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Sermon on the Mount: How Great the Darkness! Matthew 6:22-23 · Clifford Baptist

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Welcome to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Please join us today as Pastor Jeffrey Campbell leads us in an in depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today's scripture is Matthew, chapter 6, verses 22 through 23. And the sermon is entitled How Great the Darkness.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: With that said Matthew, chapter number six, if you will take your Bibles and turn to Matthew, chapter number six.
• 0:26
  Speaker B: All that I could make it through was two verses. And so two verses are going to be our focus tonight. But we have been talking about treasures ending a couple of weeks ago in verse number 21, with a reminder where your treasure is, there will be your heart. Also, Jesus uses the last part of chapter number six to address the stuff in our life. And I believe that all of us have stuff. And Jesus touches on that through the end of this chapter. But his method of teaching about stuff, he relates it directly to our physical bodies. So you will hear the language tying to the eye and to the heart.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: To take no thought for your life what you shall eat or drink.
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Or for your body what you shall put on. His warning about treasure and stuff in our lives can consume us. And so when we look at a statement, and that statement tonight is simply this. How great is that darkness? How great is the darkness? And I'm going to explain that a little bit tonight. But maybe you have walked into a room or on some nights you have walked outside and you use the words pitch black to describe what you were seeing. Maybe you've been outside on a dark night or you walk into the room and you say, it's pitch black in here.
• 2:05
  Speaker B: Those that know me, when I come over to the church and nobody's here, I don't turn on lights because you just have to go back and turn all those things off. So I. I roam around this thing in the dark, right? And that can be complicated sometimes, right? But when you walk into the sanctuary, it's pitch black.
• 2:24
  Speaker B: And so when we think about what we all can relate to, what that looks like. Those two words, pitch black, can describe where we are. It can describe what we are seeing. But what you are saying when you say it as pitch black, is this. I can't see anything. Now remember that we're coming back there. Pitch black means I can't see anything. Now, some of you sleep good when it's pitch black. Anybody in here need total darkness when you sleep? Yeah, y', all, my people turn off every light, make it cold, and we gonna rock out a few hours of Sleep. That's my. But how many of you need a light on? There's some of you in here that need a light, right? That gotta have one. Yeah. So I understand the struggle there, but how great the darkness? Our goal as believers isn't to spot the darkness in someone else's life or everyone else's life. But tonight I want us to make sure that we take care of the darkness that is in our life.
• 3:42
  Speaker B: And so many times as Christians, we get accused.
• 3:46
  Speaker B: And what we're going to talk about here in just a few Wednesday nights judging.
• 3:53
  Speaker B: And where we need to be careful is this. We must address the darkness in our life before we address everyone else's life. And what we want to do is to make sure that the light of Jesus touches every area of our lives. That's our goal. That's how we grow in the Lord, is we allow the Lord and his light to touch every part of who we are. And so tonight as we gather, I'm grateful that we're going to work through this together. But God's word contrasts light and darkness throughout. He talks about light and darkness, good versus evil, righteousness versus wickedness. And so what we see is addressing darkness is key. What is the definition of darkness? It is this. It is the partial or total absence of light. And we use that word, darkness to describe colors. We use it to describe our feelings. How many of you have been in a dark place before? Feeling? Yeah, we use it also to describe evil. When we look at the world, we can describe it as darkness. We are talking about the evil that is present. So we use this word darkness in many different ways. But Jesus will sum up.
• 5:28
  Speaker B: Some people's lives by saying this. The darkness is great.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: Romans 3:10.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: There is none righteous. No, not one.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: Tonight.
• 5:51
  Speaker B: The challenge together is we're not going to look around at other people. We're going to look within. Let me pray. Father. Thank you for your word, God, as we open it together, I pray these words are not mine. And people hear nothing of Jeffrey. But Lord, what they need to hold to is your word. And so, Lord, I pray as we talk through your word tonight, make it clear and plain in what we need to do to rid the darkness and to bring in the light. That is our prayer. In Jesus name, Amen.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: Matthew, chapter number six. Look at verse number 22. Matthew, chapter number six, verse number 22. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. And I'm going to go ahead and read verse 23. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?
