Matthew 5:14

Ye are the light of the world.

Christians the light of the world

The Church can diffuse light.

1. By reflection.

2. By dispersing it. (L H. Evans, M. A.)

The Church of Christ the light of the world

I. These words as trey proclaim the redeemer.

1. These words proclaim the moral grandeur of His sentiments.

2. They show the Divine wisdom of His doctrine.

3. The prophetic grasp of His language.

II. These words as they specify the Christian.

1. Here is a distinction of persons-“Ye.”

2. A distinction of principle-“light.”

3. A distinction of efficacy-“light of the world.”

III. These words as they illustrate the world.

1. The world is dark in reference to God.

2. The world is dead, Christianity its salt. (R. Montgomery, M. A.)

Christians the light of the world

I. Vindicate the truth here asserted.

1. The world is dark.

2. A contrast to the gloom-of a principle, the antagonist of this moral darkness. Believers are “the light of the world.”

(1) As in their own souls they possess Christ.

(2) As in their life and labour they exhibit Christ.

II. Apply this truth to the case before us.

1. In the way of privilege.

2. In the way of duty and obligation. (F. Goode, M. A.)

I. Explain the symbol.

1. Light an emblem of purity.

2. Knowledge.

3. Action.

4. Unity.

5. Benevolence.

II. Enforce the doctrine.

1. The test of discipleship.

2. The criterion at the judgment. (W. W. Wythe.)

I. The world’s moral darkness implied. Jesus knew all the attainments of the earth, and He could appreciate their excellency and beauty too;… but nothing of all this could east light on the deepest problems that agitate the human heart-what must I do to be saved? Beneath the surface of all this beauty … we find lurking the most revolting immorality. It is the light of Christianity that solves the deepest questions and answers the most anxious inquiries of mankind. The object of light is to disclose what would be otherwise unseen. This light discloses God, the way to heaven, etc. This holy light possesses a peculiar character, which the light of mere science, literature, or secular knowledge has not and cannot have. And since its dawn, even those bright things that were proposed as substitutes for it, this light has seized and made handmaids to it. Science and religion need not be divided.

II. Christians are the bearers of this light into all the ends of the world. Kindled from the Sun, they are to go forth and cast their light upon the world. Our mission is to enlighten the sphere in which we are placed, etc. (Dr. J. Cussing.)

Keep the light bright or you will hear of it

I read somewhere of a traveller at Calais going one dark and stormy night to the lighthouse there. Whilst standing looking on, the keeper of the house boasted of its brilliancy and beauty, observing there were few such lights in the world beside. The traveller said, thoughtlessly it may be, “What if one of these burners should go out to-night? … What!” said the keeper, “go out, sir? Oh, sir,” said he, “look at that dark and stormy sea. You cannot see them, but there are ships passing and repassing there to every point of the compass. Were the light to go out from my inattention, in six months news would arrive from every part of the coast, that such ships and crews were lost through my neglect! No, no! God forbid that such a thing should ever occur. I feel every night as I look at my burner as if all the eyes of all the sailors of the world were looking at my lights, and watching me!” If such was his care of lights, the extinction of which could lead only to temporal catastrophes, oh I what should be ours!

I. The true disciple’s position and calling. His position is like that of a city set on a hill, eminently conspicuous; he “cannot be hid,” and he ought not to try to be hid. His calling is from the elevated position he occupies, to shed light upon the whole world.

II. The qualifications needed by Christ’s disciples for a right discharge of the duties of their position and calling (vers. 3-10):

III. The rewards of a right discharge of our duties as true disciples. The hatred of men, the esteem and love of men, the unspeakable blessedness of seeing others led by our influence to worship God (ver. 16; 1 Thessalonians 2:19), the approval of God (ver. 9), everlasting blessedness (vers. 3, 8, 12; Revelation 21:10). (The Preachers’ Monthly.)

These words are descriptive of:-

I. The genuine Christian’s character-”light.”

II. The Christian’s place and functions.

III. The Church’s responsibility. (James Stewart.)

Example is the source of the Christian’s most powerful influence on the world. In analyzing that power there are three or four elements.

I. It is the most successful method of illustrating truth and imparting instruction.

II. It is a demonstration of the practicability of religious life, as well as the truthfulness of Christianity, and the most successful method of removing objections to it.

III. It attracts attention.

IV. It is the most successful method of reproving wrong-doing.

V. It is also the most successful way of winning the esteem of the world. (Christian Age.)

Christian example a converting agency

When Lord Peterborough lodged for s, season with Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, he was so delighted with his piety and virtue, that he exclaimed at parting, “If I stay here any longer, I shall become a Christian in spite of myself.” (Anecdotes.)

