Allow me to preach from God's creation of the heavens and the Earth. God created the Sun for the greater light of the day and the stars and the moon for the lesser night light. The Sun is a star but much brighter and is the star that gives Earth life. The stars are angels that have been given their light to serve God and His kingdom, which are the inheritors of salvation, us. The moon has no light but only reflects the light of the Sun and has a dark side that receives no sunlight. Again, the Sun is Jesus. The stars are the angels, and the moon is the fallen man.
Many people have come into the presence of Jesus in His earthly ministry, and our day of churches walked out shining with the glory of God because of what they heard. And you would think, indeed, they have been born-again and love God. But as the moon circles around the Earth and the Earth circles the Sun, we see an awful dark side of man. And here, we begin to make up our doctrines by observing man's behavior rather than the timeless Word of God.
We forget Moses, who, just like us, fallen and in need of a born-again experience, saw the things of God on that mountain and came down shinning with the glory of God, a light so bright that a veil was required among the people.
Anyone who looks into the Word of God long enough to believe will get a smile and have an illumination for a while. But if they are not born-again, the glow will fade, and the dark side will soon appear. We, too, have made doctrines for that as well.
How many people have looked into the Word of God long enough to get the glow of pregnancy but then aborted before salvation comes to fruition, the born-again experience?
Jesus gave a parable that states four types of ground or hearts exist. As Jesus gave a critical parable that we must understand to understand the other parables. Fallen man can look into the matter and come away with hope and a glow, but the light fades, as does the interest after a bit of trouble.
The first group has eyes to see but doesn't see and has ears to hear but doesn't understand. Satan steals the Word of God from taking hold in the heart, and they walk away disinterested and without saving faith.
The second group has ears to hear and a hard heart but returns to hear more. They receive the Word of God with joy and a glow, but it doesn't take root before the testing begins. Joy doesn't last long in an environment ripe with strife and offense. The joy of being free soon dissipates when the work begins because freedom always equals responsibility. And a hard heart has trouble remembering the good of God from yesterday.
The third group has ears to hear. They love to hear and hear and hear. They repeat what they hear to one another and social media posts. They are hearers but not doers deceiving themselves. They don't see the need to stop doing one thing to do something else that will make them fruitful. They sow a seed in an already busy garden and are overcome with weeds. They always latch on to itching ear doctrines. They glow. They have a smile. They say they cast their care because the Lord cares for them, but they are constantly chasing after life rather than losing their life to be fruitful for the kingdom of God. They are unable to become fruitful. They glow during pregnancy but never deliver.
The fourth group has ears to hear and are doers of the word. Unlike the first group, who walked away uninterested, they are like Mary, the mother of Jesus, who took the Word of God home and contemplated it in her heart. The glow of pregnancy becomes a born-again experience. Unlike the second group, an area in their heart is plowed over and the seed planted. Joy takes hold and is kept in anticipation. And unlike the third group, they know that room must be made for the free gift. Something must be removed for the new thing. We can only put so much on a plate. We only have 24 hours in a day. We must make changes to allow this new Revelation to bear fruit. How much fruit depends on the changes, some thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold.
The glow of pregnancy comes in two of the four groups, but only one group comes to the new birth in Christ Jesus. The glow becomes internal and eternal—the righteous shine like the Sun. Let's move forward with our faith and science lesson.
Jesus, who came as the light of the world, said to his disciples that they are now the light of the world. No longer will man be limited to reflecting the light of God in cycles, but man will now have a light in him like the angels in heaven to shine day and night. In this respect, we become like the angels with a light to shine but also have the image and likeness of the Son of God. 1 Corinthians 15:42 states that we all have different brightness and degrees of resurrection according to our obedience to Christ as a disciple. Some will shine brighter than others.
The gospel is simple, but discipleship is complex. Because being born again with a night light on the inside doesn't eliminate the dark side of the moon. We still have the flesh. As Christians, we have an internal light to walk by, but it must be intentional, or the light will be hidden in the darkness under our bed. A person who momentarily reflects the glory of God can look born-again, and a person who has been born-again can hide their light through the works of the flesh called a solar eclipse.
A solar eclipse is when the moon gets between Earth and the Sun, blocking light rays. We create a solar eclipse when we walk in the flesh rather than the new spirit we received at our second birth. Thus, not being a light to the world.
Fallen man does reflect the light of God to a degree. When Adam sinned, all of creation fell and is falling. Total darkness has not yet come. Jesus said work now because the day will come when it will be too dark to work. The night will come when people hide in mountains out of fear that the sky is falling. In the beginning, the Earth was without form, dark and void. Jesus will return to keep the Earth from returning to that state.
I said all of that to say that the goodness of God is in every man since Adam but is depleting more and more. As the moon reflects the light of the Sun, so does the fallen man. Every generation of man is degenerating. Humanity is losing the image and likeness of God at an increasing rate. And those who take the mark of the beast will somehow be transformed away from any likeness or image of God, thus forfeiting any hope of salvation. If it weren't for Jesus coming when He did, everything would be over before we were born into this world. The born-again man is keeping this world from perishing, and Jesus will soon return to stop the end of man from coming.
Before the born-again experience, you had good in you, but it was depleting with no hope of refilling outside of the salvation of Jesus. And since the source of goodness was cut off at Adam, reconnecting to a new source is a must.
Every person born is a potential Hitler or Stalin. Given enough time and the right circumstances, every person would become as these men were. It is good that God has reduced the time for man to die and then face judgment. I am convinced that if people with anger had the money, power, and knowledge of these evil men, they would also carry out the worst we have ever seen.
People go to hell for rejecting the gift of salvation of Jesus, thus receiving accountability for the evil they have done and the evil they have purposed to do if they could obtain the ability to do so. Most people don't have the means to carry out the intent of their hearts. Praise God!
People are in hell today; instead of being born-again in Christ Jesus with a new nature, they chose to become the image of their sin. Even if let out after a thousand years like satan will be, they will immediately return to the evil they are. Laws and the consequences keep the fleshly man from committing a crime. But the consequence forgotten is a return to the dog's vomit.
Ever since Adam brought sin and death into the world, it has only gotten darker and darker. If we could see the timeline of all history, we would know this to be true. But because we only see our generation, we may think it is getting brighter at times. But that is because we have only experienced partial solar eclipses. We see in part and know in part. A total solar eclipse is predicted in the Book of Revelation. The first time the Bible records a total solar eclipse happened moments before Moses and the Jewish people were delivered from Egypt. Human history has experienced many natural solar eclipses over time. But not like the one during Moses' day or in the Book of Revelation, where evil is felt in the darkness.
Now that we have more understanding of the glow of pregnancy and the real deal of the light of the born-again man, we can move on to, maybe, we will see next week, to Age-Appropriate Lordship\Discipleship.