Choosing Light: The Active Nature of Belief

and yet he goes on to say that though he had not been sent into the world to condemn the world that nevertheless his coming did produce a judgement and that as the result of his coming the world was divided into two main groups those who believe in him and those who do not believe in him now our Lord obviously found that it was necessary that he should go on to say these things [00:02:17]

and so he knows that there is in men a fundamental misunderstanding both with regard to himself and with regard to his relationship to God and thus you see it comes to pass that what God did in order that men might be saved becomes the very means of condemnation he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God [00:03:18]

this generation of mankind especially all have lived in this present century we all tend to pride ourselves on knowledge we say knowledge is power knowledge we think is the thing we need and if only we had that knowledge everything would be right and yet our Lord says this is the condemnation that light has come well what's the matter with men then [00:06:39]

our Lord indicates it in the use of these words darkness and light if teaching is that men by nature is enveloped in darkness that all of us there we have the Faculty in a sense of vision and of sight are not able to use it we are blinded by a darkness that is what the Bible means by evil and by sin [00:07:41]

it is vital that we should understand that sin and evil are not negative but are positive now I say that of course because of the very terminology which is used here by our Lord he talks about men loving darkness rather than light and hating light now we must be clear therefore about this state this condition of sin in which the whole human race by nature is involved [00:09:10]

he says this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness now he uses a word which is a very strong word there we just translated as love love there means the love of intelligence it means love which is a deliberate choice an active choice in other words he says the condemnation is that the light has come into the world [00:11:29]

now the astounding thing to me is that anybody should be disposed to query that or to question it or to argue against it are we not all aware when we rarely are quite honest and when we analyze ourselves and our lives and our activities that we are aware within ourselves of a positive power the direction of evil [00:12:54]

now the trouble with mankind is that it hasn't yet fully developed it's in this negative phase it hasn't arrived yet it's a positive condition for which it was destined so they say you mustn't talk so much about evil what you really mean is that certain people fail to do good now that is the argument with which you are familiar [00:10:46]

and you know it's continued since then whenever the Christian Church is rarely active and powerful she is always persecuted you read the account of any revival or great religious awakening that has ever taken place and you will always find that this same bitterness and malice and hatred and spleen have ever been many festive [00:24:38]

and it is because we like these things and love them and delight in them and gloat in them that we hate the gospel because it condemned well let me give you one great classical illustration that seems to me to put it all so perfectly it's a story in the Old Testament King Ahab of Israel had invited Jehoshaphat the king of Judah to go up with him in a certain expedition [00:39:24]

and it is because we like these things and love them and delight in them and gloat in them that we hate the gospel because it condemned well let me give you one great classical illustration that seems to me to put it all so perfectly it's a story in the Old Testament King Ahab of Israel had invited Jehoshaphat the king of Judah to go up with him in a certain expedition [00:39:24]

and what had been something casual to him before now became the biggest thing in the most central thing in his life and this meant in his case that he felt he'd gotta go to a prayer meeting every Monday night to a fellowship meeting every Wednesday night into a mins discussion meeting every Saturday night in the chapel to which he belonged [00:31:00]