Swing/AWT/SWT :: How To Turn On Light Through ActionPerformed With OpenGL Java

I'm writing a java program with opengl and I'm trying to get it where the user would select something like lighting on in a JMenu and then it would turn the lighting on in the house/barn... I have a method called LightOn that I put gl.glEnable(gl.GL_LIGHT0); but it just doesn't seem to turn on when I call it from the action performed... Is there something I'm missing from my code that I'm supposed to use instead since I have tried it with a boolean.. So the boolean starts off as false and when the JMenuItem is clicked the actionPerformed will turn the boolean to true and call the method LightOn. In the display method I have what the light is supposed to be

Snippet of code in display method for lighting:

float [] whiteLight = {1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f};
float [] ambientLight = {0.1f, 0.1f, 0.1f, 1.0f}; //default
gl.glLightfv(GL2.GL_LIGHT0, GL2.GL_DIFFUSE, whiteLight,0);
gl.glLightfv(GL2.GL_LIGHT0, GL2.GL_SPECULAR, whiteLight,0);
gl.glLightfv(GL2.GL_LIGHT0, GL2.GL_AMBIENT, ambientLight,0);
float [] lightPosition = {25, 25, 25, 1};

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