This sermon reflects on the encounter of the two disciples with the Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus, drawing parallels between the approaching darkness in the world and the need for Jesus to abide with us. It emphasizes the importance of not being sidetracked by worldly distractions and the necessity of seeking God's presence amidst the increasing darkness in the world. The message underscores the significance of repentance, removing sin, and striving for unity among believers to invite God's presence and revival.

This is about the Lord Jesus after his death and resurrection. When he met with the two disciples that were on their way to Emmaus. And when they came close to where they were staying to the village. The Lord Jesus acted as if he wanted to pass. And to go further. But they urged him strongly. Stay with us. For it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. And then he went in to stay with them. And this is the word they said, Lord abide with us. The two disciples were on their way to Emmaus. But then they met with a third person. Not knowing who he was. And they had a discussion on the way. But to shorten the matter, they said at the end, didn't we feel a warmth within when he explained and shared with us from the word of God. At this time the sun was going down. And then they said to him, stay with us. Because it's evening. It's getting late. It was getting dark outside and in the world. This reminds me of something. If we take this spiritually. We can say Lord stay with us. For night is falling across the world. We see darkness is setting in. In this world. All over in every aspect. It seems as if the sun is indeed going down. It seems as if we are really coming towards the end of this world. And the end of time. The Lord says, in the last days. There will be difficult times. The sun will grow dark. The sun will get dim. The moon will not shine. The stars will fall to the earth. And the powers of heaven shaken. Now I want us to take this spiritually. Heaven was made for the children of God. They who are the light of the world. The Lord said, if the light has gone dark. How dark will it not be on earth? It will be dark to the point that the powers of heaven are shaken. We know that we Christians are the light of the world. The Lord Jesus said, as I am in the world. You too are in the world. And you are the light of the world. Jesus is our son. But it is heartbreaking that the light of the Lord. Is not shining as bright as it should shine. In and through us. In Romans 8. Verse 19 and 22. It says that the earth. That the creation is groaning. Until the revelation of the sons of God. And of him. And his glory. The Bible says that the earth is groaning today. And is asking. When will the children of the Lord shine? Jesus is our son. In another place. Jesus is the son. The congregation, the children of God. Are the moon. And that we all should shine. Including the stars. In this dark world. Even the moon should shine. Because of the light of the sun. It is reflecting. The light of Jesus. Who says I am the light of the world. The stars of heaven are falling. You will remember in the new testament. That preachers. Are called the stars of God. The preachers, the ministers. Are the stars. Of the congregation. And then the word says the stars will fall. Jesus says in the last days it will be like that. How dark is it. Not in this world. But in the world today. Why? Because many stars. Have fallen. I remember. A president of a certain country. Writing a letter to me. And asking me. Why is it so dark in the world today? In spite of the fact. That there are so many preachers. Preaching. But still the rottenness. And decay. Is spreading. In such a way. What are you preachers doing. That it is like this in the world. What could I say? What should I have answered him? When he asked. What are you preachers. Doing? That it is like this. In the world. That everything is in such a state. Just look here in South Africa. In Africa and the world. How great. The darkness is. It is said that the people. Are fearful. Nations are not knowing what to do. Because of the noise of the oceans. The oceans. Are symbolic. Of the nations. In the world. Just look at the nations today. How they are. It is as if the leaders cannot rule. That they have lost control. Of their kingdoms. And their nations. Remember that the Lord Jesus said. In the last days. This would be the case. Of the situation. Of the world. Because the sun does not shine. As it should shine. That the light should be so bright. That it is dispelling. Darkness everywhere. You should enlighten. All the people around you. But. Today. Many people cannot even see Jesus. What are we? Ministers. Preachers. Are being pointed out. For the things they are doing. Which are bad. Why. Why is it so dark? What is the solution? Here when it was getting dark, the disciples said to the Lord, Lord abide with us, stay with us for it is becoming dark outside. Truly look at the world and see how dark it is. While we preachers who are supposed to be the stars in the darkest night, through whom Jesus should shine. And these two disciples said, come in, stay with us, it is getting dark. We too, everyone, every Christian should pray, Lord stay with me, stay with us, it is getting dark. That is the solution to our problem, that Jesus stays with us, because if God is for us, who can be against us? I would like to remind you of another word in the Bible. We find that in Exodus 33, when the children of Israel had sinned terribly against God, God told Moses, Moses, go and lead the people into the promised land. I will send an