Matthew-106

 

Today, we continue in our study in the teaching of our Lord Jesus. We have been studying in Matthew Chapter 24 and parallel passages concerning the last things, or what is called in theology, eschatology. The last things are things which come immediately before the return of our Lord Jesus.

 

The Lord Jesus will come so unexpectedly and surprise everyone!

When we look at the events in the Middle East, especially recent developments in Egypt, we begin to realize that often things are moving a lot faster than we expect, and suddenly, everything changes. For those who study the Bible, the events in the world are not by any means haphazard. They are all moving towards a definite goal. There is nothing unusual about presidents being killed, especially for those of us who live in North America. But often, when a president gets killed in North America, the major outlook of the nation and the progress of events don’t seem to change that drastically. There is a new president, but there are not such terribly drastic changes, often not more drastic than the election of a new president. But when these things happen in the Middle East, all kinds of unforeseen and unpredictable things begin to happen, and we are wondering where all this is going. Events happen so fast that some­times the news is almost stunning! We begin to realize that we are living at a time of tremendous instability.

In Matthew Chapter 24, things seem to move very slowly in the beginning, but as we approach the end, it gathers speed and begins to go faster and faster. Therefore, it becomes very hard to know how soon the next event is going to take place because things begin to move so fast. Those of us who study the Bible are often well-prepared to expect what will happen next.

When I was studying in Israel in my student days in the 1960s, Jerusalem, the old city was still in the hands of the Arabs. I was staying in the new part of Jerusalem, the Israeli part of Jerusalem, and I stayed at St. Andrew’s Hospice which was a Christian hospice on a hill that looked directly across to Mt. Zion where the temple once was. I could look across to the whole old city of Jerusalem which was then in Arab hands. Now I am no politician, but I know the Word of God by the grace of God. Having studied the Scriptures, I knew the next thing would be that Jerusalem would fall into the hands of the Jews. How that was possible was very hard to understand. And how that would be possible without the whole city being completely demolished in the fighting was also very hard to understand. But as you know, when the events took place, they took place with lightning speed. The Six-day War happened so fast that it was all over in six days, and Jerusalem was taken over by the Jews with virtually no damage whatsoever to the city. Such was the speed, the efficiency, and good planning with which the whole job was carried out. The city was left undamaged. That is the remarkable thing about events in the Middle East. Yet by studying the Scriptures, I knew that would happen. I studied there in 1962, and four years later, Jerusalem was taken over by the Jews, exactly as I had expected, although I must say I did not expect it to take place quite so soon.

As we move towards the end, things will go faster and faster so that the Coming of the Lord Jesus will take us by surprise. That is what this passage at the end of Matthew chapter 24 is telling us: the Lord Jesus will come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it will take every­one by surprise.

 

Focus: “Watch” said the Lord Jesus

Today, I would only like to study one particular concept of what the Lord Jesus is saying in this passage at the end of his last talk, which is called, “The Farewell Discourse.” Let us read about the suddenness and unexpectedness of the Coming of the Lord Jesus in Mark 13:33-37 [RSV]. Here, he is warning his disciples that his Coming will be extremely sudden, and I would like you to notice which word the Lord uses repeatedly in this passage.

By this time, you have noticed how frequently the word “watch” is reoccuring. Notice also the double stress of “take heed” and “watch” right at the beginning. These two terms almost mean the same thing.

 

Watch for what? Isn’t the Lord’s Coming unexpected?

My daughter, I-Ling, asked me just after I got back from Calgary what I was going to preach this Sunday. I said, “I’m going to preach about watching.” She said, “Watching? Watching for what?” That is exactly a very good question. Because when the Lord Jesus says, “Watch,” we immediately have the question, “Watch for what?” How can we watch for something when we don’t even know what we are watch­ing for? And today, the situation of many Christians is that they don’t even know what the Lord Jesus is saying. “You asked me to watch, but what am I supposed to watch when you have just told me that your coming is going to be unexpected?”

For example, if you are going to meet someone at the airport, and he says, “I ‘m going to arrive from Toronto at 3 o’clock on flight number such and such.” That is so easy to watch. So first, we go and watch the television screen for that flight number to come on to indicate its arrival. So we say, “Ah, now he has landed in Dorval.” And so we are watching. Now having watched the television screen, we know that the next thing to watch is the exit. So we are watching who will come out through the exit. We know what to watch because we know what to expect.

