1 Thessalonians 5:8

But let us, who are of the day, be sober

Good counsel

I. The condition to be shunned. Christians must keep their natural desires and appetites after the things of this world within due bounds. “Let your moderation be known to all men” is a Divine injunction. St. Paul enjoins sobriety. Now, sobriety is usually opposed to excess in meats and drinks, and here he particularly opposes it to drunkenness. But it also extends to other temporal things. Hence the Great Teacher warned His disciples to “take heed lest their hearts were overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon them unawares.” It was a most reproachful state for men to sleep away the daytime, which is specially for work, but, after all, it was not so strange that those who had the benefit of Divine revelation suffered themselves to be lulled by Satan into carnal security, and laid the reins on the neck of their appetites, and indulged themselves in all manner of riot and excess. It was night with them. They were not sensible of their danger, therefore they slept; they were not sensible of their duty, therefore they were drank. But it ill becomes Christians to do thus. What! shall Christians, who have the light of the glorious gospel shining in their faces, be careless about their deathless souls, and mindless of the world to come? They that have so many eyes upon them should carry themselves not only decently, but holily.

II. The equipment to be worn. The whole armour of God. And this is indispensable to be put on and worn, in order to such sobriety as becomes us, and will be a preparation for the day of the Lord, because our spiritual enemies are many, and mighty, and malicious. They draw hosts to their interest, and keeping them in it, by making them careless, and secure, and presumptuous; by making them intoxicated with pride, intoxicated with passion, intoxicated with self-conceit, intoxicated with sinful gratifications; so that we have every need to arm ourselves against their attempts, by putting on the spiritual breastplate to keep the heart, and the spiritual helmet to protect the head. We must live by faith, and that will keep us watchful and sober, and be our best defence against all the assaults of our enemies. We must get a heart inflamed with love; and this also will be our defence. We must make salvation our hope; and this will hinder our being intoxicated with “the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season.” Having “the hope of salvation,” we must do nothing to shake our hope or render ourselves unfit for the great salvation we hope for. (D. Mayo.)

Aspects of Christian life

I. The Christian idea of the present life and of the best preparation for getting through it.

1. Life is a battle. There is peril of some sort. Men do not want a breastplate and helmet sitting under their own vine and fig tree in unbroken repose.

2. Life is a great and noble thing, but a wise man, observing the spiritual faculty in man, gets the idea that it is not an ultimate state. It is full of beginnings. Things do not seem completed. Wonderful as the universe is, it does not fill the soul, but leaves a continual yearning for something more. Man is capable of forming an idea of what mind might become, and then he looks abroad and sees himself a little man among little men, being pulled down by the worser part of his nature, and tempted to rest satisfied with the present condition of things.

3. See, says the apostle, that you are not engrossed by the lesser to the neglect of the greater. Guard those sublimer parts of your nature, that head and heart, those thoughts and affections that wander through eternity.

(1) Put on the breastplate of faith and love. Have within you the principle of faith which shall penetrate the material and visible and realize the spiritual, substantial, and eternal, and in the midst of all that greatness and splendour remember that faith will bring before you God, infinitely holy; and along with faith there will be a love which shall bring your moral being into contact with all good; the love of infinite excellence will raise you above the present and bring you into harmony with itself.

(2) But more: You must have a personal interest in the infinite future “for a helmet,” etc. You must not be satisfied with looking about this universe and thinking that it has been from and will be through eternity, and that you are just come to appear for a little moment, and then pass away, as some philosophers allege; you are yourself to be eternal. A hope of this sort will preserve you from those temptations to grosser forms of folly and sin. You will not be satisfied to associate with them that are drunken, and who enjoy the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. Combine these, and you have an element of strength which will preserve you amidst all spiritual danger.

II. Whence man is to get this equipment for the battle of life. By the actual revelation and interposition of God. In this dislocated world I want a Divine hand to put it right. If I am to have faith to realize the infinite, love to bring me in harmony with the good, and hope to secure a personal interest in eternity, then I want God to speak, to help. Christianity comes and delivers such a message as we want: “God hath not appointed us unto wrath,” etc. (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

1. I could take that the world over, and call to guilty men, “Forsake your sins, for God hath not,” etc. God hath spoken to you and acted for you. While you belong to the natural system it goes on, and you with it. The law takes its course, and there is nothing but destruction for you, for you have broken it. But God has interfered and enforced a remedy by which you may be saved. If you accept that, then you may escape the result which must otherwise ensue; for God’s design is your salvation.