• 7:04
  Speaker B: Point number one tonight. And that we need to address in understanding how great that darkness is. First point is this. The source is the eye, the source of light, and the source of darkness is the eye. Look at verse number 22 with me again. It says this. The light of the body is the eye. I can't say it any clearer than Jesus did, okay? And we understand that that source is. Is our physical eye. Whether it is a field of study or a problem that you're dealing with or some other situation, getting to the source of the problem helps you solve it, right? And so what we need to understand is the source.
• 7:57
  Speaker B: We need to find what that is. Issues are corrected when we get to the source. Direction can be established when we know where the source is.
• 8:07
  Speaker B: And so even relationships can be mended when we understand what the source of the problem is. And so part of my job as a pastor.
• 8:20
  Speaker B: Is getting to the source. When people come to see me, what brings you here?
• 8:27
  Speaker B: And it's my job to get to the source of what really is going on there. And so tonight, what we see as the I being the source is this. The I influences the body.
• 8:43
  Speaker B: Now, you may see your body as a big, complicated machine with many moving parts. And that is so true. Real quick. I just wrote down some fascinating facts about our bodies. Okay, real quick, just listen to me. This has nothing to do with the sermon.
• 9:02
  Speaker B: But this is very interesting stuff. The femur is the largest bone in your body, can support 30 times the weight of a person's body. It is stronger than steel, but it is brittle.
• 9:18
  Speaker B: A heartbeat. How many average heart. How many times does your heartbeat average over your lifespan?
• 9:29
  Speaker B: Three billion times.
• 9:33
  Speaker B: That blows my mind. I don't have enough fingers and toes for that. Blood vessels. If you put all the blood vessels in your body and you connected them end to end, you could circle at the equator of the earth four times. That's how much blood vessels you have running in your body.
• 9:52
  Speaker B: And if you just take one step.
• 9:56
  Speaker B: It takes 200 muscles in your body to take one step.
• 10:03
  Speaker B: A fascinating machine. And what we understand through these two verses is this. The eye affects the entire body.
• 10:17
  Speaker B: When we understand what machine God created in each one of us, it is an amazing miracle of God. But what comes through the eye has a lasting influence on the entirety of who we are, entirety of the physical body. So the things that we look at, the things that we see, the things that we watch, the things that we read, influence mind and heart and the members of our body of this complicated machine.
• 10:52
  Speaker B: But Jesus.
• 10:55
  Speaker B: Uses a word for light here.
• 10:59
  Speaker B: That renders a source. If you use something other than a King James or a new King James, your version is going to use the word lamp.
• 11:09
  Speaker B: So that would read something similar to this if you've got a different version. The lamp of the body is the eye. And that lamp is just simply speaking, it is the source of.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: Of light.
• 11:22
  Speaker B: And that's what that word light means. It is the source. Now, I want to share the other side of the coin. The other side of the coin is this. With your eyes, you can also see opportunity to minister.
• 11:39
  Speaker B: That's why our eyes are important. So I could sit here tonight and preach to you about the things that you should not look at.
• 11:49
  Speaker B: But you are adults, and I feel like I don't need to spend my night telling you what not to look at. The other side of the coin is this. Our eyes also control the rest of our body in a positive way. So what your eyes see and the opportunities your eyes see, you should be ready to minister and you should be looking forward and for those opportunities to minister. So I love that idea that our eye allows the rest of who we are.
• 12:26
  Speaker B: To go and minister. But the eye also can hinder and stop and even cause darkness to settle where light should be. Does that make sense?
• 12:42
  Speaker B: So the source of all that we are is the I. But Jesus is also teaching us that I not only affects the entire body, but it is that source right in between treasures. In verse number 21.
