August 6, 2023: Psalm 139:12 - The Darkness Shall Not Hide from God

“Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.” - Psalm 139:12

Like many children, when I was a young child, I was afraid of the dark, when it was time for me to go to bed and my parents turned off my bedroom light and closed the door and the darkness swept over my room. My mind would put thoughts into my head that weren’t there before, when the light was on. I would begin to worry about what was under my bed. Why hadn’t I worried about it before, when it was still light in my room? That is what darkness does to us - it causes us to fear.

There is a wave of darkness that has not only swept over our nation but also the entire globe in the past few years that I’ve never seen before. It is a spiritual darkness, and it is a spiritual war that is raging for the souls of mankind. I am in my late fifties, and I have never seen our world like this, especially in the United States. But it is also darkness disguised as light, a false light. This is no surprise as the Bible tells us this is what we wrestle against and it’s not only in the unbelieving in the world but in churches that profess to be Christian and which are wholeheartedly embracing and promoting that which God calls darkness and sin:

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

We are at war with the enemy, Satan. However, how can we expect not to be overcome by him when most of those who claim to be Christian do not even believe in him? A 2009 nationwide research poll conducted by the Barna Group provided the shocking results below from polled professing Christians: (See: https://www.barna.com/research/most-american-christians-do-not-believe-that-satan-or-the-holy-spirit-exist/)

“Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.”

When people who say they are Christian cannot even accept that their enemy Satan is real, it will be those same people who are deceived by him, and I believe that is exactly what we are seeing in our country today. To deny that an enemy exists is to allow oneself to be overcome and destroyed by him. Have they not read in their Bible when Jesus, who was fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, was tempted three times by Satan? Have they not read what Jesus said to Satan when he tempted Jesus a third time?

“And he [Satan] said to Him [Jesus], ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.” (Matthew 4:9-11)

This unbelief that the enemy - Satan - is real and he has existed since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is what has led to many professing Christians being deceived because they are left defenseless against his schemes that are wrapped in light but which are meant only to steal, kill, and destroy. The devil - Satan - will use anything he can to put fear into us and then provide us with a solution that is wrapped in a false light, a false sense of goodness, in order to deceive us and lead us on the wide gate that leads to destruction. Sadly, this is widespread both across our nation and within our churches, not all of them, but I estimate the majority of them.

The good news is that the Bible tells us how to fight against the darkness, against the spiritual war that is raging all around us. The most important thing any person can do is to acknowledge that we are all sinners and to put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, to believe that only He can save us from all our sins. Once we do that, we are born again, we are washed clean from our sins, and we begin a new life in Him. And, the instant that we believe in Him, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, who will dwell within us from that point forward. The Holy Spirit will help us to understand God’s word, the Bible, when we read it. As the Bible says, the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit will lead us and may also prompt us to do certain things or not do certain things. For example, I had been going to a large church for about nine years and I had seen it going downhill, focusing more on entertaining people than on leading them to truth of God. The Holy Spirit impressed upon me to leave that church. At first I resisted because I was comfortable in it, it was what I had known for nine years, but the Holy Spirit gently kept showing me why I needed to leave the church, and I did, not long after. Unbeknownst to me at the same time, a couple of my dear sisters in Christ who also went to the same church had had the same kind of prompting. I found this out later from them when one of us had brought it up during a Bible study. They also eventually left the church. I truly believe this was God’s way of protecting me from a church that had become an apostate church and if I had stayed, I may have become apostate too.

In order to fight this spiritual war, it is absolutely critical that believers in Christ put on the whole armor of God, as written about by Paul the apostle in Ephesians 6:10-20. Notice in this Scripture below it says to “put on the whole armor of Christ.” What good is the armor of God’s protection if we don’t put it on or if we only put on some of it? If we don’t put on all the armor, we run the risk of being overcome by Satan. This armor allows us to fight this spiritual war not in our own power and might but in God’s power and might. We believers in Christ have a bullseye on our back because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus told His disciples, we will be hated by the world because of His name (Matthew 10:22), and we see that hatred increasing as the world grows increasingly dark, deep in sin, and expecting everyone to accept, embrace, and promote that which God calls sin. When we don’t, we will be called every name in the book and our lives and that of our loved ones may be threatened. Believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior is not for spiritual wimps. We must be strong in our faith in Him, be willing to take a stand and not cower, no matter the cost. That is why God gave us His word and why He gave us the power of prayer, but if we don’t read His word and if we aren’t praying, then we are not putting on the armor that He gave us to protect ourselves from the fiery darts of the enemy, the devil. That is why in Ephesians 6:10-20 it tells us repeatedly to be strong and to stand in His power and might; not to run and hide and cower in fear:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints - and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth body to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:10-20)

Does that passage of Scripture sound like it was written by someone who was filled with fear, who had not experienced the saving power of Jesus Christ and had not had the light of Jesus totally transform his life? Absolutely not! Jesus Christ had totally transformed Paul’s life on that road to Damascus, and Paul knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this world had nothing to offer him and that it is only when we are in our resurrected bodies with Jesus that we will begin to truly know what living means in a world without sin and where the darkness is no more. He knew his treasure wasn’t on this earth but in heaven. Shouldn’t we strive to have that kind of faith that Paul and that so many of the faithful in the Bible had? After all, they were real people, just like you and me. They had real lives and real problems just like us.

