Well, let's take our Bibles and let's go to Malachi, and I want to read to you the first three verses of Malachi chapter four. And we are on the fifth antiphon, which is a prayer to the day spring. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that will leave them neither root nor branch, but to you who fear my name the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings and you shall go out and grow fat like stall fed calves you shall trample the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this says the Lord of hosts. This is the fifth antiphon that we're considering this morning. The Latin of the short chant or hymn that was developed and would have been developed before the 8th century but they were all compiled together at least as early as the 8th century. Would read like this in English, O day spring, splendor of light eternal and son of righteousness, come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. We sing, O come, O come, Emmanuel. This is the line dedicated to this antiphon, this short course. O come, thou day spring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here, and drive away the shades of night, and pierce the clouds, and bring us light. in the advent season we remember that God has sent his son and that he's come to bring his salvation to us and we remember that he's come but we also remember at this time that he is coming again when he came the first time his glory was veiled from us we didn't see the full array of his might in his holiness This was all muted to our eyes behind the veil of flesh. But when he comes a second time, he'll shine in the full brightness of his divine holiness and might. He'll come to the earth in the radiant power of his righteousness like a sun that's blazing in burning holiness. That's what's described for us in Malachi chapter 4 in those first three verses. It's the description of this second coming, we would say, of Christ. This final coming of Christ to conclude his work within human history and to bring to complete fruition and climax not only all of his salvation to the earth, but all of his judgments upon the earth. And at that time, there will be two phenomenal results. two phenomenal results at the second coming of Jesus Christ when all of this glory and the radiance of his divine holiness is before us and the full blaze of his holiness comes at that time it will have two effects one it will fall upon an unrepentant and unredeemed mankind in final and full judgment it will set upon them with a burning judgment and at the same time it will set upon those who are waiting for him and believing in him and trusting in him it will come upon them as an uplifting healing light judgment or health a burning or benefiting blaze both phenomenon when Christ returns let's look at these briefly first the heat of the coming of the Son of God the Son of Righteousness will we're told in this passage devour the wicked on the day of his return there will be judgment on all who do wickedly and the day which is coming shall burn them up Malachi writes And as Malachi writes, by the way, you'll see that he writes with a kind of poetic imagery that stirs not only our minds but our emotions. And I believe, as he does, the prophet in a sense by giving this poetic voice allows us as well to think in a way poetically about these things. It's interesting to me that you can read different types of poetry that's written and very often Poetry is written when we are trying to take mental concepts and ideas, but infuse them with the emotion that's behind them. That's the purpose of poetry, is to take the prose and our language and to somehow bring it into a sense of experience before us. If you read your Bibles, you'll see that well over two-thirds of the Bible is actually written in poetic form. It's not just that God wants our minds to be enlightened but he wants to inflame our hearts and our passions and he wants to draw us into a note and he wants to sound a note of the experience that's to be found in God's truth and who God is. We see that in what Malachi is reading and I think to some extent what we have then is somewhat permission when we come to these truths to allow ourselves to venture in the exploration with them with a poetic mindset. To write our own, it's not just intellectual or intelligence, mental intelligence we have, we have to also have sort of a poetic experiential intelligence when we come to these things. And allow ourselves to enter into the experience of these things so not only our minds but our emotions are stirred. A companion passage that goes along with what we've just read in Malachi, in prose, not in poetry, is in 2 Thessalonians chapter one verses six and 10. There Paul lays out for us in plain speech what Malachi has laid out in poetic speech. He writes this in verse 6 through 10 of 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and admired among those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. I think we need to note here that God will judge sin. God must act against sin. There is a recompense for every sin no matter how small. God will not ignore one part of it or portion of it of any man's sin. If