• 13:06
  Speaker B: And following verse number 23, we will talk about masters. So right in Jesus teaching about where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And you can't serve two masters.
• 13:21
  Speaker B: We have a couple verses that speak to the light and the eye being the source that leads to the light of the entire body.
• 13:32
  Speaker B: On a larger scale, over the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount, we understand that peacemaking and pure in heart and persecution, and letting your light shine before men and forgiveness. An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth and going the second mile. It all depends on the source. And that source is your eyes.
• 13:58
  Speaker B: It affects what you do. So does anybody have any objection to Jesus teaching tonight that the source is the eye? It affects everything we do.
• 14:17
  Speaker B: Look at verse 22 again.
• 14:20
  Speaker B: The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Point number two is the strength of the eye.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: The Strength of the eye. How many of you know that as you get older, your eyesight kind of goes.
• 14:47
  Speaker B: I'm learning that the hard way.
• 14:50
  Speaker B: Some of you notice that on a regular basis. But I'm dealing with an issue. Right here where I read, I can see to the back. I can see distance. But right there, where I read, I've got some muscles in my eye that are weakening. One of my eyes wants to do some crazy stuff, and the doctor says, we can fix it. And I said, I don't know about you cutting on my eye.
• 15:18
  Speaker B: I just deal with it. So if y' all ever see me up here, like, and I got two different pair of glasses I'm trying to use, and just know Jeffrey's dealing with it, right?
• 15:29
  Speaker B: But I say that to say this.
• 15:35
  Speaker B: We understand what physical eye problems look like.
• 15:40
  Speaker B: How do we know that we have spiritual eye problems?
• 15:44
  Speaker B: Tonight there may be somebody in this room that has 2020 vision. That's great. And my prayer is that vision lasts for you for a long time. Somebody might even have 2015. But what those numbers speak of, it speaks to the clarity of your vision.
• 16:05
  Speaker B: And what the warning here is this. Spiritually, your eyes.
• 16:15
  Speaker B: Can become clouded.
• 16:19
  Speaker B: When we understand that the good eyes are focused and centered on God. It's amazing what that looks like. I've got a flashlight that I walk my dog with. I can put it on. It's actually a headlamp, but you can put it on your head, but I just use it as a flashlight. But you can take that thing and you can spin it and you can get a straight beam, and I can see for a long ways, or you can adjust it out and it just. It broadens the beam of light. But the distance is reduced when we understand.
• 16:55
  Speaker B: Vision and the strength of the eye and clarity and direction and safety. Listen, your eyes are very important.
• 17:06
  Speaker B: And what we see in verse number 22 is this, that your eye is single. What does that word, single mean? Well, it means this. Other translations. Good, healthy, clear sound. That's what it's talking about. If your eye be single, if it's sincere, if it's a good eye.
• 17:36
  Speaker A: That.
• 17:36
  Speaker B: Good eye brings light to the whole body.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: A healthy eye will notice what is healthy and what is not healthy for the body.
• 17:54
  Speaker B: But I want you to see, Jesus is concerned with the condition of. Of your eye.
• 18:02
  Speaker B: What condition? Is it good or is it bad? Is it healthy or is it focused or is it distracted? Because those eyes affect the entire body. Our eyes need to stay strong, Church. And we don't need to look, let anything that would become a treasure or a master to affect our vision, pride and anger and lust affect healthy eyes.
• 18:34
  Speaker B: Chapter number five, verse number 29. We've already talked about this verse, but we reminded in that verse that if your eye offends you, Jesus says, what? Pluck it out. Right? And so we don't want to get unhealthy eyes. We want eyes that see the right thing, because the whole body benefits from what the eye sees. So it's not only what it sees, but it's how your eyes see.
• 19:04
  Speaker B: In chapter number seven, we haven't gotten there yet, we're going to hear about the straight gate and the wide gate.
