Deliverance from the Power of Darkness 2
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1. So in the things of God– the weighty matters of salvation. The first dawn of grace upon your soul– the first breaking in of divine light, destroys the power of ignorance. It shows you the majesty, justice, holiness, and power of God; it convinces you of your lost, ruined condition; it discovers the dreadful evil of sin; it lays you low at the footstool of mercy; it makes you beg for some manifestation of pardon and salvation to your soul. And not only so, but it breaks the pride as well as the power of ignorance; makes you teachable and childlike; and, showing you your blindness and folly, leads you to ask wisdom of God, and seek constant guidance and direction from him. You now see what a prejudiced, blind bigot you were, and with all your knowledge and profession had not one glimmer of saving light in your heart. You turn from error and bend towards truth, like a plant to the light. Is not all this a delivery from the power of darkness?
2. So with the power of sin. When a man begins to feel the burden of sin, to cry out under its guilt, to be deeply exercised as to the state of misery and condemnation into which his transgressions have brought him, and to fear lest his dreadful iniquities should be a millstone round his neck to sink him into the depths of hell, he begins to be delivered from the power of sin. He breaks off his old habits and from his old companions; the outer branches, at any rate, of sin are lopped off; and he is delivered from the power of those practices in which he lived heedlessly, thoughtlessly, without guilt for the present or fear for the future. If not yet delivered from the guilt and condemnation of sin in his conscience, he is delivered from its outward practice and performance. And as the Lord carries on the work begun he is delivered in due time, by the application of atoning blood, from its guilt, and is saved by the love of God shed abroad in his heart from its reigning dominion and power.
3. He is delivered also from the power of Satan. The strong man armed once kept his palace, but the stronger than he has come upon him and overcome him. The Lion of Judah delivers from the power of the dog. (Psalm. 22:20.) The eagle soaring in the sky will not allow the vulture to come near. Jesus Christ drives back the Prince of darkness, and says– "This once slave of yours, is now mine– my property and my possession; I have redeemed him by my blood; he shall be an eternal trophy of my victory over sin, death, and hell. Satan, avaunt! Touch him not. He is a chosen vessel; you no longer have power over him."
It was so with Joshua, the High Priest, whom Zechariah saw standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. "And the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan; even the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you– is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" (Zech. 3:1, 2.) What could Satan say or do in the presence of that sore, and great, and strong sword with which the Lord has declared he will punish leviathan, the crooked serpent, and slay the dragon that is in the sea? (Isaiah. 28.)
4. And then there is the last power of darkness, "the blackness of darkness forever,"a power which will never cease to hold fast the sons and daughters of perdition, but which will never close its mouth upon any who know, fear, and love God. The grave will indeed for a while hold their earthly tabernacles that they may return to their native dust; but Jesus, the resurrection and the life, has conquered for them death and hell, and they shall all stand before the throne of his glory with palms of victory in their hands; shall all sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, and shout "Victory, victory through atoning blood!"
II. But I pass on to show what it is to be translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.God the Father has given his Son a kingdom; and this kingdom he appointed to him before the foundation of the world. Nothing can be more plainly revealed in the Scriptures of truth than these two points–
1. That Christ has a kingdom.
2. That his people have a portion in it.
How plainly does the Lord speak– "And I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father has appointed unto me." (Luke 22:29.) This is the kingdom spoken of in Matt. 25, where the King says unto those on his right hand, "Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 25:34.) This kingdom Christ received from his Father's hands when he said unto him– "Ask of me, and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession." (Psalm. 2:8. )
In this gift God gave him a people in whom he would be eternally glorified; Christ received this people at his Father's hands, and thus became their King and head. And this is called in Scripture "the kingdom of God's dear Son." It is the kingdom spoken of in Daniel, which is to be erected upon the ruins of all the other monarchies– "Which shall never be destroyed, but shall stand forever." It is therefore said of it, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" (Psalm. 45:6); and that "his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." (Dan. 7:14.) This kingdom is present and future; the kingdom of grace here and the kingdom of glory hereafter. Nor will any one share in the glory who does not partake of the grace. This kingdom, therefore, must be an internal kingdom, as the Lord told the Jews– "The kingdom of God is within you;" and is described by Paul, in language most expressive of its inward blessedness– "The kingdom of God is not food and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the holy Spirit." (Rom. 14:17.)
