Friend, God has rescued you from the dominion, the power, the authority, the kingdom of darkness. He did this when Jesus went to the cross and entered the darkness. Jesus went to the cross to rescue you, to bring you out into the light, to take you into His own kingdom of eternal light!
Today I read a news report that relates well to our discussion today. On October 19, 2014 a duplex house in Fresno, California erupted into flames, and the flames soon engulfed the entire house. Smoke was so thick it was pitch dark inside the house.
A woman frantically called 911 and told the operator that her father was inside the incinerating home. What happened next defies explanation: An unknown man calmly walked into the burning house that was filled with the dark, oppressive, and toxic smoke and then he came out carrying the woman’s father on his back.
Friend, two thousand years ago Jesus looked down on a world plunged into darkness and despair and inflamed with sin: unbelief, pride, rebellion, impurity, sickness, depression, despair, and all manner of darkness.
His heart, beating with compassion and love, moved Him to come to this world, enter our darkness, and ultimately to die on a cross to rescue us. When Jesus through Isaiah said, “I have come to proclaim…release from darkness for the prisoners” He had in mind His own cross, His own suffering, His own death. He was seeing Himself become sin for you, the wrath of God descending on Him like a cloud, the sun becoming dark and Himself becoming Ichabod on your behalf. But He came and entered our darkness. He came and died to open our prison doors and rescue us from the kingdom of darkness.
But how do we experience the truth of this rescue? How are we actually taken out of darkness where we experience the cloud lifting and the light penetrating?
The answer is that we come to the cross and begin to look and listen, and then we believe what we are seeing and hearing. Just look at Jesus enduring three hours of darkness for you so that you can live eternally in the Light with Him. See Jesus being forsaken by His own Father so that you will be accepted forever. See Jesus dying on His rescue mission for you, to give you life forever. Listen to His cries for help that go unanswered, all so that your prayers can be heard and answered. Jesus said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" so that you can say, "My Father, my Father, why have you accepted me?"
I remember when I first was taken to the cross by the Holy Spirit and invited to look and listen. It rocked my world, it shocked me to the core of my very being. After all, there was the Holy God suffering as a Man. There was Purity Himself being treated as if He were impure, Righteousness being treated as sin, the perfect Son of God being treated as a common criminal…FOR ME! I saw Him suffering, saw His pain and His wounds, saw His love and His grace, and I wanted to love Him back. Now I never want to look away.
Let's make this practical:
The last few weeks have been tough, with no answers to some long term struggles in the family. Your son has been looking for a job for quite some time with no success, and the family car is starting to have some serious concerns and would not start this morning. And the cat vomited all over the carpet last night! It seems like there is one long endless stream of problems that are adding up. Lately over the last few weeks, you have been reading a lot about the end times and sometimes you have thoughts that the world and your family would be better off without you. You say to yourself, “There are just too many problems and I do not have any answers anymore”.
But now, you have learned of the grace and comfort that the Holy Spirit provides at the cross of Jesus. You were bought with the price of the Son of God’s own life at the cross, the Light of the world, who has set you free from the prison of darkness. You are a cherished child of God. You are not your own anymore. You remember that the problems you see in the visible or natural world around you are just temporary and the reality is that your life eternally rests in Christ and what is invisible (2 Cor 4:18).
Now you come to the outstretched arms of your Savior Jesus and pour out all the fears, anxieties, frustrations and disappointments that have invaded your heart. You take the dark thoughts to Jesus in prayer and leave them in His hands at the throne of grace, thanking Him for pouring His Light and life into them. And as you do, you feel the love of God pouring out on you and recall hopeful words of Jesus from scripture lifting you. You feel the peace that passes understanding flood your mind and calm your anxious heart. You have the assurance that God is in charge. You are at peace knowing that God is sovereign over all things.
Now you are beginning to walk in the Spirit, trusting God for each struggle no matter how many or how big or how small because you have seen His goodness and His amazing love at the cross. You know that He is with you and that as long as you keep your eyes on Jesus then you’ll be able to walk in the Spirit above your circumstances. You are relying on the Rock of Ages (Christ) who was struck for you at Calvary.
Question 5. Have you ever experienced a time when you were overwhelmed by many overlapping struggles and your thoughts were dark? How will the power of the cross enable you to walk in the Spirit in the future so that you can avoid the temptation to despair when stressful times come again?
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Oh friend, this is the solution, to come to the cross and look, listen and believe! If you will do that, even now, you will begin to experience the lifting of the cloud, the abating of the darkness. This happens at the cross of Jesus to everyone who will believe. We will study this in much more detail in the days to come.