Devotional Index

February Devotional

Light in the Darkness

When I was 14 or 15 my father and I were hunting in a swamp, where every tree looks the same and the general landscape varied but little. We journeyed into the swamp in mid-morning leaving markings along the way, and hunted late into the afternoon, allowing ourselves, as we supposed, about an hour until nightfall to make our way out. What we had failed to consider that night falls earlier in the swamp. As a result, the darkness overtook us before we could find our way back to the edge of the trees and to safety.

As the darkness descended and our trail markings became less prominent, our mental compasses became disoriented, leaving us anxious and confused. We resigned ourselves to the thought of spending the night in the dismal dark. Fortunately, our enterprising family members had found our parked car, turned on the car lights, and pointed them into swamp. Their shrill cries and the car's horn sounded faintly through the undergrowth, and as we followed the sound we eventually could see twin shafts of light piercing the dense woods.

In our hunting, I suppose we had only walked two or three hundred yards into the cedars, but to have attempted to find our way back in total darkness would have been unwise and probably impossible. Even with outside help, in picking our way to the swamps edge we were like pinballs in an arcade game: tripping over branches, literally walking into trees. Finally we could see a beam of light here or there penetrating the darkness, until we emerged. How welcome is a shaft of light in the darkness!

The present culture around us is also struggling in darkness. People may be relatively near to safety, some deeper in, further astray; nevertheless, all stumble helplessly in the enveloping darkness. It should not surprise a thinking Christian that the disintegration of cultural values has created horrific inconsistencies in the thinking and behavior of the unredeemed. Between their darkened conscience and the absence of the light of God's revelation it would be a marvel that they would think any other way. What is surprisingly sad is that so many of God's people have succumbed to the darkness of a secular mindset and behavior. In our circles, we talk much of worldviews and for good reason. My goal in this devotional is to examine God's definition of a secular worldview, and also to exhort God's people not to follow that thinking. Ephesians 4:17-19 instructs believers, "not to walk like other Gentiles" (the unredeemed) but to see the need to walk "other-worldly." In this text we shall see that there are at least four reasons for walking "other-worldly," not following a secular world view.

The first reason why we must walk "other-worldly" is because the life of the worldling is Aimless. Such an evaluation in no way slights the natural abilities or aptitudes that are God's gifts to all men (made, as we all are, in God's image.) On the contrary, in terms of their goal-setting, forward thinking, and shear prowess unbelievers often put the Christian to shame. The Holy Spirit, however, would have us see that in the end, all work generated by natural human ability draws no one closer to God, aids no one in eternity. Unbelievers instead follow the "vanity of their minds." This phrase needs some definition:

The word "vanity" contains the idea of aimlessness, or leading to no object or end. They have goals and targets but they fall short of having an end that lands in eternity. Their goals are devoid of a target that factors in the reality of any eternal perspective of life after death and accountability to almighty God.

The word "mind" according to Wuest, "not merely the intellectual faculty or understanding, but also the faculty for recognizing moral good and spiritual truth....Thus, as expositors says, ‘moral resultlessness, given over to things devoid of worth or reality’" (Vol. I, p.106). The mode of thinking for the world-ling then does not factor truth and morality into the equation.

The point is clear enough; we see it every day in the headlines and hear it in conversations with non-Christians around us. They are devoid of the ability to arrive at a moral and spiritual conclusion. As believers we must not follow their way of thinking nor their way of living because both miss the mark. The moral aimlessness of worlds thinking translates into the modern philosophical molds of:

1. Relativism, which acknowledges no absolute truth. It advances the notion that one person's "truth" is as good as another's, even if those systems contradict each other.
2. Pragmatism, which declares that the end justifies the means, that one's method of accomplishing his end is irrelevant as long as the end is accomplished even if the method contradicts truth.
3. Existentialism, which advocates living for the moment and denying any past or future reality.

The second reason why we must walk "other-worldly" is that the life of the worldling is Lightless. Here we see the world's "understanding is darkened." The tense of the verb here is perfect, meaning that the world is in a continual state of darkness or is perpetually thinking dark thoughts. In other words, the unbeliever's mindset leads him farther into the swamp, where no shaft of light can penetrate. Of the reasoning and understanding boasted of by the Greeks Charles Erdman writes,

"With all of its boasted wisdom this world was moving in a sphere of illusions and unreality. It was concerned with shadows and absorbed in delusions. It was striving after vanity and after things devoid of worth. Reason, which should have been its guide, was itself darkness. The mental and moral faculties were impotent. They produced no sound theory of life..." (p. 96).

Worldly-minded men may be intellectual giants, but they cannot apprehend God apart from His revelation and faith. What good, then, does intellectualism do for such men? When it comes to governing their lives, God is not a part of their equation; they do not factor in His word or His will,. Christian are not to think or behave so. Worldly thinking is defined by:

1. Secularism, the philosophy concerned only with the temporal, which operates as if this world alone is important. But the Scriptures ask: "What shall it profit a man himself if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
2. Materialism, the preoccupation with material gain, living only for the things that one can experience. In contrast the Bible says, "Love not the world neither that things that are in the world."

The third reason why we must walk "other-worldly" is that the life of the worldling is Godless. We see from the Ephesians passage how worldly men are described. They are "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them." Alienated means "estranged" or "separated." They are separated from God for two reasons:

1. Because of "the ignorance that is in them." Once more, the perfect tense is used. It literally means, a continual state of separation from God because of the total inability to comprehend Him by intellectual pursuit. They do not know God, cannot know God, and do not care to know God.
2. Because of the "blindness of their heart." Blindness actually means "hardness" or "hardening." Thus they cannot comprehend God, and when He reveals Himself they respond by rejecting His revelation and hardening their hearts, thus making their situation before God even more perilous.

The fourth reason why we must walk "other-worldly" is because the life of the worldling is Feelingless, without sensitivity. Here we see Paul move from the way the worldling thinks to the conduct of his life. Behavior is always an act of the will guided by the mind and heart. Of the words used in verses 18-19, Barkley writes:

The word for shameless wantonness (lasciviousness) is aselgia. It is defined by Plato as "impudence"; and by another writer as "preparedness for every pleasure." It is defined by Basil as "a disposition of the soul incapable of bearing the pain of discipline." The great characteristic of aselgia is this — the bad man usually tries to hide his sin; but the man who has aselgia in his soul does not care how much he shocks public opinion so long as he can gratify his desires (Barclay p. 153).

In Psalm 73, we find the writer disgruntled and discouraged when he contemplates how righteous suffer and the ungodly seem to live in pleasure. To the Psalmist, the whole matter seems unfair, and the sacrifice of living holy lives, foolish. His question seems to be, "Why bother?" This perplexing observation makes no sense to the psalmist until he enters into the tabernacle where he gets a view of eternity, at which point he realizes that the ungodly have only this short life in which to enjoy their pleasures, and that they will soon face God, the judge, in eternity. We believers must constantly have our thinking renewed, our moral compasses recalibrated, our thinking and living reset to the eternal clock. We have been rescued from the thick darkness; it is incumbent upon us to walk in the Light, as children of Light.

—Pastor Matthew DeCleene
Twin City Baptist Church, Marinette, WI
Vice President, Assurance Women's Center, Appleton