Part 9 March 3, 2013 Pastor Alan Wright We give You praise today in this place and we worship and honor and glorify You as the King of kings and the Lord of lords! We lift You up Jesus. You are enthroned in our praises. Inhabit the praise of Your people. We thank You Lord for what You have done for us. We thank You for what You are doing at this very moment and all that You still are to do. We are so thankful Lord that You have accomplished on the cross the decisive victory, and therefore we are assured that we have in You an advocate in the heavenlies. We are thankful Lord that You have silenced the voice of the accuser, for we have been made holy and blameless in Your sight by the blood of the Lord Jesus, and we worship You! We thank You for a day of healing. We thank You for a day of transformation. We thank You for the opportunity this day to turn our hearts to Your living Word. We thank You that Jesus is active in this Word, and that You are powerfully at work right now in this moment. We are expectant of all You have to say to us and all that You will do in these moments together. We thank You for a day to celebrate and give You glory! Continue to move in our midst. We love You and we bless You, Lord. We give You all the praise and all the honor and all the glory in the precious, precious and wonderful name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. D id you hear about the preacher who was trying to proclaim the importance of holiness? He had three jars, and three worms. He lit a cigarette and put it in the first jar so that it filled up with smoke. He then held up a wiggling worm and said, Is this worm dead or alive? The congregation said, It s alive! He dropped the worm into the smoke-filled jar, and momentarily the worm quit wiggling. He held the jar up again and said, Is this worm alive or dead? Everyone said, Dead. Then he moved to the second jar and dumped some whiskey into it. He held up a worm and said, Is this worm alive or dead? The congregation said, Alive! He then dropped the worm into the whiskey jar, and in moments it was motionless. He said, Is it alive or dead now? Everyone said, Dead. He got to really meddling with the third jar and put some chocolate syrup down in the bottom, held up the worm, and said, Is this worm alive or dead? It s alive, the congregation said. He dropped it down into the chocolate syrup. Moments later the worm was lying there motionless and he said, Alive or dead? And they said, Dead. So the preacher called out and said, What do you learn from this lesson? It was quiet for a while until a woman in the back pew raised her hand and said, Well, I guess if you smoke, and drink, and eat a lot of chocolate, you won t get worms! Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved
To be holy means to be set apart for very special use. Are you ready for some good news? In Christ, you have been made holy. You are no longer ordinary. You are no longer profane. You are no longer vulgar. You are set apart unto Him and in Him you are yourself holy. Nothing can change that fact. W e ve seen a number of stories about the lives of Daniel and his three friends after they were exiled out of Jerusalem and deported to Babylon under king Nebuchadnezzar a little before he ultimately sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 587 BC. It is now some fifty years later, and in the fifth chapter of Daniel we see the ruling king, Belshazzar, throwing a drunken feast. DANIEL CHAPTER FIVE 1 King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his Lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine... A better translation would be, once he had really imbibed. Belshazzar is now quite intoxicated.... commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3 Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. In the middle of the festivities, for some odd reason, the Babylonian tyrant orders his minions to fetch the holy vessels of gold and silver that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem. They bring in the holy vessels of Israel and drink themselves drunk in an idolatrous orgy as they praise the gods of gold and silver and bronze, iron, wood and stone. Before we move next week to the famous story of the handwriting on the wall, I want to pause here and think on these holy vessels, these golden goblets, so vilely desecrated. Why is this story even here? HOLY VESSELS The golden cups the Babylonians defiled that night were not new vessels. Some of them probably dated to the time of Moses. Along with the tabernacle, various holy vessels were assigned to the holy place to be used only by the Levites in their service of God. Centuries later, when King David was making preparations to build the temple, those original vessels were brought to Jerusalem along with the ark of the covenant. When Solomon finished work on the temple, 1 Kings eight describes the celebration: 2 And all the men of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month. 3 And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. 4 And they brought up the ark of the LORD, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. The opening words in the book of Daniel make mention of the holy vessels: 1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. The golden goblets were considered trophies of war. They were, to the Babylonian empire, evidence that the God of Israel wasn t as mighty as their gods. It is those golden goblets that Nebuchadnezzar had seized fifty years earlier that, for some reason, Belshazzar decides to profane in his drunken party Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 2 March 3, 2013