But how do you watch what you cannot expect? Supposing he said, “I’m going to come any time when you don’t know.” It’s useless to even watch the television screen. What am I supposed to watch? Am I going to stand there from morning until night, and right through the night to the following morning, watching every person who is coming through? Since I don’t know which day and which hour it will be, what am I supposed to watch? In the same way, since the Lord Jesus says, “The Son of Man will come like a thief in the night,” how do you watch for a thief when you don’t know when he is going to come? So then the question: “Watch for what?” is after all not a dumb question. It is a very meaningful one if we are to understand what we are supposed to do. The question is: “How do I watch?” It is parti­cularly important that I do this since our survival depends on it as we shall see.

There are a number of ways you can do this. I guess you could do this by adding an extra and also very efficient lock on your door, or add some bolts and chains, then strengthen your windows. Maybe if that is not good enough, install an alarm system. If that is still not good enough, get yourself a German Shepherd. As you know, the Vancouver home of one of our sisters got broken into several times lately, and quite a lot was stolen. Now, they have bolted the front door, installed an alarm system, and put a German Shepherd in the backyard, trying everything possible because it’s precisely so hard to know when a thief will strike. I doubt that German Shepherds are very impressive to professional crooks; they may be very impressive to amateurs. Professional crooks know how to handle German Shepherds, alarm systems and everything else! Exactly how are you going to watch for that sudden and unexpected entry by some very skilled person? That is the question we must study here. What does the Lord Jesus mean by “watch”?

 

This type of words and teaching is repeated constantly

What is more, if you look at this passage, from the end of the Lord Jesus’ teaching on the last things in verse 35 onwards, this type of words and teaching is constantly repeated. It begins to appear in Matthew 24:42, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Then the same appears in Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” This repetition comes a few times. Let us look at Matthew 24:42- [RSV]:

 

The church caught unprepared for Christ’s Coming will suffer loss!

The problem here is why does the Lord Jesus compare his Coming to the breaking in of a thief at night? Truly, those who love the Lord Jesus are not going to treat him as a thief crawling in at night. They are going to welcome him with joy like going to Dorval airport and saying, “Oh! I’ve been waiting so long!” You would be so filled with joy! Why then this constant reference to this breaking in of a thief at night? The reason is the Lord Jesus knows that the church as a whole will be very badly prepared for his Coming. Luke 18:8 is a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith upon the earth?” He will not find faith on the earth. The church as a whole is increasingly sliding away from spiritual commitment and reality. You see this happening everywhere now. Just as the Lord Jesus predicted, there would be this decline in the last days, there would be the apostasy in the last days. Therefore, the Lord Jesus himself expects a negative answer to his own question: “Will the Son of Man find faith upon the earth?”

For those who are looking forward eagerly to his Coming, it can be pictured by another parable which he uses in the next chapter, Matthew 25 about the Ten Maidens beginning from verse 1. They are looking forward with joy for the Coming of the bridegroom. Even then, some of these are ill-prepared and are caught unprepared.

But for those who are not expecting his Coming, his Coming will have the effects of a break-in. What does that mean? That means if he captures you unprepared, you will suffer loss. What does a thief do? He doesn’t come in to say, “Are you resting all right? I just came to say hello.” Of course not! He is not going to say anything. He is just going to walk off with your possessions. When you wake up in the morning, you will find that your new watch is gone, your new tele­vision is gone, and everything he could carry away, your passport, purse, money, anything of value have disappeared in the night. You have suffered loss. The point of the Lord Jesus’ warning is this: If you are unprepared for my Coming, you will suffer loss when I come. You must understand that message.

That is why I said, our survival is going to depend on it. We are to ask, “What do we lose?” Now that we have the picture of what a thief steals, what will we lose at the Coming of the Lord when he finds us unprepared?”

 

Why is Christ’s Coming unannounced and sudden?

1. God is patient and gives every person a lot of time to repent

Why is his Coming to be unannounced and sudden? There are many reasons for this. One of these is because events are fluid, as I mentioned very early on in the exposition of Matthew 24. The Lord does not fix a time, even though prophecy says this will happen. The time of that prophecy is never stated because the Lord is patient, and he wants to give us as much time to repent as possible. If he said, “This is the fixed time, our time would finish at that point whether we believed it or not. As Peter says in 2Peter 3:9, he is not willing for any to perish. He wants every person if possible, to be given a chance to repent. Therefore the time remains fluid. The time for the Lord to return can come suddenly, or it can come later.

