Well, I thought we might just march right into glory while we were singing. I guess there are still a few more moments to speak.
Tonight, we’re speaking on waking up—which, after watching the children walk out tonight and seeing how exhausted the parents are, might be quite a challenge. Call us all to wake up, because He is coming soon.
We’re taking as our verses Ephesians 5:8-17. Let’s start reading there.
For ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light
(for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them;
for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of.
But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.
Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise;
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.—Ephesians 5:8-17
And then another portion over in 1 John, at the very beginning of John’s letter, 1 John 1.
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life
(and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life,
which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us);
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also,
that ye also may have fellowship with us:
yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write, that our joy may be made full.And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce unto you,
that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.—1 John 1:1-7
Father, we’re so thankful for the wake-up call by Your precious Word. Now we pray that the Holy Spirit would make it real to all of us as we’re gathered here this week. We know that the times are near, and if we’re awakened, we will see it for ourselves.
Make it real by the Holy Spirit’s trumpet call in the soul of each person here, that we may know what the times are and what we ought to do. We thank You for this time together. We commit it into Your hands, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Last time I spoke about the time and the times. Do you know what time it is? Do you know the times we’re living in?
Our time is actually important. Even our time here tonight is important, because God has decided, in His wisdom, to affect eternal things in the realm of time. That’s what makes time important—your time here on earth and mine.
God wants to intercept us somehow with eternal and higher purposes. He wants to meet us at the crossroads where suddenly we realize it wasn’t a dream, but there really was a ladder up to heaven, and this really is the house of God.
All those times in the Scriptures where somebody was just going through time and suddenly awoke to a whole different realm right in front of them, but they couldn’t see it. So the Lord wants to awaken us to what He’s doing in these days and make it real to us. So, it’s time to wake up.
Many years ago, I remember preaching up in Indiana in a country church. There was a deacon there who was probably most gifted at being able to fall asleep. As soon as I started speaking, he just fell right into sleep. He had that kind of chin—he could just lie there like that and only snort occasionally in deep slumber.
He did that for a week. One week I had a message about Jacob going back to Bethel, and I yelled at a certain point, “Jacob!”
Well, this man suddenly woke up and hit his head back on the pew. Boom! You could hear it through the whole place. Everybody woke up, wondering what was going on.
Time and the times—we need to be awakened to the times, to see what’s going on.
You know, heaven and earth used to be connected at the very beginning, with Adam and God. Heaven is the realm where everything is perfect, where God dwells, where the angels are, and where everything is in perfection.
Earth was created finite, but God had a marvelous plan. He wanted to take that which is earthy and make it heavenly. He wanted to take time and bring it into eternity. He wanted to take mortality and make it immortal. He had a plan.
So He created this earth, put Adam on this earth, and put Adam in the paradise of God. The paradise of God was heaven on earth. Heaven was above; earth was down here. God was in the heavens, and Adam was here on earth. But there was fellowship every day.
In the cool of the day, there were Adam and Eve walking through the garden, fellowshipping, because Adam’s spirit was alive to God, Who is Spirit. There was communication. There was daily wisdom. There was a oneness, a connection. God meant to use that connection to draw time into eternity.
Well, paradise was lost. Man sinned. Man’s spirit died. He no longer could have such fellowship with God.
His soul feared God from what he knew in the past, but his spirit no longer could communicate. His conscience could feel bad in the presence of God and go hide in the trees when God came by, but that fellowship was broken down.
Paradise had to be vacated. Heaven on earth had to be closed up and guarded by fiery cherubim. With each generation, as we read the record down to the times of Noah and so forth, each generation got darker. Heaven became further away from earth. Heaven and earth were separate; time and eternity were completely out of sync.
But God had a deep mystery hidden in His heart, which came out of the love that He has for man. God’s good intention was somehow to reconnect man to God, heaven to earth, and time to eternity.
The way He did it was that He began breaking into man’s time. There was Noah—suddenly God broke in, and Noah discovered the righteousness of God. Then one day Abraham was there in Ur of the Chaldees, and God broke in with a vision of His glory.
The prophets—God opened their eyes to the times and to His righteousness. To Moses, He opened his eyes to the great I AM, the holy God. To David, He revealed that He is a God of love and mercy.
He would break into time and reveal Himself in many different ways. Every time He broke in, something of the times and epochs changed. A people were called or chosen. A covenant was made. Promises were kept. Kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell.
Every time God could break into time, there would be a change, something happening. But all of those moments were His divine preparations for the moment that He, by His grace, would reconnect heaven and earth through Jesus Christ.
