St. Paul writes of two classes of people whose conditions correspond respectively to night and day. Many associations of gloom and evil and ignorance gather round the image of night, while their opposites - brightness, goodness, knowledge, etc. - are suggested by the idea of day. One advantage of the metaphorical language of Scripture is that it gives to us richer and more suggestive ideas than could be conveyed by bare abstract phrases. Subsidiary notions, like chromatic chords in music, give tone and richness to the main idea impressed upon us by a manifold and significant image. This is apparent with the use of the images light and darkness by St. John. St. Paul would have us think that the unspiritual and godless world is in general like a people of the night, while the Church is like a city of light. But probably the enlightenment of revelation, the daylight of spiritual knowledge, is the prominent thought in the mind of the apostle. For we find that in previous verses he has been referring to the shock of surprise to the world which will not be shared by enlightened Christians. On the fact of their greater enlightenment he now founds an exhortation to conduct worthy of it. The fuller light demands the holier life. Sons of the day' have not the excuses of children of night.

I. THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT.

1. These are in darkness. The darkness is not confined to the illiterate. Nor is it confined to the inhabitants of heathen lands. People in Christian countries, who are familiar with the language of the New Testament, may be totally ignorant of its spiritual thought. Such people, though they sit in university chairs as professors of divinity, are blinded with midnight blackness. Was not Faust in the night?

2. Some of the children of the night sleep. These are the thoughtless and careless. They may be awake to secular business. But they slumber over moral and spiritual subjects. If they think of them at all it is with dreamy unconcern.

3. Others of the children of the night are awake only to evil. They spend the night in drunkenness. They hide shameful practices under the cloak of darkness.

4. The guilt of the children of the night is mitigated just in proportion as their benighting is not willful. If it arises from their unhappy circumstances, these unfortunate people cannot be condemned to the same doom as that of men who sin with their eyes open, or as that of those who willfully put out their eyes because they love darkness.

II. THE SONS OF THE DAY.

1. These are enlightened. They may not be brilliantly intellectual nor highly educated. They may be illiterate in human lore. But the "eyes of their hearts" (Ephesians 1:18) are opened. By faith and love and obedience they have come to know what God has revealed through his Spirit.

2. Sons of the day are expected to be wakeful. It is natural to sleep in the night. Sleep in the day betokens sinful indolence. The indifference of spiritually ignorant people is natural. That of Christians on whom has risen "the Dayspring from on high" is monstrous.

3. Sons of the day are expected to be sober. It is bad enough to be drunken in the night, but a debauch which is not shamed by the light of day proves itself to be scandalously depraved. There are excesses of passion, of self-will, and of worldly excitement which Christian people who have escaped the coarser sins fall into. These are not excusable in the children of the night, but they are much less excusable in the sons of the day. Sobriety becomes the enlightened Christian. This sobriety need not consist in Puritan rigor; much less should it partake of sourness, gloom, or prim formality. The sober Christian should remember that the typical citizen of the kingdom of heaven is a little child. Sobriety is just the opposite to unrestrained passionateness of pleasure or anger.

4. Sons of the day are provided with armor. The three graces - faith, hope, and love - constitute the armor of the Christian. They protect the two most vital parts - breast and head. Faith and love come together, for they interact. Faith working by love protects the heart. Hope, the hope of final deliverance from trial and temptation, is the helmet, because it protects the head by keeping the thoughts clear and calm. - W.F.A.

The drunkenness here spoken of is not that from wine only, but that also which comes of all vices. For riches and the desire of wealth is a drunkenness of the soul, and so carnal lust; and every sin you can name is a drunkenness of the soul. On what account, then, has he called vice sleep? Because, in the first place, the vicious man is inactive with respect to virtue; again, because he sees every thing as a vision; he views nothing in its true light, but is full of dreams and oftentimes of unreasonable actions; and if he sees anything good he has no firmness. Such is the present life. It is full of dreams and fantasy. Riches are a dream, and glory, and everything of that sort. He who sleeps sees not things that are and have a real subsistence, but things that are not he fancies as things that are. Such is vice and the life that is passed in vice. It sees not things that are, but things that are fleeting and fly away, and that soon.

( Chrysostom.)