But there is a being "translated into this kingdom." The word "translated" means a transferring, a removal, a bringing a man out of one state and putting him into another. Nor can this mighty act of God's grace, this work of sovereign love and power, take place without some experience of it in a man's own heart. It is impossible for a man to be translated by a divine work upon his conscience from a state of darkness to a state of light– from a state of condemnation to a state of justification– from a state of guilt to a state of pardon– from a state of misery to a state of happiness– from a state of the dominion of sin to a state of the dominion of righteousness, without his being sensible of it, without his having had an experience in his soul when and where and how it was done. To be translated, then, into the kingdom of God's dear Son is to be brought out of that darkness, death, guilt, misery, and condemnation arising out of a sense of the curse of the Law, and transferred by a mighty act of his victorious and invincible grace, into the kingdom of his dear Son, that he, and he alone, may reign and rule in the heart.
Though an act of power, it is no act of violence. God does not translate us into the kingdom of his dear Son in spite of ourselves, or contrary to the inclinations and desires of our heart. "Your people," he says to Christ, "shall be willing in the day of your power." (Psalm. 110:3.) He first shows us by his Spirit and grace the misery of sin, and makes us long for pardon and peace, for reconciliation and acceptance. He shows us the wretchedness of a state of alienation from Himself, the Fountain of all happiness and holiness, and makes us long for the shedding abroad of his love to bring us near, and to enable us to love him with a pure heart fervently. He gives us to see what bondslaves we have been to sin and Satan, and makes us long for that holy liberty with which he makes his people free. He shows us what guilt and misery we have brought upon ourselves through our own transgressions as well as that of our first parent. He works a repentance of these sins– a self-abhorrence on account of them, a departing from them and a fleeing to the blood and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, to hide in him from every storm.
When, then, in answer to prayer and supplication, he reveals to the soul, the Person and work, grace and love, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and raises up a living faith in his blessed Majesty, by virtue of that faith it passes from death into life, from condemnation into justification, from bondage into liberty; and thus becomes feelingly and experimentally translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, that he may reign and rule in the heart as its only God and King– its rightful Sovereign and enthroned Lord.
None but God, the Holy Spirit, by his Almighty power, can thus take a poor sinner in all his guilt and filth, rags and ruin, in all his condemnation, misery, and wretchedness, and by applying the word of his grace with power to his soul, by sending a sweet promise home to his heart, by revealing Christ in his blood and righteousness, and shedding abroad his love, can translate him feelingly and experimentally into that kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And this God is doing, has done, or will do for all who are really and truly his. No strength of the creature, no arm of the flesh can avail here. Mercy and grace do it all; love and power combine, and reaching down, as it were, their arms from heaven, lift up the sinner from the power of darkness and bear him into the kingdom of light, and life; and liberty, where Jesus is all in all.
III. But I must now show what it is to "be made fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." And first a few words to point out who these saints in light are.
I understand these saints to be the same as those whom Paul calls (Hebrews 3:23) "the spirits of just men made perfect;" those glorious spirits before the throne who departed in the faith, and hope, and love of Jesus– who have dropped their earthly tabernacle, and are delivered from all the miseries, sorrows, sins, and infirmities of this present time-state; and who now, with their immortal souls purified from all spot and speck of transgression, in the realms of bliss, see the Lamb face to face. These are those whom he is leading to the fountain of living water, who are singing upon their golden harps the praises of Immanuel, who are ever drinking at those streams that make glad the city of God, and in one ceaseless noonday of immortal happiness are clothed with an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
These are "the saints in light" spoken of in our text whose inheritance is God himself; for the saints are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. As God gave the Levites no portion among their brethren, because he was their inheritance (Deut. 10:9); so God is the inheritance of the saints in light. His love, his presence, his glory, a view of him in the Person of the glorified Immanuel, and the holy bliss and ravishing delights that flow into their immortal spirits from their union with the Father and the Son, perfecting them in happiness and holiness– this is the inheritance of the saints in light in the realms above.
