Who are they that watch? What are the marks, it may be asked, that we are awake, and, according to our duty, looking out always for the coming of Christ, and of death as his messenger?
I. To this question there is one plain answer; no man can be said to be watching, no man has any reasonable ground for thinking he is ready unless he is careful how he lives. We must, it is certain, be constantly taking pains with ourselves, or else we are not even trying to be ready. And unless we look often unto the state of our lives and hearts, to see whether we be ready, and to correct whatever is amiss, we are by no means likely to be well prepared. For we cannot see God, we cannot be prepared for death, without following after holiness; and no man can be said to follow after holiness who does not try to get the better of his bad habits and wrong dispositions, and we cannot get the better of these without trouble and pains and self-denial and these must be long-continued. In short, we cannot be ready to meet death with a good hope in Christ, unless we are His disciples in deed as well as in name; and He Himself has said that no man can be His disciple who does not bear His cross and come after Him.
II. Again, it is plain that no one can keep himself prepared who is not used to think often and earnestly about those great changes that are coming upon us: such as death itself, and the state after death, the God who shall judge us, and the hope we have of standing in that judgment. A person must give his mind frequently to these things, or he cannot keep his heart disentangled from this world and fixed on a better; and I need hardly say that it is above all things necessary that we should keep ourselves indifferent to fleshly pleasures and worldly pursuits, or else we shall be sure to forget the coming on of death. It is in this way that most people do become so thoughtless about the shortness and uncertainty of life. Their hearts are engaged in pleasure or business belonging to this life, and they hope they may continue long in this world, till at last they persuade themselves they shall. They will not hear the voice of that heavenly love which is graciously warning us: "Watch ye therefore, and pray always."
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. vii., p. 277.
Christian Watching.
What is Christian Watching. Partially I can answer that questions by two remarks:
I. First of all, in Christian watching there is implied a vigorous exercise of a Christian conscience. (1) When we wish to quicken and increase the power of conscience, we must do so by teaching it to be more and more keen in perception, Conscience must stand before us, as a watcher on a ship stands, guiding the bark of the soul through the wild waves and the thick darkness of this deep night of life, and crying out to us, from moment to moment in the voice of the great Lord whose echo it is: "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." (2) But conscience requires more than to be keenly perceptive; it requires also to be wide in its range of vision it must omit nothing. It must not fret over trifles, but it must not leave them out; it must recollect, it must learn increasingly to recollect that attention to the little things of every day is an element in that attitude of a Christian which the Lord calls watching.(3) You must exercise conscience to assist you in wise decision. (4) Conscience must also finally and above all things be peremptory in command, conscience maybe wrong, it maymake mistakes, but it must never be disobeyed. To disobey conscience is to commit the last disloyalty it is to learn to be untrue to yourselves. (5) Conscience needs illumination. It needs the illumination that comes from prayer, from the Scripture, from the wise advice of patient and experienced friends. It needs more; it needs reinforcement; it needs the presence of the Lord of conscience; it needs to feed upon the power of Christ.
II. There is another point in Christian watching which I must note. It is not only by the exercise of conscience; it is by a patient practice of thoughtfulness. To take thought and make it pass into a permanent form; to lay hold upon will and make it act in one definite direction, to do that is to set the life sweeping onward, like a resistless current, in one direction; it is to place the whole soul in one steady attitude; and this definite directing of the current of life, and this steady fixing of the attitude of soul this and nothing else is what our blessed Redeemer calls watching. "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."
W. J. Knox-Little, Characteristics of the Christian Life,p. 47.
References: Matthew 24:42. T. Wallace, Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 131; Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 165.