Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. Isaiah 50: 10.

   The prophet Isaiah approaches us with a crucial questionnaire. It is vital in defining the character of the believer and also in affording assurance in the experiences of life. There is no fanciful, illusory religion here. It is anchored in revelation and reality.  It provides the foundation of saving faith and an antidote to anxiety. The beginning of a true knowledge of the Lord is fear, comprising a dread of his awesome majesty, a reverence for his name, a submission to his will, and an attraction to his goodness. There is respect for his might and amazement at his mercy.

God is altogether astounding and excellent. He is almighty and sovereign; strong and sweet; fair and favourable; just and compassionate. His sterling quality is righteousness. To the wicked he is terror. To the penitent and humble he is utterly trustworthy. He is unbending in his holy desires and detestations. The righteous tremble and yet run to him. The unrighteous tremble and run for a place of hiding.

  Those who know God heed his Servant. He is appointed as the voice of the Lord. He comes to us as the Word and we identify him as the Son. His speech is divine. It is wisdom in the science of life and death and the way to salvation in coupling our hearts and minds to the heart and mind of God. He reveals God’s thoughts and trains ours in his sacred disciplines of knowledge, obedience, and adoration.

  Isaiah addresses such folk as these – those who acknowledge God in his splendour and perfection manifested in his attributes and actions. These are they who search the will and the ways of the Lord in his supreme self-disclosure, His Servant par excellence – Jesus Christ! The God-fearer finds heavenly favour and all its benefits through the Son. There is divine purpose and human privilege wedded together in the knowledge of God and obedience to the Son. Our fear forges our union with God and our obedience to the words of the greatest of Prophets sustains the union. It is the union of faith which is God’s greatest gift and man’s greatest enjoyment.

  Yet to these favoured ones Isaiah addresses a surprising question that may unsettle and astonish our religious sentimentality. “Who walks in darkness and has no light? Surely not convinced believers! In our naiveté, and especially in the newness of conversion, we tend to suspect that those who fear the Lord and heed the Son ought to be sure of a life of spiritual ease. What infinite powers are on our side, but Isaiah puts his finger on a common phenomenon in the lives of God’s children. The light of early Christian experience inevitably dims in the struggles of life and the believer begins a series of encounters with darkness.

Events bewilder, doubts assail, explanations are absent, and truths that anchor us are interrogated in a merciless way. Suffering, conflict, sin, adversity, disappointment, diminish our certainties and our courage. Evil is on the rampage and righteousness recedes and suddenly we find ourselves enveloped in a darkness that will not seem to roll back. Our way becomes hesitant, heavy, and hard. Why should this be for those who sincerely revere God and acknowledge his Son? Isaiah equips us for the time of trial.

In the fear of the Lord we defer to his wisdom No light means that there is no alternative to trust, the high calling of the faithful that glorifies him most. In the darkness the believer learns to exercise the vision of faith as opposed to sight and sense, and to discover that, come what may, he is not dispossessed of his God who stands with him. In the times that are tough Isaiah does not underplay the hardship but advises, “Let him trust in the Lord and rely upon his God”. If we think God is proving us in our perseverance let us also recognize that he is also proving his steadfast love to us in the eventual outcome of the period of darkness. He is working works that we do not see until the shining of the light. We do not really know the strength of his sure support until it has been tested. We do not know the strength of his connectedness to us until it is fully stretched.

  It is a shock to us when darkness descends upon us in any way.  It is reassuring to know that this is a familiar experience for many of God’s dear folk (see quotes from John Duncan). Superficial Christians are full of chastisement for embattled believers. This is partly due to ignorance of the severity of divine testings and partly due to fear of them. The purpose of God is that we must be educated to view things with the eye of faith that is illuminated by the word. To trust God by his word alone is to pay him the highest honour in depending upon his veracity alone. Darkness generates dependence. Dependence results ultimately in deliverance of a uniquely divine kind.

Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourself with sparks: walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled – this you shall have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. Isaiah 50: 11.

  Darkness brings the temptation to kindle our own fire. It is a suggestion that must be resisted. It is unbelieving man who walks by the light of sparks; bright ideas that occur to him, or practical devices to mark the way of self-willed advance. False philosophy or phony religion are the characteristics of human self-reliance. Man kindles a strange fire of his own choosing. It resembles light but is not the true light. It appears as sparks of short term appeal and plausibility but it has no part in that stream of light that shines from heaven. It provides human speculation or superstition as futile answers to matter that is dark.

The sparks account for little points of light in human reason and behaviour, and are explanations as to why fundamental sceptics can sometimes seem to approximate to truth,  but these points are spasmodic, volatile, and not integral to the waves of light that flow from divine illumination. Deceptive light is manufactured by the devil and he bedazzles his subjects with it, brandishing his torch to allure them into perilous paths that lead to the abyss. With his sparks the one who appears as an angel of light entrances those who yield to the lure of false teaching either as propagators or pupils. They devise their own guidance without any inclination to fear the Lord or heed the Son. It is better to be in darkness than to despise divine dispensations that are designed to foster genuine faith.

  We must face the fact. God’s children may walk in darkness for a time, and at many times. It’s a truth contrary to glib and shallow religion, and its devotees may rebuke God’s afflicted ones in an air of spiritual superiority. He does not rebuke but counsels, “Rely!”  It is the opening to a deeper and more assured knowledge of God who verifies his trustworthiness and vindicates the faithful who prove to be patient.

