Revelation 22:4–5

0:00 Like somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of you, I grew up scared of the dark. Those who have had this struggle know that it is at its worst at nighttime. Dark represents the unknown. It was the cover that the creatures of my nightmares needed in order to draw near and oppress me. And an essential tool for this battle was a nightlight. a nightlight was a source of truth it illuminated the room and it illuminated my mind it corrected me to know that despite whatever my imagination had created there was no threat, my room was safe and in that knowledge I could rest now the human eye is made for light there are creatures that have excellent night vision but we are not one of them our eyes can distinguish 10 million colors they can track detail that allows us to read text

1:00 the white in our eyes allows us to communicate non-verbally most importantly our eyes allow us to see God's power and God's beauty in the creation but we need light to do that and so our devotional tonight is about seeing we're going to be in the book of Revelation which is the very last book of the Bible and God is giving his people a vision of the unfolding of all of human history and giving them assurance that Jesus will win in the end. And so with that in mind, let me read our text, Revelation 22, verses 4 and 5.

1:34 It says, They, God's people, will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more. People will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever. now this is the final description of the new creation John has been going on for two chapters about this and this is the last description of that new creation and God through John leaves his people with a picture of eternal light with God's people seeing God's face forever and those ideas really are connected God's presence is light it is his illumination of himself to his people and so this message is good news not just for those of us who have not yet overcome our fear of the dark, but for all of God's people.

2:26 And so tonight I want us to spend some time just thinking about three aspects related to light and the way that it presented really in all of scripture So three things that we going to think about Light overcomes light transforms and light remains. So we'll take those in order. Light overcomes. It is just true that light pierces darkness. The human eye can see a candle 14 miles away, and that's why a night light is so comforting. The contrast between light and darkness goes back to the very beginning of the Bible. The first recorded words of God, let there be light, and there was light. Darkness is the absence of light, and the way that we understand the whole world is dependent upon this contrast between light and darkness. In his gospel, John uses this language to describe not just the creation, but revelation. So let me read a little bit of John 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.

3:26 He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

4:00 No one has ever seen God. God, the only Son, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. So we take that section from John and realize that light is not just how we see, it's how we understand. It's truth, it's moral purity. Ultimately, it's the perfection of God's character. It's what Jesus came to display, to reveal to the world. Elsewhere, the Bible tells us explicitly God is light, in him is no darkness at all. With him, there is no variation or shadow due to change. So light pierces the darkness.

4:35 But that's not always good news. It's good news if you need a nightlight at night, but if your parents told you you need to clean your room and you could keep the door closed, keep the light off, that was fine until they come in and flip the switch, right, and illuminate what's there. Light reveals, it exposes, it judges. So when the light of God's perfection shines on us, we are exposed in our moral deficiencies our failures our sin A little bit later in his gospel John describes this He says this is the judgment that light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. So what he's saying is that when it comes to morality, we are like cockroaches in the basement, right? The light goes on and we scatter. We don't want to be in the light. We can go around in moral darkness. We can compare

5:36 ourselves to other people and feel like we're pretty good. But as people who were created in the image of God, when we are confronted with the perfection of his character, his holy standard, we are undone because we realize how short we fall. And so we see this tension throughout the Old Testament. On the one hand, there's this consistent hope around seeing God, seeing God's face. We hear it in the Psalms. We hear it in maybe one of the most clear places in the blessing that God gives to Aaron, the priest, to speak to the people of Israel, right? The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So God's face is the greatest blessing. It's the greatest desire. It's what we were made for. And yet time after time in the Old Testament, when somebody comes close to seeing God's face, what happens? They're undone. It was clear this morning, God told Moses, you cannot see my face and live. So how do we reconcile that tension?

6:38 What comes through Jesus? Jesus himself says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So in order to find your place in God's world, the first thing you have to do is come into the light. You have to acknowledge that you were created to live in God's light, but that you have preferred darkness. And this is what happens spiritually when we actually see Jesus by faith. So when Paul describes Jesus' commission to him, this is what he says in Acts 26. Jesus says, I'm sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So what Jesus offers in the gospel is the exchange of your sin for his righteousness. Jesus suffered and died on the cross in order to take on the judgment the exclusion from God presence the outer darkness as he describes it that we deserve for our sin and then to transfer us into his kingdom to make us children of light That the good news of the

7:47 gospel. It's received through faith and repentance in Jesus. And if you haven't done that, you can do that this evening by coming to him in faith, confessing your sin, asking for his forgiveness. So the first truth, light overcomes darkness. The second thing that we need to see is light transforms. So our world was made for light. It's what causes plants to grow. It's how we eat. It's how we breathe. We are dependent upon light. And light is also the source of illumination and revelation and insight. You think about the different discoveries that have been made of the depths of the ocean, the vastness of space, intricacies of nature, advancements in medicine.

8:26 We could go on and on and on, right? All of those things came about because there was light. There was insight. There was something that we could see for the first time. It wasn't that it was discovered like it wasn't there. It was just that we couldn't see it until we got the ability to see it. So through supernatural illumination, we become Christians. We see Jesus for who he is, and we come into the light. But it's also how we grow as Christians. And Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 3. He says, We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of God, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

9:04 So we change by seeing God's glory, by observing, by beholding him. And John describes it in his gospel this way. Whoever does what is true comes into the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. John illustrates this with two very contrasting characters in his gospel Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader, comes to Jesus in the darkness of night he doesn't understand that he must be born again you can listen to Chris Gaiman's devotional from last week to think about that and then Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who's the cultural polar opposite of Nicodemus he meets her at noon he shows her how she's been looking for her relationships, her life in relationships with men, and instead she should be looking for a relationship with God. And in response to this, in her conversion, she goes back to her hometown and begins to share her testimony with everyone.

