BLESSED IS HE THAT WATCHETH

     By Charles H. Spurgeon

     Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth,
     and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked,
     and they see his shame.          -   -   Revelation 16:15

         'We die daily,' said the apostle.  This was the life of the early Christians;
    they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We are not in this day
    called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord
    would give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the
    present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to
    overcome us than even those of the fiery age.

         We have to bear the sneer of the world--that is little; its blandishments,
    its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse.

         Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, lest we give ourselves
    up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose our faith.  Or if wealth
    be not the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous.  If we cannot be torn in
    pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil
    little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ, and our
    confidence in Him.

        I fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in
    these soft and silken days than in those rougher times.  We must be awake now,
    for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our
    own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a
    vehement flame.  Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove
    tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the
    true-born children of the living God.

         Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with
    watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and
    may God the eternal Spirit display His omnipotence in you, that you may be
    able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher, 'We are more
    than conquerors through Him that loved us.'

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    Yours in Christ,
    Paul N. F.