Dwelling in the Light of God’s Glory

I would like to summarize a short sermon message on two trends that I found in the Bible that talks about how people fall into depression and at the same time a way to get out of it.

1 John 1:5 tells us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness, and today we’re gonna look at someone who went from the very light of God into the deepest darkness of hell just because he left his heart unguarded from bitterness and pride.

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Lucifer, as theological studies show us, was one of the highest ranking Archangels in Heaven before his fall. Some even suggest that he was God’s right hand man. A study of Ezekiel 28 shows us how his pride eventually led to his fall from grace, and it is believed that Lucifer fell first onto the earth, wherein the battle between him and Michael took place, wiping out the entire surface of this planet (Genesis 1:2).

Our study today is not on Lucifer’s fall; however I want to point out some key factors that resulted in his transformation into Satan, and how that can apply to a Believer’s life.

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When we talk about the devil and his demons, we often visualize terrible looking black creatures with distorted features and horrendous stenches depicting death and what possibly would be hell to the human mind. And we rightly do so, as there have been many, including me, who have seen visions or even encountered demons face to face in the third dimension.

But in order to further understand how these spirits who were once beautiful Angels living daily in God’s glory could become such lifelessly deteriorating beings, I want to give you a simple illustration.

 

Any dolphin lovers reading this Blog? These beautiful mammals are often found at the surface of oceans, jumping high into the sunlight and back into sunlit crystal-like waters, a beautiful scene of creation.

 

Then again, the deeper we go into the ocean, right to the very depths where sunlight can no longer been seen, we get creatures like these…

 

Just take a second to get over that obscene image, and basically what I’m trying to say here is that the further you move away from the source of light, the darker, more twisted and contorted you become. And that was the case for the devil and his demons.

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Now we’re gonna go a little deeper in order to understand how Lucifer ended up as Satan. Without getting into deep theology, just in a nutshell, when Lucifer was defeated on the earth, imagine how things would have turned out if he just accepted his mistake and asked God for forgiveness. But instead, he decided to hold on to his pride and his anger (Ezekiel 28:6, 16), and so God had to cast him away from His holy presence, ie: from His light (Ezekiel 28:8).

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Many of us go through hurt and offenses in life, or even make mistakes like Lucifer did. But when we choose to hold on to such hurts, or unforgiveness or even pride, our hearts start to move further and further away from God’s light, causing our inner man to slowly rot from within, becoming more and more twisted and contorted, and there is a verse in Scripture that talks about the kind of life one lives in darkness, ie: hell.

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Isaiah 66:24

And they shall go forth and look
      Upon the corpses of the men
      Who have transgressed against Me.
      For their worm does not die,
      And their fire is not quenched.
      They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

 

A worm is a peculiar creature that feeds on dead matter, and somehow multiplies or breeds in such environments. About two years ago, a friend of mine named Sophina Tan was sharing with me about how she saw a video of a dead rat lying in a street, and after several days, a worm was seen to be crawling out of the animal, and where the worm came from no one knows!

This is the consequence of living a life away from the light, the presence of God.

 

By harboring unforgiveness, bitterness and pride,

1. You grow further from God’s Light

2. You grow colder towards God’s love

 

Job 1:6-12 speaks for the first time since Genesis of a conversation between God and Satan, and we can clearly see how cold Satan’s heart has grown toward the Lord, though once being one of God’s closest servants.

And this is what happens when we harbor the negative in our hearts, we will come to a place where even if we stand before God’s holy presence, your entire being wouldn’t even be touched one bit by this God whom we once laid down our lives for, because that’s what a negative heart does – it blinds our vision.

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But I want to encourage you with the last example, of a man who possibly went through some of the greatest hurts,

the greatest offenses, the worst heartbreaks and betrayals any human being could have went through,

not to mention physical torture and even spiritual torments in hell for a day,

and yet guarding His heart every moment with a great positive attitude and a hope in God –

His Name is Jesus. 

 

Jesus probably must have had one of the worst human lives imaginable since young, being persecuted and forsaken by His own earthly family and hometown, and yet one of the best, being the wealthiest man to set foot on this planet after King Solomon, and working miracles that no one else in His time had ever encountered, to the point that the Jews put Him to death out of fear of loosing their popularity amongst the people!

Jesus showed an excellent attitude even at his final hour at the Garden of Gethsemane, where His prayer was still ever so focused on the will of God and not on His own desire (Luke 22:42). Was He afraid? Yes! Did He have second thoughts about going to the Cross? Of course He did. But did He press on all the way? We wouldn’t have Salvation today if He gave up back then.

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But the story continues even after His death on the Cross. Before the battle that He had to have with Satan in hell (Gen 3:15, Is 53:12, Ps 68:18, Mt 12:29, Luke 11:22, Col 2:15 & Phil 2:10), Jesus suffered the wrath of Father God in hell for our sins, and throughout His ordeal, He never gave up on God, and knew that somehow, God would deliver Him.

 

And fair enough, because of His great attitude and trust in the Lord, God came through for Him, and on the third day Jesus Christ rose from the dead, far above every principality and power (Ephesians 1:21) and is seated victorious at the right hand of God in Heaven.

We know that after His experience at the Cross, His physical body was already beyond repair (Isaiah 53:2-3), but when the Holy Spirit, who is  the Resurrection Power of God, came upon the body of Jesus, every single wound and bruise was completely healed, and life came back to His mortal body and Jesus rose from the grave.

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Friends, no matter what hurt, envy, unforgiveness, bitterness, pride, whatever negative emotion that we may be carrying in our hearts today, if we give it to Jesus and maintain a great positive attitude trusting only in God, we will experience that same Resurrection Power of God in our lives, and no matter what dead situation we might be facing in our lives today, God is able to raise it back to an even greater state than it ever was before!

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To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27

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Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
      And whose hope is the LORD.

Jeremiah 17:7

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