10:03 And this is her testimony. Come meet the man who told me everything I ever did. This is not a flattering testimony, right? This is a woman who has come into the what she was doing, but even more, the fact that despite her sin, the God of the universe knows her and loves her and has forgiven her. And that's what the Christian life should be like, one of continuous exposure and transformation as we behold the light of God's glory. And so a few things I think we should be doing as Christians, we think about that. Number one, we should walk in the light. So in 1 John, he says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all

11:07 sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. One of the things I think that's striking about that passage is not that the emphasis is not about just avoiding sin, although he's certainly not giving us license to sin, but it's about openly confessing and dealing with our sin, right?

11:37 So are you as a Christian regularly going to God with your sin to confess, to ask for forgiveness, to ask for help? Where appropriate are you going to others with your sin to ask for their forgiveness, to ask for their help, their prayer, their counsel? Do you apologize regularly and ask for forgiveness Or do you make excuses when you do something wrong Do you answer honestly when somebody asks you how you doing Sometimes I think in an effort to put ourselves in a favorable light, we're actually proving that we love the darkness. So walk in the light. Second, seek purity. In 1 John 3, he says, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So you may have heard the phrase before, you become what you behold. Our lives reflect the people and the things that have our attention. And at some point in your

12:43 life, you or someone you know may have aspired to be like a famous person, an athlete, a successful business person, somebody in entertainment, something like that. And when you get obsessed with somebody, you try to be like them, right? You imitate their habits, their practices, their equipment, all of those things in order to share that same success. So do you do that with God? Do you prioritize knowing and loving Him? Are you giving your time and attention to thinking about God and relating to Him so that you get the exposure that you need as a Christian in order to be transformed, as Paul said, from one degree of glory to the next? Are you consistently taking advantage of the opportunities we have to gather as the people of God so that we get the benefit of that intensified effect of singing together and praying together and listening together?

13:34 So seek purity. Third, expose the darkness. So in Ephesians, Paul says, walk as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them for it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. So what do you do when you encounter darkness?

14:05 I think a lot of us would just be happy if we could just avoid it right If we could just stay away from it But here we realize that as God children what we called to do is expose the darkness Our God is the Father of light and we as children of the light are called to shine into the darkness. And so certainly that means evangelism. It could also be advocating for justice, for helping the oppressed, for standing up for the truth. In our culture, that calls for all sorts of wisdom, but it challenges us not only to receive the light, but to spread the light of Christ everywhere God has placed us.

14:43 So light transforms, but light also remains. This is the last thing I want us to think about. Sometimes light feels transient. We have to replace light bulbs. We have to replace batteries. We debate ways to adjust the clock in order to save the daylight, right? We hear that the sun has a lifespan and is eventually going to burn out, if you believe that. but our text in Revelation tells us that for God's people all of that is going to give way to a state of permanent light as creatures of the light there is coming a day when we will experience the light of God's presence and that will never change never diminish never go away when you read Revelation there are many aspects of the book that are the stuff of nightmares beasts and dragons and demon frogs and demon locusts and all sorts of things like that, right?

15:35 God's people are threatened, they are marginalized, they are killed. And that wasn't only true in the first century. Around the world now we face darkness. We see political oppression, idolatry, rejection of the truth, hatred, strife, slavery, abuse. There is darkness all around us. And if we're honest, there is darkness within us. Anger and jealousy and deception and lust and laziness and pride and self-righteousness and on and on and on. And so wherever the darkness troubles you, what God wants you to understand is that if you are his, that darkness will not remain.

16:14 In his eternal kingdom, there will be no darkness, nothing to hide, nothing to hide from, and most importantly nothing to hinder your access to the presence of God It will be a place of perfect safety perfect peace perfect completion unlike anything we could ever experience or hope for in this life. And he wants us as his people to fix our eyes on the horizon, to know that no matter how dark it gets, no matter how dark it feels, no matter how long the darkness seems to last, light will dawn and when it does it will never go away. Andrew Peterson's song After the Last Tear Falls captures this I think so well. He says after the last tear falls, after the last secrets told, after the last bullet tears through flesh and bone, after the last child starves and the last girl walks the boulevard, after the last year that's just too hard, there's love. After the last disgrace, after the last lie to save some face, after the last brutal jab from a poison tongue,

17:19 after the last dirty politician, after the last meal down at the mission, after the last lonely night in prison, there is love. After the last plan fails, after the last siren wails, after the last young husband sails off to join the war, after the last this marriage is over, after the last young girl's innocence is stolen, after the last years of silence that won't let a heart open, there is love. And in the end, there is oceans and oceans of love and love again. We'll see how the tears that have fallen were caught in the palms of the giver of love and the lover of all, and we'll look back on these tears as old tales. Because after the last tear falls, there is love. And we could say there is light, there is God. He overcomes, he transforms, he remains. Let's pray together.

18:15 Father in heaven, we thank you that for your people you have called us out of darkness and into your marvelous light. We thank you for the hope and the promise that we have in this text that one day we will see you and that all will be well. We pray that you would fix our eyes on that reality and transform us into the image of your son Jesus Christ and it's in his name that we pray amen