Romans 13:11

Romans 13:11

Romans 13:11 says, "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

In this verse the word "time" is used twice. Actually, two different Greek words are translated as "time" in Romans 13:11. "Knowing the time" refers to understanding the period of time in which one lives, understanding the season, and perceiving the important characteristics of the age in which one lives. When this verse says "that now it is high time to awake out of sleep", it is using the word for "time" that can also be translated "hour" and it refers to a specific moment in time, a specific hour.

We live in a period of time and we live in an age in which time is limited. Some day when we are in the Kingdom of God, we will not have such a limitation; but now we do. You only have so much time, and of all the things that there are to do in life, you can only do so many, and so you must prioritize. This Bible verse is reminding us of what the priority should be. It says that it is "time to awake out of sleep." Of course, it is referring to a spiritual awakening. There must be a spiritual awakening in your life, and the spiritual awakening must take place now. Some people live as if they have plenty of time to turn to God. They may think that some day down the road that they will turn from their sins and turn to Jesus, or that they will turn to God with all of their hearts and finally start serving Him like they should. But some day down the road may never happen for them, because of the characteristics of the time in which we live. Life is temporary, and life is fragile. You only have so many chances. And for all you know, today may be your last chance to go with Jesus, or to do something that you know you should do and that you always wanted to do for God, but never did.

Second Corinthians 6:2 says, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." You are putting yourself in grave danger if you know that you need to turn to Jesus, but do not do it right now. You have no promise of tomorrow. If only more people who are without God would understand the characteristics of the age in which we live. Surely then more of them would turn to God before it is too late. This reminder in Romans Chapter 13 of the shortness of time and the disappearing nature of opportunities, even spiritual opportunities, is written to believers. It is possible that believers will lose their spiritual edge or misplace their priorities or stop focusing on Jesus; and so we are reminded to be careful to not let this happen to us. At any time of the day you can look at the clock, and no matter what time it is, you can be sure that it is a good time for a spiritual awakening because "now is the time to awake out of sleep."

Time is precious. God has given us only so much time. We will understand God’s will to the degree that we understand time. There is a time for everything. There is a time to laugh and a time to cry; there is a time to live and a time to die. Not only must you understand what God wants you to do, but you must also understand when He wants you to do a certain thing. Timing is everything. If you are in tune with God and in tune with your total environment, you will understand what time it is. It is time to tun to Jesus and serve Him with all of your heart.

The last part of Romans 13:11 says that "now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." The word "salvation" has two different spiritual meanings in the Bible. We are saved when we first believe in Jesus with the result of having our sins forgiven. That is salvation. Romans 10:13 says that, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." If you have come to know this kind of salvation, then you have been saved from your sins, you have been saved from the judgment of God, and you have been saved from hell. You will go to heaven. But there is another way that the word "salvation" is used in the Bible and it refers to the final deliverance from this world that we will be given from God. God will deliver us from the failures and limitations of this life. He will deliver us from the trials and sufferings of this world. In that sense we have not yet been saved, we have not yet received that salvation. We are talking about the final transformation of the world and we are talking about the fulfillment of all the promises of God; when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, when men shall beat their swords into plows and pruning hooks, and when death and disease shall be no more. That kind of salvation is still in the future.

It is a future salvation of the earth when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the land as the waters shall cover the sea. We also know that the final salvation will happen when Jesus comes to the earth a second time, not to a manger in a small and obscure village, but to all the world as the King of Kings. We know that it will happen, we just do not know when it will happen. It might happen today and it might happen hundreds of years from now. We do not know the day or the hour, but we do know that the day of His coming and the day of our salvation is closer today than it was yesterday. If the Lord does not return to the earth today, then we will be at least one day closer tomorrow to His coming. The day is getting closer. There is a spiritual deadline. Things as we know them will end one day, and therefore opportunities to serve God in this world will end one day. If you have ever worked on a project with a deadline, you know that the closer that you get to the deadline may require you to make sure that you use your time wisely in order to get everything done that needs to be done before the deadline arrives. You may not have an entire lifetime in order to do the things that God wants you to do. You may have less time than you think. And if you are not awake spiritually you may lose your time, or you may waste the time that God does give to you. Time is precious: it is a gift from God.

Romans 13:12 says, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of light." God created the night and the day; He created the light and the darkness. In ages past the earth in a lifeless form was flung through the universe by the hand of God and the will of God. As it traveled through the universe this earth in which we now live came into contact with our sun at just the right speed and just the right trajectory to be captured by the gravity of the sun. And then the earth knew light as it had never known it before. God brought light and darkness into the world for many reasons and one of the reasons was so that the existence of light and darkness would teach us something about spiritual truth.

Spiritually speaking you are either in the light or you are in darkness. At any given moment on the earth, half of the earth is in light and the other half is in darkness. If you are in a correct physical relationship to the sun, s-u-n, then you have the light shining on you and you are not in darkness. You can see clearly and are safe to move about. The same is true in a spiritual sense. If you are correctly related to the Son, s-o-n, then you have the light of life shining upon you and you are not in spiritual darkness. The sun around which we orbit is the light of the world from a physical standpoint. Jesus is the light of the world from a spiritual standpoint.

In First John Chapter 1 the apostle John made it very clear that it is your sins that will keep you from walking in the light and will keep you from being in fellowship with Jesus Christ. So, the person who is consistent at confessing their sins is the one who will stay in the light of Christ. Of course, you cannot ask for the forgiveness of sins, unless it is also your intention to do the right thing the next time. That is repentance. It is both asking for forgiveness and making a decision to go in the right direction. And so we are told in Romans 13:12 to "cast off the works of darkness."

