From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
October 12 "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the
breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."
1 Thessalonians 5:8 Sobriety in religion is a blessed gift and grace. In our
most holy faith there is no room for lightness. The things which concern our
peace are solemn, weighty matters, and if they lie with any degree of weight
and power on our spirit, they will subdue that levity which is the very
breath of the carnal mind. But sobriety implies not merely the absence of all
unbecoming levity in speech and conduct, but the absence also of all wild,
visionary imaginations in the things of God. It denotes, therefore, that
"spirit of a sound mind" which the Apostle says is the gift of God. Vital
godliness, it is true, has its mysteries, its revelations and
manifestations, its spiritual and supernatural discoveries and operations;
but all these come through the word of truth, which is simple, weighty and
solid, and as far removed from everything visionary or imaginative, wild or
flighty, as light is from darkness; and therefore every act of faith, or of
hope, or of love, will be as simple, solid, and weighty as the word of truth
itself, through the medium of which, by the power of the Spirit, they are
produced and called forth. If any doubt this, let them read in some solemn
moment the last discourses of our blessed Lord with his disciples. How
simple, how solid, how weighty are these discourses. Must not, then, the
faith which receives, believes, and is mixed with these words of grace and
truth, the hope which anchors in the promises there spoken, the love which
embraces the gracious and glorious Person of him who spoke them, be simple
and solid too? What room is there in such a faith, hope, and love for
visionary ideas, wild speculations, and false spiritualizations of
Scripture, any more than there is in the words of the Lord himself?