Light Has Dawned

[0:00] Well, that's actually a prophetic slip of the tongue this morning, because we're not in John 3.16, but we might as well be, because we're in Isaiah chapter 9, where Isaiah tells us that the light is going to come.

[0:21] And, of course, John 3.16 tells us that the light did come, exactly as promised. But we're not going to start in chapter 9.

[0:31] We're going to start in chapter 6 of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 6 at verse 1. We'll read the first eight verses, and then we'll move over into our main passage at chapter 9.

[0:47] So if you put a finger in chapter 9, it'll help you turn the page when we get there. Okay. Right. Let's just pray for a moment.

[1:04] Father, we're on holy ground here. There are billions of books in this world. And many of them have great, wonderful things to say to us, great wisdom to impart to us, even light for some of our darkness.

[1:29] But there isn't one of those billions of books, except this one, that can be described as living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.

[1:42] We praise you, Father, that you decided to breathe your word, your own wisdom, into a book. And although we do not worship this book, we don't idolize this book, nonetheless, it is your very word to us.

[2:01] And people have laid down their lives to make sure that we have it, even in our own language, and that we can't be left in any doubt as to what you have said to this world.

[2:13] So we thank you for your word today, Lord. And we pray that we might have hearts that are humble before your word and receive your word with all that humility, because you oppose the proud, but you give grace to the humble.

[2:31] So may we be numbered among those who receive your grace today as we submit ourselves to the wisdom of your word. In Jesus' name. Amen.

[2:43] Okay. Isaiah. Fascinating man. His name means God saves.

[2:59] And he prophesied about 750 years probably before Jesus came to earth. So that's about seven centuries at least beforehand.

[3:13] But my goodness, how much we owe to Isaiah. How much that man saw and foresaw and caused it to be recorded and written down.

[3:25] And we're indebted to a man who gives us so much light before the day of light actually arrived 800 years later.

[3:36] So we praise God for this. And the reason he had that light to give to us is because he saw the Lord. And we're going to read about that now. In the year that King Uzziah died, and this is Isaiah speaking, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

[4:07] Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

[4:20] And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

[4:31] And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

[5:01] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

[5:14] And he touched my mouth, and he said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

[5:31] And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And then I said, Here am I.

[5:51] Send me. Now flip over to chapter 9. Between these two chapters, these that we've been looking at this morning, much is happening.

[6:08] Because Judah, the southern kingdom that's left of the original 12 tribes, Judah is in great anguish.

[6:19] They're in great fear. Because Assyria is the great power that's rising to the north and the east. And everybody's terrified of Assyria. They're the cruelest race that ever lived on the earth.

[6:34] And so the northern tribes of Israel have formed an alliance with Syria. Not Assyria, but Syria in Damascus. They've formed an alliance. And they're expecting Judah to come in with them against Assyria to counter the threat.

[6:52] But of course, Ahaz, the king of Judah, has no intentions of joining this alliance. He doesn't trust his allies. But neither does he trust God.

[7:04] He trusts himself. Isaiah says here, at verse 17 of chapter 9. Sorry, at verse 17 of chapter 8.

[7:19] I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. And I will hope in him. So already you see that Isaiah is in a different place from the king.

[7:34] He's in a different place from all the people who are terrified of what's happening militarily in the land. Because he's saying it. I will wait for the Lord and I will hope in him.

[7:48] He's in a completely different place. Behold I, says Isaiah, and the children, he had two boys, whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion.

[8:05] And when they say to you, inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?

[8:18] Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony, if they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

[8:32] They will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and they will speak contemptuously against their king and their God and turn their faces upward and they will look to the earth.

[8:50] But behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.

[9:12] In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

[9:27] The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You, O Lord, have multiplied the nation.

[9:41] You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

[9:59] For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and of peace.

[10:28] There will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

[10:40] The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. And we just read the most important thing that we will read today in that last line.

[10:51] the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. If you're zealous about something, how do you feel about it?

[11:08] Your blood's up, isn't it? Your blood's up. You want to do something about it. You cannot ignore this thing. It was said of Jesus.

[11:21] It was prophesied of him and the disciples remembered it had been prophesied. Zeal for your house will consume me. And when was that referred to Jesus?

[11:33] It was when he personally made a whip out of cords and drove people and animals out of the temple and said, you will not turn my father's house into a marketplace.