In fact, some people already complained in the Early Church that so much time has passed since the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven. Hundreds of years had passed and still he did not return, and now we are talking about two thousand years. And people are beginning to say, “Is he going to come after all? Maybe he has forgotten to come. Maybe he is not going to come after all.” Therefore the sense of impatience develops. Forgetting as Peter says, “Count the patience of the Lord as your salvation,” that he is giving you more time to repent. If he came tonight, you are finished if you have not repented by tonight. He might give you another night. He might give you tomor­row too, but don’t be sure about it. The Lord Jesus is saying, “Don’t be sure about this. Don’t take time for granted. Your time may run out sooner than you think.”

 

2. The hypocrisy of human nature

Another reason why his Coming will be unexpected is the hypocrisy of human nature, and by this you can see the wisdom of the Lord.

Non-Christians may be living in sin all the time, but if they knew that the Lord Jesus is coming at the end of this month, they will say, “I think I’ve got a few more days to live in sin yet.” Then, two days before his Coming, they are going to repent. They will say, “Lord, I’m so sorry. I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me with your precious blood.” But we will leave it to the last minute. Oh yes! That is why some people don’t want to get baptized too soon because they can’t enjoy their sins after baptism. So, leave it to the last minute and then just before I die, I would say, “Lord, I’m about to die so please get me a priest. I’m ready to get baptized now.” Of course, if he did not happen to get there in time, you might also miss the boat! Hopefully, the priest wouldn’t be too far away. You know that this is true. So many people want to get baptized at the last minute. They say, “Just give me more time to enjoy sin. Sin is so nice. I will repent at the last minute,” if we knew when the last minute is! The Lord knows our hypocrisy, and he warns us, “I will give you time, but not necessarily as much time as you think.”

Likewise, so many Christians are so hypocritical. If we only knew when the Lord Jesus is going to come, we would put on our best behavior. We would say, “I’m not a very good Christian now. I don’t read my Bible much. But the Lord Jesus is coming on the 25th of October, so on the 24^th of October, I’m going to spend the whole day reading the Bible.” So when the Lord comes, I would say, “See Lord, I’m reading the Bible. I was a bit busy before, but at least when you come, you find me reading the Bible.” Oh no! The Lord knows our hypocrisy. He is not going to let us be able to exercise that kind of hypocrisy. We cannot be putting up a front at the last minute precisely because his Coming is uncertain.

When we know he is coming, we can comb our hair, brush our teeth, and put on our tie. We know he is coming and we are right on time: “I’m all ready!” But what if he comes when we are not ready, when your hair is standing up and your beard sticking out? “Lord, I haven’t washed my face, I haven’t brushed my teeth. It’s so embarrassing! Lord, do you mind going back for a few minutes to give me time to wash my face to get ready to meet you?” No, frankly, the Lord Jesus doesn’t very much care whether you have combed your hair too well that morning or not. The important thing is that he is going to look into your heart at that moment, and you cannot get rid of sin so quickly if you are caught. That is the point the Lord Jesus wants to communicate. You will suffer loss.

Therefore he says, “Watch! Again I say to you, watch!” Everything is going to depend on what is your state at his Coming. And what will that be? Since you don’t know when he is coming, you cannot put up a front. You cannot leave it to the last minute to get yourself ready. He might come at any moment. You don’t know when it’s going to be. That is the point.

 

Watch is: How to watch?

Then what can we do to watch since we don’t know when that time is? Am I going to brush my teeth every two minutes so I brush it again and again, and comb my hair again, and put on my tie again because he might come at any time? What is the meaning of this “watch”? There are two different Greek words here translated as “watch.”

 

1. Watch: Be spiritually alive and not suffer loss

Stay awake, be sleepless, alert

One of them is agrupneō. This word literally means without sleep. agrupneō means to lie awake at night. That is the literal meaning. It comes from a combination: the “a” privitive means without, and the other part is “grupnos” which means sleep, so literally without sleep, sleepless. To be watchful or intent upon a thing to the extent that you stay awake.

This reminds us how important wakefulness is to survival, not only in the question of break-ins. When people get lost, or are stranded after a plane crash in a place that is extremely cold, their survival depends upon their staying awake. They have to struggle to stay awake, knowing that if they ever fall asleep, they will never wake again. They will literally freeze to death. We can see the need to keep awake in this situation.