2. But this is true in a more emphatic sense of those who have received the gospel. In a higher and profounder sense “God hath not appointed you,” etc.

the very object for which it was offered and by you believed. You have come in contact with this Divine element, and by it you are preparing, while here, for the everlasting blessedness which is the future adornment of saved humanity. Christianity, then, is not merely a system; Christ is more than a perfect Teacher and Example: He has died for us and wrought out for us a redemption. Men may take their stand on the abstract improbability of the thing; but let them reject the Bible also, for if there is one thing clearer in that than another it is that Christ has made an atonement for sin. Christ’s death is the point upon which the salvation of humanity turns; we may not be able to say how, but the thing is uncontestable.

III. The sort of world to which we are passing and the kind of thing our life is to be (1 Thessalonians 5:10).

1. “Awake or sleep” means alive or dead. The great object of the gospel is that as long as you live you should live with Christ, have a Divine life from Him, and walk in harmony with Him, and that when you are dead you shall be with Him also.

2. But Paul meant more than this. He had in his mind 1 Thessalonians 4:15, and his object was to show how the great end of the gospel was to be answered, and that the death of the disciples would not frustrate its accomplishment. When Christ is manifested, whether they are alive or dead the result will be the same: they will all be alive together with Christ.

3. Here, then, is--

(1) Immortal life for man. Though I may die and see corruption, I shall rise up like Christ into a glorious and eternal life. That is something like a consummation. There is something ultimate about that, with which I can be satisfied; so different from this world of beginnings, temptations, warfare and dislocations, where the spiritual is dragged down to the flesh.

(2) Life of the noblest and Divinest sort; life with Christ. You cannot make a man more miserable than to take him out of his own sphere in society and put him in one opposite; but to place a Christian in the immediate presence of Christ is to bestow upon him the highest happiness. His sanctified and glorified nature will find itself at home by the side of Christ.

(3) Life of the highest character in respect to general society. We shall not only live with Him, but “together.” It will not be a solitary blessedness. A multitude which no man can number made like each other, by Christ having made them like Himself, will live together in harmony, love, and mutual confidence, and their happiness will be complete.

IV. Christian men having this faith, love, and prospect, should--

1. Edify one another, which implies that there is a foundation laid, upon which the edifice is to be built. Christians should help each other to become temples for the Holy Ghost. Now, a glorious thing like that could never have sprung up in a world like this: it must have come from God.

2. Comfort one another with the testimony we have received--under trial, under loss of friends, in the family, and in Christian intercourse. Conclusion:

1. The perfect beauty and harmony of the Christian system as a theory. If one could not believe it true, it would be relinquished with regret. What a glorious thing, then, to feel no such pity, but to be certain of its truth.

2. The strong feelings of gratitude, hope, and determination which ought to inspire us with respect to life. (T. Binney.)

Christian sobriety, or seriousness

The two great elements indispensable for the existence of a really grand character are elasticity and steadfastness--elasticity, without which a man gets crushed by every slight failure; and steadfastness, without which he will be turned aside from his purposes by unworthy motives, and be tempted to forget the end of his efforts in the contemplation of the means whereby they are to be attained. For keeping alive this elasticity, a man must know how to be wisely gay; for keeping up this steadfastness, he must know how to be sober. And so Christian sobriety must be based upon a reasonable estimate of the importance of life and the seriousness of all things here below. The trifler who has no higher ambition than to amuse himself, mistakes the meaning of all things on earth. He sees no further than the outside of things, and treats them as a savage does a toy, which, when it does not frighten him, affords him endless mirth. The man or the boy who has got to feel that God’s eye is on him morning, noon, and night, and who is learning to realize that the smallest incident of every hour has and must have an influence upon all his future prospects for good or evil--the man or the boy who is impressed with the momentous truth that every day as it passes carries with it an imperishable record of his deeds and words and thoughts, and that the time must come when he will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of the deeds done in the body--he cannot fail to be serious, and will become more and more so in proportion as he realizes these things, and in proportion as he lives in remembrance of them every hour. But as he lays hold of the fact that God loves him and all men, and that, with all his weakness and inconstancy, he is yet not left unsupported by the Spirit’s grace--though he may be serious, he will not be sad. (A. Jessop, D. D.)

