A Year's Ministry Author:Alexander Maclaren Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY. SERMON III. THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY. " Let us, who are of the day... more », be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." 1 Thes. v. 8. This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the New Testament. . It was probably written within something like twenty years of the Crucifixion ; long, therefore, before any of the Gospels were in existence. It is, therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions to our Lord's teaching, as it is preserved in these Gospels ; and how it takes for granted that the Thessalonian Christians were familiar with the very words. For instance : " Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." (Ver. 2.) How did these people in Thessalonica know that ? They had been Christians for a year or so only ; they had been taught by Paul for a few weeks only, or a month or two at the most. How did they know it ? Because they had been told what the Master had said : " If the goodman ofthe house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up." And there are other allusions in the context almost as obvious—" The children of the light." Who said that ? Christ, in His words: " The children of this world are Aviser than the children of light." " They that sleep, sleep in the night, and if they be drunken, are drunken in the night." Where does that metaphor come from ? " Take heed lest at any time ye be over-charged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." " Watch, lest coming suddenly ...« less