Living as Children of Light: Embracing Transformation

"Now we are considering this exhortation of the Apostle to these Ephesians to live a life that shall be in conformity with their profession and with their Creed with what they claim to believe he's been doing this as we've seen for some time he's been putting it to to them in terms of their new birth he's been putting it to them in terms of their relationship to God's dear children and has been calling upon them therefore to walk in love but now here in the eth verse he takes up a new argument and he's appealing to them as we began to see last Sunday morning to walk also in light to walk as children of light as those who belong to the light and whose native sphere is light rather than darkness." [00:70:72]

"We have emphasized that there is a complete and an entire difference between those who are in the light and those who are in darkness those who are Christians and those who are not Christians we then went on to consider the nature of this difference and again we emphasized its radical character that we are not merely in the dark before we become Christians but we are actually darkness that is darkness in us and so when we become Christians we are not merely given light but we are made light there is this transformation light enters and radiates the very depths and vitals of our being." [00:238:76]

"Darkness affects the mind the intellect the understanding all the faculties that are concerned with knowledge and the Bible of course above everything else uses this term in this respect and so when the Apostle turns to these Ephesians and says ye were sometimes Darkness means there was a time when your minds were dark you were ignorant and this of course is still true of all who are not Christians that is the trouble with a person who's not a Christian he or she is just ignorant there's no other word for it they are lacking in certain vital knowledge." [00:575:04]

"Well you know it can be put like this the real trouble with them is this they don't know the answer to this kind of question what shall it profit a men though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul they have no conception of it they don't realize they have a soul they don't realize that there is within them this thing that has been placed there by God which is bigger and greater than the whole world the most precious the most wonderful thing of all they're completely ignorant about it." [00:812:079]

"Now again they display this appalling ignorance about that they're just in the dark completely about it you see their whole notion of life and of living is as is stated so frequently in the scriptures let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die what an insult to life and living and to human nature are we but animals is eating drinking gambling indulging the Natural Instincts is that rarely life well that's what it is obviously to those people who are not Christians and therefore I say it's one of the manifestations of this appalling Darkness ignorance with regard to such a vital matter." [00:907:079]

"Well it seems to me that this is the only deduction which we can draw there is something about that evil life of darkness which to use the term in its right meaning is artificial it's a sort of art effect produced by men in other words it isn't men's natural life it isn't the kind of life that men was meant to live now that is true of what we call and bur of as civilization that is men's production we can say with assurance and certainty that God never meant people to live as for instance we live in the city of London God never planned a place like London or Chicago or New York or Paris or or any one of these great cities or indeed by today even any one of our Villages God never planned a thing like that God never meant life to be like that no no this is man's artifact this is what man has produced." [00:1714:799]

"Now you can never tackle the problem of immorality or vice or crime directly conduct is the result of the point of view so you'll never deal with the conduct directly that is the Fatal blunder of every non-Christian system and we are seeing the failure on all hands you see they will not recognize this fundamental principle which is that as a man thinks so he is so it's no use trying to control his behavior and his conduct if his thinking is wrong you see it's like a man who pours chemicals into a stream because it's polluted and does nothing about the Lake out of which the stream comes in which is the source of the pollution." [00:1369:32]

"Well those are the three words about that sort of Life the manifestations of the life of darkness in the realm of the will their Works their unfruitful yes and they're shameful they even feel it themselves so they do it under cover of Darkness they even be ashamed to do it in broad daylight themselves it is a shame it's shameful it's disgusting it's foul it's vile it's a shame he says even to speak of these things which are done of them in secret oh man after all whether he believes it or not you know was made in the image of God and he shows it when he least suspects it though he doesn't believe in God and doesn't believe in his own soul though he has fallen and degraded there's something in him still this sense of Shame thank God for that man's not an animal man's not a machine no no there is this that remains and abides though M and ruined there is something of the image left and man even at his at his lowest and his viest still know something about a sense of Shame." [00:2466:52]

"Well it's your business and mine in terrible Godless days like these to start with people on their own level and say to them well now then tell me why don't you do things like that in broad daylight then start from this sense of Shame and try and bring them to see how their whole view of themselves and God and of life is just based on utter ignorance which if it not if it be not enlightened will lead them to destruction and disaster and a final Doom oh the love of God that looking upon such a world of darkness and of ignorance and of Shame should have sent his only begotten son into it to be a light of the world and by dying a upon the cross to Deliver Us from it and to translate us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son." [00:2554:72]

"Christian people may I put it to you like this are you concerned about the messes that are in this Darkness I know you feel a sense of disgust with respect to them we all do but you know if you merely feel a sense of disgust and gather up your skirts and walk on the other side of the street you're almost as bad as they are that's what the levite and the priest did you remember with that poor men that was wounded by the roadside that's of no value if we realize that these people are living that kind of life because of this tragic ignorance and darkness well then I say as Christian people it should work in US like this we should say what can be done about these people how can this light and knowledge be brought to them and I say once more that there is nothing that can deal with it but such an outpouring of the spirit of God such a visitation of God spirit in Revival such as we had in 1859 such as we had for so many years in the 18th century under the preaching of Whitfield and the Wesley and Romain and others here in the city of of London such as you head under the Puritans such as you head in the Protestant Reformation and therefore it seems to me that the way to test whether we really do take these things seriously is this are we praying God to send us such a Revival to pour out his Spirit upon us that the church may be so filled with power that this apathetic Godless dark ignorant shameful generation will be compelled to listen and compelled to think and compelled to face God and their own Eternal Destiny." [00:2625:92]

"Darkness shows itself in the mind in the matter of one's intellect and understanding we have a habit of we not of associating ignorance always with Darkness we refer to certain continents as the Dark Continent meaning by that that uh ignorance prevails that they've been lacking in knowledge and instruction and in information we refer to the Dark Ages before the Renaissance in Europe the Dark Ages well that was before there was this rediscovery of Greek philosophy and learning and so on in other words we're all familiar with this uh equating of Darkness with ignorance the things uh synonymous in our ordinary pollin and on the other hand we tend to speak of people who have knowledge as people who are enlightened people like to refer to the whole of the 18th century as the Age of Enlightenment there certainly was in the 18th century again as in the 16th century a kind of Revival recrudescence of knowledge and of learning the enlightenment it's called there was a new birth of an interest in philosophy and things like that well now there is the kind of term the the contition that is given to this expression." [00:478:039]

"Now you can never tackle the problem of immorality or vice or crime directly conduct is the result of the point of view so you'll never deal with the conduct directly that is the Fatal blunder of every non-Christian system and we are seeing the failure on all hands you see they will not recognize this fundamental principle which is that as a man thinks so he is so it's no use trying to control his behavior and his conduct if his thinking is wrong you see it's like a man who pours chemicals into a stream because it's polluted and does nothing about the Lake out of which the stream comes in which is the source of the pollution for so long we were told by these thinkers who were non Christian that the one great cause of crime was poverty but you see at the present time what they're telling us is this the one great cause of crime is prosperity the cause of crime is that these young people are earning too much money and they don't know what to do with it this it's this Prosperity that's brought this crime wave and yet you see until this Century that was the great argument for doing away with poverty and slums now don't misunderstand me we should all be concerned about doing away with poverty and slums nobody can justify that but it does show the tragic pathetic fallacy of this non-Christian thinking they will not face this Central truth that it is a man's total attitude towards life himself God and their relationship that ultimately determines and controls conduct and behavior it's inevitable." [00:1369:32]