"Lights in the Dark" 4-16-12

Exodus 10:23 They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

The plague of darkness must have been terrifying for the Egyptians. The Bible says that it was so dark that you could feel it. Now that's dark! For the three days that it was dark, no one went any where or did anything. Every one stayed where they were. That's really the worst thing about darkness. It paralyzes you. You don't know where to step, or anything about your surroundings. Can you imagine an Egyptian child looking out the window into the darkness and seeing in the distance the homes of the Hebrews? I can imagine the child asking "Mom, why do they have light and we don't?" It was becoming increasingly clear that God was distinguishing His people from the Egyptians, and it was overwhelmingly obvious who God's people were as their lights were shining in a land of great darkness. As I look around at our present world, I must come to the conclusion that is very dark. I could even say that's so dark that you can feel it sometimes. Not actual, physical darkness, but spiritual darkness. What people used to only do in secret, they now feel comfortable to do in the open, and that's a testament to just how dark it is. So what are we to do? How is a believer in Jesus to react to the darkness that surrounds us? What did the Hebrews do? It wasn't so much what they did, it was more about who they were, and who they served. They were Gods people, and Gods light made it obvious. God has asked us to allow Him to shine through us, revealing His grace and love in a world that is paralyzed by blindness. And if we are who we say we are, the darker it gets around us, the more obvious and illuminated we will become.