The important thing to understand about this word in the Lord Jesus’ teaching is that it means literally to stay awake. Why is this so? This is because sleep has long taken on the significance of death, both in ancient Greek literature as also in the Bible. So the psalmist in the Old Testament already said to God in his prayer, “Lest I sleep the sleep of death” (Ps. 13:3). Everybody has noticed the similarity between sleep and death, and therefore sleep has taken on the symbolic significance of death. That means being awake takes on the significance of being alive. Now that is very important for understanding what the Lord Jesus means.

This word of staying awake, agrupneō, occurs quite frequently in the Scriptures. It occurs in this parallel passage in Mark 13:33, where it says, “Take heed, watch.” The word “watch” is literally stay awake.

Stay awake, watch occur again in Luke 21:36.

Also in Ephesians 6:18, where Paul exhorts the Christians to keep awake with all perseverance, the ESV and RSV have “keep alert.”

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Hebrews 13:17a says,

Don’t make your leaders’ work more difficult because they are watching out like a shepherd watching out for his sheep. The leaders of the church stay awake as they guard your souls. They are like the shepherd who stays out in the field even though it is dangerous. The shepherd dares not fall asleep but is trying to keep awake in case a wolf comes suddenly and snatches his sheep away and scatters his flock. That is the picture that is being used in Hebrews 13:17.

It is also the picture that Paul uses of himself in 2 Corinthians 6:5, 11:27 where he speaks about having sleepless nights as he considers the welfare of the church, as he prays for the church, looks out for the church. We thank God for his faithful servants who care for us enough to be willing to lose their sleep over us, and Paul is saying, do not make their work more difficult by living in sin, or by doing things which are grievous to their hearts.

So this is the nature of this word “watch.” And the English word “watch” is a little bit misleading because precisely as I said, the moment you use the word “watch,” you think of watch for what? The point is not so much “watching for what?” as “what is this watching?” And this watching is literally to keep awake, keep alert so that you will be able to face any circumstance that arises.

 

Be alert, active, awake

There is another Greek word gregoreō which is translated as “watch” and you would think that it is the same word if you did not know the original because it is often translated exactly with the same word watch, or take heed, or be alert, or something to that effect. I think that the English name Gregory comes from this word. This also means to stay awake, to be alert, so it virtually has the same mean­ing. It comes from the perfect tense of the word egregora which means to wake up, to rouse, to stir up. And so gregoreō means to be alert, active, awake. These things are exceedingly important to understand. Why? Because the meaning is beginning to emerge.

 

Spiritually alive or spiritually dead, which are you?

In Matthew 25:13, it also says: “Stay awake because you do not know either the day or the hour.” This contrast is the essential thing. Let me try to get this point into focus for you in case you are not getting the picture yet. The picture is of two kinds of people, one who is asleep or dozing off, and another person who is awake and alert. Now the Lord Jesus is saying that you must be awake and alert at the Coming of the Lord if you are not going to suffer loss.

The imagery to be asleep is to be spiritually dead; to be awake is to be spiritually alive. There are only two basic kinds of people and some people are floating somewhere between the two, they are trying to wake up, trying to come to life.

Here is a very important passage, Ephesians 5:14, that uses exactly this kind of imagery:

“Christ will shine on you” means that Christ will give you life. There you can see the relationship of sleep and death. There are only two kinds of people: those who are spiritually alive, and those who are spiritually dead. Or to use the imagery here of the Lord Jesus’ language, it is to be asleep or to be awake. You are one of these two, either asleep or awake, the question is which. Are you spiritually alive or spiritually dead?

 

It is your own responsibility to respond to the gospel

The gospel is calling you to light, that is, awakening you. That is why the preaching of the gospel is sometimes compared to the blowing of a trumpet that wakes you up in the morning. The trumpet there is in fact the trumpet call to an army. The army is asleep and the trumpet sound—the bugle call in the morning—wakes up the army to get ready for action. The preaching of the gospel is compared to the blowing of a trumpet because the gospel wakes us up, and Paul says, “Awake, you who sleep! Rise from your spiritual death. Christ will give you life.”

The point is: the responsibility of coming awake, of responding to the gospel is with us. God has done his part in the blowing of the trumpet of the gospel of light. And it is understood that this gospel is able to awaken any person who is willing to awaken. Some of us might rely on the alarm to wake us up. Yet when it does wake us up, we turn off the alarm. For many, they stop their ears when they hear the sound of the gospel coming.