O, what a contrast with the portion of the eternally lost! Look at the inheritance that sin gives as compared with the inheritance of the saints. "The wages of sin is death." Hear the groans of the damned in hell; mark the despair that ever gnaws their tortured spirits; see them weltering in fire and brimstone, under the tremendous displeasure of an incensed Jehovah; look at outraged Justice darting down flames of lightning upon them from above, while a sea of fire from below rolls over them its burning billows, and hell with its iron bars closes over them forever shutting out all hope and all end. Contrast this eternal sense of misery and woe, this fearful doom of the lost spirits in hell, with the happy lot of the saints in light, singing upon their golden harps, without a cloud of sin or sorrow, the praises of God and the Lamb.
You must be one or the other– saint or sinner; and you will be either singing the praises of God in heavenly bliss, or howling forever and ever in unutterable woe.
But we are to be "made fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." If the Queen were to send you an invitation to dine with her in her royal palace, would you not seek some fitting garment in which to sit down at the table of majesty? If you are a laborer or a mechanic, would you go in your work clothes, with all the dirt and filth of the field or the workshop upon them? You would need to be made fit for such a presence and such company. So it is with those who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. There is a being made fit for the inheritance. In what consists this fitness?
1. First, you are to be washed. As the high priest could not go into the tabernacle unless he had first washed himself from head to foot in the bronze laver, so no soul can enter the courts of heaven unless he be washed. As the Apostle says– "Such were some of you, but you are washed." (1 Cor. 6:11.) You must be washed in the blood of the Lamb– all your sins and transgressions must be washed away in that fountain which was once opened for all sin and all uncleanness in a Savior's wounded side, or you will never partake of the inheritance of the saints in light. The blood of Jesus must be applied to your conscience; pardon must be sealed upon your soul; Christ must be revealed to you as having washed you from all your sins in his own precious blood, or you cannot join in that glorious anthem, "Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Rev. 1:5.)
2. Again, you must be justified. "Whom he called, them he also justified." We read of one who came to the marriage and had not on a wedding garment, and we hear the fearful sentence passed by the King upon that man– "Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Such was the sentence of the man who presumed to sit down to the marriage supper without a wedding garment– a type of Christ's righteousness; for we read of the Lamb's wife, that she was arrayed in "fine linen, clean and white," which is declared to be "the righteousness of saints." (Rev. 19:8.) As Joshua the high priest had his filthy garments taken from him, so you cannot be made fit for the inheritance unless you have your filthy garments taken off, and, like him, "be clothed with change of clothing." (Zech. 3:4.) To be found so clothed was Paul's desire– "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. 3:9.)
3. The third requisite, is to be sanctified. You will find the three requisites all named in one verse by Paul– "And such were some of you; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:11.) To be "sanctified" is to be made a partaker of that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord; to be made a new creature; to "put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness"– in a word, to be "made a partaker of the divine nature," and thus have the holiness of God breathed into and communicated to the soul.
Without this inward sanctification, none can enter the gates of heaven. What would heaven be to you if you had not an inward fitness for it? Suppose you could be washed in atoning blood and clothed in justifying righteousness, and were taken to heaven (if it could be so, which is impossible), having no new heart, no new spirit, no inward element of holiness breathed into your soul by the Spirit of God. In such a case, heaven would be no heaven to you– you would want to get out of it; the presence of a holy God would appall you; the saints in bliss singing the praises of the Lamb would be so foreign to your every feeling, that you would say– "Send me to hell, for I have no heart to enjoy heaven. Let me go to hell, where I can curse and blaspheme, hate and howl, for I cannot love and praise– hell, hell is the only fit place for me."