In Thessalonica Paul had his first experience of an European rabble. The Jews employed the tactics by which every sinking cause has fought for life. "Lewd fellows of the baser sort" who were not unaccustomed to the sight of "the world turned upside down," loungers confused oftener than not with drink, and could be bought for any shameful purpose, children of the darkness and the night, "set the city in an uproar." There is no need to further describe these birds of evil omen; the scum and the froth are the same everywhere and all time through. But these miserable creatures were not always so. The wildest of that mob was once a happy, innocent child. Some of them eventually came to be children of the light. And such may every drunkard become through Christ.

I. THE ASSERTION WHICH PAUL MAKES. "Drunken in the night."

1. The words were probably meant to be taken literally. "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening. There is little drunkenness till then. Between this and midnight the work is done (Romans 13:13).

2. But they were also meant to bear a figurative application. The night" was the whole life of the world, of the nation, of the man, until Christ rose like a glorious sun (1 Peter 4:3).(1) Explain the mystery that a habit so degrading should from the earliest time have obtained so firm a hold. What originates drunkenness? Night, says Paul, in the intellectual and moral nature. Paul's method, and that of the gospel, differs from that of many temperance advocates in going deeper. Get rid of drunkenness, urges the reformer, and you will get rid of most of your crimes. Get rid of the night, says Paul, and you will get rid of drunkenness.(2) What night? The night of ignorance, says one — let the man be taught; the night of discomfort — give the man a happy home; of solitude — find the man companions; of dullness — furnish wholesome excitement; of idleness — keep the man employed. Well, these are shadows of the night, but not night itself. Paul's "night" is that of Christlessness. "Without God and hope in the world." Jesus said, "I am the Light of the world," etc. (John 8:12).(3) There is one thing which the prince of darkness cannot do when attacked in his citadel of drunkenness. If you say that education will cure this evil, he will take the intellectual powers and stimulate them into fascinating play by the wine cup. He can furnish the public house with comfort, provide companionships, give excitement, and keep the hands busy. Try every weapon, but remember that the public house will catch the cue and point them at your own heart. But there is one power to which the devil will not appeal, and that is Christ (1 John 3:8).

II. THE APPEAL WHICH PAUL URGES. "Let us who are of the day be sober."

1. Paul was addressing Christians. A line was then drawn, clear cut, between the believer and the unbeliever. Now things have got somewhat mixed. The sad truth that we have to face is that it is an easier thing for thousands around us to grow up in drunken than in sober habits. Your free library may not be open on Sunday, but by command of government your public houses must. Whatever weight your legislation has ever the first day of the week is in favour of drunkenness rather than intelligence. Moreover, you cannot choose your neighbours or keep your children from contamination. Count and contrast the public houses and sanctuaries; which has the need of bell, ritual, sensational element to attract to its services "lewd fellows of the baser sort"? In one large town in England 10 percent go to a place of worship once a week, and 25 percent go every day to the public house.

2. Under the deep conviction that this vice must be grappled with, barriers are built behind which the young and tempted may find shelter. The pledge, guild, league, and society are all to be honoured. But they are nothing to the Christian for his own sake. He has higher ground to occupy. He dreads not so much breaking his bond as sinning against God. Christ outweighs every other consideration.

3. High ground this. Yes, and we dare not lower it. Prove that drunkenness is profitable to the National Exchequer, that it is a characteristic of the best workman, that it is the fashion, which are all dead against the evidence; but I am not careful to answer in this matter. The end of life is not an overflowing exchequer, a ready hand, an entrance into society. "What shall it profit a man?" etc. The drunkard is degraded, unsafe; therefore bind him with pledges and securities. But I look beyond the present, beyond the beggared home, the loathsome death, to something worse — damnation. In that city where there is no night there is no drunkard. Conclusion: Here is a message for all mankind (vers. 9, 10).

(T. H. Pattison.)

Paul, ThessaloniansThessalonicaDrink, Drunk, Drunken, Freely, Making, Sleep, Sleeping, Themselves, Worse1. He proceeds in the description of Christ's coming to judgment;
16. and gives various instructions;
23. and so concludes the epistle.