The sober minded children of the day

I. The persons.

1. Their character.

(1) They are in God and Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:1).

(2) They know their election of God--not in theory, but in fact, in the heart, by virtue of their union to Christ.

2. Their privilege. “Of the day.”

(1) The day itself is the gospel day (Zechariah 13:1), the day of the fountain opened for sin: the Lord’s day, well called Sunday because of its brightness; but that brightness shines inward through the indwelling Spirit. “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day.”

(2) Its manifestation (Ephesians 5:8) revealing sin, salvation (Malachi 4:2), progress, Divine supplies, future glory.

II. The duty: “Be sober.”

1. towards God.

(1) Humble, and not intoxicated with pride.

(2) Believing, and not intoxicated with false doctrine.

(3) Truthful, and not intoxicated with anxiety and fear.

2. In respect of our enemies.

(1) Patient, and not hasty.

(2) Courageous, and not fearful.

(3) Forbearing, and not wrathful

3. As regards ourselves. (A. Triggs.)

The work and armour of the children of the day

I. The central injunction, into which all the moral teaching drawn from the Second Coming is gathered: “Be sober.”

1. The context shows that we are not to omit a literal reference (1 Thessalonians 4:7). Temperance is moderation in regard to the swinish sins of drunkenness and gluttony. None need the precept more than we. Any doctor will tell you that the average Englishman eats and drinks a great deal more than is good for him. It is melancholy to think how many professors have the intellectual and spiritual life blunted by senseless table indulgence.

2. The higher meaning.

(1) It is not an unemotional absence of fervour in Christian character. Some are always preaching down enthusiasm, and preaching up “a sober standard of feeling,” which is nothing more than Laodicean lukewarmness. But the last thing the Church of this century needs is a refrigerator; a poker and pair of bellows are far more needful. The truths we profess are so tremendous that nothing but a continuous glow of enthusiasm will correspond to their majesty and importance. Paul was the very type of an enthusiast. Festus called him mad; so did some at Corinth (2 Corinthians 5:13). Oh for more of that insanity which rouses the Pentecostal charge, “These men are full of new wine”!

(2) It means the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and love of all earthly treasures and pleasures.

(a) It is clear from the make of a man’s soul that without self-control he will go all to pieces. Human nature was made not for democracy, but for monarchy. Here are within us many passions, tastes, desires, which ask nothing but “Give me my appropriate gratification, though all the laws of God and man be broken to get it.” So there has to be an eye given to these blind beasts and a hand laid on these instinctive impulses. The true temple of the spirit has the broad base laid on these instincts; above them and controlling them the will; above it understanding which enlightens it and them; and supreme over all conscience, with nothing between it and heaven. Where that is not the order you will get wild work. The man who lets passion and inclination guide is like a steamboat with all the furnaces banked up, the engines going at full speed, and nobody at the wheel.

(b) That self-control is to be exercised mainly in regard of our use and estimate of the pleasures of life. It is not only man’s make that makes it necessary. All about us are hands reaching out drugged cups; and whoever takes Circe’s cup turns into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the sorceress forever. Only one thing can deliver us: “Be sober” in regard to the world and all it offers. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

II. A motive which buttresses this exhortation. “Let us, since we are of the day, be sober.”

1. What day? Not exactly the Day of Judgment, although there may be some allusion to that; but the apostle has passed from that to day in general. Christians are the children of that which expresses knowledge, joy, and activity; they should, therefore, be brave, not afraid of light, cheerful, buoyant, hopeful, transparent, and walk in this darkened world, bearing their radiance with them, and making things, else unseen, visible.

