In verse 8, God says to believers that their light shall break forth like the dawn. Some of you can remember that once you were in darkness, but God in His grace brought light to shine. It may have been a gradual thing. It may have been sudden. But Jesus, the Light of the world, is the opposite of all

These people are diligent to go through all the forms of religion correctly. They assume, of course, that this is what pleases God and that they can commend themselves to God in this way. And then nothing happens like they expect. What they're trying to do is sway God's favour with outward religious forms. God sees the motivation, He knows

We're going to look at, in the first couple of verses here, dead religion in the professed people of God. Now, were these religious people that God is addressing? Yes. There are many religious people out in the world who, spiritually speaking, are dead. It's what sometimes people call formalism. It's when you are acting like the godly, but you

The wicked are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. For them, there is no peace. Now, they may think their way is more pleasant. They may think it's more sensible, more rational. They may think that their ideas are calculated to bring them the life that they want. They will define

The sad fact is, that Christians still sin. We don't like it anymore, and it doesn't consume our lives like it did once before. And we're getting away from it more and more. But it's still there. There are many Christians who have significant, nasty struggles with sin. There are some Christian people who have problems with ongoing temptation, who