Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"I myself will awake early."–Psalms 42:8.
The proper subject to treat upon with such a text would be the
propriety and excellence of early rising, especially when we are
desirous of praising or serving God. The dew of dawn should be
consecrated to devotion. The text is a very remarkable expression, and
might fitly be made the early riser's motto. It is, in the original, a
highly poetical phrase, and milton and others have borrowed or imitated
it. "I will awaken in the morning." So early would the psalmist arise
for the praise of God that he would call up the day, and bid the sun
arise from the chambers of the east, and proceed upon his journey. "I
will awaken the morning." Early rising has the example of Old Testament
saints to recommend it, and many modern saints having conscientiously
practiced it, have been loud in its praise. It is an economy of time
and an assistance to health, and thus it doubly lengthens life. Late
rising is the token of indolence, and the cause of disorder throughout
the whole day. Be assured that the best hours are the first. Our City
habits are to be deplored, because by late hours of retirement at night
we find early rising difficult if not impossible. If we are able to
escape the shackles of custom, and secure for devotion and
contemplation the hour when the dew is on the grass, we may count
ourselves thrice happy. If we cannot do all we would in this matter, at
least let us do all we can.
That is not, however, the topic upon which I now desire to speak to
you. I come at this time, not so much to plead for the early as for the
awakening. The hour we may speak of at another time–the fact is our
subject now. It is bad to awake late, but what shall be said of those
who never awake at all? Better late than never: but with many it is to
be feared it will be never. I would take down the trumpet and give a
blast, or ring the alarm-bell till all the faculties of the sluggard's
manhood are made to bestir themselves, and he cries with new born
determination, "I myself will awake."
"Will awake." This is a world in which most men nowadays are alive to
their temporal interests. If in these pushing times any man goes about
his business in a sleepy, listless fashion, he very soon finds himself
on an ebb-tide, and all his affairs aground. The wideawake man seizes
opportunities or makes them, and thus those who are widest awake
usually come to the front. Years ago affairs moved like the broad-wheel
wagon, very sleepily, with sober pause and leisurely progression, and
then the son of the snail had a chancel but now, when we almost fly, if
a man would succeed in trade he must be all alive, and all awake. If it
be so in temporals, it is equally so in spirituals, for the world, the
flesh, and the devil are all awake to compete with us; and there is no
resolution that I would more earnestly commend to each one of the
people of God than this one: "I will awake; I will awake at once; I
will awake early, and I will pray to God that I may be kept awake, that
my Christian existence may not be dreamy, but that I may be to the
fullest degree useful in my Master's service." If this were the resolve
of each, what a change would come over the Christian church! I long to
see the diligence of the shop exceeded by the closet, and the zeal of
the market excelled by the church. Each Christian is alive: but is he
also awake? He has eyes, but are they open? He has lofty possibilities
of blessing his fellow men, but does he exercise them? My heart's
desire is that none of us may feel the dreamy influence of this age,
which is comparable to the enchanted ground; but that each of us may be
watchful, wakeful, vigorous, intense, fervent. Trusting that the Holy
Spirit may bless or meditations to our spiritual quickening, we shall
briefly turn our thoughts to the consideration of two or three things.
I. Our text is connected with the duty of praise, and therefore our
first point shall be–IT IS MOST NECESSARY THAT OUR MINDS SHOULD BE IN
A STATE OF WAKEFULNESS WHEN WE ARE PRAISING GOD. Therefore, as we ought
to be always praising him, our mind ought always to be wakeful. It is a
shame to pray with the mind half asleep: it is an equal shame to
attempt to praise God till all the powers of the mind are thoroughly
aroused. David is herein a most fit example, for he sings, "My heart is
fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. Awake up,
my glory; awake, psalter and harp: I myself will awake early."
