Psalm 119:105 | #4 God's Word Lightens Our Way
Consider the significance of God’s Word being available as both a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. God’s Word shines the truth of God into the deception of darkness and helps guide the way of its followers.
The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.
Citation: Unknown
I have a point of view. You have a point of view. God has view.
Citation: Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
1) God’s Word is a lamp that lights the steps and footing of our feet so that we do not fall.
Suspected drug dealer Alfred Acree thought he could escape the sheriff’s deputies by running into a wooded area at night. But thanks to Alfred, the deputies had no difficulty at all tracking him.
He had a built-in tracking device. He was wearing a brand-new pair of L.A. Gear New Light tennis shoes. These shoes featured battery-operated lights that flashed every time the heel was depressed. “Every time he took a step, we knew exactly where he was,” said investigator Anthony Anderson for the Charles City, Virginia, County Sheriff’s Department.
Suspected drug dealer Alfred Acree thought he could escape the sheriff’s deputies by running into a wooded area at night. But thanks to Alfred, the deputies had no difficulty at all tracking him.
He had a built-in tracking device. He was wearing a brand-new pair of L.A. Gear New Light tennis shoes. These shoes featured battery-operated lights that flashed every time the heel was depressed. “Every time he took a step, we knew exactly where he was,” said investigator Anthony Anderson for the Charles City, Virginia, County Sheriff’s Department.
We may think we can escape the consequences of our sins, but like the flashing shoes, our sins will eventually reveal us.
Wrong steps can lead us to wrong paths.
The collapse of character falls back down the steps of compromise.
People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
—D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Crossway, 1999)
2) God’s Word is a light that illuminates truth from error on our path so that we do not derail in deception.
We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.… Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.… Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
Citation: Omar Bradley, in his 1948 Armistice Day address
We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
Citation: Unknown
3) Followers of Christ are called “children of light,” and as such, they are both instructed and expected to walk in the light of Christ and His Word.
There was a man lost in the desert. He couldn’t find his tent. Finally he stumbled upon it, went inside and closed the flap. He shook out his clothes and lit a lamp. He looked for some food. The only thing that he could find was a box of dates. The first one was bad—full of worms. So he threw it in the corner. The second was the same. So he finally blew out the lamp and ate the dates!
An old story tells of a desert nomad who awakened in the middle of the night. He lit a candle and began eating dates from a bowl beside his bed.
He took a bite from one and saw a worm in it; so he threw it out of the tent. He picked up a second date, took a bite out of it, and found another worm. He threw that date out of the tent too. Then he picked up a third date, took a bite out of it, and found another worm. He threw that one away also.
He was very hungry, and reasoning that he wouldn’t have any dates left to eat if he continued, he blew out the candle and very quickly ate the rest of the dates.
Many of us are like that. We prefer darkness and denial to the light of reality.
1 Thessalonians 5:1–10
