(Ver 1.4)  This is Part 1 in a series of basic Bible lessons on understanding the Spiritual Heart of Man.  These lessons are some of the essential foundational concepts found in the Bible that permit us to understand many other more advanced subjects found in the Bible.  This Bible lesson today will be some additional information on a subject that I have mentioned before briefly, but these lessons will be a much more in-depth study of the subject.  I have learned from my Bible study that “Night and Day” represents the symbolic spiritual conditions of men’s hearts in the world today.  I of course mean the term men as a form of mankind, meaning both men and women.  This is a key subject to understand because it gives us a new perspective viewpoint into the spiritual realm that we cannot see or perceive with our five  natural senses.  The Bible says God is a Spirit (John 4:24).  The Bible teaches us that no man has ever seen God (1 Jn 4:12).  How then are we on the earth supposed to learn about this God and the spiritual realm that we have never observed?   God actually tells us if we open our eyes to see Him.  God created things in the natural world to give us clues of the unseen things in the spiritual world.  God tells us in Romans 1:20 “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that were made”.  So to understand spiritual things we need to recognize how God created natural things to operate.   The Bible informs us that the natural world is a temporary place (2 Cor 4:18).  The earth is a place that will change dramatically in the future eternal dimension beyond time.  But for now you must realize that we live within in the constraints of time and that God has put everything here in this world by design for a specific purpose to teach us about the things we cannot see.  God does nothing by accident and everything that He created hid a view of something we don’t understand.  We of course should also realize because of our human ignorance, we do not completely understand all of the motivations and purposes for everything that God has created.  But, we can at least begin to understand the things that God has taught us in His Word.  So that is what I will attempt to do today to teach you on the subject of Night and Day and what it means in the spiritual realm.

1Co 4:5  Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

 You see in this verse God recorded a simple truth on the condition of the hearts of people in the world today.  These things are referred to as “hidden things”.  Hidden things are those that we cannot see clearly with casual observation.  Do you understand that anything that was hidden was removed from  our view intentionally by someone?  It is like hiding easter eggs for your children to find.  Some eggs you might place in plain sight but other eggs you might make very difficult to find and that is exactly what God has done with His creation and His Word.   God hiding things is a prevalent themed pattern found in the Bible.   In 1 Corinthinians 4:5 notice that God tells us that these things being spoken of (light, darkness and the hidden things) are matters of the heart of man.  The heart in the Bible will almost always be a reference to the unseen spirits of men and women.  God calls this a state of darkness before we are saved and Christ has entered into our spirits.  We are said to be in a state of symbolic darkness or night.  This of course is only a symbolic reference to a spiritual condition that we are unaware of in our unsaved and ignorant conditions.  Technically unsaved people are spiritually asleep and saved people are spiritually awake and I will try to get into that later since both individuals still have spirits that exist forever. 

2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You see in this verse God tells us about an event that occurred in Genesis 1 on the first day of the creation account.  We can clearly understand from this verse in 2 Corinthians that this event in Genesis was prophetic and had a double meaning.  We know that there are many symbolic and prophetic events in the 1st chapter of Genesis if you have read my many other Bible lessons.  God says that He has commanded the “light” to shine in our hearts and that was described in Genesis 1:3 when God said “Let there be light”.  This light was the knowledge of the glory of God that it says was found in the face of Jesus Christ.  We are told that the face of Jesus Christ shines as the “sun” in Revelation 1:16.

Rev 1:16  And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

You can see in this descriptive symbolic verse in Revelation, Jesus is described as the sun.  We will certainly see many other verse in the Bible that further confirm this fact to us as we continue to study the subject.  The physical sun is one of the key sources for our existence on this planet.  Of course Jesus, the spiritual sun is certainly the key reason for our salvation out of this world.  What we are seeing is a pattern of spiritual truths being revealed to us using God’s created realities.  Those who are in darkness that do not know Jesus Christ verssus those who are now in the light of Jesus Christ.  Here is another very key verse on this subject:

