DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"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." Romans
13:11.
THIS exhortation, as you will readily perceive, is not addressed to the
ungodly. These words are not spoken to those who are dead in sin, but
to those who are alive unto God, though somewhat given to slumber.
There are many expostulations and admonitions which appeal to the
willful and wicked, to the indifferent and unbelieving, to those who
err and are out of the way, but this is not one of them. Here we have a
special charge to disciples of Jesus who know the time and also know
that their salvation draws near. They are represented as being asleep
and needing to awake from their present sluggishness. But they are not
described as those who had ceased to be Christians, or whose salvation
was in jeopardy. Though it is admitted that it is high time for them to
awake out of sleep, their salvation is never questioned, but on the
contrary they are reminded that now it is nearer than when they
believed.
The tone and tenor of this call to circumspection suggest to us that
when we address the Lord's people and find occasion to rebuke and
reprove them, we should never insinuate that they are likely to be
banished from the household of faith, or to be cast away from the
Presence of God, or to be treated as reprobates. Even if we feel
convinced that they are asleep and that they must be awakened, we ought
not to denounce them with railing accusations or threaten them with the
wailings of the lost and the doom of unquenchable fire. You would not
be pleased if anyone should touch your child with a horsewhip–nor will
the Lord allow us to strike His chosen with the rod of the wicked.
Legal thunders are not intended for justified saints–
"The terrors of Law and of God With us can ha ve nothing to do. Our
Savior's obedience and blood Hide all our transgressions from view.'
Even if the saints' hearts are dull, their eyes heavy and they are
evidently fast asleep, we are not warranted in raising a false alarm.
It is not for us to tell the heirs of salvation to awake because they
are in danger of the wrath to come, for they are in no such
danger–that is past and gone. Rather let us remind them that their
salvation is nearer than when they believed and so stir them up to
watchfulness and activity by appropriate motives. The whip is for the
slave, not for the child. The dread of punishment is for the condemned,
not for the justified. The fear of wrath is not for those who are
"accepted in the Beloved," but for those who reject the Savior and put
from them the eternal mercy of God.
While, then, I endeavor to speak frankly and faithfully to the Lord's
people, I shall try to avoid anything like a legal tone. I would gladly
talk to God's children as their Father in Heaven would have them talked
to, somewhat sharply, perhaps, but still without a trace of the threats
which belongs to the ungodly, but not to those who are saved in the
Lord. From the connection it appears to me that Paul had in his
mind's-eye a kind of sleepy state into which God's people may fall with
regard to others–and upon that state of slumber we shall speak
tonight.
I. Looking at the text in its true bearings, this is the lesson–SOME
PROFESSING CHRISTIANS SEEM TO BE ALTOGETHER IN A DEAD SLEEP WITH REGARD
TO OTHERS. It is all very well to take a passage of Scripture, isolate
it from the context, and use it as the slogan of a sermon. But it is
evidently not the natural and fair way of treating the Word of God. You
may do so, for the most part, with tolerable safety, for God's Truth,
even when it is broken up into little pieces, still retains its purity
and perfection like certain crystals, which, however much they may be
subdivided, always bear the same crystalline form. So true in every
particle and detail is the Revelation of God that though you should
take it up and dash it to pieces, yet every little fragment will bear
the original impression.
But this is no excuse for treating the Scriptures in an unjustifiable
manner instead of expounding them according to the rules of common
sense. Texts ought always to be handled with a reverential deference to
the mind of the Divine Spirit who wrote them. When we attempt to rivet
your attention on a verse or the fraction of a verse of the Bible, we
desire you, also, to be scrupulously attentive to the affinities in
which it stands. If any of my published sermons should in any instance
appear to violate this rule, you will bear me witness that it has been
my constant habit throughout all my ministry among you to read and open
up, as best I could, the whole chapter from which I have selected a few
words as the emphasis of my discourse. I have honestly endeavored to
give you the special mind of the Spirit either in the exposition or in
the sermon.
Now, you will see that the connection here is this. Paul has been
bidding us to pay attention to relative duties. As citizens, he bids us
render honor to magistrates, to those who are in authority and to pay
all lawful dues and customs, and the like, telling us that we are to
owe no man anything except to "love one another." And then he shows us
that the Law of Love is the abstract and the essence of that great
table of the Law which concerns a man's relation to His neighbors. He
goes on to exhort us to keep that Law of Love, to manifest love more
and more and, when he has done so, he interjects this sentence, "And
that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of
sleep."