[11:46] Can you imagine his eyes blazing that day? Would you have wanted Jesus to look at you that day with those eyes? I don't think so.

[12:01] The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. the word that's used for zeal here actually has a relationship to an Arabic word that means to be bright blood red in the face.

[12:19] you're talking about God's passion here and if you and I know how to be passionate about something let's multiply that many many times and you're thinking of God's passion.

[12:35] you see we don't understand that God is passionate I think most of us think that God is a fairly dispassionate person who just kind of sits somewhere remote and watches everything but doesn't really get engaged with it doesn't really get involved doesn't really feel but that's not true our God is a jealous God and he's a zealous God and he is the one who's going to achieve this prophecy that Isaiah spoke about you see I think really if you want to know how passionate God can get you really only need to look at Calvary you really only need to look at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ how does God feel about sin look at the cross you know

[13:36] I got into trouble once for preaching maybe I should get into trouble more often I don't know but I got into trouble once for preaching I was a student and we had a sermon class and you had to preach in front of your peers and the professor and all the rest of it and afterwards the professor took me apart and just about filleted me like a piece of fish and accused me of preaching barbarism because I said that Jesus was our substitute that he had taken our place on the cross he said well that's barbarism he says you're accusing a good God of sending an innocent man to the cross on behalf on behalf of other people folks I'm sorry but you couldn't exaggerate how far off course liberal theology actually is and this professor and I loved him dearly he was a lovely warm human being and a good friend of mine but he was way off course he just didn't understand

[14:44] I said Tim where is the barbarism in this I said how does that work out I said who was it that was actually on the cross and I took him to scriptures that said I could believe this I was a student and I was taking my professor to places he should have known all about himself he should have been teaching me but he had been educated in liberal theology and so it had taken him right off course and he thought he had the right way around of it all I don't know if he ever got his head sorted out but I took him to scriptures that said things like God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting men's sins against them God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him Peter said the righteous died for the unrighteous to bring you to God the scripture is full of references to Jesus as our substitute on the cross there's a there's a there's a

[15:55] Baptist minister who's a much of a television celebrity who refers to what he calls penal substitution as cosmic barbarism or cosmic child abuse he accuses people of saying that God is a is an abuser of his own son and they don't see because they don't see with God they look against God Isaiah had a wonderful thing happen to him Isaiah saw all the same things that his fellow countrymen saw he saw Assyria rising as a mighty terrifying power in the world he saw Syria and Damascus attacking Judah because they wouldn't join the alliance and were effectively going to be the enemy and he saw all sorts of deadly possibilities coming from this because if

[16:58] Judah was wiped out then all the promises to King David about the messianic line and about Jesus or about a messiah coming forth to have an eternal throne on the throne of David all that was at stake it was always going to be wiped out if Judah was overthrown by these enemies and King Ahaz was beside himself with worry about the whole thing and he was trying to fix it he was going to be Mr.

[17:27] Fix-It and Isaiah had gone to him and Isaiah had said look really hear the word of the Lord you don't need to worry about these so-called mighty powers Judah's God is going to deal with these people I brought my boy with me and he had he actually took his boy with him a little lad he took with him to go and see the king and to deliver this prophetic message he says before this child knows how to say mummy and daddy that Damascus there is going to be emptied of its treasures and they're all going to be carted off to Assyria you don't need to worry about Damascus and he says I've got another boy here here's my son and his name do you know how do you translate his name it means a remnant shall return that means that even if everything seems to go wrong

[18:30] God is going to keep his promise to King David and the messianic line will not be wiped out there will always be a remnant it was it was hard work being a prophet at any time in Old Testament history but the amazing thing about the Old Testament prophets was that they had a different way of seeing from the rest of us and it all happened for Isaiah when he got to the point where King Uzziah died King Uzziah was if you like one of the good guys Israel and Judah had lots of things that were good and things that were bad and they had peaks and they had troughs and they had good times and bad times and some of the kings were absolutely dire well on one side of

[19:39] King Ahaz who's on the throne at this time was his father and his father was one of the good guys he was one of the guys who had properly worshipped God and led the people in respect for God and then Ahaz comes along and as many young people do throughout the generations he thought there's a better way of doing this these other nations are all worshipping all these other gods and well how can it possibly be the case that there's only one God and we can't even see ours they can at least see what they're bowing down to you know so Ahaz decides to copy the nations round about and he introduces pagan worship and he brings it even into the temple and then of course when he loses a battle what does he say does he say oh my goodness this is because we abandoned God he says oh no this is because the pagan gods are stronger than our

[20:42] God hello you know he just had it round all the wrong way and Isaiah went to him and said to him look he says why don't you ask the Lord for a sign to validate what I'm saying to you if you don't trust me then ask the Lord for a sign ask him for anything under the sun just ask him for a sign and Ahaz is being sort of super pious about the whole thing he says oh I'm not going to put the Lord to the test but actually he wasn't being super pious he had already decided what he was going to do and he wasn't going to trust the God of his fathers he was going to form different alliances he was going to go off in another direction he was going to be the one who would protect his people and do it his way and he refused the sign and Isaiah said okay if you're going to persist in putting

[21:53] God to the test then instead of giving you a sign I'm going to give you two signs the first sign is one of my boys here because his name translates as a remnant will return this is a this son of mine is a prophetic word from God to you that the messianic line of David will never be wiped out even if you're all taken off into captivity a remnant will return there's one sign and the second sign the second sign is that there's a day coming in the future when a virgin is going to give birth to a child and when basically Isaiah was saying when you see that the first sign has been fulfilled and that there is still a remnant then you're going to know that the second sign will be fulfilled as well and that what I was speaking to you really was from God and a virgin will be with child and will conceive and will call his name

[22:58] Emmanuel this thing is going to happen let me tell you folks Isaiah was a man who once he saw the Lord high and lifted up this was a he came out a different man you can't see the Lord and remain the same you just can't and people today think you can't see the Lord and Jesus said to his critics you search the scriptures because you think that by them you have eternal life and these are the scriptures that speak of me and you will not come to me to have life these are the scriptures that speak of me folks you and I could see the Lord just as clearly as Isaiah ever did because we have the word of God because we have the scriptures that speak of Jesus everywhere you read in the scriptures you can come across

[24:05] Jesus he's there all over the place excuse me I that's good so here we are here's here's Isaiah and he's he's standing in front of a king and he's trying to help this king to see that it's a dangerous thing to refuse the Lord and to take the nation according to your own wisdom that's exactly what Ahaz did the beautiful thing about all this is that after Ahaz died his son was a king called Hezekiah and Hezekiah reigned for 29 years and he literally overthrew everything his father had done he got rid of all the pagan temples he got rid of all the idols he cleansed all the filth out of the temple and he reinstituted the true religion of

[25:17] Israel and installed the Passover and they celebrated the Passover like it had never been done since the time of King Solomon a century before so it was a it was a wonderful thing but the thing about Isaiah is that because he saw the Lord because he had a clarity about who the Lord actually is he had a clarity about himself woe is me I'm a man of unclean lips do you know we need a vision of our sin folks it's not it's not a dangerous thing it's actually a good and healthy thing to have a picture of your sin we need to see our sin we need to understand it because otherwise we look at the cross and we think oh that's a bit over the top surely God could have come up with another way of dealing with sin need to turn it on its head folks if God decided that the cross was the only only way to deal with your sin and mine then our sin must be the thing that's over the top not God's remedy it must be our sin that's horrible it must be our sin that's abysmal when we decide to go our own way when we decide not to listen to our conscience when it's telling us to do wrong that we're doing wrong every one of us every man and woman here has a conscience from God and we need to listen to it because

[27:07] God has given us a friend within us he's placed an ally of his own within each one of us that helps to register when right and wrong is there to be chosen and we need a vision of our sin Isaiah saw the Lord and as soon as he saw the Lord he thought I'm undone here how can I dwell in the presence of someone as pure and utterly holy and good and righteous as this I had no idea I was so dark I never knew my heart looked like that it's almost like as soon as he saw the Lord he got an x-ray of his entire being and everything was laid bare and he was shocked and horrified at what he could see but no sooner was he horrified than the Lord sent an angel to him with a remedy and took a coal from off the altar of incense and touched his lips with it and said this has touched your lips and your sin is taken away it's been atoned for

[28:18] God himself has provided the atonement you see that's what was offensive about Isaiah Isaiah's very name was offensive to the king because Isaiah said Isaiah's name translates as God saves in other words king you don't you don't save I don't save no one here saves God saves God saves and so because God saves and because God provides the atonement we can dare to look at our sin and see it for all its blackness and its horribleness we can see it as it really is isn't the does it get better than that that you can actually face your sin and look into the darkness of your soul and the worst you've ever done and the cruelest things you've ever thought and look at it all and know that God saves and that