When Jesus came to earth, heaven came down. The Word, the eternal Word of life, became flesh and dwelt on this earth, and we could behold His glory—not just some momentary flash and then disappearance.
But now, this Man—no, this God—was standing before us. When Jesus came, heaven came down, and John saw glory. He saw the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
He saw that Jesus was the ladder between earth and heaven, that Jesus was the mediator between God and man. By His death and resurrection, by His great salvation, heaven and earth are joined again.
Heaven is still the place of perfection, where His perfect sacrifice was offered in the heavenly tabernacle. But here on earth there are touches of perfection, touches of eternity, touches of glory and life, because of Jesus Christ coming into this world.
John says, “I can’t believe it. I heard Him. I saw Him. I touched Him. And I tell you, it’s eternal. It’s life. It’s zoe. That’s what I touched.”
“And not only did I touch Him, and I’m declaring to you that I touched Him, heard Him, and saw Him—I have fellowship with Him now. Now He’s gone back into heaven, but it’s uninterrupted fellowship.”
“The Father and the Son, Who from all time and eternity have had fellowship back and forth—now I’m included in this triangle. The Father speaking with the Son, the Son speaking with me, me speaking to the Father. We’re in fellowship now.”
It has been a reconnection of time and eternity, of earth and heaven. And you’ve been included in it too.
Now there is a reconnection which, of course, one day we see at the end of the Bible. The New Jerusalem, perfection of glory, comes down out of heaven to earth, and heaven and earth are wed.
God says, “Now I dwell among men, and men dwell among Me.” Heaven and earth have become one. Glory shines through us and through the New Jerusalem. Time has been brought into eternity; mortality has put on immortality. Any separation is gone.
This was God’s wonderful plan. Jesus came down. Fellowship now with the Father.
By this we see how God breaks in from eternity to time. He does it by light. Light. This is the key to how He changes kingdom time: when His light shines.
So we read here in 1 John 1:7:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
When we live and walk in the light like that, if the kingdom should suddenly come right now, you’re already in.
You see, if you’re walking in the light right now, as He is in the light, when the kingdom comes, first of all, you’re not quite completely surprised because you had the feeling of it. But anyway, you’re in. It’s as simple as that.
If you’re a child of light, there is this wonderful potential to be ready when this kingdom comes. We’re so near to this moment. Those who are walking in the light sense it so well.
Margaret Barber was walking in the light of the second coming of Jesus, and so many of her songs describe that feeling she had—the whisper from the glory and all these kinds of things.
Well, there we are. We’re children of light. That’s the end of the story. We should have a prayer and go.
Except for one little problem: this world is full of darkness. That darkness can even influence us and remove us from kingdom light and kingdom times—out of His time zone, out of sync with God. Darkness can infiltrate our hearts.
So this evening we want to fellowship about living in the KTZ, the kingdom time zone, as children of the light.
Jesus said in John 12:36 that we’re children of light, but we have to learn how to continue in that light—to become not merely children, but sons of light. Interesting maturity implied.
“While you have the light, believe in the light,” He says, “so that you may become sons of light.” There’s a becoming there, right? While you have the light, while you’re in it, believe in the light so that you may become sons of light.
Of course, when we read Ephesians 5, as we read tonight, we realize a fact: it is possible for children of light to fall asleep. That means, effectually, you’re not aware of what time it is, and you’re out of sync with the living God.
Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Of course, Paul was speaking to Christians here. He was not talking to sinners.
I just want to list, as an example, five ways that we can be children of light but be asleep—be out of sync.
It is easy for such a person—an unconsecrated Christian, if there really is such a thing—to find themselves in darkness and not in light.
Or, as John simply puts it, they’ve never come to the place where they are abiding in Christ and Christ is abiding in them. All that self-effort, defeat, and sin causes condemnation, and condemnation takes us out of the light.
Bound and determined to serve on their own, they become exhausted. Some servants go right out of the light in defeat and discouragement.
But the good news is that when we awake, we can buy back time—redeeming the time. Buying back is what redeeming means, because the days are evil.
The days are evil, and we’re often just not awake. Darkness begins to slip into our lives. It doesn’t have to be in major ways; it can be in very minor ways. But darkness slips in.
So when we look at that passage in Ephesians 5, he says in Ephesians 5:8, “Ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”
Sometimes it is good to remember that you used to be darkness, but now you are light. For everybody, the point of salvation in your life may be different. For me, I wasn’t saved until I was twenty years old, so I have many memories of what it was like to be darkness—not only to walk in darkness, but actually to produce darkness in my life.
