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There is great power and importance and truth in light. And there were two simple events that happened in my younger life which proved the power and importance of light to me.

One such event was when I was a young person attending a youth convention at a church. It was a wild youth service and they had the service area dark with flashing lights shining from the platform into the audience and a spot on the worship leader and the preacher. When I was 16, I went to these things for two reasons. One, I loved God and wanted to worship with other young people. The second was that there were always tons of cute girls at those things and, after God, that was my other primary interest.

During the service, that night I caught a glimpse of what I thought was the girl of my dreams. After church, they had rented a skating rink and everybody went there for burgers and to hang out till about 2 am in the morning. It was dark there also with strobe lights and such. When I noticed that girl that I had seen earlier standing to one side, I took a deep breath and walked up and introduced myself. We hit it off. I was convinced that she was the best looking thing that I had ever seen. I was in lust. We agreed to meet in the lobby of the church the next morning before the am service and sit with each other.

The next morning I walked into the lobby that was streaming with bright daylight from the windows. My friends were with me and I was anxious to show them who I had met. She was there -- she didn’t stand me up. But I quickly learned the power of light. My friends started laughing when they saw my face and quickly realized what had happened. Let’s just say that darkness can hide quite a bit. And my supposed “dream girl” didn’t look anything like I had thought. I did what any prideful young boy would do in my situation: I ran. Straight into the bathroom, and then I sat on the opposite side of the church from the girl. A few days later, she got my phone number from a friend and called me demanding to know what had changed. Stupidly I told her. From her response, I learned another tremendous lesson of life!

The other event that revealed to me the power and lessons of light, was when I was but a young child and my parents took me to the famous Carlsbad Caverns to take the cave tours available there. When we had descended into the Grand Cavern far beneath the earth’s surface, the guide suddenly said “everybody stand still.” And then he clicked off the lights. If you’ve never been in total complete darkness before, it is startling. We think here in the country that total darkness is being away from the city lights of San Antonio, but there in that cave I learned that in total darkness, you can put your hand a hair’s breadth away from your face and can’t see a thing. And then the guide flicked on a simple lighter. It was amazing at how bright that little light seemed when you come from total darkness. You could see your hand and each other and some of the features of the room. Something that we had taken for granted seemed so significant. And then the guide flipped a flashlight on and you could see a little better. You could now see features on people’s faces and the ceiling of the cave and such. And then he flipped the main lights back on. It was like a blinding flash of light. For a moment we couldn’t see anything at all; it was so bright that it caused all to squint. But once your eyes adjusted to the new found great light, you could see things as they really were. You could see the colors and intricate detail of the formations of the cave. You could clearly see your surroundings and that my father had gray hair from pastoring. You could see the path where you should walk again and the warning signs.

Let me jump in here and at the risk of getting ahead of myself point out some things. The scripture teaches us that the Word of God is like a light:

The scripture also teaches that left to ourselves, men are in total darkness unable to find the right way to live or act and only able to destroy themselves and those around them by their blind actions. For men to please God and be what God designed them to be and to live as they should, they need the light of the Word of God. It is the Word of God that is the "light of truth" shining direction into our lives!

Here's my point. The world is full of people that have the knowledge or who choose to obey "part" of the Word of God. That is they have found a little light. There are churches that preach about three messages over and over again and rip three verses out of the Bible and ignore a bunch of others but teach people to get excited over just those three verses. There others who have more illumination and yet there are some commands of the New Testament that they avoid like the plague. They've got a little more light. And thank God for the light that they have received and I encourage them to keep moving forward and getting more and more light of the revelation of God's Word.

But my problem comes with people who say "I believe these three scriptures and I don't want to know anything else." "I'm going to quote John 3:16 about believing saving me but I'm going to ignore John 3:5 about being born again of the water and the Spirit." Or I've heard preachers be able to give beautiful discourses on the book of Philippians or Ephesians, but want nothing to do with the book of Acts which records that the church of the Philippians and the Ephesians were both started by people preaching the necessity of being baptized in Jesus' name and filled with the Holy Ghost. They want some light but not too much and there's just some other areas that they'd rather ignore. And I've known people on the other side of the spectrum too, that want their "Holy Ghost fix" and love to worship God but would rather not hear about what the scriptures have to say about what they need to change in their everyday habits or life!

