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Understanding How to Become a Light to a Dark World! Part 3
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced spiritual Bible lesson on “How to Become a Light to a Dark World”. If you have not read it from the beginning, I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. Today I want to discuss briefly a false teaching that has been around in the church for a number of years. I probably heard this taught 20 years ago and I’m sure that it was not an original teaching, but something that has been around much longer than that. Here is the basic teaching, the minister said that the church represented the symbolic moon in Genesis 1:16. Because we were those who were a light to the others that were in the darkness. He based his teaching on the presumption that Christians had no ability to produce light upon themselves and were dependent upon the light from the Sun in order to reflect His glory to others. He based his teaching on the fact that the Moon is said to rule the Night and the Sun is said to rule the Day. In listening to him, he thought that the moon represented the church based upon these few facts derived from human reasoning. Unfortunately for him, he could not provide any scriptures to back up what he taught and that is where it all fell apart to me. You must let the Bible interpret itself. You must get two or three witness in order to establish any truth and you must follow God’s rules or you will remain clueless.
If you have read this series from the beginning you should understand that the moon does rule the night and that the Sun does rule the day. The Sun is clearly Jesus Christ so far we agree with at least part of the erroneous teaching. But, that is where I depart company. I do not recall any scriptures that I remember reading that tells me that the church rules the night. To be a ruler means to be a king or a prince over those people. That means you have authority and power to control what they do. Clearly the church does not do that. Evil in the world is growing at a rapidly progressive pace. There is terrorism and evil happening worldwide. So is the church doing anything to control it? It sure doesn’t look like it to me. So I want to address the identity of the moon from a Bible perspective and look at the physical qualities of the moon to analyze them to see who we can see that they could possibly represent.
Searching for the Descriptive Qualities of the Moon!
The moon is a small object that revolves counter clockwise around the earth. As you may know, the moon does not produce any light on its own ability, other than to reflect what is coming from the sun. The moon is a dead, lifeless object that has no known great value. I recall when astronauts brought back rocks from the moon. If they had any great value other than being from the moon, I believe that we would already have mining colonies on the moon recovering them. I realize that the moon helps determine tide cycles and things like that and has purposes for existence, but why do some planets have multiple moons and we have only one? Ok, let’s take this analogy a little further, the earth revolves around the sun in annual cycles. The moon revolves around the earth in monthly type cycles. So when the earth completes one cycle around the sun, the moon has completed approximately 12 cycles around the earth. This is what I believe, I believe that God created natural things as views into the windows of spiritual things. So what do we learn from what I have said so far? It is very difficult to see how the moon fits a type of a symbolic representation for the church, the apostles or any believers, based upon this information only. The church is not dead, it is not lifeless and it is not the ruler of the night or of the world. Heck the church can’t even vote to elect a Christian to be president, so we control nothing to very little in the world.
Also note this fact, the moon goes in cycles and goes from a state of total darkness to a state of total wholeness or full illumination and then back again to total darkness. Also, note that the moon has a dark side that is not normally seen by man. You see the moon has a symbolic side that has not been revealed to men. This is the dark side that cannot be seen and this is symbolic of the deception and the hidden evil spiritual qualities of someone. Is that the church? Does the church have a hidden dark side? I do not believe that is the case. No this fits a picture of Satan more than anyone else. Did you know that we would not know anything about the existence of Satan, if it were not for the Word of God? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever seen Satan personally? You see you have not, the only way you know about the existence of Satan, is by the Word of God that reveals him to us. So in order for us to even see Satan, God must give us the light in His Word to reveal him to us. It is only by the light of the Word of God that shines on this symbolic moon that you can see or understand that Satan exists. So that is a very different perspective on what the light represents and the moon represents that God has taught me. You have to realize that there are still many hidden things about Satan, that we do not know, because, God has not revealed more information or given more understanding to us about the information that is written in the Bible. So the dark side of the moon represents the unknown or hidden parts of Satan, the illuminated side of the moon represents the parts of Satan that have been revealed to us by God’s word. The New Moon when the sky is completely dark is representative of the hidden Satan. I struggle with the fact that anyone can think the moon represents Christians, because it reflects the light of Christ to a dark world. The main problem that I have with that logic is the fact when the moon goes into a new moon phase of the cycle, there is no light reflected and thus no moon is seen. Is this what happens to the church? Does the church go through cycles of complete darkness where God is not available to shine on us? If they do, they shouldn’t. Genesis 1:16, tells us that the moon is the entity that rules the vast night sky and this can only be Satan. I guess I haven’t given you very many scriptures about the identity of the symbolic moon, but I’ll fix that soon.
Christians do not live in darkness any more according to what Jesus taught us in John 8:12. So is the moon of the day or of the night? Is the moon seen normally in the light of the day or in the darkness of the night? I know technically speaking, if you can see the moon, then the moon must be getting some sunlight on its face. But, what dominates the moon? Is it the light of the sun or is it the darkness of the night sky? Which is greater? The little bit of sunlight being reflected or the vast darkness of the night sky? According to some people’s logic, the moon reflects the true light of Christ, but yet still lives in and is dominated by the night and the darkness of this world because Christ is not here and therefore, the spiritual sun has set. We can clearly see that this is not what Jesus said and not what other Bible verses teach either. Jesus said you will not be in the darkness anymore, meaning before you believed you were in the darkness and after you believed you were now in the light. Some try to say that the dark night sky are the unsaved people that we are a light to. But, yet the moon is only partially lit and has a dark side that has no light. This just doesn’t fit the church. For the church, a transition is said to have occurred from total darkness to the light of day. This could only correspond to the difference between night and day and no other condition makes any logical sense.
