Making Dark Into Light

 “Who can bring purity out of an impure person? No one!”— Job 14:4

       You have heard of the “Bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.” Loch Lomond is one of the most beautiful lakes in Scotland and there is a very pretty song that is sung about it, which says:

Oh, you’ll take the high road
And I’ll take the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland before you,
But me and my true love
Will never meet again
On the bonny, bonny banks
Of Loch Lomond.”

       Well, near Loch Lomond, on the mountainside there is a little lake called Fairy Loch. You know in Scotland loch means lake. If you look into the beautiful waters of this little lake you will see a great many colors. It looks as if the rainbow were playing in the water. The coloring, of course, comes from the strange tinted rocks and sands at the bottom, but that is not why it is called “Fairy Loch. ,, I will tell you why.
       A long, long time ago, when the land was full of fancies and fairies people found that the fairies played around this little lake and that many strange and wonderful things were found there. They discovered that when garments were left by the water’s edge they changed to a different color, and that if they left something to be dyed, and a thread beside it showing what color was wanted next morning the garment was changed into that very color. One night a shepherd left on the edge of this little mountain lake the fleece of a black sheep and beside it he put a white woolen thread to show that he wished the black dyed white. The fairies were at their wits’ end. They could dye a white fleece black, or even red, or blue, or yellow, but they did not know how to change a black fleece into a white one, and in their despair they threw fleece, thread and all their colors into the lake and from that time on the lake has been called Fairy Loch and the water has a rainbow appearance. That is a very pretty story and it helps us to understand how difficult it is to make a black thing white. Job asked the question, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” which is the same as saying, “Who can make a black fleece white?”
       Sometimes we can do it. Queen Victoria once went to see a great paper mill, and there she saw dirty and filthy looking rags. Then she saw the men take those rags and wash and clean them and make them into pure clean white paper. After she got home she received a beautiful box of fine white stationery, all engraved with her name. That was making black things white, and bringing a clean thing out of an unclean.
       Sometimes nature can do it. You remember the old tale of Hercules, the strong man of Greece, turned the waters of the rivers Alpheus and Peneus into the foul and dirty stables of Augeas, king of Elis, and made them pure and clean and fresh in a single day. But sometimes neither man nor nature can bring a clean thing out of an unclean condition. Who can make a dark heart turn into something full of light? Who can make unclean thoughts clean? Who can change dark desires into pure Christ-like purposes? Only God can. God can change darkness into light, so we pray:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

       Only God can cleanse us and make our hearts white and pure. He tells us that though our sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. When those who had been redeemed were seen the question was asked, “These that are arrayed in white robes, who are they and whence came they?” and the answer was given: “These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
       God can do what men and nature and all the fairies in the world cannot do. He can make a dark thing light and can bring a clean thing out of something that is unclean. Kerr

“Bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.”