The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:01 Now once again I it's uh really my joy and privilege to be standing here sharing you with from the word of God.
00:07 We are now in the midst of a series on the gospel according to John and last uh
00:14 Sunday if you were here Dr. Peter preached from the last part of John chapter 7 and today we are at uh John
00:22 chapter 8 with the text taken from u vers 2-30
00:28 under the sermon title Jesus as the light and truth.
00:33 At the end of uh February uh when I stood here to to to preach on John chapter 2, we had a text uh which
00:41 contained two unsemingly uh two seemingly unrelated accounts. Uh
00:46 if you remember the sermon if you were here in February, we had the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine and then
00:53 uh the cleansing of the temple. And I mentioned at that time that it was a challenge to to find a link between
00:59 these two accounts. And today uh similarly in uh John chapter 8 we have
01:04 two separate accounts uh Jesus and the adulterous woman and then uh his
01:10 proclamation that he is the light of the world and then these two appear to be
01:16 unrelated. Now in spite of this uh we shall first examine the first part Jesus and the
01:23 entrous woman uh verses 2- 11 and then we'll spend a little bit more time on
01:28 the longer second part um uh Jesus as the light of the world verses 12-30.
01:36 We shall see how the two are actually connected so that John chapter 8 can be
01:41 presented as a single sermon. Now we don't have time to go through every verse in detail. Our anchor verse uh
01:48 will be um verse 12 where Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever
01:54 follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." We will dwell on this statement uh in depth
02:01 later and also draw out some uh applications um some practical lessons to aid us in
02:08 the conduct of our faith and also in our daily lives as believers. But shall we
02:14 first commit this time to the Lord in prayer? Our father in heaven, in this
02:19 age of uh much evil and darkness and sin, we praise you that Jesus is the
02:25 light of the world. His light shines today to bring hope and salvation.
02:33 Help us, oh Lord, to understand what this truly means so that we may walk in
02:38 his light and no more in darkness. And we ask this in his precious name. Amen.
02:47 Three Sundays ago, uh, precisely on the 13th of May, the city of Surabaya
02:54 witnessed much carnage and mayhem. Three churches in the city were attacked
03:00 by a group of suicide bombers between 6:30 and 7:53
03:07 in the morning. And many of you might have received this piece of sad news via
03:12 WhatsApp. 14 innocent civilians were tragically killed in these three churches including
03:19 worshippers and security guards. Now these three coordinated suicide
03:25 attacks were carried out by one single family, a family of six including the
03:33 father and mother. There are two teenage sons
03:38 and their two daughters, one age 12 while the younger one was only 9 years
03:44 old. It's bad enough that adults carry out this kind of evil acts. But to involve
03:51 young children in their hideous crime is is indeed despicable.
03:57 Now from eyewitnesses accounts, it appears that the four siblings took part
04:02 willingly in the attack. But considering the fact that their
04:08 reasoning faculties were still not yet fully developed to allow them or were
04:13 still to induce them to join in the attack is nothing less than pure evil.
04:20 What parents will allow or ask their own children to kill innocent people by
04:25 killing themselves. Indeed, we live in a increasingly dark world
04:32 now. But while Surabaya has now become well known as the as a target of terrorist attacks perpetrated by evil
04:39 people, what is lesser known is that over the past 20 to 30 years, the city has seen a
04:46 phenomenal growth in the number of people who profess Jesus as Lord and
04:52 Savior. The spirit of God has been moving mightily across Indonesia, especially in
04:59 the big cities, including Jakarta, and their churches are now packed with new believers, young and old.
05:07 What many of you don't know is that Surabaya is home to one of the largest churches in the world. And this picture
05:14 shows a typical Sunday worship service at the Bethany Church of God in Surabaya
05:21 with a weekly average attendance of 50,000.
05:28 To give you a sense of what God is doing in Indonesia, especially in Suraya, I'd
05:34 like to I'd like to show you a short video clip uh of a regular uh Sunday
05:39 worship service at this particular church. Uh, it's going to take about 2 minutes plus. Can we have the video,
05:44 please?
05:56 Audio
06:08 otherwise become a silent movie.
06:19 I have I have decided to follow I have decided
06:28 to follow Jesus. No turning pen. No turning. No turning.
06:38 I have decided to follow you. I have decided
06:44 to follow [Music]
06:60 [Music] in
07:08 for [Music]
07:25 [Music] Amen. Amen.
07:37 [Music]
07:45 Daddy,ch. [Music]
08:00 [Music] Amen.