Christian example an argument of weight

A young minister, when about to be ordained, stated that at one period of his life he was nearly an infidel. “But,” said he, “there was one argument in favour of Christianity, which I could never refute-the consistent conduct of my own father.” (Anecdotes.)

I. Christian professing. TO let our light shine is, undoubtedly, to make a Christian profession. This implies that the true light has been kindled in us. This Christian profession should be made in union with the Church of Christ.

II. Christian consistency. If the light which you let shine in your profession be the true light, there will be good works to be seen. The lowest requirement of Christian consistency is the absence of every evil work-the least immorality vitiates the entire profession. This Christian consistency requires nonconformity to the world, and the good works of an active Christian life.

III. Christian influence. This will be the result of Christian consistency. Our Heavenly Father shall be glorified by the influence for good we thus exert over the minds of those who see our good works. They will ascribe to God the power by which we have been made what we are. They will recognize the truth and Divinity of Christ’s religion, and many will be thus led to embrace it for themselves. How does the matter stand between our profession and our conduct? (W. S. Dewstoe.)

God glorified by our good works

I. Remove a difficulty which may have arises from an apparent inconsistency between our text and the words of our Lord in a subsequent part of His discourse. In the sixth chapter our Lord gives cautions against ostentation in religion. “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men.” It may appear from this that secrecy is necessary to prayer and almsgiving; but that it is not the lesson inculcated, is evident from the tenor of Scripture. Solomon prayed before an assembly. Daniel With regard to almsgiving, the Psalmist, speaks of it as properly exciting the esteem of men. “He hath dispersed abroad,” etc. The prohibition is of religious acts from a wrong motive, “that they may be seen of men.” The reproof of ostentation does not apply when the motive is already good. On the contrary, many advantages may arise to the cause of religion from the exhibition of piety. A Christian that hums with holy love to God cannot be-unnoticed.

II. How can men, the creatures, be said to glorify the creator? “God is the eternal fountain of all honour and glory, therefore, strictly speaking, cannot be dishonoured; He cannot but be glorified, because to be Himself is to be-infinitely glorious. God is glorified by our repentance-faith-charity. (H. Hughes, M. A.)

Glorifying God

And yet He is pleased to say that our sins dishonour Him, and that our obedience glorifies Him. Just as the glorious orb of day, prying into the recesses of rocks and valleys, receives from the glassy lake and the limpid stream, and from every bright object, beautiful reflections of himself, though nothing could be seen at all without his own light; so God, contemplating the race of man, though he finds among us nothing but what He Himself enables us to exhibit, discovers in every heart that is faithful, in every heart that is pure, in every heart that is holy, merciful, and kind, beautiful representations of His own sublime perfections, and these He is pleased to call glorifications of Himself, though they are made so only by His own gracious acceptation. (H. Hughes, M. A.)

The light of Christian example

1. The first thing to be done with a lamp is to light it. God alone can light you; teachers may polish.

2. The next thing to do with a lamp is to set it where it may be seen and give light.

3. A lamp must be fed with oil, or it will not keep alight.

4. A lamp must be trimmed if it is to give a good light. (H. J. Wilmot Buxton.)

I. That religion, if it exists, cannot be concealed.

II. That where it is not manifest in the life, it does not exist.

III. That professors of religion, who live like other men, give evidence that they have not been renewed.

IV. That to attempt to conceal or hide our light is to betray our trust, and hinder the cause of piety, and render our lives useless.

V. That good actions will be seen, and will lead men to honour God. (Dr. A. Barnes.)

The Candle

I. Consider the lighting.

1. A Divine work.

2. A separating work.

3. A personal work to every man who is the subject of it.

4. A work which needs sustaining.

5. It consecrates a man entirely to the service of light.giving.

II. Consider the placing.

1. Negative.

2. Positive.

III. The shining. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Lamp and the Bushel

I. A word about the great conception of a Christian man’s office which is set forth in this metaphor. “Ye are the light of the world.” Then our Lord goes on to explain what kind of a light it is to which He would compare His people-the light of a tamp kindled. Christian men individually, and the Christian Church as a whole, shine by derived light. Before the incarnation Christ was the light of men; also the historic Christ is the source of all revelation. Light signifies knowledge and moral purity.

II. The certainty that if we are light we shall shine. The nature and property of light is to radiate. All earnest Christian conviction will demand expression; and all deep experience of the purifying power of Christ upon character will show itself in conduct.

III. This obligation of giving light is still further enforced by the thought that that was Christ’s very purpose in all that he has done with us and for us. It is possible for good men to smother and shroud their light. We can bury the light of the Word under cowardly and indifferent silence.

IV. Let your light shine. Candles are not lit to be looked at, but that something else may be seen by them. Men may see God through our works. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

If you are not warming the world, the world is chilling you

If you take a red-hot ball out of a furnace and lay it down upon a frosty moor, two processes will go on-the ball will lose its heat and the surrounding atmosphere will gain. There are two ways by which you equalize the temperature of a hotter and a colder body, the one is by the hot one getting cold, and the other is by the cold one getting hot. If you are not warming the world, the world is freezing you. Every man influences all about him, and receives influences from them, and if there be not more exports than imports, he is a poor creature at the mercy of circumstances. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

No light apart from Christ

A sunbeam has no power to shine if it be severed from the sun than a man has to give light in this dark world if he be parted from Jesus Christ. Cut the current and the electric light dies, slacken the engine and the electric are becomes dim, quicken it and it burns bright. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The duty of letting our light shine before men

I. How shine. Because Christ has put light into His people, he does not intend it to be hid.

II. Why shine. Not to be seen of men. The Christian must show that he is earnest about religion. Habitual holiness is required. There must be a proper control of the temper. He must shine:-

1. As a member of society he must be blameless.

2. As a subject he must be orderly.

3. As a member of the Church of Christ he must show good will.

4. As a neighbour he must be accommodating.

5. As a father he will have proper regard for the spiritual good of his children.

6. As a son he will show the excellence of his principles.

7. As a master his Christian character must shine.

8. As a servant he will be obedient.

9. He must keep within the limits of his proper place. (E. Cooper.)

The importance of good example

Some suppose that they need not set a shining light, but keep from great irregularities.

1. The world, though corrupt, is very sensible of what Christian practice ought to be.

2. The withholding of a good example may be more fatal to religion than positive irregularities, because the turpitude of the latter destroys their power of seduction.

3. The scandal is, not to see religion opposed by unbelievers, but that Christians dare not maintain their religion with zeal and proclaim it as their greatest honour and glory.

4. It is not enough to be Christians only to ourselves, we must be so before God and men.

5. We are naturally inclined to imitation.

6. Not only the honour but the progress of religion depend upon your examples. The greatest praise we cam bestow upon a religion is to practise it. (S. Partridge, M. A.)

Christians the light

of the world:-

I. The positive injunction that Christians are to do all in their power to secure that their light shall shine as brightly as possible.

1. This is to be done by the position we take up.

2. By the character which we form.

3. By the exertions which we make for the conversion of our fellow men.

II. Look at the negative side of this injunction, which requires that we remove everything which tends to hide or obscure the light.

1. We should get rid of that undue reserve which keeps the real character from being as powerful an influence for good as otherwise it might be.

2. We should avoid all self-display. (W. M. Taylor.)

Christian Consistency

I. The primary and secondary purpose of the Christian life.

1. The glory of God.

2. The well-pleasing of men.

II. The means by which this witness-bearing may be the most effectually done.

1. Light is derived, and therefore humble.

2. Light is self-evident and consistent.

3. Then the light is a joyous and happy sort of thing. (W. M. Punshon.)

Christians the light of the world

I. Their character. All others are in darkness. Goshen only has light: Christians once dark; hut have received light.

1. The word light implies a saving knowledge of the truth.

2. Holiness of heart and life.

3. Happiness.

II. Their duty. Christians are made what they are to attract the world. Must use their blessings for the good of others, their knowledge, holiness, and happiness.

III. Their motive.

1. That they may see your good works, not yourselves, but your actions. Three things are necessary to render a work good.

(1) It must be done under the influence of faith in Christ.

(2) From love to God

(3) with a view to His glory.

2. That they may glorify your Father which is in heaven. (D. Rees.)

Spiritual modesty

What are the limits of lawful showing of our deeds, so that we may not break the law which bids us be secret?

1. The passage read to the end will remove the difficulty suggested. “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them.” Secrecy in good deeds is not absolute, but relative; not positive, and for its own sake, but in order to exhibit the vitiating effect of ostentation.