When I was in Calgary, my friend drove me up into the mountains to Banff, and we walked in the mountains and went on to Lake Louise, a very beautiful place. Then he suggested, “Why not go to the Columbia Ice fields?” And I said, “Oh, that sounds interesting!” The ice field is a great glacier and it has the unique distinction that the water of this glacier goes to three oceans. To the west, it goes to the Pacific Ocean, to the north, the Arctic Ocean, and to the east, the Atlantic Ocean. So it’s very interesting to go and look at this glacier. The only problem is that when we got there, we found that it was getting dark and there was no hotel. The hotel had closed for the season. So the result was that we had to keep driving up and up through the dark and finally we ended up in Jasper, a very beautiful town where at least there was some hotel where we could spend the night. Being very tired, we went to sleep.

Next morning, I was awakened by the alarm next door! I could hear his alarm right through the wall. It woke me up, and it obviously did not wake him up. The reason was he had an electric alarm that repeats itself. You can stop it and it repeats itself and goes off again a few minutes later, and if you don’t wake up, it goes off again, and it goes off again, and it keeps going off until you get up, I assume. Well, this was very fine, but as for me, the alarm woke me up the first time it went off, but not him. Apparently, even with the help of his wife he could not wake up. I could hear her say, “Get up, you lazy bone!” And I thought, “Wow, that wife is more effective than an alarm clock!” But wife and alarm clock combined apparently could not wake him up because the alarm clock was still buzzing every few minutes. It seems he has a very effective way to shut out all external distur­bances!

It made me think of so many people who hear the gospel—and maybe someone is even shouting at you, which is not very helpful sometimes—but you still don’t respond. So when the gospel disturbs you, you can turn it off, and you don’t wake up. The point of all this is that the Lord Jesus is calling to us through the gospel, and he is warning us that the time is very short, but we can switch off. In fact, many Christians also switch off, not only the non-Christians, and the result is very disastrous.

 

2. Watch: Change in conduct – live in the light, in righteousness

Let us read a passage in this connection, in 1 Thessalonians 5:5-10, which I find stresses this meaning very clearly to us. This whole passage has to do with this waking and sleeping, this light, darkness, day and night contrasts. It seems to me that when Paul wrote this passage, he had in mind this very teaching of the Lord Jesus about being awake or being asleep.

Here you notice that Paul uses the word “sleep” in more than one sense, and he is underlining its meaning as it were, very much on this part of the teaching of the Lord Jesus. He says we are “sons of the day.” You don’t sleep in the daytime. Those who sleep, sleep at night in the darkness. We are not sons of darkness, therefore we should be awake. Here you can see exactly this very meaning being brought out by the apostle Paul. Let me underline for you the contrasts:

 

That is why I say, our salvation depends on our being awake, being spiritually alive at the Coming of the Lord. This is very important.

Now it tells us what it means to be spiritually awake. It means a certain quality of conduct in our lives. It means that the person who is awake lives as someone who lives in the light, that is, in righteous­ness. In the Bible, light refers to the righteousness of God; darkness refers to the evil, the blackness of sin. So now we under­stand being awake means to live as someone who conducts himself in the light, who so consistently lives in that righteousness and in that truth.

As I have emphasized many times, being a Christian is not just to believe this and that, to believe that Jesus was crucified two thousand years ago, that he died for our sins, that he rose from the dead. All that is true and very important, but that truth has no saving value for us until it wakes us up out of sleep; until it removes us from darkness to light; until we begin to live as new creatures that Paul speaks about, until there is a fundamental change in our attitude and in our conduct.

We find this teaching of the change of conduct is very much stressed in the Lord Jesus’ teaching as well. “To watch” means that there is a certain difference of conduct.

 

3. Watch: Live a life that is consistently faithful

Let us return to Matthew 24:44-51, to see this very point which ends the chapter. Notice that the Lord Jesus has been talking about watching in the previous verses, and he says in verse 44, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Immediately, going from watching right onto verse 45, he draws the logical consequence of watching. The word “then” in “Who then is the faithful and wise servant” in verse 45 translates the Greek particle ara, which means the then of a logical conclusion: If it is so, then it should be so. This then is in consequence of what we have just said about the Coming of the Son of man being unexpected; then is not a question of at that time.

