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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 56. The Light of God Inside and Outside
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The Light of God Inside and Outside
God dealt directly with all men at the first. They had the light of His own direct touch. For two thousand years, this direct touch was the one and only means of communication used. God revealed Himself, in all His tender love and power, directly to all men. Eden serves as a picture of God coming into closest personal touch with men. Blessed old Enoch, who walked habitually with God, had no light that his generation did not have, or could not have had, by using what they had. They might all have been Enochs, so far as the light available from God was concerned. A thoughtful reading of these early Genesis chapters makes it clear that this was just as true of faithful, steadfast Noah.
If you think into the meaning of the Flood, you find it spells out the abundant light those people had. For God is love. And God acting in judgment always means that He is so acting as a very last resort. It always means light, pleading patience, and then more patience on His part, and continued incorrigible resistance to light and love on man's part. That's one invariable principle in judgment. The mere fact of a flood as judgment tells the man who knows God that there was first light and abundance of it, and great patience in waiting. Melchizedek's brief biography in Genesis shows how abundant was the direct light in his day. Sodom and the judgment on Egypt spell out the same truth as the Flood, These all come within the two thousand years before Israel became the light-holder for the nations.
That direct touch of God's own presence did not decrease with the choosing of Israel as His special messenger nation. The touch of God's own hand is upon every life born into the world, in the city slums of New York and Chicago and London, in African jungle, Indian and Chinese village, and South Sea island, and everywhere else. He has never left His world. His soft, warm breath is over it constantly, His brooding presence never absent. Paul reminds the Athenians, that they and he were alike in this, that "in Him we live and move and have our being." [Note: Act_17:26-28.] It was as true of the Athenian listening as of Paul speaking. John tells us plainly that every man is lighted directly by the true light. [Note: Joh_1:9.]
One reading that wondrous One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Psalm, [Note: Psa_139:1-16.] might think that it certainly is true because it is speaking of David, the man after God's own heart. "Thou... art acquainted with all my ways... Thou hast pressed in to be near me behind and before, and laid thy warm hand down over me." But the same thought that breathes through these first sixteen verses is in the message to the King of Babylon, "the God in whose Hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways." [Note: Dan_5:23.] The difference is not in God, but in the man; one recognizing and appreciating and opening for more, the other utterly ignoring.
When God sent Cornelius to Peter He had been getting Peter ready for Cornelius. The Holy Spirit was guiding Peter in the very language he used to Cornelius and the little company gathered,—"In every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him." [Note: Act_10:35.] That meant, by simple inference, that in every nation there was enough known of God to lead to a reverent heart and a clean consistent life.
In his masterly summary of the Gospel, in Romans, Paul puts the same thing as plainly. He is speaking of the simple principle by which all men will be judged, as they appear before God. He says, "To them that by steadfastness in welldoing seek for glory and honour and incorruption (he will give) eternal life." [Note: Rom_2:6-7.] Clearly it is a possible thing for a man anywhere to do this, for it is here given as the principle of judgment, by a God of love and of perfect justice. And it could be possible only by the light coming, at least enough light to make one know about "glory, honour, and incorruption," and to yearn after them, and to have this as the controlling thing in the life.
That wondrous Twenty-second Psalm strikes the same note in a significant way. The first part is all a-quiver with the sobs of intensest suffering; the latter part full of the joy that comes with great victory after great suffering. Speaking of the wondrous Kingdom time to come, it breaks out, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah." [Note: Psa_22:27.] "Remember" is the significant word. They knew; they had forgotten, or not done as they knew. Now. under the gracious Kingdom influences they "remember, and turn unto Jehovah." The word has in it both memory and consciousness of obligation, of what should have been done, and should be done now. In every age, and in every part of the world God has been revealing Himself directly to men. [Note: Rom_1:19-20.]
In addition to this direct dealing of God with men throughout the world, and throughout the ages, there is another source of clear light. The heavens above us are telling, or proclaiming, the glory of God to every child of the race. [Note: Psa_19:1-6; Psa_89:5; Psa_97:6.] Glory is the character of goodness. God's glory is the outshining of Himself, His power, and love, and patience, and purity. [Note: Exo_33:18-19, with Exo_34:5-7.] Men's treatment of God has never for one moment affected His tender care for them. The rain and dew and sun come as surely to the vile as to the pure; and are a continual faithful witness of His tender, patient love as well as of His power. [Note: Mat_5:43-45.] The unfailing return of the seasons, and the faithful answer of the soil to our needs, are a bit of God's witness to men of Himself and His love for them. [Note: Act_14:17.] And so it has been understood by men in all parts of the earth. The invisible things of God, His Godlike love and power, have been clearly seen, since creation, through the things we see with our outer eyes and experience in our common life. [Note: Rom_1:20 And men have seen and recognized. It is because men have known God that their condemnation will be so great. [Note: Rom_1:32.]