Luke 22:53 When I was daily with you in the temple, you stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. As our Lord, declining to avail himself of the physical forces at his command, surrendered himself to the will of his assailants, he used an expression which was full of spiritual significance. "This is your hour," he said, "and the power of darkness." By this he intimated (1) that the hour of his enemies' triumph had arrived - the brief hour of their outward success and inward exultation, the dark hour of his humiliation and visible defeat; and (2) that this passing hour was simultaneous with the prevalence of the power of darkness. Wicked men were to triumph because the forces of guilty error were for the time prevailing. We look at - I. THE POWER OF DARKNESS. 1. Its spiritual nature. It is a state of spiritual blindness. We may not, with a great Greek philosopher, resolve all evil into error; but we may say that sin is continually, is universally, springing from inward blindness. Men do not see the truth; they call good evil, and evil good; they have the most false imaginations concerning all objects, from the Divine Being himself to the lowliest human duty; and hence they go far astray. 2. Its most glaring manifestations. It lays its unholy hand on innocence, on Divine Love itself, and leads it away to trial and crucifixion. It conducts the devoted servant of Christ to the brutal judge, to the shameful scaffold, to the devouring flame. It arms a vast multitude of men and leads them forth to a vain and useless strife, shedding human blood and wasting human labor, as if Christ would be pleased or could be served by such means as these. It covers with the sacred name of religion a system that holds millions of human beings in a degrading bondage. It sanctions all the sinful institutions the world has seen and suffered from. 3. Its most deplorable effects. These are not found in the deeds and the sufferings of men, but rather in their souls; the worst issue of spiritual misconception is in the utter darkness of spirit in which it ends. "If the light that is in us be darkness, how great must that darkness be!" It means - (1) False thoughts. Here were men who should have known better thinking the worst things of Jesus Christ - judging him to he a criminal, to be a traitor, to be a blasphemer; and there are men amongst us who, under the power of error, think altogether wrong thoughts of God and of the Savior - thoughts which do him wrong, which misrepresent him to the mind, which repel rather than attract the soul. (2) Bad feelings. Here were men indulging in feelings of positive and perfect hatred against Jesus Christ; and there are men, misled by the power of darkness, hating instead of loving the Father of spirits, repelled from instead of being drawn towards good and true souls whom they have grievously misunderstood. (3) Wrong purposes of heart. Under this malignant influence men are purposing to injure their fellow-men. Instead of resolving to rescue, to raise, to ennoble them,-they determine to put them down or to hold them down, to lay a hard hand upon them and keep them harmless because helpless. It is in the blinding, misleading, deteriorating effects upon the soul itself that the very worst results of darkness are to be seen. II. OUR HOPE CONCERNING IT. The "power of darkness" was coincident with "the hour" of the enemies of our Lord. And that was but an hour; it was limited to the brief period of the Passion. Then came Christ's glorious hour - the hour of his resurrection; the hour of his ascent to the right hand of Power. The prevalence of this evil power of darkness is limited in time; it will not last for ever. Innocence, purity, truth, love, righteousness, may be led away to trial and death, as they were then in the Person of Jesus Christ; but the hour of their resurrection and their triumph will arrive. Let faithful labor do its noble part, and let calm and Christian patience bring its priceless contribution, and another hour will strike than that of the foes of Christ, and another power than that of moral darkness will take the scepter and rule the world. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. |
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