2. But while these emblems are gathered into that name there is one direction in which the consideration ought to tell--that of self-restraint. “Noblesse oblige”; the aristocracy are bound to do nothing dishonourable. Children of the light are not to stain themselves with anything foul. Indulgence may be fitting for the night, but incongruous with the day.

III. The method by which this great precept may be fulfilled.

1. Faith, love, hope, form the defensive armour of the soul, and make self-control possible. Like a diver in his dress, who is let down into the ocean, a man whose heart is girt with faith and charity, and whose head is covered with hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed.

2. The cultivation of these three is the best means for securing self-control. It is an easy thing to say, “Govern yourself.” The powers that should control are largely gone over to the enemy. Who shall keep the keepers? You can no more “erect yourself above yourself” than you can lift yourself by your coat collar. But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these will do the governing. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where temptations will show their own foulness. Hope will turn away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendour around, and fix them on the glories above. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The breastplate of faith and love.

I. Faith guards against intellectual temptations.

1. We are surrounded by an all pervasive, subtle, penetrating atmosphere of scepticism. We meet with it in our educational agencies, and drink it in with our learning; in society, and imbibe it with our interchange of thought and conversation; in our ephemeral literature, and take it in in our recreation; in our pulpits, alas I and receive it along with our religious instruction. In these and other ways doubts are insinuated into the heart on the all-important subjects of God, Christ, salvation, duty, destiny. Escape it we cannot. To fight it seems only like combatting the air, so agile is the adversary. Our only safety lies in wearing an insulator. A mariner wrapped in oilskin can defy the elements though he cannot allay them. Such an insulator is faith; not firmly held theological opinions, but practical and realizing trust in God and truth. Faith knows whom and what it has believed, and passes unscathed through the trial.

2. We are surrounded by circumstances which tend to agitate the mind and excite our fears. Our duties, responsibilities, dangers, in business, home, travel, Churches, are calculated to engender anxiety, and when once anxiety gets into the heart it is difficult to dislodge, and, if allowed sway, the citadel is gone and despair enthroned. The only course is to keep anxiety out by the breastplate of faith. Trust in God and in His promise is the sure antidote. “No weapon that is formed against them shall prosper,” etc. “All things work together for good,” etc.

II. Love guards against moral temptations. These, too, abound, and to escape them we must needs go out of the world. Some, of course, we must fight, but against each and all we need protection.

1. Love to God is the supreme motive for resistance. No other is sufficiently strong and durable. Prudence, self-respect, consideration for friends, etc., are well as subordinate motives, engravings on the breastplate, but are unavailing by themselves. The true, abiding, invincible motive is “How can I do this wickedness and sin against God?” What God has done for and to me, and what He is to me and I to Him, are sufficient inspirations when strongly held to resist the most powerful advance.

2. Love to God creates moral habits and tastes which render temptations innocuous. “What fellowship has light with darkness?” While this Sun rules the children of the day, the night of sin can have no place. (J. W. Burn.)

For an helmet, the hope of salvation.

I. Hope.

1. Subjectively considered hope is the expectation and desire of future good. Christian hope con templates--

(1) The highest exaltation and perfection of our nature. We shall be like God, conformed to the image of His Son in soul and body.

(2) This exaltation arises from the enlargement of all our powers to do and all our capacity to receive.

(3) Dominion or exaltation in dignity as well as in excellence and power.

(4) The presence and vision of God in Christ.

2. Its foundation is--

(1) The promise of God.

(2) The infinite merit of Christ.

(3) The love of God. From what we know of that love we infer that there is no benefit which it is not ready to confer.

(4) The witness of the Spirit that we are the children of God.

II. Hope as a helmet.

1. Protects the believer’s most vital part. In the old hand to hand conflicts the head was the worst exposed, and its protection of the first importance. Hence the helmet was as necessary as the shield. With the Christians the hope of salvation gives security, and, therefore, confidence, courage, and endurance.

(1) From the assaults of Satan against our faith and confidence in God; and from our proneness to neglect eternal tidings.

(2) From the attractions and allurements of the world.

(3) From the corruptions of our own hearts.