08:06 I have to follow Jesus. Follow Jesus.
08:12 No turning back. No turning back. Oh no. No.
08:17 No turning back. Have decided [Music]
08:24 to follow Jesus. No turning back.
08:29 No turning back. I have decided to follow you.
08:35 [Music] I have decided
08:40 to follow Jesus. [Music]
09:01 Okay, we'll stop here for due to lack of time. Uh it just goes on for another one minute.
09:08 Now it's really quite a sight uh to see 50,000 people declaring that they had
09:15 decided to follow Jesus. If your basel Indonesia is okay, they
09:21 sang [Music]
09:33 But why am I showing you all this? What has it got to do with our sermon topic? What I wanted to tell you is that the
09:40 light of Jesus has been shining brightly in Surabaya. The light of Jesus has been
09:45 attracting thousands upon thousands in the city to embrace the message of the
09:51 cross. In the light of uh the terrorist attack of 13th May,
09:58 we can see them as a kind of attempt by the enemies of God to derail the spread
10:03 of the gospel in Surabaya. Now, some of you may be reminded of this verse in in John chapter 1 in verse 5
10:10 says uh the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And the light here refers to that the
10:16 light of Jesus and the NLT puts it this way. The light of the light shines in
10:21 the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it. And so we can be assured
10:27 that the forces of darkness in suraya can never can never dim the light of
10:32 Jesus over the city. God's people in Surabaya will not be disheartened nor
10:39 defeated by this tragic event. In fact, I believe it's likely that more people
10:44 even more people will be will be drawn to the light of Jesus. Now actually I'm getting ahead of
10:50 myself. We have to kind of jump into the the second part of the sermon where we will discuss Jesus as the light of the
10:56 world. And so let me just leave Surabaya aside for a while. I'll come back to it later in the sermon. And let's now dive
11:03 into our our the first part of our text on the account of Jesus and the adulterous woman.
11:10 Now this is a passage familiar to many of you. You must have heard it preached before maybe a couple of times and hence
11:17 I will not dwell on it in too much detail but rather uh to share some thoughts that may be new to you. Now
11:24 more importantly we shall look at this first part of our text as a kind of a backdrop or buildup uh to our main focus
11:32 in the second part which is a theme of light versus darkness. But first let's
11:38 see what happens uh in the first five verses. From verse two we find that Jesus was at
11:44 the temple courts uh teaching a crowd that had gathered around him. Uh it says
11:50 here that it was very early in the morning and the next thing some teachers of the
11:55 law and some Pharisees who were opposed to Jesus they brought before him a woman
12:02 who has been caught in adultery. And in verse five, they pose to Jesus a
12:08 trap question. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now,
12:14 what do you say? Now, in those days, adultery was a crime punishable by death
12:20 according to Moses' law. Now, these teachers of the law, they knew the Bible very well. And the law of
12:28 Moses decided was from Leviticus 20:10. If a man commits adultery with another
12:35 man's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. And
12:42 this is repeated in another verse, Deuteronomy 22:22. But if you notice in this verse, if two
12:48 persons were caught uh in adultery, both look carefully, both men and the woman
12:55 must be punished. But here the man was missing. only the woman was caught. In all
13:02 likelihood, the adulterer, the man was their accomplice.
13:08 It was a setup in which case the woman was uh also a victim as much as she was
13:15 a partner in crime. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees, they cited this
13:21 law from Moses regarding adultery, but they were actually abusing it to further
13:27 their malicious agenda. They were not really interested in upholding Moses' law as much as they were in implicating
13:35 Jesus. And that's why verse six says they were using this question as a trap.
13:42 So it was a trap in order to have a basis for a win till you lose kind of situation. Either way you try to answer
13:50 uh you will find yourself at a disadvantage because if Jesus had agreed that a woman
13:55 be put to death then it will greatly diminish or negate the message of
14:00 compassion that he had was trying to preach. Then they will then they will be able to say that Jesus was a hypocrite.
14:07 He he says one thing but does another thing. More critically, if Jesus had
14:12 said that she should be put to death, then he would be accused of contempt for
14:17 Roman laws because the Romans did not allow the Jews to carry out uh or to
14:23 decide on death sentences. Now, on the other hand, if Jesus had
14:28 objected to punishing the woman, no, you cannot stone her, then they would accuse Jesus of going against the law of Moses.
14:36 And that is also a very serious charge. After all, Jesus uh did say in Matthew
14:41 5:17, "Do not think that I've come to abolish the law. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."
14:49 And so, how does one get out of this entrapment? It's amazing how Jesus got
14:55 out got out of situation with his now uh famous line in verse 7. This is very
15:00 well-known verse. Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. So Jesus sidest stepped
15:07 the trap by not saying whether she should or should not be put to death. Instead he throws he threw the trap back
15:15 to them by challenging anyone to cast the first stone if he was without sin.
15:20 Obviously there was none. And so one by one they started to disperse as described in verse 9.
15:28 Now briefly this was what happened in the account of Jesus and the adulterous woman. Like I said, many of you are
15:35 already familiar with it. So, let us now dig deeper into the text to try to uncover what is beneath the surface.
15:44 There are two really two big big questions uh begging to be asked from
15:49 our from this part of our text. You you may be asking yourself. Okay.
15:55 One of them is the first one is this. What did Jesus write on the ground?
16:01 Because from verse six before he said that famous line, let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a
16:07 stone be just before that Jesus bent down. Verse six, Jesus bent down and
16:12 started to write on the ground with his finger. And he did this not once but twice
16:19 because in verse eight again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
16:27 Now, understandably, what Jesus could have possibly written has become the the
16:32 subject of intense uh debate and speculation over the centuries.
16:38 What did Jesus write? The Bible scholars are curious. You are
16:44 curious. I'm curious. And the straight answer is nobody knows.
16:51 Since uh scripture is silent on this, the writer chose not to reveal what
16:57 Jesus wrote, you got to ask John. He didn't want to
17:04 reveal. I don't know why, but that didn't doesn't that doesn't stop all kinds of
17:10 speculation as to what might have been written. The silliest view I heard is
17:16 that Jesus was doodling to stall for time as he collected his thoughts.
17:23 A more plausible answer is that Jesus wrote down their sins because Bible scholars point to Revelation 20 which
17:31 describes books that will be opened in which are recorded the deeds of men. Revelation 20:12 the dead will judge
17:38 according to what they had done as recorded in the books. So, did Jesus record their sins on the
17:47 ground? Another possible answer is that Jesus wrote an Old Testament verse. After all,
17:53 Jesus did quote extensively from the Old Testament, I think about 80 times throughout the four gospels.
17:59 Yes, Jesus might have picked an appropriate Old Testament verse wrote on the ground to rebuke the crowd. That is
18:06 a strong possibility. But the best answer I've seen is that Jesus wrote down their names
18:14 like in in in your primary school the monitor write your name down.
18:21 The scriptural support for this is Jeremiah 17:13.
18:26 Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
18:33 because they have forsaken the Lord the spring of living water. And some scholars are very sure of this because
18:40 of the term living water in the verse. And Jesus had just mentioned living water at the end of John chapter 7.
18:48 But still all these are mere speculations because no one really knows.
18:54 Nevertheless, I wish to propose to you that perhaps what Jesus might have
18:59 written is not nearly as important as the actual act of writing. Perhaps we
19:05 should not focus so much on what might have been written, but rather on the fact that he wrote. And what do I mean?
19:13 The clue is that Jesus wrote not once, but twice. You see, throughout the Old
19:18 Testament, we find that our God is a God of spoken words. God would would only
19:24 need to speak and things would come to pass or come into being. And such is the
19:30 power of the spoken words of God. And we are reminded in Genesis 1:13 and God
19:35 said, "Let there be light." And there was light. And throughout the Old Testament, we find the prophet saying
19:42 this famous phrase, "Thus saith the Lord." You know, but are there any
19:47 instances in the Old Testament where God actually wrote something? Now think about it. This is like Bible
19:54 quiz, huh? Some of you nodding. Very good. Yes. There are only two specific
19:60 instances in the Old Testament where God actually wrote or inscribed something.
20:06 Only two. One is in Exodus 31:18 when God wrote
20:12 the ten commandments on two stone tablets on Mount Si and the verse says
20:18 inscribed by the finger of God. Inscribed by the finger of God.
20:26 The second instance is in Exodus 34:1 where God had to write the ten
20:31 commandments again a second time. Why? Because Moses broke the first set of
20:37 tablets. God was being very patient with Moses.
20:42 I told my kids if they break their tablet, they will not get a second one.
20:50 What I'm trying to point out is that in Exodus, God wrote the Ten Commandments
20:56 with his finger twice. In John chapter 8, Jesus wrote on the ground with his
21:03 finger twice. It is not difficult to see the link between the two. Jesus didn't say much
21:11 to the teachers of the laws and the Pharisees, but he was visually telling them, "Are
21:18 you quoting me a law of Moses? Are you telling me what the law is?
