The Apostle puts it very plainly in the context, and we need but
expand in a word or two what he teaches us there. 'And that knowing
the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is
our salvation nearer than when we believed.' To what does he refer by
'that'? The whole of the practical exhortations to a Christian life
which have been given before. Everything that is duty becomes tenfold
more stringent and imperative when we apprehend the true meaning of
that last moment. They tell us that it is unwholesome to be thinking
about death and the beyond, because to do so takes away interest from
much of our present occupations and weakens energy. If there is
anything from which a man is wrenched away because he steadily
contemplates the fact of being wrenched away altogether from
everything before long, it is something that he had better be
wrenched from. And if there be any occupations which dwindle into
nothingness, and into which a man cannot for the life of him fling
himself with any thoroughgoing enthusiasm or interest, if once the
thought of death stirs in him, depend upon it they are occupations
which are in themselves contemptible and unworthy. All good aims will
gain greater power over us; we shall have a saner estimate of what is
worth living for; we shall have a new standard of what is the
relative importance of things; and if some that looked very great
turn out to be very small when we let that searching light in upon
them, and others which seemed very insignificant spring suddenly up
into dominating magnitude--that new and truer perspective will be all
clear gain. The more we feel that our salvation is sweeping towards
us, as it were, from the throne of God through the blue abysses, the
more diligently we shall 'work while it is called day,' and the more
earnestly we shall seek, when the Saviour and His salvation come, to
be found with loins girt for all strenuous work, and lamps burning in
all the brightness of the light of a Christian character.
Further, says Paul, this hopeful, cheerful contemplation of
approaching salvation should lead us to cast off the evil, and to put
on the good. You will remember the heart-stirring imagery which the
Apostle employs in the context, where he says, 'The day is at hand;
let us therefore fling off the works of darkness'--as men in the
morning, when the daylight comes through the window, and makes them
lift their eyelids, fling off their night-gear--'and let us put on
the armour of light.' We are soldiers, and must be clad in what will
be bullet-proof, and will turn a sword's edge. And where shall steel
of celestial temper be found that can resist the fiery darts shot at
the Christian soldier? His armour must be 'of light.' Clad in the
radiance of Christian character he will be invulnerable. And how can
we, who have robed ourselves in the works of darkness, either cast
them off or array ourselves in sparkling armour of light? Paul tells
us, 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the
flesh.' The picture is of a camp of sleeping soldiers; the night
wears thin, the streaks of saffron are coming in the dawning east.
One after another the sleepers awake; they cast aside their
night-gear, and they brace on the armour that sparkles in the beams
of the morning sun. So they are ready when the trumpet sounds the
reveille, and with the morning comes the Captain of the Lord's host,
and with the Captain comes the perfecting of the salvation which is
drawing nearer and nearer to us, as our moments glide through our
fingers like the beads of a rosary. Many men think of death and fear;
the Christian should think of death--and hope.