The Power of His Presence

Daily Devotions

From the Writings of Ray Stedman

Out Of The Darkness

April 2nd

God called the light "day, " and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day (Genesis 1:5).

The present recurring twenty-four hour day is a symbolic microcosm of past ages. If that is the case, then we do not have twenty-four hour day periods in Genesis 1, but rather an indefinite length of time much more descriptively termed an age, or an epoch, of time. But each is to be characterized by an evening and a morning. Note the order of that. The evening comes first. We Westerners, with our penchant for compromise, have divided the day so that it is a sandwich, beginning with a period of darkness, then a period of light in between, and finally another period of darkness. We begin our day at midnight. But in the Eastern world the day begins at sunset, so that each day starts with an evening and ends with a period of light. That is in line with this revelation of the way God works. No matter whether it is humanity's day upon earth, an age of time, or a twenty-four hour period, each begins with a period of darkness and then a period of light. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual" (1 Corinthians 15:46). That is the invariable order.

What meaning does that have for us as Christians? Can we not trace the fulfillment of this in our own experience? Did we not all begin our lives in darkness, in the grip and bondage of death and darkness? Through the glorious redemption of the cross of Jesus Christ, we have passed into a period of light that is "shining ever brighter till the full light of day" (Proverbs 4:18); we have entered a period of growing and ever-expanding light. You can see this order in the work of the Lord Jesus Himself. There was the darkness of the crucifixion, passing very shortly into the glorious morning of the resurrection when He stepped forth into the glory of a new day and a new life. An evening and a morning, one day. Scripture also makes clear that if we have never gone through the darkness with Him, there is no morning to come. We must not live constantly in the darkness. The testimony of Scripture is that those who cling to the darkness, who refuse to be brought into the light, become, at last, as Jude describes them, "wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 13b).

Father of lights, thank You that from dark You bring light and that You have brought that light into my own experience through faith in Jesus Christ.

This daily devotion was inspired by one of Ray's sermons. Please read "Out of the Darkness" (or listen to the audio file  ) for more on this portion of scripture.