But such people are like people standing with a lighter in the cave of their complete darkness and compared to what you just were in, the lighter and the flashlight seem bright and great and exciting. But let me just say that when you get ALL of the Word of God and make up in your mind to get EVERYTHING that God has for me. Then the revelation of the truth of God's Word will make the lighter and the flashlight seem insignificant! When you make up in your mind that I want to believe it like the first church of the Apostles believed it. And when you make up in your life that you will not be satisfied with just some of God's Word applied to your life. It's like somebody threw the switch! You begin to get revelations and anointings and experiences and knowledge that is exciting and far beyond anything that you ever imagined! There are some here today, that think some of us are a little crazy for going to church all of the time or studying our Bible or always excited about what God is doing. That's because you're sitting holding on to the lighter light of your tradition and you think that what you can see is the limit to what God has for you. We're excited because we have seen beyond your level and we have seen the beauty and tasted the power of things that you don't even know exist. Don't settle for the partial light of half-hearted, compromising, take-somebody's-word-for-it, Christianity, but sell out and find out the power of the light of the whole Word of God!

Pardon me if I'm not blown away because some tele-evangelist just got a revelation of the power of praying in the name of Jesus and has seen a few healings on his show. I've been seeing people get healed in the name of Jesus since I was too young to walk! I know that He can heal! But let me say this: I'm not going to use my light to make money for my personal "cause" and furthermore I've not only been healed by the power of the name of Jesus, but I've had my sins washed away by being baptized in that name! I've received the infilling of the Holy Ghost praising and calling on that name! Furthermore I've got a revelation of who I really am calling on when I say that name! It's hard to get excited about somebody's lighter when you've had the revelation of the name of Jesus shine completely and totally in your life! I'm preaching to somebody: don't settle for some of the light, but get everything that God has for you!

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You can't talk about the Word of God being the light, without getting to Jesus Christ, the Living Word. He was the Living Word. He was the plan of God, the prophecies of God, the actions of God, and the commandments of God in flesh. Because of that, Jesus Christ was the "Light." And it's interesting to note that Matthew, Luke, and John all begin their gospels with some reference to Jesus being the "light of the world."

Matthew says this about the time of Jesus' ministry:

Luke recorded the words of Zacharias when he prophesied at the birth of his son who would prepare the way for the Messiah:

Later the old prophet Simeon would take the baby Jesus into his arms at the temple and say:

But it was John who really summed up all of Jesus' ministry with the opening of his gospel:

The interesting statement in those verses that stand out to me is verse 9. Jesus was the true light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." If a man is born into existence, then he is shone on by the light of Jesus Christ. Think about that. I've heard preachers try to take that verse and say that "everybody's saved regardless of what they do or don't do." To which I immediately ask "then why do you preach?" If everybody's saved then go get a job where you get better hours, less stress, and better pay!

But the scriptures make it clear that not everybody is saved just because Jesus Christ has come to the world. Jesus said that you must be born of the water and of the Spirit. The Bible even says in Matthew 7, that there will be people who believed on the name of Jesus and even did supernatural miracles through the power of the name of Jesus -- healings, and casting out devils and such -- that God would say "depart from me your workers of sin, I never knew you." There's a difference between being used of God and using God. There's a difference between knowing of God and "Him knowing you." There's a difference between obeying everything that God commanded us to do and only obeying some of what God commanded us to do. If you think you're saved without being born again of the water and the Spirit, then you'd better go read your Bible again. If you think you're saved without letting God change your lifestyle and repenting of some things and ceasing to willfully sin, then you'd better drop the flashlight, hit the switch and read your Bible again. And if you think that being saved means that you can never backslide and go back to a state of not being saved, you'd better turn your lighter to 2 Peter 2:20-22 and read it very carefully!