he did so he would not be holy. He would have to step down from his throne of holiness. To turn away from bringing justice against sin, God would have to relinquish his justice and that he is a just God. He would have to turn away from himself. This is something that God will not and cannot do because he cannot deny himself. He's coming like a son. to bring one final burning blast upon all sin and upon all sinners. That's what the Bible tells us. That's what it teaches us. That's what we see. That's what is revealed to us here as the Son of Righteousness rises and brings His burning upon the wicked so that there's not a root or a branch left within them. But we also see that the Son of Righteousness will complete the healing that He brings to those who fear Him and reverently bow before Him in faith. I think when we read the Old Testament, we have to read into the Old Testament the fulfillment or the truth that is expounded or extrapolated out in the New Testament. And in the New Testament, we begin to understand who these faithful are, who these are that now come under the benefit of this healing work of the Son of Righteousness completing His healing touch upon their lives. These are they who have placed all their faith in Jesus Christ. those who believe in Jesus Christ are not those who will not have or do not have their sins judged. Our sins must be judged as well. The only difference is this, our sins have been judged. They have been judged. They were judged in the cross of Jesus Christ. He bore the exacting punishment for all of our sins. Not one of them was ignored. Not one of them was set aside. Not one of them was passed over or winked at. All of them had their judgment made and answered in the suffering that Christ did on our behalf. And our faith and our trust and our rest in Him delivers us from that wrath because the payment has been made in Him. If we won't believe in Him, if we don't receive Him, if we turn from Him, we turn into ourselves and we turn away from God. If you turn into God, He will guide you to this grace. He will guide you to this answer. You'll discover as you turn into God and you seek God that there cannot be any answer in yourself. You'll know it in His presence. You'll seek it only in His mercy and His grace. But if you resist them and turn away and turn to yourself and your own sin and your own desires and your own independent life, you'll be without an answer to your sins and you'll have to answer for yourself. But for us, for us, Christ is already risen in a sense. We've already experienced and we've known that He rose up upon the cross to die for our sins and we have His forgiveness for us. For we individuals who know this truth, the Son of Righteousness is still coming. And as He comes in judgment upon the last vestiges of sin and upon the sinners that are upon the earth at that time, at the same time He comes upon us in a different way. We experience the Son of Righteousness as well, but now the poetry takes the rays of the light of this blazing sun and wraps it around us like wings. and their wings that lift us up in healing and so for us who trust and believe in him and wait upon the Lord we'll mount up on wings as eagles what a disparity between the two ideas a blazing righteous sun burning away root and branch of all the wicked a healing sun with shafts of light that come around us as feathers and wings that lift us and bear us into a place of final and complete and total healing. That's it. That's the idea here. He is a burning or a benefiting blaze at his second coming. But now let's turn our attention to the first coming of our Savior. Because when our Lord Jesus came at first, He did not come, as we said, in the full blaze of His glory. We might say this, that His official glory as the Son of God was veiled from our eyes. We didn't see Christ in the full array of all that He was that was kept from us. That glory was suggested to some extent when the angels gathered around the shepherd and were told that the glory of the Lord shone round about them. but it was largely muted. This official glory was there, but we didn't and could not cast our eyes upon it. It would have been too much for us. In the first coming, the Lord Jesus is brought before us as light, and if you find any passage of scripture that is referencing the first advent of Jesus Christ, that deals with Christ coming as light, you'll see there's a little bit of a difference in the imagery that's brought before us. It's not the sun shining in his full blaze of righteousness, but instead the language reflects this muted, veiled off expression of the son of righteousness. It's not in Malachi chapter 3 verses 1 through 3 that we find the prophecy of the first advent of Jesus Christ. More likely it's in Isaiah chapter 9 verses 1 and 2. It's in Matthew 4, verse 16, where Matthew repeats this truth. And you'll see this in other scriptures. When the first advent of Christ is spoken of, it speaks of it as a first light, as a dawning light, as a light that comes at morning at the end of the night. Here we don't see the sun in its full blaze, but instead we see it as a rising light that begins to flood the