Light & Darkness
Genesis 1:4
Light and darkness have always been separated; at least as far as man is concerned. There has never been a time while men have walked the earth when there has not been a clear difference between the light and the darkness. Night and day have forever been separated because God acted and designed them to be so.
If I might wax eloquent for a moment (shorthand for saying I'm going to spiritualize) I would like to suggest that the dividing of the light and the darkness is precise the kind of differentiation that God is wont to draw. It is difficult to confuse light and darkness. Even the most simple among us can tell the night from the day. It is a given that never changes and never alters. Now, it is true that there is a time when the light is fading and the darkness is encroaching. We call that twilight and the analogy breaks down there (as well as just as it is dawning in the morning). However, the basic idea is sound and we shall run with it and apply it.
We live in a time when such clear distinctions are becoming confused. With the debates over right and wrong, morality and immorality, it is as if, after millennia, the difference between night and day are becoming confused. We some how have gotten the idea that it is we who define what is right and wrong by our own standard and not by any other. In the Middle Ages, specifically the Scholastic period (about 1200 thru 1500 or so) there was a shift from what was called "Realism" (the view that a thing was "white" because of some standard for whiteness outside of itself) and "Nominalism" (the view that no outside standard is needful to determine whiteness, and that it is silly to look for one). In my view, this was a serious error. This first halting steps at formally abandoning the concept of outside standards for anything (let alone serious things) has (along with other matters admittedly) caused havoc.
Things are not right or wrong because of any standard intrinsic to us. This is certainly not so any more than it is dark merely because we think it is dark. God did not give Adam the power to think away the darkness, or to determine for himself what was dark and what was light. No, not at all. God declared that there be a separation between the two. It was God's "understanding" of "light' and God's "understanding" of "dark" that determined what Adam would experience once created. the same is true about right and wrong, morality and a host of other issues today. Our problem is not that we can't see the darkness or the lightness. Our problem, societal, is that we are measuring it by the wrong, human made standard.
They say that twilight is the most dangerous time to drive a car because the absence of light is not profound enough to demand headlights, but yet it is profound enough to hide important details of the road that could cause accidents. Extra care should be evidenced when driving at twilight (or dawn) for that very reason.
In a manner of speaking, we are, as a society, fumbling around in a kind of twilight. Unless we turn on the "light" of the Word of God, we will inevitably suffer a "crash" who's price is too steep to pay!
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