When The Hour Of Decision Is Midnight

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God” [ACTS 16:25-34]. [1]

On January 24th of 2023 the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock forward to ninety seconds to midnight. This is the closest to midnight the clock has ever been set. The clock is still set at ninety seconds to midnight. [2] The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes ten Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by manmade technologies.

We commonly use the concept of “midnight” when speaking of challenges we are facing as individuals and even as nations. The concept is used especially when speaking of dangerous challenges. Midnight speaks of the time when there is no further possibility of avoiding whatever challenge may loom before us. At midnight one day passes into the next; whatever is to be done this day must be accomplished shortly or it cannot be done in the allotted time.

This accounts for the urgency witnessed when the Apostle writes in the encyclical we have received as the Letter to saints in Ephesus, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

‘Awake, O sleeper,

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.’

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” [EPHESIANS 5:11-16].

RESPONDING TO INJUSTICE — “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” [ACTS 16:25]. Matt Mooney never dreamed that playing T-Ball with his six-year-old daughter would result in him being handcuffed and seated in the back of a police cruiser. However, Brighton, Colorado police saw him in an empty forty-acre park playing with his daughter and arrested him in front of his little girl. The city council had ordered that people must not be in the fresh air during the engineered Covid crisis. [3] And Matt Mooney defied the orders of the city council.

A paddle boarder was arrested because he ignored lifeguards’ orders to get out of the ocean. He violated the governor’s stay-at-home orders during the Covid pandemic. [4]

A street preacher was arrested in less than one minute after showing up at a Pennsylvania pride event. [5] An officious police sergeant could not tolerate anyone exercising the right to free speech when it offended the alphabet mafia.

Unjust arrests do occur, and innocent people are sometimes taken into custody because of rulings fabricated by elected officials, or even by concepts imagined by authorities. Justice is not always administered fairly, nor has justice ever been administered in absolute fairness. Until Christ Himself reigns, there will never be absolute justice in this world. Among the early saints were examples of unjust incarceration and even worse acts against the believers because of their faith in the Risen Lord of Glory.

You will recall the words of one writer who assessed the cost of faith, writing, “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” [HEBREWS 10:32-34].