Finally, the life of Messiah, whose life

was the light of men, could no longer be

found. The last of the overcomers died or

were put out of the churches by men like

Diotrephes, who forcefully suppressed

any perceived threat to their solitary

authority, or interruptions to their windy

monologues (called sermons today).

Nightfall

Unlike The sun, which is proMiseD to

shine as long as the earth endures, the light

of revelation from God was only given to the

humble, the ones willing to do his will. such was peter

when he proclaimed that Yahshua was the Messiah, the

son of the living God. such men and women were the

only ones with the life of the son.

Darkness spreaD

over The lanD

as the last lampstands

were taken out of their places,

when each church could no

longer make the confession of

1 John 4:2. This meant, as the

king James translation accurately

puts it, that fewer and fewer

churches could honestly say that

the savior was incarnate in their

midst. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.

(1 JoHn 4:2 KJV)

IT WAS NOT A DOCTRINAL ISSUE

that caused John the apostle to

write the letter called “1 John” to

the churches. It was a deeper issue regarding

the people’s rejection of their Savior. He

was no longer welcome in their midst. His

words were given lip service, but the people’s

hearts were far from Him. They were drifting

further and further from the amazing life the

early communities had, which was described

at length in Acts 2 and 4. This love in action,

made possible by His grace, was the faith, or

persuasion, that Jude had exhorted them to

contend for in his letter. He was not speaking

of a collection of doctrines about what it

meant to believe.

This was JusT whaT

The MasTer warned

the ephesians was coming

upon them in revelation 28 if they

did not do the deeds they had

done at first. Tragically, this warning

came just forty years after paul

had admonished the same church

to love Messiah with an undying,

incorruptible love.

When The coMMuniTies

ceaseD To be the very

incarnation of Messiah, then

the darkness Yahshua predicted in John

9 fell on the earth: I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

(JoHn 9:4-5)

night fell as the church changed her

very nature, a change seen intellectually

in defining faith not as the persuasion

of the holy spirit to do the will of the

Father, but instead as the acceptance of

a set of beliefs.

SUCH MENTAL BELIEF RESULTED

IN THE detachment of belief from

the heart, which only mirrored

the detachment of believers’ lives from one

another. The many sayings of Yahshua and

His apostles to love in deed and truth, to

abstain from the lusts of the world, to turn

their backs on riches, power, and earthly

comfort, lost all power to command. The love

of Messiah no longer compelled anyone to

actually obey His words, proving that those

who claimed to love Him lied — first to

themselves, and then to the world.

So The Darkness Messiah

prophesieD oF in John 9 only

deepened and darkened as the

spores of this lethal new belief spread

from church to church. eventually, she

indulged in cruel ill-treatment of all who

questioned or doubted her. This lifeless

belief and cruelty spread over all the earth

and down many centuries of time. it was

the exact opposite of the witness of the

kingdom that Messiah prophesied would

one day be seen by the whole world. in

spite of rivers of words to the contrary,

this false gospel had no power to release

anyone from his contract with sin and

death, which held undisputed sway again

over the whole world as soon as night fell.

ThereaFTer, The onlY “liGhT” people coulD relate to

as they read their bibles longingly, wonderingly, was the light of

the sun in the sky, and the fruitfulness of the fields on the earth

below, to remind them of the time when another light was shining. The

willing hearts of those men, gathered in communities, had been like God’s

fruitful gardens, bearing the fruit of the spirit. Yet soon, it was only ancient

history, hidden in the past, untouchable in the present.

STILL, AS THE LIVES OF THE apostles and first

disciples became the stuff of legend, the simple

stories and profound parables of the Savior about

farming, fishing, baking, and treasures hidden in fields, lived on.

Those words continued to fill men with hope. Perhaps the

day would come again when that same light would dawn on

the earth, breaking the terrible spiritual darkness covering

the world after the death of the early church. It had been

smothered in a potent mass of spiritual infection and disease,

like so much smut feeding on the memory and the very

words of that Savior and His apostles, just as the parasitic

fungus called smut feeds on corn. Like that dark fungus, the

men in their soiled, stained garments — the black robes of

the clergy — spread an entirely different life from the one

found in the true seed of the Word.