[AMONG the many solemn exhortations of Christ to his disciples in relation to his second coming, he uses these words: "And take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." Luke xxi, 34. Satan will multiply his devices in proportion as his time grows shorter; and we do well to fortify ourselves with double watchfulness on every hand. The following thoughts from Our Lord's Great Prophecy, by Buck pp. 404-406, we commend to the careful attention of all those who desire to guard against the perils of these last days, and be ready and looking for the Lord when he shall appear.—ED.]
[Luke: Lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.]
Gluttony has a debasing, stupefying effect, rendering the person gross, heavy, sensual. Such a one is almost totally incapacitated for refined, elevating, spiritual enjoyments and contemplations. His anxieties and affection have almost exclusive reference to the things that are of the earth, earthy. This world is his possession; this world his home his hope. The glutton cannot be expected to look away from the things that are seen and temporal, and desire with spiritual longings the things that are unseen and eternal. His carefulness will not be to stand with his loins girt about with righteousness, waiting for the return of the Lord; his principle solicitude will be, What shall I eat? what shall I drink? Gluttony with its two results, grossness and heaviness, will be the horseleech in his soul, with its two daughters crying to this world, Give, Give. Such a one will be earthly minded, sensual, loving this present evil world, and in no proper sense, living a life of self-denial, and crucifixion of the flesh with its lusts. He is neither now ready to see his Lord, nor getting ready; nor will he be in a suitable frame to receive admonition from the comparatively unimportant, and apparently irrelevant events that, to the believing and the watchful, will indicate the approach of the day, as the fig-leaf indicates that summer is nigh.
Revelling at his feast, like Belshazzar, or lazily dozing and dreaming away the heaviness of a recent overcharge of surfeiting, the sluggard with his eyes half opened, and almost unimpressible to anything but the savory indications of another feast, will cry, "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep." Thus, eating and drinking, in the intense import of the terms; or, drowsing between the successive festivals; or, throwing off with unspiritual hilarity his exuberance of fat, he will be in any but the proper frame of sobriety and watchfulness in the expectation of his Lord. . . . .
"And cares of this life." Oh, how many Demases there are in the church, even, who turn away from the faith of the gospel and make a god of this world! Taking thought for the morrow, and having but little heed for the kingdom of God, but anxiously inquiring, What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed, they cannot find time to attend to the things of the kingdom; and, alas! alas! the prophecies of our Lord and his servants have been so generally, and so (to many) hopelessly confused and confounded, that the man of this world, whether in the church or out of it, despairs of ever being able to comprehend what he thinks perhaps might have been originally intended in some measure to instruct and admonish the common mind in respect to these now inexplicable teachings of what appears to him to be the most inexplicable of books. Excusing himself, then, from want of capacity to digest the milk of the word, his business and ambitious leadings are all earthward; and with perpetual lookings and bendings downward, he has hardly strength or inclination to look heavenward. Even when these signs "begin to come to pass," he will be hardly able to lift up his head and look up, in expectation that his redemption is drawing nigh.
Perhaps he has not even a distinct impression, or any well digested conviction, with respect to the fact or nature of the great day of the Lord. Perhaps he is still looking for an universal spread of purity and peace before the Lord's coming; and cannot, of course, be impressed with the necessity of living in readiness to meet his Master at his coming to reckon with his servants. So he suffers himself to be overcharged with the cares of this life; the thorns spring up and choke the good seed, and it becomes unfruitful. He, too, with the drunkard and the glutton, will be unready for the return of his Lord; "and so that day will come upon him unawares."
[Luke: For as a snare shall it come upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth.]
It (the day of the Lord) shall come upon the inhabitants of the earth everywhere suddenly and unexpectedly, as a snare is sprung suddenly and unexpectedly upon the unsuspecting game that the hunter thus successfully entraps. Infidels will not expect it, for they deny the prophecy. Universalists will not expect it, for they misinterpret the prophecy. Heathen will not expect it, for they do not know the prophecy. Romanists will not expect it, for they will be still looking for the downfall of Protestantism by gradual conquest. Protestants will not generally expect it, for they will be looking for the destruction of antichrist, not by a personal, but by a spiritual coming to destroy the Man of Sin, not by judgment fires, but by gospel light.
And so, after all the Lord has said, either by a downright infidelity, or by a ruinous delusion; either by not knowing the word of prophecy, or by misunderstanding it; either by gluttony or drunkenness, or by both together; either by earthly carefulness, or covetousness, or by both together; in some way, by some effectual means of the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the darkness of this world, the prophecies will be so unknown, so disbelieved, so misinterpreted or misapplied, that the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, as a snare upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth. The Lord have mercy upon an infidel or heathen world! The Lord have mercy upon a worldly or slumbering church!