We should be fully awake when engaged in private thanksgiving; the song
of our solitude should be full of living joy. I am afraid there is very
little private singing nowadays. We often hear discourse concerning
private prayer, but very seldom of private praise: and yet ought there
not to b as much private praise as private prayer? I fear from the
seldomness of its being mentioned, that private thanksgiving has grown
to be a sleepy affair. Then as to public worship, how earnest ought it
to be! Yet how seldom is it hearty and real! How often do we hear
half-awake singing. Sometimes a sort of musical box, consisting of
pipes, keys, and bellows, is set to do all the adoration. The heathens
of Tibet turn the wind to account religiously, by making it turn their
windmills and pray for them; and our brethren in England, by an
ingenious adjustment of pipes, make the same motive power perform their
praise. Where this machinery is not adopted, still the Lord is robbed
of his praise by other methods, Sometimes half a dozen skilled voices
of persons who would be equally as much at home at the opera or the
theater as in the house of God, are formed into a choir to perform the
psalmody; and it is supposed that God accepts their formal notes as the
praise of the entire assembly. How far different is the genuine song of
gracious men who lift up their voices to the Lord because their hearts
adore him! Oh, I love to hear every voice pouring out its note,
especially if I can but hope that with every voice there is going forth
a fervent heart. This warm hearted, joyful singing–why, it makes the
congregation on earth to be like the assembly of the skies; and causes
the meeting-place of the saints to be a faint type of the gathering of
the angels and glorified spirits before the throne of God. To drone or
to whisper in such a delightful exercise is criminal. If ever we should
exhibit the angels' wakefulness, it should be when we are emulating
their employment.
Our praise ought to be performed with a fully awakened mind: first,
that we may recollect what we are praising God for. We should have a
vivid sense of the mercies we have received, or we cannot bless God
aright for them. You who have not yet received spiritual blessings,
should not be forgetful of his temporal mercies: it is surely
sufficient cause for lively thanksgiving that you are not upon a bed of
sickness; that you are not in the lunatic asylum; that you are not in
the workhouse; that you are not on the borders of the grave; that you
are not in hell; that you still have food and raiment, and that you are
where the gospel is graciously presented to you. Should not all this be
thought of? Should not this be fuel for the flame of gratitude? As for
us who have tasted spiritual blessings, if our minds were awake, we
should think of eternal love and its going forth from eternity; of
redeeming love, and the streams that flow from the fount of Calvary; of
God's immutable love, and his patience with our ill-manners in the
wilderness; of covenant mercy, of mercies yet to come, of heaven, and
the bliss hereafter. Such recollections should call up our whole man to
praise the Lord. If the innumerable benefits which we receive were
thought of and dwelt upon, the contemplation would put a force, a
volume, a body into our song, and make it far more than the flaming
ethereal thing which it ought to be.
We want our souls awakened, next, so that we may remember to whom our
praise is offered. Before no mean kind do we bow the knee of homage. To
praise God is to stand in the immediate presence of the blessed and
only Potentate. Do not even seraphs veil their faces in that august
presence? With what lowliness ought we boy! With what earnestness of
spirit should we praise! "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Courtiers are not expected
to nod with drowsiness in the presence of their king; and if they came
to present thanksgiving, it would seem strange if they were to yawn as
men half asleep. Surely. it would be hypocritical congratulation and
insulting behavior if they should be detected in a sleepy condition! If
we come together to praise God, let us really do it. If we cannot
praise him, let us know and mourn that we cannot do it, and let us be
sure that the spirit is willing, even if the flesh is weak. Let all
sleepiness be put away in the presence of the ever-wakeful Jehovah,
before whose eyes all things are naked and open. He never slumbereth
nor sleepeth, so as to make a pause in his mercy to us: let not our
slumbering spirits cause an omission of our grateful song.
