Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3366
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness.” Colossians 1:13.
DARKNESS is used in Scripture to express a great many things. Sometimes it represents sorrow. “A night of weeping” is a common expression among us. We speak, too, of, “walking in darkness and seeing no light.” We commonly say to one another that our minds are in a dark and gloomy state when we are surrounded by the fogs and mists of sorrow. Taking it in this sense, how often might we say of our heavenly Father, that, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness”? He has helped us in our temporal difficulties and circumstances, or He has whispered, “As your days so shall your strength be,” and He has turned our night of weeping into a morning of gladness, put away the sackcloth and ashes, and given us the oil ofjoy! Blessed be His name for all this! Let us not be ungrateful, nor forget the many times when He has turned our mourning into dancing and our sackcloth into scarlet and fine linen.
But darkness frequently signifies, too, in Scripture, ignorance. We were once so in darkness that we were blinded. “The God of this world” has blinded our eyes, lest the light of the glorious Gospel should shine in upon us! “We who were sometimes darkness, are now light in the Lord.” Christ’s mission had for one of its many gracious purposes and ends the taking away of the darkness of human ignorance and the pouring of light upon the intellect of man. I thank God that many of us, though we know comparatively little, do know that whereas we were once blind, now we see! We do know something of ourselves so as to be humbled—and we know, too—something of the gracious God, so as to rejoice that we are saved by Him! God has, therefore, delivered us, in that sense, from the power of darkness. Let us be thankful for that. Pant for more knowledge, but oh, Believer, be grateful for what you have! Remember that the little you already know of saving Truth is inestimably precious, for to know Jesus Christ is eternal life! And if, on this side of the grave, you never learn any more, yet you know that which should set your tongue eternally in holy motion with a rapturous song of thankfulness to Him who has taught you such priceless Truth! Yes, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness.”
Darkness, too, frequently represents Satan and the mysterious spiritual influence which he exerts upon the human mind. He is called “the Prince of Darkness.” Darkness seems to be his element. God is the “Father of Lights,” but Satan seems to be the father of the gloom and the dark!
Two elements are now at war in this lower world—Christ, the Light, the true Light, and Satan—sin—thick darkness, a darkness which may be felt—the Egyptian darkness in which we are naturally born and out of which we are not delivered except by the supernatural power of God exhibited through the plan of salvation by His Grace! Beloved, we still are tempted by Satan, but we are not under his power! We have to fight with him, but we are not his slaves! He is not our king. He has no rights over us. We do not obey him—we will not listen to his temptations. By the Grace of God, we mean, notwithstanding all his opposition, to fight in his very teeth and to win our way to Heaven! He “has delivered us from the power of darkness.” Oh, what a mercy this is—that man, such a poor creature as he is, should be able to escape from the power of that master spirit Diabolus, Satan, the destroyer! That was a wonderful moment when, according to Bunyan’s description, Hopeful and Christian found that the key was turned in the lock and that they could get out of Giant Despair’s castle. That was a wonderful moment, I say, when, according to Master Bunyan, the key turned in the great lock which locked the iron gate. To use John Bunyan’s own words, he says, “That lock went damnable hard.” In all the new editions of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” it is put, “That lock went desperately hard.” That is the more refined way of
putting it, but John Bunyan meant just what he said and implied that there was a sense of the wrath of God upon the soul of man on account of sin, so that he felt as if he were even near to Hell itself! And yet, at such a time, the key did turn in the lock and the iron gate was opened. You recollect that just at the moment, old Giant Despair woke up, and was going to pursue the pilgrims and lay hold upon them when he was seized with one of his fainting fits. Oh, what an escape from Giant Despair! And yet this is little compared with escaping from Satan! Satan is the prince of the power of the air—and human despair is but one of his servants, one of the black officers in his infernal regiment! To escape from Satan, himself! Oh, let it be sung in Heaven! Let angels who have never fallen help us to sing in triumph over those fallen spirits from whom we have been rescued by Divine Grace! “He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.”