A great astronomer recently made what is supposed to be a marvelous discovery. In his study of the heavens he observed a luminous mass, which he measured, and arrived at the startling conclusion that it is a million light years distant from the earth, and not less than a thousand million times as bright as our sun; so bright that all the stars that are visible in the sky would not give anything like as much light!
Supposing this discovery is true, of what interest would it be to a dying man, or to one whose awakened conscience leads him to cry out, “What must I do to be saved?” or to another, who, groping in darkness, seeks for someone to lead him into the light? Who can tell what lies beyond the stars, what eye penetrate the veil which hides heaven from earth, and tell what heaven is like and how a guilty sinner can be made fit to enter there?
What the dying martyr Stephen saw, as the stones thrown by his enemies were doing their fatal work, throws all that man has discovered into the shade. “Being full of the Holy Ghost, he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:5555But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, (Acts 7:55)). Saul of Tarsus, too made a most marvelous discovery as he journeyed to Damascus to search out all who believed in Christ that he might carry them to Jerusalem to be punished. Suddenly a light shone round about him from heaven, and he heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” It was the voice of the Lord Jesus, and he learned there, as he lay blinded by that light from heaven, that in spite of all that he had done against the Lord of glory, he was loved by Him. No greater discovery than this could possibly be made.
Heavenly light having shone into his heart, he was there and then commissioned by the Lord to go to the Gentiles. “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified” (Acts 26:1818To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18)). His earnest labors in Asia and Europe resulted in hundreds being brought out of darkness into God’s marvelous light; the secret of his success is made known in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, “For,” he wrote, “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (verse (3). But alas! there were those who, though the light of Divine grace was presented to them, still remained in darkness, and why? “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (vs. 4).
Reader, have you received the light as brought to you in the Gospel? An awful responsibility rests upon you in connection with it; listen to the solemn words of the Lord Jesus, “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness know eth not whither he goeth; while ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light” (John 12:3535Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. (John 12:35)). “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John. 3:10).
E. E. N.