The Same Sun Shines on Both the Good and the Evil People in the World!
Many people have the idea that only Christians have any ability to see the light of God, and this is mostly true. Then they want to take that and try to convince you that only Christian can reflect the light of God. That is where I begin to deviate from that line of thought. But, I guess it does depend upon your definition of what light is. I have already demonstrated to you that Jesus called John the Baptist a light, before there was any Christians. Here is a verse that is also very interesting to this subject. Jesus is speaking and He says something you should see:
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Jesus said the same Sun shines on the evil as well as the good. Uh oh? If you understand the Bible, you understand that Satan is the originator of all evil. Evil is a synonymous term for the devil. The devil is just another title for Satan. That means if the moon is Satan, that Jesus is telling us it is still possible for the light of God to shine on him. Do you understand that logic? Some people seem to think that Satan is only representative of the darkness and as we can see from what Jesus says, that this is not the case. You see what God is saying, is from our perspective, the sun will shine on everyone equally the same. The Bible says that God shows no favoritism, nor shows any respect to persons. What that is telling us, is that God is a constant and consistent Spiritual being that treats everyone with equal fairness. God is a constant and a consistent source of the light for everyone, that would include Satan also. So using this logic we can see that the light is made available to everyone equally. So there must be another determining factor for who sees the light and which people let this light in. Let’ me give you some scriptures that inform us of Satan’s evil. We do know that Satan is called the “wicked one” in 1 John:
1Jn 5:18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
1Jn 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Here are 3 verses that speak a tremendous amount of information about our subject. The devil is called the “wicked one”. The wicked one is another term for “evil one”. In fact if you look up the definition of the Greek work “wicked” you will see that it can mean evil. So Satan is confirmed to be a candidate for the evil that God’s light also shines on. Then in verse 19, God tells us that the whole world is full of wickedness or evil. This is representative of those who are in the darkness. Finally, in verse 20 we see that Jesus has come into the wicked world and given to us an ability to understand and thus to know Him who is True. Then it declares something very profound, we are said to be in Him that is True and it declares Him to be Jesus Christ the Son of God. So let me ask you this, if we are in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in us, do we just reflect the true light or does the Bible say we are the true light? That statement will probably rock many religious boaters who are afraid to get out of the boat and walk on the water like Peter did. What we need to take away from these verses is the world is an evil place controlled by the wicked one. However, the church is now” in” the True Son, Jesus Christ. Again we have to conclude that, if Jesus Christ is the One that is True, who is the one that is false? Obviously, this is not a trick question, you can see from these verses that Satan is called the evil one! What we have is a classic Good vs. Evil conflict being presented to us.
Finally, in verse 20, it says that Jesus has given unto us an “understanding”. Is this another reference to the Light of God shining inside of Christians? Those who understand the truth? I believe that it is a direct confirmation to what the light is, who gives the light and where the light lives now.
Why Is It Better For Jesus To Go Away?
I think I want to address another point that someone made in a comment. They seemed to think that while Jesus Christ was on the earth, He was the Light and I agree with that part of the statement. But, then they said when Jesus Christ was taken out of the world we now do not have the direct Light and the Sun has set. Which do you prefer, the daylight or the nighttime? Is it better to work during the day and sleep during the night or what? In other words, it would appear that some people think that it would have been better for Christ to stay in the world so that we could have the True Light in all of its direct intensity and splendor. Now that Jesus Christ is not in the world some seem to think that the sun has set and we only live in the darkness with some reflected light off of the moon. However, Jesus taught something that is very different:
Joh 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
As you can read, this verse says that Jesus thought it was more highly beneficial for Him to go away than to stay on the earth. Why is that important to see? Jesus said if he leaves He can send us the “Comforter” which you should know is the Holy Spirit and He will enter into your spirit and abide with you forever. You can read more about the Comforter in John 14:16-26 and John 15:26. What Jesus is telling us, is that my Spirit will come into you and abide with you forever and this is better than if I stay here physically. So did Jesus ever leave? Or did He return and rise internally, inside of us by His Spirit? For God to be inside of me 24×7 is far better than having 5 minutes of physical Jesus’ time externally.
The True Identity of the Moon and the False Light!
