For mature Christians to enter into complete union with God, they may experience a period known as the “dark night of the senses” or the “dark night of the soul”. Pastor Kong Hee took the congregation through these terms in last weekend’s sermon.
Over the weekend of 18 and 19 March, the senior pastor of City Harvest Church, Kong Hee taught the church about a period of darkness that some Christians go through in their spiritual journey, known as the “dark night of the senses” and “dark night of the soul”.
At the start of his sermon, Pastor Kong introduced the church to four classical stages of the Christian faith, which are awakening, purgation, illumination, and union.
“First, there is an awakening. God is calling us out of our un-likeness into Christlikeness,” said the pastor. “Every encounter with the Lord is also always an encounter with our true selves. You will clearly see your un-likeness because of sin, a bad habit, or a character flaw.”
The pastor noted that the “awakening” is a necessary first step in a believer’s spiritual journey towards joy and wholeness. When one decides to partner with God to become more Christ-like, the Holy Spirit will begin to clean them and break the hold of unlikeness.
This process leads the believer into the second stage—purgation—which means to purify or to cleanse. The Holy Spirit will purify them by purging areas that are disruptive to their spiritual growth, such as sins or fleshly cravings.
The third stage—illumination—is when a believer lives and walks in the light of the Word, and in the light of the Spirit. Pastor Kong noted that those who live and walk in the Spirit will also have the power to obey the will of God (Rom 8:4).
Theologian John Wesley termed this as being “perfected in love”. A person is changed by God’s love, and this process continues until there is oneness—or union—with God. This final stage indicates the transformation of a believer from un-likeness into Christlikeness, eventually becoming one with God.
While every believer’s ultimate goal is union with God, Pastor Kong noted that it is impossible to achieve all four stages without the Holy Spirit.
“To be completely one with God, as much as it’s possible in this lifetime; and to be fully perfected in His love, having the full measure of Christlikeness as much as possible in this lifetime, this is not possible without the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul,” he said.
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SENSES
Pastor Kong clarified that the dark nights are seasons in a Christian’s life that are not caused by sin. When a believer first accepts Christ, He helps them break away from their sinful habits by blessing them. Soon, they are drawn to praise and worship, prayer and the things of God because of the joy in the Lord, the healing and miracles.
“Over time, Christians may become fixated on the miracles and blessings of God,” said the pastor. “We focus too much on those things until we miss the point, which is loving God.”
To move believers away from these fixations, God may withhold blessings, good sensations during worship and spiritual consolation from them. They will start noticing that answers to prayer come more slowly, blessings stop coming, and their worship lives become dry. They may even start to think that God has turned His back on them. This is the dark night of the senses.
However, God uses this opportunity to purify them—to help them love Him, and obey and trust Him even without the presence of good feelings or sensations. God wants His people to detach from things that are standing in the way of them coming into complete union with Him.
“God wants to bring you to the point where you need absolutely nothing but God alone,” stated Pastor Kong. “Paradoxically, in those dark nights, you will discover a ‘light’ that you have never seen before.”
However, Pastor Kong emphasised that only mature Christians who have already developed a lifestyle of prayer and meditation would experience the darkness of the senses. It is not for ordinary believers because they would simply give up once they cannot feel God or when their prayers are not answered.
Christians tend to restrict God to the narrow limits of their senses and their minds, said the pastor, challenging the church: “Can you love Him even when you feel nothing, sense nothing, and your mind just cannot compute what God is up to?” If believers only live in the realm of their senses and what their mind can reason, plan and control, then they become easily attached to the things of this world.
Pastor Kong used Job as a positive example. Job lost all his possessions in one day—even his own family—and he was struck with an incurable disease. However, even when he was unable to sense God’s presence (Job 23:8-10), he knew that God still loved him and that God was still working in his life to purify and refine him. He had the assurance that he would eventually “come forth as gold”.
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
The late Mother Teresa of Calcutta had many encounters with God at a young age—she even heard the audible voice of Jesus many times. But one day, God took all these away. In the book I Loved Jesus in the Night: Teresa of Calcutta―A Secret Reveal, it was revealed that Mother Teresa could not feel the presence of God for decades.
“Why? Because God wanted her to fall in love with His will, which is what she did. She fell in love with the will of God, which was to serve the poorest of the poor,” said Pastor Kong.
God withdraws Himself in the dark night of the soul, leaving the believer with a profound sense of abandonment. “God doesn’t just withdraw the blessings and spiritual consolation, God withdraws Himself, He hides His face, and He makes His presence very, very faint,” described the pastor. “Can you still love Him even though you feel that He has abandoned you?”
In the Gospels, Jesus cried into the darkness when He sensed God’s absence (Mark 15:34). But even when the Father was absolutely silent, Jesus still loved Him enough to do His will.
Theologian Frank D Macchia noted that the ultimate deliverance and declaration of faith come when a person can still affirm his faith and trust in God, even amidst utter despair and total abandonment.
The pastor reassured the church that the dark nights are only for a small minority of very serious Christians. “For those who can take the dark nights, God will do a divine surgery deep in your soul, which can be very painful,” he said. “But you will find a great detachment, a greater self-emptying, to come into a higher and more intense relationship with Him.”
HOW TO IDENTIFY A SEASON OF DARK NIGHTS
Pastor Kong explained that not every challenging time is a dark night—if one is suffering because of a sinful habit, one needs to repent. If a person is clinically depressed, he needs to seek professional help. A believer will know that he is in a dark night when the desire for God never goes away, even without experiencing spiritual sensations.
Sharing his personal experience, the pastor said that when he was in prison, he persevered in prayer despite having very little prayer answered. “I still wanted to be His loving, obedient son,” he explained. “I still loved Him and loved His will, even though I wasn’t sure anymore how His will would unfold.”
While most members of the church are not likely to experience these dark nights with God, Pastor Kong explained that he was preaching this message to bring awareness to the church that there are advanced places and greater depths in their journey with God.
“You must be prepared that in certain moments of your spiritual life, you must be willing to let go of things—even things that are not bad or evil,” he preached.
Citing an example, Pastor Kong shared about his love for computer games as a student. But as he grew in faith, he realised that he could no longer put so much of his energy and joy into computer games.
“We are too attached to too many things in this world: money, career, power, food, alcohol, fashion, partying, and sensual pleasures,” said Pastor Kong. “Most of them are not bad or sinful. But the more completely we want to focus on God, the more these stand in the way of perfect love and union. Because of the energy you must put into them, and the distraction that they bring to you.”
As believers grow in the Lord, they should also not be afraid of suffering, as this can lead them into deeper communion with God. In the New Testament, the saints rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for God’s name (Acts 5:40-41).
In closing, Pastor Kong shared about the prayer of a pastor that moved him deeply. Dr Norman Shawchuck, a scholar who suffers and eventually passed away from Alzheimer’s Disease, prayed this prayer when he was afflicted with dementia: “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will—all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. This is enough for me.”
When Dr Shawchuck’s condition slowly deteriorated, and his memory began to fail, he had also come to a place where he needed nothing but God.
“Our spiritual journey is a great love story,” said Pastor Kong, adding that in the pursuit of God, believers can leave everything behind. “Because this whole world pales in comparison to God, and to the love that He has for us.”
The pastor concluded by asking the church to consider the areas that stand between them and God, and to surrender those areas into God’s hands. He also prayed for those who need healing, financial breakthroughs and deliverance.