We need that we should be awake in praise, that our whole hearts may be
thoroughly warm in the exercise. Under Christ and the power of the Holy
Spirit, the acceptableness of our praise depends very much upon the
warmth of it. As cold prayers virtually ask God to deny them, so cold
praises ask God to reject them. Cold praises are a sort of
semi-blasphemy: they do, as it were, say, "Thou art not worthy to be
ardently praised. O God, we bring thee these poor thanksgivings: they
are good enough for thee." Surely if we treated our heavenly Father as
we should, every sacred passion would glow in our hearts like a
furnace: our whole heart would catch fire, and as Elijah went up into
heaven with horses of fire and chariots of fire, so, too, our souls ,
as we thought upon the goodness and the graciousness of God, would
ascend to heaven in vehement joy of adoration. Our praises would not be
like the incense in the censer, sweet, but cold; but coals of fire
would be put in with the incense, and then, like a holy cloud of smoke,
our gratitude would ascend to heaven. Mark with what exhilaration the
psalmist rendered praise unto God, and imitate him therein. See him
dancing before the ark, and hear him cry aloud, "Sing praises to God,
sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises."
Brethren, we have need to wake up our souls in praise, or else we shall
at all times fail altogether in the duty. Only the wakeful are
praiseful. Sleeping birds sing now., The very best praises God receives
from earth are from his troubled saints; but then they are awake; the
strokes of the rod have aroused them. When the three holy children sung
in the fire, their song was sweet indeed; yet had they not been
thoroughly in earnest, they had poured forth no holy hymn. When martyrs
have magnified God standing on the burning fagot, they have given God
better praise than even the angels can. It was the old fable, that the
nightingale was made to sing by the thorn that pricked her breast: and
many a child of God has poured forth his sweetest music when the thorn
of affliction has pierced his heart. Wake up your souls–you that are
desponding, you that are depressed, you that have a dead child at home,
you that are expecting soon to go to the grave with those you love, you
that have been losing your property, you that are pinched with
poverty–wake up your souls to praise God still, for unless well awake
you will forget to extol him. Remember what Job did. When he sat on the
dunghill, scraping himself with a bit of broken pot, yet he praised God
and said, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord." It was grand of thee, O patriarch of Uz, to be able
thus to able thus to extol thy Lord: then was thy soul fully awake.
Beloved friends, may our inmost souls be so energetic with the power of
grace that we may spontaneously and earnestly bless the Lord at all
times and under all circumstances.
Do you believe, my brethren, that amongst all the throng of those who
see Jehovah face to face, there is one dull, cold, careless worshipper?
Look through the seraphim and cherubim: they are flaming ones, burning
with intense desire and fervent adoration. Look through the hosts of
angels: they are all his minsters that do his pleasure, and bless him
while they do it. Search through all those sanctified and glorified
hands of spirits, and you shall not find one with half-closed eye
wearily praising his Maker. Heaven consists in joyful praise. Look at
the very birds on earth how they shame us! Dear little creatures, if
you watch them when they are singing, you will sometimes wonder how so
much sound can come out of such diminutive bodies. How they throw their
whole selves into the music, and seem to melt themselves away in song!
How the wing vibrates, the throat pulsates, and every part of their
body rejoices to assist the strain! This is the way in which we ought
to praise God. IF birds that are sold at three for two farthings yet
render God such praise, how much more heartily ought we to sing before
him? Let it be a resolution with us at this hour that we will praise
God more; that we will sing to him more at home, about our business,
and in all proper places; and that whenever we do sing we will do it
heartily, waking up our tongue and all the powers of our mind and body
to bless and praise the name of God.
