As the Darkness Clears Away

by Thomas K. Ascol

This little book is meant to be used as a daily devotional guide throughout the Christmas season. It is broken into five sections of five devotions. Each section focuses on one passage of Scripture that is considered verse-by-verse. The book is designed for use as a personal or family devotion tool. Each individual study has some questions to help apply the passage and each section has a text to commit to memory. As a bonus, there are several original Christmas poems in this work from my dear friend, Dr. Tom Nettles that I am sure will be an encouragement to you.

As the Darkness Clears Away is a lyric from the old hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. It is my hope that this guide will be a helpful reminder this Christmas season that Jesus, the light of the world and giver of life, came and defeated death and darkness. It is through the life, death, and resurrection of our incarnate God that we can sing “That the pow'rs of hell may vanish, as the darkness clears away.”

139 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 6, 2024

About the author

Thomas K. Ascol has served as a Pastor of Grace Baptist Church since 1986. He has a BS degree in sociology from Texas A&M University and has also earned the MDiv and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. He has served as an adjunct professor of theology for various colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary, the Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, African Christian University, Copperbelt Ministerial College, and Reformed Baptist Seminary. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the Nicole Institute for Baptist Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

Tom serves as the President of Founders Ministries. He has edited the Founders Journal, a quarterly theological publication of Founders Ministries, and has written articles for various journals and magazines. He has been a regular contributor to TableTalk, the monthly magazine of Ligonier Ministries. He has also edited and contributed to several books, including Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry, Recovering the Gospel and Reformation of Churches and By What Standard? God's World...God's Rules. He is also the author of From the Protestant Reformation to the Southern Baptist Convention, and Traditional Theology and the SBC and co-authoring with Jared Longshore the forthcoming (2021) Strong and Courageous.

He and Donna have six children along with 3 sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law. They also have fourteen grandchildren.
See also Tom Ascol .

Reviews

[Callie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this advent book - had a good amount of depth, biblically sound, and touched on several aspects of the birth of Jesus that are not usually covered in devotional books. Probably in my top five advent devotionals!

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's nice to read an advent resource that doesn't try to make the advent season overly sad, dark, and somber. Ascol did a good job of presenting the elements of the Christmas story without straining to place it into a modern context and guilt-tripping the reader for not being shamefaced enough. As expected, there were no signs of any "woke" garbage at all. The only edit I would make is to remove the poetry attempts by Nettles. They felt unnatural.

[Lauren Rust · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best advent books I’ve read. Ascol hit the mark with this one in my estimation!

[Josh Gallegly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the last 3 weeks, I have really enjoyed the time spent going through this book with my wife and children. Ascol does a fantastic job compiling Scriptures from both the New and Old Testaments to show their relation to the birth of Christ and the significance borne in the text of each reference. However, I didn't enjoy the accompanying poems as much as the narrative explanation for each reference. There were also a few minor points of disagreement between my own understanding of the Scriptures and that of Ascol's, which is to be expected for any work discussing the Bible.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful Advent read! Jesus' birth was an act of war! Amen! ❤️

[Gabe Mira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and readable too. Best ending ever! I did not expect that, but good way to end the devotional.