[29:33] God provides the atonement and you don't have to deal with it because you couldn't anyway the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light the interesting thing about that little passage that we read let me point something out to you here from verse 2 onwards of chapter 9 the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them has light shone you have multiplied the nation you have increased its joy he's using past tenses all over the place to describe the future how is he able to do that you see it's because a prophet sees differently from we do when a prophet begins to see properly he sees with the

[30:41] Lord he watches things with the Lord and because he's seeing with the Lord's help he sees the future as though it's already done and dusted and he can use past tenses about things that haven't yet happened you have multiplied the nation you have increased its joy you have broken the rod of his oppressor it's a different way of seeing that all of us need we need to be able to see with God we need to be able to see as Isaiah said go into the scriptures and go in not to learn things about the scriptures don't go in to learn to study the Greek and the Hebrew get into the scriptures for one reason and one reason only to meet with God to meet with your

[31:47] Savior these are the scriptures that speak of me said Jesus why on earth would I want to study theology when I can meet with Jesus I mean I'm being serious here because theology as it's practiced and presented to the world is an academic exercise it's a proud exercise it's not humble because it's assumed that you can get theology you can get knowledge about God from a book of course you can't we know nothing about God until God speaks we know nothing about God until God reveals what he is pleased to reveal in former times God has spoken to us through the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son and this is the son that

[32:53] Isaiah prophesied would come here this is the light that came to the darkness because you see Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the northern tribes and they were up on the north end of of the Galilee region they were also among the people of God who had suffered most from invasions and incursions by enemy armies because they always come in from the fertile crescent and the first tribes that they reached were Zebulun and Naphtali so if anybody was going to get slammed with an enemy invasion it was going to be them it was going to be this these were the people who lived in deep darkness these were the people who lived in the shadow of death all the time it was their normal place of existence they lived in the shadow of death but when Jesus came he lived in precisely that area he began his ministry precisely in that area the light actually dawned in the place of deepest darkness exactly as

[34:07] Isaiah said it would Isaiah said a lot of things that you would think how on earth could he have prophesied that he actually named the person the Persian king who would deliver Israel from exile in Babylon and nobody had ever heard of Cyrus this was going to be like 200 years in the future and he actually gave the name of the man who was going to be the deliverer Cyrus would be the deliverer of Israel from Babylon's exile and nobody knew when Isaiah said that 200 years previously that Babylon was going to be overthrown in a single night and Cyrus was hardly going to have to fire a shot to overthrow the Babylonians it was the night of Belshazzar's feast when the writing went on the wall and that very night the Lord overthrew

[35:08] Babylon by the man that Isaiah had declared would do so 200 years earlier somebody once said of Jesus that if somebody says that he's going to be crucified and tortured to death and after three days he's going to rise back to life again and he does exactly what he said he would do then you do not have any excuse for disbelieving his other promises agreed now do you think we should get to know Isaiah a wee bit better do you think we should get into Isaiah's prophecies more when this is a man who can actually prophesy the very name of a deliverer 200 years before he's even born God forgive us that we are so slow to respect the word of God

[36:08] William Tyndale was strangled to death and burned at the stake for giving us this Bible in our own language please I beg every single one of us don't go home today and leave our Bibles on the shelf don't believe the lies of the devil that tell us that this book is too hard to understand and that you need to have David Andrews education to get to grips with it that's not true that's not true the living God wrote this word and put this word together so that every man woman and child in the universe could have access to light about God and the light never shone so brightly as when Jesus Christ came to live in the land of the shadow of death Galilee of the

[37:10] Gentiles the way by the sea to us a child is born to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor wonderful counselor do you remember Jesus said someone greater than Solomon is here do you remember the wisdom of Solomon do you remember when the two women were arguing over the baby and who was the real mother they said okay we can settle this just take the baby give me a sword chop it in two and they can each have a bit and of course the true mother who really loved the child threw herself on top of the baby and said don't harm the child and the news of Solomon's wisdom went all over the world and one greater than

[38:12] Solomon is here this is the wonderful counselor you can get advice from people that's great but if you get advice from Jesus then you're on a winner but you might be surprised at some of the advice you get from Jesus because he might come along to you like Isaiah comes along to the king and says see all those headlines you're so worried about these military maneuvers up in the north there take your eyes off that you don't need to worry about that God has all that in hand and you might run to Jesus and say oh Lord what am I going to do here there's just too much months left at the end of the money I you know I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills and Jesus says rejoice always pray continually give thanks in all circumstances because this is God's will for you don't be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your request known to

[39:24] God and the peace of God that passes understanding a peace that will defy reason the peace that you'll have when there's no logical reason to be peaceful that peace of God will garrison your heart and mind in Christ Jesus and so Jesus' wisdom and his counsel will sometimes be different from what worldly advisors would tell you even your best friends or members of your family but if you get your wisdom from the wonderful counselor then you're on a winner trust him mighty God mighty God there is no other God bless him Rishi Sunak has a statue of Lord Ganesha on his desk the elephant God much good that will do him he's already performed a ceremony with lights in the steps of number 10

[40:34] God bless him God opened his eyes to see that there is only one God if you're a Hindu you've got access to thousands of gods they've even got room for Jesus but they don't treat him as a God they certainly don't treat him as the only God mighty God the everlasting father how can this is the son we're talking about here how can the son be the father this is because we're not talking about the son and his relationship to the father we're talking about the son as the eternal one who rules over all of creation and upholds everything by the power of his word he upholds everything see that breath that you're taking right now you receive that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ he's upholding everything he's upholding you right now and me he's the prince of peace when do you think the wars will cease in this world when do you think we'll stop blowing each other to bits slashing each other burning each other terrifying each other hating each other when do you think that will all cease it will cease when the prince of peace comes to establish his kingdom and Paul said to all the bright boys in Athens to all the intelligentsia he said to them

[42:16] God has set a day when he will judge the world by the man he has appointed Jesus the prince of peace is coming and when he comes well look what's going to happen he's going to do things that no one else could do only only God could do this all the rods of oppression are going to be broken and all the accessories of war the boots the garments are absolutely soaked with blood from countless wars all the weaponry everything it's all going to be put in heaven's skip it's all going to be useless there's going to be no need for it but how did all this happen how did

[43:21] Isaiah get such a clear picture of the future he got the picture because he lost his hero and found his God what do I mean by that we're going to finish with this Isaiah lost his hero and found his God in the year that King Uzziah died he said I saw the Lord King Uzziah had been a good king turn with me to Chronicles 26 for a minute 2nd Chronicles 26 2nd Chronicles 26 is the record of King Uzziah's reign the people of Judah took Uzziah who was he was just 16 years old and they made him king instead of his father

[44:27] Amaziah he built Eloth and restored it to Judah Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem now we've just rejoiced over being granted 70 years of our gracious queen she reigned over us for 70 years and she did us good she did as it turns out a lot more good than we realized but here was a man who reigned for 52 years in Jerusalem his mother's name was Jecolia of Jerusalem actually throughout the books of Kings and Chronicles you come across that phrase quite a lot his mother's name was and the implication of it is that whoever the mother was had a bearing on how the son turned out okay help ladies and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done he set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah who instructed him in the fear of God and as long as he sought the Lord

[45:34] God made him prosper do you hear that condition there as long as he sought the Lord God made him prosper so he went out and he made war against the Philistines he broke through the wall of Gath remember Gath was the city that Goliath came from and the wall of Jabni and the wall of Ashdod and he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines so this was Israel's ancient enemies completely subdued by the power of this king God helped him against the Philistines and the Arabians who lived in Gurbal and against the Mayanites the Ammonites paid tribute to him his fame spread even to the border of Egypt for he became very strong and moreover he built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate and at the valley gate and at the angle and he fortified them and he built towers in the wilderness and he cut out many cisterns for he had large herds and Uzziah had an army of soldiers fit for war and you read further down verse 13 under their command under the command of 2600 heads of the houses was an army of 307500 men so you're talking about a king who did immense things and they could make war with mighty power and Uzziah prepared for all the army fields his fame spread far because he was marvelously helped until he was strong and then you get to verse 16 but when he was strong he grew proud to his destruction for he was unfaithful to the Lord his