2. Adorns the believer. The helmet is the most attractive part of the warrior’s equipment. So is hope to the Christian. It enables him to hold his head erect. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The helmet

I. Its mention serves to remind the Christian that he is a soldier.

1. If you were not soldiers you would not need armour. This idea should govern the whole of life. Too many Christians try to be friends with God and with His enemies. Never take off your armour, or in some unguarded moment you may meet with serious wounds.

2. You are soldiers in the enemies’ country. The sick are in the trenches, and the active are engaging the enemy. More or less all are exposed and always.

3. You are in the country of an enemy who never gives quarter. If you fall it is death. The world never forgives. What might be done without observation by any one else is noted and misrepresented in you.

4. You fight with an enemy who never made a truce. You may come to terms and parley; forces of evil never do. “Dread the Greeks, even when they bring you gifts”; and let the Christian dread the world most when it puts on its softest speeches.

5. You have to do with an enemy who cannot make peace with you nor you with him. If you become at peace with sin, it has conquered you.

II. Being a soldier look to your head.

1. A wound in the head is a serious matter. Being a vital part it needs to be well protected. A good many Christians never think of defending the head at all. If they get their hearts warmed by religion, they think that quite enough. But it is not: a hot head and a hot heart may do a good deal of mischief, but a hot heart and cool head will do a world of service for Christ. Have right doctrine in the head, and then set the soul on fire.

2. A helmet is of no use to any part but the head.

(1) The head is peculiarly liable to temptation. It is not easy to stand on a high pinnacle without the brain beginning to reel: and if God puts a man on a high elevation of usefulness he had need to have his head well taken care of. So with wealth, popularity, etc.

(2) The head is liable to attacks from scepticism. He who has a hope of salvation is not afraid of its quibbles. He may hear them all, and be for a moment staggered, as a soldier under a sudden shock, but he recovers himself. A man is not often a very thorough democrat after he gets a little money in the savings bank, and when a man gets a stake in Christianity he gets to be very conservative of old fashioned truth.

(3) The head is in danger from the attacks of personal unbelief. Who of us has not doubted his interest in Christ at times? but the man who has a good hope may be of good cheer. These doubts and fears will pass away.

(4) Some are attacked by threatenings from the world. The world brings down his double-handed sword with a tremendous blow, but it only blunts itself on the helmet.

III. Consider the helmet with which God would have your head protected.

1. Its Giver. The soldier gets his regimentals from Her Majesty, and from the Monarch Himself we must get our helmets. Those of your own construction are of no use in the battle, and the hope of salvation is not purchasable.

2. Its Maker. Weapons are valued according to the maker; the name of the Holy Ghost is on our helmets. The hope of salvation is His work in the soul. Rest satisfied with none that are made in the workshop of nature.

3. The metal of which it is made. Beware of getting a base hope, a helmet of paltry metal, through which the sword will cleave to your skull.

4. Its strength. It renders its wearer invulnerable in all assaults. Recollect David, when pressed with troubles on every side. “Why art thou cast down?…Hope thou in God.”

5. It will not come off. It is of main importance to have a headgear that cannot be knocked off in the first scrimmage. So ours must not be a commonplace hope that will fail us in extremity.

6. The old helmets were oiled to make them shine. When God anoints His peoples’ hope, and gives them the oil of joy, it shines bright in the light of the Saviour’s countenance.

7. The helmet was the place of honour. The plume was placed in it. The Christian’s hope is his honour and glory: he must not be ashamed of it.

IV. There are some who have not this helmet. Christ only provides for His own soldiers, but Satan also provides for his. His helmets are also potent ones. Nothing but the sword of the Spirit can cleave them. He has given some a thick headpiece of indifference. “What do I care!”--that is your helmet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Hope of salvation

Salvation is hoped for because it is already begun. This hope of salvation is a defence--

1. Because that which we hope for is to be free from sin.

2. Because by this hope the heart is set on higher and nobler things.

3. Because, from the experience of salvation which provides our hope, we know the blessed rewards of salvation from sin.

4. Because heavenly life begun gives power to resist and overcome sin.

5. Because the blessings hoped for out dazzle the allurements of sin, and the delights it promises.

6. Because we know that all we hope for is lost if we yield to sin. (Christian Age.)