I will like to start this morning by reading the scripture we read earlier, Genesis chapter one, from verse one to three.
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said, let there be light and there was light.”
Now, when we look at this scripture, the Bible takes us to the very beginning. It tells us, it says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and he created the earth, in Genesis 1:1.
But then in verse two, it says, for the world was without form, it was void and it was covered in darkness.
In other words, there was disorder. It was without form, it was not together. There was chaos in the world.
So the world, even after the Lord created the heavens and the earth, verse 2 tells us, it was chaotic, it was confused, it was void.
Then he says, it was covered in darkness. And sometimes you may begin to wonder and say, if God created the world, why was it in that state? After all, God could have made it and the thing would have been perfect, so why was it disorderly?
Then when he saw that everything was good, he made man and eventually something happened to man.
The Bible tells us that a serpent showed up and started asking man a few questions. And you begin to wonder, where did the serpent come from? Who created that serpent? Why did God create a serpent? I think these are valid questions.
First, Where did the serpent come from? For us to understand this, it’s important for us to understand that there is a time gap between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2. And if you explore scripture, scripture will reveal some of the things that happened in that time gap.
Sometimes when you research scripture, they refer to that time as the dateless past, a period of time that existed for several years. The exact length of that time, we don’t know.
But the Bible tells us a number of things happened in that time.
So what’s important for us to understand is that before God said, let there be light in Genesis 1:3, God had created the world before then. And many things had happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 that resulted in the earth now being without form, void, and covered in darkness.
And scripture gives us a few insights into those things. And I think it’s important we understand some of those things so that we begin to appreciate more when God said, let there be light. So in that pre-Adamite world, a world that existed before Adam and Eve were created, the Bible tells us a few things happened.
One of the things it tells us is that Satan and one-third of the angels in heaven rebelled against God and they were cast down to the earth. And I’d like us just to look at Isaiah chapter 44, verse 12 to 14.
And it says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou caught down to the ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the
congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high”.
So somewhere in that time, Lucifer, who was one of God’s angels, decided that he wanted to stage a coup in heaven.
Why should God be God? Why can’t I also be God? Look at me. Am I not fit to be God? And indeed, Lucifer at that time was very beautiful to behold.
In fact, if you look at how the Bible described him, you will know that God really invested time in the creation of Lucifer.
If you look at Ezekiel chapter 28, and read verses 11 to 17, it will give you a little bit of an insight.
It says, “moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God. Thou sealest up the sun, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbon coal, and the gold. The workmanship of thy tablets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.
Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
By the multitude of thy merchandise, they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned..”
That scripture is telling us about when Lucifer was created, and how he was created, and he was in charge of worship, and he worshiped so beautifully.
But somewhere along the line, he decided that he wanted to take the place of God.
And he got a number of coup plotters with him in heaven, and they staged a coup. But the coup was a foiled coup. It didn’t work.
And when that coup did not work, what God decided was that they cannot stay in heaven.
So God cast Lucifer out of heaven with one third of the angels of heaven. And where did Lucifer land when he was cast out? He landed on earth. And immediately he landed, he began to exercise his rule.
So much so that at a time God said
what’s going on on earth is unacceptable. I have to wind up that earth.
And the scripture tells us in 2 Peter 3, verse 6, about how God destroyed the world that then was by submerging it in water, by flooding it.
So when God could not take what was going on on the earth, as written in 2 Peter 3, verse six, and I want to read that scripture so that the foundations are well laid.
It says whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.
So the Lord overflowed the earth. He flooded that earth with water and everything therein perished.
And after it flooded and everything perished, we arrived at Genesis 1, verse two, where the scripture now tells us that the world was without form.
It was void and darkness covered it. And it was at that point, God decided and said, let me start again. Let me start the process of creation again.
Because darkness at that time was reigning on the earth. So Lord God decided and said enough of the darkness. And he spoke a word.
He said, let there be light. And it changed the course of that earth that was destroyed. He says, let there be light and there was light.
Now it’s important to understand a few things about light and darkness.
Understanding Light And Darkness
When you have light and darkness, a lot of the time they don’t exist together. If there were no windows in a place and the whole place was locked up, if you went in there, the place would be dark.
Darkness will cover this entire place because everywhere is covered. But the moment we switch on the light, everywhere would be lit up.
The moment you switch on a light, darkness disappears. The light doesn’t have to do anything. It doesn’t have to quarrel with the darkness. It doesn’t have to do anything, just switch on the light.
Darkness will vanish. It’s a nature of light. In fact, you can define darkness as the absence of light.
When there is no light in a place, darkness occupies. But the moment light comes, darkness disappears. So darkness and light, they are almost mutually exclusive in a way.
Light will always chase away darkness. Indeed, the Bible tells us in John 1 verse 5, it says that the light shined in darkness and the darkness could not comprehend it. That’s the nature of light.
When light comes, darkness is like, oh, what is this? What is it? It just disappears, finds its level. And you also see a lot of the time, when darkness exists, a lot of things happen where there is darkness.
So honestly, assuming if we go in to a place, where there is no light, if the place is not fumigated or cleaned, you would just see that in that dark, certain things will begin to come out.
Things like cockroaches, rats etc, may come out, all sorts of things will come out.
Initially when there’s light they may not come out. The moment the light goes up, all of them come out.
The moment you switch on the lights, all of them disappear into dark places.
And whatever they were doing when they came out, where there was darkness, they go and do it on the inside, in the places that are dark.
So you’ll find that darkness, a lot of the time it occurs where there is no light.
Darkness Thrives In The Midst Of Ignorance But Where There Is Knowledge And Truth, Light Thrives.
