Darkness Hinders Not

“The just LORD is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.” (Zep 3:5 AV)

The unjust of this verse are the prophets and priests of the previous verse who had perverted their office.  They ceased to serve God and served their own desires.  The temple service had been corrupted.  The people came but the religious practice of the day had devolved into idol worship and perversion.  Yet, the LORD was in the midst of it.  Not to give what they were doing and credibility.  Rather, to contrast Himself and His ways against what the religious leaders of the day were doing.  As hard as they might try, the rebels cannot extinguish the light of God.  False religion may abound, but the truth of the word of God pierces the darkness as a great light of hope to those who are seeking the LORD.  In the midst of the spiritually darkened temple was the light of God from His word.  A light the corrupt religious leaders of the day could not cover.

When we took a trip to Europe, the LORD opened my eyes to exactly how spiritually dark the rest of the world is compared to the U.S.  That is not to say we are more spiritual, but we do have more light.  The gospel is not rare here.  Religiosity is not as prevalent.  The Bible is commonplace even though we have corrupted ourselves more so than the rest of the world.  When you visit Europe, you are struck with how much one religious tradition dominates the culture and people.  It is hard to find a gospel-preaching church.  The word of God is confined to church buildings.  Yet, the word of God still pierces the darkness.  We had an evangelist come through a few weeks back.  His wife is from a European nation.  The very one my wife and I visited.  We were talking of the people we knew as she remarked that in that nation, all the independent Baptist preachers are well known.  They are a small bunch.  Not too many of them.  So, to find out she came to America to study at a Bible college was a rare surprise.  A third of the way around the world the LORD brought together two people with a heart for God’s work.  How does that happen?

We live in a spiritually dark world.  It is getting darker by the hour.  Wickedness is all around us.  What was once hidden is out in the open.  What was once shunned is now protected and celebrated.  Even our churches are morphing into a society of debauchery.  I recently read a church was hosting a drag show.  How does that happen?  How can people who profess Jesus Christ as their LORD and Savior live and do the exact opposite of what He would want?  We can look at the dark cloud descending and become very discouraged.  But the fact of the matter is, no matter how dark the clouds may get, the sun still shines through.  The sun may be obscured, but it is there.  God will not allow the light of His truth and the hope of the gospel to be extinguished.  That is why we go into the neighborhoods and share Christ’s love with people.  We are piercing the darkness with the light of the gospel.  There is hope.  We simply must stop our obsession with the storm clouds and fronts passing through and remember, that there is always a sun behind the darkness that will pass.