Luke 1:78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high has visited us, The whole hillside, and bank, and boat, and river, just glowed in the brightness. It was a wild but beautiful scene — darkness everywhere but just there where they needed light. All excitement and fear ceased, and the people calmly and safely passed one by one over the plank to the solid shore. Never did light seem so grateful and so beautiful as it did shooting up there in that dark place. The expression, "light in a dark place," gained a new meaning to all who felt its blessedness on that dark and perilous night. The Bible speaks of Christ as a "light to them that sit in darkness," and His truth as a "light that shineth in a dark place." There are a great many dark places in our life, but there is no darker place than our sins. Everybody has been troubled about these, and nobody ever knew what to do with them. A great many people don't think anything about them. So those men on that steamboat might have lain down and gone to sleep. They might say, "We cannot see the way off, and we may just as well take our ease." So men often forget their sins and feel easy about them. But whenever they do think of them, they are troubled and don't know what to do with them. They don't know how to get rid of them, and the wisest men have been just as much in the dark as the most ignorant. This has always been a very dark place. The river is very wild, the shore is unseen and the way to it is unknown. A great many people have stood here, like those men on the steamboat, waiting for light and not knowing what to do. Christ lets light shine right on this dark place. He shows how men can get rid of their sins and be forgiven. He shows us the way. He is the way. The river is just as deep, and the shore is just as far off as it was before, but we can see it all, and find our way to where it is safe and solid. When we come to see how fearful it is to be in the dark, and not know what to do, we can then know how beautiful and grateful it is to have a "light shining in a dark place." (R. Cordley, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,WEB: because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high will visit us, |
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