on the very night that the handwriting on the wall will tell of his demise. Those holy vessels from the time of Moses and David and Solomon through the treasury of Nebuchadnezzar come into the idolatrous hands of Belshazzar and the Lord wants us to see this story and remember it. Why? It is perhaps to point to another Holy Vessel, taken out of Jerusalem as a spectacle... But, I get ahead of myself. HOLINESS What is holiness? Holiness is not what most people think. Most people think that holiness means wearing a long face, fasting often, and carrying a big Bible. People think holiness is about what you do, or, more appropriately, what you don t do. But holiness isn t about what you do. It is about something that has been done for you and to you. To be holy means to be set apart for very special use. I don t collect many things, but I do have something of a collection of coffee mugs. I have mugs from Disney World, from our trip to Chicago last summer, and from my trip with Bennett to UNC-Chapel Hill. [We visited the Duke student store, but there wasn t time to get a mug there...] My coffee mugs make me happy in the morning I pull out the mug from a great family trip and I remember all the good times. So those mugs are special mugs. They are set apart from the more ordinary mugs. I also collect logo golf balls, but only from special courses that I ve played, with two exceptions: one with a Masters logo and one with a Pebble Beach logo. I haven t played those two courses, but they are sacred enough to stand on their own merit. The idea is that I don t play with the logo balls that I ve collected from memorable spots. They sit on a shelf in my office. I don t want to risk losing them in a lake or in the woods. So, they are set apart. Here's a clearer picture of something that is set apart. I have a lot of golf caps, but a few of them are special because they came from Georgia and the hallowed grounds of Augusta National Golf Club. I own several of the Masters golf caps, but among those, one is extra special. In 2008, a South African golfer named Trevor Immelman won the Masters. A friend of mine was at the Masters that year and brought me a hat. Some weeks later, I was at a Holiness isn t about what you do. It is about something that has been done for you and to you. practice round of the golf tournament at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, and I decided to wear my new Masters cap. It so happened that I was at the right place at the right time to see Trevor Immelman as he was coming off one of the greens, and I pulled off my 2008 Masters hat, said, Congratulations on your Masters victory! and handed him my hat. So the 2008 Masters champion has autographed the bill of my 2008 Masters hat. That s pretty cool. My signed 2008 Masters cap is not, in and of itself, more valuable as an item of attire than my other Masters hats. In fact, the other Masters caps are not, in and of themselves, more valuable than my other hats purchased at various stores. But I don t wear the Trevor Immelman signed 2008 Masters hat for just any occasion, and you can t borrow it. It is set apart. In short, that is what it means for something to be called holy. It is set apart. Something happened to the otherwise ordinary hat to make it an extraordinary hat, and this is what happened to the golden goblets in Moses tabernacle that were preserved all the way to the time of Solomon s temple. They weren t just valuable (which they certainly were because of their gold content), they were holy, because they had been set apart unto the service of the Lord. THE UNHOLY FEAST The rightful king of Babylon at the time of this feast was actually a ruler named Nabonidus. But Nabonidus spent much of his time hundreds of miles to the south of Babylon for some odd religious reasons, and he had, evidently, fled Babylon anyway after a crushing defeat from the hands of the Persians. His departure left on the throne of Babylon Belshazzar, whose name means Bel [a pagan god] protect the king. It wasn t uncommon for a king to host a huge banquet for thousands. One historical source conveys that a Persian king fed fifteen thousand Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 3 March 3, 2013
When you accepted Christ as your Savior, you were set apart unto Him. You were made holy. He autographed His signature in blood over your life, and you belong to Him. persons daily, 1 and that Alexander entertained ten thousand guests at a marriage festival. 2 Interestingly, both Greek historians, Herodotus and Xenophon, testified that a banquet was in progress on the night that Babylon fell on October 12, 539 BC. It s puzzling that Belshazzar would throw such a party. With the Persian armies literally at the gate, did the king think he would build morale and encourage his people with a party? Was it to celebrate the absence of the rightful king Nabonidus, serving as something like a coronation of Belshazzar? Or, perhaps it was a customary pagan festival at that time of year. We re not sure why he held the banquet, but we are sure of its spirit. Ordinarily, a king was hidden from sight of his guests, but here Belshazzar deliberately sat in full view and took the lead. It was not only an idolatrous, drunken party it was pointedly defiant toward the God of Israel. Why retrieve the Hebrew holy vessels? What about all the other vessels from all the other wars against other nations? They used the holy, golden goblets to toast the pagan deities. Why those vessels? Why that night? Perhaps it was a piece of propaganda meant to encourage his soldiers and citizens that no other god has power over Babylon. Many interpreters have