April 13, 2016
Romans 13:11-14
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
It’s been a month now since it started this year. I love Daylight Savings Time! It means not just that we have an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, but it also signals that Spring is just around the corner! But I also like the term, Daylight Savings Time, as it applies to Romans 13:11 through 14:
And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out
of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The
night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works
of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly,
as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and
lewdness, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
Darkness is often associated in the Bible with wrongdoing, evil, and God’s judgment:
• Proverbs 2:10-15 – “…wisdom…will…deliver you from the ways of evil, from…those who leave the path of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked….”
• Isaiah 29:15 – “Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark; they say, ‘Who sees us?’ and ‘Who knows us?’ ”
• Zechariah 1:14, 15 – “The great day of the Lord [His judgment] is near…a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness….”
• Ephesians 5:11 – “…have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done…in secret.”
But there are wonderful Bible truths that tell us how Jesus, “…the light of the world…” (John 8:12; 9:5) has delivered us from the darkness of sin into the light of His righteous presence!
• John 8:12 – “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
• John 12:46 – “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.”
• Acts 26:15-18 (from Paul’s defense before King Agrippa, explaining the Lord’s commission to him on the Damascus Road) – “…I now send you…to…the Gentiles…to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God….”
• Colossians 1:13 – “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
• I Thessalonians 5:4-9 – “…you…are not in darkness….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. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober….For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ….”
• I Peter 2:9 – “…proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light….”
All the above happens when we are saved – from darkness to light in so many ways! Then is it not…
…high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than
when we believed…[?] The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore
let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not
in licentiousness and lewdness, not in strife and envy. But put on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
As Paul wrote in II Corinthians 6:2, “…now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”