earth with the promises of its peace and the promises of a new day. That's the language that comes in the first coming. I quoted to Isaiah chapter 9 verse 2 in Matthew 14-16. Let me read to you Matthew's quote of Isaiah 9. He speaks of it and references it to the first coming of Jesus Christ in his ministry as he walked upon the earth. The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light and for those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death on them a light has dawned. Zacharias sings over his son John the Baptist that has been actually born to him in his old age. And he sings over that time in which he's dedicated. And the first part of Zacharias' song in Luke chapter one is an expression of the joy that God has come to answer promises that he's given to the people of Israel and to the nation. And that God has faithfully fulfilled those promises. And there is, to some extent at that time, a rejoicing in a political salvation that they've realized. But then it's as though Zacharias looks down at the baby John in his arms. And he speaks to the child in the midst of his song. you will be called the prophet of the highest. And you will bring forth the message preparing his way. And after he says that, he continues in his song, but now his song extolling the salvation that this Messiah will bring is extolling and a proclamation of a salvation that's not political. It's not a national salvation. It's personal. and it's spiritual and it's deep and it's profound and it's a salvation that calls for individuals to repent and it's a salvation that calls them to reach out to the promise of forgiveness and mercy that's found and God offers to them. A mercy coming as he says in Luke chapter 1 verse 78 this way listen to it. through the tender mercy of our God with which a day spring, the dawning sun is what the word means in Greek, in which the day spring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. and to guide our feet into the way of peace. These passages clearly speak of the first advent of our Lord between the time in which he was born in Bethlehem and crucified in Jerusalem and this was the time of the dawning light. This is not the sun in the full blaze of its righteousness that we read about in Malachi chapter 4. This is the sun beginning to rise in dawn and it arises upon history and Christ come to us in human flesh to begin to unveil slowly and beautifully and wonderfully just as the sun rises and at first it reddens the edge of the horizon line. And then it rises with a grayness in which everything that's been dark around you becomes more and more into view, and you see more and more. And it's as if a flood of light slowly begins to come into the world, and your eyes adjust to it. And as it adjusts, you see something beautiful, and then something more beautiful, and something more beautiful. And promises become more and more clear. When the Lord Jesus came in human flesh, He began to make known to us the character of God. He didn't come so much to overwhelm us with what we call the official glory of God, the blaze of the mighty, holy expressions of an all-powerful God, but instead He came to reveal to us The moral glory of God, the official glory of God, we might say, was veiled off from our view, but His moral glory was on full display in human form. Every command that God ever gave to man was a command that was resonant in Himself. It was God's command for us to respond to Him for who He is. It is a response to what is absolutely true of God. God is absolutely true. God tells us not to lie. God is the giver of life. God tells us not to kill. God is the essence of all that is beautiful and good and all that should be worshipped and God says we're to worship Him alone. The Lord Jesus comes fulfilling and keeping all of these commands, not because he is under the law, but because he's expressing the heart and the inspiration of the law. He's revealing God to us. God in his moral glory, God in his moral goodness. And so he comes and his impact upon life is that he brings this healthy, fit, purity of morality, glorious morality that comes from God alone. It's rooted in God alone. Every miracle, listen to this, I think this is a rather wonderful thought and something that should be meditated on. Every miracle of Christ, every miracle that he performed was a demonstration of the power of his moral glory. His ability to address sin and with it to address the consequences of sin. To address the death and decay that sin brought about and Jesus put on display. The moral glory he had to repel and drive back the darkness and disease that sin brings in people's lives. You'll recall that when the Lord Jesus was teaching in his own hometown, in his own home that he lived in, the home was filled up in Capernaum with so many people that no one could come into the door. And Mark tells us at that time that there was a paralytic and his friends brought the paralytic to him and they climbed in the roof and they pulled back the tiles of the roof and they lowered this man down into his presence. The Bible says the Lord Jesus saw their faith. and the faith of the man that was brought before them