Cdc 14th Oct 2019 the Light of His Love

Churches and fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home for us. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tech Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 1] Today as we look at the topic "The Light of His Love," I want us to begin from the Bible passage that I mentioned just now, John chapter one. It is a very familiar scripture. Let us read from verse one through to around verse seven. The Light of His Love. We see where the Bible raised an issue there. Then Ephesians chapter one, verse 15 to 18. Who can read Ephesians 1:15 to 18 for us? Just read there, please read. [Speaker 2] Ephesians 1. Wherefore I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. [Speaker 1] Okay. Can we take that 17 and 18 in another translation? In another translation. [Speaker 3] New Living Translation. [Speaker 1] New Living Translation, okay. [Speaker 3] I pray to the God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light. [Speaker 1] I pray that your heart will be flooded with light. Now, when that happens, what happens? [Speaker 3] So that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called. [Speaker 1] So without that light, you cannot understand the hope that he gave to those he called. Do you get it? I pray that your heart be flooded with light. King James says be able to know the hope of His calling. There is a confident hope that God gives and keeps giving to those that he called. But the route to it is that your heart be flooded with light. King James says that your heart may be enlightened. Any other translation? [Speaker 4] Passion Translation. [Speaker 4] I always pray to God, the great and glorious Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that he will give you the spirit who will let you know truth about God and help you understand them so that you will know him better. [Speaker 1] Please, I want to get something clear. If you look at all those things put together, can any man know the truth about God without the Spirit of God? It is not possible. If you must have a knowledge of the truth about God, it involves the Spirit of God. There is a spirit. It is not just how intelligent and how reflective or how deeply you can meditate. It involves a spirit: the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of revelation. Read on. [Speaker 4] He will let you know truth about God and help you understand them so that you will know him better. Verse 18: I pray that God will open your mind to see his truth. [Speaker 1] Now do you see another way to look at the matter of light? What other way to look at it? I pray that God will open your mind to see his truth. Now do you see the matter again? If God does not open your mind, you cannot. When God opens your mind, it is the same thing with light, the Light of His Love. When God opens your mind, then you will be able to know the hope that he has chosen for us. Now there is a hope that God chose us to have. If we do not have that hope—while you are still reading, just hold it there. Tosin, you read 1 John 3:2 and 3. [Speaker 5] 1 John chapter 3, verse 2 and 3. Dear friends, we are already God’s children. We have not yet shown us what we will be like. [Speaker 1] Now do you get this? When are we God’s children? We are already God’s children. However, has he shown us what we will be? He has not shown us yet. Read on. [Speaker 5] What we will be when Christ appears, but we do know that we will be like him, for then we will see him as he really is. [Speaker 1] So then we will see him as he really is. So what does that now do for us? Verse three. [Speaker 5] And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. [Speaker 1] Now what makes people to live holy life? What makes people to live pure and holy life? The hope. Do you see it? Everybody who has this expectation, they are the ones that can keep themselves pure. If it is not there, there are several fantastic offers that you will go for and those offers will make you to be impure and unholy. Do you see it? So one thing about hope, when you know the hope—so God calls us and he wants us to know a particular hope so that that hope—check what you are going to get! Check what you are going to have there! You mean this? Ah! So with this eager expectation, when something that will take that off from you shows up, what will you do? You will run away; you will go for your hope. But you know when you are hopeless, when there is nothing you are eagerly waiting for, then someone who offers you a hope—a lot of money in your hand—is it not hope? So if something can say "do anything now and have a lot of money," that will mean some other things can distract. Some other things that offer themselves can take us. The point we are making is that for you to take somebody out of holiness and purity, you must offer a hope, an alternative hope. You must offer something. That is why the Bible says every man is drawn away by his own desire. Something must draw you. There is nobody that wants to leave God ordinarily, but God knows that we can leave him if there is no hope of something. He knows that we can. Let me show you Jesus. What made Jesus to endure the cross and despise the shame? Bible says "for the cause of the joy that was set before him." Now remove the joy. Would Jesus have endured the cross and despised the shame? I am just trying to make you see something about the workings of God, that even our master that we are following, himself, what gave him the boost? Was he not boosted? And what was the boosting? God set a joy ahead of him. Now as he was looking at that joy, what happened? He was able to endure the cross. So all the pains, all the things about that cross, all what that cross