhere
near as bright as the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we’ll
get to that in days to come. All this is important, of course,
because here in verses 4 and 5, John is telling us that in
some way and to some degree this light was limited. It had a limited
reception, it had a limited effect. It was just kind of muted. Look
at verse 5 again. The light, and now we know what
it is, it’s the light of conscience, shines in the darkness. It’s
shining. There’s no doubt about it, you
can’t get away from it. In this entire opening section,
John has spoken consistently throughout, in the past tense.
You wanna check me on this? Watch this, go to verse one.
In the beginning was, past tense, the word, and the word was with
God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with
God, all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him,
nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men. But now, all of a sudden,
for the first time in this entire section, John switches to the
present tense. The light didn’t shine past tense. It shines. It is shining and
shining still. That’s John’s point. That’s the
whole point of this thing. that men have a conscience, that
people know that there is a God, that the light of conscience
that is a gift of being born into this world is active. John’s whole point is that the
light of conscience didn’t suddenly just appear, but it’s been continually
shining. Commentator said the emphatic
present declares that the light still and always shines in the
darkness. True are those words of patriarch,
lawyer, lawgiver, prophet, as they followed the voice which
called, or received God’s law for men, or told forth the word
which came to them. True are they of every poet,
thinker, statesman, who has grasped some higher truth, or chased
some lurking doubt, or taught some nation noble deeds. True are they of every evangelist,
martyr, philanthropist, The light is shining. That’s his point.
The light of conscience. You cannot wake up in this world
and come to the conclusion that there is no God because He didn’t
reveal Himself to me. The light is shining. But note
the realm. Note the realm in which this
light shines. Look at verse 5 again. It almost
goes without saying. Because the nature of light is
to shine in the dark. And when it does, it’s no longer
completely and utterly dark. But the light shines in the darkness. What is the darkness? This is
a much easier question to answer than that first one was. Darkness is a concept that is
presented and used almost exclusively in the New Testament by the Apostle
John. And John uses it as a metaphor for the sin of humanity and for
its effects on the world. It’s a moral or spiritual darkness
that he refers to here. It’s not literal darkness, not
physical darkness of which John speaks. Even in the first century,
the non-Christian writers, they commonly use this term to describe
the world and its condition. darkness. But given the biblical
perspective, once you begin to see the biblical data on this,
the fall of humanity, the use of this word to describe the
fallen world in which we live becomes even more appropriate.
One commentator said it well, the darkness of sin is deep.
The moral condition which opposes itself to divine light is utterly
dark. Its condition is the opposite
of that happy state of humanity indicated in verse four. When
the life was the light of men, it is a condition in which mankind
has become the prey of falsehood, folly, and sin. That’s darkness. And yet he says, The light is
shining in that darkness. The word darkness here and the
subject to which it points is frequently used, as I said, by
the Apostle John. In fact, in all the rest of the
New Testament, of all the New Testament, John by far uses it
the most. Almost exclusively. Listen to
some of the ways that he uses it. John 8, 12. Jesus spoke to
them, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows
me will not walk in the darkness. And He wasn’t just saying, look,
if you follow me, we’re in bed by six, right? So we don’t have
to walk around at night. That’s not at all what He’s saying.
He’s talking about the darkness and blackness of sin. John 12,
35, Jesus said to them, for a little while longer, the light is among
you. Walk while you have the light. He’s talking about Himself.
