The hour has come for you to wake up.
—Romans 13:11
The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here (Rom. 13:11, 12).
Members of the first-century church expected the Lord to return in their lifetime, as some have in every generation since.
While the time of his return is unknown and unknowable, for each of us it can’t be far away, for each day brings us that much closer to the end of this life and the beginning of the new one. “Every day,” wrote someone, “we pitch our tent a day’s march nearer home.”
The time for sleeping is over. The alarm clock is ringing. It’s time to wake up, get dressed, and prepare to travel.
Death is not the final sleep,
but the final awakening.