A Life That Could Not Be Conquered

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, welcome to the program. We're delighted you can join us again today. And as we start, we just want to ask God to bless our time together. Dear Gracious Father in heaven, it's a privilege for us to spend time in Your Word. You tell us that Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And as we walk in the spiritually dark world, Father, we grateful that you illuminate the path before us. And as we look to Jesus, Father, and we focus on Him and we walk towards Him every day, we're so grateful, Father, that we don't have to walk in darkness. And we just ask now for Your Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds, illuminate our path as we study Your Word. Give us a fresh anointing of Your Holy Spirit is our prayer in Jesus name. Amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C Well, today's program has got an interesting title. It says, A life that could not be Conquered. So we want to look at this unconquerable life as is revealed in Jesus Christ. But we want to unpack some unique aspects that come from the Word of God. And someone that was known as the Beloved Disciple, someone who understood the love of God probably more than any of the other disciples was John, john the Revelator. He was the last one to die. He was actually one that didn't die in martyr's death. Matter of fact, they tried to kill him. They were going to throw him into a cauldron of oil and they did throw him in there. God miraculously spared his life and then they banished him to the island of Patmos. SPEAKER D And I'm actually going there in two weeks to Patmos. SPEAKER C Are you really? SPEAKER D Yes. SPEAKER C Well, you'll have to give us a report when you get back and tell us a little bit about Patmos. SPEAKER D I'm so excited to go there. SPEAKER C That is fantastic. Okay, well, I've not been to Patmos, but on the isle of Patmos, God gave to John a revelation. Now, John wrote three epistles, he wrote the Book of Revelation and he also wrote the Gospel. So we find ourselves in the first book sequentially in the Bible, the fourth Gospel, which is the Gospel of John, and it talks about Jesus Christ, who was in the beginning, he was the Word, he was with god, and the word was God. And then it tells us in verse four that in him that is in Jesus was life. Now I want you to just grab this, capture this for a moment. In him was life. And this life that was in Jesus, it tells us this life was the light of men. So the life of Christ is the light of men. It is the life of Christ that is to lighten our path. It is to lighten our minds, to illuminate us, to give us understanding. SPEAKER D So what I'm getting out of this is that there's something inside of Jesus that when he came to this world, it was like a sunrise to this world. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D There's something inside of him that was like the dawning rays that shine upon a dark earth. There's something inside of him that is just so different from this world. It's interesting, right? SPEAKER C Yeah, it's very interesting. We told in Matthew chapter four and verse 16, because this one unpack what you said there, that Christ is the light that comes into a place that's dark. Matthew, chapter four, verse 16. It says that the people who sat in darkness, now that is all people that have ever been born on this planet with a fallen human nature. Also people who are ignorant of what God is like because that darkness actually refers to a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge. Right. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. That light is Jesus Christ. And it says upon those who sat in the region of the shadow of death. So now it's lightning, darkness and death combining the two light has dawned. SPEAKER D That's beautiful. So Jesus is the sunrise? SPEAKER C Jesus is the sunrise, yeah. He is the son of righteousness, as is referred to in Malachi, chapter four. So we see here that Jesus, his life is light and his life is the light of men. Now it tells us that the light shines. This is in verse five of John, chapter one. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Some translations say apprehend, but if you look at the original meaning of that word, the Greek word there, it just simply means it didn't overcome it. SPEAKER D Oh, praise the Lord. It didn't overcome it. SPEAKER C Yeah. So what happens is darkness couldn't overcome the light. That actually reminds me of a story I remember years ago. It was a bit could be a fairy tale, I can't remember what it was, but a little bit of a folktale. And there was a king who was looking for a man that be worthy to marry his daughter. And of course, if you married the daughter, the princess, you would become a prince. And so he had all kinds of suitors come to me and there was no one that was actually good enough. They were the people coming from all Aristocracies and they were coming from some good bloodlines, but they were all puffed up and they were all impressed with their own good looks or their own wealth or their own knowledge, and he just didn't feel happy with this. He wanted someone that would love his daughter, that would be a man that could work hard and also a man that would be very intelligent. So then he decided he'll start his competition. He had a big barn and he wanted the people in this barn to come in and fill the barn in a day. They had a certain amount of hours to do it, fill the barn. And whoever could fill the barn in a day by himself would be the person that would actually get his daughter's hand in marriage. So this is what he decided he came up with. He thought, well, look, all these other men are no good. I want someone that's hardworking, but someone that will also love her. So what happens? One man came and then he got all these bales of straw and he started filling the barn as fast as he could with all these bales, but he couldn't there were still gaps and he just didn't measure up. Then the next person came and he brought sandbags, and these, of course, were very heavy and he was working quite well. And halfway through the day, he had half the barn filled up, but he started running out of strength. He just didn't have enough energy to fill that up. And so what happens is the next guy comes in and he gets pieces of wood, wood's a little bit lighter than the sand. So he starts filling up the place with wood and boxes and everything else, but he also didn't quite get there. But all these guys were there early in the morning and then they were there till the last minute and they all failed. Finally, one man showed up. He said, Look, I think I can do this, I can fold this barn. And what he did is, he didn't even show up early in the morning. Come midday, he's still not there and getting close to twilight, right. So this is like within an hour or half hour before the sun goes down and sets. He then shows up with a table, he closes all the barn doors, he puts three tables strategically in this place and then he just puts a lamp on it and lights the lamp and he floods the whole place with the doors closed with light. SPEAKER D Wow. SPEAKER C So he actually got the princess's hand in marriage because he was wise, he understood what light can do and that darkness actually cannot overcome light. SPEAKER D They cannot, cohabit they cannot live together. SPEAKER C Yeah. Darkness is merely the absence of light. SPEAKER D Isn't that interesting? It's not actually a thing, it's just the absence of light. SPEAKER C That's right. So in our world, there is the absence of light. And then it says that Christ came to this world as we read in Matthew chapter four, verse 16, the people who sat in darkness saw this great light, and upon those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, this light, this light, the life of Jesus Christ has dawned. SPEAKER D I've got something interesting here in the book of Luke. Luke, chapter one, and it's describing the mission of John the Baptist and also of the Messiah that he's pointing to. And in verse 76, it says and you, child, will be called the Prophet of the Highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God with which the day, spring or the dawn from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. SPEAKER C Wow. So this is a prophecy regarding the work that John the Baptist would do, but it also tells us what he would do in regards to preparing the way for the person who would be the light, like you said, to give light to those who sit in darkness. SPEAKER D And to guide our feet into the way of peace. Which is interesting. I think that actually hails back to Isaiah 59 where it says the way of peace. They have not known that's right. So they have not known where peace comes from. They keep trying all these different things. It's an amazing chapter, Isaiah 59. It's very, very full of poetic imagery about the destruction of sin and how people are just walking down different paths and they don't know how to go on the path of peace. And so Jesus comes to this planet as the light of the world to be able to guide our feet into the way of peace. Now, I find it very interesting. In two Corinthians, chapter four, we find out who's responsible for this darkness. SPEAKER C Right? Okay. SPEAKER D And just as a clarification, the word gospel means good news. And the good news specifically about God and his goodness, it says. But even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing whose minds the God of this age has blinded who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. The devil is working desperately and ferociously to obscure from our vision the light of the knowledge of God's glory. And that is a knowledge of his character. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D We actually find in verse six, it says, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so the devil has deceived the world regarding the character of God. This is the cause of all of the problems. And when Jesus comes as the light of the world, he has come to reveal in his beautiful face the goodness. SPEAKER C Of God, which is the know that is so beautiful. And I want to add to that text he just read that the God of this age has blinded the minds of men so that they won't believe, lest the light of the Gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, would shine upon them. Now, in the Book of Ephesians, chapter four and verse 18, it talks about their understanding being darkened. So understanding and darkness go hand in hand. So blinding the mind is actually to darken the understanding, it's taking away the ability to comprehend what God is really like. And so we read there it says having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God. So understanding darkness. So the darkness is being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. So this is something that we have inherently. We don't have a knowledge of God, and God has to actually reveal Himself to us so that as we see him, by beholding Him, we can actually become changed. The Bible actually says that we have to taste and see that the Lord is good. So there's an interaction there, but it comes through a knowledge of God, says the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because so that's actually the cause for it, because of the ignorance that is in them. And then it uses the word because again, because of the blindness of their heart. And in previous programs we said there's a heart problem. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C We have a heart problem and a head problem, a mind problem, and God is able to cure both those. SPEAKER D Praise the Lord. Jesus says in John, chapter eight and verse twelve, he says, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Such a powerful thing, what Jesus claims to be by implication, he claims that the world is in darkness and that he is the one who can. What's interesting, have you ever walked through a forest or something with no light? It's a bit of a scary experience. I remember being in the Solomon Islands, walking through coconut forests at time. Now, I did have a torch, but we chose to not use the torches for fun, partly because there was fireflies and glow in the dark mushrooms and it was a wonderful experience. But walking through that jungle, your eyes are straining to try to catch any glimpse of light. Moonlit nights were nice, but some nights the moon was covered with clouds. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And so we're walking through, we're trying to challenge ourselves to make our way through. But I tell you what, it's a bit hazardous because there's big holes in the ground. These were holes that were made by the biggest crab on this planet. It's called the coconut crab. SPEAKER C Oh, really? SPEAKER D And they eat coconuts. SPEAKER C Okay. SPEAKER D They're very powerful, massive things about the size of a small dog. SPEAKER C They got to break through a husk of a coconut that's right. To be very powerful. SPEAKER D And so we'd be walking through this hazardous thing in the dark, and when you turn the light on, when we'd get a bit bamboozled, we'd turn the light on and light would just flood in and it would just show everything around us. It would show the obstacles, it would show where we're going. And that's what Jesus is to us. He's the sunrise. And one thing that I find beautiful about that analogy, have you ever been sleeping and someone comes in and turns the light on? SPEAKER C Oh, yes. The first time that bright is it can be quite painful. SPEAKER D Very, very painful. SPEAKER C Adjust to it. That's right. SPEAKER D A friend of mine has these really fancy lights, this light system in his house, and he can control it from his phone, and he can set the globes to actually emit only 1% of their capacity during the night, and they use no power at all. But it's so gentle on your eyes. You can wake up and it's so gentle on your eyes. And the point I'd like to make here is that in Proverbs chapter four, it says the path of the righteous or the path of the just is Proverbs 418. SPEAKER C That's right, yes. SPEAKER D So the path of the just is as the shining light or the morning dawn, and it shines more and more and more until the perfect day, the sunrise of God's glory on this world. He doesn't just switch on the light, he gradually dawns on our hearts individually. God's a gentleman. He doesn't just bust on in. He slowly lets our eyes adjust to this new and greater reality before us. SPEAKER C Yeah, that's fantastic. I just want to come back to a text we shared before as well, which adds to what you're saying there. This is the one in Matthew chapter four and verse 16. It says, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned. So darkness is connected with death. And we are told that the devil has a certain power, and that is the power over death. We can read that in Hebrews, chapter two and verse 14, where it says that as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he likewise he, being Jesus, took part of the same flesh and blood that he through. Death might destroy him who had power over death that is the devil. And release those who, through fear of death will all their lifetime subject to bondage. So the devil has power over death. How does he do it? He's the one that introduced sin into the world, and he's the one that works through temptations to bring people to fall into sin and to stay in sin. So what happens is light brings life. As we just read before, Jesus was life and that life was the light of men. But then we also have the devil who's got power over death, and death is associated with darkness, and that is to actually blind the hearts and the minds of men so they cannot comprehend what God is really like, that revelation of light, which is a character of God. SPEAKER D And really, this is where we're getting full circle back to where we started in the beginning of our presentation series, back in the Garden of Eden. This whole sin problem started with the Devil taking an initiative in a conversation and saying, did God really say he's questioning God's character in this? And in effect, if you analyze all of the things that he said there, he's basically accusing God of being a liar, self centered and vindictive. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And trying to keep everyone down. And so the whole sin problem that has caused such devastation, like as I mentioned in another presentation, just in the last hundred years alone, 160,000,000 people have died in war alone, not to mention the casualties and natural disasters and all these different things that are happening in our world. Our world's in trouble. And it all hails right back to the beginning, when the devil said a lie about God's character and we believed it. SPEAKER C That's right. And every generation blames the previous generation for causing the problems that they have to deal with. But there's never been a generation that's ever come onto this planet that's actually solved the world's problems. They've not solved the sin problem, they've not solved the heart problem, the natural tendency to be egocentric, to be selfish. None of them have been able to resolve that. And even in business, they always talk about the previous generation of managers as being foolish. Matter of fact, and I'm just going to quote a straight, they say that in America, especially since they had the global financial crisis in 2008, the statement was made there that nothing is as stupid as the previous generation of managers because they brought this financial crisis on the world. So what happens is every generation goes and think they'll do better, but when the next generation comes, they blame the previous generation for making a big mess. Matter of fact, the Bible actually prophesies and says when they say peace and safety, sudden disruption comes upon them. Yeah, look out. So we cannot solve our problems. It's only God that can solve our problems. And it's only through Jesus Christ and also the everlasting Kingdom which God is going to set up through Him. Now, the problem we have, and you just started touching on that, is that we think that God is like us. He thinks like us. So if you do something wrong and you annoy me, I might not want to hang around with you so much. We think God is like that. So if we've done something wrong, we think, oh well, we've got to make amends. Maybe we've got to bring a gift or something or I've got know to do something to appease God. And then after I've groveled long enough, God will say, okay, but that is not what the Bible tells us. SPEAKER D Is not, isn't it? I've got a little thing written down here. It says Satan made the world believe that God was like men, cruel, vindictive and passionate. It's interesting, he accused God of the very thing that he himself was. So the devil's attributes are cruel, being vindictive and passionate. And he blamed God for being the very thing that Satan himself was. And he convinces the world that's what God is. And by us believing that, it's led to all sorts of chaos. I don't think we can even begin to comprehend how bad it is. You were sharing about how when we do something wrong to someone, we love to make amends by doing something like pay them or give them something or whatever. That's basically the basic mindset behind paganism, ancient pagan religions. SPEAKER C You got to appease the gods because. SPEAKER D They'Re angry, got to appease the angry gods and you got to get your eldest son and sacrifice him or get your daughter and burn her alive because that's what the gods wanted. This is what the devil has convinced the world of, that God has to be appeased and that he's as if. SPEAKER C He'S like a man, like a human. SPEAKER D Being, as if he's just like us. SPEAKER C Yeah. And you know, there's that text in Psalm chapter 15 and verse 21 where God actually says, you thought that I was altogether like you, which suggests that I'm nothing like you. You think I'm like you, you think I'm like a human being, and I think like a human being, that is not the case. And there's a text that I can add to that, a parallel text out of the prophet Isaiah's book, isaiah, chapter 55. And I just want to read this verse eight, because God's thoughts is nothing like our thoughts at all. God is love. That is what he is. It just doesn't say that God is loving or manifest love. It's something that comes out of his inner core, out of his being. He can't be anything else. And it says there in Isaiah 55, verse eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, it's God speaking. Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So whenever we put a framework of what human beings are like on God, we project it on God. We're actually projecting something on God that is false, because we are fallen, egocentric, selfish human beings. Matter of fact, in that sense, we are no different to the devil. The devil was egocentric. He says, I will be like the most. I will ascend about the stars of heaven. So it's all about him. They always say that the middle letter of sin is eye. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C The devil had eye problem, as they always say. But God is not like us and God is not like the devil. He's the opposite. God is light. His life is light. The devil wants us in darkness and darkness gives him power over us, which is the power of death. And Christ came to destroy that power. SPEAKER D I find it so interesting. In the book of Revelation, chapter twelve and verse seven, it says and war broke out in heaven. Michael. Another name for Jesus. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought, but the devil did not win. It's a powerful insight into this big battle between good and evil that we find ourselves in the middle of. That word war in the Greek is the word polymos, from which we get the word politics and polemics. SPEAKER C Yes. Polymos, yes. SPEAKER D Which it's interesting, we've seen a lot of turmoil, political turmoil here in this country. And it's interesting how people go about the political warfare political warfare in terms of how governments are run and whatever. Think about the last campaign or the campaign before one side says tries to bring up all the dirt of the other side of the government and try to convince everyone that they are not fit to rule and to lead. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And so what we have is not a physical war, but a spiritual say it political war where the devil is trying to convince the universe that God is not fit to lead. And in order to do that, he. SPEAKER C You put everything in its darkest. You portray everything even if it was something good, you portrayed in the most awful light. So it looks like whatever they did was bad. SPEAKER D He's trying to accuse God. SPEAKER C There's nothing about complimenting for doing something good. It's finding fault with absolutely everything. SPEAKER D That's right. And so Jesus comes into this world as we looked at in two Corinthians, chapter four to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Now, there's a verse in Isaiah which talks about this beautiful day when the wolf and the lamb and the lion shall lie down together and they won't be eating each other. A little tiny child will lead them. The little child will put their hand into a snake's den or little hole and won't get bitten. There's this beautiful time where there'll be no more destruction or harm in any way. And then it says the reason for this because the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the water covers the sea. So there's a day that it paints this beautiful picture when there will be no more destruction, no more pain no more suffering. And then it says the reason for this is because this world is saturated with a knowledge of God's goodness and his glory. His glory is his character. And so it follows that the reason why we have all of this stuff going on in our world is because people are blinded to the goodness of God's character. And we see that as soon as Adam and Eve believed the lie about God's character, from that moment onward, we just see this history of devastation. We see Abel being killed by Cain. We see Lamech taking multiple wives and becoming abusive. We see the whole world becoming desaturated with evil. SPEAKER C To the points were evil continually. SPEAKER D It says completely darkened and rebellious against God. We see the Tower of Babel. These minds were darkened. They want to actually oppose and rebel against God. We see right down through all pagan cultures throughout history and God is trying to tell a different story. He's trying to tell the truth that God does care. And that's the plan of the Bible, that's the plan of the Gospel is to reveal who God actually is. And when we see God in all of his beauty and all of his glory, that actually transforms us. It's actually the truth about who God is. The darkness is the lies. The light is the truth. SPEAKER C That is so beautiful. So we're talking about light, the light that we've spoken about, which is the light of men, is the life of Christ. Now, I just want to tell elaborate a little bit because we were in John chapter one. Now I want to go to first John, the Epistle, first John, chapter one. And I just want to tell you what kind of life we are talking about in regards to the life of Christ. It says there in verse two the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest to us. So the life that Jesus has is eternal life and that is what is the light of men. Matter of fact, when Jesus came and he paid the price on the cross, I mean, darkness was trying to wring out his life. But because he had not sinned, because he had not stepped into that darkness in his personal experience, he came into darkness to be the light. But he didn't step into that light through his personal experience. It says that he could not be held by the tomb. Why? Because he committed no sin. His eternal life. He says actually in the Bible he lays down his life that he may take it again. He said that no one takes that life from him. He had power to lay it down and he had power to take it again. Why? Because when the devil came, the devil had nothing in him. There was nothing that responded in Jesus to the devil's syphistries, to. The devil's temptations. He recapped his purity and his innocence, and therefore that eternal life can be accounted to us now because he paid the price for our sins. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So, dear listener, we thank you for joining us today on this program, which is looking at that life that could not be conquered and the life of Jesus could not be conquered by darkness. And his life, that eternal life is the light of men, and that light shines upon every single one of us. We look forward to catching up with you next time when we'll do a part two of this program, a life that could not be conquered. Until then, god be with you. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. 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