But you don’t have to be that way now. You are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
We have a great example in the Bible: Solomon. Although he was gifted with such wisdom, in his latter days he began to worship the idols and gods of his wives and concubines.
When he did that, he came out of the kingdom time zone and right under the sun. He began to live out of light, in the shadows, under the sun.
Under the sun, we are disconnected from heaven. We don’t know what heaven is up to. We just know all the weariness that is going on on earth.
Solomon describes it in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” His heart was so far away from God. In Ecclesiastes 3, he says there are cycles of times and seasons: a time to be born, a time to die, and so on—cycles going around endlessly, endlessly boring. Vanity. That is what life is like under the sun.
Yet even Solomon recognized in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that God has set eternity in man’s heart. “I just can’t figure it out under the sun. I’ve got this gnawing feeling that there has to be something more to life. There’s eternity and not just time, but I’m lost to it. The clouds are covering the heavenlies.”
Solomon is an example of what it means to be darkened.
When light shines, it changes our time into the times. Now, for the sake of young people tonight—and, of course, I may get in real trouble for this because I’m not a scientist—I’m going to give the parable of light and time from Einstein’s theory of relativity.
All right, here’s the parable. I think you’ve noticed in the last two weeks Einstein’s theory of relativity has come back in the news. As they are looking at other galaxies, they are seeing that his theories are proving true in outward galaxies.
Einstein’s theory was called relativity because, basically, things that were thought to be settled constants became relative, and things that were thought to be relative became constants.
Now, let me explain. The discovery of atomic energy was, of course, the break of the twentieth century. They discovered that mass is no longer a solid constant. Mass is actually made up of molecules, protons, neutrons, electrons, and all kinds of little things.
We thought mass was a constant, but no—mass is relative to the speed of light. So, E = mc²: energy equals mass, now relative according to the speed of light. The speed of light turns out to be the constant, and matter turns out to be relative.
It’s quite a change. Plus, the fact, of course, it was due to spectroscopy—which I think is a medical procedure. I’m not sure now.
As astronomers studied the far galaxies and stars, they began to trace the actions of particles as they approached the speed of light. They found some interesting things.
Of course, the main part of the equation has to do with energy. What they discovered was that as particles were accelerated to the speed of light, boom, there was an atomic bomb—an explosion. Mass became energy as the speed of light was reached by these particles zipping around.
But that’s not the part I’m interested in. The other part is also very interesting.
Time—chronos—was thought to be a constant: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. There is some clock in the world—is it over in Greenwich, England, or something?—that keeps perfect time, and all times are adjusted to the chronos in Greenwich, England. I think it is, something like that. We thought time was a constant.
Until Einstein came along and said, “Wait a minute. Look what happens to time when it approaches the speed of light. It gets thicker.” That’s what he said.
Time gets thicker as it approaches the speed of light. His analogy was an hourglass where sand is going through this little throat. As the sand reaches the speed of light—that is, as time reaches the speed of light—more sand comes through than in regular circumstances.
This was called by scientists—not by Captain Kirk or Han Solo—“time warp.” Time could be bent, condensed toward the speed of light. It was no longer a constant; it was variable, if you see what I mean.
Of course, that’s where we get this warp speed: “Okay, hit five warp speed.” What it really means is, if you get up to the speed of light, you can go, you know, ten years in two minutes—something like that. You get the point.
All right, enough of this parable. Here’s the point of the parable: in KTZ, the kingdom time zone, time is condensed in the light of the kingdom.
You see my point? It isn’t just la-la-la-la time anymore. It’s time that has some density to it, some purpose to it, and some fullness to it.
That is why Jesus came in the Gospel of Mark, and the first thing He said, recorded by Mark, was, “The time is fulfilled. The kairos is filled. The kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.”
That’s what Jesus said. But when Jesus was living, wherever He walked—in Galilee or in Jerusalem—the time changed. I’m sure you’ve noticed that.
Mark says, “Let me tell you how much the time changed: immediately Jesus did this; immediately then; immediately then.” I mean, immediately, immediately, immediately. The time was changed.
It says that those in Galilee who sat in darkness saw a great light, and the whole time changed in Galilee. You might, in one sense, say that Galilee’s time was changed to kingdom standard time.
Everywhere Jesus went, there was the gospel, provision, food, healing, raising the dead, truth, and conviction. Everywhere Jesus was, that light shone down, and people who were just walking through time—just sleepwalking—woke up.
They said, “Whoa, God is here. I need to repent.” That’s what we’re talking about. That’s full time. That’s time that has stuff in it.
