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Point of Inspiration: Devotionals for Personal and Corporate Worship
TREASURES IN PLACES OF DARKNESS
Isaiah 45:1—3
by Robert D. Pace
There is an ancient legend of three horsemen traveling at midnight. As they crossed a dry riverbed, the horsemen heard a voice pierce the darkness saying: “Dismount your horses and gather the stones beneath you.” Without hesitation, they leaped upon the ground and scrambled for stones. Minutes later, the voice said: “Remount and continue your journey; in the morning you will be both sorry and glad.” “Sorry and glad?” They couldn’t understand but they traveled on anxiously awaiting daylight. When the sun arose, they reached into their pockets to examine their take and discovered they had picked up diamonds, rubies, and emeralds! That’s when they remembered the voice: “In the morning, you will be both sorry and glad.” And they were! They were sorry they had not taken more but were glad they took what they did!
The Bible provides a similar story when the Lord tells Cyrus, “I will give you the treasures of darkness and wealth stored in secret places.” This passage from Isaiah 45:3 continues to fascinate Christians! While the prophet provided a contextual application to King Cyrus, He also provided a personal application to today’s Believers. When Scripture says God will “give us the treasures of darkness and wealth stored in secret places,” it’s implying that God will open our eyes to things that would otherwise remain unseen so we can claim that which would otherwise remain unclaimed.
Where does God store these treasures? Well, the “treasures of darkness” are stored in . . . of all places . . . darkness! And the “wealth of secret places” is hidden in . . . of all locations . . . “secret places”! Although these treasures lie in dark and secret places, God is not trying to hide them from us; He’s hiding them for us!
So, how do we make such acquisitions? Most people travel aimlessly through life hoping to get lucky! But this isn’t how God bestows this treasures. The Lord told us not to “cast our pearls before swine,” and He operates by that same principle. There’s three principles we can implement to acquire the “riches of his grace.”
First, obey God.
Second, maintain a spiritual mind. Romans 8:6 comports with this when it says: “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”
Three, be ever-determined and persevere with all your might. As the Lord promised Jeremiah, “You shall search for Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (29:13).
But there’s also a deeper, spiritual context in this passage. When God calls Christians into the darkness, He invites us into a deeper experience with Him. He’s asking us to trust him so we can see what only He can do for us. Notice how Scripture discloses this:
It was the “secret place” of Midian where Moses saw the “burning bush” and heard God’s call to deliver Israel.
Later, it was inside the thick cloud that covered Mount Sinai that Moses received the Ten Commandments. Did you know that the Ten Commandments is the greatest legislative document of human history?
Then there is the Father of our Faith, Abraham, who entered Covenant with God … at night.
Elijah stood inside a damp and dreary cave when God challenged him to continue his prophetic ministry by using a “still, quiet voice” (1 Kings 19:12).
I love the statement of King David, who in the simple terms said to the Lord: “You visited me in the night” (Psalm 17:3). Can you remember one of God’s nighttime visitations with you?
Although Jesus performed most of His miracles during the day, He found strength to bear the Cross as He prayed in the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane.
Do we willingly retreat into desert places to find God’s treasures? No, in most cases God forces us into isolation and into darkness. Some of you wonder why your life is so limited; why you’re always so “alone”; you wonder why you haven’t lived “largely” like other Christians. But could it be that God is responsible for sending you into isolated places and drawing the curtains of darkness around you or?
When I was young I would spend great amounts of time preparing sermons. I would enter my small church office and in solitude manuscript (word-for-word) my sermons. I would wring my hands, shake my head wondering what drove me to do such a thing. Why was I not scripting a simple outline to take into the pulpit? It made no sense for over a decade until the dawn of the Millennium and the Advent of the Internet. Then in 2003, I unwittingly started the website—PulpitToday.org. Since then, God has given the website millions of clicks, as its featured hundreds of Biblical writings. It took me twenty years before realizing why God drove me into that cramped church office to tediously script sermons.
So what has the Lord been doing with you? Maybe you’re not far from getting an explanation from Him. It just might be “Acquisition Time” for you very soon! I don’t know which treasure you hoped for when you began reading this message, but it’s imperative to know that God does not place your treasures in open and obvious places. As the Parable of the Ancient Horsemen discloses, God leads His people over dim paths and through thick darkness before exposing his riches.
I’ll close with a rich, one-verse story that Jesus disclosed in Matthew 13:44. No explanation is necessary; it speaks for itself, and is known as the Parable of the Parable of the Hidden Treasure. Jesus said: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” [NIV]
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