II. Now, secondly, we shall notice that WAKEFULNESS IS A GREAT NEED IN
THE ENTIRE SPIRITUAL LIFE. I believe it to be one of the great wants of
the church now. I question whether most of us are awake spiritually. I
question whether I am. I wish to be wakened far more to a sensibility
of the power of the world to come, and a tenderness in regard to
spiritual truth. Slumber is so natural to us. "Well," says one, "but we
talk about the things of God." Yes, but people talk when they are
asleep, and a good deal of Christian conversation is very much like the
talk of sleepers. There is not the force in it–the life in it that
there would be in conversation if we were really awakened to feel the
power of eternal verities. "Yet," says one, "I hope we act
consistently." I trust you do, but there are many people who walk in
their sleep, and, alas!I know some Christian professors who appear to
be trying very hazardous feats of sleep-walking just now. Some
somnambulists have been able to walk on places where, had they been
awake, they never would have been able to endure the dizzy height; and
I see some Christians, if indeed they be Christians, running awful
risks which I think they would never venture upon unless they had
fallen into the deep sleep of carnal security. Speak of a man
slumbering at the mast-head, it is nothing to a professor of religion
at ease while covetousness is his master, or worldly company his
delight. If professors were awake, they would see their danger, and
avoid sinful amusements and ungodly associations, as men fly from
fierce tigers or deadly cobras. "Well, but we are doing much good and
useful work," says one: "teaching in Sabbath schools, distributing
religious tracts, or labouring in some other form of service; we are
spending our time in commendable engagements." I am glad to hear it;
but people can do a great deal in their sleep. We have heard many
strange instances of how habit at last has enabled persons to pursue
their callings, to answer signals, and keep up all the appearance of
industry, and yet they have been at the time asleep. Oh, it is a very
shocking thing that so many of our churches in England are in a deep
sleep! Dissenting churches I know best about, and there are many where
the minister preaches in his sleep, where the people sing in their
sleep, where prayer is offered in sleep, and even the communion is
celebrated amid a profound spiritual slumber. Have you never been at a
prayer-meeting where half, if not all, both of those who prayed vocally
and those who listened, were in a lethargy as rigid as death? Talk of
sleeping women who have been in a swoon by the month together, the
wonder may be a lying one in the natural world, but in the spiritual
world it is as common as daisies in the meadows. Adam slept soundly
when the taking away of his rib did not wake him, but what shall we say
of those who startle not though they are losing all the strength and
glory of their souls? Alas! for some congregations, it is long since
they had a revival, they have lost the very idea of vigorous piety and
vital energy. All the week round they are all asleep, and if a real,
earnest, living, stirring sermon were preached among them, it would be
almost as if the King of Prussia's Krupp guns had dropped a live shell
into their midst. I wish a spiritual live shell could fall into some
congregations, and burst among them, killing their conventionality, and
wounding their self satisfaction with a deadly wound. Men may attend to
outward worship with unimpeachable decorum and correctness and yet
there may be no wakefulness in it, and consequently no acceptableness
with God Most High.
Come, ourselves, and we must do so because we are in an enemy's
country; it will not do to sleep here. This side of heaven we are in
every place and at all hours surrounded by foes. What did the Master
say? "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!" Be like sentries at
your post, for otherwise the enemy will soon betray you. Will you not
grieve the Holy Spirit if you are lethargic? Will you not dishounor
your Master if you fall asleep? Remember also, that the devil seeks
your destruction, and can never do you so much mischief awake as he can
if he finds you sleeping. Let the growling of the old lion arouse you.
If nothing else will bestir you, remember the fiery darts of the wicked
one. Saul would not have lain so quiet if he had known that Abishai was
holding the spear over him, and longing to pin him to the earth: yet
this is the condition of professors who are given to slumber. Samson
would have scarcely slept on Delilah's lap if he had foreseen that his
hair would be cut, and his eyes put out by the Philistines. Up, then,
ye drowsy professors, for the Philistines are upon you!
Moreover, brethren, slumber impoverishes us. The sluggard, and the
thistle and thorn, always go together, and rags and poverty follow
close behind. You may miss by your sleep great spiritual profit., You
cannot expect sleepy Christians to grow in grace. They will miss many
instructive things in God's word, many precious promises meant only for
the wakeful. They will lose high enjoyments and spiritual banquetings,
for the king's entertainments are not for those who fold their arms,
and toss upon the bed of indolence. Wealth lies in the field of the
wakeful, but the lover of ease shall have want come upon him as an
armed man. I blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in God's holy
mountain, for it is high time to awake out of sleep.
Awaken too, my brother, for you are losing opportunities for
usefulness. While you sleep men are dying. See how the cemeteries are
becoming crowded, how the area of them has to be enlarged. Day by day
you see wending through the streets the funeral procession: men gone
beyond the reach of your instructions and your warnings are carried to
their long homes. Awake then, awake, for death is busy everywhere.