I could honestly say—I’m sure the disciples would say this twenty years after the fact—they never spent any time as full as the three years with Jesus. Can you imagine living in that kind of time?
It is a picture of the kingdom time zone, where time is condensed and so much is going on. God came through Jesus Christ, exploding by His light into the lives of people with grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, and healing.
This is Jesus, the light of the world—Jesus coming into time, Jesus changing our lives completely. This is, in effect, what the Lord wants for all our lives.
Now, I don’t want to make it like every day is filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times. Sometimes a day just goes by and seems pretty basic.
But if you’re walking in the light, there is something of eternal purpose that God is doing in your life, whether it is a correcting, a squeezing, or a building up—whatever it is.
Even though it seems like you just passed twenty-four hours and it did not seem like too much was going on externally, no, no, no—listen. When you are in the light, time changes, and you see things in a different frame.
These dear brothers over here have been around so long that, like me, they can remember back in the seventies when God broke into the United States in an amazing way.
Time was changed in many places in the United States—what we call the Jesus Movement and, in some departments, the charismatic movement. There was a time in the United States when God was moving.
I can remember in my early days as a servant of God, preaching the gospel in a public meeting place after playing my guitar and seeing two or three hundred young people—teenagers, drug addicts, dropouts, hippies—get saved. God was just all over the place.
Now, we can’t expect that to happen all the time. But I’m sure in your life, at moments and seasons, you have sensed the Lord working in condensed and extraordinary ways.
He does that to awaken us to His reality, to show us the depth of His reality. Most of us live on two-dimensional flat land, and we so rarely get to see how multidimensional this kingdom really is.
But God, by His grace, breaks into time, and our time changes.
Let me give you one example. This is kind of a stupid example from my brain, but here we go: prayer. The more light you have, the less time it takes.
Example number one: praying UTS prayers. That means praying under the sun. If you pray under the sun, a religious prayer—many people pray religious prayers—they’re under the sun. It’s snail mail.
You pray, and the prayer lifts up from the ground and starts heading toward heaven. I don’t know if it’s going to get there, but it’s going up by snail mail. Somehow you pray, and somehow you say, “Somehow, some way, sometime, I hope this prayer gets in God’s mailbox.”
That is a pretty slow prayer. “I’ve been praying for years. I’m just trying to push that prayer up. I don’t know if it’s still up yet, so I sent a reminder to God that I sent Him a notice about the notice I sent.”
This prayer doesn’t work so good. But how about the prayer with a living word of faith? Jesus said, “When you pray, believe that you have received it, and ye shall have it.”
You pray with the word of faith, and as soon as you pray, the answer comes back. Now, that’s pretty fast, right?
But wait a minute, there’s a faster one. If you’re seated with Him in the heavenly places, you start to pray, and before you can finish, the answer comes back and hits you—because you are praying something that God is already answering before you could pray, because you are in God’s eternal purpose, praying from the heavenlies.
Now, that’s a speedy prayer. You pray, and God says, “Sorry, I already answered. Just turn around and look.”
So the saints are there praying for Peter to get out of prison, and Peter is knocking on the door. People say, “Well, we’ve got to pray some more. Send Him another snail mail.” No, no, no. Just look around. There he is.
Listen, the kingdom time zone changes our times, changes our light. Paul testified in 2 Corinthians 4:6:
Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness,
Who shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
When Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, wow, did his kingdom time zone change. His whole life changed. His purpose changed. His methods changed. His motives changed. Wow—just meeting the light like that.
His whole life was filled with a sense of the presence of Jesus and the nearness of His coming. So he is always talking about this parousia, which means the presence of Jesus. He sensed it was so near.
I don’t want to hold Paul up as an example and say, “Have you had a blinding experience on the road to Damascus?” Few of us could say that.
But I would like to ask you: do you feel like you have ever been in the kingdom time zone? Have you ever sensed the Lord rushing upon you like a mighty wind—a truth that penetrates through your soul into your spirit?
There is light, a shaft of light that comes into you. Sometimes in those moments, it just takes a moment. Light comes into you, and you cannot even explain what that light was, but you saw something because eternity broke into your time.
If you have been in KTZ, you will agree with me: it is not a boring time. The Lord begins to fill your days, fill you with challenges, bring you under an open heaven, show you His purpose, and give you His blessings—every blessing in the heavenly places.
Suddenly, you are living in a seemingly different realm. Of course, you are here on earth; you are still in your time zone. But something has changed in your life.
I think many of us Christians feel many times as if we live in two time zones. Maybe we go to church on the Lord’s Day and have a time of worship. We sense the Lord very present there. Then we go to work on Monday, and where is the Lord?
