The element of this world is darkness. It is the sphere where Satan, the prince and god of this world and the prince of the power of the air, holds sway, together with his hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies, (Eph. 2:2; 6:122Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (Ephesians 2:2)
12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)) “the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
We, beloved, who through the power and grace of our God and Father have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son, and made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, and not only so, but seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus—we are not of this world. But we are in it. (John 17) And though a long-suffering God is still lingering over this scene of increasing corruption and violence, and enmity against Him, waiting to be gracious; and though the light of His gospel still shines, yet, darkness is daily thickening around us, “darkness that may be felt.” And may I solemnly ask myself and you, beloved: What about the light in our houses amidst the growing darkness around us 2 Have we, like those Israelites in Goshen, “light in our dwellings?” And is that light shining brightly, “giving light to all that are in the house,” and is it “seen by them that come into the house?” It is true, we “are light in the Lord,” blessed be God !—But what comes next? “Walk as children of light.” The light has not been given us to be hidden under the bushel of commerce and worldliness, or under the bed of idleness and self-indulgence, but to give light to every inmate of the house, and to the corners in. Thanks be to God, we know that “the night is far spent, and the day is at hand,” but, alas 1 for this poor world it is far otherwise: “The day [of salvation] is far spent, and the night is at hand.” As in the natural, so in the spiritual world: the last hour before daybreak is the darkest and coldest. And that hour is now. But it only proves, that for us, the turn is at hand. The star is in the sky. He, who is “the bright and the morning star,” our Savior is coming, to take us up to Himself. But how will He find us, in whose hearts He has made the corresponding day star arise? Will He find that blessed hope shining upon our path, and our hearts and feet in the light of it? Will He find the light of that hope shining in our houses, and turning them into tents? Tents like that of the Patriarch of Mamre, from whom the Lord could not hide that thing which He did, knowing that Abraham would command his children and his household after him, (three hundred and eighteen servants at the time), so that they should keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment: that the Lord might bring upon Abraham that which He had spoken of him.
Beloved, let us remember that we are not only to be light bearers—as to the glorious gospel of God and His truth, but that we are to “walk in the light, even as He is in the light,” Who has called us from darkness unto His marvelous light.—This light, it is true, is to shine in the walk of every individual Christian. He is called, not only to announce, but to adorn, by his walk, the Gospel of God and the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. “The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto a perfect day.” But our subject just now is not so much the light of individual walk, but the collective, and therefore more intensified light, as it would shine in a well-ordered Christian household.