Watch and Be Sober

Watch and Be Sober

“But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.” 1 Thess. 5:4-8.

All those who share the heavenly calling and who have joined the flock of disciples are children of light and of the day, who are exhorted not to sleep like the others.

It is evident from the letters in the Scriptures that an intensive work is going on in order to lad individuals to the goal that is ordained by God. Col. 1:28. And in the above-quoted scripture we are exhorted to watch and be sober. Jesus says, “And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” Mark 13:37.

Natural sleep makes a person somewhat unaccountable. You may dream and talk in your sleep, but no one takes it seriously. This is also the case when you sleep as a Christian; you are not in the leading of the Spirit and do not know what you are doing. It can be both seen and heard that you are quick to get angry and to be irritable, quick to judge your neighbor and to be unforgiving toward the person who sins against you. Then, when you speak, you speak like someone who is asleep. What you say may be fine, and many times what a person says in his sleep is also fine on a natural level, but no one takes it seriously. And the speaker does not taste the fruit of it. Therefore we must watch so that we can hear what the Spirit says, and follow it. Then we know what we are doing; we experience joy and peace and bear fruit as a result.

We are also exhorted to be sober. Being drunk, just like sleeping, is an act of darkness and has the same harmful effect. What do we drink that makes us drunk? We drink the lusts of the flesh. There is an unclean spirit behind every lust, and it is this spirit that makes us drunk and unclean. The apostle Peter says that the corruption in the world is through lust. When a believer lives according to his lusts, he is drunk. The harlot represents a powerful image of this. She herself is drunk, and the kings and all the rest have drunk of the wine of her harlotry.

Someone who backbites is drunk with the lust to backbite. He enjoys, as the Scriptures state, the passing pleasures of sin. Heb. 11:25. An argumentative person enjoys arguing; he gets drunk and must have commotion in order to have a good time. Someone with a preacher’s itch has to preach. He does not consider the fact that he is tiring out an entire assembly because he is drunk with his own lust. The Scriptures state that we shall not reprimand a drunkard, and most often it is pointless to reprimand those who are drunk with lust, for they think what they are doing is fine.

But we have all received one Spirit to drink of, and the Spirit convicts of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because people do not believe, for faith puts an end to sin. This is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. The person who drinks of the Holy Spirit lives in a state of acknowledgment. Therefore acknowledgment of one’s own folly is proof that we hear the Spirit. Many teach and teach but never acknowledge the truth concerning themselves. This is a large field of work; let us not become weary, but watch and pray and be sober.