Meanwhile, those who do not die before you may be removed beyond the
sphere of your usefulness; they go where at least you cannot reach
them, where perhaps no one ever will, and their blood may lie upon your
head, and that for ever. Awake, for perhaps while you are asleep
another heart that is now accessible to the gospel may become finally
hardened. Conscience will soon become seared, and then there is nothing
for zeal and earnestness to work upon. It will be too late for you to
put the seal upon the wax when once it is cool. Quick, sir; while the
wax is soft put the seal down! How many opportunities for good we all
miss! But those who are asleep lose all their opportunities, and they
will be surely required of them when the Master comes.
Awake! I pray you, because you will insensibly lose the power, the joy
of your spiritual life. Communion with God will become more and more
scarce with you as you become more sleepy. Awake, lest you backslide,
lest you all become apostate, and prove yourself not to be a child of
God. Awake, for your power with others will certainly depart from you
as your wakefulness departs. A sleepy preacher never wins the souls of
men. A dull, formal servant of God is of little or no use in the church
of God. I think I said years ago, "Give me half a dozen thorough red
hot Christians, and I will do more, by God's grace, with them, than
with a half a dozen hundred of ordinary professors." I am sure it is
so. Crowds of professors are past all cure. I would as soon hunt with
dead dogs, as try to work with them. They cannot be trained into
heroes: they are dolts both by nature and by practice; much
slothfulness has drained out their souls' life. The most you can hope
for them is that they will remain decently Christianized, so as not
altogether to disgrace us. But, O for thoroughly wideawake men, men who
feel the life of God in their souls, and are, therefore, more than
ordinarily earnest. Band together half a dozen such, and the Holy
Spirit being with them, they will make all London feel their presence
before long. O may God awaken all of us, for our spiritual life
absolutely requires it.
III. Thirdly, I am going to mention CERTAIN WAYS OF KEEPING YOURSELVES
AWAKE. "How can I be kept awake?" says one. Answer, first, make it a
matter of prayer with the Lord to awaken you. No one can give you
spiritual power and watchfulness but the Spirit of God. "All my fresh
springs are in thee." Where life first comes from, there more life must
be obtained. Christ has come that we may have life, and that we may
have it more abundantly. He who first called us from the dead, must
also arouse us from among the slumbering. He who brought us from the
grave of our depravity must bring us from the couch of our indolence.
Pray about the matter; make it a point with God: ask him to arouse you.
On your knees is the posture in which to conquer sloth.
Next, means are to be used. We are not to leave the matter with God,
and think there is nothing to be done by ourselves. Act towards
yourselves about spiritual wakefulness as you would with natural
wakefulness. Set your inventive faculties to work, and devise means for
chasing away the sleep dragon. What would you do if you required to be
awakened early? Perhaps you would set an alarum; a good thing, no
doubt. Take care you set a spiritual alarum. Every Christian ought to
keep one, and it should be so well set as to keep exact time, and so
powerful as to arouse the most slumbering. A tender conscience, quick
as the apple of the eye, is a precious preservative against sinful
sleep; but it must never be tampered with, or its usefulness will soon
end. When once the hour has come, down runs the alarum, the man starts
up all at once, and says, "It is time to rise;" so should my conscience
be so well regulated, that when a temptation is near, or a sinner is
near me whom I ought about warn, my soul should at once take the alarm
and say, "Here is work to do–a sin to be conquered, or a soul to be
instructed: now, therefore, perform the doing of it with all thy might!
I hear the alarum, and I must bestir myself!" May we always maintain
and retain such a special wakefulness that we may be at our post of
duty or in our place of conflict with a punctuality which none can
gainsay. O for the alarum of a tender conscience!
Many of our friends who have to be up early in the morning ask the
policeman to call them at the appointed hour. I may not compare the
Christian minister with a policeman in some respects; but yet he is one
of God's officers, and it is part of his business to stir up drowsy
professors. It is well to attend an earnest gospel ministry, where the
minister's voice, under God's blessing, will be likely to wake you up.
