Monday, February 6, 2012
2 Peter 1:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
YOUR BRIGHT MORNING STAR
Are you interested in astronomy? If so, then you know that the morning star is actually the planet Venus. You also know that the morning star is one of the most beautiful sights in the heavens. It is the star that outshines all the rest. In today's Bible verse, Peter makes mention of this star.
As the heavens are filled with a countless number of stars, so the Bible is full of glorious bright truths. And as the morning star is the prize possession of the heavens, so the Bible has its prized Morning Star. The Morning Star of the Bible is, of course, none other than Jesus, God's Son -- the Light of the World. It is this Morning Star -- it is this Jesus, revealed so clearly and brightly in the Bible, Who drives away the darkness from our lives.
No one else but He, as He shows Himself to us in His Word, can displace all the darkness which is so thick and deep. There's the darkness of our own inborn sin which tries to overshadow the joy and peace we have by faith in Christ. There's the darkness of a world, hopeless and lost, whose despair can easily rub off on us. There's the appalling darkness of death's shadow. There's the forces of darkness, Satan and his evil angels, which are bent on dragging us down into the abyss of eternal night. The only true antidote for all this gloom is the light our Savior brings. And His light shines in no other place but in your Bible.
Where else can we go to get such light? Can our own self-made remedies of dealing with problems do for us what Jesus can? Sometimes, I believe, we act like we think they can. Can the advice of a well-meaning friend light our way better than the Morning Star of the Scriptures? Sometimes, without really being conscious of it, we treat such advice as if it might. Can society's ever changing value system, promoted by Hollywood and the media, be the better star to follow? How often aren't we tempted to think so?
The gloom is in us, around, and upon us! So let us turn off all artificial lights which are only manufactured by Satan to lead us away from the one true Light. Let us understand, as the Bible teaches, that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). Yes, stay clear from that masquerade party. We have the real thing. We have real Light to drive away the shadows of all our fears. We open the Bible, and there He is -- Jesus, beaming so true and so sure.
