There is an old saying that “Nothing good happens after midnight.” Much of the crime and shootings across our major cities happen late at night. If bars and entertainment activities were to shut down at midnight, many lives could be spared. Recent shootings at a popular night spot in our town has the mayor asking, “Why do bars need to be open until three in the morning?” Good question. What good parent wants their child, teen or grown, out at such late hours?
We are encouraged to “lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light…to behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality.” Rather, we must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ro. 13:12-14).
The word “Carousing” is always connected to “drunkenness” (see also Ga. 5:21; 1 Pe. 4:3). “Bar-hopping,” “clubbing,” or “hanging out” are modern equivalents, and are usually at the core of bad behavior. Jesus said it best, “If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him” (John 11:9,10). Live life proudly in the light of day, not enveloped in the deeds of darkness.
-Dennis Doughty