Thankfully John clarifies His statement in our text in John 3:

I'm amazed at how many people that can quote John 3:16, never bothered to study the first 8 verses of the chapter about the importance of being born again and surely don't know these verses!

John said "the light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light." He went on to say that those who remain sinners "hateth the light." And -- get this -- "neither cometh to the light." But "he that doeth truth cometh to the light."

Here is the key to understanding salvation and whether or not you are saved. The light coming into the world is not what saves us. It just made it possible for us to be saved. And everybody in the world will have had the light of the truth of Jesus Christ shine in their life at least once before they die. The light coming to us is not what saves us, but what saves us is our response to the light's coming. Those who will be saved, respond to the coming of the light by "coming to the light." Those who will be lost DON'T come to the light. It's your response to the light that saves you or damns you.

There can be two distinctive responses to the same sermon on the same service at the same time. I watched it last Sunday morning when the evangelist was preaching hard about how "little sins" grow up to kill and how you'd better stop justifying what you consider "little sins" and kill them while they are small. What he was preaching was truth. It was light shining into our lives because it was the pure Word of God. He preached it straight and not watered down. It was a bright light. And there were some here that responded by coming to the light and repenting and allowing the Spirit of God to work in your lives, and there were some that responded by running. You wouldn't allow yourself to pray, when truthfully you needed to pray. There were some of you that needed to respond much more than you did and you knew it and I knew it and more importantly God knew it.

John said that those who don't come to the light don't "lest his deeds be reproved." He then said that those who come to the light do so "that his deeds may be made manifest." You see some people don't want light shining into their lives because they'd rather ignore what is truly there and don't want to admit that they need to change. They don't want to see the sin that they've been flirting with in the daylight. They're more comfortable going to a church where the preacher only uses a lighter or a flashlight in his sermons rather than shining the full of light of the Word of God on their lives. The real issue is that there are some things in their lives that they don't want to change and that they won't let God deal with so when someone shines light into their lives, they run away from the light! Because they don't want to admit that they have a problem or need to change anything. And let me say that if I'm preaching to you today, if you are the person that when the preacher or the Word of God or the Spirit begins to hit home that you run and would rather pretend that it's not for you and that you choose to ignore it rather than deal with it, you need to know that you are NOT saved. I don't care how much you shout and say Hallelujah. I don't care what kind of front that you put up around others. I don't care how many miracles or devils you cast out in the name of Jesus. If you run from the light of the Word of God in your light, then you are in the same boat as the wicked. The light shining into your light can only save you if you "come to the light."

You don't have to be perfect to be saved, but you must always come to the light of truth shining in your life. Repentance, not perfection, is the key. When the light of the Word of God and His truth shines in your life and identifies something that needs to change, those who will be saved respond with admission of guilt, and then cry out to God to help them change it! They repent of it. They let go of it. They let God take it out of their lives and then they don't return to it! That's the proper response to the light! Come to it! You can say that you believe that Jesus died on the cross as your personal savior, all day long till you're hoarse and out of breath, but all that means is that the light has come to you. You won't be saved until you respond with action to that light! You must come to the light! You must respond to it! You must obey it! If you truly believe that Jesus Christ is your savior, then you are going to want to obey the plan of salvation that He put into place. If you really believe in Jesus Christ, then you are going to want to obey His commandments of repentance, being baptized in His name, and receiving the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in one place: "why do you call me Lord and not do the things that I say?" That's a question that could be asked of many Christians today. You are saved, not by the light coming to you, but by having the proper response to the light! And the proper response is to come to the light and embrace it! Obey what the light is telling you to do!

