Confronting the Darkness (Protestant/Evangelical Caucus and Devotional)

Ligonier Ministries ^ | 1/19/2018

[Gamecock]

Charles Colson speaks of a modern “return to the Dark Ages.” When I think of the original Dark Ages, I think of a period when culture was in decline and the progress of knowledge was static.

But today we read of the problem of the explosion of knowledge. It is a time when information and communications are big business. We hear the cry from the universities that knowledge in every field of investigation is increasing so rapidly that no one can assimilate it, even in the most narrow of specialties. The age of the “expert” is over. The word expert must now be defined in relative terms.

If knowledge is light and the light is exploding in magnitude, how can we speak of a new Dark Ages? The darkness is in the heart. It is a darkness produced by a shroud covering the face of God.

Thirty years ago, I read a book written by the Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber. Buber’s book had an ominous title: The Eclipse of God. That is the eclipse of our age. A shadow has passed over the glory of God. We are a people who will not have God in our thinking. We have returned to Plato’s cave, in which we prefer the dancing shadows on the wall of ungrounded opinion over the light of truth.

Coram Deo Ask God to dispel the darkness in your own mind, soul, and spirit through His marvelous light.

Passages for Further Study

Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land;

Luke 11:52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

[Gamecock]

Ping

Friday Hymn Sing

Out in the darkness

Out in the darkness,
Shadowed by sin,
Souls are in bondage,
Souls we would win.
How can we win them?
How show the way?
“Love never faileth,”
Love is the way.

Think how the Savior
Came from above
Suffered on Calvary,
Breathing out love;
Think how He loves us,
E’en when we stray:
We must love others,
Love is His way.

See, they are waiting,
Looking at you,
Silently watching
All that you do;
Seeming so careless,
Hardened and lost:
“Love never faileth,”
Count not the cost.

“Love never faileth,”
Love is pure gold:
Love is what Jesus
Came to unfold;
Love these souls thru us,
Savior, we pray;
Thy love ne’er faileth,
Love is Thy way.