Now, if you do a little bit of research, you will find out that the Hebrew word and the Greek word that is used for light is the same word that is used for knowledge.
And when you look at the Greek and the Hebrew word for darkness, you’ll find it’s the same word that is used for ignorance. So what you’ll find a lot of the time is darkness thrives where ignorance exists.
But where there is knowledge and truth, light thrives.
So light and darkness, they have some of the attributes. When darkness is in a place, you suddenly begin to see that many things, like we say, happens in dark.
So for instance, you’ll see that when a man wants to commit sin, most normal men or most normal women, when they want to commit sin, they go into a corner, they go into the dark.
They don’t like light a lot of the time, they look for a dark place.
Also, when people want to cook the books (i.e tamper with funds by changing figures)
They think; I need a little money, let me go and cook the books, let me see if I can wrangle out a few hundreds of thousands, they enter into their office, and adjust the numbers, they erase, they finish up the evil and come out, behaving like nothing happened.
And as long as they are doing those things in the dark, they feel okay. So they hide their sins, they hide their troubles, and problems in the dark. What scripture tells us, it says, he that hides his sin or he that covers his sin, he will not prosper (Proverbs 28:30)
Indeed, the nature of darkness sometimes is such that darkness has its power in ignorance. So for instance, you have a situation, I remember a story, let me tell you this story.
When I was still in professional practice, I met a young man who used to work for an accounting firm. And his boss was not a straightforward accountant. So they were very active in cooking the books for clients to make their tax lower.
So say for instance, they have a client whose income was maybe 10 million and was supposed to pay 3 million in taxes. They will go, they will cook the book, cook it, by the time they finish, the amount of tax will be 250,000.
And they will tell them, say, after all, what’s the government doing with the money anyway? And they will cook the books.
And then, the boss who was doing the cooking will collect collect money for cooking the books. And he had these boys who he used to send to go and cook the books. So one day he sent this boy, say, go and cook the book for that man.
Tell him the fee is 50,000. So this young man went, went to meet the client about said, my boss said I should come and meet you.
He said, he has told me what to do, the money is 80,000. The client said, no problem.
So he cooked the books, and he collected 80,000. Then he went back to his boss, and said, the client has paid. Here is the 50,000.
And he pocketed 30,000. Everything in the dark. The cooking of the book in the dark, the payments in the dark.
Everything looked okay initially, until one day the client decided to come and visit the boss and the subordinate was there. The moment the client came into the establishment and he entered the boss’s office, the subordinate who collected 80,000 instead of 50,000 started sweating. He was sweating profusely.
Why was he sweating? Because there was something in the dark.
He didn’t know whether the man had told his boss he paid 80,000. He was afraid that he would be sacked.
This is because he had done many things in the dark. And the only way he could come out of that thing was to come out and say, boss, actually, the other day, you asked me to go there and tell that man 50,000. I actually told him 80,000, he gave me 80,0000 and I gave you 50,000, so actually, sir, I’m owing you 30,000
The moment he does that, he will come out of darkness and enter into some form of light, and into liberty.
Darkness is designed to hold you in bondage.
That’s the way darkness operates And when the Lord looked at the earth, the earth was dark. It was void.
There was no order, there was no system, There was chaos.
Everything was scattered before God said, let there be light. And he rearranged the earth. He said, I’m starting again.
That last earth, I had to destroy it, So He started a new earth.
And He started from Genesis 1:3, creating everything, until He got to Genesis 1:26.
He said, “now, let’s make man in our own image” He made man, put man in authority and said, “now, I want you to look after the earth, take care of everything. The only thing that I’m going to tell you that you shouldn’t do is that there’s one tree in this garden.
You won’t eat the fruit of that tree, because
If you eat that fruit, you will die” and man said, okay.
The Lord went away but the Lord used to come to commune with man.
Then the serpent showed up, and what did the serpent do when he showed up? He began to challenge the knowledge of the man.
Light thrives on knowledge. Darkness thrives on ignorance.
God told the man, He said, look, I’ve given you everything. This one tree, if you eat from it, you will die.
I’ve informed you, don’t cross the line,
but when the devil came around, what did the devil do? He began to challenge the information.
Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat this thing? And if he said that you shouldn’t eat it, when you eat it, you will die. It’s only because God knows that when you eat it, you will become like Him, and the man bought wrong information.
Devil said, when you eat it, you will be like God.
Unknowingly to man, the truth is, man was already made in God’s image. He was already like God.
Man accepted the ignorance or the misinformation, ate the fruit, and he died. Does the Bible say he died?
Let’s look at what the Bible says in Genesis 3, verse 7. In Genesis 3, 7, it tells us that all of a sudden, the man realized that he was naked.
It says, and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Why did they know they were naked? Because when God made man in His image, there was a light, there was a component of God that was planted in the man, and because that component of God was planted in the man, when the man moved about on a daily basis, he could commune with God.
He had the mind of God. He knew what God was thinking. When he wanted to do something, the Spirit of God would tell him, this is what you should do, and he would do it because God was inside him.
God’s truth, God’s word, God’s reality was resident in him. The day he ate that fruit, that thing inside him, that light, that candle, whatever you want to call it, it left the man. The man died a spiritual death.
He died. And because that thing was gone, he knew he was able to say, ah, God, I’m naked.
And because he yielded to the suggestion of darkness, wrong information, error, wrong truths, darkness came and took over from where light stopped.
It’s like man’s authority that he had in the light, he gave it to darkness. And darkness began to operate in man. When you look at what the Bible tells us in Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9, it tells us about the element of darkness.
It told us, it says, “the heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” Why is that heart desperate? Because darkness is now ruling. The light that was inside man before is gone.
Prayers:
Father let your light shine in every area of my life, let darkness leave my life in Jesus name.