• 19:13
  Speaker B: In chapter number seven, we're going to talk about false prophets. We're going to talk about wise and foolish builders. We're going to talk about judging. We have already talked about anger and forgiveness and adultery and divorce and neighbors and enemies and how to love our enemies. And here's what I want you to know. We must be able to see those things.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: So again, I go back tonight. When we talk about the strength of the eye, it's not a focus on what. What you should not look at and what you should not see, but what do you see clearly.
• 19:55
  Speaker B: When you walk in this room on Wednesday or on a Sunday morning? Do you just see a church full of people?
• 20:04
  Speaker B: Yes, we do. Right. Thank you, Gideon.
• 20:09
  Speaker B: The answer from a child. A child's gonna teach us something. Tonight.
• 20:14
  Speaker B: We do see a church full of people, and that's a wonderful thing.
• 20:21
  Speaker B: But from my position.
• 20:24
  Speaker B: I can see lots of people that are hurting and struggling and that are here just because they're going to give God a chance. And I'm so afraid. In our churches today, we look at church and say, oh, we had a good crowd on Sunday.
• 20:41
  Speaker B: But we miss those people that are hurting.
• 20:45
  Speaker B: That need something more, that need exactly what we have, that need the light that is Jesus.
• 20:52
  Speaker B: They come into our church, their lives are full of darkness, and they're looking for something.
• 20:59
  Speaker B: And so here's where my challenge is to you. And I'm going to talk to you like I would my teenagers get. Don't you dare let somebody walk in this church that you've never seen before. And you go sit down on your normal pew without saying hello. Shame on you.
• 21:21
  Speaker B: If I'd done that as the pastor, I wouldn't come. Y' all wouldn't come back to my church if I did that.
• 21:30
  Speaker B: How many people are we missing because our eyes are distracted about how many people are here?
• 21:38
  Speaker B: What God has taught me over the last month is this. These are the sheep that you are in charge of leading.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: And every single one of them matters to me.
• 21:54
  Speaker B: I spent this week sending emails of people that I have not seen.
• 22:01
  Speaker B: And I'm not bragging on me, I'm just saying we've got to have eyes for that.
• 22:08
  Speaker B: People fall through cracks, they leave churches, they blame the church.
• 22:15
  Speaker B: And so it's not necessarily what comes in.
• 22:19
  Speaker B: It'S what your eyes are also seeing.
• 22:24
  Speaker B: What are they focused on?
• 22:27
  Speaker B: Are they focused on a full sanctuary.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: Or are they trying to discover and meet the needs? It doesn't just have to be here when you're in Walmart. I'm trying to teach my boys, when you walk to a door and somebody's coming, you better hold that door. You see somebody coming and you can be a help, be the help, and wish them a good day in the process.
• 22:54
  Speaker B: But so many of our lives are in such a hurry, we can't hold doors and we don't have time to talk about Jesus and we can't share the light because we're so rushed and we're so busy and we're not focused on what really matters to the Lord. Does that make sense?
• 23:15
  Speaker B: The strength of the eye, the clarity is what is measured at certain distances.
• 23:24
  Speaker B: 2020 vision is what you see at 20ft away needs to be crystal clear.
• 23:32
  Speaker B: But the strength of the eye of the church.
• 23:36
  Speaker B: Is not saying, don't do this, you're so bad. Yeah, we gotta be guard against what we let in. But as the church.
• 23:46
  Speaker B: What are we focused on?
• 23:49
  Speaker B: And here's my question. What are we missing that's closer than 20ft away?
• 23:57
  Speaker B: The strength of the eye matters if it is clear, if it is single. Here's what verse number 22 says. The whole body shall be full of light. Praise be to God.
• 24:14
  Speaker B: The only way that light gets in the entire body is through the eye, which is the window to your soul.
• 24:23
  Speaker B: Guard it for what should not come in. But also the other side of the coin is looking at where you can be that light to other people.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: We've seen the source of the eye and the strength of the eye. There's one more point. Look at verse number 23.
• 24:45
  Speaker B: But if thine eye be evil. Hold on. Yep. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?
