First Baptist Church: Sermon

Message for June 23, 2002
by Pastor Glenn Layne
Zechariah 14:6-7

6 On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. 7It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime--a day known to the LORD. When evening comes, there will be light.

I need some relief every now and then! When the Lord laid on my heart to preach about the seven deadly sins (starting, with one interruption, next week) I asked the Lord—how about something really fun to preach about? How about something light and encouraging?

And I thought of this message. Eleven years ago I was in a time of deep trial. The details are not important now. The Lord showed me a message of Charles Spurgeon that blessed me, and I took that message and shared it with others. It is a message about Ultimate Optimism. And I want to share that message with you today.

It’s from the book of Zechariah, the next to last book in our Old Testament. While Zechariah has some pretty wild images in it—as we saw on June 2—the theme is very clear. The theme of Zechariah is that of rebuilding. Zechariah and Haggai together encouraged the rebuilding of the nation of Israel after 70 years of exile, rebuilding the city walls of Jerusalem and rebuilding the Temple of God.

Then, in its later chapters (especially chapters 12-14), the book reaches out beyond its major theme into prophecy. For example, it is Zechariah who prophesies the triumphal entry of Jesus. He speaks of ultimate hope—the hope of the coming Messiah, who Himself is the ultimate hope of the world. He gives us the detail, confirmed in the book of Acts, that when Christ comes back, He will descend to the crest of the Mount of Olives.

Deep in chapter 14, the chapter that tells of the return of Messiah to judge and to rule the world, we have these strange words:

6 On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. 7It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime--a day known to the LORD. When evening comes, there will be light.

This is a "day" that breaks all the rules of days. No light—yet it is not cold. No normal passage of day and night. Yet "when evening comes, there will be light."

What he describes here is no normal 24-hour day. He describes the Last Day, the Day of Judgment—the Yom-Yahweh—the day of the Lord.

But he also describes what has been called a "general rule of the kingdom": "When evening comes, there will be light." This I have found is not only true of Jesus’ return, but also it is also true of God’s way in the world! Take courage! The good news is this: "When evening comes, there will be light." When the shadows are deepest, then God’s light bursts forth in brilliance.

Let’s look at that reality in five dimensions. The rule can be seen in--

1. The history of the church

From Roman persecution to triumph

Ages ago, our spiritual forerunners in Christ must have thought again and again that all were lost. Waves of persecution battered the church, thousands died as martyrs—crucified, stoned, beheaded, burned to death. Scriptures were burned, families split up, sold into slavery. Yet after this darkness the emperor of Rome conceded defeat to the Man of Galilee. "When evening comes, there will be light."

From medieval church to Reformation

Then the church decayed from within, corrupted by wealth and power. Biblical truth was lost under tons of corrupting human traditions. The Bible was locked away from the people, and in the lands where Christ was known, He was known only dimly. But first here and then there a light dawned, and then a German monk named Martin Luther came along and in reaching for his own salvation pulled on a rope which rang a bell that awoke all of Europe and the Reformation was born. "When evening comes, there will be light."

From the west to the whole world

But the gospel remained confined to Europe the new continents of North and South America. The vast majority of the world languished in darkness—Africa, the Middle East, all of Asia. Many were content with that, but God stirred the heart of a shoe repairman named William Carey that the gospel was for the whole world. His pioneering work in Calcutta inspired generation after generation of missionaries to go—Adoniram Judson to Burma, Hudson Taylor to China, David Livingston to Africa, along with thousands of lesser knows (but known to God)! By the end of the 19th century, the gospel of Jesus had a witness in all the corners of the globe. "When evening comes, there will be light."

Jesus over Muhammad!

And today it seems that Islam—particularly radical, militant Islam, that is Islam in its native form—is ascendant. That is not true. In 1792, 20% of the world’s population was Muslim. In 2000, 22% of the world’s population was Muslim! That’s scarcely growth. In the same time period, Christians grew from less than 3% of the world’s population to about 34% of the world’s population! Islam is static and has been for centuries. But the gospel of Jesus is on the march! While church growth has turned into church decline in Europe, and is stagnant in USA, it is exploding in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and in the nations of Asia, especially China. I boldly tell you that Islam has become militant because it is in its death-throws! "When evening comes, there will be light."

2. Our individual life experiences

Does this truth apply in our individual lives? O yes!

Nearly all of us have experienced the sunset of loss, pain and hardship. Nearly all of us have mourned a death, endured an illness, lost a job, and gone through life’s turmoils so painful that we wanted to die. But God has a way of seeing us through. That crisis does not last, but God’s presence and promises do!
God sends the light of encouragement and restoration. You have heard the expression that "man’s extremity is God’s opportunity." How true that is! "When evening comes, there will be light."

