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Tracts of Truth 350
Audio download at bottom of page
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DANGER! AWAKE!
TEXT: Ephesians 5:14, 15,16
(14) Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
(15) See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
(16) Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Wherefore, he saith, that too often people go to hear the Preachers and never listen for the Lord. It is not “what I say,” but “what HE, the Lord, saith.” Brother J. Grant Anderson said that he was not interested in what the prophet said so much as in what God said when he spoke through those lips of clay.
The first thought is to get people awake. If there were not a lurking danger, there would be no need for an alarm given. This scripture has no reference to a physical sleep, but has to do entirely with the spiritual sleep and slumber that men have let come upon them. Another text that coincides with this is found in Solomon’s writings, Proverbs 24:30. (31) And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. (32) Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction; (33) Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: (34) So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man.”
Men that over-sleep themselves in physical sleep, suffer the consequences. Solomon did not have to go to a man’s home to see if he if he was sleeping late hours, but he only had to look upon his fields of labor. We do not have to go around today to see what is going on in the Churches, but we see the little result of Christian labors and activities throughout the length and breadth of the land, and anyone can see that the machinery of the religious world is sleeping on the job. Paul said, 1st Thessalonians 5:7: “Those that sleep, sleep in the night,” but we find the Christian age in which we live is not a time of night, but it is called the dawn of a new day.
Malachi 4:2, “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” Paul said, in his letter to the Romans, “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.” (Romans 13:12).
People should respect the beautiful spiritual light which comes from the transparent light of the glorious Son of God, and work while it is day. For Jesus said, (St. John 9:4), “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”
“Thousands go flirting around with the world,
While time is passing by.
Until, as last their work is done,
And their time has come to die.
Then, they awake from their slumber,
And in despair, cry to Him on high,
Amazed at a life so quickly spent,
Ere time has come to die.”
I personally believe that when many people are singing that good old song, “Walking in Sunlight, all of my journey,” it would be more becoming to them to sing, “Walking in My Sleep, babe, Walking in my Sleep,” for no doubt that is what they are doing. For they fail to see opportunities that are strewn all along their pathway. They themselves have fallen into the same pitfalls that they have seen thousands fall into. They fail to see the red light danger signals, and are continually stumbling over the things that Satan has laid in their pathway. Then too, they have failed to see the beautiful light that so wonderfully lightens our pathway, on the highway that leads from earth to glory.
Brother N. L. Mason, the pastor of the Church of God in Huntsville, Alabama, made this remark: “Some people say that they felt so bad that they could hardly get up in the mornings. It is not so with me. I feel so good, that I enjoy to sleep on.” Sleep, in a great measure, can become a habit until there is a possibility of running into sleeping sickness. This is usually a fatal disease; very few ever recover from it. There was a little boy in Memphis, Tenn., who slept eleven months. We can imagine how anxious his precious mother was to see him open his eyes, and look up at her again, and say, “Mother.” We can see his Father come in from a busy day, and the first thing he wants to know is “Has my precious boy ever awakened?” The friends and neighbors all are alarmed about his perpetual sleep. We can draw from our imagination of seeing this precious boy’s mother, while all other eyes are closed is sleep, she walks up by his bed, with a silent foot tread, and in the hours of midnight, and pulls his face close to hers, and we can hear the trembling voice, as it says, “My precious boy, look up again at Mother.” Then we can see her turn away with a heavy heart, and with a trembling voice say, “What shall I do?”
We notice in Jeremiah 51:39, speaking of Babylon: “In their heart, I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, saith the Lord.” This naturally was the result of a rebellious spirit against God. Finally after this good lady had used every means within her power to arouse her precious child, she had to finally decide that he had gone into that perpetual sleep, never to awake again.
Dear Reader, God is using every means possible to arouse your poor slumbering soul. We see ambulances drive to our neighbor’s door; we see the many homes that are broken and powers of darkness that hover around them. We hear the groans of sorrow of the many that are sighing, who have awakened to the fact that they have slept too long. Many mothers and fathers have walked to the train, and have said goodbye to the most wonderful boy that they have ever seen, then return home, and receive through the mail his civilian clothes, and after it was probably forever too late, they have awakened to the fact that they never knelt one time in prayer with this precious young man. Then when the telegram boy has brought the final notice that this fine son was killed in action, can those individuals realize that the last opportunity with them is gone?
It is said by one great writer, “The wise man did what he had to do day before yesterday, while the fool waits until day after tomorrow.” It is pitiful to see a man out digging a storm house just after the storm has destroyed his home and family. But that is the way men usually act, now-a-days. They go lock up the barn after the horse has been stolen. The rich man lifted up his eyes in Hell, and seemed to become wide awake to when he slept over the greatest opportunities that any man ever had. He had the chance of relieving the suffering, feeding the hungry, being a friend to the friendless, but he slept right on through these opportunities, and lifted up his eyes in Hell.
There is no dogmatic law against sleeping. A man can sleep if he wishes to. He can find plenty of narcotics to soothe his troubled mind momentarily, but finally, he will wake up, as Jeremiah 8:20 said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
“For time, who has laid many millions,
To slumber in Death’s silent shade,
Shall reel at Eternity’s presence,
And sleep in the tomb he has made.
Oh, Eternity; Long Eternity,
Hear the solemn footsteps,
Of Eternity.”
C. J. WEAVER
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