John told the church that he pastored that they must "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). It's not enough to see the light. It's not enough to experience the light, but we must daily "walk in the light." Salvation is not a one time experience. Being born again of the water and the Spirit is a one time experience but that is the "new birth." It begins what should be a lifetime of walking in the light. Sure a baby sees light for the first time when it comes out of the mother's womb and gives that cry of life. But in order to live, if must continue it's daily life in that life. It's the same in the Spirit. You need to be born again of the water and the Spirit by being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost, but you can't go back into your womb of sin after that and climb back into the darkness and say that you are "living." You've got to keep walking in the light! The new birth experience is just the entrance into the kingdom of God. It's the beginning. It's the first proper response to the light shining on you. But the light will continue to shine in your life, and you must keep responding. That's how you'll be saved, by continuing to allow the light of Jesus Christ to shine in your life, your mind, your habits, your tongue, your marriage, your friendships, etc...! We've got to walk in the light. So you responded last year, last month, last week, that's great, but what about today!?

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I'm preaching of "coming to the light." It's not the light that saves you but your response to the light. Let me prove it to you scripturally and we need to look no further than the conversion of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus. We read a part of the account as our other text.

Saul was the greatest enemy of the Apostolic church of Jesus Christ. He had gone crazy with evil passion trying to stamp out the cause of Christ. He had believers arrested and thrown in jail and even killed. And when he couldn't find ample enough believers to persecute in Jerusalem because they had all fled away, the scriptures say that Saul got letters giving him permission from the authorities to travel out of the country and go to the city of Damascus and arrest the believers there and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.

It would have all gone as planned except for the light of Jesus Christ interrupted Saul's journey! As he got near to Damascus, a great light shone down from heaven and it caused Saul to fall down to the earth in astonishment and immediately ask the question that was burning in the young Pharisee's mind: "who are thou, Lord." Saul knew that there was only one God in heaven, and he got the shock of his life when he heard "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest!" To make a long story shorter, Jesus commanded Saul to go on into the city where it would be shewed to him what to do. When Saul got up from the ground, he was blind and he went into the city where he fasted for three days and three nights and then God sent a man named Ananias to him who baptized him in the name of Jesus, prayed him through to the Holy Ghost, and prayed the prayer of healing for his eyesight to be restored.

The church's greatest enemy had just become it's greatest preacher and missionary! That's the power of responding to the light of Jesus Christ! Saul wasn't saved by the light shining on him on the road to Damascus, but he was saved by obeying what the light commanded him to do! It was his coming to the light that saved him! And there is power in obeying and responding correctly to the light of Jesus Christ and His Word. It can take the worst persecutor and enemy of the church and turn it into the greatest theologian of the church! It can take a drug addict and abusive alcoholic and turn him into a great husband and a worshipper and Bible Study teacher. It can take a domineering, spite-filled woman and turn her into a prayer warrior and a Sunday School Teacher. It can take people who only knew wondering around in darkness and suddenly use them to shine the light of truth in other's lives! There is no hopeless case for Jesus Christ. The darker the dark, then the more powerful the effect of the light on it! It doesn't matter how bad the situation seems, if the people within the situation will respond and come to the light of Jesus Christ, there is hope!

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And I steer toward a close with this:

It's interesting to remember that Saul was not traveling alone that day on the road to Damascus. He had several other men with him. We have three accounts of Saul/Paul telling the story of this day in the Bible: Acts chapters 9, 22, and 26. There is some interesting thoughts that arise when you compare the three accounts. For example in Acts 9 we find that Saul fell to the ground when the light hit and a few verses later the other men are standing speechless. Yet in Acts 26:19 Saul/Paul says that they "all" fell to the ground at first. Another similar seeming discrepancy is that in Acts 9, the men "heard the voice" and yet in Acts 22 Saul/Paul said that the other men "heard not the voice." All three passages are clear, though, in one thing: all the men saw the light. But apparently Saul also saw Jesus in the light, while the others "saw no man."

The scriptures do not contradict themselves and I have learned that where a seeming contradiction is there is always a powerful lesson to be discovered. All three accounts harmonize with each other when you realize that they are talking about different points of the events of the story. In other words, all of them fell to the ground at first, but obviously the men scrambled back to their feet and Saul stayed down on the ground. The Greek in Acts 22 for "heard not the voice" simply means that the men heard a sound but could not understand what the voice was saying. So everybody heard a voice, but only Saul could understand what the voice was speaking.

The point is that all of them saw the light of Jesus Christ, but only one of them got the revelation of who Christ was. All of them saw the light of Jesus Christ but only one of them was able to discern the voice of instruction of God of what he should do. All of them were knocked off their feet by the light of Jesus Christ, but only Saul humbly stayed down and asked what God wanted of him. The others jumped back to right where they had been before. Both physically and spiritually because all of them saw the light but only one took the steps that led him to be baptized in Jesus' name and filled with the Holy Ghost and converted. They all saw the light, but only one of them was changes to not be able to view his life and circumstances the way that he had always done so. Simply put, all of them saw the light, but only one "came to the light!"

And so I'm preaching to you today. The light of Jesus Christ is shining into the darkness of this world and sin just as it was two thousand years ago. He is still the answer for our lives. He can still make right what is wrong. He can still fix every broken life. He can still give eternal life to those who will be faithful and let Him work. And He is no respecter of persons. It doesn't matter your age, your economic status, your culture, your race, your language, your past, or your faults. The light of Jesus Christ shines equally to all men on this journey of life. You can be saved. You can live life abundantly. You can experience life as it was meant to be lived: with purpose and clarity and fulfillment. But you must respond to the light of Jesus Christ! You must come to it!

We need to respond to the light of Jesus Christ as Saul did on the road to Damascus:

The light made him humble and desperate for whatever God had for him. We need that light today.

The light caused his flesh to surrender to the power of Jesus Christ and caused him to rethink his actions. We need that light today!

The light knocked the excuses of tradition out of him and gave him a revelation of Jesus Christ as the one true God. We need that light today.

The light caused him to no longer be able to look at the evil desires that he was wanting to fulfill and caused him to walk and talk differently with a different focus and to see only through the eyes of the Holy Ghost. We need that light today!

The light caused him to not be able to see what others could not and respond to and hear a voice and a calling that others could not! We need that light today!

The light caused him to come out of the normal and the ordinary and the religious and to sell out to the cause of the kingdom of God in his life. We need that light today!

Peter later wrote:

God is shining His light of truth to us today and wants you to be a part of a chosen generation of a precious group of people that would sell out to His cause and be the benefactors of ALL that He wants to do upon the earth. We need the light of Jesus Christ in our lives and it's here shining through the Word of God. But what will be your response!? Will you shun the light and run from it? Or will you come to it and embrace it and like Saul let it change you forever? As for me I will run to it! I will come to it! I will let it reveal to me the things that need to change. I will let it draw me even closer to Him!

In A.D. 59, right after his conversion, Saul/Paul wrote the church in Corinth and said "I am the least of the Apostles" (1 Corinthians 15:1-9). Actually he was becoming the greatest Apostle that ever lived, but you see the light was still shining in Saul/Paul's life even a few years after his conversion and working on him!

Several years later Paul/Saul wrote to the church in Ephesus and said "I am ... the least of all saints" (Ephesians 3:8). God was still working on Paul and he was still responding to the light!

Right before he died, Paul/Saul wrote some letters to his adopted son, Timothy and said in one of them: "I am the chiefest of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul never returned back to sin. He didn't leave the ministry. Those statements are rather the true heartfelt responses of someone who decreased and allowed Jesus to increase for the rest of his life. Simply put, even at the end of his ministry, the light was still shining into Paul's life and he was still responding by "coming to the light." He was still letting God work on him and change him and teach him and lead him.

That same life changing force is shining forth today. What will be your response? The correct response it to come to the light and let it change you! If others want to stand around and not be changed, then so be it, but why not get the attitude of Saul/Paul and let God do something with your life! Repent before Him! Obey everything that He has commanded for you to do! Come to the light and see if it won't change everything! Let the saving light of Jesus Christ to work in your life.