The Light of Reality

Series on Luke

III The Initiation

D The Activities of His Ministry Revealing that the Kingdom Is:

7 Finding

Text: 8:16-18

Introduction

Here are three increasingly difficult sayings of Jesus. He probably said them often. In the gospel of Luke they are together, but in Matthew they are found in three different contexts. It will enlarge our understanding to see how they are used in Matthew, but the way in which Jesus groups them together in Luke’s account is illuminated by the preceding parable of the sower. The sower went forth to sow and the seed he sowed according to verse 11 is the Word of God, the Bible. This is the controlling concept of the passage, and the common thread which draws these three sayings together. You can only know God by knowing Jesus and you can only know Jesus through the Bible. Jesus’ enormous confidence in the written Word of God is indicated in Matthew 5:18, I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear,not the smallest letter,not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law (that means the Bible) until everything is accomplished. In a day when the Bible which used to be the foundational text of education is now the laughing stock of education, we need to hear what our Savior says as he further discusses the seed which is the Word of God. He tells us about three things. The value of the Bible, the vindication of the Bible and the vision of the Bible.

I The Value of the Bible

What Jesus is giving here as He teaches His disciples is light and understanding. He is sowing the seed. In time they too will sow the seed and as it has brought light and understanding to them it will bring it to others. that is the point of the illustration in verse 16, No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. We read in Scripture that God is light, and that Jesus is the light of the world and that we are to be a light in the world and that the Bible is a light to us. All of this hangs together. The important link is the Bible itself. It is God’s revelation and what it reveals historically is Jesus. When our Lord instructed His disciples after his resurrection, the major theme of his teaching was this according to Luke 24:25-27, and 44, He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” The Bible reveals the Savior, but it is precisely this that those who rejected our Lord did not see. Jesus characterizes them in verses 9 and 10, His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ”‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ What makes this so interesting is that our Lord is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah was sent to people who would neither see nor hear the truth and Isaiah is the prophet who stands out in the Old Testament as presenting Christ, the servant of the Lord, the Messiah. Chapters 40-66 of his prophecy are one prediction after another of the coming Savior and his kingdom. In other words the people of Isaiah’s day did not see that Christ was the heart of the scripture and neither did Jesus’ own generation. This is exactly what the disciples were learning and after Jesus’ ascension the message they preached can be summed up by the words, this Jesus is that Christ which was prophesied. Therefore the light which is placed on the candlestick and illuminates the whole room is the full revelation of God in Christ, and the fulfillment of all God promised in Christ.

II The Vindication of the Bible

The encouraging news, in spite of the fact that many choose not to hear, is that this light will spread to the whole world as we read in verse 17, For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. One cannot help but be reminded of the thrilling words of Paul in Philippians 2:8-11, He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We have here in verse 17 a plain declaration of the success of Christ and his kingdom. Where this saying occurs in Matthew 10:26 Jesus is commissioning his disciples and sending them forth as sheep among wolves, but he tells them not to fear because success is certain. Interestingly enough in Matthew 13 where the parable of the sower appears Jesus also has parables of the kingdom which remind us of the same thing, like the parable of the mustard seed where the tiniest seed grows into a great tree in which the birds nest. We read of a professor in California writing a stirring book debunking evolution and he’s not even taking an evangelical Christian position and we think for a moment; yes, once again the anvil wears out the hammer. But then we look around at a nation where even that most traditional and acceptable portion of the Bible, the ten commandments is regarded as being out dated. Not just by Ted Turner but by 87% of the people surveyed by the authors of the book “The Day America Told the Truth.” 90% of the people said they lie regularly which makes you wonder about the survey, but amazingly 7% said they would kill a stranger if paid enough. One of Rev. Steve Brown’s friends saw a bumper sticker on a car, “if it feels good,do it ,” and said he wanted to ram the car and then say it felt good, but he resisted the temptation. The America we live in does not help us to believe Jesus words here, but the world never did. Jesus says do not fear, what I whisper in your ear shout from the housetops because every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess I am Lord.

III The Vision of the Bible

I think this last saying in verse 18 is the most difficult to grasp, Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him. Some people hear and others do not. God is sovereign and has chosen to bless his people with hearing and understanding . This is a mystery before which we simply bow. However the practical significance of this saying of Jesus is that those who believe the Bible and believe in the Savior who is offered to them through the Bible grow in vision and understanding. Those who hear but do not believe lose everything and retain nothing. This is to say that this is an all or nothing at all proposition. Here is the thing that we must stress. notice how Paul frames this same concept in I Corinthians 2:14-16, The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. This is an either-or proposition. Either you get nothing or you get everything. The man that sees Christ as the living word, the fulfillment of all that God promised and as the only Savior and only way to God, he comes to understand more and more. That is, he has a new vision of the world. If any man be in Christ there is a new creation, old things have passed away all things have become new. The man that rejects the Savior is left with nothing but an empty book, because no matter how many promises God has made they are yes in Christ and so through Him the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God.

Conclusion

So in these three somewhat cryptic sayings i believe our Lord is laying before us great and wonderful truth. First of all that the value of the Scripture is that it presents Jesus as the fulfillment, the only way to God, the light and glory of the Father. Secondly, that this light cannot be extinguished but will be vindicated in the whole earth. And lastly, that those who by the grace of God receive this light have their whole lives and indeed all of creation and of reality illumined and there is no limitation on how wise they may become as long as they reflect God’s glory by believing and receiving his truth.