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Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 29, 2020 under 2020 | 
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Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; November 29, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 4:11-15
Theme: The hope of enjoying eternal life together motivates us to minister the gospel to one another—no matter what the cost.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this sermon.
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 25, 2020 under AM Bible Study | Be the First to Comment
AM Bible Study Group: November 25, 2020 from Luke 11:33-36
Theme: With Jesus, the greatest blessedness comes not through a unique experience, but rather through hearing and keeping God’s word.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this Bible Study.
We have been working our way through Luke 11. It tells us the story of how our Lord was encountering some strong opposition from unbelievers, and of how He responded to them. And in verses 33-36, we find Him speaking these fascinating words:
“No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light” (Luke 11:33-36).
* * * * * * * * * *
When I read this passage, I think of something that often happens to me. It may even be especially true for many of us who live under Oregon weather.
When I drive, and the sun is shining, I put on my sunglasses. But I soon forget that I’m wearing them. And as the daylight fades away, or when the sun begins to be covered over by the clouds, I find myself frustrated. “Why is it so dark?” Then, eventually, I remember that I’m wearing sunglasses—and then move them up to the top of my head so that I can see better. (Then, later on, I have the next of one of my reoccurring problems—that of wondering where I put my sunglasses. But that’s another story.)
When our vision is obscured, the light doesn’t have the full illuminating effect that it needs to have. It’s necessary then—obviously in driving; but certainly in all other areas of life—to keep our vision clear and unobstructed. We need to keep our eye “good”.
And if this is true in everyday life, it is even more so in our spiritual life. When Jesus spoke these words, He was dealing with people who had seen Him perform a great miracle; but they were not allowing the evidence of their eyes to lead them to faith in Him. They were finding excuses for not believing on Him—saying that He had performed this great act of healing by the power of the devil; or demanding that He prove Himself further by performing a miracle at their demand. It was as if they had their spiritual sunglasses on—and not just accidentally, either; but very deliberately!
Jesus had been answering these accusations of theirs; and after a while, He turned from His critics and spoke instead to the crowds that had gathered. It became an important teaching moment for the crowd; and He used the self-imposed blindness of His critics as an object lesson. In the verses just before our passage, He said that the queen of Sheba—who traveled many miles to hear the wisdom of Solomon—will stand in judgment of those who were right then resisting Him; because she sought out the wisdom of Solomon; and Someone with more wisdom than Solomon was standing right there in their midst. And He said that the people of Nineveh—who were preached to by Jonah—will also stand up in judgment of those unbelieving critics; because the Ninevites repented at Jonah’s preaching, and Someone greater than Jonah was in their midst. The light was shining brightly upon them; but they kept their sunglasses on so that they wouldn’t be able to see … and then have to repent of their unbelief.
Those people who were refusing to believe on Jesus would have said, “No—the problem isn’t us. The problem is Jesus. He isn’t giving us enough evidence. He isn’t proving to us that He is who He says He is.” But in the passage we find before us this morning, Jesus was saying to His critics, “No—the problem isn’t Me. The problem is you. All the evidence you need is there. The light is shining brightly and sufficiently. But you’ve got your spiritual blinders on; and so, you won’t let the light illuminate your soul.”
And what a great spiritual lesson this is to us! Jesus is the light. The Bible makes that clear. John 1:4 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” God sends light to save humankind, and that light is Jesus Himself. God has set that light up high so that all can see. But if some people are not illuminated by that light, the problem isn’t with Jesus. As it says in John 3;
“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:19-21).
It’s very important, then, that we keep our vision clear—that we take the blinders off—so that the full brightness of ‘the life’ which is ‘the light of men’ may illuminate us through and through!
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; look closely at verse 33; and follow along as I read:
“No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light.”
Did you notice that it sounded almost the same—but slightly different—from what you may be reading? That’s because I wasn’t reading verse 33. I was actually reading Luke 8:16. The Lord Jesus often used the same sort of illustrations to teach different subjects at different times. In Luke 8, He was teaching about the parable of the seeds that were sown on different types of ground. Here, He is speaking of how He is the light shining forth; and that people cannot see that light if they keep their vision obscured.
But in both cases, the basic principle is the same. Notice, in verse 33—and this time, I’m really reading it!—how we see the basic principle that …
1. GOD HAS MADE THE LIGHT TO BE SEEN.
Luke 11:33 says, “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light.” And the idea is that God is the one who has sent this light—’the light of man’. He didn’t send this great light in order to hide it. Rather, He has put Jesus on display for the whole world to see; so that all who want to enter into the light and have it shine on them may do so. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:6;
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).
God isn’t willing that anyone perish; but that all come to repentance. And so, He has sent the light of Christ out to shine everywhere. He has put it on display on the lampstand.
But that leads to the next point; that …
2. IF OUR VISION IS OBSCURED, WE CAN’T BE ILLUMINATED.
Look at how Jesus tells us this. In verse 34, He says, “The lamp of the body is the eye.” He isn’t saying something here that a lot of people are fond of saying; that ‘the eyes are the window of the soul’—as if we could look into someone’s eyes and see what is deep within them. (We really can’t, by the way.) Rather, he is using an illustration from basic physiology. The eye is that part of the body that informs—and in a figurative sense, provides illumination for—the rest of the body.
Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night—without the lights on—and tried to feel your way around from one room to another? I did recently. We were doing some rearranging of the room the day before; and in the dark, I stubbed my little toe pretty severely on a big red toolbox! And just to show you how smart I am, it was then that I turned on the light … so that I could see what it was that I had just stubbed my toe against. I had things just a little bit out of their proper order! My feet can’t see anything. (They can smell … but not see.) But if I had turned the light on, I could then see—and my eye would illuminate and inform the path for my whole body.
Jesus went on to say, “Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light.” In other words, if the light is on, and my vision is unobscured—if my eye is “good” and “healthy” and “in operation”—then the rest of my body gains the benefit of the illuminating power of light. But He also said, “when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness”. Obscuring our vision results in the whole body stumbling around in the dark.
Now; this is true in a spiritual sense too. Jesus has been sent by the Father as the light of mankind that leads us to salvation. There is no other. He is the only one. And the Father has put Him up on display for all to see. But if people don’t want to see—if they intentionally obscure their vision—they won’t be illuminated by Him. People can be motivated to hide their eyes from the light of Christ for a variety of reasons—because they want to keep hold of certain sinful practices in their lives, or because of pride and because of a fear of what others may think, or because of a love for the things of this world. And they may use a variety of means in order to intentionally obscure their eyes from that light—by looking instead to other religions and alternate spiritualities, or by mocking the Christian religion and misrepresenting the claims of the Bible, or by holding on to resentments and offenses that someone else may have caused.
It is a terrible and tragic thing to hold on to darkness in this way. This is because, when it comes to those who refuse the light, God will eventually give them the very thing they want—and they will live in the judgment of ultimate darkness forever.
This leads us to a third point from Jesus’ words; that …
3. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO KEEP OUR VISION CLEAR.
In verse 35, He said, “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” This tells us that the ability of the saving light of Jesus to shine in someone is not dependent upon the light itself, but upon the choice of the one upon whom that light shines. If the light does not illuminate their inner being, it is because they won’t let it. It’s our responsibility to make sure that we don’t obscure that light—but walk fully in its illuminating power without hiding ourselves from it.
This is a lot like what the apostle John was talking about in 1 John 1:5-7
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).
And how do we do this? How do we begin to walk in the light? John went on to say;
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (vv. 8-10).
If you want to know the way to be receptive to the light, there it is! We walk in the light of God’s saving grace through Jesus—we take the blinders off—by no longer hiding from the light but by admitting the truth and confessing our sin, and by trusting in His blood to wash us clean. That’s how we make sure that ‘the light in us’ is not ‘darkness’.
And in verse 36, Jesus goes on to tell us that …
4. IF OUR VISION CLEAR, THE LIGHT ILLUMINATES OUR WHOLE LIFE.
Jesus said, “If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.” That phrase “bright shining” is translated from the same word that is used in the Bible to describe a flash of lightning. When lightning flashes, the whole house and the whole landscape and the whole evening sky—for a brief instant—is entirely illuminated. And that’s what happens to us when we submit ourselves to the light of Jesus—without obscuring our eyes, or without withholding any part of our lives or our inner being from Him. Our whole self is illuminated by the light of Jesus Christ.
I love what the apostle Paul wrote about this. In Ephesians 5, he said;
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:8-14).
* * * * * * * * * * *
Our Lord teaches us a very important spiritual principle in all this. It’s that in order to gain the full benefit of true spiritual light, we are responsible to keep our vision clear. He is the light of humankind—the light that saves. So; don’t ever obscure that light. Don’t turn from it or hide from it. Take the blinders off; and allow that light shine upon you and illuminate your whole being.
It’s the light that shines unto the salvation of our souls.
EA
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 22, 2020 under 2020 | Be the First to Comment
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; November 22, 2020 from Habakkuk 3:17-19
Theme: The goodness of God is the basis of our enduring thanks even when times seem bad.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this sermon.
Click HERE for the audio version of this sermon.
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 18, 2020 under AM Bible Study | Be the First to Comment
AM Bible Study Group: November 18, 2020 from Luke 11:29-32
Theme: With Jesus, the greatest blessedness comes not through a unique experience, but rather through hearing and keeping God’s word.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this Bible Study.
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 15, 2020 under 2020 | Be the First to Comment
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; November 15, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 4:7-10
Theme: God allows the gospel to be proclaimed by frail people in order to show the greatness of His power through it.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this sermon.
Click HERE for the audio version of this sermon.
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 11, 2020 under AM Bible Study | Be the First to Comment
AM Bible Study Group: November 11, 2020 from Luke 11:27-28
Theme: With Jesus, the greatest blessedness comes not through a unique experience, but rather through hearing and keeping God’s word.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Click HERE for the live-stream archive of this Bible Study.