speculated, but, in the end, such sacrilege can only be described as demonically inspired. Belshazzar knew that the God of Israel had humbled Nebuchadnezzar and that Daniel had prophesied the fall of Babylon to the Persians. Nevertheless, Belshazzar became more and more defiant. A SPIRITUAL BATTLE TO PROFANE THE HOLY It is the aim of hell to take what is sacred to God and make it vulgar, to take what has been set apart as something holy, and give it the appearance of being absolutely ordinary. The enemy of God wants to profane the holy by proving that the vessels aren t anything special; that they can just as easily be used to glorify pagan deities; and, in the process of defiling the golden cups, to bring scandal upon the name of the God to whom those vessels were dedicated so long ago. This is the spiritual battle we are up against. This is the spirit of the Accuser, 3 the aim of your Enemy, to convince you that you are not holy unto the Lord, that you are ordinary. But you were made in the image of God. 4 You are, by your design, extraordinary, and when you accepted Christ as your Savior, you were set apart unto Him. In short, you were made holy. He autographed His signature in blood over your life, and you belong to Him. All the temptations that you face are plainly, simply enticements from the father of lies 5 to lead you to believe that you are ordinary and that you can be used for ordinary things. You are holy unto the Lord, and there is a battle raging to profane you. 1 Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical, On the Book of Daniel, Albert Barnes, ed. (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1853), LXII. 2 James Alan Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, (New York: C. Scribner, 1927), 250. 3 Zechariah 3:1; Revelation 12:10 4 Genesis 1:27, 5:1 5 John 8:44 Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 4 March 3, 2013
HOLY AND BLAMELESS A Finished Work of Christ The secret to conquering sin is NOT in trying to be holy, but in recognizing that you have been made holy. Many people tend to look at themselves as sinners who are trying to become holy, yet this is not the way the New Testament speaks about believers. When Paul writes to Christians, he calls them saints, which means the holy ones, the same root of the word that is used in Hebrews 10:10 to declare pointedly that we have been made holy [sanctified] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Our Destiny Over and over you ll see throughout the Scriptures the reassurance that we are holy people, so much so that Paul announces in Ephesians one that this was our destiny: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Not by Our Own Merit Holy and blameless. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of your own merit. If it was by our own merit, we would be blamed before God for all of our wrongdoing. We try to fight our temptations out of this fleshly notion, and we hear churches proclaim, you re such a sinner, and, you need to try to be more holy, when the fact of the matter is that the Gospel is far more glorious than all that. The Gospel has announced something that is absolutely finished in the Lord Jesus Christ. When you accept Christ, you are not only forgiven, you are repositioned and set apart unto God as was always your destiny from before the time that Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden. You cannot change the fact that you have been set apart unto God. Nothing can ever change that. When you recognize yourself as holy, you conform your life to your holiness. When you stumble into sin, you do not cease to be holy. You are, instead, acting contrary to your holiness. Roadmap to Victory When you recognize yourself as holy, you conform your life to your holiness. When you stumble into sin, you do not cease to be holy. You are, instead, acting contrary to your holiness. When you are set apart unto God, you cannot be otherwise. What this means, beloved, is that instead of saying each morning, Boy, I m a miserable sinner and a wretch, and thinking about all of the things you ve done wrong, it is far better to look at yourself for who you really are and say, I am holy. I m a holy, chosen one of the Most High God. Christians may find it difficult to announce this basic biblical truth over their life, but if you would start envisioning and confessing over your life this reality of who you really are, it would be your road map to victory. The path to spiritual victory does not come by any of our efforts to please God. Instead, having been found accepted and acceptable through Jesus Christ, we recognize that we are holy and we are far too special to be abused by the Belshazzar spirit of the world. Don t try to fight against your sin and temptations out of your flesh or out of your aspiration to be holy. Approach the spiritual battle from your posture of holiness. Those who gain victory over temptations do not do so by thinking, I ought to be more holy. Their victory is in realizing their bodies and their minds have been set apart unto the Lord. I m too holy for that. I m too special for that. That is not my design. My body is holy unto my wife; her body is holy unto me. We re set apart unto one another. When the prodigal son was wasting his life in a faraway land, he was, nonetheless, his father s son. That is why when he returned, his father wouldn t even listen to his speech about being a slave. He had always been a son, and he would always be a son. He was still set apart unto his father, but he wasn t Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 5 March 3, 2013