Faithful preachers are among God's best gifts. Cherish them, and be
obedient to their admonitions. I have known persons become offended
when a minister is "too personal;" but wise men always prize a ministry
in proportion as it is personal to themselves. He who never tells me of
my faults, nor makes me feel uneasy, is not likely to be the means of
good to my soul. What is the use of a dog that never barks? Why have a
doctor, and grow angry with him if he points out the source of your
disease? Did God send us, as his messengers, to pander to your taste or
flatter your vanity? We seek not your approval if it be not founded on
right. I have often felt pleased when I have heard people confess,
after their conversion, "I came to the Tabernacle, and at the first I
could not endure the preaching. I hated the preacher, and raged at his
doctrine; but I could not help coming again." Just so. Conscience makes
men respect the gospel, even when their depravity makes them loathe it.
They are held fast by the cords which they fain would cast from them.
May it often be so, O my unregenerate believers, that while my plain
dealing excites your anger, it may nevertheless have a power over you;
and may every man and woman here, whether saved or unsaved, feel that
the preaching is the truth of God to his or her soul; and, whether
liked or not liked, may it become the permanent means of arousing from
sleep, and ultimately bringing to Christ every one of you to whom these
words shall come. Be sure and attend an arousing ministry, and pray God
to make the ministry which you now listen to more and more an arousing
ministry to your own soul. Pray for the preacher, for he is in the same
danger as yourselves, for he is too compassed with infirmity. The
minister soon goes to sleep unless God wakens him; and what is more sad
than to see the professed messenger of God become a traitor both to his
Master and to men's souls by a lack of zealous affection? It is ill for
the sheep if the shepherd himself be asleep. Woe to the camp where the
sentry is given to slumber! May God deliver our country from being
overrun with preachers whose souls are insensible concerning their
grand work, and who love the bread of their office better than the
glory of God or the good of their hearers.
I have known some persons adopt a plan for awaking in the morning which
I can recommend spiritually at any rate. They have drawn up the blinds
in the direction of the morning sun, that the sun might shine on their
face and wake them. I know of no better way of waking for your soul,
than letting the light, and the life, and the love of God shine full
into your face. When the Sun of Righteousness arises he brings healing
beneath his wings, and he brings awakening too. A man cannot think much
of Christ, and love Christ much, and walk much in Christ's fellowship,
and yet be asleep. The two who went to Emmaus in Immanuel's company,
were their hearts cold? Nay, do not think so. "Did not our heart burn
within us?" Yes, and your hearts will burn too, and your whole
spiritual system will flame and glow if you walk in the company of
Jesus. I can recommend constant fellowship with God as one of the best
remedies for spiritual sloth, the surest provocative of holy zeal.
Many time people are awakened in the morning by the noise of the street
in which they live. "I cannot sleep after such an hour," says one, "for
I hear the tramp of those who are going into the city, and the grind of
the street traffic." At a certain time you hear the hammer of the
blacksmith, the scream of an engine, or the heaving of machinery, and
after that sleep is gone. The activities of the world ought about
awaken Christians. Are worldlings active? How active ought we to be! Do
they labour and spend their sweat for earthly wages? How much more
ought I to put forth my entire strength to serve so good a Master,
whose reward of grace is everlasting bliss? The world is all astir
to-day: let the church be all awake too.
We ought to be stimulated to supreme efforts by the activity of our
fellow Christians. I find it does me much service about read the
biographies of eminent servants of Christ, such as martyrs,
missionaries, and reformers. I rise from reading their memorials
feeling ashamed to be of so dwarfish a stature compared with these
spiritual giants. What a humbling effect such a reflection ought to
have on the do-nothings who swarm in the churches! but alas! these are
not soon moved to judge themselves. With this one word we leave them:
think of what some are doing, and be ashamed that you are doing so
little in proportion to what they accomplish.
There are many ways of waking, but here is one, with which I will close
my observations on this point. Hear the trumpet of the second coming.
"Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him," was the cry that
awakened the virgins when they all slumbered and slept: may it have the
like arousing power at this moment. We know not when Christ will come,
nor is it for us to utter prophecies about it: the times and seasons
are hidden from us. "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man." Whether
it will be before the Millennium or after the Millennium, let those
judge who can. I have no judgement upon it. I think, as you carefully
read the Scriptures, you will feel more and more convinced that only
this is clearly and certainly revealed–that the Lord will personally
come in such an hour as we look not for him. Let that awaken us; let it
keep us always watchful, with loins girt and lamps trimmed, proving our
faithful love to our blessed Master.
These are, it is clear, very many ways by which Christians may be
awakened. God grant that they may be effective to each and all. I think
it was Sydney Smith who was once preaching a sermon about sleeping in
church, and when he had done, he said, "Now, what good have I done? All
those who sleep have been asleep through my sermon, and only those who
are wakeful have heard me, and they did not need my rebukes and
advice." I often feel that this is very much the preacher's case.
Earnest people, when the congregation is exhorted to earnestness, take
it home to themselves; but those persons who do nothing, and are most
indolent, are the very ones who say, "I don not see the need of it; I
do not want to be disturbed." Of course not! It is not only the mark of
the sluggard to sleep, but it is another characteristic of him that he
is wrath with those who would compel him to rise. "A little more
sleep," says he, "a little more slumber;" he turns his heavy head upon
the pillow once again, and wishes no blessings upon those who knock at
his door so heavily. You sleepy professors are likely to do the same,
but I will not refrain from knocking till you refrain from dozing. I
pray God that there may be very few in this church of the incorrigible
order, whose life is one long dream, a dream of self-aggrandizement,
meanness, and littleness. May you and I, and all of us, be thoroughly
earnest in the service of our Master, and if we cannot arouse others by
our precept, at least let us not fail to try the force of our example.
IV. I must close with a word upon that fourth point, which is this–THE
GREAT AND URGENT NEED THAT THE UNCONVERTED SINNER SHOULD AWAKE.
Hitherto I have spoken to the converted man: now let me address myself
to the ungodly, and may the voice which shall call the dead to
judgement now awaken him. You, you unconverted man, are asleep; a deep
and horrible sleep holds you fast. If it were not so, you would
perceive your danger, and you would be alarmed. You have broken God's
law; the fact is certain and solemn, though you treat it lightly.
Punishment must follow every breach of that law, for God will not be
mocked nor suffer his government to be treated with contempt. For every
transgression there is an appointed recompense of reward. The
retribution which is your lawful due will not long be withheld: it is
on its road towards you. The feet of justice are shod with wool: you
hear not its coming, but it is as sure as it is silent. Its steps are
swift, and its stroke overwhelming. Awaken, O man, and listen to this
text: "God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will
whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready." No peril of
plague, battle, shipwreck, or poison, can equal the hazard of an
unpardoned soul. Beware, yet that forget God, for his terrors are past
conception, and his wrath burneth as an oven.
If you were awakened, O sin-stricken transgressor, you would also
perceive that there is a remedy for your disease, a rescue from your
present danger. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them;" and "Whosoever believeth in
Jesus Christ hath everlasting life." Forgiveness of sin is guaranteed
to every one that rests in the work of Jesus, and all other necessary
blessings are secured to him. If thou wert awake, thou wouldst not
remain an unconverted sinner another hour, but thou wouldst turn unto
God with full purpose of heart. If God would awaken thee, thou wouldst
tremble at the jaws of hell which are open to receive thee; thou
wouldst turn to Christ, and say, "Jesus, save me! Save me now!" You are
asleep, sinner–you are asleep, or you would not take matters so
coolly. I am afraid for you, and bowed down with amazement and dread.
The mercy is that you may be awakened: you are not yet among the slain
that go down into the pit. O that that almighty grace would awaken you
at this present moment, ere your doom is sealed and your damnation
executed! Here I offer my fervent prayers for you, believing that he to
whom I pray is able to bring to holy sensibility the most stolid of
mankind.
