To Bring the Light

Scripture References: Isaiah 55:1-2; Ephesians 5:19-20

Returning to his hut late one night after Bible study, Ernest Gordon thought he heard singing from another hut. He stopped and listened. It was singing. To the accompaniment of a stick on a piece of tin, the men along the River Kwai were singing “Jerusalem the Golden.”

Will Durant had a similar experience in Chicago. He wrote his wife that he had just heard church bells chiming some “touching old Protestant hymns.” One had been so moving that he cried aloud, “O God, how beautiful!”

Gordon thought that the hymn he heard was symbolic—of man’s ability to live in hope without worldly goods; of the light that shines in the deepest darkness, bringing life, banishing death; and of the victory humans have over weakness, disease, and loneliness. Even then, we can sing, we can worship.

Durant’s response was markedly different. The bells soon stopped, he wrote, “and the world proceeds on its agnostic way. . . .” As if to say he could believe in God as long as beauty expressed itself, but not in ugliness—as long as the music played, but not when it stopped. Yet God has so designed the world that his music is always playing somewhere, by someone. And when the music stops where they live, God’s people keep humming the tune!

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
Used by permission. All rights reserved.