and the Lord Jesus said now this is an issue dealing with sin. He said your sins are forgiven you. Pharisees watched this and they probably thought themselves what a con. What a thing to say. How can this man offer forgiveness for an individual that's a stranger to him? Someone who's not wronged him in any way. He doesn't know what this man has done. He doesn't know what's caused him to be paralyzed his whole life, how God has judged him and God has punished him. Who alone can forgive such a man and such sin but God alone? The Lord Jesus, we're told, knew what they were thinking and knew what they were murmuring to themselves. He responded to them, you find it in Mark chapter 2 verses 9 through 12. I said Mark 1, I meant Mark 2. Jesus we're told turned to them and said this, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you or to say arise take up your bed and walk? I want you to know it's harder to say your sins are forgiven you. They were right by the way, only God has the power to forgive sins like that. Only God has power to forgive the sins that are committed against God alone, not any individual. You can't say to a person But I know in the Mormon church, they go back and they figure out who might be related to somebody, and they do baptisms to bring them into forgiveness. And so, they'll go back and research any man who's committed any kind of atrocity, and as long as someone in the temple's got baptized for him, he's good. He's been forgiven, right? This person somehow takes upon their shoulders the ability to represent that individual and provide for them forgiveness, and it's not possible. It's not possible for you to go to some person who's committed some terrible atrocity and provide him forgiveness. for all that he's done. That belongs to God alone or any sin. You can forgive them for the offense they've caused you. You can release them from the debt they owe to you. But there's something greater than the debt they owe to you. It's the debt they owe to God. This belongs to God alone. They were right. You can't say your sins are forgiven you. Jesus goes on and says, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic I say to you arise take up your bed and go to your house and immediately he arose and took up his bed and went in the presence of them all so that all were amazed and glorified God saying we've never seen anything like this. Jesus rises before them giving them a developing clarity of the grace and mercy of God extended in His moral power. What they were seeing is the impact that comes to a fallen world when sin is revoked by the absolute moral purity of Jesus Christ. The Jews have been taught that sin was a deviling thing. Sin brought upon individuals disease and sin brought upon individuals death. And so therefore when you met a person who was diseased you didn't touch him. When you came upon a dead body, you didn't touch it because it would defile you. And if you had to for whatever reason or came in contact with a person who was ailing or sick, who had an issue of blood, then you would have to go through a series of cleansings, sacramental cleansings, and you would have to offer up certain types of offerings in order to cleanse yourself because sin was a defiling thing. It brought its decay and it encroached upon all of our lives. The Lord Jesus come to the scene in that setting with that understanding, And the Lord Jesus lays his hand upon the dead body, but he's not defiled. The dead body rises to life. And he lays his hand upon the leprous man that everybody else had to flee from and stay clear of, and he was not defiled, and the leper was made clean. And he walks through the crowd, and the woman with the issue of blood reaches out to touch the hem of his garment, and he's not defiled. She shouldn't have been there. It wasn't according to the protocols. She was a person who would defile others. She laid her hand on his garment, he was not defiled, she was made whole. It's the power, the moral power, the moral glory of our Savior Jesus Christ. Every miracle that he performed. We meet him as a man ready to begin his assigned work, and he blesses a wedding couple, and honors his mother, and turns water into wine, and he's bringing the wine of the gospel to us. He releases the possessed, he heals the fevered and dying, He fills the net with fish. He cleanses the leper. He restores the paralyzed and the deformed. He raises the dead and calms the sea and restores the defiled and gives sight to the blind and speech to the dumb and multiplies food for the hungry and walks in the storm to the distressed. His miracles attest to the healing power that is in the dawning of the son of righteousness. It speaks of what he offers to those who come to faith in him. He offers to us, out of His moral glory, faith, and in response to our faith, grace and a life of celebration and wholeness and cleansing and restoration and peace and purity and vision, a voice to praise, a fulfillment of our deepest longings, rescue from our dread and danger. It's a reversal of the curse found in the moral glory of Jesus Christ. Christ brings an expression of this moral glory into all those who are around