Albert Barnes Commentary Luke 21:34

"But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare:" — Luke 21:34 (ASV)

Lest at any time your hearts be overcharged. The meaning of this verse is:

Be continually expecting these things. Do not forget them, and do not be secure and satisfied with this life and the good things it provides. Do not allow yourselves to be drawn into the fashions of the world, to be conformed to its customs, or to partake of its feasts and revelry; and so these calamities will come upon you when you least expect them.

And from this we may learn—what alas! we may also learn from the lives of many professing Christians—that there is a need to caution the disciples of Jesus now not to indulge in the festivities of this life, and not to forget that they are to die and come to judgment. How many, alas, who bear the Christian name, have forgotten this caution of the Saviour, and live as if their lives were secure, as if they did not fear death, and as if there were no heaven and no judgment! Christians should feel that they are soon to die, and that their portion is not in this life. Feeling this, they should be looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.

Overcharged. Literally, to be made heavy, as is the case with those who have eaten and drunk too much.

Surfeiting. This term refers to excessive eating and drinking, so as to oppress the body; it is an indulgence in the pleasures of the table. This word does not include intoxication, but merely indulgence in food and drink, even if the food and drink are in themselves lawful.

Drunkenness. This means intoxication or intemperance in drinking. The ancients were not acquainted with the poison we now chiefly use to become drunk; they had no distilled spirits. They became intoxicated on wine, and strong drink made from a mixture of dates, honey, and so on. All nations have devised some way to become intoxicated—thereby introducing folly, disease, poverty, and death through drunkenness. And the depravity of humanity is nowhere more manifest than in this endeavouring to hasten the ravages of crime and death.