On a night when the world plays with darkness, costumes, and make-believe, Paul reminds us that something far more real is happening: the night of this present age is slipping away, and the day of Christ is drawing near. Romans 13:12 calls us to recognize the time we’re living in and to respond by throwing off the old ways of darkness and dressing ourselves in the bright, protective “armor of light.” Tonight is not just about what others are doing; it’s about who you are becoming as a follower of Jesus.

The Night Is Nearly Over

Paul writes, “The night is nearly over; the day has drawn near. So let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12). He’s not talking about sunrise on a clock; he’s talking about the return of Christ and the end of this present, darkened world system. The “night” is everything marked by sin, rebellion, confusion, and spiritual blindness. The “day” is the reign of Jesus openly revealed, when faith becomes sight and every hidden thing is brought into the light of His judgment and glory.

That’s why Scripture presses us to live awake and alert. “For you are all sons of the light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as the others do, but let us remain awake and sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:5–6). On a night when many celebrate darkness lightly, God gently but firmly reminds you: You don’t belong to the night anymore. You’re a child of the coming Day—so your choices, your entertainment, your words, and your secret habits should all look like where you’re headed, not where you came from.

Laying Aside the Deeds of Darkness

“Deeds of darkness” are more than obviously evil acts; they include anything you feel the need to hide, excuse, or disguise. It’s the compromise you justify, the bitterness you nurse, the impurity you flirt with, the spiritual laziness you accept. Jesus said, “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light, for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes to the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God” (John 3:20–21). Coming into the light means letting God expose whatever you’ve been keeping in the dark—and trusting His grace more than you fear His gaze.

Tonight, as the culture plays with horror, fear, and superstition, let the Holy Spirit put His finger on any “costumes” you’ve been wearing—any roles, personas, or habits that don’t fit a child of God. Scripture commands, “Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). Laying them aside isn’t about moral self-improvement; it’s about repentance—turning from them because you love the One who drew you out of that life. You don’t negotiate with darkness; you renounce it, because you already belong to a different kingdom.

Putting on the Armor of Light

God doesn’t just tell you what to take off; He tells you what to put on. To “put on the armor of light” is to actively clothe yourself in Christ and His righteousness. Just two verses later, Paul says, “Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14). This is not pretending to be better than you are; it’s choosing, by faith, to live as someone covered, protected, and defined by Jesus—not by your temptations, your past, or the surrounding culture.

This armor is both defensive and offensive. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God are not props for religious people; they are real protection in a real spiritual battle. God says of you, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Tonight, while others dress up in borrowed identities, remember yours: chosen, holy, and armed with light in a dark world.

Lord Jesus, thank You for calling me out of darkness into Your marvelous light. Today, help me lay aside every deed of darkness and consciously put on Your armor of light. Strengthen me to walk openly as a child of the day so others may see You and be drawn to You. Amen.

To know God in the scriptural meaning of the term is to enter into experience of Him. It never means to know about. It is not a knowledge mediated by the intellect, but an unmediated awareness experienced by the soul on a plane too high for the mind to reach. Where then is the place of the intellect in Christian experience? And why waste time thinking when we know beforehand that thought cannot bring us to the knowledge that is most of all to be desired, the knowledge of God? The answer is that the whole biblical revelation is addressed to the intellect and through the intellect reaches the will, the seat of the moral life; if the will responds in repentance and obedience, the Holy Spirit illuminates the penitent heart and reveals Christ, the image of God, to it. What began as an appeal to reason (Isaiah 1:18) ends in a spiritual experience wholly above reason

I will bless thee . . . and be thou a blessing. - Genesis 12:2

There are two kinds of blessing which answer to one another - God’s blessing of man and man’s blessing of God. The one is communicative, the other receptive and responsive. The one is the great stream which pours itself over the precipice, the other is the basin into which it falls, and the showers of spray which rise from its surface, rainbowed in the sunshine, as the cataract of Divine mercies comes down upon it. God blesses us when He gives. We bless God when we thankfully take, and praise the Giver. God’s blessing, then, must ever come first. We love Him because He first loved us. Ours is but the echo of His; but the acknowledgment of the Divine act, which must precede our recognition of it, as the dawn must come in order that the birds may wake to sing.

Our highest service is to take the gifts of God, and with glad hearts to praise the Giver. Our blessings are but words. God’s blessings are realities. We wish good to one another when we bless each other. But He does good to men when He blesses them. Our wishes may be deep and warm, but, alas! how ineffectual; they flutter round the heads of those whom we would bless, but how seldom do they actually rest upon their brows! But God’s blessings are powers; they never miss their mark. Whom He blesses are blessed indeed. The channel through which God’s blessings come is - "out of Zion." For the Jew, the fulness of the Divine glory dwelt between the Cherubim, and the richest of the Divine blessings were bestowed on the waiting worshipers there. And no doubt it is still true that God dwells in Zion, and blesses men from thence. The correspondence in Christianity to the temple where God dwelt and from which He scattered His blessings is twofold - one proper and original, the other secondary and derived. In the true sense, Jesus Christ is the Temple. In Him God dwelt; in Him man meets God; in Him was the place of Revelation; in Him the place of Sacrifice. "In this place is one greater than the temple"; and the abiding of Jehovah above the mercy-seat was but a material symbol, shadowing and foretelling the true indwelling of all the fulness of the Godhead bodily in that true tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched and not man. So the great Fountain of all possible good and benediction, which was opened for the believing Jew in " Zion," is open for us in Jesus Christ, who stood in the very court of the temple, and called in tones of clear, loud invitation: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." We may each pass through the rent veil into the holiest of all, and there, laying our hand on Jesus, touch God. and opening our empty palm extended to Him, can receive from Him all the blessing that we need. There is another application of the temple symbol in the New Testament - a derivative and secondary one - to the Church, that is, to the aggregate of believers. In that Zion all God’s best blessings are possessed and stored, that the Church may, by faithful service, impart them to the world. Whosoever desires to possess these blessings must enter thither, not by any ceremonial act or outward profession, but by becoming one of those who put their whole heart’s confidence in Jesus Christ. If we are knit to Christ by our faith, we share, in proportion to our faith, in all the wealth of blessing with which God has blessed Him, We possess Christ and in Him all.