brought, became nothing. And do you notice that anytime Paul was talking about the various trouble that they were going through in this life, what did he call them in the face of something? Do you know the scripture I am talking about? He was talking about the affliction that they are going through here. He now called those things something in the face of something. What is it? Why were they light affliction? He says the suffering that we are going through now is but a light affliction because of the glory that will be revealed. Now that was why Paul could go through everything he went through because there was a hope. So all the other thing became light affliction. Now I will go to the Old Testament to draw a point. Do you remember Jacob? When Jacob got to the house of Laban, his mother’s brother, and Jacob saw the younger daughter? What was her name? Rachel. Jacob loved her, isn’t it? And he asked for the bride price. Seven years of hard labor and then you will get it. What did the Bible say about the seven years? Seven years! Do you know what is seven years? Seven years of hard, hard labor! Bible says they were like few days because of the love that he has for Rachel. [background noise: baby crying] I am showing you why men cannot endure persecution, endure difficulties, endure a lot of things for the cross. It is because something has not happened. There is a light of his love, there is a light. When we walk with the Lord in the light, there is a light. It is difficult to walk in his love if there is no light. It is difficult because he says "if you love me, keep my commandment," isn’t it? But to walk in that love, there is a light. There is a light and that is the matter we are discussing this evening. I am trying to explain it very, very clear to you using different biblical illustration to illustrate where I am going. To illustrate why you must pray for certain things. What Paul was doing in that place was a prayer. He was praying for the people that that light, that their mind would be flooded with it. It was a prayer. They were already born again. But they may not be able to continue in his love if there is no light. And the reason why you will see several people that several times we say they are spiritual bastard, they are not living for God, they are living anyhow, they say they are Christian, the problem is that there is no light. But you know what surprised me about Jacob is that he did the first seven years and just like he "Jacobed" Esau—Jacob means supplanter, deceiver—he was also Jacobed by Laban. Now sometimes I try to think about it. Even though you are in a culture where there is no light and—I am just trying to look, create some scene, some social scene in the matter—overnight you are given somebody who is not Rachel and you could not detect that it is not Rachel until the following morning. That is a matter for another day. But that is very strange. Somebody have been relating to a person and was working for that light for seven years. And even when that light was replaced, you could pass a whole night with the stranger not detecting until it was morning that it was not the light you were working for. That is not my focus for today. But that is very strange. Let us leave that. But what I want to make is that after he found that out, "Uncle Laban! Uncle Laban!" I just found how miserable Jacob would be feeling. "You mean all this night I was enjoying a wrong person? You mean all this while it was a wrong life? Uncle Laban, there is a matter to settle. Why did you exchange?" And I just imagine sister Leah doing everything to act like Rachel that night, just like Jacob was acting like Esau for his father. You know whatsoever a man sows he will reap. It is a way of God. God cannot be mocked. So he was now told that, "Oh sorry, you see in our culture, we don’t give the younger before the elder. And since we also need to Jacob you because you are Jacob, if we did sincerely with you... if you had been sincerely with your father, maybe you would not have gotten the blessing." But the point I am making is this. He was now told that, "Do you still want Rachel?" "Why would I not want Rachel? Rachel is the original thing." And he said, "Okay, if that is the case, you will serve for another seven years," making how many years? 14 years. What did the Bible say again about the next seven years? It was nothing to him. Why? There was a hope. Do you realize that the Bible says faith is the assurance of things hoped for? That the solid foundation for faith is hope. A man that is hopeless can never be faithful. Let me come again. Let us try to break the word. Faith-ful. Full of faith. If you are not hope-ful, you can never be faith-ful. Let me illustrate it for you so that you will get it. Why do you think people, they are sick, they are not feeling too fine, there is rain, sometimes they feel like sleeping more, but because they have a job and the employer says you should report by 8:00? Even sometimes with headache, they still want to sleep more, tiredness, pain, they will drag themselves to be in office for 8:00. And they will be there, even sometimes when they are not feeling very fine and go through all those pain of managing their life, managing themselves, because they know that after 30 days money will drop. If there is no hope that after 30 days money will drop, they will never be faithful to that man. It is because they are hopeful that they are faithful. If your employer say, "You see, you will work with us, but in this place we don’t guarantee salary. It comes anytime it is available." "So sir, you mean by end of the month, anything can happen? We may give you, we may not give you, but when?" "We don’t know exactly when, anytime it comes. But we