I have tried to give you scriptures that back up my statement of the definition of Light and Darkness, Day and Night! Now let’s shift gears and go to see some verses about Satan and see how he is described to us. What does the Bible say about this “False Light” that I talked about earlier:
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Some seem to think that Satan has no light, however, here is a verse that would seem to say something a bit different than that. In this verse, Satan is spoken of as a spiritual being that “transforms” into an “angel of light”. What does that mean? If I put on a costume, I could transform myself into a Police Officer, but does that make me a true Police Officer? No you see it clearly does not. It only means I am pretending to be a Police Officer. The word “transform” according to the Strong’s can mean to “disguise”. A disguise is of course a costumed fake or a false appearance. Sound Familiar? You can clearly call it a false appearance for Satan to portray himself as an angel of light. The Bible says that God is Light and in Him is no darkness, so we can see that Satan is trying to present himself as a messenger of the omnipotent God. This would appear to be a picture of the moon who reflects the true light, but yet has no real ability to produce the true light in himself. Someone who appears to be light, but is not really light. Is that a Christian? Or is that a good descriptive terminology for the moon as being a false light? Let’s see another definition to learn more:
2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
Here is that same Greek word for “Transforming” that is used to describe Satan in the very next verse of 2 Corinthians, this time used to describe those that are called “false apostles”. Uh oh? It does sound familiar? Those that are false apostles transform or disguise themselves to appear as true apostles. Isn’t this what Satan was said to do? To transform and appear as an angel of light? You can clearly see that Satan is called the “False Light” by these two verses. Satan is referred to in the Bible as a “deceiver” (Rev 12:9) and a “liar” (John 8:44), both of these terms would describe a spiritual being that is attempting to be something that he is not. You can also see an implied meaning of the moon, being given to us. The moon goes through phases of transformation from total darkness to fully illuminated light and then back again to darkness. To transform means and implies a constant change is occurring. You can see Satan today, tomorrow he will appear to be different. On the other hand, God is Light, and He is a constant never changing source of strength and truth to us. Which one is the church suppose to model our lives after? Is the church suppose to transform themselves constantly like the moon? Or are we to remain constant and consistent, growing into the image of Christ who is the Sun? You see the moon cycle only makes sense for the church on the half of the phase that grows brighter and not the reverse phase where it vanishes. The church is never ever is suppose to go back into the darkness. Here is kind of an interesting verse to see:
Rev 16:13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
Satan is clearly described, being called “the dragon” (Rev 12:9) as someone who is associated with the beast and the “false” prophet”. Again we see Satan being called a deceiver, someone who portrays himself as a prophet, but is full of lies. The words of their mouth are described as being unclean spirits that look like frogs. These spirits would try to consume or eat the true words, by a plague of deceptive words. At least what we see is that Satan is in control and heavily associated with the spread of lies and false teaching and boy is that all over the internet.
Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Jesus gives us a word of warning about people who disguise themselves on the outside but are extremely harmful on the inside. These are called “False Prophets” and that would indicate they are “False Lights”. Who do you think controls these liars? It can only be Satan. Here is another interesting verse of Scripture that describes Satan:
Eph 6:12 For 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.
So again this verse is talking about Satan our adversary. It clearly calls him the “Ruler of the Darkness” of this world. Who or what are we told, is it that rules the night? According to the Genesis 1:16 it is the “lesser light” AKA the “moon” (Ps 136:9). I do not recall any verse in the N.T. that says the church Rules the Night? Do you know of any? To rule means to dominate, to control, and to exercise authority over. Jesus is clearly the Ruler of the Church, but who rules those that are not Christ’s? It is not Christ and it is not the church, so it must be the moon, Satan. Don’t get me wrong, the church can certainly be a light to them that are in the darkness, but we do not rule them, we just show them the way out of their darkness by preaching the gospel. If they believe it, they are saved and the Sun of God rises in their hearts and now they are no longer living in the darkness either.
Now you can see in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 and Ephesians 2:2 that Satan is also called the “Prince” of this world. A “Prince” is also defined as a “ruler”, look up the word and see what it means. All this does is tells us who rules the Night and the darkness that is in the world. It is Satan who rules those who live in the darkness and he is the symbolic moon that deceives many into thinking they already have the true light. As long as people believe the lies of the enemy over the truth of God’s word they will remain in darkness and be ruled and controlled by Satan. This is the reality of the spiritual conditions of men’s hearts.
2Pe 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
What we have seen are scriptures and many verses in the Bible that show there are true lights and false lights in the world today. These false lights represents people in the world that teach lies in whole or in part. False teachers, false prophets, false apostles, these are all instruments of darkness , controlled by the ruler of the darkness, used by Satan to deceive those who are easily fooled. People walking in the darkness, easily are tripped up and stumble and they do not know or understand in what it is that causes them to fall.
Perhaps you can find scriptures that back your point of view, however, they will not discount or discredit the verses that I just gave you. God’s word never contradicts itself so if you find verses that says the church is the moon, you will have to change the verses that I just gave you or delete them from your Bible. You can change the meaning of the word of God, simply by changing the definitions of a few words. If you do not use God’s definitions, you are buying into Satan’s definitions. This is what happens everyday in the world and on the internet.
Being the True Light to A Dark World!
So I have taught you that to be a true light to the world you must possess wisdom, understanding and knowledge that others in the darkness need and want to see. It is a well known fact that people do not know, what they do not know and this describes Christians as well as unsaved people in the world. Too many Christians think they know something valuable and try to go give it to others, but end up doing more harm than good. If you have only been saved a short time, guess what, maybe you should go and study and learn something that is worthy for others to know, before you try to be a light for Christ. Here is a verse that speaks volumes about internet bloggers that I compete with.
Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
God says, that everyone should be on a path to be a teacher to others. Everyone should be learning and growing up spiritually. Every Christian should become a light to those who are in the darkness. But, God clearly says it is a process to become this, and it does not automatically happen. Why is that? God writing to the Hebrews said that by now they should have been teachers, but because of their lack of understanding they were clearly not qualified for this task. They needed to go back and study the basics, drinking the milk meant for babies before they could ever attempt to teach anything that had meat in it. Only you and God know where you are and what you are able to do. Check up with Him before you do anything crazy. God Bless!
Understanding How to Become a Light to a Dark World! Part 2
(Ver 1.3) We are studying an advanced spiritual Bible lesson of “How to Become a Light to an Unsaved Dark World”. This is the second lesson in the series and we have already covered many new ways of thinking about this very important subject. If you have not read the first lesson, I would highly recommend that you go and start with “Part 1” since I cannot repeat everything in every lesson or I would never be able to teach anything new. What we have learned so far is that there are two dimensions of spiritual condition. These were called Light and Darkness or Night and Day by God we were introduced to this concept in Genesis 1:16. In this same verse we learned that these realms also had rulers that controlled each. The Sun ruled the Day and the moon ruled the night. I then taught you clear verses that Jesus was the Sun that rules the day and gives us spititual light. We have also uncovered a new Bible definition for what “Light” is in the eyes of God. According to Bible examples, to give light is the method of teaching people the truth. We also learned of the Bible existence of the “True Light” which was just another title for Jesus Christ. However, the existence of any “True Light” reveals the implied presence of “false light” that must also exist in the world by the law of antithesis. We have reviewed approximately 10 verses that confrimed Jesus Christ’s identity as the symbolic Sun that rules the symbolic spiritual realm of the Day, giving you more than enough references to Him in this capacity. Today I want to continue the lesson with information about other lights that exist in the world besides Jesus the true light called the Sun of Righteousness. In knowing this truth, you will suddenly realize that you have a cmpetition to teaching the truth.
Understanding There is More than One Source of Light!
Getting the correct Bible interpretation of the Truth of God is highly dependent us upon getting God’s definitions of the words spoken in the verses being studied. Given our new definition of what light is (teaching others God’s knowledge and giving them true understanding), only God had all light until He started sharing it for others to learn by Jesus teaching them. Now, whoever, hears the truth and understands it also has the same light from God in them in a very limited capacity. So at one time God had all of the light in Him, but each of us who has heard and believed now has a little bit of His light in us right now. I believe I have just introduced you to how to become a light to the world. There is a concept given to us by God in this lesson that if you do not know anything or understand anything in the Bible then you would be classified as someone who is in the darkness (lacking and true light) and I will give you several verses in the Bible to confirm this later. But, when you believe in Christ and have made Him the Lord of your life, you now have heard the Gospel and let that light shine inside of you.
If you look at the night sky, you might realize that most of those star lights in the sky are far greater in size and intensity than our Sun? The only reason they appear so small and insignificant to us, is because of the distance from our planet. There exists well over a billion suns in our universe and most of them are many millions of light years away from the earth. So obviously God did not create a universe with only One True Light source as an example to get us to think differently. This however, does not mean there are many ways to God or many religions that can give you the true light. We just have to learn there are many sources of light in the world, at least one of them is called the True Light, but yet the others still exist and some of these might qualify as even being a false light. If you understand the Bible, the “stars” in some verses can be a symbolic term used to describe “angels” (for example stars in Rev 1:20 , Rev 12:4). These little lights in the sky can be symbolic of angels and guess who Satan was? Satan of course was one of the chief angels. Oh, well maybe we’ll get into that more later. What I want you to start to see, is that Satan can be called a light producing spiritual being. It is very much like the old saying that goes “God taught Satan everything that he knows, but God didn’t teach him everything that He knew”. If Satan holds some knowledge and understanding of spiritual things, then he is by definition a light carrier or spreader. We will talk more about that later.
What I will now attempt to do is show you scriptures that will inform us of the existence of other stated lights in the world. By establishing the existence of other types of lights in the world other than Jesus Christ, we can begin to see how we can become one of the true lights to a dark world that can counter those that are false lights. I will start this part of the lesson with a description that Jesus gives us when speaking about John the Baptist:
Joh 5:35 He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.
Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist using the terms that he was a witness to the truth. Notice that John the Baptist was not an apostle of Jesus. John was not even a member of the church, since the church does not exist yet. Still, John the Baptist is spoken of in terms that were rarely seen to describe anyone in the Bible up until this point. If you study the Bible closely you should discover that John the Baptist was in the ministery category of a “prophet” of God, but yet he was still just a man like you and me. Jesus calls John a burning and a shining light! That sounds a lot like a description for a sun, but it could also represent a torch type of fire light, or maybe even a description for a candle. We know John is not the Jesus the Sun of Righteousness, but yet he is described using similar terminology. What we can clearly see is that he is never described using any of the characteristics of the moon. The moon shines, but it does not burn. I find that very interesting don’t you? So what made John the Baptist a burning light? I believe it was because he went about teaching people to “Repent and be baptized” ? John is said to be the one that was to prepare the way for the Christ. When John was born, his father was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy about John and Jesus. In this discourse in Luke 1, you can read that John is called a Prophet of God. Then you can see this statement and it tells us why Jesus called John a light:
Luk 1:77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
John’s father prophesied that John would “Give the Knowledge of Salvation” unto the people of Israel concerning “the remission of their sins”. Wow that is some strong information being given to us. John was a light, because he taught people about the coming works of the Messiah. Jesus came to Save His People from their sins and this was very good news for everyone to hear. What we have just learned, is that John was a light, before Jesus Christ was a light to the same dark world. Interesting, isn’t it? You can obviously see that Jesus is not speaking physically or naturally, so Jesus was definitely speaking figuratively and symbolically about the forerunner and this witness of Christ. John brought the knowledge and understanding to the people that the Messiah was coming, so Jesus called him a bright light to the people. John brought the truth and taught the people and Jesus said it was very good.
