Walking in the Light by Dr. T. L. Cuyler

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 41.

Walking in the Light.

By Dr. T. L. Cuyler

DAVID, the psalmist and prophet, desiring to know many things hard to be discovered, exclaims: O God, "in thy light shall we see light." The first thing to be done was to put himself into that great element of light which flows down from the infinite fount-head of truth. He recognized God. He looked Godward. He waited on him "more than they that watch for the morning." This life has too many mysteries, too many hard problems, too many precipices and pitfalls, for any of us to venture through it by the sparks of our own kindling. Happy will it be for us if we determine to walk only and constantly in the light of the Lord.

The supreme value of the Bible consists in the fact that it is divine truth put into a portable shape. We can carry it with us and find there just what we need for every emergency. The author of the 119th psalm, remembering how often he had threaded his way through the dark and narrow streets of the Holy City, exclaims: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." This is the unanswerable argument for the book, which no scoffer can overthrow; this makes it inestimably precious to those who study it and go by it. It is the only guide-book given under heaven and known among men, that is invariably safe to be followed and never misleads us; the only lamp that I dare to carry with me when I enter the valley of the shadow of death. To Coleridge's famous eulogy of the word of God, "It is the book that always finds me," may be added that it is the only one which always finds for me the one safe, sure path through a life beset with perils. The people who commit the worst blunders and stumble oftenest in times of temptation are not the people who walk in the light of the Bible.

But the supreme glory of the Bible is Christ Jesus. As the chief object of the Eddystone tower is to lift high that blazing Fresnel burner that flings its radiance over the stormy sea, so is it the chief purpose of the word to show us God in Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we get the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. We can only see and comprehend God in the person of his Son; "the only begotten Son, . . . he hath declared him." There was no presumption, therefore, in the persecuted peasant of Galilee when he said: "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Reading about Jesus in my Bible is not enough. Admiring, reverencing his wonderful character is not enough. I need to have him formed within me, "the hope of glory." I must open my inmost soul to him—every door, every apartment—and let him fill me with himself, if I want to be illuminated and purified. The whole man is full of light only when full of Christ.

The faith that profits me is not an intellectual opinion or assent; it is the act of opening my whole nature to the Son of God so that he pours into me of his wisdom, his strength, his righteousness, his grace. There is a great temptation to us all to follow other people, to be carried by currents and fashions; a still worse temptation to be guided by the false principles of mere expediency instead of absolute right. These are all transient sparks, often delusive Jack-o-lanterns.

A genuine Christian may be, ought to be, so possessed by the Lord Jesus Christ that Christ shall shine within, and shine out from him. How else can we ever become lights in the world such as our Master has commanded us to be? When we surrender ourselves so completely to our Lord that his will is our will, and his word is our law, and his spirit rules, and purifies and elevates and sweetens ours, then we actually walk in the light of the Son of God.

Here is a good test of character. Our all-wise Master said of certain persons that they would not come to the light lest their evil deeds be reproved. I suspect that this is one reason why many people draw away from Christ; even some who profess to be Christians dread too powerful and searching a discovery of their own secret sins. Their blemishes look too ugly; they feel about their own inward selves as the slatternly house-maid did about her cob-webbed and dusty parlor, when she said, "The room looked decent enough till the nasty light came into it." Never can we hope to mend faults till we discover them, however painful to pride and self-conceit. Never can we see faults and deceitful sins in their false disguises until we look honestly at ourselves in the light of Jesus Christ.

A white-washed character is not a clean character; a covered cancer is not a cured cancer; a soul that will not bear the scrutiny of Christ's sin-revealing truth in this world will certainly not bear the tremendous glare of the last great day. The real difference between an unsanctified heart and the genuine, humble, docile disciple of Christ, is that the one dreads the light, and the other desires the light. "Ye were sometime darkness," said the great apostle to his brethren, "but now ye are light in the Lord; walk as children of light;" for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.

The world has a right to expect a great many things from all of us who call ourselves Christians. It is the business of a Christian, not to smoke, but to shine. The dark-lantern religion that never makes itself visible to others will never guide you or me to Heaven. We ought to reflect our Saviour as light-givers. When Moses came down from the mount, he brought God in his shining face. The impressive Christians—the Wesleys, Paysons, Albert Barnesses of the pulpit, the William E. Dodges and Theodore Frelinghuysens in commercial and civil life—have been men who made Jesus Christ visible to others. Sandy Hook lantern does not sound a gong; it shines. They that walk in the light of the Lord fling the rays of their influence; their example is even a richer gift than their gifts of money or their deeds of charity.

The world has a right to expect a cheerful, contented spirit; yes, more than that—a courageous joy in the Lord from all of Christ's followers. We ought to live above the fog-belt. The higher up, the holier; the higher up, the happier. A churlish, croaking, gloomy professor of gospel religion is a living libel; he haunts society like a ghost. But there is one who says to us: "These things have I spoken unto you that your joy might be full." Let us open our souls to him, and our faces will shine; he can make even tears to sparkle; we shall carry sunshine into the darkest hours; we shall catch installments of Heaven in advance.

"Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord."