Watch!
SoME bells require to be rung very often. As there is constant danger from certain quarters, so there must be constant warnings. When our Lord repeats an admonition five times over within the space of a dozen lines, we may be quite sure that he regarded it as one of supreme importance. If we turn to the thirteenth chapter of St. Mark we discover that he repeated his injunction to watchfulness several times, and then closed his solemn discourse with the sharp stroke on the alarm-bell, ‘‘I say unto you all, watch
Those of us who have crossed the ocean in a steamship have always gone down to our berths on a dark night with a more comfortable sense of — security from having seen a ‘‘lookout’’ posted on the ship’s bow. It is the business of that sailor to do two things, viz., to keep wide awake and to report instantly any glimpse of a vessel or an iceberg before the steamer’s path. His signal is the security of every soul on board. Conscience is the lookout on the bow in the voyage of life. Some people with sinful infatuation put conscience at the stern; it may utter its shriek of remorse when the sin has been committed and the craft has struck the temptation which stove in the bow. But a conscience that can do no more than moan and weep over sins already committed is of little worth; for even that process is a very hardening one if continued very long.
I have observed one very undeniable fact in my own experience and in my observation of others: this fact is that everything depends on the manner in which first sins and first slips from the right path are treated. If a first false step is promptly met by a thorough repentance (as in the case of Peter’s lie in Pilate’s Hall), then the mischief ends. The soul soon recovers its healthy tone, and is sometimes the wiser and stronger for its sad experience. But if the first sin is followed by a second and a third and a fourth without any contrition before God, then conscience soon becomes benumbed and powerless. In time it is seared as with a hot iron. This is the case with those professed Christians who lapse into sensual vices or who are detected in dishonest defalcations or breaches of trust. All these men could have been easily saved right after the first transgression; but when that was passed without compunction, the rapids soon whirled them over the cataract. It is astonishing to observe how fast sin will anodyne even a Christian’s conscience.
1. It is the office of a healthy conscience not only to feel keen compunctions when wrong has been done, but to detect sin in advance and to sound the alarm to the will, which has its hand on the helm. The truly righteous man has just as many temptations floating across his weatherbow as the ungodly or the backslider has. The difference is that the good man’s conscience detects the danger and gives the signal to the will to ‘‘steer clear’? of the enemy. Nay, more; such a conscience reports the danger to God in prayer, and prompt help comes from*heaven to the hand on the helm. Wherefore the Master commands us to both ‘‘ watch and pray.”’
2. The eye must be open towards more directions than one. While a sentinel is steadily looking in the quarter whence he expects the enemy, he may be surprised by a hand laid on his shoulder from behind, and as he turns around he finds the foe already inside the ramparts! He was watching, but in the wrong direction. The devil is a master of strategy. He always finds out what gate is unguarded. We are often shocked at the fall of certain much-trusted persons into heinous sin; but not more than the persons are themselves when they get their eyes open to see ‘‘ whence they have fallen.’’ The fatal mistake of all such is that they did not keep the eyes open when the first temptation came.
3. It is always unwise to despise an enemy. We never know how many guns he carries until he has stolen a march on us and opens fire. King Edward’s garrison fell asleep in Edin-
“an burgh Castle because they fancied it impregnable, and despised the little band of Scottish soldiers who were prowling about below the cliff. But when Randolph’s thirty men had scaled the precipice and leaped the walls, they were an overmatch for a whole garrison who were asleep. The simple reason why the Englishmen did not watch that night was that they did not regard a score or two of Highlanders worth the watching. You and I, dear reader, have sometimes caught our hardest blows from the foes whom we underrated. Our Lord himself did not underrate the adversary on the mount of temptation.
4. The best preventive against spiritual assault and overthrow is to keep up constantly the tone and fibre of a truly godly character by perpetual living close with God. Multitudes live as if there were no God in the broad world. They act as if the Master were away and would never return. ‘‘Blessed is that servant whom, when the Master cometh, he finds watching.” It is not only the enemy whom we are to be looking after, but our Lord himself. I never know when he will come to inspect my poor work, or when he will come with the orders to drop the tools into the grave. But a perpetually vigilant life of communion and Word-study and holy intercourse with him will keep us ever ready for ‘‘the last call.’’ If we watch thus for him he will be ever watching over ws, and then no deadly danger shall ever befall us. It ought to be not only a duty but a delight to be watchful. For there are so many mercies constantly coming in sight, so many opportunities to do good, so many beautiful views of God’s providence, and so many foretastes of heaven, that we lose more than we can afford to if we fall asleep ‘on our homeward way. Can we ‘‘not watch, with him one hour’? It willsoon be over.
THE THOUGHT-MILL.