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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Thessalonians 5:6 - 5:6
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The apostle having acquainted the Thessalonians with the privilege of their converted state, that they were the children of the light, having received a light of knowlege, a light of grace and holiness, and a light of joy and comfort from the gospel, he comes next to infer the duties proper and suitable to persons in such a state:
First, negative, Let us not sleep, as do others; sleep is not proper for the day, but the night; the sleep here intended, is the sleep of sin, and of sinful security, whereby all the spiritual senses of a man are bound up, so that he is both unapprehensive of his duty, and regardless of his danger.
Secondly, positive, Let us watch and be sober; that is, let us be always ready and prepared for Christ's coming; and that we may be so, let us be found in the daily exercise of sobriety, at no time overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and that day overtake us unawares; the exercise of these two graces, watchfulness and sobriety, do best together, and can hardly be separated one from another; he that is not sober, cannot be watchful; and he that is not watchful, can never be ready for Christ's coming: let us therefore (says the apostle) watch, and be sober.
Observe next, our apostle subjoins a reason to enforce his exhortation to watchfulness and sobriety, because sleep and drunkenness are works of darkness, performed in the night, and not suitable for the childeren of the day: They that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that are drunk, are drunken in the night. The old heathens had their Bacchanalia, their drunken feast in the night; and in the apostles time, drunkenness was so shameful a vice, that men were ashamed to be seen drunken in the daytime: But, Lord, to what a height of impudence is the intemperance of our age arrived, when Christians blush not to do that at mid-day, which heathens were ashamed of at midnight!
Observe farther, another reason suggested why we should be thus sober and watchful, namely, because our life is a spiritual warfare: 'Tis now a time of fighting, therefore not of sleeping, and intemperate eating and drinking; soldiers must be upon their guard and well-armed; accordingly St. Paul directs to the two principal pieces of spiritual armour, to guard the most noble and vital parts, namely, the head and the heart; the helmet for the head, the breast-plate for the heart; for these two being the chief fountains of life and sensation, the preserving of them safe is, in effect, the preserving of the whole man; and accordingly, the soldiers that were upon their watch, and kept sentinel, never stood without their helmet and breast-plate. In allusion to which, our apostle here directs us, as Christian soldiers, to put on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for an helmet, the hope of salvation, without which we can never be rightly and duly prepared for our spiritual warfare.
Note here, of what admirable use, faith, love, and hope, are to a Christian; faith fortifies against destructive temptations, love will preserve from apostacy and revolting, and hope will be of universal use unto us in the exercises of our Christian course; it will be a cordial to comfort us, a spur to quicken us, a staff to support us, a bridle to restrain us, a helmet to defend us: Therefore let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.