| “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). |
| It is important for us to have sleep, and most of us need about eight hours every night. But some people can exist with much less sleep, and I have known people who needed only about four hours sleep at night. William Van Horne, who became president of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888, was like that. He often used to monitor the telegraph messages on the trains in the middle of the night, when some of the telegraph boys thought everybody else was asleep, and took the opportunity to send silly messages along the line. Then Mr. Van Horne would interrupt them, and when they found out who it was, they were somewhat shocked and surprised to find that the president of the railway was awake at that time, and listening to them. When someone asked him once why he did not sleep more, he replied, “Because when you are asleep, you don’t know what is going on!” He was a good president of the railway, because he usually knew just about everything that was going on. |
| We need a certain amount of natural sleep, but according to our verse, it is not good to be spiritually asleep. Many people in this world are spiritually asleep, and do not realize that judgment is ahead for them. They simply carry on with life, and perhaps pleasure too, yet do not think that someday they will have to meet God. Those who meet Him in their sins will have to spend an eternity in that awful place called hell. |
| But it is easy too for a Christian to be asleep spiritually, and Paul warns us about this in our verse. Instead of sleeping, we are to watch, and be sober. This does not mean that we need to stay awake at night, but it means that we are to be on guard in this world, and not just floating along with those who do not know the Lord Jesus. Any dead fish can float down the river with the current, but it takes an energetic, live fish to swim upstream, against the current. Perhaps you have seen pictures or videos of fish who do this, especially in the spring when they swim upstream to spawn. They can even jump up small waterfalls, they are so determined. The Lord wants us to be like those fish, and not to be spiritually asleep. The Lord wants us to be sober, or serious, about our Christian life. |
