Stay awake

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

STAY AWAKE

Rev 16:15

15 "Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."

 NIV

Here is inserted the words of Christ, not an angel speaking for God, but Christ himself giving a warning here. It would seem by this warning it is for the church, the believers. If this is so then is this statement made after all the turmoil all the angels have brought upon the earth under the direction of God? Does this mean the church has not yet been taken out of the world and we believers will have to experience all the tribulation which has been cast upon the earth? Would this statement alone support the post tribulation theory? We would have to view all the events John describes as chronological occurring over a period of undefined time, unless we link it with the time mentioned by Daniel. But hence we would once again be looking at all this with linear thinking and God simply is not linear. Yet John being human and thus linear has to record in a linear or chronological order for the reader of his revelation, as he was instructed to write it down. Yet all these events could happen either over the course of hundreds of years, or within the span of a few days, or even hours. No one really knows except God. Any attempt to lay out an order or time frame is simply supposition. The reason we can be assured of this is because of this very statement of Jesus. “Behold, pay attention all, I, Jesus Christ, am coming like a thief, unexpected, when you think you are safe, I will come and take something.”  At least that is in essence what he is saying, although it is not an absolute quote. The idea of staying awake in order to keep our clothes carries the idea that if a person were to fall asleep a thief would take his clothes and then he would have to go back in town naked and be shamed because he lost his clothes to a thief. But in a spiritual application, which is the reason for scripture in the first place, Jesus is telling people to stay alert spiritually and keep their clothes of righteousness on at all times. We should not fall asleep spiritually, being deceived by all those false words that come from the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, those false ideologies spawned from the devil himself in his schemes to destroy the church, the people of God. Many words are spoken by silver tongued liars who use just enough of the truth so to gather themselves followers and thus draw men away from the truth of God. These lairs are both in the secular sector of the world as well as in the religious community. Our righteousness is in Christ, he has clothed us in his righteousness. If we fall asleep spiritually some might take away our clothes, our righteousness in Christ. Even those who would tell us that if we are believers in Christ then we should be doing good works. Even the unsaved can do good works. They can serve each other just as believers can. Whatever good deed, or work we as believers can do in the flesh, so can unbelievers. What does that prove of our righteousness? The only good deed we can ever do that an unbeliever has never done, is accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. So we need to stay awake, do not let those who would sway us to believe anything but the absolute truth which the Spirit and only the Spirit can lead us to. Whenever Jesus comes, we should be ready for death, ready for his appearance to us, if that is before all the tribulation, or during it, or after it, what really matters is that Jesus is coming and we should be spiritually awake at all times. The point is not when, but the point is he will come and we need to be ready. If we are lazy in our spirit, if we are dozing off we might miss the event by losing our righteousness, our clothing in his righteousness, having been spiritually put to sleep by untruths and if we are left behind how filled with shame we would be. So let us not be put to sleep by any man, but let us keep alert, staying awake, always ready for the day or night of his return. He is coming for us.