Mat 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Jesus also confirms, that we the church are now the light of the world. Here we have Jesus speaking to the apostles, the founders of the church of Jesus Christ, calling them lights, before they were even born again. I find that very interesting to study. This verse in Mat 5:14, is an exact duplication of the same Greek words and phrasing that Jesus used to describe Himself in John 8:12. Jesus said “I am the light of the world”, then in Matthew 5:14 Jesus says “You are the light of the world”. So is Jesus trying to teach us something new? Both of these verses describes us in the same terms of being “Light” as He is the “Light”. This Greek word means to “shine” as with “rays”. It also has an inferred meaning of “fire”. All of this sounds like the sun light and not the reflective moonlight.
Rom 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
We can clearly see that we are the light to them that are in darkness. I guess you could wrongly conclude that means we represent the moon. The moon is in the night sky being illuminated by the sun and that makes good logical sense. However, this verse does not say we reflect the light of Christ, it says we are the light of Christ. Do you understand the difference? This is almost exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 5:14 that we read right before this verse. Have you ever thought or seen where the Bible says “We are the Body of Christ”? Have you ever given that much thought? To be the body of Christ would indicate that we have the same Spirit in us that Jesus Christ had in Him. If that is true, then we are the True Light and we are not just a reflection of the True Light. Maybe you should go and read, Romans 12:5, 1 Cor 12:12-27, and Ephesians 5, where it describes the Church to be the actual body of Christ. That is actually a very important truth to know. Where you go, Christ goes, because the Spirit of Christ is in you. Here is another very relevant scripture that Jesus describes Christians in terms that we need to understand:
Mat 13:43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The church is called those who are righteous(Rom 10:10). Therefore the church is spoken of in terms of being the true light from the sun and not just a reflection of that light. If the church is the moon, this would have been a good opportunity for God to tell us that. Instead of saying the church will shine like the moon, we are described in terminologies of the direct sun. I find that very relevant to our understanding of who we are and what we do.
So what does it mean to be called a light of the world? To be a shining light of the world means to be a deliverer of the knowledge of God and a teacher of the Gospel of Christ. The word of God is the Light of God. If you understand it, you can teach it to others. So far in the Bible, I have not discovered any scriptures that describes the church or believers in terms of just being reflections of the light of Christ as the moon does. What you actually see in the Bible is more terms that describe us to be like the sun, than the moon.
Where is the Location of the Light and the Darkness?
Now let’s describe where this light and darkness is located. By understanding the location of the light and darkness, we can better understand what they really are. We of course know that the sky above us is the domain of natural light and natural darkness. But, since I am talking about spiritual things instead of natural things, where is this spiritual light and spiritual darkness? You see if Jesus says we are the light of the world, that could imply that we just glow in the dark in the night, but clearly that is not what the Bible is talking about. Given my earlier definition of light as being “knowledge” and “understanding” where does this exist? You could say in your brain, or in your mind or within your intellect and that would be very closely related to the truth. Your mind is not your spirit and your spirit is not your mind. However, your mind is in contact with your spirit. I have not given a direct lesson on the human makeup, but I have alluded to it in other blogs. People are spirit beings, that have a soul, who live in a body. That just so happens to be a triune being, made in the image and likeness of God. The soul of man is comprised of your mind, your will and your emotions. Your mind/soul exists between your body and your spirit. Sound waves of spoken words enter your physical ears, and are transferred into your mind by your inner ear, which can allow these words to enter into your spirit, if you choose to believe what you hear. These are just basic Bible truths that I hope that you understand already. So let’s continue to locate the spiritual light using the Bible:
Joh 11:10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
Jesus tells us something very profound here, Jesus says a man that walks at night without the light “IN HIM” stumbles. Where is the Light suppose to be? The light is said to be internal, inside your body, this is the location of the spirit of the man. So where is the Night? It is also inside a man in their spirit? How do you stumble in your spirit? That again is a question that you should ask yourself. Obviously this is not a physical light source, if you cut open a Christian’s body you do not see light rays shooting outward. So what is this internal light a symbol of? The internal light is simply a symbolic representation of spiritual knowledge and understanding that we possess. In actuality there are two types of spiritual light that are related, the light that is in us, is the light we possess internally, because we see and understand parts of the Bible. Being a light to the world is taking this light that is in us and sharing it with those who live in the darkness so that they might also know and understand.