3. Our spiritual struggles

In John Bunyon’s classic Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a place where Christian, the heaven-bond believer, is knocked to the ground by the dragon. His shield and his sword are knocked from his hands and the dragon, the devil, is about to finish him off with his sharp-taloned foot upon his exposed chest. But at the last moment Christian is able to grasp his sword—representing the word of God—and makes a thrust at the dragon who immediately withdraws in defeat.
We have an enemy, the dragon, the devil, Satan. He would claw us in half if given the chance. How many times have you been knocked down and almost out when you called upon the Lord, and then the enemy of our soul had to depart? James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Yes, he flees!
Rest assured in those times of temptation and discouragement, call upon the Lord and the devil must flee! "When evening comes, there will be light."

4. In the process of coming to Christ

I would add this: how many times I have I seen someone go through the dark shades of evening before they see the sunrise of life in Jesus?

That is why we preach Christ: that men and women, boys and girls, might come to know Him. But I tell you that the person who experiences the anguish of conviction of sin and the fear of eternity without Him will always have a fuller, truer walk with God.

It is good to have the pain of conviction; its is good to be afraid of hell; it is good to know that your sins have offended a holy God; it is good to have your pride torn down; it is good to have these pains!
It is also good to become convicted that there is no other way to be made right with God than through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. It is a good thing to realize that my morals are an insufficient ground to be declared right before God. It is good to realize than my religious tradition has no power to make me right in His sight. It is good to understand that all my good deeds are, as Jeremiah says, nothing but filthy rags before God.
You see we want Salvation Light: A ticket to heaven without conviction of sin, without transformation of life, without the experience of the holiness of eternal almighty God. That, however, is a deal that God does not offer. That’s a way that is incompatible with the cross of Jesus. There must be the dark shadows that drive us to say, "I have sinned; I need Jesus!"
But we do not stay there! Having passed through the darkness, then we can see the light—the sudden light of the grace of Jesus. As the old hymn puts it,

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night.
Thine eye diffused a quickening [that is, a life-giving] ray:
I woke—the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
For, O my God, it found out me.

Wise is the person who know their spiritual poverty—that person can receive the riches of the new life that’s in Jesus Christ! Isn’t that what Jesus said—"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"? "When evening comes, there will be light."

5. As we face death itself

Finally, what about the reality of death itself? Until Jesus comes, we will all continue to die. I have watched death, conducted more funerals than I can count. I have seen both my father and mother die.

Some die as simply and naturally as a leaf falling from a tree; others grab on and fight death every inch. Most at the end quietly surrender, because in the end death will not be denied.

But there is something remarkably different about the death of a person who has walked with God. This is especially true of that man or woman who has known Him for many years, but I have seen it in younger persons who only come to know the Lord as they dealt with their illness: it is the peace that knows that beyond the darkness of death lies a sunrise of light and life.

Several years ago I was at a conference and heard Larry Crabb, the well-known Christian counselor talk about his father. When his father was ill, and death was not far off, Larry asked his dad what it was like.

He said it was like being in the Navy! He remembered that when their ship was out to sea, days would go by with no sign of land—just the ocean. But then they would sense they were coming near land. How would they know? Experienced sailors could tell because they could actually smell the land before they could see it. The winds carried the smell of dirt and plants and cities about a full day before they could actually see the land.

"Son," said Mr. Crabb to Larry, "I’ve caught the smell of heaven."

The God who has promised and is faithful will be faithful—right to the end of this life. Spurgeon said, "I have thumbed my Bible many a year; I have never yet thumbed a broken promise."
Imagine an elderly man on his deathbed. The sun is going down. The evening is coming. Out the window it is too dark to see the distant mountains. His life is ebbing away. But then he sees light again. It is as if the sun were rising all at once. The hills he sees are not green and gray, but shimmer with the light of the presence of God. There is a moment of confusion—what is happening? But then the full light of the Sun…the Son of God rises! Those around him gasp and say that he is gone. But that is not his perspective at all! He is not gone; he is not in darkness; he has instead arrived in a world filled with light. His body’s been cast off light an old overcoat on a sunny day. Why is that? What has been true will always be true: "When evening comes, there will be light."

So now, people of God, lift up your heart. God is faithful. Again and again you have seen His faithfulness. Think carefully and you must agree: He has never abandoned you.

Stan Toler wrote a book whose title says it all: God Has Never Failed Me, but He Sure Has Scared Me to Death a Few Times. He tells the story of moving from West Virginia as a child to Columbus so his dad could find work—and then his dad’s sudden death. The Toler family—mom, Stan and his brother—was destitute. But bit by bit and piece, they made it—and their mom married a great man as their stepfather. Today Stan is one of the premier pastors in the Church of the Nazarene (he started a new church in Oklahoma City a few years ago), author of a dozen books, and his brother is also a Nazarene pastor.

But if you’d visited the Toler home in Columbus just after dad had died, you’d never believe it. Or maybe you would have. After all, "When evening comes, there will be light!"