• 25:05
  Speaker B: You've seen the source, you've seen the strength. And we must address the sinfulness of the eye.
• 25:12
  Speaker B: That second condition of the eye is an unhealthy eye. And we see that spelled out in verse number 23. If that eye is bad, if it's evil, if it's unhealthy, it impacts not only what you see, what you take in. It impacts the body, but also impacts the world and what you can minister to.
• 25:36
  Speaker B: So unhealthy eyes.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: Cannot see opportunities to minister. Growing up, I wrote down this real quick. And I know I looked at my time, I know what time I have, but real quick. There were five things that I remember I wrote off the top of my head that affected my eyes. That I was told these things you better do or you better not do, and see if you can relate it to them. The first one is this. Don't stare at the sun. Yeah, I was at 1, Mom. I had to tell, don't stare at the sun. Right? That's probably why my eyes messed up today.
• 26:10
  Speaker B: How many of you have been told, don't read in the dark.
• 26:14
  Speaker B: It hurts your eyes.
• 26:18
  Speaker B: How many of you were told, don't sit too close to the tv.
• 26:24
  Speaker B: How many of you were told, don't cross your eyes, they'll stay like that.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: And how many of you are told, eat your carrots, it'll make your sight better? I'll tell you, that's a theological word, that's hogwash.
• 26:39
  Speaker B: Them things are colored too much for me to eat. I don't like anything colored.
• 26:45
  Speaker B: Carrots do have vitamin A, which do help, but that's partly true.
• 26:51
  Speaker B: There are a lot of things.
• 26:53
  Speaker B: That we don't need to be looking at.
• 26:57
  Speaker B: And so tonight, as we think about this warning about the sinfulness of the eye, the warning is this. If you take it in through the lens of your eye, it will affect your whole body, your mind, in your heart and your soul. You will have treasures and masters that you should not have.
• 27:21
  Speaker B: You will be apt to fall into the snare of sin. Because bad eyes don't really know what they're looking at, but it has a lasting effect on the whole body. Bad eyes don't know how to look for the ways to minister to others.
• 27:40
  Speaker B: They're clouded, distracted. They look at self.
• 27:46
  Speaker B: But how many of you realize your eyes just don't go bad overnight?
• 27:51
  Speaker B: There's a couple of situations. Medical. I'm talking physical eyes. If you have a medical situation, such as a stroke or something like that, yes, you could lose your eyes like that. But for most of us, it's just been a gradual slow fade and our eyes are just getting bad.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: Maybe you're sitting here tonight saying, I'm fine.
• 28:17
  Speaker B: Maybe you tell the pastor that. Maybe you tell people that ask you or how you're doing at church. I'm fine. And you're really not.
• 28:24
  Speaker B: I'm fine doesn't paint a clear picture.
• 28:32
  Speaker B: Maybe you.
• 28:35
  Speaker B: Compare yourself with another person and in your mind you're like, I'm doing better than that person. You know, I'm coming to church more than that person. And we're satisfied with that.
• 28:50
  Speaker B: I wear glasses. I wear them more and more. I don't need them for distance, like I said. I just need them for right there.
• 28:58
  Speaker B: The other day, I was at a ball game and I sat down beside my wife and Terri said, how in the world do you see through those things?
• 29:08
  Speaker B: And what do we do? We have to take our glasses off and what do we do? You have to put them up.
• 29:15
  Speaker B: To the light.
• 29:18
  Speaker B: And when you expose that to the light, man, you can really see these things are dirty.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: I worked in the production for 20 years of my life. The start of every shift. I cleaned my safety glasses.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: I needed to be able to see. I had to read measuring instruments, and it was hard to read some of those things.
• 29:48
  Speaker B: But I forgot that lesson after I left reduction. Guess what? I forgot that I need to clean my glasses. Every single day.
• 30:00
  Speaker B: I sit down to write this lesson.
• 30:03
  Speaker B: And I'm reminded.
• 30:07
  Speaker B: That my eyes need to be clear every single day.
• 30:12
  Speaker B: Clear at what they see, clear at what they look at, clear at what it takes in, because it affects the whole body.
• 30:22
  Speaker B: There is a scary, scary point. Jesus ends verse number 23 with, and that is this.
• 30:30
  Speaker B: If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is thy darkness?
• 30:40
  Speaker B: Jesus says this, there are some people whose only light can be described as darkness.
• 30:52
  Speaker B: Which means they have zero light. There is no light. And he says this, how great is thy darkness? Here's what he's saying. It's pitch black.
• 31:07
  Speaker B: There's no light there.
• 31:15
  Speaker B: Coming back to that pitch dark room.
• 31:19
  Speaker B: If you walk into a pitch dark room.
• 31:23
  Speaker B: You stay there for just a second.
• 31:27
  Speaker B: Your eyes will begin to adjust.
• 31:32
  Speaker B: And if you stay there long enough with your eyes open.
• 31:37
  Speaker B: You can see a little bit. Your eyes adjust, and guess what? The darkness becomes normal.
• 31:47
  Speaker B: And I'm afraid that's what's happened to Christians.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: We've walked into dark places.
• 31:58
  Speaker B: And it's become normal.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: It's what we're used to. It's what we see. It becomes what's okay.
• 32:06
  Speaker B: And then it begins to feed and take over the whole body.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: The sinfulness of the eye can be so bad that no light is present in someone's life.
• 32:30
  Speaker B: So tonight I just end with this.
• 32:34
  Speaker B: When we consider darkness.
• 32:38
  Speaker B: We must consider light. And when we consider light, we must consider our eyes. What they are taking in influences the whole body. But it also affects the opportunities that God has set before us that we miss.
• 32:59
  Speaker B: If darkness describes where you are tonight, whatever way that looks like, here's what I need to share with you.
• 33:11
  Speaker B: You need to get to Jesus. You need to allow Jesus into those dark areas of your life.
• 33:25
  Speaker B: I'm grateful for the words.
• 33:28
  Speaker B: That Jesus says in John 8.
• 33:32
  Speaker B: Verse number 12.
• 33:34
  Speaker B: Jesus then spake Jesus again to them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Praise be to God.
• 33:53
  Speaker B: Here's what I want to go on record to saying. Tonight without Jesus.
• 33:57
  Speaker B: I'd be in total darkness.
• 34:01
  Speaker B: Tonight. If you're here without Jesus, please don't leave the same way you came.
• 34:07
  Speaker B: Tonight, as believers, can we pray that God would open opportunities, open our eyes to the opportunities to see people and help meet those needs and share the light that is within us to those that are around us.
• 34:23
  Speaker B: Do we realize as a church how great the darkness is? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this night. Thank you for your word and God. I pray, Lord, that you will use it as a reminder.
• 34:44
  Speaker B: But also, Lord, to recalibrate our hearts.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: As we look within.
• 34:53
  Speaker B: As we examine our eyes, God. I pray, Lord, that you will clean the lenses of them for us, God, as we come before you every single day.
• 35:06
  Speaker B: Begging for forgiveness, begging for direction, seeking your will in our lives, God, that you will simply clean the lenses of our eyes every single day, God. That's what I'm taking home from this, God. I need you every single day to clean my lenses.
• 35:26
  Speaker B: And in doing so, Lord, open my eyes to the things that are not beneficial for the whole body.
• 35:33
  Speaker B: But also, Lord, open my eyes to opportunity.
• 35:38
  Speaker B: To see others needs of you, Lord. Thank you Lord, that you are the light that goes with us tonight. And if somebody needs the light, that is Jesus. God, I pray that your holy Spirit will convict them tonight. We love you and we give you this time in Jesus name, Amen.
• 35:58
  Speaker A: You've been listening to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church. You're always welcome to visit Clifford Baptist Church for Sunday School at 9:45 worship at 11:00am and Wednesday evening worship at 7:00pm Join us again for truth for the journey.