“Bad News, Good News”
2/7/26
Isaiah 9:2 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”
Isaiah 60:2 “For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.”
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Now, these two passages from the Prophet Isaiah bring first, bad news, then very good news.
FIRST the bad news:
Deep spiritual darkness will cover the land
“Darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people.”
Now, the idea of spiritual darkness is foreign to most people.
They may have sensed it,
their instincts tell them something ‘other worldly’ is happening around them,
but they don’t fully understand it.
Yet spiritual darkness and spiritual light are both abundantly spoken of in the Bible!
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So first–what is spiritual darkness and where does it come from?
Spiritual darkness is not simply a lack of physical light, but it is darkness from a spiritual source.
The Apostle Paul describes it in 2 Cor. 4:4 as blindness:
“…the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving to prevent them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
So spiritual darkness is the result of spiritual blindness caused by Satan.
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–Jesus said that spiritual darkness is a choice people make:
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”–John 3:19
So spiritual darkness is something you can choose to live in!
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Now, Spiritual darkness finds an open door for 3 reasons:
FIRST, the rejection of God’s truth.
David wrote in Psalms 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
So if God’s word as found in the Bible is rejected, there is no light to shine on your path, no light to guide your way.
You become, as Jesus described, “The blind leading the blind, and both fall into a pit.”–Matt 15:14
When God’s word and truth are rejected, spiritual darkness rushes in and we become like those described in Ps 82:5 who,
“…do not know nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness.”
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A SECOND cause of spiritual darkness is the rejection of God Himself.
Again, we find in the Psalms,
“The Lord is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear…”–Ps 27:1
1 John 1:5 “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”
–God doesn’t just give light, He IS light!
So when God is rejected, denied or ignored, spiritual darkness finds an open door.
Paul vividly describes this in Romans 1:21,
“Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
To reject God is to welcome spiritual darkness.
–And Scripture teaches this is the condition of most people on planet earth!
“There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside;…there is none who does good, no, not one.”–Ro 3:10-12
Thus, most of the people of the world are walking about in spiritual darkness.
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Then one more cause of spiritual darkness is a DEAD CONSCIENCE.
Paul wrote, “…holding on to faith and a good (clear, unsullied) conscience, which some have rejected and have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.”–1 Tim 1:9
Jesus likened the conscience to your eye:
“But if your eye (conscience) is clouded with evil thoughts and desires, you are in deep spiritual darkness. And oh, how deep that darkness can be!”–Matt 6:23
You see, our conscience, while not perfect, has had stamped upon it God’s moral code.
The Bible says, “Even Gentiles…demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.”–Ro 2:14-15
When you decide to do a sinful thing, first your conscience will SHOUT,
yet if ignored it will, over time, grow increasingly FAINT,
until finally there is NO VOICE at all–
it’s a dead, seared conscience, and spiritual darkness is the result.
–And I might add that spiritual darkness is where DEMONS play!
The door is opened to the enemy and that person or an entire nation fall prey to “seducing spirits and teachings of demons.”–1 Tim 4:1
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So the people pictured by Isaiah have…
-rejected God’s truth,
-have ignored their own conscience,
-and have denied God Himself.
Hence, they are doing life in deep spiritual darkness.
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That said, here’s the WORST of the BAD NEWS–Much of our nation lies in spiritual darkness.
-Our streets are filled with lawless mobs spewing vile language,
-faces contorted with hate,
-eyes filled with demonic rage,
-threatening and committing violence,
-vandalizing property and burning down cities.
*We have recently witnessed a new and disturbing breach of trust–church services invaded by unhinged, demonized mobs,
-terrorizing children,
-frightening the elderly,
-threatening church leadership,
-disrupting the worship of God.
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And the spiritual darkness has also affected the minds of many that have lost the ability:
to think straight,
to be rational,
to function in reality!
LET’S BE HONEST:
You know you’re in spiritual darkness when members of Congress in a nationally televised hearing can’t define what a woman is.
You know your nation is in spiritual darkness when a female doctor in a recent congressional hearing could not answer whether or not a man can become pregnant.
You know that darkness has gripped your land when they start to say:
“…evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.”–Isaiah 5:20
Isaiah here describes the complete INVERSION of truth–
when truth is turned upside down,
twisted and redefined,
gutted of its original intended meaning.
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It’s when:
Up is down
Right is wrong
Good is bad
Light is dark
Truth is false
Moral is immoral, and
Nonsense replaces common sense
–These are the features of deep spiritual darkness!
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But now we come to the really GOOD NEWS!
Isaiah also predicts:
II. A bright light rising to defeat the darkness
“But the Lord shall arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you!”
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”
The Hebrew word means a light that is so conspicuous, so obvious, so undeniably present it can’t be ignored.
God Himself will manifest his glory so that it “Shall be seen upon you.”
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Now, the primary message of this text is about the coming of Jesus to the world via the virgin birth.
It predicts the arrival of the Savior of the world on that first Christmas morn–a great light shining into the dark!
But there is another message of hope here, also described by Isaiah:
“When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against Him.”–Isaiah 59:19
The phrase ‘Raise up a standard’ means ‘put to flight, cause to flee, to turn and run.’
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The message here is that:
-Right when the enemy seems to be winning the day,
-When darkness appears to have extinguished the light,
-When it looks like the battle has been lost and evil has triumphed,
The Spirit of the Lord rises up like a brilliant light to confront the darkness!
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Just…
–At 11:59 the glory of the Lord is seen!
–In the midnight hour there is a move of God!
–Just in the nick of time the battle is turned
–God arises, His glory and truth shine into the dark, and the enemy is scattered!
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As the Apostle Paul testified, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.”–Ro 5:20
And I love what the Prophet Micah wrote:
Micah 7:8 “Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”
When the night is darkest,
when you’re up against the wall,
when you’re fed up and run out of your own strength,
that is when God arises to pierce the darkness with his light!
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Is great darkness moving across our land? Yes!
But is God going to raise up a standard against it?
Jesus promised, “The gates of hell would not prevail against the church…”
So yes!
By the power of prayer and the faithful preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the dark tide can be turned!
In closing, I believe there’s two kinds of churches in our nation today:
those that contribute to the darkness,
and those that carry the light!
With God’s help and grace, TPC is resolved to carry the light!