21:27 Hello, do you know that I was there on Mount Si and I wrote those laws?
21:34 Do you know that I gave those laws to Moses?
21:41 Little did they realize that right before their very eyes was the lawgiver
21:47 himself. The scene was almost laughable if it is
21:52 not so serious. It's like telling Thomas Edison how a light bulb works
21:60 or teaching Isaac Newton how gravity works.
22:07 I said earlier that there are two big questions begging to be asked from the from this part of our text. The first
22:12 one is what did Jesus write on the ground and we have just dealt with that. The second one is more crucial because
22:21 the answer will will tell us what this account is really all about and the
22:27 answer will also link us to the second part of our text on Jesus as the light of the world.
22:33 Now, some people read this part of uh John 8 with a little bit of discomfort
22:39 because the passage seems to condone adultery. After the crowd dispersed, Jesus led the
22:46 woman off with a warning uh uh from um from verse 11. Go now and
22:54 live your life of sin. She urge her not to sin anymore as he let her off.
23:02 And this raises uh some very troubling questions. How could Jesus just let it off? What
23:09 about the law? How how can you just simply set set aside the law just like
23:14 that? What about the punishment for a crime? After all, didn't Jesus say that
23:19 he came to fulfill the law as we saw earlier in Matthew 5:17?
23:25 Yes, it may appear that in letting the woman off, Jesus was
23:30 making light of the punishment prescribed by the law. Yes, it may appear that the lawgiver himself
23:38 may seem not to be upholding the law, that he appeared to be ignoring the punishment that should be metered out to
23:44 the guilty as the law demanded. Now, the guilt of the woman was never in
23:49 doubt. Her guilt is clear from verse 11. She was living a life of sin.
23:57 So, how do we address that? Can a judge just let the accused of the guilty of?
24:04 Now, although it's not recorded here, as Jesus let the woman go, as he saw him
24:11 saw her walking away, I could almost imagine Jesus whispering to himself,
24:18 "Yes, the law must be applied. Yes, the punishment is death.
24:24 But woman, in a couple of months time, I will take the punishment on your behalf.
24:30 I will die in your place so that you can live.
24:36 Yes, someone must pay the price for her sin. She must be punished. She was minutes
24:42 away from being stoned to death. But Jesus paid the price in full on the
24:47 cross on her behalf. Jesus died for her so that she might
24:53 live. He died so that we too might live.
24:58 And this is really the key to understanding this account of Jesus and the adulterous woman. Some people use
25:06 this passage from John chapter 8 as you know as a way to teach Christian compassion and mercy. Yes, of course
25:13 it's a beautiful story of compassion and mercy. But if that is all there is to it, then we are really missing out on
25:19 the real lesson behind these verses. It is much much more than the beautiful story of compassion and mercy. It is
25:26 really a story of the redemptive work of Christ. But how do I know that this is actually
25:32 a story of the redemptive work of Christ when it's not mentioned in this in these first 10 verses? Now, this is where we
25:39 I'm going to link the first part of our text to the second part. Now I'm going
25:44 to jump to the last 10 verses of our text and we find Jesus still in the
25:49 temple after the woman had already left and he was now talking to uh to some Pharisees a kind of debate was going on
25:57 and Jesus told this told the Pharisees something very strange h you will die in
26:03 your sin and he said it three times uh in verses uh 21 and twice in uh vers uh
26:12 24. Indeed, the Bible teaches us that the wages of sin is death from Romans 6:23.
26:20 Now, what is a wage? A wage is something you receive uh for for doing a piece of work. And similarly, for the work, you
26:28 know, the work of uh sin in your life, you will get paid in commerce and that payment is death. And this is another
26:36 way of saying the penalty for sin is death. And here death means spiritual
26:42 death or eternal separation from God. So Jesus was in fact echoing this spiritual
26:48 truth when he told the Pharisees that they would die in their sins three times.
26:55 And so from this perspective, the account of Jesus and the adulterous woman kind of serves as a backdrop to
27:02 the later part of the text in a sense that the woman had committed a sin, the grave sin of of adultery and she was
27:09 facing imminent death although that was physical death. So now Jesus was telling the Pharisees that you too not only her
27:16 you too have sinned and you too have to face uh death for the wages of sin is
27:23 death. But that is just half the gospel message. The good news is found further
27:30 down in the verse 28 where Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up uh the
27:37 son of man, then you will know that I am he." Now this is actually the the the
27:42 important part, the the the climax. This part this may sound a bit hard to understand. Lifted up here means lifted
27:49 up on the cross. It is a clear reference to Jesus crucifixion.
