SPROUL: We continue this morning with our study of the Gospel according to Saint Luke.
We're still in chapter 8, and I'll be reading today from verse 16 through verse 21.
"'No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a
lampstand, that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is secret that will not be revealed,
nor anything hidden, that will not be known and come to light.
Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given;
and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.'
Then His mother and brothers came to Him and could not approach Him because of the crowd.
And it was told Him by some, who said, 'Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside,
desiring to see You.' But He answered and said to them, 'My mother and My brothers
are these who hear the word of God and do it.'"
This brief parable is one added to the larger parable of the sower that we considered a couple
of weeks ago, and Jesus further elucidates on the significance of that larger parable. And so,
what you have heard this morning comes to us from the lips of our Lord. It is His wisdom. It is
His truth that comes with the full measure of His authority. Please receive it as such. Let us pray:
"Again, our Father, when we hear parables, at times they seem almost incomprehensible
and without the illumination of Your Spirit, we cannot grasp them fully.
But we ask that in this hour, Your Spirit may stoop to our weakness and grant to us
clarity of understanding. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen."
If you recall, when we looked at the parable of the sower, which is sometimes called
"the parable of the soil," Jesus explained that in that parable
that the seed was the Word of God that was being sown in various places. He explained
how some of that seed fell on rocky soil, some upon the hard path next to the field,
some among the thorns, and finally that which fell upon the good soil that took root and did
not die out quickly but rather came to fruition, bearing fruit in abundance. Of course, Jesus was
saying that those who hear the Word, and that Word takes root in their souls will bring forth fruit.
Now to further amplify that point that our Lord was making,
He gives this smaller parable of the lamp where He says, "No one, when he's lit a lamp,
covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but rather puts it on a lampstand,
so that it can illumine the dark place of the house." Now, I brought with me this morning
an artifact to use as a brief object lesson. I have it here in my hand,
and probably only those in the first few rows of the sanctuary can even see it, it is so small.
But this object that I'm holding before you is actually over two thousand years old. It
is an authentic lamp from ancient Israel. If you can see the shape of it, it is like a simple piece
of pottery, like a saucer that has the front of it pinched together. And in that saucer was oil,
and in the front of the lamp where it's pinched together,
a wick was inserted that basically floated on the oil. And that wick was then ignited
with flame. And so, this tiny little thing was what was used to illumine a dark room.
Now, I don't know how much light is created by a little lamp like this,
but this is not the kind of thing that would intimidate Thomas Alva Edison. It's not the
kind of thing that we use to bring light into the darkness of our homes at night. It had very
little power of illumination. As little as it is, Jesus said, "You don't think that anybody
in their right mind, once they've put the flame to the wick in this lamp, would then take it
and put something over it like a bushel or else put it under the bed,
because that would indeed quench all of the light that came from such a lamp. But anybody in their
right mind, if they want to have any usefulness from such a lamp would put it on a stand where
it would be elevated, where the maximum amount of light would be given to the darkness of the room."
Now, this does not require rocket science to understand the simplicity of the point that
Jesus is making here. But what He is saying is that the light that comes from the Word of God
that He has just explained in the parable of the sower, if it takes root in your soul
is truth, truth that must never be hid. We're not to take the Word of God,
as we understand it and it takes root in our hearts, and put it under a bushel,
hide it under the bed, but we are to put it in a place of prominence where it can be made manifest
and where it can be seen clearly by all who are present.
And He goes on to say
that, "Nothing is secret that will not be revealed nor anything hidden that will not be known
and come to light." Here, Jesus is referring to the Day of Judgment,
which will be the day of great epiphany. It will be the day when all of truth
will be made clear and may be revealed. This has two sides to it, a positive side
and a negative side. The positive side is this, that our Lord is saying, "On that day,
the Word of God will be manifested clearly and finally as the truth. On the Day of Judgment,
every mouth will be stopped and no one will be able to gainsay the truth claims of Christ.
That Christ is the Son of God, that Christ is our Savior will be so clear and so plain that
everybody who repudiates that claim, everybody who rejects that truth will be put to utter shame.