So do Christians have this Light IN them always and forever? Jesus gives us very explicitly the location of the light, to be in our spirits. We can see that a man who has no light in him is in darkness and said to be in the Night and he stumbles. Why does he stumble? Because of his mind and his thinking and his lack of knowledge and understanding. What Jesus is talking about are the differences between those that understand the Bible and those who do not understand the Bible. If I understand the Bible, or at least a part of it, I have some light inside of me. This light came from God, and from His Word. There are tons of people in the world who do not have a clue what the Bible says or means and these people all live in the darkness of the night, because of their ignorance and lack of understanding. Here is a very valuable scripture to see in our discussion:
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.
What is darkness and how is it related to Blindness? Both of these are the absence of light or the inability to spiritually see the light. No Light, then you have No Sight! Satan has blinded the minds of ALL of them that believe NOT, this verse says. Because of this blindness in their SOULS/MINDS, they are unable to see the light of the gospel of Christ in THEM (their spirits). Did you notice that the Gospel of Christ is called the LIGHT of GOD? What is the Gospel? It is the good news of what Jesus Christ has freely given to every man, woman and child. So we can conclude that those who do not believe in Christ, do not understand the Gospel, because Satan has deceived them into believing something else and therefore they do not see the light of the Truth in their spirits. The Light is again spoken of in terms of being spiritual knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. Knowing and understanding God’s word would be the ability to see the True Light. Jesus is said to be the giver of the Light, but Satan is at work diligently to block the light. How does Satan do this? He presents false teachings, false religions, false gods, false prophets, and false apostles to deceive you into a lie. Also, Satan can place thoughts, ideas and suggestions in your mind to cause you to be distracted from the truth.
So I have given you two major scriptures that inform us where the light is suppose to be. This location is said to be in the spirit of man. Also, keep in mind where the darkness is located, it is in the spirits of men and women. So to be a light to them that are in darkness is a practice to tell people the truth of the Word of God and pray that they believe it and understand it. If they choose to believe the truth, the spiritual Sun can rise inside of them also, then they will be born of the Day and no longer live in darkness.
Defining Spiritual Night and Day!
We have been talking about the subjects of darkness and light and I have mentioned that these are clearly synonymous terms for night and day. Correctly understanding the Bible means, finding and understanding God’s definitions of the Bible terms and symbols presented. God many times uses these types of natural symbols to teach hidden things that men think they already understand. But, because we do not get God’s definition for the subject, we are usually confused and live with what we think the Bible says. But, if we can get God’s definition for the words, then we can have greater assurance of a more accurate interpretation for what God wanted us to know in the first place. We have already read many scriptures in this lesson so far on this subject, but let’s go find new scriptures that help us to define what Night and Day is to God using His Word.
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.
As you can read again, Jesus is referred to as the “True Light”. But, it also says that to those who have accepted Him, the darkness has passed. Meaning Christians no longer live in the realm of darkness or in the spiritual night. Therefore if the light is present in us, the spiritual sun (Jesus) has not set, He has only risen internally in our spirits. Day and light and night and darkness are synonymous symbolic terms. Therefore from this verse we can see by implied antithesis that the day has appeared in us. The term “True Light” infers the existence of “False Light” as we have already discussed. People can of course dispute this or explain it away by their human reasoning and their definition of the word “True”. However, in my way of thinking if something is said to be true it would have to be something that was the opposite of a lie, or the opposite of that which is false. Any cleaver lie can appear very real on the surface and be taken by many to be true. It is very much like watching a Hollywood, movie. Everything in the movie is usually based upon lies, but they are presented in a format that appears to us to be so absolutely real. This is exactly how deception is presented in the world by Satan.
What you need to do is see what the Bible says. In this verse in 1 John 2:8, there is a direct connection to the Word of God and the light that shines in us. John writes a new commandment to us, yet this new commandment is more directly called the Word of God which gives us the light. These words are said to be True in Christ and now also in us! All of these words are in direct relationship to the spiritual light that is now shinning in us, because we have heard and accepted it. We have already seen the location of the light as being “In Us”. So we can conclude that the reason for the light that is now shinning in us, was given to us from us hearing, knowing and understanding the Word of God.
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:
Reading this verse carefully, it describes a spiritual process that has occurred within every believer. Our hearts use to be called a” dark place” without Christ, that would indicate that we were of the night and did not understand the Word of God. However, now it says that the “Day Star” has arisen in our hearts and the Day has Dawned within us. Do you understand that the sun rises every day and that begins the daylight hours? Jesus is called the “Day Star” and this is representative of our closest star that we observe during the daylight hours. So does the spiritual Day Star ever set in Christian hearts? I have not found any verses that say that occurs, in fact we just read a verse that said the darkness had passed. So the light is always present, when it arises in us, it is there for good. This is just another reason to see that we are not the moon who goes completely dark. The Christians are now described as being of the spiritual Day, because of the “Day Star” that has arisen within us. That would indicate that wherever we go Christ the Day Star goes also. It would also mean that we now have understanding of the Word of God in our sprits that it is permanently resident there.