27:55 Son of man if you do not know is a title for Jesus. And he when Jesus said I'm he
28:00 really means I'm he the light of the world because we need to connect this to the earlier part. Uh I'm he who the
28:06 light of the world who gives life. But we will talk more about this giving life in a short while. And hence to
28:12 paraphrase uh verse 28, Jesus was actually telling them uh in my words,
28:17 when you crucify me on the cross, you will know that I'm the one who gives life because I've come to die on your
28:24 behalf. And again, we are jumping ahead in the sermon. But can you see that beneath the
28:30 verses, the gospel message cuts across our text today, although not so
28:35 explicitly? Can you also see that the account of Jesus and the adulterous woman actually
28:41 is a built up to this theme of from death to life. So you can see underneath
28:48 the verses this idea of from death to life started from the first 10 verses
28:54 the woman was condemned to die but Jesus gave her life gave her another shot at life by dying in her place.
29:02 Now just now I gave you only half of Romans 6:23 famous verse but I only said half now it's the full verse. For the
29:09 wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Or more specifically the gift of
29:15 God is eternal life through Jesus death.
29:21 Our transition from death to life was made possible because Jesus stayed
29:27 faithful to the cross. He never wavered in his journey to the cross. Now, if you
29:33 understand what the worship leader said in the video, if your basel Indonesia is still okay, she said,
29:44 meaning Christ was faithful all the way to the cross. And this is the first big
29:49 lesson from our text today. He died so that we might live.
29:56 When I came across this uh to to cap this, I came across this very in
30:02 creative way of presenting Romans 6:23, the wonders of Google, you can find a
30:07 lot of things. It says the for the wages of sin is death. And the word death uh written
30:14 very artistic artistically, but it's you can see you can make out is the word death. You're supposed to turn
30:21 this upside down. So, I'm going to turn the slide upside down with my clicker.
30:26 Okay. But the gift of God is eternal life. The same word death just now uh
30:31 now become the word life. I I must do it again because you all don't see the magic.
30:38 Just now the first slide the word death from death to I'm turning it now. Turn
30:45 now life. Okay. Like a magician.
30:51 Add a bit of color to the to the sermon. Okay, now we are ready to uh move on to
30:59 examine the second part of our text from verses 12 to 30. The the bigger chunk again. Now although I've already touched
31:07 on some verses from the last 10 verses the anchor of our text I said as I said
31:13 just now the focus of our sermon is on verse 12 uh where Jesus said I'm the light of the world.
31:19 Now before I go there, I'm going to spend a couple of minutes. I have no choice uh to but to look at this chunk
31:25 of verses from uh verses 13 to 18 where there is this exchange uh not so
31:34 much an argument but an exchange between Jesus and some Pharisees. Basically they were talking about
31:40 witnesses in the court of law and their testimonies. I know this can get a little bit boring so please bear with
31:45 me. We are entering the realm of uh Jewish legal system.
31:50 Jesus was in a sense uh standing in the court of their opinion. He was on trial
31:56 so to speak because of some claims that he made about himself and the Pharisees challenge him on those claims you know
32:02 saying that they are not valid from verse 13. So now what kind of claims that Jesus uh
32:09 uh uh make in our text to make the Pharisees disagree? First as we as we know he he made the
32:17 claim that he is the light of the world in verse 12 and only that in verses 16 and 17 he
32:23 declared that God the father had sent him and he repeated this uh this he said it
32:29 twice and he repeat he repeated this twice in verses 26 and 29 four times he said this no God the father sent him
32:37 they didn't quite understand him and that's why they asked Jesus in verse 19 where is your
32:44 Now in any case they dismissed his claims saying in verse 13 here you are
32:49 appearing as your own witness your testimony is not valid. Now to understand what is going on uh we need
32:55 to know a little bit about Jewish legal procedures. Now in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy
33:02 19:15 uh there's a verse that stipulates that the testimonies of two to three
33:09 witnesses are required to substantiate a charge in court. It says here a matter
33:14 must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Now this is understandable because witnesses are not
33:23 infallible because we are all sinners and hence the testimony of a single witness must be
33:30 crossch checked with uh testimonies from from one or two other witnesses in order
33:36 that there is no miscarriage of justice. Now if there are testimonies do not tally then the church cannot stand and
33:44 Jesus knew this well because after all he wrote those laws as we saw earlier and that's why he agreed in verse 17 in
33:52 your own law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true a reference to uh Deuteronomy 19:15
34:00 actually based on this in the earlier account of Jesus and the adulterous woman even though it was not mentioned
34:06 there we can be sure that they were at least two witnesses in the crowd and
34:11 their testimonies were necessary to incriminate the woman although uh these
34:17 witnesses were probably accompllices of those who wanted to trap Jesus and
34:22 moving on and so in line with this requirement for two witnesses. So Jesus
34:28 proceeded to offer two witnesses to validate his claims. He made a claim and
34:33 he he offered two witnesses to validate his claim. Who are the two witnesses
34:39 that Jesus uh brought forth? First is it doesn't surprise her Jesus
34:46 himself and the second God himself from verse 18.