If the faithful and wise servant is expecting the Lord his Master to come, then he should be consistently giving the people in his master’s household their food at the proper time. That is what his master entrusted to him. Therefore the Lord Jesus says in verse 47, “Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.” His master will put him in charge of all his property.

 Continuing from verses 48-51:

You have already discovered in Matthew chapter 23 where the hypocrites go. The hypocrites will go to hell. Verse 51 says the master will “put him (the wicked servant) with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Where do men weep and gnash their teeth? The Lord Jesus’ teaching also tells us that it is in the outer darkness, in hell.

All this shows to you how important it is to watch. Now we understand watching means living a life that is consistent in faith­fulness. “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith?” (Lk. 18:8). It literally means will Christ find faithfulness on the earth? Will he find God’s people still faithful when he comes? Will we, like this faithful servant, be found doing what we are called to do? What are we called to do? Paul repeatedly stresses that we are called to sanctification, to holiness, to live in righteousness.

 

How to watch? Be spiritually alive, faithfully living in holiness

Therefore, what does it mean to watch? As I said right at the begin­ning, it is not “watch for what?” rather, it is “how to watch.” Therefore, “to watch” does not mean that we just sit there staring at a TV screen, or like some Christians trying to calculate if Jesus is going to come this year, or next year, or the year after? It’s not important to calculate which date he will come. What is important is that we are watching, that is, being wide awake living the righteous Christian life, living in the light, living faithfully to him.

When you are living faithfully to him, living a very consistent Christian life day by day, then when he comes, you have nothing to hide. You will also have nothing to lose. It says in fact, not only will you not lose, he will put you in charge of all his possessions, that is because you have been found faithful, although you are not expect­ing him to come. That shows that you are really what you are at any given time. You have not just made a last-minute preparation to conceal the facts and put up a good front when he comes. He has found you at that very moment as what you really are. That is the call of the Christian that I may so live the Christian life that if he comes at any given moment, he will find me faithful, find me awake, spiritually alive, alert, doing the thing which he has called me to do. That is very important.

 

What causes us to fall asleep?

As we close, we must ask this question: What causes us to fall asleep? What are the things that make us drowsy? Very briefly, there is one particular thing that the Lord Jesus refers to in the same discourse, but this time in Luke 21:34-36:

Notice the Lord Jesus has been telling us to watch and be careful. Then he tells us again to “take heed.” What does a snare do? A snare is a trap that when you touch the bait, the trap suddenly shuts on you unexpectedly. Notice the word “watch” which means stay awake, be alert. Why do Christians fall asleep, and why are non-Christians asleep spiritually? Sin comes as one of these main reasons. But a Christian should not be asleep because of sin. What then makes a Christian asleep? There is something very specific you can watch out for. It says here: “weighed down with the dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life.” What weighs down the heart is what is described as dissipation and drunkenness.

The word in Greek translated as “weighed down” is the same word translated as “heavy,” used of the eyes of the disciples in Matthew 26:43. They could not stop themselves from falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember the Lord Jesus says in verse 41, “Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation.” So they were trying to watch as they prayed, and then their eyes were getting heavy, just like often when you are praying, you notice that your eyelids suddenly became so heavy! Normally, your eyelids are quite light especially when you watch the television. You never noticed that you even had eyelids because your eyes never even blink while watching the screen, anticipating what will happen! And not only do the eyes not close, but even the mouth does not close because it is so exciting! But when you start praying, something strange happens to your eyelids. Suddenly, your eyelids get very heavy and they start to sink down over your eyes. Then with great effort like that of a weight lifter, you get your eyelids up again and you try to pray for another thirty seconds and then they come down again. This time, they are too heavy. This time weight of sleepiness drags down not only the eyelids, but also the whole head! And the next thing you know is that you completely jolt awake. What causes this weight?

 

Everyday life dizzies, confuses, hypnotizes us to spiritual dullness

It says here that one of the very important things is “dissipation and drunkenness.” What is meant by this? This word translated as “dissipation” in the RSV, specifically means the result of intoxication, dizziness that comes when you have drunk too much. Maybe many of you do not drink too much, but if you have ever had a little bit too much drink, your head begins to spin, and you begin to feel dizzy. When you start to walk, your steps are going different ways, and you cannot get your balance. It is the swaying and dizziness that comes from too much drink.

