Sermon Tone Analysis

BY Pastor Glenn Pease

The Emperor Trajan said to Rabbi Joshua, "You teach that your God is everywhere.

I should like to see Him."

The Rabbi replied, "God's presence is everywhere, but He cannot be seen.

No mortal eye can behold His glory."

The Emperor insisted, however, and so the Rabbi said, "Let us begin then by first looking at one of his servants.

The Emperor consented to this, and so followed the Rabbi out into the open.

"Now," said the Rabbi, "Gaze into the splendor of the sun." "I cannot," said the Emperor, "The light dazzles me."

The Rabbi responded, "Thou art unable to endure the light of one of his servants, and canst thou expect to behold the resplendent glory of the Creator.

Would not such a light annihilate thee?"

The Jews had a higher concept of God than all ancient peoples, because God revealed Himself to them as a God of glory, light, and splendor.

The Old Testament has many descriptions of God like that given in Hab.

3:3-4.

"His glory covered the heavens, and His praise filled the earth.

His splendor was like the sun rise; rays flashed from His hand, where His power was hidden."

It was because of this knowledge of the glory of God that the Jews were an optimistic people.

A man's character is determined largely by the character of the God he worships.

If one worships a god who is a tyrant, and unpredictable, and without mercy, but cruel, it is not likely he will be a man of flaming joy.

Luther lived for years with a false concept of God, and as a result, lived in fear and dread.

Most religions have had such a dark concept of God that the followers of these religions seldom knew what it was to be truly joyful and at peace.

Many ancient peoples, and peoples yet today, whose god's are made in the image of man, and are only depraved supermen, cruel and immoral, are no more optimistic than the materialist who says, "I feel the universe is one huge, dead, immeasurable steam engine, rolling on in its dead indifference to grind us limb from limb."

You can't expect persons like that to be bursting with optimism, and bubbling with joy.

On the other hand, when people have the concept of God as He is revealed in Scripture, it leads to optimism and joy.

This was true in the Old Testament, even before God fully revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.

The Jews began their day at sundown, rather than at sunup.

All their festivals and holidays begin at night, and their Sabbath also begins at night.

All of this was to symbolize their optimism and confidence in the God of light.

Anyone can have confidence in the day, and look forward to a bright day when the sun rises, but the Jews began their rejoicing as the sun sank to symbolize their confidence that even in the darkness light will prevail, and a new day will dawn.

Tomorrow always comes for the believer.

Even death cannot change that.

Such was the attitude of the Jews who had only a shadow of the full revelation yet to come.

How much greater ought our joy and optimism to be who stand in the full light?

Paul in II Cor.

4:6 writes, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

We have a message as superior to the Old Testament, as it was to the pagan darkness surrounding it.

That is why John, after stating that his purpose for writing this book was that the joy of believers might be full, immediately announces the truth on which all Christian joy is based, which is the truth that God is light.

This morning we want to examine this primary message and its meaning.

First let's look at the message itself.

I. THE MESSAGE.

John has built us up to a point of expectation.

He has made great statements of his aim to share with us truths that will lead to fullness of fellowship, and fullness of joy.

We ought to be standing on our tiptoes breathlessly longing to see what it is he is going to declare.

In verse 5, after this stimulating introduction, John says, this is it!

Here it is!

This is the message that we have received, and now pass it on to you.

This is no matter of speculation and theory, this is the message we have heard from Christ Himself, and now declare to you, and that message is, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

We see a positive and negative side to this message.

A. Positive-God is light.

This is the strongest statement in the whole Bible about Gods nature as light.

Many text describe the splendor of God, and the light of His presence, and that He dwells in light unapproachable, and that He is the author of all light, but here alone do we find the statement that God is light.

Nothing stronger can be said.

This is as far as human language can go in relating God and light.

God is light.

Light is of the very essence of God's nature.

It is important, however, that we recognize that this is not the whole truth about God's nature.

It is but one aspect of what He is.

John will tell us He is also Law, Life, and Love, and underneath all of these is the foundational fact that He is personal.

Light is impersonal, and if this was our main concept of God, we would have only a God who was a great impersonal source of all energy-a Divine Dynamo.

We must ever keep in mind that light and love, and all other attributes of God are attributes of a Person.

This means, it is God who is light, and not light that is God.

This was the mistake of many people who began to worship the creation rather than the Creator.

They worshiped the sun, moon, and stars, for they reversed the truth and said, light is God.

This is false.

The light of the sun is not God, and the light of all other bodies is not God.

God as light is the ultimate source of all light, but He is not that light.

All physical light is from God, and is a symbol of what He is in Himself.

All physical reality is what it is because God is what He is.

Science can tell us what the sun does, and how it is the source of all life on earth, but it is the Bible that tells us why this is so.

It is so because God is light.

His creation resembles His nature.

The universe is a symbol of what God is.

It is not God, but is made by God, and is separate from Him, but it is an expression of what He is.

This is why all life depends on light, for all life depends on God, and God is light.

This is why the earth revolves around the sun which is the source of all life, because only as men put God into the center of their lives, and revolve around Him, will they have light and life.

All of this is simply saying God has made the universe, and physical light, as a pattern of what is true in the spiritual realm.

God is in the spiritual realm what the sun is in the physical realm.

He is the source of all light and life.

As light is the absolute in science, so God is the absolute in the spiritual realm.

Thou art, O God, the life and light

Of all this wondrous world we see;

Its glow by day, its smile by night,

Are but reflections caught from Thee;

Where'er we turn, Thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are Thine.

The very first thing that God called good was light.

In Gen. 1:4 God saw that the light was good.

It was His first stroke of the brush on the canvas of reality, and it was a masterpiece already.

God did not make anything in the dark.

He began His project of creation just as we usually begin ours, by turning on the light.

Light is the link between the Creator and creation.

Light is part of the nature of God, and it is the foundation of all that God has made.

When you study light, you are into both science and theology.

Many of the great scientists have known this.

They have seen that life is dependent on light, and that the Creator of life had to be a God of light.

Dr. Michael Pupin, the great inventor, philosopher, and teacher, got his start in scientific research by watching the stars as a shepherd boy in the Hungarian hills.

All his life, as he studied light, he was devoted to the God of light.

He wrote, "I found in the light of stars a heavenly language which proclaims the glory of God.

Each burning star is a focus of energy, of life-giving activity which it pours out lavishly into every direction; it pours out the life of its own heart, in order to beget new life.

What a vista that opens to our imagination!

What new beauties are disclosed in the words of Genesis: 'God...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.'

The light of the stars is a part of the life-giving breath of God.