LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
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28
DARKNESS AND HEAVINESS These terms are used by many believers as
synonymous, but the Scriptures never use them interchangeably While
“heaviness” is compatible with holiness and fellowship with God, darkness is
not. In Certain it is that sin clouds the vision of the
soul and shuts out the light of God. To say that a soul is in darkness is
equivalent to saying that some sin has entered the heart and life, and so has
broken the fellowship between the soul and God, and consequently the soul is
left to grope in darkness. Seeing that God cannot allow sin, we can understand
why God has said, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in
darkness, we lie, and do not speak the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. The “seasons of darkness” are not
consistent with any degree of salvation. It is well for us to distinguish
between “darkness” and “heaviness.” In Sin brings darkness, while “manifold
temptation” (or physical illness that affects the brain) brings
“heaviness.” Unless the soul distinguishes between the two, it is in danger
of making shipwreck of faith. For, be it remembered that Satan takes advantage
of our moods. When a soul is suffering some temptations and consequent
heaviness, Satan is most likely to whisper to that soul, “you don’t feel as
you once did, or as others say they feel,” and then insinuates that “the
probabilities are either you never had the blessing of sanctification or else
that you have lost it.” And having thus taken the attention and eye away from
Jesus to yourself, and so started the wedge of doubt into your soul, he will
whisper most cunningly. “You know you do not feel as you once did, and you
have probably lost the blessing; at any rate, you do not want to be a hypocrite
and witness to what you do not have, and so it would be honest to say no more
about sanctification until you feel different.” So you have listened to the
devil, and given up your faith and now giving up your testimony—all because
you were in heaviness and did not feel as you desired—it is easy to see that
defeat may follow. Many have lost their experience right at this point, simply
because they did not understand that heaviness was consistent with holiness, and
did not indicate the loss of divine favor. “Kept by the power of God”; and
“ready to be revealed in the last time, though now for a season, if need be,
ye are in heaviness, through manifold temptations.” The same persons of whom He said they had a
“lively hope,” and were “elect according to the foreknowledge of God,”
and “ready to be revealed in the last time,” are still subject to temptation
and seasons of heaviness (or illness). The fact that there was heaviness did not
indicate that they were not “kept.” It is well to remember that it is impossible
for anyone to always feel just the same, and that God has never told us to feel,
or required any certain amount of feeling. It is not by our feeling but by our
faith that we stand and honor God. Temptations will come, but temptation is not
sin. “We are told to “count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations.” If the devil is after you it proves he has not got you, and
because of this you should rejoice. Not only so, but the trial of your faith
will mean the development and perfecting of your faith which will bring “a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” both in this world and the world
to come!
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