Truth is, humans have a heart of darkness. Left to our own devices, or trusting in anything (idols) other than love from God will trap us there. Jesus referred to this one time while he was in Jerusalem:
…from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean. Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
Too many times we read these words and begin to pass judgment on a host of people who we just KNOW are living in darkness because they are not like us. We are too good to live in darkness – and we must have missed it when Jesus chastised the Pharisees and teachers of the law just moments earlier.
…Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. Mark 7:6-8 (NIV)
The Pharisees Jesus was talking to were considered the conservatives of Judaism. They held strictly to the Torah and the Talmud and were very outwardly moral. But because they trusted in the traditions of men (meaning adding to the law) they were far from him, they had hearts of darkness.
The little English sparrow is a great success story. The insignificant little bird is actually not a sparrow, but a member of the weaver family of birds. Brought to America, probably as a stowaway on early ships, it took hold in the New World and became one of the most dominant birds we see. Jesus also spoke of sparrows, the sparrows of Jerusalem. He remarked in Matthew 10 that two of them sold for just a penny. Then He makes the astounding observation that not one of them falls to the ground apart from the Father. The implication is that not only does He know when the tiniest of His creation dies, He is there. Jesus is making the obvious thing obvious. If God loves His little sparrows like that, then how much more does He love His children? When we are in trouble, God comes to our rescue. The psalmist in Psalms 102 considers himself as a sparrow alone upon a housetop facing great danger. That’s a pretty good picture of a helpless and hapless individual. But in verse 17 he says the Almighty would regard the prayer of the destitute. No one is ever alone who has his Father.
Bottom line up front: Darkness doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did 2000 years ago. In the first century people understood and feared real darkness so they got it when Jesus told them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” John8:12 (NIV). If you’re not a Christian you’re walking in darkness, put your trust in Christ who is the light.
Darkness has lost its meaning to us. Since the discovery of electricity and invention of the light bulb the world has been on a campaign to banish darkness. Just look around you some night: guard lights flood every house, street lights bathe our roads, office buildings shine through the night, spot lights sweep through the air, the rooms in our houses have lights on even if we are not in them, and our retinas burn as we stare for hours into the glare of our televisions. If you don’t believe it, you will the first time the electricity fails and the night as you know it stops…dark, dark, dark and silent…very silent.
Have you wondered about the guy wandering the highways with the backpack and run down shoes? Where’s he going? Where’s he from? Where’s he spending the night,? Is it in a pasture under a tree? And how does he keep warm in the winter? What does he eat and where does he get his water? Who would chose a life with such self imposed deprivation? Who would chose to be homeless?
But people who would never chose to live their physical lives like that make choices putting them in the same situation spiritually. Jude, verse 13, refers to ungodly individuals who are described as “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever”. The most tragic thing that can happen to a human being is to disconnect from God, in computer terminology, “disconnected from the network”.
Several years ago I observed men traveling down the Interstate Highway that cuts through our little town and wrote a poem about a fictitious man I called “Johnee”. I hope you enjoy it and see how it describes an absolute disconnect.
Johnee
by David Allen
They found him last night,
wrapped in his sleeping
blanket. Out on the Interstate,
dead as a hammer, stiff as
a board. Died sometime
in the night, all alone, all
by himself.No I.D., only, “ My name
is Johnee”, tattooed on his
chest.Where was he from? Where
was he going?Well, he’s not going anywhere,
anymore. And somewhere, long
ago, someone bounced him on
their knee
and said,
“ Oh, Johnee, you’ll
go far in this world”.But, this, this was too far,
Way too far.
Johnee lost his way. The way home grew so dim he could no longer see it. The darkness overcame him and he died. Johnee disconnected. Are you connected?
Listen to an audio presentation on this topic here
On May 29th, my darling little granddaughter, Sierra died. She fought a most heinous form of cancer for eighteen months. She died bravely, the way I want to when it’s my turn. I was with her at one o’clock in the morning when she breathed her last. Those eighteen months would take a volume to chronicle which I will never do. But, through all the hours of weeping and happiness, yes, happiness, there is something that I learned that is on my heart to share. Maybe it will help you, I hope so.
People usually deal with dying and death, particularly a tragic one, in pretty much the same way. They believe that no matter the severity of the illness, prayer will more than likely change the outcome. Their core belief is that God will interdict on behalf of the sick person and heal them. Modern medicine does what was impossible only a short time ago, people live who would have died then. These medical marvels are a gift from God.
But what about those who are not healed? And no matter how many, how long or how fervent the prayers, they die. When this happens some will blame God for “taking” their loved one. How could an all knowing, all powerful God let theirs die and let another live? It’s a puzzle that begins to eat at the very center of the believer’s heart. Well meaning friends might say, “If we had only had more faith”, or some other horrific statement, the sick one would have been made well. This is a satanic phrase and even though well intended strikes terror deep into the soul. How guilty would you be if your loved one died because you “didn’t have enough faith?” Yes, we should have faith, enough to move a mountain, as Jesus said, but this faith is not for physical mountains, but spiritual ones.
Two lessons for Christians today:
1. Jesus DID exactly what he said he would do
2. Jesus WILL DO exactly what he said he will do
…but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” John 20:11-17 (NIV)
Mary should have known. Jesus had driven out her demons and she was with him to the end and heard what he had said. She was the first one at the tomb the morning Jesus arose and she didn’t even remember His words when the body wasn’t there, thinking instead someone must have moved his body.
