“Look! I am coming as a thief. Happy is the one that stays awake and keeps his outer garments, that he may not walk naked and people look upon his shamefulness.” (Revelation 16:15)

29, 30. (a) What is implied by Jesus’ warning that those found sleeping would be shamed by losing their “outer garments”? (b) What do outer garments identify the wearer as being? (c) How might a person lose his symbolic outer garments, and with what result?

²⁹ What, though, is implied by the warning that those found sleeping would be shamed by losing their “outer garments”? In ancient Israel, any priest or Levite on guard duty at the temple had a heavy responsibility. Jewish commentators tell us that if anyone was caught sleeping on such duty, his garments could be stripped from him and burned, so that he was publicly shamed.

³⁰ Jesus here warns that something similar can happen today. The priests and Levites foreshadowed Jesus’ anointed brothers. (1 Peter 2:9) But Jesus’ warning applies by extension to the great crowd too. The outer garments here referred to identify the wearer as a Christian Witness of Jehovah. (Compare Revelation 3:18; 7:14.) If any allow the pressures of Satan’s world to lull them to sleep or into inactivity, they are likely to lose these outer garments​—in other words, lose their clean identification as Christians. Such a situation would be shameful. It would put one in danger of losing out completely.