want you to be here for eight plus four, but we trust that the money will come somehow, somehow, just be working." What will happen to your regularity in that place? Will you be faithful to that work? Do you feel that something have affected your heart already? But when you know that by 31st I get alert, your salary is regular. When a man say, "Ah! I want you to be here Sunday morning," you will quickly call your pastor, "Daddy, there is a little challenge, the employer wants us to come this Sunday." You will find out that even when it is not convenient, the regularity will keep you running. That is why you notice those who speak about the labor market say we are running a rat race. That before the rat, you place some carrot and you are using it to make the rat to run for those who hate employed job. That they keep making you to run, you are running somebody’s dream and expectation as he place a carrot before you. You keep running his dream. He keeps shaking the carrot, salary. Even when it is not convenient for you, you are running his dream. I am trying to make you understand man. Why it is we walk with the Lord in the light of his love, there is a light. If that light is not there, a man cannot be faithful. That is why I am comparing scriptures with scriptures for you so that you can get the matter clear. It is those who have this hope, this eager expectation in them, that keep themselves pure. When you are not—why do you think a believer... we talk about compromise today everywhere, isn’t it? Why do you think a believer will quickly tell his employer they said 25 years and above not qualify for this job? Somebody will quickly write 18 years so that he can take the job. That person have thrown away God to secure a job. Why do you think that believer did that? Because he does not see a hope in God at that particular time. What God is offering is small compared to what this one is offering. He sees a hope here. But if for example when that thing was offered, he said, "Sorry, without God, even if it is 10 million, it is useless," he will not change his age. What your hope is in, that you are faithful to. Why do you think a sister will be in exam hall? He look at number one, was able to do it. Number two... number three could not do it and then quickly, "Tosin, Tosin, Tosin, number three." "But sister we are in exam." "I know, number three." Why do you think that sister does not want to fail? Because there is a great hope in certificate. I am trying to illustrate this thing so that it can be clearer. Why you must seriously beg God for light. Because if you don’t understand the hope to which you are called, you will not be able to walk in the light of God’s love consistently. You will not be consistently upright. You will not be consistently—that is why you find somebody will be up, will live like this, and sometime live like this—double tongue, double life, double this. I am telling you what is causing it. It is not that everybody want to live straight for God, at least those who identify themselves as his children. But the struggle in their life is that the joy that is set before them, they could not see it. And so instead of enduring the cross and despising the shame, you know what they do? They run from the cross. They cannot carry and follow him. They run from the cross because they can’t see a joy. "Deny himself, take his cross and follow me." The demands of God, the dictates of God, the call to holiness, the call to purity, the call to sincerity, the call to transparency. That call becomes a very difficult call. Why? Because the person has seen that by righteousness there is no hope. But there is hope in righteousness! He cannot see it. He cannot see it because seeing it is not by intelligence and by much searching. It is that God must flood your heart with light. Let me put it this way for you. Do you normally see the sun? With what do you see the sun? Think very well, it is not your eye. With what do you see the sun? Do you know that is correct? Open your eyes in that place, you will not see anything. Open your eyes wide like this, let them remove every light, every trace of light. You see the sun with the light that comes from the sun. There must be light before you can see. It is not because you open your eye wide. You need to understand that God is a sun. I am quoting Psalm 84 now. Psalm 84, verse 11 through to around verse 12. [Speaker 6] For a day in your court is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the home of the wicked. For the Lord God is our sun... [Speaker 1] What did he call the Lord God? Our what? Our sun! The Lord God is our sun! And as a result what will he do? Read on. [Speaker 6] ...and our shield. He gives grace and glory. He is the one that gives grace and glory. So what will he not withhold? No good will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. [Speaker 1] You see the matter of uprightness is a matter of what? He has given grace and glory. He is a sun, he is our sun. He lightens our darkness, he gives grace and glory. No man can be upright without looking at the sun. And he can only see the sun with the light that comes from the sun. Up-right! But you see the sun with the light that comes from the sun. So it is not about intelligence and smartness. It is about God doing something to us. In another place the Bible says God in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. He is the Father of lights and spirit. In another place the Bible says "God is light." 