angel with you, who will destroy all your enemies, but I won't go with you, I'm going to stay back. And he said, Moses, what I swore and what I promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, saying I will give that land to your offspring, I will keep that promise. You will be able to conquer your enemies, but I will send an angel, I won't go myself. And Moses said to them, if your presence will not go with me, carry me, don't carry me up hence, don't lead me there, if you personally won't be with me. I won't go further, you can read that at home. The children of Israel had sinned against God, stirring up his wrath and anger. And then God came down and said, Moses, these people are evil, they don't obey me, they do not submit to me, they don't bow before me and listen to me. Now I lead them into the promised land that flows with milk and honey, into the promised land, but I personally won't go with you. I will send a great angel to go with you. And to be with you, that you will conquer all the nations, and enjoy the inheritance of Canaan. This land flowing with milk and honey, and Moses answered, now just listen to what Moses would have said. Maybe we would have said, oh Lord we are so thankful, you will give us victory over all our enemies, there will be great blessing for us, in that land where milk and honey flows. And Moses said, God, if you don't go with us, don't lead us there. We don't want Canaan, we don't want those promises fulfilled. We don't want to be led by a great angel, that he should be with us. Moses was a great man, he didn't rejoice, he didn't say thank you Lord, we will receive the inheritance, we will conquer our enemies, and the angel of the Lord will be with us. But Moses said, Lord, if you yourself, that is God himself, don't go with us, then don't lead us there. So, to Moses, God himself was greater than the promises and the blessings they wanted. God himself was more precious to Moses than conquering their enemies. Conquering the enemies without God, with the help of an angel, he said, no, I want God himself. He wasn't sidetracked by anything else, and not by the world, and the marvellous promises. Paul says that our spiritual life should be like running a race, running to win the prize. Such a person doesn't look this way, or that way, he doesn't allow himself to be sidetracked in any way. He just runs, aiming for the goal, for the prize. Now, I would like to use an example. A certain king had a beautiful daughter. Many young men wanted to get married to her. And they came, and over and over again, proposed and asked the king whether they could get married to the princess. Then, eventually, the king thought of something. He says, I'll make a competition. I want the young men to run, to run a long distance. The one who wins, the one who gets there first, will get the hand of my daughter, the princess. She was a beautiful girl. So, he called all these young men that had proposed to get married to the princess together. And he explained to them the way they should run. And he says, the person who gets there first can get married to my daughter. But you know what he did? He took a shoe made of gold, a golden shoe, and put it close to the road they were going to run. And then there was a young man who was far ahead. He could run very hard. And when he was still far away, he saw something glittering in the sunshine like gold. He was out far in front of all the others. But when he got to this glittering thing, to that beautiful shoe of genuine gold, he looked at it from all sides. And he ran toward the shoe, and he took that golden shoe. And he spent quite a while looking at this bright, pure gold shoe. So long that he suddenly realized that those that were far behind him were before him now. So he left the shoe, and he ran again. But he couldn't catch up with those that had run before. He ran with the shoe, and when he got to the king, he presented that golden shoe to him. And the king said, no, I didn't ask for a golden shoe to be brought to me in this race. I said the one who will win and get here first will get the hand of my daughter. No, I don't want you. You've come with a shoe. And the princess was taken by somebody else. So we have got to be careful that we don't get sidetracked in any way. Not that we see the glitter of this world on our way to heaven. Taking, finding that gold, and then losing the reward for which we are running. This man was running very, very, very well. He was far ahead of the others, but because of that shoe, he lost the princess. Paul said, Demas has forsaken me. He's loving the world. Now brothers, we are called to be stars. Preachers of the gospel in the churches. We should be the light of the gospel in this world. We must be careful and make sure that the light is shining. The light which is Jesus. So that people will see the Lord Jesus being visible in our lives. Now I want to use another example. In America, there was a conference, ministers conference once. They hired a big hall, where 800 ministers could sit. At the end of the ministers conference, one of the people who was working in the hotel, came to a minister and asked him, what for did these people come here? He said, oh, it's a ministers conference. Preachers. He said, do you know that since we have been here in this hotel, we have TV with a porn channel. And since I am here, we have never been as busy as it has been during this conference. The porn channels have never been so busy as with this ministers conference. You see, the stars have fallen. The stars have fallen. He said if we have a conference of worldly people, we are not as busy as during