2. And so the text seems to offer the antidote to its own difficulty. “And glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” Your good works may be seen, and ought to be seen, but to God’s glory, and not your own. Not to let our works be seen when they ought to be seen would be to desert our Lord. This rule may serve for some external direction in this perplexed case. Let the separate deeds be hidden, according to the precept of the sixth chapter; let the general design of goodness be known, according to the text. But the principle guide in cases like these is not to be found so much in an external rule as in a spiritually enlightened discrimination, which feels instinctively when is the time for secrecy and when for publicity.

How dangerous to our Christian modesty everything must be which takes off from the delicacy of our natural modesty.

1. Do not fear that you incur any danger of ostentation in performing visibly such religious observances as your parents or teachers direct.

2. Be real, let all be really addressed to God.

3. Be consistent.

4. Be modest in other things. These rules will aid spiritual modesty. (G. Moberley, D. C. L.)

Lustrous Christians

1. Every man has a light peculiar to himself.

2. There is a right way of shedding light.

3. Men are to see the works, not the worker.

4. Men are affected by what they see. (W. W. Wythe.)

A good life the great means of glorifying God

I. The fact that there is a light possessed by Christians which peculiarly belongs to them. It is with borrowed rays that the Christian at any time illuminates others.

II. The duty of Christians to exhibit their light in a godly conversation. “See your good works.”

III. The end with a view to which the exhibition takes place. “Glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (W. Curling, M. A.)

The beauty of moral qualities

I. The moral qualities enjoined in Christianity are in the highest degree natural-not artificial or secondary. The human mind was constructed so that every faculty in its organization tends to produce good qualities. It is better adapted to good than bad. The bad is something interposed between the original creative design and the execution. Irreligion is artificial.

II. There is a moral constitution by reason of which Christian qualities seem admirable to men. The eye was not made any more for beauty in the outward world than a man’s moral nature was made for beauty in the moral world. Men oppose light and yet light is pleasant to them.

III. It is upon this state of facts that Christ ordained that men should carry their moral faculties up to the highest degree of excellence.

IV. The success of the gospel was made to depend not on preaching, but upon living men.

V. The impressions which a Church makes on the moral consciousness of the community in which it byes is a fair test of its life and power. (H. W. Beecher.)

I. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will naturally attract the eyes of unbelievers. By so doing will engage them in some serious reflections upon the Christian religion.

II. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians provoke men to a curious observation and examination of them, and also of the grounds and principles from which they proceed.

III. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will be a sure means of recommending them to the favour and esteem, love and friendship, of unbelievers; and consequently a sure means of gaining opportunities of conversing familiarly with them, insinuating truth into them, and making them willing and easy to receive it.

IV. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will so powerfully represent to unbelievers the reasonableness and excellency of the Christian religion, as well as the usefulness and advantage of it, towards the present and future happiness and well-being of mankind, that they will be led to examine into the grounds of it. Hence it appears that we ought frequently to contemplate the examples of good men, out of which there are so many and so great advantages to be drawn. We should learn in them to see our own faults, and to mend them. (Sir William Dawes, Bart., D. D.)

Christian example leads to the discovery of Christian sympathy

When the English minstrel went to seek for his master of the Lion Heart, he played everywhere the monarch’s favourite tune, and was at length rewarded by hearing its notes sent feebly back to him from the prison wherein Richard was confined. In like manner, if wherever you go you would sound out the music of your Christian experience, other hearts would respond to the melody, and your joy would be redoubled.

Christian example must be free from inconsistency

The visitor to a lighthouse is struck with the perfect cleanness of everything about the lantern or the lamps. The silver reflectors are burnished to the brightest purity, and every funnel and glass are absolutely without a spot. There must be nothing to mar the brilliancy of the light. So in us there should be nothing of evil to draw away men’s eyes from the light and fix them upon our imperfections. That there is light in us at all makes it all the more important that we should keep ourselves pure. You may have a window all covered with dust, and spun over with the cobwebs of spiders, that have not been disturbed for years, and the passer-by, in the darkness, will take no note of its impurity. But so soon as you put a light behind it you thereby reveal its filthiness to every beholder. In the same way the evil deeds of open and avowed unbelievers are taken no notice of by the world, for there is no light behind them. But so soon as a man becomes connected with Christ and His Church, the light that is within him will be sure to make manifest his inconsistencies to all around.

