When the Rubber Hits the Road // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 8
A Different Perspective Official Podcast
Release Date: 03/19/2025
A Different Perspective Official Podcast
Life without hope for tomorrow is sad and dark and lonely. If God is God, if He really loves us, then surely, He’d want us to have hope for the future. Wouldn’t He? Have you ever been in a place where you’ve lost all hope? Hope as it turns out is a precious, precious commodity. We all need things in our lives to look forward to; to hope in – the deep sense that we have a future; we know where we are going. When there’s no future, it’s tragic; when you lose all hope, well, it feels like life’s over. And that’s the problem with death, we all die at some point. Some die young,...
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If Jesus really rose from the dead all that time ago, if it really happened….well, what does it mean to us today? What’s the relevance? What’s the point? This week on the program we are taking a bit of a look at this whole "resurrection" thing, because on the one hand it’s so central to everything that Jesus talked about, and everything that Christians believe. But on the other hand, well, it can be hard to relate to that. I mean, how does it fit into real life today? I’m not sure where you are in terms of believing in Jesus and in particular in His resurrection. But let’s assume...
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There’s not a serious historian alive today who doesn’t acknowledge the life and death of Jesus Christ. But the resurrection…..well that’s another thing entirely. Did it really happen? Over this week on the program, we are looking at and exploring the whole question of Jesus’ resurrection. It can seem fanciful and even irrelevant, something that may or may not have happened a couple of thousand years ago and let’s face it – Jesus was crucified and then they said He’s alive. I mean, it’s pretty hard to believe, you know. What’s the proof, what’s the evidence? I mean, if we...
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It turns out that coming to grips with the resurrection of Jesus wasn’t easy for the disciples. And to tell you the truth, it can be difficult to come to grips with it here and now as well. They say that there are two absolute certainties in life – death and taxes. Well, let’s leave taxes for another day – that leaves death. One day, you and I will breathe our last breath on this planet, that’s pretty much certain, despite all the hopes and dreams and plans that we have for next week and next year and the next decade, most of us simply don’t know when that moment will come, when we...
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So what was it like that first Easter morning? He’s alive. Is He? I don’t know. The others say they’ve seen Him. Hmm. What do you think? Let me paint you a picture. Just the other day, someone that you loved passed away. You really admired and trusted this person. I mean, you'd seen him in operation and now they're gone! It's a shock! It shouldn't have happened! They're so young and so full of promise ... had a future. And now, that person is gone. Take some time to come to grasp to that – the shock and the sadness, and the deep sense of loss and even anger. We go through so many...
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People talk about “the real meaning of Easter”. OK. So for some people, Easter’s more than chocolates, eggs, bunnies and a long weekend. But – well, how do you react to the real meaning of Easter? This week we've been looking at Easter which is not surprising since it’s Good Friday today. Jesus, in his last week, spent a good amount of his time encouraging his disciples, here was a man under an enormous pressure, heading to a gruesome death and yet His main concern was on encouraging those twelve men, one of whom would betray Him. But of course on what we now...
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You see people wearing gold crosses on chains all the time. Even earrings. But on that first Easter – what really happened on that cross. I mean, what did Jesus actually go through? It's almost Easter and this week on the program we've been taking a bit of a look at the goings on in the week leading up to the first Easter. There's been nothing about chocolate or eggs or bunnies. Nothing’s wrong with any of those things, they just don't fit into any of the events that first Easter. Today I thought it would be interesting just to have a look at the real physical suffering of Jesus....
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When you see the way someone reacts in difficult circumstances, under pressure, when they’re betrayed and rejected – then you discover what they’re really like. So how did Jesus react? One of the hardest things in life is when we're betrayed and rejected. Basically, we all want relationships of trust, and basically, we all want to be liked, okay some more than others but it's a pretty natural thing, isn't it? What we'd really like is for our life to cruise along with great relationships, people we can depend on, people who like us. But it's not always like that, so often there's...
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That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus. Imagine the stress and the pressure. So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days. Let me paint a scenario for a moment. You're dying and you know it and the time is drawing near, you only have a few days, perhaps just a few final hours with the people who mean the most to you. You know something; you know that when you're gone they're going to go through some really tough times, trials, fears, persecution. In those final days and hours what would you talk to them about? I mean, you have a short...
info_outlineA Different Perspective Official Podcast
That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus. Imagine the stress and the pressure. So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days. Easter means different things to different people. Chocolate, of course there's chocolate, eggs, bunny's, a long weekend, a chance for a bit of a breather and that’s great. We have a funny way though of reinventing holidays, there's something so amazing about Easter, Gods Easter and since we're right now in the week leading up to Easter I thought why don't we have a look at that week leading up to that very first...
info_outlineAs we travel through those dark days in life – it’s easy just to let go and compromise who we are and what we do – we sin to save our skin. But I believe that God wants to challenge us about that very thing today.
Last week and again this week on the program we've been stepping our way through a series that I've called "Dark Night, Bright Light" because we all travel through dark patches in our lives. I certainly have and I know that you have too and maybe you're even in the middle of one right now and so we've been spending some time with King David in Psalm 34 where he shares some of the wisdom that he's discovered in the middle of his many, many dark days.
Yesterday we saw that it really makes a difference what we do in those dark places, it's so easy to give in and just let things slide and use our difficulties as an excuse for letting the darkness smear the way that we think and speak and behave.
Well today I'd just like to stick with that idea for a bit longer because David goes on to talk about that and he throws the gauntlet down to you and me with a challenge. A challenge about how you and I behave, how we live our lives when those storm clouds come rolling in over the horizon and it's a challenge that I'd like to share with you, for you to think about in your life.
Psalm 34, as I've said a few times over these last couple of weeks, is King David writing down the wisdom he learned from God in his dark times and as we've spent this time in that psalm over the last couple of weeks I hope that you've been blessed as I am as we work our way through the wondrous word of God. Imagine, the God who created the whole universe speaking to you and me through His word, through something that was written, well about 3,000 years ago.
We're going to move on with the next few verses of this Psalm today because they contain a specific challenge, a challenge to you and to me. Have a listen, Psalm 34 beginning at verse 11:
Come my children listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
See sometimes we wonder, well how do we live out this fear of the Lord? Do I just kind of sit in the corner and tremble? No, it's not that at all. David, remember this David who is speaking to us from his own difficult dark experience is throwing down a challenge. He's teaching us how to live out the fear of the Lord. Quite simply, if I were to paraphrase what he was saying it’s this. He says, "Do you want to live a good life, I mean do you want to live a great life? Well, here’s how to get it – by living out the fear of the Lord through what you say and what you do."
Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Now you and I are different, we're all different; we're all prone to different forms of the same thing that God calls sin. For some people it’s grumbling, others it’s gambling or lying or stealing or carrying around hatred in our hearts and speaking it out behind peoples backs. Gossiping or sexual sin or, you name it the list goes on. Over eating, getting drunk, closing ourselves off from people that we love, over and over the list goes on and my hunch is that each one of us knows which one or two are our particular sins, the ones that we're prone to and here's the challenge.
If we're in a dark and fearful place, a place where there’s a temptation to stop doing good and to do evil instead, the challenge that David is throwing down here is turn away from that, do good. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
You know that’s what it means in practical terms to fear the Lord, that’s how we live out the fear of our Lord, with our lives by living it out His way. See, we delude ourselves, we somehow imagine that in that dark place God can't see what’s going. Well wake up; listen to what the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Church, to Galatia in Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7, he says:
Look, don't kid yourselves, God can't be mocked; you're going to reap what you sow. If you reap to please your sinful nature, from that nature you're going to reap destruction but if you reap to please the spirit then from the Holy Spirit you will reap eternal life.
Don't become weary of doing good because just at the right time you're going to reap a harvest if you don't give up. Just so, as you have the opportunity, do good to everyone especially those who belong to Gods family.
Now this was written about 1,000 years after David and he's saying the same thing in a different way, he's saying look, in those dark places it's so easy to grow weary of doing good, it's so easy to deceive ourselves, to think that we can somehow pull one over God. Don't be deceived, God can't be mocked, a man reaps what he sows and if we don't grow tired of doing good; isn't it so easy to grow weary of doing good when life’s tough. You know, when everything’s against you and your emotions are down, when the whole world seems to come after you with a pick axe, you know.
The temptation is to behave badly but Paul’s saying what King David said 1,000 years before; don't grow weary of doing good. Just keep doing good, just keep standing there for God, just keep living your life for Him. Don't use the difficult circumstances and the dark places as an excuse and just at the right time, just in Gods time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up.
You see it's very much in that dark place where the devil wants to tear us apart, that's the place where we need to be vigilant, to bow down our lives, to fear the Lord with our lives and just go on faithfully doing the right thing day after day after day. And His light will shine in that place, it has to, that's who He is.
God honours those who honour Him and in those dark places when we, step by step, just follow after His ways what we discover is His light shines in that place and that is such a precious and awesome and mighty thing, it changes us like nothing else on this earth. That's why David starts his Psalm off with such gusto and praise because he knows this stuff works through his own experience:
I will bless the Lord all the time; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; that all those who are afflicted will hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; lets exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. If we look to Him our faces will be radiant; never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them.
Come on taste, see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children listen to me; let me teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.