So that darkness will not overtake you. He’s not saying be home
before sunset. John 12, 46, I have come as light
into the world. By the way, the New American
capitalizes these as well. I have come as light into the
world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. What good promises? John uses
it over and over again in his epistle as well, 1st John, 1st
John 2a. So by this word darkness, John
is pointing to that oppressive and ubiquitous gloom that is
a result of sin. It’s fallen humanity that is
in view, humanity that has been tainted and subsequently darkened
by unbelief and sin from the fall of Adam and Eve throughout
the history of mankind. As one author said, darkness
refers to the realm of spiritual evil, to the state of the world
under Satan’s sway since the fall. It is because men are sinful
and live in a sinful world of spiritual darkness that they
are not guided by the light of reason and conscience. So the
ultimate backdrop of all of this is the fall of humanity, just
as it’s recorded in Genesis 3. Some time ago we considered,
remember, the effects of the fall. What were they? Simple. Inherently sinful. From the moment that mankind
marched out of the garden, they were prone to sin. They were
inherently sinful. Their thoughts were sinful, their
deeds were sinful, their motives were sinful. Inherently sinful. Temporally vexed. Temporally,
meaning in the here and now, in this life, this is where the
leaves come from in the pool, this is where the sweat of the
brow, this is where pain in childbirth, all of it. Inherently sinful,
temporally vexed, physically dying. No one ever died of natural
causes. It’s not possible. This isn’t
how God planned it. Not only that, Inherently sinful,
temporally vexed, physically dying, spiritually dead. That’s
where our desperate need of a Savior came. We need God to work in
our lives. It was utterly black. One faithful
student of the Scriptures described this whole thing in these terms. The perfect fellowship of man
and God has been broken. Well, right there, you don’t
even need to say anything else. I mean, he does, and I’ll read it, but
right there, you’ve got a bad situation, right? You’ve got
a holy God, righteous, good, superlative in every sense, and
you’ve broken fellowship with Him? The perfect fellowship of
man and God has been broken. Man in his self-will has separated,
isolated himself. He has made for himself, so to
speak, an atmosphere of darkness by seeking to sever his life
from the source of life. For all that is without God,
apart from him, is darkness.” What a graphic thought. And so
this darkness is literally life apart from God, devoid of God,
devoid of God’s influences, His goodness. All apart from Him
is hopeless and dark. Whatever God’s revelation does
not touch, whether it’s by God’s sovereign withdrawal or the stubborn
hardness of men’s conscience, is spiritually dark. Look at verse 5 once again. The
light, and we’re talking about the light of conscience here,
shining. It’s actively shining. It’s not
a toggle switch that we can turn on and off. It’s shining in the
darkness. It’s doing its job. And the darkness
did not comprehend it. Now that’s the way that the New
American is translated. And if you have another translation,
you almost certainly have a different translation of that word, comprehend. And so we need to find out what
is the meaning of that word translated by the NAS, comprehend, because
it could be taken in one of two different ways. It can be taken
in this sense, to attain or to appropriate or like it’s translated
here, to comprehend. Or it can be taken in the sense
of to overtake or to seize or to overcome, overwhelm, It can
be taken in that sense. What’s the right one? And there
can only be one. Consider first the first way,
the way that the New American has it, to comprehend. The darkness
did not understand or comprehend the light. It wasn’t able to,
it didn’t appropriate the light. And the word is used in that
way in the New Testament. I’m not going to quote all of
these, but you can jot them down if you want. Acts 4.13. as they
observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood, that’s
the way it’s translated there, understood that they were uneducated
and untrained men. Acts 10.34 translated, understand. Romans 9.30, the Gentiles who
did not pursue righteousness attained, they grasped, they
laid hold of, they appropriated, they comprehended righteousness. Ephesians 3.18, it’s used there,
Acts 25. So it’s used that way in the
New Testament. As one said, it contains the
idea of laying hold on something so as to make it one’s own, to
comprehend. Another said it this way. The
world of mankind comprehended not the natural light that was
in their understanding. They just didn’t get it. And
granted, as we look around, we could basically come to that
relative conclusion by looking at the average person that’s
out there and saying that how can you live this way? You live
as if you have no conscience, which is not true. But they live
like they just haven’t gotten it, like they haven’t grasped,
like they haven’t comprehended the conscience within them. You could take this thought and
you can run with it way too far, and some did. Listen to this
one. It has ever, the conscience rather,
this light, has ever been obscured by the moral and spiritual darkness
of the world. Men have never been able to understand
Christ, nor have they been willing to submit to Him. Well, we know
that’s not true because there are a number of believers in
our midst this morning. whose consciences, by God’s own
Spirit, were pierced and seized and overwhelmed with the truth
of the Gospel. We knew that we were sinners.
You can’t conclude that God giving the conscience to mankind, or
God giving revelation of any kind, is hopeless. Throughout creation, God has
given life, but man overwhelmed it. flip the switch and decided
not to accept it as such. So the other way, one other way
to translate this is the darkness did not overcome or subdue the
light. Now this is an interesting one
and I just want you to hang on. You can only take it in one of
two ways, either to comprehend the darkness, the light rather
did not comprehend the darkness, or the darkness rather did not
comprehend the light, or you can take it that the darkness
did not overcome the light. And, wouldn’t you know it, this
word is used this way as well in the New Testament. Mark 9.18,
speaking of the demon, whenever it seizes him, it slams him to
the ground. 1 Corinthians 9.24, this is an
interesting one. Do you not know that those who
run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in
such a way that you may win. That’s our word. That you may
overcome. That you may seize hold of the
prize for which you’re running. Philippians 3, it’s used three
different times. Lay hold, lay hold, lay hold.
