Topic: Salvation

One Light; One Way

Unless you're a spelunker, you probably don't spend much time exploring caves. In fact, most people don't think of caves as very friendly places. Caves are not like tunnels. Tunnels lead you out of the light into the darkness and then back into the light at the other end; caves, on the other hand, offer you no guarantee that you will ever see the light again. Many caves have only one entrance and, once you are inside, your world changes drastically.

Imagine, then, that you wander into a cave. You have to squeeze through tight crawl spaces in the rocks and then choose from countless openings that seem inviting but lead you through black mazes to nowhere. You need to be wary of pits and drop-offs where you could easily plunge over a cliff. When you try to turn back, everything looks the same and, if you have no guide or trail marker to follow, you totally lose your sense of direction. Your flashlight dims and fails; you confront unimaginable darkness. There is only one way out, and if you can't find the way, the cavern may be your grave.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve made a choice that virtually put all their descendants into a cavern of sin and death, away from the light of God and away from finding any route of escape on their own.

God uses words such as "darkness" and "blindness" to describe the lost condition of mankind.

What Does God say?

Proverbs 4:19 (ESV) describes the darkness where the person without God exists:

"The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble."

1 John 1:5-6 (ESV) tells you that the person trapped in this darkness has no relationship with God at all: "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth."

How can a person escape this horrific darkness? Jesus says there is one--and only one--way out. Look up the following verses in your Bible and write down what Jesus says about Himself and what He can do for those who are in darkness:

John 8:12

John 12:46

My Thoughts

One who is lost in a cave desperately looks for an opening that will take him into the light. Likewise, a spiritually lost person who is trying to find a way out of his blindness will listen to false teachers and turn to false religion or misleading opinions, only to find that those answers take him even deeper into the darkness.

The Bible says that only God knows the way out. Daniel 2:22, ESV, says: "He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him."

Do you see that only God knows what is in the darkness, and He provides the only possible way out? Read what the Bible says about Jesus Christ in the following verses and, remembering the darkness mankind is in, write down what you learn from them:

John 14:6

Acts 4:12

1 Timothy 2:5

My Part

Here is a verse to memorize. It shows that God's purpose for your life is not only to save you from the darkness of sin but also to make you His servant to proclaim Him to others who are stumbling in darkness.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9, ESV).

Read what Jesus said in John 3:16-20. If you have not yet come to the true Light, Jesus Christ, and want to know more about how to do that, click on the link "Meet Jesus" below and consider what it says.