I hope that being in the kingdom is not a matter of what day of the week it is.
I used to tell young people that my definition of the kingdom of God is: where Jesus is Lord now. Not in theory.
If He is not Lord of your life, what, you think you’re in the kingdom? The King has to be over you for you to be in the kingdom. It makes sense. Where Jesus is Lord now.
There’s a famous quote—I can’t remember who said it—that says, “Either Jesus is Lord of all, or He isn’t Lord at all.” Right? That’s what we’re talking about here.
It is a position under the Lord, not a general position. “Yeah, Jesus is my Lord. Yeah, yeah, I know. I love Jesus. Yeah, He’s my Savior.” No, no, no, we’re not talking about that. Is Jesus Lord now? Is He telling you what to do, and are you obeying?
Ah, this is a wonderful place.
We see that this problem is such that Paul has to go into some detail about what happens when the world’s darkness affects us and pulls us out of sync with kingdom time. We eventually fall asleep.
He says there in Ephesians 5:15-16:
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise;
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
It seems that children of light—everybody who is saved—have a free choice. What time zone do you want to live in? You choose.
As a child of light, you should be in the kingdom time zone, but you can choose to live there or in the UTS, under the sun.
When we go back to Ephesians 5:8-10, we can walk in the kingdom time zone. Listen to some of the wonderful information we get on that.
Now, you are light in the Lord. When you are in the kingdom time zone, you actually bear a certain light within yourself. It may be small—you may be a young Christian—but you have a light that others can notice, because you are the light of the world.
You have something in you that is qualitatively different from somebody who is only in the darkness.
When you walk in the light, it says you can discover what is pleasing to the Lord. How wonderful to walk and do this, and then do this, and find, “Oh, this is really pleasing to the Lord.”
It is wonderful to walk in the light. As you walk in the light, learn how to walk more effectively and redeem the time more perfectly, all as you walk along like that.
But you can look at Ephesians 5:11-13 and see something of what it is like to live in the under-the-sun zone—that is to say, a child of light living in the dark.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them.
There are so many deeds we can do under the sun that are unfruitful and futile.
For the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of.
We can be Christians and yet be doing disgraceful things that bring condemnation and shame to the conscience.
Listen, there is nothing more miserable than a child of the light who is walking in darkness. Condemnation just rings around your heart and squeezes all the faith out of your life.
But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light:
for everything that is made manifest is light.
If you are trying to hide in darkness, you know you will be exposed. Sometimes a kid gets out of high school, goes away to college, and tries to hide for a while. You know you’re going to be exposed.
You are doing some stuff wrong, and you know you are doing stuff wrong. You think you will never get caught. Well, I’m sorry—you’re going to get caught. You are going to get exposed. You live in that dread of knowing that the jig’s up. That is no way to live.
Paul talks about being a child of light, walking in the light, being light. He mentions it in other places as well. The times are affected by the light.
In Romans 13:11-14, Paul talks about this same matter:
And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep:
for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed.
The night is far spent, and the day is at hand:
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day;
not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and jealousy.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
That is a song we sang tonight. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your armor of light. Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
Now, I think you know these things already, dear child of light. So don’t fall asleep. Wake up.
Again, in 1 Thessalonians 5:4, Paul is speaking to very young Christians:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief:
for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day:
we are not of the night, nor of darkness;
so then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that are drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, since we are of the day, be sober,
putting on the breastplate of faith and love;
and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
This is no time to sleep for those who are children of light. Awake. See the times we are in, and you will understand what to do.
Paul says again in Ephesians 5, “Don’t be ignorant or foolish. Understand what the will of the Lord is.”
That means, dear saint, as a son of light, as a child of light, you know what the will of the Lord is. It is very clear. Don’t be foolish. You know what the will of the Lord is for your life. Be obedient to the light and walk in that light.
Now we want to explain some of the more subtle problems that we get into as Christians, where we actually think we are walking in the light, but we are not walking in the light.
How is it that the elders, Pharisees, scribes, and all in Jerusalem—who were so intelligent and knowledgeable about the kingdom of God, the Scriptures, the coming of the Messiah, and all these things—were completely out of sync with the kingdom of heaven when Jesus came?
When the King came, the very King of the kingdom whom they were waiting for, they did not see it, and they rejected Him. How is that possible?
There is an interesting distinction I want to make here, because it applies to us. There is a difference between light and teaching. There is a difference between light and doctrine, but sometimes we confuse the two.
In Acts 13:27, when Paul is preaching the gospel on his first missionary journey, he speaks of those leaders in Jerusalem, and this is what he says:
For they that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers,
because they knew Him not, nor the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning Him.
What is Paul saying? First of all, the leaders in Jerusalem knew the Scriptures. Everybody knows they knew the Scriptures. There is no doubt about that. They knew the Scriptures.
Yet they were blind to two things. They had doctrine, but they did not have light. Why were they blind? It is obvious. When Jesus came into their midst, they did not recognize Him.
Now, that is a simple litmus test. If we are here tonight in this meeting and Jesus is here, do you recognize Him or not?
When Jesus came into Jerusalem, these leaders had all this vast Messianic prophecy and Bible knowledge about the kingdom of God, but they did not recognize Him.
Secondly, though they heard the prophets every Sabbath in the synagogue, they never heard the voices of the prophets. The Greek word there is actually “voices.” They heard the word, but they did not hear the voice underneath the word.
So, ironically, they fulfilled the very word that they did not understand.
They knew the doctrines and knowledge of Isaiah 53, but because they did not hear the voice behind Isaiah 53, they ended up crucifying the very One spoken of in Isaiah 53. That is pretty ironic.
Somebody can have doctrinal knowledge but not have light, and so be blind to the truth.
This is an important distinction. Paul makes this distinction to tell us that it is possible for us to know a lot about doctrine, even to know the Word of God really well, and yet not have any light.
Do you believe that is possible? A person can be a scriptural genius and not even know that Jesus is the light—never having had that light shine upon them.
If that happens, there can be a deception: “Well, certainly I’m in the light because I know all this stuff.”
Before Paul was saved, wow, as a true Pharisee, he really knew the Word. But when he met the light, you know what happened: everything changed for him.
When he went back to the Old Testament and started reading, he said, “Whoa, there’s Jesus in the Law. Wait a minute, there’s Jesus in the Prophets. Wait a minute, there’s Jesus in the Writings. He’s everywhere!”
“I knew the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, but I never saw the light of what these were talking about until Jesus was my focus. Now I understand the Word of God.”
A tremendous change came about in Paul’s life.
In Ephesians 1, Paul prays for the Christians. Why? Ephesians goes into the heavenlies and shares God’s eternal purpose and many high and wonderful things.
But Paul prays, “O God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, please give my brethren a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”
Otherwise, all these great doctrines from Ephesians are just great doctrines. But, Lord, if You will shine Your light on these doctrines, they will see the Person behind the doctrines and see the light of what they are talking about.
Not merely His doctrines, but His light. Ah, I see it.
Many of you probably grew up in a Christian home and went to a Christian church. You heard the gospel. You knew you were a sinner. You knew you needed Jesus. All that stuff—you knew, you knew, you knew.
Then, thank God, the light shone one day, and you saw. You saw that you needed Jesus, and you saw that He saved you. Whatever it was you saw, that brought you from a doctrinal, growing-up-Christian understanding of things into the reality of that understanding.
There are so many wonderful things in the Scriptures, but unless we see them in the light of Jesus Christ, they just remain things.
Paul does not want these people just knowing about God’s eternal purpose. They can use those words. He wants them to see God’s eternal purpose, because as soon as you see it, you know what to do regarding it.
It is not just a doctrine. You see, “Ah, now I see what to do—how to cooperate with that purpose.”
Many run against God’s purpose, totally ignorant that they are doing so, because they do not have light regarding the things we are talking about. So there is this danger of being taught and understanding things without the light of truth ever reaching our hearts.
Doctrines are great, but unless they reach our hearts with light, we have problems.
When it comes to our children growing up in such a church, unfortunately, some of our young people have heard all the talk, but they do not see the light.
I hope before they get off to college that you, as parents, elders, and responsible brothers, will talk to your teenagers and make sure that they see light.
Because if they see doctrine only, then when they get away and reach college, our doctrines, requirements, truths involved in our assembly, and all the things we do—including women wearing kerchiefs on their heads—can begin to look kind of stupid.
Unless you see the light of why these things are being done.
The next thing you know, our young people get into a college Christian group, and immediately they are stars because they know the Bible. They can turn to Jeremiah. That makes them the Bible leader in one week.
Because most Christians love the Lord but their Bible knowledge is very shallow, our folks become leaders. In the midst of leadership, they can be introduced to what I would call a broader gospel, another gospel, or a gospel that is easier to live in under the sun.
There are doctrines, works, things to do, and many wonderful things, but it is no longer walking in the light. It is walking under the sun, doing Christian things.