And John uses the same word in the same way. Speaking of the
woman caught in adultery, John 12, 35, walk while you have the
light, the verse that we just read a moment ago, so that darkness
will not overtake you. So either way that you take it
here, pardon me, this other way to take it here, is to suggest
that darkness could not conquer the light. It couldn’t overwhelm
the light. It’s against the light. It hates
the light. It would do everything it could. It would douse the
light if it could. The mental picture that this
paints is this perpetual battle between darkness and light. Even
though this darkness is ever present, it never gains any ground. It never wins. The darkness, as dark as it is,
as overwhelming as it was, as black and formidable as it appeared,
could not overwhelm or overcome the light. No matter how dark. The light shines. Here’s what I think. And trust me, if you go to translations
and you want to count noses as it were, it runs about 50-50. King James, the darkness did
not comprehend it, or comprehended it not. But the ESV on the other
side, it has not overcome it. And that’s the way it goes, translation
by translation. It runs about 50-50. We need
to find out what it means. We need to think through what
it means. Instead of just taking the easy way out and seeing who
did what. What’s the intended meaning of
the sentence? The darkness did not comprehend
it. As I see it, the issue really
is a matter of perspective. Some people come to this passage
and they’re looking at the passage considering the effect that light
has on darkness. That darkness did not comprehend
or appropriate the light that was shining. Others come to the
passage and they’re considering the effect of darkness on the
light. That it did not overcome the
light. But the bottom line is, both
things are true. It goes both ways. There is light
and there is darkness. The light is perpetually shining.
The dark is perpetually dark. The darkness remains ever present
even in the face of the light. As one of my heroes of the translation
and the Greek text, B.F. Westcott, he put it this way.
The existence of darkness is affirmed, and at the same time,
the unbroken energy of the light. But the victory of the light
is set forth as the result of a past struggle, and the abrupt
alteration of the tense brings into prominence the change which
has passed over the world. The light is shining. That’s
what he’s pointing to. It could not but happen that
the darkness, when it came, should seek to cover all, but in this
attempt it failed.” In other words, the light is shining and
the darkness is still darkness. The whole thing is a paradox
that John writes. Darkness has invaded light’s
domain. Light was shining first. God’s law had been given to Adam
and Eve in a very graphic way. And darkness entered in and began
to enter in and overshadow, as it were, the light. And ever
since, it’s been an ongoing battle, hasn’t it? As one commentator
noted, the whole phrase is a startling paradox. The light does not banish
the darkness. The darkness does not overpower
the light. Light and darkness coexist in
the world side by side. So here you have these two, light
and darkness. And they are coexisting not harmoniously,
mind you, but they are in, as it were, a perpetual war. But
this war, at least to this point, is a stalemate. In other words, the conscience
isn’t enough. Christ gave us life, and life gives us a conscience,
And the conscience tells us that something is wrong. The conscience
tells us that we need something more. And John can’t wait to
get to it. John can’t wait to tell us about
the true light. John can’t wait to tell us that
he’s not the light, but there is a greater light. The light
and the darkness until then have to exist together. The light
that men have through the life that they’ve been given. They
must be informed by the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
have to learn of the Lord Jesus. We have to know of Him. And that’s
what John’s gospel is all about, is unfolding to us in time, the
glorious light of the Lord Jesus Christ. As one said, this spiritual light,
which Christ, who is the source of life, offers to man, has always
been neglected since the fall and is still neglected by unregenerate
men. What John was pointing to, this
is a victorious revelation, this seventh feature that he heralds
of Christ, a victorious revelation. There’s no defeat in this. This
is by God’s design. This is the God at the end of
life can look at every man and say, you are without excuse.
If you don’t believe that there’s a God, if you don’t know that
you have sinned a great sin, if you’re not motivated and inwardly
pursuing something more outside of yourself, If you’re not longing
and looking for a Savior, you’re without excuse. Let’s humble ourselves before
His glorious presence. Our merciful God, we do humble
ourselves before You. And we have heard John herald
a glorious Savior. A Savior who is eternal and perpetual
with God. That you have been face to face
with God throughout eternity. And in deep communion with Him
as the co-creator of the universe. Lord God, we thank you and praise
you that John unfolded this to us. That Jesus Christ has given
to us everything. and He’s given us this gift of
life that testifies of you. Oh Lord God, I pray for every
soul in this room, that if there is some young person, if there
is some old person, who has not yet come, but still is having their own conscience
gnawed upon by their sinful life, Lord God, we plead with you that
they would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s John’s whole
purpose of this Gospel. John is testifying and proclaiming
of this great light, this revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father
God, we thank you for those of us who have only by your grace
placed our faith in that Savior. Lord, we humble ourselves before
you. We see that from eternity past,
you have been about this great plan of redemption. Lord, we are humbled. We pray
all of these things in Jesus’ name.