Don t try to fight against your sin and temptations out of your flesh, or out of your aspiration to be holy. Approach the spiritual battle from your posture of holiness. living like it. When he returned, he wasn t newly set apart as a son; he was simply returning to the only lifestyle that was fitting to him. You might live contrary to your holiness, but you are holy. You re a holy people, a royal priesthood, 6 and you are God s forever. 7 That s what a holy vessel is. THE GOLDEN CUP Important Symbol Interestingly, the cup becomes a very important vivid symbol in the Word of God. What is at first puzzling about the image is that it seems to symbolize opposite things. The cup sometimes represents great blessing, as in Psalm 23:5, My cup runneth over. But many other times, the cup symbolizes great judgment, indeed, the wrath of God, as in Psalm 75:8: For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. Again, Isaiah 51:17 calls out Awake, awake! Rise up O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes men stagger. Yet, Psalm 116 extols: 12 What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? 13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord... In the great story of Joseph, who suffered alienation from and then reunion with his brothers, there is an interesting twist in the plot. Joseph decides to test the brothers to see if their hearts have really changed. Would they turn on their youngest brother, Benjamin, if need be to save their own necks? To test them, Joseph takes his own silver cup 6 1 Peter 2:9-10 7 John 10:27-28; 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and has it secretly placed in Benjamin s sack. Shortly thereafter, Joseph s servants confront the brothers, announcing that someone has stolen Joseph s cup. When they search the bags, they of course find the cup in Benjamin s sack and they are horrified. The cup seems to them the ultimate judgment and they fully expect the wrath of the prince of Egypt. But, in a glorious turn of events, Joseph sends all his servants away and, weeping aloud, he declares, I am Joseph. And he blesses them. 8 The cup the brothers thought would be their judgment and their death became the sign of their blessing. I ONCE HEARD SOMEONE DESCRIBE a particularly gruesome form of military punishment in ancient Rome. When an officer discovered disobedience within the camp but didn t know the actual perpetuator, he sometimes imposed a penalty that symbolized everything unfair. In an effort to bring full punishment, the officer would fill a cup with hemlock poison. To effectively punish the guilty troop, the officer would declare that the entire cup must be drunk. He would choose a random soldier to be the first to drink. Even a single swallow of the deadly hemlock could lead to death. But, if the soldier opted to drink only a sip, then the next soldier would also have to take a turn, and the next and the next. Many would die, unless that first soldier was willing to drink it all. If one man would drink the whole cup, the punishment was finished and all the others would live. A Cup of Blessing Figuratively, there was in the beginning a holy golden vessel. It was a cup of blessing, and it was given to Adam and Eve in Paradise. In that cup, there was the purest of nectar. It was overflowing with joy, with peace, with love. The cup was filled with beauty and truth. The beautiful vessel was teeming with everything lovely and hopeful and strong. Adam and Eve were told they could drink of the golden cup at their pleasure, as deeply as they would want; they could eat of the fruit of the trees in the Garden, but they were not to disobey by eating of 8 Genesis 44, 45 Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 6 March 3, 2013
In a mystery that defies understanding and begs belief, the sinless Son of God drank the cup of wrath. He absorbed into His very body the sin of the world. He drank it to the dregs. He became our sin on the cross. the one tree in the middle of the Garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A Cup of Sin-Drenched Poison But they did disobey, and when sin entered into the Garden, all that was beautiful was poisoned. Instantly, the cup was tainted with shame and selfabsorption and worry and covetousness and fear and lust. In that cup was not only the shame that Eve felt over her disobedience, but also her shame over bearing a child who would become a murderer. This holy cup was defiled, over and over. It passed from Adam to Cain and onto Cain s children. Generation after generation would drink from that cup. Every generation adding its own vile saliva, spitting and foaming with every putrid thing imaginable. That cup became filled with every unclean thing, from the tiniest error to the grossest expressions of sin. It was filled with rebellion and religion, with evil that paraded its defiance of God and the evil that hid behind a religious mask. In that cup was the poison that made every murderer drunk with hate and every abuser blinded by deception. That cup contained the poison that made the racist drunk with feelings of superiority and made the Pharisee intoxicated with legalism. Lest we think the cup s poison was infested only by those worse than we, we must remember that all have fallen short of the glory of God. 9 I spit in that golden goblet as did you. A Cup of Unimaginable Wretchedness It merged into a horrible concoction of death. Whoever would drink of it would die for sure. But it wasn t just the certain death that was to be dreaded in drinking this cup. It was the agony of soul. For in that cup that was so filled with every bit of dirtiness this world has known, there would also be an 9 Romans 3:23 