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Apocalypse Revealed #158
158. "'Be watchful.'" (3:2) This symbolically means that they should have truths and live in accordance with them.
To be watchful has precisely this symbolic meaning in the Word, for a person who learns truths and lives according to them is like someone who awakens from sleep and becomes alert. By contrast, a person who lacks truths, but who is engaged simply in worship, is like someone who is asleep and dreaming.
Natural life, regarded in itself or apart from spiritual life, is really no more than a state of sleep, whereas natural life that contains spiritual life is a state of alertness. This alertness, moreover, is obtained only through truths - truths which appear in their own light and in their own clarity when a person lives in accordance with them.
This is the symbolic meaning of watching in the following passages:
Watch..., for you do not know at what hour your Lord will come. (Matthew 24:42)
Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, will find watching... Be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect. (Luke 12:37, 40)
Watch..., for you do not know when the lord of the house will come..., lest, when he comes suddenly, he find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: Watch! (Mark 13:35-37)
While the bridegroom was delayed, (the virgins)...slumbered and slept... And the (five foolish) virgins came..., saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" But (the Lord) answered..., ."..I do not know you." Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour at which the Son of Man will come. (Matthew 25:1-13)
Because the Lord's coming is called the morning (no. 151), and truths are then revealed and light dawns, therefore that time is called "the beginning of the watches" in Lamentations 2:19, and the Lord is called "a watcher" in Daniel 4:13. Moreover we read in Isaiah,
Your dead shall live... Awake..., you who dwell in dust. (Isaiah 26:19)
To be shown that the state of a person who lacks truths is called slumbering and sleep, see Jeremiah 51:39, 57, Psalms 13:3; 76:6, Matthew 13:25, and other places.
Isaiah 26
1
In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.
2
Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.
3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
4
Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:
5
For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.
6
The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
7
The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.
8
Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
9
With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
10
Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD.
11
LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.
12
LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
13
O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.
14
They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
15
Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.
16
LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
17
Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
18
We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
19
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
20
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
21
For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
