LIGHT FOR THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS
Matthew 4:16
“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.”
Matthew did not quote from Isaiah correctly; I think he purposely alters it. Isaiah speaks in his ninth chapter of a people that ‘walked in darkness’; but here the evangelist speaks of a people who ‘sat in darkness’. That is a state of less hopefulness. The man who walks is active; he has some energy left and may reach a brighter spot; but a man sitting down is inactive and will probably stay where he is. ‘The people which sat in darkness’—as if they had been there a long while and would be there longer yet. They sat as though they had been turned to stone. They ‘sat in darkness’ probably through despair; they had, after a fashion, striven for the light, but had not found it and so they gave up all hope. Their disappointed hearts told them that they might as well spare those fruitless efforts, and therefore down they sat with the stolidity of hopelessness. Why should they make any more exertion? If God would not hear their prayers, why should they pray any longer? Being ignorant of his abounding grace and of the way of salvation by his Son, they considered themselves as consigned to perdition. They ‘sat in darkness’. Perhaps they sat there so long that they reached a state of insensibility and indifference; this is a horrible condition of heart, but, alas, a very common one. They said, ‘What does it matter, since there is no hope for us? Let it be as fate appoints; we will sit still; we will neither cry nor pray.’ How many have I met who are not only thus in darkness, but who are half-content to dare the terrible future and to wait sullenly till the storm-cloud of wrath shall burst over them. It is a most sad and wretched condition, but what a blessing it is that this day we have a gospel to preach to such.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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