In our enjoying of the dispensing of the divine Trinity we must learn to watch and to pray. We should not remain in any kind of sleepiness. Rather, we need to watch over the situation concerning ourselves, the brothers and sisters, the church in which we are, and even the Lord’s recovery. We should watch and pray concerning the Lord’s interest and His present move and also over the world situation and the things regarding the unsaved. As believers we should be concerned for these things. Therefore, we need to watch over them and pray about them.
The word “watch and pray” was given by the Lord Jesus to His disciples in Matthew 26:41. When He was about to be betrayed, He told His disciples that they should watch and pray.
Matthew 26:41 says, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak.” In spiritual things our spirit is often ready, but our flesh is weak.
We need to watch and pray so that we may not enter into temptation. If we would avoid entering into temptation, we need to watch and pray all the time. The Lord’s word indicates that it is possible for us to be tempted in anything, at any place, and at any time. Because it is easy for us to enter into temptation, we must watch and pray.
The believers need to watch and pray at every time. Luke 21:36a says, “Be watchful, at every time beseeching.”
In Luke 21:34 and 35 the Lord Jesus says, “Take heed to yourselves lest at some time your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and anxieties of life, and that day come upon you suddenly as a snare; for it will come in upon all those dwelling on the face of all the earth.” The Greek word rendered “dissipation” indicates a drunken hangover. The phrase “dissipation and drunkenness” refers to indulgence in the enjoyment of eating and drinking.
The Lord’s word here is similar to that in Luke 17:27: “They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day in which Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” The generation of Noah was characterized by the indulgence of the lustful self. Today those who indulge their lust in eating and drinking and who are weighed down with the anxieties of life will become stupefied by their enjoyment and anxiety. Suddenly, unexpectedly, “that day” will come upon them as a snare, as a net cast over them. This snare will come upon all those dwelling on the face of all the earth.
In Luke 21:36 the Lord Jesus says, “But be watchful, at every time beseeching, that you may prevail to escape all these things which are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” To prevail here is to have strength and ability. The strength and ability to escape the great tribulation come from watchfulness and beseeching.
The word “escape” in 21:36 signifies being taken, raptured, before the great tribulation (Matt. 24:21), which will be a severe trial upon the whole inhabited earth (Rev. 3:10; Luke 17:34-36). To be thus raptured is to be kept “out of the hour of trial which is about to come on the whole inhabited earth, to try them who dwell on the earth” (Rev. 3:10). Furthermore, “all these things” are the things of the great tribulation.
In Revelation 3:10 the Lord promises the recovered church, the church in Philadelphia that He will keep her out of the hour of trial. He will keep her not only out of the trial but also out of the hour of trial, because she has kept the word of the Lord’s endurance. This promise of the Lord, like that in Luke 21:36, indicates that the believers who have kept the word of the Lord’s endurance will be raptured before the great trial. This implies that those who have not kept the word of His endurance will be left in the trial.
In 21:36 the Lord Jesus charges us to be watchful. Instead of being stupefied or drugged, we need to be vigilant. Furthermore, at every time we need to beseech. This is not to pray in a general way; it is to pray in a particular way that we may prevail, have the strength and ability, to escape the things of the great tribulation which are about to take place. We should not be caught in the trend of today’s world. Instead, we need to escape this trend. The strength and ability to escape come from being watchful and from praying. If we pray in a particular way and are watchful, we shall prevail to escape all the things that are about to take place.
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