1 Thessalonians 5:7

     4434   drinking
     5533   sleep, physical

1 Thessalonians 5:1-9

     8211   commitment, to world

1 Thessalonians 5:2-8

     9220   day of the LORD

1 Thessalonians 5:4-8

     8490   watchfulness

1 Thessalonians 5:5-7

     4957   night
     6139   deadness, spiritual

1 Thessalonians 5:5-8

     4921   day
     5769   behaviour

1 Thessalonians 5:6-8

     5534   sleep, spiritual
     8307   moderation

1 Thessalonians 5:7-8

     4436   drinking, abstention

Sleep Not
"Lord, when we leave the world and come to thee, How dull, how slur, are we! How backward! How prepost'rous is the motion Of our ungain devotion! Our thoughts are millstones, and our souls are lead, And our desires are dead: Our vows are fairly promis'd, faintly paid, Or broken, or not made. * * * * * * * Is the road fair, we loiter; clogged with mire, We stick or else retire; A lamb appeals a lion, and we fear Each bush we see's a bear. When our dull souls direct our thoughts to …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

"Pray Without Ceasing"
Observe, however, what immediately follows the text: "In everything give thanks." When joy and prayer are married their first born child is gratitude. When we joy in God for what we have, and believingly pray to him for more, then our souls thank him both in the enjoyment of what we have, and in the prospect of what is yet to come. Those three texts are three companion pictures, representing the life of a true Christian, the central sketch is the connecting link between those on either side. These …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

Awake! Awake!
"Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." Sleep God hath selected as the very figure for the repose of the blessed. "They that sleep in Jesus," saith the Scripture. David puts it amongst the peculiar gift's of grace: "So he giveth his beloved sleep." But alas! sin could not let even this alone. Sin did over-ride even this celestial metaphor; and though God himself had employed sleep to express the excellence of the state of the blessed, yet sin must have even this profaned, ere itself can be …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

Fenelon -- the Saints Converse with God
Francois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, and private tutor to the heir-apparent of France, was born of a noble family in Perigord, 1651. In 1675 he received holy orders, and soon afterward made the acquaintance of Bossuet, whom he henceforth looked up to as his master. It was the publication of his "De l'Education des Filles" that brought him his first fame, and had some influence in securing his appointment in 1689 to be preceptor of the Duke of Burgundy. In performing this …
Various—The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2

Consecration: what is It?
The second step that must needs be taken by those of us who have been living without the Fullness, before it can be obtained, is Consecration, a word that is very common and popular; much more common and popular, it is feared, than the thing itself. In order to be filled with the Holy Ghost one must first be "cleansed," and then one must be "consecrated". Consecration follows cleansing, and not vice versa. Intelligent apprehension of what consecration is, and of what it involves, is necessary to …
John MacNeil—The Spirit-Filled Life

Thirty-First Lesson. Pray Without Ceasing;'
Pray without ceasing;' Or, A Life of Prayer. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.--I Thess. v. 16, 17, 18. OUR Lord spake the parable of the widow and the unjust judge to teach us that men ought to pray always and not faint. As the widow persevered in seeking one definite thing, the parable appears to have reference to persevering prayer for some one blessing, when God delays or appears to refuse. The words in the Epistles, which speak of continuing instant in …
Andrew Murray—With Christ in the School of Prayer

Early Afflictions
"Misery stole me at my birth And cast me helpless on the wild." The words of this hymn express my condition from my first advent into the world. My mother had overworked before I was born; and, as a result, I suffered bodily affliction from infancy. I was scarely two years old when I began having spasms. My eyes would roll back in my head, I would froth at the mouth, the tendons of my jaws would draw, causing me to bite my cheeks until the blood ran from my mouth, and I would become unconscious. …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

Third Sunday after Epiphany
Text: Romans 12, 16-21. 16 Be not wise in your own conceits. 17 Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men. 18 If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men. 19 Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord. 20 But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

The Alarum
That is not, however, the topic upon which I now desire to speak to you. I come at this time, not so much to plead for the early as for the awakening. The hour we may speak of at another time--the fact is our subject now. It is bad to awake late, but what shall be said of those who never awake at all? Better late than never: but with many it is to be feared it will be never. I would take down the trumpet and give a blast, or ring the alarm-bell till all the faculties of the sluggard's manhood are …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Peace
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. I Pet 1:1. Having spoken of the first fruit of sanctification, assurance, I proceed to the second, viz., Peace, Peace be multiplied:' What are the several species or kinds of Peace? Peace, in Scripture, is compared to a river which parts itself into two silver streams. Isa 66:12. I. There is an external peace, and that is, (1.) (Economical, or peace in a family. (2.) Political, or peace in the state. Peace is the nurse of plenty. He maketh peace in thy borders, …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Getting Ready to Enter Canaan
GETTING READY TO ENTER CANAAN Can you tell me, please, the first step to take in obtaining the experience of entire sanctification? I have heard much about it, have heard many sermons on it, too; but the way to proceed is not yet plain to me, not so plain as I wish it were. Can't you tell me the first step, the second, third, and all the rest? My heart feels a hunger that seems unappeased, I have a longing that is unsatisfied; surely it is a deeper work I need! And so I plead, "Tell me the way." …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