him when he comes in his first advent and what he's revealing is what shall be ours at the full expression of that official glory when the Son of Righteousness will rise up with healing as wings. And at that time, heaven will unfold us with the final expressions of His miraculous work. That miraculous work will be sustained and unremitting throughout all eternity. We'll be bound up in Him. We'll be rescued from the last vestige of sin. We'll be perfectly, perfectly whole. That's what's before us, and that's what's being, and that's what's dawning. That's what's beginning to be expressed in the First Advent. I've said that the miracles of Christ or a testament to his moral glory, but it's his moral glory alone that is the most impressive part of his life. Even today, when individuals fixate on the life of Jesus Christ, they're not fixating it because they're recounting all the miracles he performed. It's not the miracles that Christ performed, ultimately, that have gained an enduring attention to his person throughout the history of our world today. For the last 2,000 years, it's not as though mankind has found themselves being pulled back to the life of Jesus because he healed a blind man. or because he gave Elam the ability to walk. The reason they're drawn to him is because of the explanation for that healing power. And the explanation for that healing power is his moral perfection. It's his complete and wonderful and moral glory. He was sinless in every way, and it's the holiness of Jesus Christ in His life that was His loveliness, and it is His attractiveness as well. It's what caused children to be drawn to crawl upon His knee, and women in distress to come before Him and to entrust Him with their tears, and men in their bewilderment and their question to come in silence and bow before Him. and plead with them to give him faith and sought him for answers to their haunting questions. It was his sinless moral glory that drew their attention. Today, it is still the magnetic pull of his life upon people. He represents what they could be, what they should be, what they would be if they would believe in him. I just finished writing that line yesterday when I was in my office. when I received a text from a woman that I know whose son had fallen away from God. She shared the text the son had sent. I've been thinking about Jesus all day today and I can't stop crying. This is it. It's the compelling, was he thinking, oh, I was thinking of how he multiplied the loaves and fishes. I was thinking about how he walked on water. I was thinking about, no, it's not the miracle, it's the explanation for the miracle. It's the gracious glory, the moral glory of our Savior that the world can't take its eyes off of, that draws them to him, and at the same time, it's this same moral glory that they despise. they want to run from because it's a light that exposes their own sin. Paul gives us something of the spiritual foundation of all good morality that basis in which that which is morally true rises for many of our lives and is not simply something that's carried out in our flesh and not simply a pose or a placard or a facade but genuine and real and rises from within us. In Galatians he shows us that this moral life that God calls us to is a life that is drawn out from us because of the fruit the Spirit of God brings to those who believe and trust in Him. It's the expression of Christ's own life within us. Paul says that The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Because against those there's no law. There's no law you can give to produce this and there's no law that you can stop it with. We could actually go on in scripture and read other virtues like virtues of humility, contentment, gratitude, purity, self-sacrifice. And if we had time, we might, from the word of God, isolate other virtues like these that the Holy Spirit would stoke and build and rise up within that individual trust in Jesus Christ. But whatever we might find revealing the positive impulse of a truly moral life, we may see that such morality was completely active in the life of Jesus Christ. You do it sometime. You take patience and you go through and read through the gospel accounts and see the patience of the Lord Jesus manifesting itself. The Lord Jesus said to men that I don't know how you can have faith and receive honor one of another. Jesus would not unfold himself and trust himself to the flattery of other men. His ego was not such that he needed the appeal of other individuals to curry his favor and you'll see that he doesn't. Many times they'll come testing him and their testings come with this flattery that usually works on us. usually catches our attention, usually gets us to kind of open up and accept the person's approach and put down our defenses. But Jesus doesn't need this. He doesn't receive the honor of men. He seeks only the honor that comes from God. There's an image of it. You can find any character trait like that. Look at it. Trace it out in the life of Jesus Christ. How gloriously incorruptible and moral and perfect He was. In every way. In every way. All this fruit flourishing before our eyes in the life of Jesus