158. [verse 2] 'Be watchful' signifies that they may be in truths, and in a life in accordance with them. Nothing else is signified by 'to watch' in the Word; for he who learns truths and lives in accordance with them is like one who is wakened out of a sleep and is alert. Whereas he who is not in truths, but only in worship, is like one who is asleep and dreaming. Natural life regarded in itself, or without spiritual life, is nothing else but a sleep; but natural life in which there is spiritual life is watchfulness; and this can be achieved by no other means than truths, which are in their own light and their own day when a man is in a life in accordance with them. This is signified by 'to watch' in these passages:-
Watch, for you know not what hour the Lord is going to come Matt. xxiv 42.
Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He comes shall find watching. Be ready, for the Son of Man shall come at an hour when you think not Luke xii 37, 40.
Watch, for you know not when the Lord of the house shall come, lest when He suddenly comes, He find you sleeping. What I say unto you, I say unto you all, Watch Mark xiii 35-37.
While the bridegroom tarried the virgins slumbered and slept, and the five foolish came and said, Lord open to us, but the Lord shall answer, I know you not. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man shall come Matt. xxv 1-13.
Because the Lord's coming is called 'morning' (n. 151), and then truths are opened and there is light, therefore that time is called 'the beginning of the watches' (Lam. ii 19), and the Lord is called 'a Watcher' (Dan. iv 13); and it is said in Isaiah:-
Thy dead shall live, Awake you that dwell in the dust Isa. xxvi 19.
But that the state of a man who is not in truths is termed a 'slumber' and 'sleep' may be seen (Jer. li 39, 57; Ps. xiii 3 [H.B. 4]; Ps. lxxvi 6 [H.B. 7]; Matt. xiii 25, and elsewhere).
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