34:53 Now this of course uh very hard for the Pharisees to understand too much to swallow because obviously in the court
34:60 of law if a if an accused becomes his own witness it can be problematic. Huh?
35:06 You cannot tell the judge your honor. I'm innocent. Please believe me. I'm my own witness.
35:13 So, how and why was Jesus testimony valid when he testified on his own
35:19 behalf as he mentioned here in verse 14?
35:24 Actually, this doesn't become a problem if we realize that Jesus is the only perfect sinless human being who has ever
35:32 lived. If ever there is a person capable of truth is Jesus. In fact, there is no
35:39 need for a second witness as the sole testimony of Jesus was sufficient in terms of establishing the truth because
35:46 he's perfect. But nevertheless, in order to comply with the requirement of Deuteronomy
35:52 1915, Jesus cited God the Father as the second witness whose testimony would be
35:59 as strong as his. There is a strange verse uh in uh John
36:06 5:34. Jesus said, "I have no need for human witnesses." Jesus said, "I don't
36:13 need human witnesses." Why? Because he is the embodiment of truth. He is the
36:19 truth. He is not a fable human. He is sinless and incapable of falsehood. He
36:26 is the son of God sent by God the Father. And that's why he kept saying and again and again the the father sent
36:33 me and this squares with his other uh statement in the verse 23 I'm from above
36:40 I am not of this world and because Jesus is the embodiment of
36:46 truth and that's why we have uh today's title uh Jesus as the light and truth
36:53 meaning because he's he is the truth that's why we can believe him when he said I am the side of the world.
37:01 And this brings me uh to the last part of our sermon where we will examine in
37:06 greater depth uh what this means and we want to seek to understand more uh what is light and
37:13 what is darkness. Now unfortunately our text today doesn't dwell too much on this theme of uh light
37:20 and darkness and so I have to make uh references to other verses in the Bible. I'll also present you some ideas about
37:28 light and darkness. Now to begin with it might be useful for us to look at some basic physical
37:35 properties of light.
37:41 I'll skip this is a list of all the IM statement in John 8. Uh no time for this
37:47 but I have this interesting uh art to show you. many years ago uh through a common
37:54 friend in London. I I had to contact an obscure British artist uh I think was
38:01 living in Birmingham. I needed to get in touch with him because I badly wanted a
38:07 signed copy of a book that he has just he had just written and published but that is not important. Anyway, in one of
38:13 his books, he drew he he showed this simple illustration that he drew which
38:19 amused me and he titled it as uh darkness falls.
38:24 I take a good look. He drew a column of darkness
38:30 streaming through the window into a room that is bright.
38:35 Of course, this is an impossibility. You have never seen it happen nor will it ever happen.
38:42 So artist is trying to use reverse logic to teach us about light.
38:49 While light can surely shine into a darkened room, the other way around is
38:54 simply inconceivable. Darkness cannot uh unshine into a bright
39:01 place. Darkness can only come in when light decides to leave. And vice versa. When
39:10 light decides to come back, darkness has to leave.
39:16 The artist is not being stupid. No, he's trying to teach us about light. And that's why we have light switches around
39:22 the house. When we switch on the light, it drives the darkness away. When we
39:28 switch off the light, the darkness returns. That's why we don't have a
39:34 darkness switch. You switch on darkness switch and darkness come in. Don't have. We only
39:40 have light switches. And what this is teaching us is that while light and
39:46 darkness are opposing entities, they are not equal.