So in the first instance, the good news is that in that grand epiphany,
the truth will be demonstrated to be the truth once and for all,
and every lie and every falsehood will be destroyed. But the downside of it is
the secrets of men's hearts, the things that we do in darkness,
the things that we seek to hide from the world will all come into open view.
That's a scary thought isn't it? It's been said that there are skeletons in everybody's closet
and that there are things about ourselves that we would not want the whole world to know.
I might just take a second here and let you think about that. Think for a moment of those things
in your life that you would most like to keep secret forever and know that that is impossible.
Because, not only the truth about the gospel will be made clearly known but also the truth about me
and the truth about you, the whole truth will be made known. Nothing that is hidden
will remain hidden. Everything that is concealed now will be revealed then. This is not good news
to sinful people because we are by nature, the Word of God tells us, not the children of light
but the children of darkness. And John tells us in his Gospel that by nature we prefer the darkness
to the light, because I'm going to say it right, "Our deeds are evil." That's why we choose
the darkness rather than the light.
Now, this problem is not something new. It begins in the Garden of Eden
that I like to refer to as "Eden-gate," because after the very first act of transgression,
the initial response of Adam and Eve to their sin was an experience of shame and awareness of
their nakedness. And their first action was to do what? The Bible says, "They hid themselves."
What were they hiding from? I should really say, "Who were they hiding from?"
The answer is obvious. They were hiding from God, where
previously they were delighted when God walked in the coolness of the garden,
they rushed to enjoy His fellowship. But now after sin comes in
and God comes, they don't want God to see them. So they hide. They search for the darkness.
They want a place where they can be concealed, hidden from the view of God.
Now dear friends, we might think that there's nothing more silly than to take a lamp and after
we light it, put a bushel basket over it or hide it under the bed. Well beloved, there is something
sillier than that. And that is thinking that we can find a place in this universe where we can
hide from Almighty God. No such hidey-hole exists. We could go into the darkest hole in the universe
and still not escape the gaze of God. The psalmist says, "O Lord, search me and know me.
See if there be any wicked way within me." And he says, "O Lord, You know
every word that I say and before a word is even formed on my lips, You know it
altogether. Where shall I flee from Your Spirit? If I ascend into heaven,
Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there. Thou knowest me all together."
Fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus says of that last judgment
that every idle word that we have ever spoken will be brought into the judgment.
Think about that. Every casual, cavalier, off-the-cuff remark that we've ever made,
we're going to have to own up to. Not to mention the carefully devised lies
and angry statements that we have made injudiciously. All of those
will come into the judgment because our Lord said, "There is nothing hidden
that will not be revealed."
And Lucy, that neat is neat. That nothing is not a little something. Nothing
that is hidden now will remain hidden. Now these are sobering words, Jesus is
saying to us and to His disciples, "Live in the light. Let the truth be in the light.
Don't hide the Word of God. Don't hide yourself from the Word of God."
But we are called to be people of the light, people who have received the truth of God,
who have been commissioned to proclaim the truth of God,
to let it be known. Does everybody who knows you know that you're a Christian?
I hope if they do, it's not because you're obnoxious about it.
But I hope that they know it because there can be no such thing as a Secret Service Christian.
You know, they used to talk about "Clairol Christians." Only their hairdresser knows
for sure. But anybody who knows you should know and appreciate that you're a follower of Christ.
If they don't know you, maybe it's because the light you have received
has gone under the couch or under the bushel. We just can't do that.
The truth of God is the light of the world, and we are called to be people of that light.
Finally as Jesus finishes this little teaching,
somebody interrupts Him and says, "Master, we're sorry to interrupt you, but you have some people
outside that are waiting to see you. Your mother and your brothers would like to see you. They
desire to spend some time with you." Jesus kind of rebukes them and makes this strange statement,
"Who are My brothers and sisters? Who is My mother?" Not that He was disowning His mother or
His earthly brothers and sisters but He says, "My brothers and sisters are those who hear My Word
and do it." I hate to pass over this so quickly, but this is a brilliant statement of one of the
most important doctrines set forth in the New Testament, the doctrine of adoption by which,
through the grace of God, everyone who puts their faith in Christ is adopted into the family of God.
And Jesus calls us His brothers and His sisters, and we are adopted then by the heavenly Father.