BLESSED IS HE THAT WATCHETH 
By Charles H. Spurgeon
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk
naked, and they see his shame. Revelation 16:15
‘We die daily,’ said the apostle. This was the life of the early  Christians; they went everywhere
with their lives in their hands. We are  not in this day called to pass through the same fearful
persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of
Christian life, at the present moment, though outwardly not so terrible,  are yet more likely to
overcome us than even those of the fiery age.  We have to bear the sneer of the world that is
little; its blandishments,  its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far
worse.
Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, lest we give ourselves  up to the fashions of
this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if  wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as
mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to
death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ, and
our confidence in Him. I fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her
integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for
we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless
our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of
easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces,
but not the true-born children of the living God.
Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with
holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display His
omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the
rougher, ‘We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’