39:51 Light can overcome darkness, but not the other way around. Light can dispel darkness. Darkness
39:58 cannot dispel light. Light is stronger than darkness. Light can conquer
40:04 darkness. But not the not the reverse. And if you understand this then John 15
40:11 which I showed you earlier becomes really profound and clear. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness
40:17 can never extinguish it obviously even from a physical point of view. And
40:24 that's why I said earlier that the suicide attacks in Suraya last month
40:30 cannot and will not dampen the spirit of our brethren in that city because
40:35 darkness cannot overcome light. Now to go deeper let us now try to
40:42 understand the nature of darkness. There's not light now darkness. And we will see this from a spiritual perspective.
40:48 Generally there are two kinds of uh spiritual darkness around us today. mental and moral.
40:55 Mental darkness is a condition where we are not able to differentiate between what is real and what is illusionary.
41:02 Whereas moral darkness is when people are not able to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong.
41:10 Now we start with mental darkness and all of us actually uh has a little
41:15 bit of this you know see we live in a in an age of
41:20 unprecedented uh prosperity and unparalle technological advances.
41:27 We we we have devised this economic system that allows people to to seek and
41:33 acquire much material wealth and people are busy At least in in this
41:40 hall, they're busy either pursuing uh a career or running a business. Some
41:46 already finished pursuing a career and finish running the business. Okay. And in this system, money has lent us a new
41:53 kind of meaning. Materialism has become an end in itself.
42:02 Last night midnight, I received a video via WhatsApp. I tell it comes at weird hours. a short clip
42:10 uh of a grand slam tennis match. Stephie Graph, remember her? Her whole video.
42:18 She was about to surf and a man in the gallery shouted, "Hey, Stephie, will you marry me?" Of course, the spectator
42:25 laughed. She was a bit stunned. You know what she shouted back? How much money do
42:31 you have? All she wanted to know is you want to
42:37 marry me? Yes. Tell me how much money you have. Materialism has become an end in itself.
42:45 But it's all an illusion because m the material cannot provide us the real meaning of life. It can never satisfy
42:51 the deepest yearnings of our soul. Only God can. But God has been pushed to a
42:57 corner as priorities start to shift. And so in this world of mental darkness, what is illusionary is taken as real and
43:04 what is real has become an illusion. And secondly,
43:10 what is this is this is even more troubling trapped in the world of moral darkness. People can can no longer
43:16 differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. And again citing the example of uh the suraya suicide
43:22 attacks. Now we condemn these acts as evil. But do you think the perpetrators,
43:29 you know, thought that their actions were evil? You know, the neighbors told the police
43:34 that they were a normal family. Even the day before the attack, they acted normally as though nothing is happening.
43:41 And I bet you the two parents were obviously absolutely
43:47 convinced that what they were about to do was noble and right.
43:52 What is clearly wrong in our eyes was perfectly justified in their warped
43:58 mind. And closer to home, lying and cheating.
44:05 I'm talking about Malaysia now. Greed and theft have become a norm in politics
44:11 and and and and commerce.
44:16 Hey, I have not explained that why you laugh. Obviously, you know what is happening.
44:23 In the middle of last month, the police had to use five trucks to confiscate and cut away boxes after boxes after boxes
44:32 of valuables and cash coming from three residences belonging to a politician. No
44:39 need to name. Huh. But the thing is it doesn't appear that
44:44 he and the likes of him feel any remorse.
44:50 I believe they actually think it is their right.
44:55 I try to resist talking about politics but as you can see it's very difficult.
45:00 And so living in an increasingly godless society morality
45:06 is no longer an absolute entity. It has become relative relative morality. They
45:12 say for example homosexuality and abortion are now openly tolerated.
45:18 two two days two weeks ago I was on the line uh with Jeremy our son Jeremy he's now in Dublin and he was saying daddy
45:25 you know a lot of rallies and and debates over the in impending uh
45:30 referendum on abortion in Ireland and sadly the result sadly on the 25th
45:38 of May just recently 66% of the people of Ireland voted overwhelmingly
45:47 in favor for abortion. Sad. And indeed, the line between right
45:52 and wrong, between good and bad is becoming more and more blurred.
45:58 So, we live in an increasingly dark world mentally and morally. The world is
46:03 not becoming a a better place. It's getting worse. People are more confused and lost as
46:09 ever. And if you wonder why God isn't doing anything about it, you only need to look to Jesus, the light of the
46:15 world. He has come to shine his light in a darkened world. And John announced it
46:21 uh in in in John 1:9. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Of course, the word
46:28 light here is a is a metaphor is not referring to physical light. But what does it mean uh when Jesus said, "I'm
46:34 the light of the world." What did John mean when he said that Jesus came to give light to everyone? Now, I'd like to
46:40 offer you uh two ways to understand this. And there may be more but let me share with you two thoughts.