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
As you can see in this verse we (the Church) are again confirmed to be of the Day and not of the night. The moon only shines at night and not normally during the day so we have to fit what we believe to what we read in the Bible. I hope that you are seeing and understanding these verses. This verse says that we are the children of the Light, which infers there are also children of the night, but these are not Christians. You can clearly see that there is an established division being stated. This separation between Day and Night is very explicitly defined. The day is a 12 hour period of light, the night a 12 hour period of darkness. These are two separate and distinct spiritual conditions. I believe that the earth symbolically represents both those who are saved and those who are lost. You can understand how I got to this conclusion by studying the parable of the Sower in Mark 4. Jesus tells us that the earth or the soil represents the hearts of people. Now think in terms of the earth and the earth’s counter clockwise rotation. Those on the dark side of the earth that have turned away from the Sun, represents those who are lost. Those who have turned to the Light they are the ones that are saved. Those in the night are ruled by the moon who they can occasionally see at night. The moon appears to be a reflection of the True Light, but yet it has a dark side that is not revealed to people. However, the Sun represents God and His light radiates in every direction lighting the good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly at the same time. The Sun rules the Day and those who are in the light and they do not see the moon, only the Sun. The Sun shines during the day and the moon is seen mostly in the night. It is just so obvious to me, that I can see it so very clearly. I guess I can understand how difficult it is to see for others who are new to these Bible verses.
Rom 15:21 But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand.
Here in this verse we can see that it is prophesied about a people who will begin to see. That would be the opposite of blindness and those in darkness. But, it also declares that they will hear with their ears and understand what is said. So we have a people spoken of that were spiritually blind, but now understand and know the truth. Those that see because of the Light of God and those who do not see because they live in darkness.
Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Here is another witness to what the light is representing symbolically. In this verse the “eyes of your understanding” is spoken of as being something that is spiritually able to see or perceive the knowledge of God. Just as your body has natural eyes that observe physical light rays, the spiritual eyes have ability to perceive the truth or lies presented to it. All I am trying to do is to get you to see why I described what light and darkness meant in the symbolic usage that we have clearly observed in the Bible.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
What we observe in the N.T. is a repeated pattern, that the Bible contains mysteries and things which are difficult or impossible for the natural man to see and understand. This information is concealed from them that do not believe for a purpose. But, to them that are open, God grants light to see and understand these hidden mysteries.
Eph 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
There are just so many verses in the Bible that speak of this spiritual situation of darkness and the inability to understand, that I cannot give you them all. I hope and pray that I have given you enough to see them for what they are. Spiritual blindness is a condition of the heart/spirit whereby men are incapable of understanding anything that is spiritual. In this verse in Ephesians, knowledge is spoken of in terms of a beneficial way to the life of God. It is also reported that ignorance or the lack of knowledge is a determining factor that keeps people from the life of God. All of this is spoken of in terms of the ability of the spirit of man to see and to understand. I’ll just do one more scripture and I’ll quit trying to get you to see the definition of light and darkness, day and night.
Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
God’s Word and His Spirit are again implied to be the Light that is rising within the hearts of these people to bring them wisdom and all spiritual understanding. That is an awesome prayer to pray for yourself and those that God sends you to. What you must realize is that if there is “spiritual understanding” that it must be different than “natural understanding”. People want to look at natural things and use human logic to determine the meaning of life. However, God says these people are just blind and they do not know where they are going or why they stumble and fall.
So we have seen a number of verses that inform us that there exists two spiritual dimensions. One is called the Day and one is called the Night. These two dimensions of light and darkness represents two groups of children. Those that are children of the day are the children of God. Those who are children of the night are children of Satan. You can theoretically pass from either state or dimension to the other simply by choosing to believe or disbelieve. I hope this is has been an informative lesson and that you have learned a lot. In the next lesson on this subject I will specifically talk about the symbolic identity of the moon. God Bless!
If you like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 3” now.
6 Days of Creation – Genesis Chapter 1 Review
(Ver 1.2) In my Blogs the last couple of weeks I have been exploring an overview of the 6 days of creation and teaching how each day fits a prophetical view into God’s timeline for the 6000 year period of human history. I know this is a controversial viewpoint and it is probably brand new information to many. However, it is there if you research it and studyit from a prophetic perspective. Some have probably wondered how did I come up with the idea that the 6 days of creation were prophetic windows? I beleieve that it is just what the Bible says and therefore it is not my opinion or my personal interpretation of what God says. What we must do is to allow the Bible to interpret itself, so we must look for God’s definitions, His commentary and explanations and we must put these together with the words written in Genesis to understand them. Look at this verse and see what it says for yourself:
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not,…
You see from this verse God says I have declared or stated the end from the beginning. In other words God has prophesied the ending from the beginning. Genesis chapter 1 definitely declares the beginning of our current world system. So somewhere in that description is information about what is going to occur in our history and its final conslusion. To declare something that has not occurred is clearly a statement of prophetic proportion. The only to verify that a prophecy is from a real prophet is for us to examine the words and see if they have been fullfilled, have transpired or are coming to pass presently. Here is another scripture that speaks to us along these lines:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done,….
Again in this verse we see a powerful reference of something to look for when reading and studying the Bible. We can use these words to imply that God declares that what He has done during creation is that which will occur again. You see as I have read the Bible I have discovered a series of repeated patterns that have occured over and over. That is why that I believe that we should study the book of beginnings like it was a raod map to our future. Of course since we are at the very end of the 6th day or 6000 years, we should realize that we do not have very much time left. This actually makes our research more sure, since the majority of recorded history has already occurred and we are nearing the end now.