1 John. "God is light, in him there is no darkness at all." Now let us come to where we need to draw some conclusion. Number one, I have tried to make you see something about light, that light is a thing that comes from the Lord and he himself is light. Now let us bring something together. I want to quickly say something and bring something together before we quickly pray. Now go to John, the Gospel according to John now. You know we have not read that John. I mentioned John at the beginning. Now let us now go back to that John. We are familiar with "in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. In him was life, the life was the light of men, light shines into darkness and darkness cannot possibly comprehend it." That is verse one to four. I hope we are familiar with that one now? Now having said that, the light shines into dark and darkness cannot possibly resist it, he now talk about there was a man. Verse six now. There was a man whose name was John. Now what did he say about that John? [Speaker 6] The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe and trust him and rely upon him through him. Verse eight: He was not that light... [Speaker 1] Wait! Who is he calling light now? Who is that person? Who did he came to bear witness of? Do you see that Jesus again now was set to us as the Word? Introduced as God, introduced as life, introduced as light. Now he is being introduced that actually John came to forerun light. He actually came to forerun light. But there is something about the light. That is actually where we are going. Now he came to bear witness to the light. He himself is not the light. But what did he now say about that light? [Speaker 6] He was not the light himself, but came that he might bear witness regarding the light. Verse nine: There it was, the true light... [Speaker 1] Wait! What did he say? "There it was, the true light." Now when we are talking about perfect light, it means there is a false light. There is a light that is not genuine. This is the—don’t forget that the Bible say that devil come in form of an angel of light. But there is a genuine perfect light. Read on. [Speaker 6] The true light was then coming into the world, the genuine, perfect, steadfast light that illumines every person. [Speaker 1] He came into the world. That light does what to person? He illumines. Do you know what it means to illumine? He gives light to everyone who was coming into the world. Now do you get it? He gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He gives light to everyone. Are you following something? It therefore mean man in themselves have no light. Man: intelligent, clever, beautiful, ugly, handsome, not handsome... educated, not educated... dark-skinned, light-skinned... whatever however you describe them, they don’t have light. So I want to ask you, when man take decision without Jesus, in what is he taking decision? Darkness. Try to put three different colors inside a dark room. Make sure there is no light. Pick one of the colors and then go to light to check whether you have picked rightly. When you are picking, how will you pick? Randomly. People marry today randomly because there is no light. When it come to job, people select job randomly because there is no light. When it come to where to settle, people settle randomly because there is no light. For them to see the exact color, they need light. They need light. What did Yorubas call marriage? Choice of marriage, selecting. *Iro ija owo kun*. It is because they are in darkness. *Inu okukun lo wa*. That is why you notice today because the church keep working outside the light. That is why we keep looking for something to enhance the darkness. "Look for friendly compatibility, check for sexual compatibility." They are trying to help the darkness. The way you will now try... okay this one want to look red, it want to look soft, this one want to look blue. Boyfriend/girlfriend so that they are trying to help the darkness so that perhaps in the darkness they can see well. But with all the compatibility and everything, how stable is marriage today? How stable? Why? Because there is no light. I am trying to illustrate something. When God first created man, for you to understand the perfect making of man, I want you to understand redemption. Or else you will keep living a empty life and a vain life. Many believers are living empty and vain life. Empty and vain life. You notice that when God made Adam, he was made in the image of God and in the likeness of God. When Satan was to tempt them, he said they would become like God, knowing good from evil. Do you get the point I am making? When they ate that fruit, they actually became like God knowing good from evil because God said, "Now man is now become like one of us, let us drive him away." Are you familiar with... I am trying to put a lot of things together. But before the fall, he was not like God knowing good from evil. Before the fall, he was not like God knowing good from evil. How did he come to know good from evil? He ate a fruit of a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, isn’t it? Now look at it. Before the fall, when God brought the animals to Adam, what did he name them? He named them exactly what is in the mind of God. How? Because he gets light from God. When they brought Eve, was there any relationship? Was there any touch to feel, any sexual compatibility, mental compatibility, physical compatibility? He just saw her. "This is the bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh. She was taken out of me. She shall be called woman." Was he wrong? Was he exact? How? Because this is the true light that lightens every man. That light is Christ. "In the beginning was the Word, in that life is light, it shines into darkness, the darkness could not comprehend it." Do you get the point I am making? He lightens that man. He lightens him, he keep giving him light. When eventually they ate the fruit and God came into the garden, and Adam