46:48 First, as light of the world, Jesus exposes sin and wrongdoing.
46:57 John further explains uh in John 3:20, everyone who does evil hates the light
47:03 and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
47:08 And the idea is very simple. If your hands are dirty, you cannot see the dirt in the dark.
47:15 But in a broom that is bright, the dirt becomes visible. And that's why in the account of Jesus
47:21 and the adulterous woman, when her accusers came in contact with the light of the world, their sins were exposed.
47:28 Remember the line, let anyone who is without sin, Jesus exposes their sin.
47:33 And that's why when you when you walk in the light of Jesus, you will become more and more conscious of your own sins
47:41 because the light exposes them. And that's how we get more and more sanctified as we progress in our faith
47:48 because Jesus is also saying to us, go now and sin no more.
47:54 On the other hand, if you are struggling with some sins, you are trying to break free of some bondage to sin,
48:01 then open up the window of your heart a little bit. Let some light come in. Let
48:07 the light of Jesus come in. Now, secondly, as light of the world,
48:13 Jesus offers life to anyone who will believe. And there is a very close association between light and life.
48:22 Science students in any secondary school will tell you that they put one plant in the sunlight, another plant in the box,
48:29 and then they water both plants equally, and after one or two weeks, the plant in
48:35 the box will wither and die. I'm sure you did this experiment while you're in school.
48:43 Now I'm not sure if uh the Apostle John studied science but he un he certainly
48:50 understood this close link between light and life because even in our anchor
48:55 verse uh in full it says I'm the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the
49:02 light of life. Light of life. He links light and life together. And he wrote
49:09 this about Jesus uh in uh John 1:4. In him was life and that life was the light
49:14 of man. Again, light and life. Where there is light, there is life.
49:20 The light of the world has the power to give life. After all, he created life in Genesis.
49:26 In in account of Jesus and and the adulterous woman, Jesus gave life to her
49:31 when she was facing death. John 10:10, Jesus himself declared, "I've come that
49:38 they may have life and they may have they may have it more abundantly." And notice Jesus didn't say that they that
49:45 they may have life in abundance. He said that they may have life more abundantly.
49:50 A big difference, huh? Abundantly here doesn't mean materially abundant. You know, it means fully, meaningfully,
49:59 purposefully. And hence if you feel a bit lost if you seem to have uh to be lacking purpose in
50:07 life then open up the window of your heart. Let some light in. Let the light of Jesus come in.
50:14 In conclusion, uh what practical lessons can we take home with us from this text as application? How can the light of the
50:21 world impact our lives as people of God? I'll leave you with an exhaltation from
50:26 scripture. The light of the world has called on his his followers to be
50:33 also lights of the world. Light of the world is asking his followers to be
50:39 lights of the world. He Jesus says uh in Matthew 5:14, you
50:45 are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a
50:51 bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. As lights of the world it doesn't
50:58 mean that you and I has have the capacity to produce light. Rather it means that by being followers of by
51:04 being followers of Jesus we reflect his light. He is the light of the world with a capital L we are lights of the world
51:11 with a small L. We are like little mirrors uh reflecting the light of Jesus
51:17 in the place where God has put us. And remember the two functions of light. Light exposes sin and light gives life.
51:26 It also says in this verse that nobody puts a lamb under the bowl. It simply means that there is no such
51:32 thing as a secret Christian. You cannot be a secret Christian is an oxymoron contradiction in term. Either the the
51:40 secrecy will destroy your faith or your faith will kill the secrecy.
51:46 If you're a true Christian, people must know about that through your words,
51:53 your deeds and indeed through your life. Lambs are put on lampstands
51:59 and therefore we are to be a kind of lighthouse for others. Our light is to be seen by all to be visible and as a
52:07 result Christians must have a positive influence in society.
52:14 And Jesus continued in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light shine before others that
52:19 they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven." This is the conclusion. If there's only
52:27 one thing you remember from this sermon, if you forget everything else, just remember this one thing. Let your light
52:33 shine before others. Even as the light of the world, Jesus shines in this
52:40 world. Shall we close in prayer? Our father in heaven, may the light of the
52:46 world shines ever more brightly in this world, in this country,
52:52 in this community, in this church, and also in our individual lives. May it
52:58 shine ever more brightly to dispel the growing darkness. May we, your people,
53:04 heed the call of your son, Jesus, by endeavoring to reflect his light and truth to those around us. For we ask
53:12 this in his precious name. Amen.