ingesting of the shame of the world with all its loneliness and isolation. If you remember how you feel when you have been at your worst, and there is no one to reassure you that you are still loved, you have only begun to imagine the loneliness that overtakes the one who drinks this cup. If you have ever felt so ashamed that you would want to hide from all the world, ever felt mocked and humiliated with no one standing up for you multiply such shame a million times a million and you can still not begin to imagine the wretchedness of that cup. MADE HOLY It is that cup, that cup of wrath, that cup of vile, sin-drenched poison, that Jesus spoke of when he sweat blood in the garden whose name means olive press saying: Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. And then, the Savior added, Yet not what I will, but what you will. 10 In a mystery that defies understanding and begs belief, here s what the sinless Son of God did. He drank the cup of wrath. He absorbed into His very body the sin of the world. He drank it to the dregs. He became our sin on the cross. 11 Then, to all who would believe in Him, the Lord would extend the golden cup of Eden s nectar. The cup that Satan had profaned became the cup that saved the world. 12 This is how you have been made holy. You have been rescued from sure and certain death. 13 You would have surely drunk from that cup and perished. But, instead, you have been set apart by the sacrifice of Jesus. You were made holy. And as such, you are 10 Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36 11 2 Corinthians 5:21 12 John 3:16-17 13 Romans 6:23 Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 7 March 3, 2013
To all who would believe in Him, the Lord would extend the golden cup of Eden s nectar. This is how you have been made holy. You have been rescued from sure and certain death. You have been set apart by the sacrifice of Jesus. You were made holy. invited to drink your fill of grace at the Lord s banquet. You have not only the privilege to drink from the golden cup, you are, in fact, that holy vessel. You belong to the Lord, set apart unto Him forever. THE GOLDEN CUP RESTORED What Belshazzar didn t know was that literally within moments of his desecration of the golden goblets, the handwriting was on the wall. That night, a new empire would ascend under the Lord s design. Cyrus of Persia would arise and grant the Hebrew people the privilege of returning to their homes. Ezra chapter one tells the story: 1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: 2 Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel he is the God who is in Jerusalem... 7 Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. 8 Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. 9 And this was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 10 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; 11 all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. T he Golden Cup was restored to its rightful place in God s presence. The Holy Vessel, once abused by the world, never lost its holiness. Jesus, tossed and battered, mocked and crucified, never ceased to be holy. Behold! He sits at the right hand of God forevermore. 14 And you, holy ones, are positioned with Him. 15 And THAT S the Gospel! Father we are thankful for the cup of the New Covenant. Yes, we are thankful to drink in deeply of Your goodness, of Your grace, of Your mercy; to drink in deeply of Your healing virtue and of everything that is good, of everything that is right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy. It is, Lord, in a moment like this where we are confident that we can come boldly to Your throne of grace, that we bring ourselves into Your very intimate presence, reminded that it is by the sacrifice and merit of the Lord Jesus alone that we come. In Jesus name, Amen. 14 Mark 16:19; Acts 2:32-33; Ephesians 1:20-21 15 Romans 8:16-17; Ephesians 2:5-6 Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 8 March 3, 2013
Closing Remarks You are so holy unto the Lord. As the holy vessels of the Lord, you are more precious and more set apart unto the Lord than you could ever imagine or know. You are so holy, so holy. You re holy in your rising, and in your lying down. You re holy when you re hard at work, and you re holy when you re laughing with your good friends. You are just holy unto the Lord. You re His forever, and nothing can ever separate you from Him. 16 Therefore, if we are His holy vessels, we re welcomed into the Holy of Holies, into the very holy, intimate presence of the Lord. I am so thankful for what He has done for us. Had it not been for Jesus, we would all drink of the cup of God s wrath, but because Jesus drank that cup in our place, we are all the same. We are all recipients of this marvelous grace, and therefore set apart individually and as one, as a holy nation unto Him, a royal priesthood. 17 May the Lord God bless you and keep you, and be kind and gracious to you, and make His face to shine upon you, and give you His peace, today and every day, forevermore. AMEN. 16 Romans 8:35-39 17 1 Peter 2:9 Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved. 9 March 3, 2013
Sharing the Light Ministries is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that offers healing and hope by sharing the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Visit www.sharingthelight.org to learn more about pastor and author Alan Wright, his books, audio products, podcasts, national radio broadcasts and conferences. Also discover how you can become a partner in sharing the light of Jesus Christ. Alan D. Wright 2012. All rights reserved