And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum, and it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. John 6:17
My brother and I were carrying firewood on a small wagon down from the mountainside. We should have stayed in the maple stand where the wood was stacked, because night was falling and the clouds had rolled in. As we made our way downhill, the darkness enveloped us like a fog, and we could not see where we were going. We had to keep tapping the ground before us to make sure we weren’t getting off the path. At the bottom of the hill, we faced a long hard trek across several fields, through a swamp and two brooks, and up another long hill. Apprehensive about wild animals, we made slow progress, and were thoroughly frightened and discouraged before we came to the first brook. Crossing that brook with our wagonload of wood in the dark was a cold, wet ordeal, and we had difficulty finding the path on the other side. We slowly worked our way along, getting more and more discouraged, nervous, and weary. Suddenly we heard a hail. It was our father, who had come to meet us. Instantly, the dark lost all its terrors and the path lost all its agony. But until that point, we felt like the disciples in the midst of the sea.
The unsaved in this world are in the darkness of sin. Like a couple of lads floundering through the dark fields at night, they operate without much sense of where they are going, or what dangers surround them. Only the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ can shine light into their souls and give them direction and comfort. How important it is that the Gospel be proclaimed to those around us! Without it, the poor sinners around us are lost and hopeless. But note that our text is not speaking of strangers and sinners; it is speaking of disciples. Their problem wasn’t that they didn’t know the Lord, but that they didn’t take Him with them.
It is true that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ has shined on us. It is true that we have come to know and love the Lord Jesus and appreciate Him as our Saviour. But there are times when we don’t take Him with us in our little voyages of life, and we wonder why things are so dark. Perhaps it is a friend who we should not be keeping company with, or reading material that is inappropriate for a Child of God, or a job that takes us away from the Lord’s people and the Assembly, or a trip to somewhere that involves activities that we don’t want others to know about. Regardless of the case, if we can’t take the Lord Jesus and our testimony for Him there, we will find ourselves in the dark. And there will be no blessing.
The sunshine of the presence of the Lord Jesus gleams only on the path of obedience. The disobedient tread in darkness. -Jim MacIntosh