Light In The Darkness
By David J. Stewart | December 2015 | Updated January 2016
Psalms 112:4, “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”
I love this Scripture. I was listening to
Alexander Scourby (1913-1985) read the Psalms today. I bought the MP3
version of Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible. I then copied
them to my computer, and created a Windows Media Playlist, which
gives me more control over which books I want to hear. I often play them
while I'm sleeping and they warm my soul at night. I've been listening to
the book of Revelation for the past couple weeks, and now I'm listening to
the Psalms. This article is based on one of the precious Scriptures that I
heard.
Originally, Alexander Scourby made this recording of the King James Bible for blind people. He made 422 recordings total (which includes other works as well). I was reading on Wikipedia today about the history behind Scourby's King James Bible recordings. It's really sad how many greedy companies and even church denominations have exploited Scourby's work for money. I am just thankful that the recordings are still available, which are a great blessing.
What a beautiful phrase in our text Scripture... “LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS”! Psalms 112:4, “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.” What a joy as a born-again Christian to have the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Comforter (John 14:16, 26). What a joy to have the inspired Words of God, preserved for us in the King James Bible.
When bad things happen—when darkness looms over our life, and it feels like happiness is gone forever, and you cannot see your hand in front of your face, and you don't want to wake up to face another day—there is light in the darkness!
I love what Brother Danny says here...
“Stay with God. That's the best way to live your life. Stay with God. The world is crazy, Buddy! It's going the wrong way! There's two paths you can go down—You can get sucked in the way of the world, or you can follow the Lord Jesus Christ! And Buddy, we fixin' to find out real soon, who was right and who was wrong!”
SOURCE: Pastor Danny Castle; from the awesome sermon titled, 2013 Is Gone (We Are In A Battle!)
Yes, Amen! We are now living
in the End Times. As born-again believers, our time of sweet vindication is
coming, when we behold the Lord in His omnipotent glory, and he judges the
entire world (Isaiah 31:11). No one ever gets away with anything. If you've been hurt by
others (and we all have), let
it go into God's hands for judgment, and He promises to avenge (Romans
12:19-21). Jesus warned that men will be held accountable even for their idle
words (Matthew 12:36), and for their very thoughts (Proverbs 24:12). There is
light in the darkness. Regardless of the tragedies of life, even unto death,
there is light in the darkness for ever born-again believer in Jesus Christ!!!
Our Secret Labors For Jesus Christ Will Be Revealed In Eternity
Our labors in the Lord late at night, that we do in secret when other people have gone to sleep, and we labor in prayer, ministering online until the wee hours of the morning for Christ. God will one day make our works manifest for the world to see. Luke 8:17, “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” One day every detail of our life, good and bad alike, will be visible for all to see. When get gets finished with us, no one will dare (because the wouldn't have a leg to stand upon) condemn others. God has promised to avenge us of wrongs against us, and I believe that includes things as small as people who intentionally hurt our feelings or caused us some grief. In Heaven, God is going to bring all things to light.
The foolish people who criticize Dr. Jack Hyles will be judged. We're all going to get to see what such critics did in their spare time. All the hypocrites who attacked the preachers here on earth, and made the most horrible allegations against them, continually berating faithful Christians and spreading hated on the internet—We are going to get to see their sins, how they spent their time, how many lost sinners they preached the Gospel to, and how much they prayed and fasted for OTHERS, and how much they shed tears for the people they scorned, gossiped and destroyed, cetera.
And then God is going to show everyone, the whole world, all the wondrous works that Brother Hyles allowed God to do through him throughout 55-years of faithful ministry. We're going to see how Brother Hyles spent his money—the thousands of people whom he helped financially, the school tuition bills that he paid so children could remain in a Christian school, the molded sets of teeth he paid to Dentists for poor people, the cars he gave away—literally millions of wonderful things, when you include Dr. Hyles' influence through thousands of His preacher boys and college graduates. There is always LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. Even when things are going wrong, and misery seems like your only friend, claim the promise of God that He is watching everything that we do, even how many times we rise up and lay back down to rest (Psalms 139:1-6). God even keeps track of the number of hairs upon our head (Matthew 10:30). God sees every sparrow that falls from the sky (Matthew 10:29). If you ponder these Scriptural truths, and take them to heart, you and I can only stand in awe that God notices every detail of our life, of His creation, of life. God never misses anything.
Have you ever ended up in a painful situation, where a series of small events ended up turning into a major heartache for you. The people who hurt you, may not even realize what they did to devastate your heart and feelings, making you extremely say (a broken heart can do that very easily). I've endured hundreds of situations like that in my life. It is my prayer and hope that God will get those people all together in eternity, and let them know the pain, suffering and mental agony that they caused by not caring, by not going the extra mile, by being stupid, by not doing their job, by not checking their work, by not following up, by jumping to conclusions, by being selfish, by trying to save money, by lying and reneging on a business agreement, by greed, by stealing money, by gossiping and being malicious, by being careless, and by just plain wrong thinking! I have suffered much because of the carelessness, greed, laziness, incompetence, lackadaisicalness and dishonesty of others. I have placed it all into the Lord's hands for judgement, as He tells us to do in Romans 12:19-21. I only mentioned these things to help you, knowing that IN THE DARKNESS OF THIS EARTHLY LIFE, THERE IS THE LIGHT OF GOD'S PROMISES IN ETERNITY!!!
The Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) applies to everyone, which teaches to treat OTHERS the same way you'd like to be treated. Anytime you fail to do that, God will hold you accountable. Ninety-nine percent of the horrible things that people do to others, they would never want done to them self. I wouldn't never put a bunch of shady fine print, buried deep into a contract with the nasty unpleasant details. It is unethical to say the least; yet this is considered standard business etiquette these wicked days in 2016. I hate such evil deception, which manipulates the client, buyer/seller, or whoever is singing the contract. Everything ought to be upfront, printed-out clearly to read, with no fine print details, all but hidden out of sight. I've read some really threatening fine-print online, thuggish comments, that caused me to go elsewhere.
Note On Web Hosting Companies: Some companies are much friendlier than others. I encourage you to read the fine-print and disclaimers before doing business with anyone. Some hosting companies are legitimate, where they really do care about their customers, and work with them; but I've also dealt with some young Yuppies, thugs working for them, or outsourced to Smart-Alec incompetent techs in India who barely speak English.
Psalms 112:4, “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”
There is always light in the darkness for the righteous, because we know that even in the darkest of circumstances, it can only last for this earthly life. If a man or woman is locked away behind bars in prison for the rest of their life (which is wrong and unscriptural), the moment they die they'll be forever freed if they are born-again Christians. Criminals ought to be executed if they require lifetime incarceration. The U.S. incarcerates more prisoners than Russia and China combined. That's shocking!!! With only 5% of the world's population in the U.S., our prison facilities house 25% of the world's population. You can verify that on Wikipedia!
In Old Testament Bible times there were three punishments for a crime committed: you either paid a fine, you were publickly beaten and bloodied, or you died. The unbiblical practice of housing lifetime prisoners in the United States is a burden to America's taxpayers, it tortures the inmate trying to survive in a small cage, and encourages more youth to commit crimes (why not, there's rarely a death sentence anymore), et cetera. Prisoners are manmade, not God-made! Men don't listen to God anymore these days. Romans 3:18 says, “There is NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES”!!!
Instead, the prison industry has become one of the most lucrative businesses (dirty rackets) in America. Many states have even signed private contracts guarantying a 90% prison-cell fill-rate, which means incarcerating more people whether they deserve it or not, to make money. Anything that involves money gets corrupted, and the citizens pay. Hell will be hot enough!!!
The lost will go straight to Hell to burn. All
believers will be greeted in Heaven by the Lord's angels, and the dear Savior
Himself, the Lord Jesus. We will be greeted by angels and saved loved ones
alike, that is, our heavenly family. If we've led anyone to the Lord, they
will be there too! I don't know about you, but that motivates me to want to
get busy soul-winning, so I'll see more people in Heaven whom the Lord used me
to influence with the Gospel.
The Power Of God Unto Salvation Is The Gospel
The Bible refers to the truth of the Gospel as, “THE LIGHT OF THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL OF CHRIST.” I love that! 2nd Corinthians 4:4, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” In this dark and dreary world of sin and evil, the Gospel light shines as a beacon of hope in a hopeless place. There is light in the darkness!!!
Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” The Gospel is the POWER of God unto salvation to them that believe. If you acknowledge that you are a guilty sinner in God's holy eyes (Romans 3:19), and you BELIEVE the Gospel (Mark 1:15; 1st Corinthians 15:1-4), you are immediately, securely, irrevocably and forever SAVED, SAVED, SAVED!!! You are now a child of God (Galatians 3:26; John 1:12-14), born again into God's spiritual family, which which you can and will never be cast out, no matter what you do or what happen down the road (Hebrews 13:5).
John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Jesus never turned away anyone! He'll take you just as you are, if you'll come on the basis that you are a woeful, dirty, filthy, hell-deserving, guilty, rotten, SINNER (just like me). All men and women are wicked sinners, which is why we need a perfect and sinless Savior!
Jesus told us to rejoice because our name is written in Heaven, in the Lamb's Book of Life. If you've trusted Christ as your Savior, Who died and bled on the cross of Calvary for your sins, and was buried, and bodily resurrected three days later for your justification, then you are born-again, saved, and on your way to Heaven forever!!!
Here's a wonderful poem authored by Pastor Danny Castle about the three stages of life; It's called “NO ROOM FOR JESUS” . . .
NO ROOM FOR JESUS...
No room for Jesus when I'm young and free,
No time for the church, or a Bible for me;
No room for Jesus when I'm a grown man,
I'm busy making a living, doing the best I can.No room for Jesus, when I'm old and gray,
I've lived good enough, I'll make it my way;
Now as the time comes to die for me,
only it is now I am beginning to see,
When at Heaven's gates I stand and plea:
What a fool I've been, they'll be no room for me.SOURCE: Pastor Danny Castle; from the awesome sermon titled, Do You Have Room For Jesus?
My friend, now
while you are young is the time to make room for Jesus. If you have already
squandered your youth, it's still not too late to get saved and get busy
serving Jesus. The Lord will take you just as you are, even if you've only got
one day left on earth to win somebody else to the Lord. If you have a pulse,
you have a purpose!!! Even if you're old and gray, God wants you too! There is
something that God wants us all to do, to serve Him.
If Anna (an 84-year-old widow) Can Serve God, Then So Can We
I love the story of Anna in Luke 2:36-38, “And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” Anna had only been married for 7 years during her youth; but now she's now 84-years-old, still serving God faithfully with FASTINGS and PRAYERS NIGHT-AND-DAY. Isn't that awesome!!! Notice in verse 38 that Anna preached the Gospel to anyone seeking redemption in Jerusalem. So she fasted and prayed for people to come to hear the Gospel, and then she was ready to share the Gospel truth with others. If an 84-year-old elderly woman can serve God, then so can anyone.
Life is so short. Have you any room for Jesus my friend? It won't be long now until we find out who was right, and who was wrong. The world calls Christians “crazy” and “bullies” and “judgmental” and “hateful.” But we'll see, won't we? As we preach the truth of God's Word, people curse us and foolishly mock the Gospel message. The Scriptures plainly tell us in 2nd Timothy 3:12, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” I thank God that my sins have been washed away by the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Praise God, I'm on the winning side in Christ Jesus! Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Psalms 112:4, “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.” Isn't that beautiful? There is light in the darkness, but only FOR THE RIGHTEOUS!!! When you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are spared from the penalty of Hell, fire and damnation. This earthly world is the only Hell a Christian will ever suffer, and the only Heaven an unbeliever will ever enjoy. No matter how dark this world may become, there is light in the darkness for the Christian, because “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1st John 4:4). Every believer has the PROMISES OF GOD to comfort, encourage and challenge our heart. “Am I Going To Heaven?” (by Yankee Arnold). END
HELL FIRE (you'd better get saved before it's too late! by Pastor Danny Castle)
Caught Between Grace And Works (by Pastor Ralph Yankee Arnold)
God Opens Doors!
When one door
closes He opens another. It's not that Jesus closes doors, but
He opens
other doors! When Jesus opens a door, no man can shut
it! ...
Revelation 3:8, “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.”
