The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps. Acts 20:8

 

Blackout. In times of war, you don’t want even a pinprick of light revealing where you are during a nighttime air raid.

 

As a child in World War 2, Darlene’s father was the neighborhood blackout captain. When air raid sirens went off after dark, he was charged with walking the streets, making sure the windows of each home were completely covered in thick, black paper. Light meant the presence of life.

 

The Apostle Paul knew something of attacks. He left a city where rioters tried to kill him because of his message of Jesus, but in the very next town he preached until midnight in what scripture says was an “…upstairs room…lighted with many flickering lamps” (2 Corinthians 20:8). The windows of that room were wide open —we know this because a young man fell out of one of them and was raised to life again!

 

Paul was a hated man with a message that was despised by the Jews. It would have been much safer to gather the local believers together in secret, but Paul boldly chose a highly visible, 3-story building and lit up the night preaching about the One who calls all people out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9). Paul refused to hide what had been revealed to him, writing, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

 

Jesus is for you today in whatever blackout conditions you’re facing. He says, “‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life'” (John 8:12).