Strange ways God has of awakening his elect ones from their deadly
slumbers. Awake them he will, and he will shake heaven and earth sooner
than let any one of them perish in unfeeling security. He will strike
them down as he did Paul, or send an earthquake to shake them, as he
did to the gaoler at Philippi; in his own way and time he will make
them come to themselves and then to Christ. Remember the story of
Augustine. To the grief of his dear mother, Monica, he had been leading
a wicked life; but God's time had come, and as Augustine walked in the
garden he heard a little child say, "Take! Read! Take! Read!" This
induced him to take the Bible and read it. He no sooner read, than a
passage came before his eyes which awakened him, and he sought a
Saviour, and found him. Perhaps it will be a death in your house that
will wake you–sad means, but often most effectual. A mother's
death-bed has been a soul-saving sermon to many a family. Some sleepers
need a thunderclap to arouse them. Pray, you dear people of God that
are awake, that the sinner may be awakened, for there is this awful
danger that he may sleep himself into hell. Spiritual sleep deepens,
the slumberer becomes more heavy still, the stupor more dense, till the
conscience grows seared, and the soul is unimpressionable; the flesh is
turned into stone, the heart is harder than steel. It may be that some
of those who hear these words of warning may never wake to think about
their souls till in hell they lift up their eyes. What an awful lifting
up of the eyes will that be! O you who are now peaceful and secure,
what a change awaits you! Hurled from vainglorious security to blank
despair in a moment! You took it all so easily: you said, "Let me
alone; do not worry me; there's time enough. The preacher ought not to
frighten us with these bugbears; we all have a great deal else to do
besides listening to horrible stories of hell and damnation;" and so
you wrapped it up, and so you smoothed it over, but the end thereof who
shall describe? Have you never heard of the Indian in his boat upon one
of the great rivers of America? Somehow his moorings had broken, and
his canoe was in the power of the current. He was asleep, while his
canoe was being borne rapidly along by the stream. He was sound asleep,
and yet had good need to have been awake, for there was a tremendous
cataract not far ahead. Persons on shore saw the canoe–saw that there
was a man in it asleep; but their vigilance was of no use to the
sleeper: it needed that he himself should be aware of his peril. The
canoe quickened its pace, for the waters of the river grew more rapid
as they approached the cataract; persons on the shore began to cry our,
and raise alarm on all sides and at last the Indian was aroused. He
started up, and began to use his paddle, but his strength was
altogether insufficient for the struggle with the gigantic force of the
waters around him. He was seen to spring upright in the boat and
disappear–himself and the boat–in the fall. He had perished, for he
woke too late! Some persons on their dying beds just wake up in time to
see their danger, but not to escape from it: they are carried right
over the cataract of judgement and wrath. They are gone, for ever gone,
where mercy is succeeded by justice, and hope forbidden to enter. Let
much prayer go up from believing hearts that God would awaken sinners
now, and begin with those who come to the place of worship, and remain
at ease in Zion. Ask for the arm of God to be revealed while the
heavenly message is delivered; for his is our message: "Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."
There is a man before me now asleep in his sins, whom God means to make
a minister of Christ: he knows not the divine purpose, but there are
lines of love in it for him. Arise oh slumberer, for Jesus calls thee!
Awake, thou Saul of Tarsus, thou art a chosen vessel unto the Lord!
Turn thou from thy sin: seek thou thy Saviour. There is one here who
has been a great sinner but the Lord intends to wash him in the
cleansing fount, and clothe him in the righteousness of Christ. Come,
thou guilty one, awake! for mercy waits for thee. There is a poor
weeping woman here who has gone far in sin; but Jesus says, "Neither do
I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Sister awake! Come and receive
the mercy which Jesus Christ is ready to bestow upon thee! God give
thee waking grace, and saving grace.
May you and I, beloved brethren in Christ, awake to the most earnest
and intense form of life in Christ and life for Christ. At once let us
bestir ourselves: we may think it early, but it will be none too early;
may we awake now, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 108; 1 Thessalonians
5:1-11.