2Co 4:3  But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Jesus Christ is described as a light that shines into the hearts of men again in this verse.  This verse also says that people who have not believed on Jesus have been mentally blinded.  Blindness is of course just a symbolic state of darkness.  Darkness will simply be defined as the absence of light.  The absence of light is synonymously just the inability to see the light or it is called blindness.  Have you ever been deep in a cave when they shut the lights off?  I mean you can’t see your hand in front of your face.  This absence of the spiritual Light of Jesus is equated to spiritual blindness.  If Jesus is the light and He certainly claimed to be the light of the world, then Satan has done something to the unsaved world to affect their spiritual ability to see and understand.  God clearly tells us that the Gospel has been hidden to them.  Satan has blinded their minds so that they are unable to understand.  Your mind is just an internal part of your soul.  The soul of man is made up of three parts, the mind, the will and the emotions.  This three part internal component of man is not your spirit.  Maybe I’ll get to that in another lesson, but for now we will continue on.  If you notice Jesus is again implied to be the sun that shines into the hearts of men in this verse.  Here is what Jesus said about light and darkness in the Gospels when He walked amoung us:

Joh 3:19  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

Joh 3:20  For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

Joh 3:21  But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

In these verses found in John, God is contrasting why people are like they are.  God says that those who are blinded by Satan love the darkness.  These people are incapable of seeing the light because they hate the light.  Whenever, light is presented to them they close their spiritual eyes and refuse to see it or even look at it.  It is a very similar experience to people walking out of a dark theater to suddenly see the brigh sunshine.  It is so bright that they just have to close their eyes.  God’s Word is like that to many unsaved people, it can be presented in ways that are too bright and blinding to people who live in the darkness of this world.  Jesus is talking specifically about this spiritual condition of the hearts of people in these verses.  Even though He does not directly mention the terms of Night or Day, they are certainly indirectly implied.

So we have two conditions of men’s hearts given to us.  Those that are blinded and in darkness and those that can see the light of Jesus Christ.  There is a sharp and distinct contrast given between these two states of the heart.  The difference is literally night and day.   Those in the darkness are called lovers of evil.  Those in the light love the truth.   That would imply that the darkness is a lie or a falsehood.  A false state of being.  A fantasy world of the imagination.  When you start to think in spiritual terms using this analogy you will begin to understand the spiritual realm with much greater clarity.   There are many scriptures that we still need to explore and to see.  Here is a very relevant verse found in 2 Peter:

2Pe 1:19  We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

We can see in this verse that God is telling us that we who are in the church use to be in darkness, but now the day has dawned in our hearts.  The Day Star of course is Jesus Christ.  The Day Star is a significant reference to the earth’s closest star.   This Day Star represents our sun in other descriptive words.  The natural sun is said to rise in the east and set in the west.  We of course know from science that the sun does not move, but the rotation of the earth causes the sun to appear to rise and set.  It is the movement of the earth that determines the light or darkness we experience in the natural.  The same is true for the spiritual, God is always shining in a constant, consistent ever present way to every human on the earth.  However, men and women choose to turn either to allow the light to come in or turn and keep the light out.  It is the movement of the individual that allows God to shine in their hearts and not the other way.  2 Peter 1:19 says we were this dark place, but that God has commanded the light to shine out of darkness.  However, we still have a choice to make.  It is always a partnership of people receiving what God has given to them.  God will not force the light down your throat.

1Jn 2:8  Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

1 Jn 2:9  He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

1Jn 2:10  He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

1Jn 2:11  But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

God again contrasts two states of men hearts in these verse found in 1 John.  Those in darkness are contrasted to those in the light.  To those in the light it declares that our nights have passed and the true light of Jesus Christ is forever in our hearts.  However, God tells us a another secret, when He says that there will be some that say they are in the light and who are not.  That is of course a challenge we are faced with on a daily basis in this world.  We cannot see the spiritual condition of someone’s heart.  Someone in church can appear very Godly and Holy and even say some really good things.  But God informs us that what people say is not necessarily what is really in their hearts (Mar 7:6).  Too many Christian make this mistake every day.  It seems that a great number of people in the world made that mistake in the last election.  We had candidates saying one thing that they are a Christian and yet they do everything they can to oppose God’s ways and His Word.  But we can see that God tells us that there is a difference.  It has to do with good vs. evil and love vs. hate.  Those in the light actually love their brothers.  We can clearly see that this state of darkness causes people to be unable to perceive spiritual things and I can see this all over the internet and in people’s blogs and other parts of their life.   I guess I’ll end this post here and continue this subject in my next blog.

If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Night and Day you can go to “Part 2“.