Darkness And Light
So when we say, “The world is getting dark,” we aren’t talking about the sun shining less brightly.
Darkness and Light
Maybe you’re like me, and you’ve noticed something happening in the world around us. Have you noticed how dark the world seems to be becoming?
To be truthful, it’s really nothing new. Darkness and light have been part of the biblical story from the very beginning.
Genesis 1:2–3 says:
“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. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”
I love the picture those verses give us. There was darkness, but darkness was not the end of the story.
God spoke and light came.
There is a real beauty in the way light and darkness complete each other in the physical world. We learn to appreciate both the dark nights and the bright mornings, shadows and sunshine, shade and color. It’s the contrast between them that makes us appreciate the beauty of both.
But Scripture also uses the darkness and light of the physical world as a metaphor to describe something far deeper than the rising and setting of the sun.
The Bible talks about a darkness of the soul. It speaks of a spiritual condition that is both dangerous and terrifying. Spiritual darkness can represent sin, evil, ignorance, deception, suffering and moral decay. When the Bible does that, it’s warning us that there is something wrong in the world. It’s telling us that God’s creation has turned away from its Creator.
And when the Bible talks about light, it’s referring to truth, righteousness, holiness, revelation, life and ultimately the presence of God Himself.
So when we say, “The world is getting dark,” we aren’t talking about the sun shining less brightly. We’re talking about what is happening in the human heart.
We are talking about a world that increasingly seems to call good evil and evil good. Truth becomes questionable while deception and lies are acceptable. Righteousness is mocked as being old-fashioned and sin is just ordinary and no big deal.
That raises an important question for you and me:
How are we supposed to live as people of faith in a world that seems to be getting darker?
Well look at that tomorrow.
