In a Dark Place Jn 3:19-20 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Have you ever heard the expression, He’s in a dark place?  It is often used to describe someone whose behavior is evil or who has withdrawn and is so depressed that he could be considered suicidal or something like that.  Well, the expression is not without foundation.  And that foundation is in the Bible.  When you find yourself in a dark place:

You are sinning – your deeds are evil – Jn 3:19 – you have disobeyed God in some area of your life – you are doing something that the Bible clearly calls sin – you might not even think that it is sin because the world finds it acceptable – but be sure that if you are dealing with darkness in your life, or perhaps in the life of someone with whom you are dealing, sin is involved – no question about it.  And you must deal with the sin.

You are not in your Bible – you hate the light – Jn 3:20 – reading the Bible or listening to preaching is abhorring to you – you may not come right out and speak against those things but you surely aren’t going to pick up a Bible and start reading and you aren’t going to a Bible preaching church to hear a preacher rebuke you with the words of God.  But if you are going to ever get out of the darkness you are going to need the light of God’s words.  Psychology isn’t the answer here.  You need plain truth [Ps 119:160].

You are not willing to change – you don’t want your deeds reproved – Jn 3:20 – anything or anyone that reproves your sin only causes you to be more resolved to stay in your sin and not change it – if you would ever, like the prodigal son, just come to yourself and realize how unhealthy you are and how destructive your behavior is you could change – but you are in a dark place and the bright light of the word of God is almost blinding it is so bright – and since light is uncomfortable you stay in your sin.  You aren’t changing because you don’t want to change!!  Until you are willing to change you will be stuck in your dark place.

Your are looking through an evil eye – if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness – Matt 6:23 – the single eye of Matt 6:22 is an eye that looks at things that God wants you to see and refuses to look at things that God doesn’t want you to see – it sees things the way that God sees them – it is an eye that is content to let the child of God live by faith – so the evil eye looks at things God doesn’t want you to see – it sees things the way the devil wants you to see them [like the good things that Eve saw in the forbidden tree] – an evil eye cannot live by the faith of God’s words [like Richard Dawkins] – when you get where he is, it’s “lights go out.”

You are under the devil’s influence – Eph 6:12 – you are under the influence of the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places – in other words, you have entered a realm that the devil controls and before long you can find yourself irrecoverably ensnared by the devil [2 Tim 2:26].

Conclusion: If you would just humble yourself and give up this wickedness, the Lord could save you and bring you “out of darkness and into his marvelous light,” [1 Pet 2:9].  Get away from the sin, by God’s grace, get back into your Bible, make some changes in your life, start looking at things with the single eye of God [from God’s perspective], and recover yourself from the devil by repenting and acknowledging the truth [2 Tim 2:25-26].

Now, if you are in the light and you are trying to help someone in darkness then you have to walk as children of light [Eph 5:8-11] and refuse to have fellowship with their unfruitful works of darkness.  They may run from your light.  That’s okay.  When they are ready to come out of darkness, you can be like a Motel 6, “we’ll leave the light on for you.”