If we do not capture our children with light and teach them how to walk in the light and obey the light, they can grow up and become doctrinal whizzes.
I like how Paul defines the church in 1 Timothy 3:15-16. As he is talking to Timothy about how people should conduct themselves in the house of God, he calls it “the church of the living God.”
Then he puts two things together. One: the church of God is the pillar and foundation of the truth. There is truth there. There is doctrine. There are teachings. There are things that are true.
The church should be the pillar and foundation. You want to know the truth? You should go to the church. You should gather as the church, and you will see the truth standing right before you.
But then he goes on in verse 16 and says, “By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness.”
It cannot just be doctrine. There has to be a life lived by Christ in you, the hope of glory. There has to be that inward life to match that doctrine. That is the church as it is walking in the light.
We have this challenge for our teenagers, and frankly, we have a challenge for ourselves as veteran Christians. Here is what happens.
Many times, by the grace of God, we saw the light. We saw the light in some fundamental way after being a Christian for a while and trying this way and that.
I remember in 1975, I came for the first time to the Richmond Family Conference. I saw something that changed my whole life.
I had been studying the Scriptures a long time. I was a minister who had gone to seminary and the whole thing. But, boy, I did not see Christ the center, Christ the head, Christ over all, Christ all-sufficient. I never saw that.
When my eyes opened, I had to start all over again. But I am so thankful for that time.
For many of you, at one time or another, somehow the Lord opened your eyes to bigger and better things—for kingdom things. Your eyes began to see wonderful things about what God was doing.
Now the challenge is to remain in that light, because that light can dim and, after a while, be replaced by a mental knowledge of doctrines.
But we no longer have light in our spirit. That is the problem.
Light is a function of God in our spirit. It is something revealed. Out of that light comes truth. But after a while, we can get truth in our head and no longer be walking in that light. We are just talking words.
We develop habits and traditions based on our knowledge, but our life is not really in the kingdom time zone.
When the church gathers together, I do not know—is this in the kingdom time zone? Is the Lord here, presenting Himself and reigning over us? We claim all the things. Is it really true?
Maybe we have learned to pray, but we are not really watching for His coming. Maybe we are serving, but we are not bearing that freewill-sacrifice testimony our brother spoke about this morning. We are just serving as a kind of duty: “I’ve got to speak this Sunday.”
Our worship can be full of wonderful words, full of emotions, and full of sentiment, but just be formulaic.
Do you realize that we can deceive ourselves about these things and actually be out of step with our King, our Lord, and what He is doing in these last days, yet be totally convinced that we are totally in the thing because we are saying all the right words and doing all the right things?
Usually, when the Lord comes to us as He came to the seven churches, He opens our eyes because, by His grace and love, He wants to reveal to us and expose where we are out of the light.
It is usually those same things, isn’t it? We have lost our first love.
The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches have choked our inheritance right out of our lives.
Our desire for self-preservation has taught us some way to get around a life of the cross. We save our lives instead of offering our lives and laying them down.
We become exhausted because we have spent years serving by our own soul life. Rather than being renewed in our spirit, our soul is just wasted. All we can think of doing is retiring or escaping.
I hope you are not sixty-two years old looking to retire from God’s purpose, from kingdom time. I am not talking about your job now. I am talking about retiring from the purpose of God.
“Oh, let the kids do it. I’m tired. I’m just going to watch my favorite baseball team. That’s all I need.”
Sometimes we can fool ourselves by looking around smugly and comparing ourselves with other groups, saying, “Ah, well, we’re a lot better than that.”
No, that is not the question at all. Are we walking in the light as He is in the light? If we are not, then all that we are doing means nothing.
Now, what do we do about it?
John is our brother who brings recovery to us. He recovers life to us. He recovers light to us. His testimony is: get back in the light and walk in the light.
Then you have fellowship with the Father and the Son. You will be walking as you should be walking—in righteousness, love, and light. First John, the whole letter, just spells all these things out.
You see, John is a son of Issachar. He knows what time it is. He knows what to do.
He says, “Now, my little children, the time is late. The end has come. Right now antichrists have gone out into the world. Now you know the times. Here is what you need to do.”
He speaks of three stages of growth in light.
Number one: little children. What does he say about the little children in 1 John 2? They have two qualities.
First, they know their sins are forgiven. They have that much light. Praise God. Second, they know their Father.
Little children, you know the Father. You know your sins have been forgiven. That is walking in the light for a little child of God. Isn’t it wonderful?
The enemy would try to attack: “Yeah, you’re a sinner.” Yes, but my sins have been forgiven. You know that. You know He is your Father. The devil cannot rob that from you unless you fall into darkness.