We are also told to "put on the armour of light." The verb that is translated "put on" is a word that refers to the putting on of clothing, and it refers to dressing oneself, to being covered. The word that is translated "armor" is really a plural word and refers to the instruments or the weapons of light. It is a reminder that you are in the midst of a spiritual battle. There are spiritual forces of darkness who are against you. If they cannot destroy your soul and keep you from believing in Jesus, then the forces of darkness will attempt to cause you to waste the limited time and opportunities that God has given you on this earth.

We are told to be clothed with the armor of light, and then in Romans 13:14 the same verb is used again and we are told to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ", to be clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a one-for-one relationship between spiritual light and Jesus. You cannot have one without the other. If a person claims to be a teacher of the light, but they do not teach about Jesus, then you will know that they are actually in darkness. Jesus is the Light.

What does it mean to be clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ? A person who is not properly clothed will be burned by the sun if it is summer or will be frozen by the cold if it is winter. If you have Jesus and if you depend upon Jesus, then you will have all the spiritual protection that you need from the powers of darkness, and you will walk in the light. Jesus is our spiritual strength. In one of the places in the book of Revelation when it speaks of the devil and his power to do evil, it also speaks of how some humans gained the victory over the devil, and it says, "they overcame him by the blood of the lamb". Jesus is the Lamb of God. In the book of Genesis, after Adam and Eve had sinned, they were ashamed of being naked. God gave them clothing made from animal skins and that took away their shame at being naked. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Perhaps you are ashamed of the sins that you have committed. You can be cleansed by Jesus, and you can be given clothing to take away your shame. That is the power of the gospel and the power of forgiveness.

If you are cleansed by Jesus and clothed with Jesus, your shame will be taken away and you will be considered by God as though you had never sinned. Clothing was created by God in order to be symbolic of the forgiveness of sins, and to be symbolic of purity restored by an act of God through grace. It says in the Bible that the believers will be dressed in garments of pure white in order to be symbolic of the purity and sinlessness that will be our condition in the Kingdom of Heaven. You may think that you have lost your purity, but you can have it restored through Jesus Christ. And you can also have pure behavior through the help of Jesus Christ in the midst of a world that continues to chase after the lust of the flesh.

To put on Jesus Christ also means to think about Him, and to think about the fact that He is always with you. When Paul spoke to the philosophers in Athens, he described the one true God and said; "In whom we live and move and have our being." We put on Jesus Christ by putting into our minds the thought that He is ever with us, and we dedicate whatever we do to Him, and we walk with Him.

There is a direct relationship between honesty and walking in the light that is Christ. Romans 13:13 says, "Let us walk honestly as in the day...". If you are honest, you will want to know the truth. As a matter of fact, you can only come to know the truth if you are honest: honest about yourself and honest about your own sinfulness and your need of a Savior. Perhaps we are reminded of the need for honesty, because humans are so easily dishonest. One of the Ten Commandments is; thou shalt not lie, and one of the most common failures of humans the world over is that of lying. Some people think that they must lie in order to prosper, but that in itself is a lie. The truth about every lie will one day be known. That which is spoken in secret will be shouted upon the housetops. It is better to tell the truth now than to be shamed later. And you must have an attachment to that which is honest if you are going to have an attachment to Christ. You must love the truth, and to prove that you love the truth, you must tell the truth.

The last part of Romans Chapter 13 tells us what to do in order to abide in the light and avoid spiritual darkness. It tells us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in honesty. It also tells us what not to do in order to abide in the light and avoid the darkness. The last part of Romans 13:13 says, "...not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying." and the last part of Romans 13:14 says, "..And make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof."

If you want to walk in the light, there are certain excessive behaviors that must be avoided. There are six things listed here that should not be a part of the behavior of a Christian who desires to walk in the light. The reason that these six things are listed are because they were quite common in the Roman Empire. When you look at them, you will see that they are still common in our society, and they are still things that the follower of God should avoid. The six things listed are: rioting, drunkenness, chambering, wantonness, strife, and envying. Rioting refers to feasts and drinking parties that went late into the night in which individuals would go from house to house drinking and carousing. The message is clear. Excessive drinking in loud and late parties should be avoided by the follower of God. What if you get invited to a party and it looks like it might turn in to something like this? Do not drink and politely leave early. But even if you do not go to such parties, excessive drinking should be avoided in any circumstance. There is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, but the abuse of alcohol is condemned. The best way to make sure that you do not abuse it is to not use it.

Sexual immorality is also condemned. "Chambering" literally means sleeping-around, and of course condemns sleeping with anyone other than the person to whom you are bound by the marriage-bond. Not only is sleeping-around condemned, but any kind of actions that are not consistent with the highest moral character are forbidden. Such is the meaning of the word wantonness. The servant of the one true God should always endeavor to have the highest of standards. There should be no look, or word, or gesture, or clothing, or action of any kind that is a part of the world’s constant flirtation with immorality. In other words, you should be in control of yourself, and should not cross any boundary that God has set.

Earlier in Romans Chapter 13 we were told to live peaceably with all men, as much as it was possible. We are being reminded of the same thing again by being told to avoid "strife", which refers to wrangling and having a contentious or argumentative spirit. Always remember that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." When you strive with others, you are manifesting personal desires that drive you to contend and to compete with them. Someone who trusts in God will not have such selfish ambitions, but will rather be ambitious to find and do the will of God.

It is our own selfishness and lack of self-control that will at times be our worst enemy. Lust happens when a normal and good desire goes out of control. Darkness and lust go together. Spiritual light goes together with behavior that is under control, and that does things with the proper moderation. Darkness goes with lack of control. You can find the balanced and controlled life that you need through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by learning to clothe yourself with Him on a daily basis.

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