this pastors conference. This pours shame upon us. We should be embarrassed. We should be ashamed. Preaching and at the same time, looking at such things. Porn, naked pictures. We should be shaking the foundations of hell. But hell is bringing us down. So that we fall from a high position, a high place, and don't shine anymore because of having fallen. You remember I told you about the president who had written me a letter. And he said, why is it like this in the world? What are you preachers preaching? Didn't Jesus tell us, sending us, go to all the nations, making disciples of all the people, right to the uttermost parts of the earth. Teach them to keep my word. Once again, I'd like to say, what does it look like in this world today? Politically, the Muslims, wars, people dying, the killing of children, people's heads being chopped off. While we, who are supposed to be the stars that shine into the dark place, have fallen. Another point I'd like to mention. Why is it like this? And I'd like to say it's because of a lack of harmony amongst God's children, and missionaries, and preachers. I don't forget what I've heard years ago. That 60%, 60 out of 100 of missionaries can't live together in harmony. There is friction, there is conflict, the one can't get along or get on with the other one. Both are missionaries, preaching to the heathen, but they can't get along together. What shall we say about such a thing? How terrible that we preachers of the gospel part, and then we can form different groups. Divisions. One looking this way, the other one the other way. No unity. May I add this? We are worthy of hell. But what is it like today amongst us brethren? Amongst us Christians, what is it like? In a meeting in 1415, Jan Hus, who was a brief reformation hero of God, was burned at the stake. History has it that at the meeting of theirs, of those priests and fathers, they were used to it that if there was a big meeting, whether of the army or whichever people, all the prostitutes from all over the world would go there to be available. The prostitutes said that they had never got as much money as at that meeting. Even more than when there was a soldiers meeting. Or when the church people were there, they didn't get as much money as at this time. John Wycliffe of England, who translated the first English Bible, was already dead for some years at this time. John Wycliffe of England, who translated the first English Bible, was already dead for some years at this time. They went to his grave, the priests took him out of the grave, and took his bones and burned them. That is what they were busy with, that the servants of God would be burned and killed. Why was it like that? Because they were living in sin and swimming in sin. They had stopped preaching the gospel and were busy with immorality and gossip. Now, the condition for God being with us, can I still carry on or are you too tired already? You're not too tired. Stephen says no. What does Nico say? He can't hear us. And what does Alex say? What do you say? Does he have to stop? He shakes his head. Friends, it is not sufficient just to say, Lord abide with us. God came down and spoke to Moses and said, Moses, I will never go with you. I will send an angel to go with you. But Moses said, no. God, you, a holy God, if you don't go with us, don't take us there. I don't want to go there. And God said to Moses, I'm angry with this nation of Israel. This nation is stiff necked. They do not obey me. It was true. When he was on the mountaintop, the children of Israel made a golden calf. God said to Moses, if you want me to go with you, you must part from sin. If we want God to be with us, we have to part from sin. You must expose your sins. And you've got to make right the sins in your lives. You must remove all the things that are not right. Get rid of it. He says, then I will be with you. So God says, if you want me to be with you, deal with that calf. But this one thing, did you hear our sister saying, this one thing, and here it was the golden calf. Get rid of that one thing. Now friends, I'm sorry that the time has gone already, and I've got to draw to a close. And yet I haven't reached the main point. Nevertheless, I have a question. Dear Christian friends, have we heard this? We pray for revival. We say we want revival. God come down. God be in our midst. But if we are still in our sins, fighting, arguing, hatred, then as children of God, we won't get anywhere. We say we want revival. God come down. But if we are still in our sins, fighting, arguing, hatred, then as children of God, we won't get anywhere. But if we are still in our sins, fighting, arguing, hatred, then as children of God, we won't get anywhere. I don't know, my friends, the disciples of Emmaus begged the Lord to abide with them. We might also be praying, saying, oh God, be merciful to us. Help us come down, Lord, and send revival. Work, Lord. But we sit in sin. We sit in sin. There's this golden calf, and we worship and serve this animal. If we want to be in our midst, God to be in our midst, and to abide with us, we have got to work on this calf and get rid of it. Break the neck of it. Grind it to powder. Destroy it. We must get rid of sin and every wrong. I think I've spoken enough now. May God grant that we won't just be hearers, but doers of his word. Otherwise, we may be found guilty on judgment day. Let's bow our heads and pray. Lord, we heard of the two disciples after your resurrection, that they asked you, abide with us. It's getting dark. And we've heard, Lord, if it's getting dark, there is only one thing that will help us, that you abide with us. Amen.