We started the chapter analysis by looking at the fact that the earth as stated in the Bible is much older than 6000 years, but we are not specifically told how old it is anywhere. It could very well be millions or billions of years old. We looked at scripture that speaks to us about a pre-Adamic civilization or world that existed prior to our current world system. We found scriptures that indicate that this world was completely destroyed and apparently God started over with us, or for us.
We looked at the work of God during creation and identified God’s first act as being division. God divided Light from darkness. We can imply from this that prophetically speaking God is breaking away or dividing himself from something that He does not want to associate with. At least 3 times in the chapter we can see that God divided something from something else. I can tell you right now that most Bible teachers and preachers don’t have a clue to the significance of these words of God so they ignore them. I’m sorry that I just don’t have time to teach you all of that right now.
The next significant point about creation is how God created. I might have alluded to the fact that God looked at the problem and always spoke the answer or the solution. As it is written in the New Testament, God is a God who calls those things that be not as though they were and as we can see from creation, they become exactly what they are called. Since man is made in the image of God this implies that man operates the exact same way that God operates. Of course not at the same level or capacity that God is, but you would be amazed at what the Bible says about our spoken words and the Bible is very strong in this area and says many things that are very hard to accept by many Christians.
During our study we identified some of the key symbolic elements and researching them in the scriptures discovered what they meant and how they are applied within creation. Light is symbolic of God. Seas are symbolic of people. Day and night are symbolic of the conditions of men’s hearts. Some have allowed the sun of God to light their hearts and then others have been kept in darkness because they have allowed Satan to blind their minds. We have identified the symbolic Sun as being Jesus Christ. Then we have identified the symbolic moon as being Satan, the ruler of the darkness.
In the creation of Adam on day 6 I took you through an analysis of the Hebrew words for man and Adam as being the same word. I then showed you from scripture how Genesis 1:27 should have been translated as Adam instead of man, because God calls both the male and the female by the same name. The inference of and application to marriage is of course easily seen.
Finally we looked at the coming into maturity of the body of Christ. We also looked at the delegated authority of the body of Christ. We are at the end of Day 6 of God’s established timetable and God has the planned return of Jesus Christ next on the agenda. I believe very strongly that Jesus’ return is not very long from now. I know I did not attempt to cover everything that the chapter speaks about. My goal was to give you some new perspectives and things to think about that you hadn’t seen before. Things that can be tremendously important to understanding a large portion of the Bible. I hope you have enjoyed Chapter 1 of Genesis and we will move into Chapter 2 next. I probably will not go verse by verse but I will change to a larger what are the key concepts given to us level of study. There are some awesome things in Chapter 2 and 3 if you can see them. So continue reading in Genesis and see what else God has to reveal to us.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 5
(Ver 1.1) After I learned this information that I have been attemting to teach to you, it changed my perspective on much of the Bible. I started to understand a lot more of the parts that use to be very hard to follow. I hope that you too are beginning to see some glimpses of the light of how the scriptures harmonize and fit together. We have been discussing the two different realms or spiritual states of the human heart. Those who are in darkness and those who are in the light. We have seen that Jesus Christ represents the sun and we are beginning to understand how the word of God causes Christ to arise and shine into our hearts. I think it is a good time to talk about the identity of the moon.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
I once heard a minister say that the church is the moon (lesser light). That we are the one’s that live now in this dark world and we are to rule over it. Of course on the surface I understood what he was trying to say but he got it all very wrong. We are certainly in the world, but we are not of this world. In fact if you look at scripture it says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). No, just think about all of the the known moon’s characteristics. The moon is a lifeless chunk of rock that has no ability to do anything. The light it shines at night does not originate from itself, no it is simply a reflection of the light from the sun. Some would say that fits the church, we don’t have any ability within our self but we depend upon Christ who gives us the ability to do whatever. Of course that is true, but let’s take the analogy deeper. The moon is lit in the sky in different phases. The moon goes from completely lit to completely dark. How does that fit the church? Are you saying God shines on us sometimes and sometimes He doesn’t? Or are you saying man hides from God so that God cannot shine on him? Either one doesn’t really make any sense to me. The moon is also only lit on one side. There is a dark side of the moon that we don’t see. Is this descriptive of the church? Does the church only show the world the part they want to see and hides the part they don’t want people to see in the darkness. That shouldn’t fit a true Christian in the church either. These are major problems to the moon being the church from my view point.
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
We know from reading Genesis 1:18 that the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. We could also say that the moon rules the darkness. Night and darkness are synonymous terms. Here is a scripture that should help to clear up the confusion of is the moon the church. Let’s look at a verse in Ephesians 6:12:
Ephesians 6:12 For 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.
Did you see what that this verse says? Who is this verse talking about? It is speaking of Satan and his demonic forces. These are the spiritual forces that are our enemies and as this verse states, they rule the darkness, not the church. In fact the Bible tells the church that we are not of the darkness (John 12:46), it also says what association has light with darkness (1 Th 5:5), meaning there should be none. You are welcome to study this subject in more depth, because I did not attempt to give you every scripture that there is on the subject. My goal is to point you in the right direction and help you learn. God Bless you and I hope you enjoyed Day 4. I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, but I hope I helped you to see some new things in the Word of God.
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