Worship Call 0743 How great the darkness

Worship Call 0743

Monday October 10th 2022

How great is the Darkness

friends, draw from the springs of Yeshua! Isaiah 12:2-3 Behold, God is my salvation (Yeshua in Hebrew), I will trust and not be afraid; 'For the LORD JEHOVAH, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation (Yeshua). Therefore with joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation (Yeshua). John 7:37-38 On the last day, the great day of the feast, Yeshua (Jesus) stood and cried out, saying, "If any man thirsts, let him come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." During the Feast of Sukkot, the Jewish people took part in a water drawing ceremony on the last day of the feast. They would go down to the Pool of Siloam, draw water and bring it to the Temple Mount. Then they would pour out the water and recite Isaiah 12, "and with joy you shall draw water out of the wells (springs) of salvation." In Hebrew, the word salvation and Yeshua (Jesus, in Hebrew), are the same. Imagine the scene at the time of Yeshua's appearance. It is likely that in the midst of this ceremony, He stood up and proclaimed, "If anyone is thirsty, let Him come to Me and drink." He who believes in Me as the Scripture said, "from His innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." Friends, this promise is true for us today. Our Messiah is the same yesterday, today and forever. He did not promise a sprinkling or a tiny stream. He promised rivers of living water. Claim this promise today -- claim the fullness of life in Him. Draw from Him the peace that passes all understanding. Draw from Him pure love -- agape love. Draw from Him the joy that makes the trees clap. Draw all that you need, but in order to draw from Him -- you must go to Him. One cannot draw water from a spring unless one goes to the spring. Go to the spring that never runs dry -- go to your spring of Yeshua! Your family in the Lord with much agape love, George, Baht Rivka, & Obadiah Jacksonville, Florida

And this is another fine day in the Lord

Matthew 6:23 (NASB95) — 23 “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

14.53 σκότοςa, ους n; σκοτίαa, ας f; γνόφος, ου m: a condition resulting from the partial or complete absence of light (see 14.36)—‘darkness.’[1]

Of the darkness of the place of punishment far removed fr. the heavenly kingdom [2]

It is a condition without God who is light. John says

1 John 1:5–7 (NASB95) — 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

In the spiritual sense darkness is outside the presence of God.

Matthew 8:12 (NASB95) — 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Matthew 25:30 (NASB95) — 30 “Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Luke 13:28 (NASB95) — 28 “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.

That darkness is vast and eternal. There is no purgatory to be prayed out of. The indulgences and prayers of the entire world would never be enough to pray one sinner out of hell.

One is never almost righteous, or just, left in a little bit of a gray area. One cannot count for oneself a whole lot of good and see oneself as being made Justified before God the judge while holding to what one might call a little indiscretion.

It only holds to pagan religion who sees justification as a Scale. That if your good deeds outweigh your bad then you are justified before God.

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The Pharisees functioned in Self-righteous Arrogance. They saw themselves right before God on the basis of their own piety. They were blinded by their own arrogance.

Luke 18:9–14 (NASB95) — 9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

The Pharisee believed that he was righteous before God based upon meeting a certain that the religious community established for themselves as did Nicodemus in John 3 which Jesus corrected. (John 3:1–3 )

The ones who prayed so much and fasted so much and gave so much were ones that both John and Jesus called a brood of vipers.

John called them to repent while there still was opportunity to do so

Matthew 3:7–10 (NASB95) — 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 10 “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Jesus rebuked them saying

8:44 (NASB95) — 44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

But I’m sure that none of them saw themselves as Jesus or John saw them.

Incidentally, are you seeing yourself as God sees you?

Are you measuring your righteousness to God’s Standard or your own?

Darkness σκότος is the absence of light. God is light, and in Him darkness is, NO way.

Remember that it only took eating a piece of fruit to plunge man into damnation.

How does anyone get to heaven?

By being perfect. We have to keep God’s law perfectly, from the time that we were born to the time we die. We must have not committed one sin at all. We must have been also born without sin. That is, we must all have been born a virgin birth where we had no imputation of Adam’s sin.

If we have met those conditions, then we would die and go to heaven.

But you and I know that that is not the case.

Romans 3:23 (NASB95) — 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Oops!

Romans 3:10–12 (NASB95) — 10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

There is no alternative but to throw myself upon the mercy of the court. I have sinned and come short of the glory of God. and I may even find myself yet again this day in sin.

Even if not, even if from this day forward I could live perfectly without sin, I am still accountable for all my previous sins. If I get a traffic ticket on Monday for speeding and I drove perfectly up until my court date, I’m still accountable to the court for breaking the law that first time.

when I stand before the Lord it will not be the much good that I have done that will keep me out of Hell, it will be the one violation of God’s sovereignty that will do me in.

Romans 6:23 (NASB95) — 23 For the wages of sin is death,

Paul asks

Romans 7:24 (NASB95) — 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Going back to our publican in the temple who is praying

Luke 18:13 (NASB95) — 13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

The sinner was throwing himself on the mercy of the court and Jesus replied

Luke 18:14 (NASB95) — 14 “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Romans 7:25–8:3 (NASB95) — 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. 1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 6:23 (NASB95) — 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How great is that darkness?

So great that apart from the intervention of God there remains no hope. The soul is like the earth was described back in Genesis 1:2

Genesis 1:2 (NASB95) — 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

And apart from the intervention of God the earth remains formless and void.

Jesus Christ entered into the darkness. He is the light of the world who had gone deep into enemy territory to being light out of darkness. In the darkness Jesus died for our sins and he is the light that if there is any hope of salvation we must call upon and gravitate to. He is the advocate that we call upon to represent us in God’s court. He is the Savior that saves us from our sins. He is the way the truth and the life, he is the resurrection and those that believe in Him are no longer offspring of the darkness but children of light.

How great is the darkness?

How much greater is the light?

[1]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 175). United Bible Societies. [2]Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). In A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 932). University of Chicago Press.