by Tony Sullivan
The Restoration Herald - Feb 2025
Here is how it happens: it is late at night, but you’re still up watching television. Then, without notice, you realize the room is getting darker, the TV is becoming dimmer, and the room is getting quieter. That is when you understand why—the electricity has gone off.
Now you have to get around in the dark. The real dark. The dark dark. There is no light in the house, no outside light is burning; it’s dark.
If you watch a lot of Investigator TV, you panic. You think, “There must be a serial killer in the house.” Are you like me and when the electricity goes off you begin to have crazy thoughts?
One night the power at our home went out. I thought, “Well, while I wait on the power to come back on, I’ll just watch some television” (not too smart). I later got up and went into the kitchen because even with no lights, I can eat. I walked into the kitchen, and, of course, it was dark. Then I thought, “So I can see better, I will flip on the lights, and guess what happened.” You’re right—nothing happened, because the power wasn’t working!
No one likes darkness. What would our world be like without light? As bad as physical darkness is, spiritual darkness is much, much worse. The world we live in is filled with the darkness. The world needs light. The world needs THE light. Not the light of the sun, but the light of the Son.
God is the solution to spiritual darkness. The Apostle John tells us in his first epistle that, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).i
Throughout Scripture, God is compared to light. There are more than one hundred verses that speak of God being the light for mankind. God’s Word is called the light. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105, KJV).
Jesus is called the light of the world. We are told by Jesus we too are the light of the world. God and His kingdom are the light the world needs to find their way in the darkness of sin. The light of God brings men from despair, it delivers men from fear, and the light of God brings hope. Peter tells us we have been, “called out of darkness into a marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9) and our charge is to call others out of darkness.
God is pure light. First John 1:5 proclaims that “in God there is no darkness at all.” God is one hundred percent pure, one hundred percent just, and one hundred percent fair. In sharp contrast, mythology speaks of gods that are like us, namely sinful and unrighteous. The Scripture lets us know that God, the only God, has no sin and is always righteous and holy.
However, we, His creation, do have darkness. We Christians struggle with the darkness we have in us. In Romans 7:14-25, Paul speaks of the struggle he faces each day. He says in Romans 7:15, "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”
We must realize when it comes to our relationship with God our fellowship with Him depends on us having no darkness in us. This is hard to do. We are reminded we have all “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We must seek to have lives that are void of darkness. This can be done by following the light of Christ. This is done when we follow and obey the teachings of our Lord.
John, in 1 John 1:7, encourages us by letting us know “if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
We must seek to walk in the light. One key is when we do sin, we repent of that sin and ask for His forgiveness. If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves.
Let me challenge you to read Psalm 51. This is David’s psalm of repentance after his sin with Bathsheba. Read that psalm and apply to your life the things he did, and you will be able to walk in the light.
God has given us His light. His light will lead us to salvation, it will protect us, it will show us the path to walk on, it will lead us into “paths of righteousness.” It will bring us out of darkness into the marvelous light.
Let me encourage you when it gets dark in your life and you can’t see which way to go, turn the light of God back on.
Personal Note:
I have open dates in 2025. If I can help you with a revival, Men’s Retreat, Faith Promise, or in any other way, let me know. I would love to come and work with you.
Some of the comments you hear on TV, social media, radio, etc., centers around this thought, “God saved President Trump’s life.” If that is true, why didn’t God save the life of Corey Comperatore — the fireman who was assassinated by the rogue gunman? When I hear the statement, “God saved Trump’s life/turned his head” my mind immediately goes to the wife and children of Comperatore and the other injured victims. What must they think? Was President Trump’s life more important than their injured or lost lives? No, of course not.
Let us look at the subject of interpreting providence, and what do we mean by providence? Providence is that which is directly influenced and affected by the hand of God. There are three reasons why events happen. 1) God causes them. 2) Nature affects them. 3) The freewill choices of people. All events can be categorized under these three causes.
So, after January 20, 2025, we are in anticipation of many things we have been promised by the incoming president. Reducing prices and inflation. Closing our borders. Rolling back DEI, LGBTQ. On transgender rights he would end “boys in girls’ sports,” a practice he insists, is widespread. But his policies go well beyond standard applause lines from his rally speeches. Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students, and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth. Reductions in burdensome regulations. Targeting the elimination of the federal involvement in our nation’s education. Eliminating the green new deal. Improving the defense of our country.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, as much as these things sound good and make us feel better about the direction of our country they are not enough. While the new administration may be able to improve our physical life, our society still has a spiritual problem. As described in Romans 1:21-32 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.
Christian apologists have long said that the three greatest miracles of the Christian faith are the creation of the universe, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and His bodily resurrection from the dead. To these a fourth awesome miracle could be added—fulfilled Bible prophecy.