RJS

Mark 16: 1 – 8

  Sunrise is usually regarded as a moment of fresh hope.  It signals the possibility that a new day will herald a new beginning and dispel the darkness of doubt and fear.  Yet the women who loved Jesus and approached his tomb were firmly set in a mood of mourning.  What could console them when faced with the death of Jesus?  Sad devotion compels them to anoint his body in the conviction that his death was permanent.  It occurs to them that there exists a barrier to their intention – the impossibility of removing the stone that sealed the tomb.  Their way forward is blocked.

  Looking ahead can fill us with apprehension when we discount the involvement of the Lord.  Heavy concerns and weighty anxieties beset us.  We see immoveable objects in front of us and become downcast.  We assume our difficulties to be set in stone and disastrous results to be inevitable.  Of course if we review our past many of our most horrifying fears did not come to fruition.  But it is our tendency sometimes to be worried about the future and imagine the worst.  We approach it with a kind of cold dread.

  Mark’s narrative of the resurrection shows us that God beats us to the situations that fill us with care.  Even though the women set out very early, Christ’s rising again had preceded their journey to the tomb.  They were preoccupied with death, sorrow, and difficulty, but when they arrived at Jesus’ burial place – wonder of wonders – the awesome stone that stood defiantly in their way had been moved away – rolled aside so effortlessly by divine power.

  Jesus had risen and departed the sepulchre.  Such a stupendous fact filled the women with great alarm.  This was a mighty act of God.  But in due course the raising of the Lord Jesus would fill the women, the disciples, and all believers down the generations with enormous hope and confidence.  The women saw that death had been conquered and that its terrible grip had been broken.

  The angel on the right hand side of the grave reassured them: Don’t be alarmed.  He is not here.  Jesus had burst the bonds of death.  The seal that keeps us in death’s prison forever has been snapped open.  The locks and chains have been torn apart and thrown away.  The huge and ominous stone that traps the dead has been heaved from the entrance to the pit of the departed and light permitted to shine in.  Christ is risen and death no longer final.  Life beyond death is the effect of Jesus’ defeat of death’s great power.  Believers participate in his life now and shall do so for ever.

  But life changes here also.  Huge stones and big burdens of perplexity, anxiety, fear and guilt are rolled away, shaken from men’s bodies.  We bear them with a sense of futility and trepidation but the risen Christ has faced them before we have felt them and he removes the obstacles to joy to the believer’s glad relief.  The miraculous event of Easter daybreak becomes a breakthrough for those who cling to Jesus.  We begin to see that Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection were for us and our liberation.

  First, to put us right with God through the donation of his righteousness and free us from condemnation, but also to put things right in our present life.  In due course alarm for the witnesses to the empty tomb would be dispelled and relief and reassurance would come when they were reunited with the One who rose again.  “He is going ahead of you into Galilee” the angel announces, “There you will see him”.

  Jesus is ahead of us in our cares and Jesus is ahead to encourage us.  When each day breaks Jesus has already noted what we shall encounter and he is beside the believer in whatever occurs.  We may not feel it as other emotions surge within us but faith knows the promises of God and these will eventually console.  And in his resurrection power and mercy Jesus also takes care of the past that haunts and disturbs us.

  Mary Magdalene can testify to that.  Her notoriety as a sinner is erased.  Her wrong doings are forgiven.  A woman of ill repute is favoured to swear to the reality of Jesus’ emergence from the grave when even the testimony of a good woman was not credited as public evidence.  The Sun of righteousness had risen and the beams of his compassion shone upon her and warmed her heart.

  And guilt-ridden Peter, filled with dolefulness and remorse at his denial of Jesus repeatedly – what of him now that Jesus is returned from the dead?  What may he expect before his risen Lord?  The Saviour’s tenderness to the boastful coward is revealed in the angel’s instruction: But go, tell the disciples – and Peter (verse seven).  Peter is singled out for special mention and compassion by the Lord he so wickedly grieved.

  The comment is another clue to the fact that Peter is the voice behind Mark’s gospel.  It is the compilation of interviews with the apostle – frank and duly ashamed.

 Jesus rose again. It is a triumph to his glory.

 Jesus rose again and opened heaven to believers and granted them eternal life.

 Jesus rose again to win our forgiveness and woo us to his side.

 Jesus rose again to share his life with us – and share in our lives – and remove our stumbling blocks to confident faith, freedom, and joy.

 Jesus is risen, and the more we absorb that glorious truth, the more and more our hopes continue to rise in adversity, spiritual warfare, and anticipation of our death.

  The divinity of Christ finds its surest proof in his resurrection [Romans 1:4].  Christ’s sovereignty also depends on his resurrection [Romans 14:9].  Again, our justification hangs on Christ’s resurrection [Romans 4:25].  Our very regeneration depends on his resurrection [1 Peter 1:3].  And most certainly our ultimate resurrection rests here [Romans 8:11].  The silver thread of resurrection runs through all the blessings, from regeneration onward to our eternal glory, and binds them together.  - Charles Spurgeon.

  We have in a risen Saviour the proofs of power beyond the most dreaded of all hostile powers – the power of death. As sure as Christ is risen, we are not in our sins.  - John “Rabbi” Duncan.

  The resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith, the foundation of our hope, the guarantee of everlasting life.  It seals the strength and reliability of the One who saves us.

RJS