God, not self, the end of Christian example

The purpose of letting our light shine is, that God, not ourselves, may be glorified. In looking at a painted window, we think more of the artist and his picture than of the light. And there are many who put such devices on the window, through which the light of their characters shines, that no beholder is ever moved to think of God. The best style in writing is that which gives the thought with such transparency that the reader sees nothing else; and that is the noblest Christian character which shows the most of Christ. When I was a lad, in my native town, I knew a painter there whose favourite works were all portraits of himself, taken in different costumes; and one of England’s most famous poets produced a series of writings, in which his moody, misanthropic self was ever the central figure. So there are Christians among us who, while letting their light shine, contrive to paint themselves upon the glass of the lamp in which it is enclosed. Their song, like that of the cuckoo, is a constant repetition of their own name, and the listener is wearied with its iteration. Let it not be so with us. Let Christ be all and in all. It was Michael Angelo who, according to the beautiful illustration of a Boston preacher, placed his candle so in his pasteboard cap that his own shadow might not fall upon his work. Let our song be like that of the skylark, as he rises with dewy breast from his lowly earth-couch, singing as he soars, until, unseen in the deep blue above, he rains a shower of melody on the listening earth. It matters not though we be unseen, if but the light be clear; for then we are fulfilling the command. (W. M. Taylor.)

Christ shines into the world through the lives of His people

Do you ever pause to think out how it is that our streets are nightly lighted up? By that discovery, to which we have been so long accustomed that we have ceased to reckon it wonderful. A great central storehouse of coal-gas is accumulated, and with that all the lamps are connected by a hidden system of pipes, so that each is supplied with the necessary quantity; and, as the result, we can thread our way through the intricate places of the city as easily, if not as safely, by night as by day. The city is lit by lamps, and yet it is the gas that lightens it. Both statements are true. The gas would be unavailable without the lamps; the lamps would be useless without the gas. Now, similarly, Christ is the hidden source and centre of the world’s enlightenment; but Christians, united to Him by the spiritual tubing of faith, draw off from Him that influence by which they are enabled, each in his own place and in his own measure, to dispel some portion of the darkness by which they are surrounded. (W. M. Taylor.)

Christians must be receptive of light

Our measure of light will depend greatly upon the clearness and sensibility of our spiritual perceptive and receptive capacities. All the glass in the optical instruments, whether they are intended for scientific purposes, or for ordinary use, should be free from dross. (S. Slocombe.)

Work entailed by Christ on His people

1. A reflector of spiritual light.

2. A reproducer of this light.

3. A prism, analyrically solving this moral light, and exhibiting its beauties of colour. (S. Slocombe.)

Christian example not transient

Be not a flashing meteor, exciting transitory curiosity with thy blaze of profession.

Men more ready to shine socially than morally

Persons who are not averse to make all the show they can in social life are wonderfully sensitive about any disclosure of spiritual conviction or feeling. (Dr. D. Fraser.)

Th,e light to reveal the work, not the worker

It is thus that his own sun works daily in the heavens: who dares look at the sun when he so shines as to fill the earth with all the beauty of summer? We turn our eyes up to him and he rebukes us with darts of fire; he says, “Look down, not up: look at the works, not the worker.” So we may feast our eyes upon a paradise of flowers, and get much of heaven out of it, but the moment we venture to say, “Who did this-where is he? Show me the worker,” the sun answers us with a rebuke of intolerable light. (Dr. Parker.)

Hidden light dies.

If he persists in this selfishness, his penalty is sure. The light that is in him will wax dim and incur great risk of going out, because it is shut up, and not set to burn on the lamp-stand,where the fresh air may reach and feed the flame. (D. Fraser, D. D.)

Wanted, much wanted, bright Christians!

The figure of the house-lamp suggests domestic Christianity; that of the conspicuous city the more public and collective duty of Christians. (D. Fraser, D. D.)

Shine by expressed conviction

I do say that if the fountain never rises into the sunlight above the dead level of the pool there can be very little pressure at the main; that if a man has not the longing to speak his religious convictions, these convictions must be feeble. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The purity of example the primary care of the Christian

The lighthouse-keeper takes no pains that the ships tossing away out at sea may behold the beam that shines from his lamp, but all that he does is to feed and tend it. That is all you and I have to do-tend the light, and do not like cowards cover it up. Modestly but yet bravely carry out your Christianity, and men will see it. Do not be as a dark lantern, burning with the shades down and illuminating nothing and nobody. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

A good example a rebuke of evil

A good man or woman reveals the ugliness of evil by showing the beauty of holiness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Missionaries the light of the world

Look at the primitive Schwartz, at the devoted Brainerd, at the zealous Corrie, and many others; Oh! how Godlike was their employ. These were “ burning and shining lights “ in the darkness; these displayed the glory of the Saviour’s love and power to save, in the very midst of Satan’s empire. (F. Goode, M. A.)