said, "I heard your voice and I was hiding." What was God’s first statement? Do you notice what God said? "How did you get a light apart from the light that I gave?" You are not supposed to have this light. Because that was not a light he gave. Ah! How did you get this light? I am talking about the light that is not genuine. I am talking about the genuine light and the light that is not genuine. Who told you? Have you... So from that point man got another light. And as long as you are operating that light, what did God say? "Drive him away from us, he cannot stay where God is." Drive him away! As he works in that light, he will be working contrary to God. That is why you notice he says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don’t lean on your understanding." It is another light. But that light is not the genuine light. But somebody sponsors that light. Who normally sponsors the light? Who sponsored the origin of that light? Satan. You know he sponsored that light. It looks like it is you. Yes, you are involved, but it transcends you. That is why the Bible says at one time we walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now work in the children of disobedience. It looks like it is their decision. But there is a sponsor. When you walk according to the world, you are also walking according to a spirit. I am talking about Satan come like an angel of light. After you have done your—I am using marriage now in particular—you have done your test and test and test and say, "Ah! This Tosin, we are from the same village. She read nursing, me I read medicine. If we combine... we start our hospital." Now I am showing you, it looks like it is your decision. And that’s a light. You are getting a light. Isn’t that light? It is light. "He is even from Ogun State, and me I am from Ogun. I now even learned that his father is a pastor, so he must have been properly brought up morally. Apart from that, she is two by four by five. Hey! That just fits! I want a slim person. I go for her." Now you begin to befriend, befriend, likeness develop and everything, then you marry to settle down. What makes marriages not to work? Was there a light? I am saying all of these things so that we that are believers, God brought us to himself so that he can lighten our path. He can give us light. That is why he is the Father of light. Our Father is light. We have no business walking in darkness. We have no business selecting by random. We have no business doing "try your luck." Because this light declares the end from the beginning. This light is certain, is certainty. This light is sure and steadfast. It is the true light that lightens men. The point I am trying to say is that the Lord just called my attention very much in recent time. Say, "tell my people, warn your brethren, the end of all things draws near." Wisdom demands that we come back into the true light. Because from the very, very beginning, as long as man walk in that other light, he cannot stay where God is. Send him away! He cannot be here again. Send him away! As he works in that light, he will be working contrary to God. There is a need for us to return back into the true light. There is a need to come back into light. That is why we are born again. We are privileged people. I believe I passed this message across. Let us pray. I want you to talk to the Lord. In talking to the Lord, I want you to sing... I want you to sing this song. It is a very simple song, I love it, along with me, but please sing it prayerfully. Lord deliver me from an empty life. Lord deliver me from a vain life. Lord deliver me from an empty life. This is my prayer, oh Lord. Oh Lord deliver me from an empty life. Oh Lord deliver me from a vain life. Oh Lord deliver me from an empty life. This is my prayer, oh Lord. Oh Lord, Lord deliver me from an empty life. Lord deliver me from a vain life. Oh Lord deliver me from an empty life. This is my prayer, oh Lord. One more time, Lord deliver me from an empty life. Lord deliver me from a vain life. Oh Lord deliver me from an empty life. This is my prayer, oh Lord. Please listen as we pray. Immediately Eve listened to that new knowledge, her life became empty. She fell from abundance. Jesus said, "I have come that you may have abundant life." God still want to give that abundance. There is an abundant life in light. Immediately they left that light and took another light, it was a vain life. It was an empty life. We are still facing the emptiness today. We are still suffering that emptiness today. I want you to pray. I want you to talk to the Lord. Talk to the Lord. "Lord, that my heart be flooded with the light of your love. That my heart be flooded with the light of your love." There is a light, God is that light, Jesus is the light, he is the light that gives light to everyone. He is the light that gives light. Oh, any other light is a counterfeit light. Any other light is not a genuine one. Any other light is not genuine. It is not the genuine light that you need. The genuine light that you need is for God to give you light. Is for knowledge, information, decision. God want to lighten your decision. God want to give light to your values. God want to give light to your career. He want to give light to your marriage. He want to give light to your choice in marriage. He want to give light to your home. He want to give light to your education. He want to give light... That light gives you abundant life. That light of God gives you abundant life because it is a light of life. It is not a light of vanity, it is not a light of emptiness, it is not a light of a vain life. It is a light of life, in him is light. That light is life. It is a light of life. It gives you abundant life. Thank you Father.