[47:14] God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense my goodness has he lost his mind I think yes literally what's he doing here he's saying oh well we are the people you know it can't get better than this I'm in charge of everything all my enemies are subdued I'm the man so I think I'll just have a shot at the priesthood as well I can do that and he goes into the temple and he starts to burn incense like he was a high priest but Azariah the priest went in after him with 80 priests of the Lord who were men of valor courage and they withstood king Uzziah and said to him it is not for you Uzziah to burn incense to the Lord but for the priests the sons of Aaron who are you know in those days if you stood up to a king you could lose your head there were 80 of them went in here to confront this king go out of the sanctuary for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honour from the

[48:30] Lord God and he was angry and he had a censer in his hand standing there like he was a pretend priest and when he became angry leprosy broke out on his body just there and he became a leper until the day that he died and in that culture once you had leprosy you had to live a way out of public life altogether and he had to live in a separate house he couldn't live in the palace anymore he couldn't enter the temple anymore that was him for the rest of his life and it was on the day that King Uzziah died Uzziah was a hero to his people he had subdued all their enemies he had fortified Jerusalem he had done great and mighty things he was a super king but he became proud brothers and sisters the only enemy you and I really need to fear is our pride if God brings conviction of sin to any one of us today don't let's argue with him don't let's argue because you see Jesus is the light in the darkness and the thing about darkness is that darkness deepens if we refuse the light when we refuse the light that

[50:02] God shines into our hearts and let's face it come on let's face it why do we come to Jesus at all is it not because by nature we prefer darkness to light and it's only Jesus who can protect us from that tendency it's Jesus who keeps us from the darkness it's Jesus who gives us a taste for the light it's Jesus who teaches us and informs us so that the ignorance of darkness doesn't take hold in our lives Jesus is the light in the darkness and God has given us the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts and what does that mean if you become a dwelling place for God and there's darkness in your heart darkness in your mind if you still have a taste for things that you know God doesn't approve of what does it mean for the

[51:09] Holy Spirit to dwell within us well it means quite simply this the Holy Spirit doesn't come into us because the house is clean he comes into us to clean the house the Holy Spirit dwells within us to clean the house and if you can't get your life clean right now you have a helper to be with you forever the Holy Spirit and if you don't know Jesus right now then you have no help to get clean but that help is available instantly right now I went to church for almost well 15 years at least I never missed a church service because my parents were very religious people

[52:12] I never missed a church service and by the time I was 15 or 17 17 when I was 17 I was asked to join the elders court in the church would you believe and I took on the superintendency of the Sunday school just about a year two years later I was still a teenager and I didn't know the Lord I had been in church all my life up until that point and I was in the church but I was not in the kingdom I knew the church but I didn't know the Lord of the church brothers and sisters I don't know where any of us stand but to come to church is not the same as coming to Jesus and I would plead I would plead earnestly with everyone who's here today be 100% sure before you leave that door today that Jesus is your saviour and your Lord and all you have to do is ask him to do that just say

[53:26] Lord I acknowledge my sin before you and I need cleansed of my sin and I need you to come in and dwell within me and clean my house for me because I can't clean myself we can't get rid of sin if we could get rid of sin there was never any need for the cross we can't get rid of sin because we enjoy sin and it takes the power of God by the Holy Spirit and the conviction that comes through the word of God to give us a taste for righteousness taste and see that the Lord is good let's pray O Lord God our Father you have sent the light to those who live in darkness and who dwell in the land of the shadow of death death hangs over everyone in this country and in this world like a shroud it just covers the whole world

[54:33] Father people are afraid of it they spend a fortune to try and stave it off they spend their lives worried and anxious that one day they're going to die or how they're going to die or where they're going to die or who's going to mourn them or whatever and you sent your son you sent him in human flesh to be our substitute and we praise you that the light has dawned we praise you that the light has come we praise you that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost because he ever lives to make intercession for those he saves and he makes intercession for us forever because we need the help forever father we praise you and bless you that you have not left us to deal with this terrible power of sin on our own thank you that we can be changed thank you that change is possible thank you that we are not slaves to sin but that we are purchased by the righteous one who shed his blood for us father in the name of

[55:54] Jesus please speak into the hearts of everyone here today and give us by your grace opportunity to let your light play upon our hearts and our consciences and bring us to a place where we know for certain that we are being real before you and that we are not refusing your goodness like Ahaz did father help us to receive your goodness to receive the lord jesus christ as savior and lord today thank you for sending the light to us give us an appetite give us a hunger for the light father cause us to lose our appetite for sin and to long for a closer walk with you in jesus name amen thank you thank you thank you thank you