To be made fit, therefore, for the heavenly inheritance, you must have a heavenly heart and a praising, adoring, loving spirit; you must delight yourself in the Lord as being so holy and yet so gracious, so pure and yet so loving, so bright and glorious and yet so condescending and sympathizing. Now this fitness for the holiness, happiness, and employments of heaven is communicated at regeneration, in which the new man of grace, though weak is still perfect.
Look at the thief upon the cross– what an instance is he how the Spirit of God can in a moment make a man fit for heaven! Here was a vile malefactor, whose life had been spent in robbery and murder, brought at last to suffer the just punishment of his crimes; and as we are told that "they who were crucified with him reviled him" (Mark 15:32), we have reason to believe that at first he partook with his brother malefactor in blaspheming the Redeemer. But sovereign grace, (and what but sovereign grace?), touched his heart, brought him to see and feel what he was as a ruined sinner, opened his eyes to view the Son of God bleeding before him, raised up faith in his soul to believe in his name, and created a spirit of prayer that the Lord of heaven and earth would remember him when he came into his kingdom– perhaps the greatest act of faith we have recorded in all Scripture, almost equal if not superior to the faith of Abraham when he offered up Isaac on the altar.
The dying Redeemer heard and answered his cry, and said to him– "Today shall you be with me in Paradise." Spirit and life accompanied the words, and raised up at once in his soul a fitness for the inheritance, and before the shadows of night fell, his happy spirit passed into Paradise, where he is now singing the praises of God and of the Lamb.
Many a poor child of God has gone on almost to his last hours on earth without a manifestation of pardoning love and the application of atoning blood; but he has not been allowed to die without the Holy Spirit revealing salvation to his soul, and attuning his heart to sing the immortal anthem of the glorified spirits before the throne.
IV. This leads us to my last point, which is the "giving thanks unto the Father"for all these visitations of his grace, for all these blessed manifestations of his goodness and love. Have you any hope, any inward testimony, that the Lord has by his Spirit wrought these miracles of mercy and grace in your heart? As I have been describing the work of grace, has there been any echo in your bosom which made you believe that you have been delivered from the power of darkness and been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son; and though you do not find all that fitness for heaven that your soul could desire, the Lord has given you such a measure of faith, hope, and love as makes you feel that you could enjoy the holiness of heaven if the Lord were pleased to bring you there? O, what thanks and praises are due to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, if he has wrought these things in your soul, for his unspeakable mercy in stretching forth his hand to save you!
What would have been our gloomy case, even as regards this present world, and what would have been our still more gloomy case as regards our eternal condition, if God had not stretched forth his hand to deliver us from the power of darkness? We would have lived under the power of darkness, until we had sunk into the blackness of darkness forever. We would have loved and hugged and been proud of our darkness, and have fallen, as thousands fall, self-deceived and miserable victims to the ignorance, pride, and self-righteousness of our fallen nature.
But God was determined to break in upon our benighted souls, and when he broke in, darkness fled. When he appeared, Satan fled, and when he shone, light and life burst in, And thus the Lord was pleased to deliver us from the power of darkness and translate us into the kingdom of his dear Son. And shall we not render thanks and praises, and adore his blessed Majesty for these acts of his grace, these manifestations of his mercy, goodness, and love?
But I cannot conclude without dropping a word of warning to those who are still under the power of darkness. Though I know they cannot deliver their own souls, yet the Lord may, by a word spoken from my lips, carry conviction to their mind. The Lord may use me as an instrument to show them their state by nature; and may– I pray that he may– in his infinite mercy raise up that sigh and cry in their souls, which will lead in his own time and way to a blessed deliverance into the kingdom of his dear Son; and then they with us will join in ascribing praise and honour, power and glory, to God and the Lamb forever!
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