Exhortations to Christians as they are Children of God
1 There is a bill of indictment against those who declare to the world they are not the children of God: all profane persons. These have damnation written upon their forehead. Scoffers at religion. It were blasphemy to call these the children of God. Will a true child jeer at his Father's picture? Drunkards, who drown reason and stupefy conscience. These declare their sin as Sodom. They are children indeed, but cursed children' (2 Peter 2:14). 2 Exhortation, which consists of two branches. (i) Let …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

The Christian Prayer
Scripture references: Matthew 6:5-15; Luke 11:1-13; John 17; Matthew 26:41; Mark 11:24,25; Luke 6:12,28; 9:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:17,25; 1 Corinthians 14:13,15; Psalm 19:14; 50:15, Matthew 7:7; 1 Timothy 2:1; Ephesians 3:20,21; John 16:23; 14:14; James 5:16. THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER Definition.--Prayer is the communion of man with God. It is not first of all the means of getting something from God, but the realization of Him in the soul. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matthew …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Paul a Pattern of Prayer
TEXT: "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it."--John 14:14. Jesus testified in no uncertain way concerning prayer, for not alone in this chapter does he speak but in all his messages to his disciples he is seeking to lead them into the place where they may know how to pray. In this fourteenth chapter of John, where he is coming into the shadow of the cross and is speaking to his disciples concerning those things which ought to have the greatest weight with them, the heart of his message …
J. Wilbur Chapman—And Judas Iscariot

Be Ye Therefore Perfect, Even as Your Father which is in Heaven is Perfect. Matthew 5:48.
In the 43rd verse, the Savior says, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward …
Charles G. Finney—Lectures to Professing Christians

Concerning Peaceableness
Blessed are the peacemakers. Matthew 5:9 This is the seventh step of the golden ladder which leads to blessedness. The name of peace is sweet, and the work of peace is a blessed work. Blessed are the peacemakers'. Observe the connection. The Scripture links these two together, pureness of heart and peaceableness of spirit. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable' (James 3:17). Follow peace and holiness' (Hebrews 12:14). And here Christ joins them together pure in heart, and peacemakers', …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Sanctification
'For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.' I Thess 4:4. The word sanctification signifies to consecrate and set apart to a holy use: thus they are sanctified persons who are separated from the world, and set apart for God's service. Sanctification has a privative and a positive part. I. A privative part, which lies in the purging out of sin. Sin is compared to leaven, which sours; and to leprosy, which defiles. Sanctification purges out the old leaven.' I Cor 5:5. Though it takes not …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Hindrances to Mourning
What shall we do to get our heart into this mourning frame? Do two things. Take heed of those things which will stop these channels of mourning; put yourselves upon the use of all means that will help forward holy mourning. Take heed of those things which will stop the current of tears. There are nine hindrances of mourning. 1 The love of sin. The love of sin is like a stone in the pipe which hinders the current of water. The love of sin makes sin taste sweet and this sweetness in sin bewitches the …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Concerning Worship.
Concerning Worship. [780] All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times, nor persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; [781] yet as to the outward signification thereof, in prayers, praises, or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Letter cxx. To Hedibia.
At the request of Hedibia, a lady of Gaul much interested in the study of scripture, Jerome deals with the following twelve questions. It will be noticed that several of them belong to the historical criticism of our own day. (1) How can anyone be perfect? and How ought a widow without children to live to God? (2) What is the meaning of Matt. xxvi. 29? (3) How are the discrepancies in the evangelical narratives to be accounted for? How can Matt. xxviii. 1 be reconciled with Mark xvi. 1, 2. (4) How …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

How Christ is to be Made Use Of, in Reference to Growing in Grace.
I come now to speak a little to the other part of sanctification, which concerneth the change of our nature and frame, and is called vivification, or quickening of the new man of grace; which is called the new man, as having all its several members and parts, as well as the old man; and called new, because posterior to the other; and after regeneration is upon the growing hand, this duty of growing in grace, as it is called, 2 Pet. iii. &c. is variously expressed and held forth to us in Scripture; …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

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