Christ. This captures the world's attention because it is an absolute anomaly to human experience. But it's something that we long for because the Spirit has put in every man an instinct or desire to be righteous. An impulse for righteousness and what does that look like? Well Jesus shows us. At the same time it's the very thing that men turn from and flee from because in the midst of their life it reveals to them and reveals to others that placard false facade righteousness that is hollow and empty and what lies behind it is just evil in all its substance. Men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil and men crucified the Lord Jesus not for one miracle that he performed. before the moral glory that was emanating from Him that shamed them. That's why they did it. But still others accepted the judgment that His life rendered upon them. You know when you come in the presence of Christ He renders a judgment upon you. He's righteous, sinless, perfect. You see in the light of His presence your own sin and Others accepted that judgment. They did not try to extinguish that light, but they came into it and they saw in it their own sins. And they recognized that that judgment of their sins was deserved. How could they be made right? How could they be forgiven? Not by running and hiding from the light, but by coming further into the dawning presence of Jesus Christ. And as that light ever brightened before them, confessing their sins all the more. As they came into the light and their sin became more clear before his morally perfect being, they also discovered this one who is morally perfect in every way, who is powerful in his moral glory, was also in his moral glory powerful to forgive all their sins. And he does, he does. Even this dawning light, shining from Jesus Christ now, as He comes before us, as He lives within us, as He walks before us, He is judging. He is making sin known. But through it, He's providing a means to save those who believe in Him. To forgive them and cleanse them and wash them. For every individual, Jesus is a burning and a benefiting light. Let's go to the third thing here very quickly. So what I hope you might see here is that the second coming of Jesus Christ reveal the full array of this bright, burning Savior who will bring an end to all sin and bring a judgment upon all sinners, but at the same time, a light of healing, of righteousness unfolding into His wings, healing and fulfillment for all who believe and trust in him. And then you might see in the life of Jesus Christ that was lived as he came at first, that life, that ministry, that impact that will be in full array at the second coming was dawning as a gentle light, beckoning and calling people into his healing. And it's still that dawning light that we have as believers still today. God is merciful to us. He does not yet unveil Himself to us in His full holiness and glory. We're not ready for it. He's still mercy for us. For the Christian this light of the sun is still rising and dawning as a dental light upon us. We're still waiting for the unveiling of Christ in His official and divine glory upon the earth. We know that He came in the expression of moral glory back then, but here's what I want to say to you. For us who have trusted in Him, He lives in us by His Holy Spirit, and ours is the daily experience of His personal glory. We're waiting for that official glory to be revealed. he came manifesting his moral glory and for us who have received him as our savior we can know every single day his personal glory as he lives and he abides within us and as the son of righteousness dawns anew and afresh in our hearts every single day go to second peter chapter 1 verse 19 peter writes this we have the prophetic word confirmed now he's speaking of the the mount of transfiguration in which they saw the Lord Jesus transfigured. And he's basically saying here that the prophetic word that's been given to us is made to us even more sure by our experience and our encounter with Jesus Christ revealed before our eyes. We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed. Now he's saying you do well to heed the scriptures as a light that shines in a dark place. The word there is as a lantern that shines in a dark dingy house. You do well to heed to the prophetic word of scripture as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Here at this point in time I have to part with most of the commentators, though not all of them. They would say that what we have here is the teaching that we are now living in this very dark world, this dark house of this world, and for it we need the light or lantern of God's scripture to guide us, and that far I agree with them. I agree that in this dark world we need the lantern of God's word to guide us. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. We need it. We are left, they would teach us, with this light of the word until the morning star arises in our heart and this they take to mean that until the Lord Jesus returns we have the word of God as a lantern and we're left in this dark place with this lantern until one day the dawning of the great light of Christ return. I disagree with that translation. I think that's wrong. The Word is a light unto our path in a dark place. It guides us and it always will be our guide because it's God's spoken word to us. But the great value of this scripture to the Christian is that it always brings us and directs us to the light of Jesus Christ. lives and abides within us. His personal indwelling light in us, for us and to us. He is now our bright and morning star, gently rising to shine in our hearts. Jesus actually said in John chapter 8 verse 12, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of light. I have the light of light. I don't just have the scripture. I'm glad for it. I'm glad for it. I want to know it. The Spirit illumines it to our heart and teaches me and instructs me, but as He illumines it, the wonderful thing is the Spirit redirects it back into Christ Himself. It's not that He's giving me just advice and counsel on how to somehow navigate this dark world by principles, wise principles that I can apply to my life, but He directs me to the Son of Righteousness, who lives and abides with me, and rises up to project the rays of His life ever from my life. Jesus also says this in John 12 46. Ephesians 5.8 Paul says we were once darkness but now you are light in the Lord so walk as children of light. First Thessalonians 5.5 he writes you are all sons of the light and sons of the day we are not of the night nor of the darkness. Peter writes in first Peter 2.9 but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. First John 2, 8 the Apostle John writes, again a new commandment I write to you which thing is true in you and in him because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. It's His life, Christ's life, beaming within me. When we read the scripture then, we see the commands. We remember what God calls us. We get the practical, you might say, advice and insight from God's word. That light rises up before us to shine itself upon and bring before us the glory of the light of Christ himself. We know if we've trusted and believed in him that by the Holy Spirit he lives and abides within us. To express the glory of his moral goodness, his moral glory within us. What a blessing. We do have the light of God's Word. It's a lantern that we hold up to a dark world and we use to guide ourselves and our children and others. And we ourselves are a light to the world as well. But not so much because we know God's Word and quote it, although we should. We need to do that more. But because we have Christ's life in us and we show it. We bear the life of Christ out before the world. The Word of God that we study does not reach its point or purpose until it points us to the light of life in Jesus Christ our Dayspring. And He is our Morning Star. personal glorious light shining upon us and within us, revealing sin still, carrying out his judging work still, only so that we might turn to his cross where all our sins were dealt with and taken away. For us even now we begin to know much of the healing this light affords us. We get a hint of the healing power of the presence and life of Jesus in his moral wonder, his glorious wonder as he lives and abides within us. And it will be fulfilled completely when we see him as the sun blazes in his righteousness. And so it will bring us to that day when the Son of Righteousness comes and plays upon all the world. We sing, come Lord Jesus. Thank you for this gracious, gentle, glorious light. More of thy light, more of thy light. Let it burn away all sin in me. Let it shine forth Christ completely for others to see. And oh, come one day, come one day, in all thy unveiled glory. Our Heavenly Father, you loved us. You want us to give us the greatest gift of all. And so you gave us your son. He came not as objects simply to receive the punishment for our sins. He came to be the very subject of our lives, to be received, to be known, to live within us. All the beauties that were told of Him, O Spirit of God, tell it to us now. Speak the truth of our glorious Savior in our hearts. Help us to meet the challenges we face every day, the testings that come upon us, the moments, O God, when our flesh is easy to erupt into expressions of our own sinful nature. And then O God let the light of our Savior shine within us and let the light prevail. Let him shine through us. May in that moment we know, we know the glory, something of the taste of the burning and judging sun and something of taste and the joy of the healing, the healing rays of the light of the sun that dance around us and lift us in his own power and draw us up into your healing graces forever and ever. Lord Jesus, may we be people who know your word, but may the word ever lead us to you. May we live before you in such a way that our lives become testament to who you are. Some of us find it hard to witness to our family and to our friends. It's because they know us too well. Oh God, then forgive us and help us to ask them to forgive us. If we've not effectively showed them Jesus, live in us Lord Jesus so that these who witness our lives, these who witness our lives might want an answer for the hope they see in us. We ask it in Jesus name.