So walk in that light, and then the Lord will give you some more light so that you can become a young man.
John says, “I write to you, young men.” Do you know what time it is? Do you know what to do? Young men, I am writing to you because you are laying hold of the Word of God.
If you are a little child and you want to become a young man, you have to lay hold of the Word of God. Begin to study it and get it into your heart.
He says, “You young men, the Word of God abides in you. You young men, you can overcome the evil one because the Word of God abides in you.”
Now you are walking in the light. This light is not only coming from here; this light is coming from the Word being made alive to you. You are able to do some spiritual battle against the enemy. Wonderful, wonderful.
But anybody here who has been a Christian more than a handful of years—I write to you fathers.
Do you know Him Who has been from the beginning? Do you know what that means? Do you know His depths and His heights, His purpose and His ways?
By now, you should be seeing His ways, understanding not just His acts but His ways, so you can help other people on the way.
We need spiritual fathers—sisters who are spiritual fathers, brothers who are spiritual fathers—who can tell people what the times are and what to do, just as John is showing us right here.
There is an eternal purpose behind all these things.
All I can do is tell you to wake up. I hope maybe somebody here who has fallen asleep will wake up spiritually.
Maybe you are a teenager. You have been through the whole mill. Maybe you have been through the family conference classes and studied all these guys.
The children who go through these classes know Daniel, David, and Ruth better than most preachers. They really do. They come back and tell you what they learned, and you say, “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
Wonderful—the teachers are teaching wonderful things. But maybe you have been through the whole thing and the light is not upon you right now. You have gotten into a dark little shadow place.
Wake up. You are a child of light. Now walk as children of light.
Don’t be foolish. You know what the will of the Lord is. Wow—it doesn’t leave any room for fudging. “Oh, I don’t know what God’s will is.” Oh yes, you do. Step into the light for two seconds, and you will know exactly what to do.
Let me just say a few final things to encourage the young people. Listen, there is so much yet to be discovered in the light.
We are down in the foothills. There is so much more to know about Jesus. There is so much more to know about His purpose, the way He does things, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is so much. Do not be satisfied with where you are. There is so much more to learn in the light, dear young person.
Go on in the light. Learn more of His life and power. Start off where you are. You know He loves you. You know He is your Savior. Now walk in that love. Respond back to Him with love.
Do what our dear brother David was sharing this morning: give Him a freewill offering every day. Worship and thank Him. Grow in that light.
Third, become a student of the Word. Really lay hold of this Word.
You lay hold of His Word, and even if you do not understand it all, God will shine light on it as time goes along. You will understand even the things you have heard about.
Imagine David was talking about being an upcoming doctor, listening to tapes at three o’clock in the morning. Back in those days there were tapes; there were no MP3s around. He was listening to old tapes speeding up and jamming up, trying to understand what was going on.
I am sure he took in a lot of stuff. I do not know how much he really saw the light in at the time, but now the Lord is showing him more and more.
The Lord needs a basic database of the Word of God to bring us further and further into the light. There is so much to be recovered of kingdom life.
It is such a privilege when you get to bring somebody into the kingdom time zone.
I know a lot of people are very introverted and have a tough time, but there is really nothing more wonderful than to witness to somebody and suddenly see the light bulb come on.
They hear the stuff. They have heard it before: “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard.” Then you say one thing, and they realize they need Jesus. You brought them into the light. Praise God.
There is so much more to these mysteries of how God moves and works. He wants you to be part of it as a child of light, becoming a son of light, dwelling in that light more and more and more.
Then, when the kingdom comes, are you prepared? Absolutely, absolutely. You are not in the dark; you are in the light. You are walking with the Lord.
He will change your mortality into immortality, your imperfection into perfection. He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” because you are walking in the light.
We are children of the light, and the day is at hand. So walk as children of light.
Let’s pray.
At times, Lord, You pull back the curtain, and You allow us to see that things are precipitously moving toward Your return.
When we see the global matters of kingdoms rising and falling, the instabilities, the problems, and the sins becoming more and more endemic in our nation and in our world, we see that the time is ripe for Your coming.
Lord, we want to be those who are so found in the light and living in the light that we are ready to be the bride in the light.
Lord, teach us how to walk in such a way that we are not just living by doctrines and things we know, but are still quickened and enlivened by the Spirit within, with a vision of You in our world.
Change us, Lord. Condense our time. Fill it with purpose, blessing, and challenge.
Lord, we want to live in Your time zone. We know by Your mercy You will shine light and show us the way.
So we pray and thank You in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.