The next word is “drunkenness,” to be literally drunk, intoxicated, confused, and as you know, one of the effects of drunkenness is to fall asleep. Wine can knock you out very effectively. That is why when some people feel tense and nervous, they have a drink because it relaxes them. Then after a few more drinks, they are completely knocked out; they are very relaxed!

What brings on dissipation and drunkenness? The Lord Jesus goes on and tells us it is the “cares of this life.” “Cares” mean the preoccu­pation and the words “of this life” translate the word biotikos. Biotikos is from bios from which we have the English word “biology.” Bios means life, biotikos are the ordinary affairs of everyday life. What happens is that the ordinary affairs of everyday life have a way of hypnotizing us. Have you noticed that? It has a way of absorbing our attention in such a way that it actually lulls us into spiritual sleep.

I want to say to those of you who are graduating from university soon and leaving. You are going to discover the power of what the Lord Jesus calls “the cares of this life.” I have seen its power send many, many Christians to sleep. It is almost terrifying!

What happens once you graduate? Of course, you see this pretty girl or this handsome boy, and immediately your thoughts are occupied with this person. And if it should ever come so far that you get married, then many other questions, the cares of this life, begin to arise. Where shall we live? You have to find somewhere to live, whereas it didn’t matter before. You got your sleeping bag to sleep wherever, but now, your wife cannot sleep here, there and just anywhere, so you must have a nice home. A nice home means nice expenses, and nice expenses means a nice job, if you can get one. A nice job also means hard work so as to get nice money in order to have a nice home, a nice car and nice children too, hopefully in due time. Soon, the cares of this life pile up upon you with remarkable power. It comes just slowly, one thing at a time. And soon, you will find yourself concerned about where are the children going to go to school, when are the school holidays, how to spend the holidays, and what if my boss doesn’t give me the time off? And there are many other concerns. “The cares of this life”! You never realized you could get so busy and you are so occupied.

Of course, you don’t even have to get married before you have the cares of this life. You already have them on your plate now! You have your exams coming. You have to hunt for a job and arrange for interviews. You have to plan for your trip home. Then you have to think about giving money back to your parents, that is, if they want the money, and usually they do like some money. All “the cares of this life” keep you very busy.

 

To fall asleep is: lose your vision, lose your fire for the Lord

Notice, when many Christians were single, and when they were still in college, did they have cares? They still had a vision, they still had some outlook, they still had some idealism. But once they got married, the idealism had a remarkable way of disappearing. They call this “becoming more practical.” That is a nice way to put it. Just say you lost the vision! The whole vision has disappeared! But if you say, “I’ve lost the vision,” it doesn’t sound good. So you say, “I became practical.” So many young people were full of fire when they were in college. They were going to serve God, and they were going to do this and they were going to do that. Then afterwards, they got “more and more practical” as they got more and more tied up with the car, the house, the wife and the children, and with the job, and on and on it goes. As they got more and more practical, they had no more vision. The result is they also fell asleep spiritually.

 

Always keep your vision sharp!

I hope that you can keep your vision sharp. It takes a person of great spiritual stature to be able to keep the vision clear, to say, “I got married but that’s not going to change my vision. I’ve got children but my vision is the same. I have to have this job and that job, but my vision remains the same.” It is very important that you refuse to fall asleep; you refuse to lose the vision. The Lord Jesus says, “the cares of this life” cause this drunkenness, this spiritual dullness, this lack of vision, this falling asleep.

 

To let every-day life absorb your attention is: Spiritual death

A preacher said that once, he saw a farmer leading a herd of pigs. So he viewed with great interest how these pigs were so obediently following behind this farmer. Then he watched the farmer walk straight into the slaughter house, and all these pigs were trotting behind him into the slaughter house where they got slaughtered! When the farmer came out of the slaughter house minus the pigs, the preacher asked, “How did you get all the pigs to follow you so faith­fully into the slaughter house?” The farmer said, “Oh, that’s quite simple! I had in front of me a basket of beans, and as I walked on, I just threw a few beans to this side and a few beans to that side, and of course, these pigs were preoccupied with gobbling these beans. They never noticed where they were going as long as they could eat the beans, and following the beans, they walked straight into the slaughter house!”

I find many Christians are exactly like this. The “cares of this life” are the little beans that the world throws out to you, and too many Christians are following these beans, gobbling each tasty one, and suddenly, you are in the slaughter house! It’s too late to get out of there! Beware of the cares, the attractions and occupations of the world! They will lull you to sleep, and walk you straight into your spiritual death!

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.