The Devil’s Created a Culture of Darkness
“Even if our gospel message is veiled, it is only veiled to those who are perishing, for their minds have been blinded by the god of this age, leaving them in unbelief. Their blindness keeps them from seeing the dayspring light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the divine image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4 TPT).
Satan is the god of this world.
He has created a culture of darkness that enables the cultures of hate and death to thrive. His culture is filled with deception and lies. He blinds people’s minds from the truth with lies and deception, locking them into a place of self-loathing and self-destruction. The blindness we see today is supernatural. People are losing their minds and it is not natural. It takes help to be as wrong as many people are today in their thinking.
Whoever hates what God loves and loves what God hates is in darkness. To reject Christ the Light is to embrace darkness, hell itself. Whoever accepts Christ, the Light, becomes a child of light and embraces the counterculture of God’s Kingdom. John puts it this way:
“And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil” (John 3:19 NLT).
The entire world lies in darkness. If darkness is embraced by rejecting the light, then there is no other place but “outer darkness.” To embrace darkness is to celebrate sin and unbelief. It is to refuse to repent and turn to God for salvation. Within the culture of light, there is a willingness to acknowledge sin, repent, and with God’s help and amazing grace turn away from it. Those of the light may fall or stumble into darkness but are quick to repent. Those of the darkness live in, love, and celebrate the darkness, refusing to repent. Jesus is the Light of the world, and people rejected that Light because they loved darkness resulting in eternal consequences.
Jesus reveals God to us, delivering us from the power of darkness. Through a revelation of Him, we know God. Spoken in love, our message turns people from darkness to light, breaking the power of Satan and revealing the glory of God.
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2).
God passionately desires to bring light into the darkness. He wills to deliver us from the power of darkness and translate us into the Kingdom of His dear Son (see Colossians 1:13). Jesus is that great Light that is shining in the land of the shadow of death.
The Presence of Darkness
While Jesus has delivered us from the power of darkness, it is important to know that we are still in the presence of darkness. In Psalm 23:5, David is thanking God for preparing a table for him in the presence of his enemies.
In Ephesians 6, Paul speaks of this ongoing battle with darkness. He encourages believers to put on God’s armor for this battle and then lays out how to wrestle properly in warfare. Our battle is not with flesh and blood, or people, but with “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). I break down and explain God’s armor later in my book, Counterculture.
In Isaiah 42:6-7, the prophet speaks of a light to the gentiles and how God:
“Called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
Luke 4:18 shows us a part of God’s call and mission for Jesus: “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Darkness is the oppressor of the masses and Jesus is the deliverer.
“God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:6-9 NLT).
Jesus is the Light that is the glory of God. There is no light in this dark world independent of Jesus. Without Him we sit in darkness, bound to it by demons who are chained to it (see 2 Pet. 2:4). Satan can only work in darkness where God has bound him.
“The Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:12-13).
As believers, we have partaken of an inherited light. We have been delivered from the power of darkness and are not bound by it any longer. We are called and anointed by God to expose and expel darkness as well as walk and live in the light. Again, it’s not just a choice we make or refuse. Rather, it’s a new identity born in our spirit as light bearers in a dark world. The apostle Peter proclaims this new condition with boundless joy.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
This is part of our new identity in Christ, “a royal priesthood.” The priest of the Old Covenant represented God before the people and the people before God. Today as a “holy nation,” Jesus is the High Priest giving us a direct line of communication with God through the Holy Spirit. We are priests in the New Covenant, and we offer up to God bloodless sacrifices of worship and thanksgiving now, as well as prayers for others. We are one nation in Jesus, and all the divisions of flesh are torn down. Notice again, we are “called out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Jesus said He came as “a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46).
In speaking and witnessing to King Agrippa, Paul shared why God sent him to the Gentiles:
“To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me [Jesus]” (Acts 26:18).
Paul declares in Ephesians 5:8, “ye were sometimes darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” Satan uses darkness to enslave us. God uses light to set us free. As “children of light,” we are God’s beacon sent into a dark world. We are the counterculture.
To accept Jesus is to choose light, eternal life, and liberty. To reject Him is to embrace darkness, death, and bondage. Jesus spoke of being cast into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (see Matt. 22:13; 8:12; 25:30). A place of gnashing of teeth and weeping is not a reference to heaven. It is a place of torment. If men refuse to come to the light, if they choose to embrace and love darkness, then eternity can be nothing for them but outer darkness.
Darkness is a place of sin and rebellion to God resulting in the ultimate sin of unbelief. That sin (unbelief) is the only sin not covered on the cross. This is the sin that the “Holy Spirit” convicts the world of. John 16:8 says, “When he [Holy Spirit] is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” Verse 9 goes on to say, “of sin, because they believe not on me.” The only sin not covered on the cross is the rejection of the cross—unbelief! Unbelief is the darkness and blindness that leads to outer darkness. Believing in Jesus and the cross breaks that darkness.
We must accept God’s love, extended in Jesus on the cross, by faith in order to be saved. We must be faithful to the light amid the darkness. The culture of darkness is one of sin, lies, deceit, falsehoods, and rejection of the truth. The counterculture must be one of God’s righteousness, not man’s. It must be truthful, honest, and faithful above all things to Jesus—the true Light of this world. John declares in 1 John 1:5-7:
God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
As children of light, we are to now walk in truth. God’s Word is truth (see John 17:17), and we now believe God’s Word above all. Revelation of God and His righteousness is light. Understanding of His will and holiness is light. Walking in this light is applying it to our everyday lives.
In 3 John 1:4, John declares he has “no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth.” When we walk in the light of God’s Word (truth) it pleases God. When our faith (what we believe) affects our actions (how we behave) it pleases God. Faith without works (action) is dead (see James 2:17, 20, 22, 26). Believing and behaving in accordance with God’s Word is walking in the light. Unbelief and actions contrary to God’s Word is darkness.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments” (Psalm 119:105).
You can see today how men love darkness and hate the light because their deeds are evil. Evil only survives and thrives in the darkness. Light not only exposes darkness but expels it and overcomes it. God is calling the church to be “the light of the world” and “a city that is set on a hill” (see Matt. 5:14). To be the “light of the world” for our generation we must repent as God’s people and walk in the light. God’s Word is final authority, truth, and light in our lives.
