Darkness and Light

I’m sure that the vast majority of the people reading this little treatise will easily remember the times when they were small children and feared the dark. Monsters lived there and they could slip up on one and consume them unless someone turned on a light. Most parents can remember entering a child’s bedroom, turning on the light and assuring them that there was nothing in the dark room that was going to hurt them in any way. Nothing but a parent’s reassurance that they were in the room across the hallway and the turning on of a little nightlight could solve the problem of the midnight monster.

I have put some thought into our dealings with the darkness and also the light. Darkness has always been associated with evil and sin while light is viewed as something good and purifying. It causes things to grow and prosper while the darkness and will cause plants and other living things to wither away and finally die. There is life in light and death in darkness. In the Scripture we are told in Genesis 1:3 that God said: “Let there be light: and there was light.” If one will notice He also said in verse two that darkness was already “upon the face of the deep.” Later on, in verse 14, Scripture tells us that God created the Sun and the Moon, and lights in the firmament of the heaven. So, darkness was present and then God “turned on the light.” One ruled the day (sun) and the other ruled the night (moon). He made the stars also according to His Word. Without light there could have been no life on earth of any kind. It is necessary for our existence.

Darkness is the antithesis of light. It cannot exist until the light is turned off and it is in total command until the light is turned on again. Darkness is overcome at the speed of light. It flees at the most minute flicker of light. Darkness penetrates nothing but is penetrated itself by light. It is very weak and is dependent on the lack of even one photon of light. Darkness is a dictator in that anything requiring light is held at bay until the darkness is overcome. Light is a liberator. All that has been held at bay by darkness is now able to be operative. Light frees up; darkness binds up. Darkness is dependent upon the light. It can only exist when the light ceases to shine. Light is not dependent upon the darkness, but the darkness is made evident when the light is gone. Just one flicker of light and the darkness is forced to flee. Light banishes the darkness.

Darkness is a lack of the activity of light. Light vibrates at different frequencies. It is that vibration that causes the different colors. God gives us a glimpse of the different frequencies when He allows a rainbow to emerge. There are seven colors in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It is always a treat to see a beautiful rainbow. It is one of God’s majestic creations which carries with it a message: “the earth will never be destroyed by water again.” Darkness has no power. Light is made up of numerous colors while darkness possesses not qualities. Light can be focused and focused light produces heat while darkness has no quality which can be focused or produce anything. Intensified light can cut through steel and other materials but darkness is dark, empty, devoid of any characteristics which define light. Light moves at 186 thousand miles a second while darkness is stagnant. It only exists where there is no light. Red has the longest wavelength and the lowest frequency while Violet has the highest frequency and the shortest wavelength. We cannot naturally see colors which exist except those in the visible frequencies. One day, in heaven, we will be able to see colors we never dreamed existed. They must be beautiful beyond description!

But as stated above, darkness is a lack of the activity of light. Darkness has no vibration and no life and activity to it. Darkness is the lack of the vibration of light. The moment that the vibrations of light come upon the darkness (one turns on a light or lights a candle), it is banished because it has been taken over by a vibrational field called light. Darkness has no color because the vibrations which cause the different colors are absent. In the Second World War, the people of Britain were told that while they were under the bombing attacks of Germany, they were to pull their shades and they were not to light even one candle because those bombing them could see the light from that one little candle and that they would know where to drop bombs because the light from that one candle signified life and activity. That shows us the power of light over the darkness.

In our world today, darkness is ruling to a great degree because the light is going out to a great extent. God’s people are called the “light of the world” by none other than Jesus Himself. The church should be a place of light but, in order to be popular and accepted by the world it is compromising with the ways of the world. Church leaders today are snuggling up as close as they can to the secular world and still call it religious. This approach will not work because the light is being snuffed out as God’s People flirt with the darkness called the secular world. Many churches today resemble entertainment centers more than they resemble a place of worship that honors God and what Christ accomplished on the Cross for us. Entertainment is the order of the day more than enlightenment is. Satan knows that the best way to defeat us is to dim the light so that his darkness can gain strength and his ultimate goal is for the darkness to rule. Ask yourself a question: Why are so many churches turning the lights down so low that one can hardly read the scripture? They get that from the secular rock venues that do the same thing. We can easily see this happening in today’s world. Society is getting darker and darker as the influence of God’s Light becomes dimmer and dimmer. As the church of today adopts the world’s systems in their practice and worship, the society around it will have less and less respect for it and the light begins to flicker. The only people left to turn the light up and thereby banish the darkness are those who possess the ability to increase the light; God’s People who have been given the Light of the World. But the more God’s people snuggle with the world and try to get as close as possible to it but yet still consider their actions religious, the more the darkness will be evident. The light has to do something negative for the darkness to rule: It has to go out and if it does that is caused by human failure and not a failure of God’s provision of light to the world in Jesus Christ.

Heaven is a place of light; marvelous light that comes from God. Revelation tells us that He is the source of our light there. It also tells us that those against God (angels who rebelled against God) are held in “everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day”(Jude 6). Isaiah 45:7 gives us the insight that God made the darkness as well as the light. Hell is a place of utter darkness according to the scripture. The reason for that is that God is not there furnishing the light as He is in heaven. It is described as a place of utter blackness. Imagine the total horror and pain of being burned by fire you can’t see because there is no light in hell. God provides the light and because He does provide the light, there is no night in heaven (Rev. 21:25). In fact, there is no sun or moon in heaven providing light. Scripture says in Rev. 21:23, “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did light it, and the Lamb is the lamp of it.”

Wherever God is, there is light both physical and spiritual. Without Him, the darkness rules but with Him it must flee and lose all its power. The Bible also talks about spiritual darkness and how those who live in that darkness will never see Him apart from “turning to the light” by trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ who is the “light of the world.” Those who choose to live in the dark apart from God will one day be in everlasting darkness, separated from God who is the source of all light and from Jesus who is the Lamp of that light (Rev. 21:23).

Darkness or Light? Choose light and life!


William F. Harrell
6-28-2022

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