Another thing that strikes me in this passage of Scripture is that it says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…” My husband and I occasionally watch mixed martial arts and some fighters use a lot of wresting in their fighting techniques. I didn’t know anything about wrestling until I started watching this. Wrestling results in a lot of close physical contact with your opponent. One thing I noticed is that most of the time when a fighter’s opponent submits, it is when that opponent is on the ground. One site defines “submission” as shown below. (See: https://prowrestling.fandom.com/wiki/Submission#:~:text=A%20submission%20is%20a%20professional,if%20they%20wished%20to%20submit.)

“A submission is a professional wrestling term for yielding to the opponent and therefore losing the fall. Traditionally submission victories would occur when one professional wrestler would place his opponent in a wrestling hold. The referee would ask the trapped wrestler if they wished to submit.”

One person commented online, “Standing submissions are rare because you lose the floor as a limit / barrier to the opponents movement.” This is exactly what Satan wants us to do, to knock us to the ground so that he can take advantage that the ground provides him, limiting or providing a barrier to our movements. However, when we stand in the power and might of Almighty God, we can fight back, just as another person commented as to why a standing submission is rare: (See: https://www.reddit.com/r/martialarts/comments/s719t2/why_do_we_never_see_standing_submissions/?rdt=46980)

“…Also, when your opponent is standing, they can hit you a lot harder while you try and fight for that wrist lock. Better to take someone to the ground where controlling them is 100% easier.”

Being a believer in Christ takes action, we cannot do it passively. We cannot do it by relying on others to do it for us; we must do it ourselves. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying we must do these things to be saved by Jesus Christ, and I am not saying we must do these things to continue to be saved. As the Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) What I am saying is that Satan is at war with us and wants us to turn from God and turn to him, just as he tried to get Jesus to do when He spent 40 days in the wilderness and Satan tempted Jesus three times (Matthew 4:1-11). If we aren’t strong in our faith, we may very well fall into that temptation, just as Adam and Eve did in the garden when the devil tempted Eve. This is exactly why Jesus and the apostles Paul, Peter, John, and Jude warned about not being deceived and that deception would increase in the last days before Jesus’ second coming. We must not turn back to the darkness but remain in the light.

The Bible tells us that those who choose darkness over light, Satan over Jesus, evil over good will live their eternity in darkness. In this passage of Scripture, Peter is referring to false teachers, those who pretend to be of God but are not, and what their future holds for them:

“They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity; a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” (2 Peter 2:15-17)

Jesus told the centurion that the Jews who thought they were saved because they were Jews, referred to in the Scripture below as the “sons of the kingdom” and yet rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah would spend their eternity in darkness.

“But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 8:12)

The same is true for everyone who rejects Jesus Christ, who does not believe in their heart that He has saved them from all their sins. They may have been born into a religious family, they may have been baptized as an infant, they may have gone to church for decades, they may have done many good things, they may have tithed to their church, but none of those things can save us. Rather, we can only be saved by accepting the free gift of salvation from sins by believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Jesus taught His disciples:

“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Jesus Christ; Luke 12:4-5)

When we have a reverent fear of God, we have correctly placed fear, for He has the power not only to kill but to cast one into hell. When we have a reverent fear of God and we put our trust in His Son to save us from all our sins, we won’t be cast into hell but will be allowed entry into the eternal kingdom of God. Sadly, the majority of the world fears everything but God and will be denied entry into His kingdom when they die.

Yes, the darkness is increasing in the world, but the darkness cannot hide from God. Darkness and light are the same to God because He sees everything and He will judge the wicked, those who choose darkness over light:

“He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness. For by strength no man shall prevail. The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces; from heaven He will thunder against them. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn [strength] of His anointed.” (1 Samuel 2:9-10)

But for we who are called the children of God, we are not in the darkness but in the light, as Paul wrote about when he reminded his brothers and sisters that we are to be ready, watching for the Lord’s return, the Day of the Lord, when He will judge the earth in all its wickedness:

“But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-6)

Lately, when I write these devotionals, it takes me several days to write them. On the first night when I began writing this devotional, our area had a storm with quite a bit of rain. While there was no lighting or thunder, we had a power outage at night from about 9:30 p.m. - 12:30 a.m. At first, there was a power surge, with everything electrical powering off but then powering back on, but then it was a full stop power outage. When you have a power outage at night, it is really dark, much darker than if it were to happen during the day when the light of the sun still beams its light. In the darkness of that power outage, I remembered that I had some battery operated candles and I switched them on. I was amazed at how such a small bit of light could illuminate the darkness, penetrating the shadows to reveal what they once concealed. I knew there was a lesson for me in the timing of this power outage: it made me really stop and think about how the light of God truly does shine brightest when the darkness is at its peak, and that the light of God will overcome the darkness.

As I grew up, I eventually overcame my fear of the darkness but I had fear of many other things in my life. Through many trials, I finally learned I do not need to fear anything in this world, for my God is with me, each step of the way, lighting my way, until He calls me Home.

“For You will light my lamp; the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; he is a shield to all who trust in Him.” (Psalm 18:28-30)

“And you, child, [John the Baptist], will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring [Jesus Christ] from on high has visited us; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79)

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light [Jesus Christ], that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and HIs own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:6-13)

In closing, I ask you: are you in darkness, trying to hide from God, or are you in the light of God, shining His presence in the darkness? May you turn to Jesus Christ today and reflect His light as a child of God. ✝️