Luke 21:34 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Ver. 34-36. I take the Luke 21:34 to be a good exposition of the term watch, Luke 21:36. Avoid sin industriously, in a prospect of my coming to judgment: for sin is compared to sleep, Romans 13:11 Ephesians 5:14; and as he that watcheth doth not only wake, but setteth himself designedly to forbear sleep, in order to some end; so he who keepeth the spiritual watch must set himself designedly to avoid sin, upon a prospect of Christ's coming, and the uncertainty of it. Particularly he cautions his disciples against luxury and worldly mindedness. The first he expresses under the notions of gluttony and drunkenness, which are two eminent species of it. The latter, under the notion of the cares of this life; not necessary and provident cares, but superfluous and distracting cares. These things he presseth them to avoid, lest they should be surprised by Christ's coming, as he tells them the most of the world would be. He further exhorteth them to pray always; the sense of which precept we showed largely in our notes on Luke 18:1. He further presseth both these duties in those words, That ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass; those that should come to pass at or before the destruction of Jerusalem, or afterward; and to stand before the Son of man, that is, in the last judgment; for, The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, Psalms 1:5.