Now, I gather that he means that many Christians are in a sleepy state
with reference to the Law of Love with reference to their obligations
to others. Beloved Friends, true godliness makes a man look to himself.
It commences by convincing him of his own sin and by leading him,
personally, to lay hold on Christ, by faith, that in His blood he may
find salvation. It then makes the man feel his personal obligations and
his individual responsibilities. It sets him free from many of the
yokes with which his fellow men would load him and bids him obey his
own conscience before his God, to be a law unto himself and to stand
and walk as before the Most High, judging righteous judgment as to the
Lord's will and not basely bending to evil at the advice and persuasion
of other men.
I would to God we could get some Christians, some professed Christians,
to be a little more independent! But so many of them are like the
rotten houses of which we have not a few in this neighborhood–they
could not stand alone– they must keep together, for they prop one
another up! If you were to pull down one of the houses in some of our
streets, they would all fall! And so there are sets of Christian
professors that lean one, upon another, upon the custom of their set
and sect, and Church and community. They have never dared to study
Scripture for themselves and follow it, nor have they ever tried to
form their own personal conscientious convictions!
One of the first works of the Holy Spirit is to make a man look at home
and to consider the condition of his own soul. When the Spirit of God
has made a man thus to stand on his own footing before God and to feel
his personality, there springs up a danger that such a man may say, "I
shall henceforth keep myself to myself. My chief business will be
indoor work, to see after the rightness of my own spirit and to keep
myself prospering before the Lord. Other people must see to themselves
and I must see to myself." The principle of individuality might be thus
pushed to an extreme till what, at first, was necessary grit in the
spiritual constitution, making the man truly a man, may be so unduly
increased that he becomes, at last, an unkind, ungenerous, cruel,
selfish thing deprived of the best part of his humanity.
Thus, we are brought back to this, that albeit every man must give an
account of himself before God and must personally be born again and
personally be reconciled to God by Jesus Christ, yet, "no man lives to
himself," nor was he ever meant to do so. No man can compass the ends
of life by drawing a little line around himself upon the ground. No man
can fulfill his calling as a Christian by seeking the welfare of his
wife and family only, for these are only a sort of greater self. There
are outgoing lines of life that bind us not only with some men, but, in
fact, with all humanity, so that if we did but know it, the thought of
one brain, the utterance of one mouth, the movement of one pair of
hands does, in its measure, influence the whole human race to some
degree and will do so till time shall be no more. We are placed,
therefore, in a most solemn position and it is with regard to this that
it is high time that we should awake out of sleep.
Into what a deep slumber some professing Christians have fallen! How
utterly insensible they are to the sins and sorrows of those around
them. They believe God has a people and they are very glad He has, as
far as they are capable of being glad of anything that does not concern
themselves. But, "the world lies in the Wicked One," and multitudes are
perishing! They are sorry it is so, that is to say, they go the length
of saying they are sorry. It does not cause them any sleepless nights;
it does not disturb their digestion; it in no way interferes with their
comfort, for they do not seem to think that it has anything to do with
them.
I know some that are in such a sleep who drug themselves with almost as
much regularity as they feed themselves! They take that great and
precious Truth of God of the Divine Sovereignty and turn it to a most
detestable use–for they say, "What is to be will be and the Lord's
purpose will be fulfilled. There will be some saved and others lost."
All this is said as coolly as if they were talking of a wasp's nest! As
for those that are lost, they dare not injure their logic by indulging
a little mournful emotion. Were their minister to weep over the lost,
as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, they would say he was unsound–a
duty-faith man, certainly and, probably, an Arminian! And they would
straightway quit him and think that he could not have really received
the mind of the Spirit of God.
Yet, in the judgment of all who think aright, one of the finest traits
in a Christian's character is the deep sorrow which he feels over souls
that are being lost and the great longing of his own soul that men
would turn unto God and find peace through Jesus Christ. O Sirs, I fear
there are many professors in a deep sleep as to whether others are
going to Heaven or to Hell! They look upon, as a matter of course, the
drunkenness that is around them! The blasphemy which greets their ears
does not chill their blood–they say it is very usual and very
shocking! The Sabbath-breaking they take to be a kind of necessary
evil! The rejection of Christ by men, they look upon as no sin at all
and they even quarrel and quibble with those who think that sinners are
blameworthy in rejecting the Son of God, the Savior of sinners!
I trust that many of these are God's people and, if they are, it is
high time that they should awake out of such a sleep as that–so unlike
Christ, so alien to the spirit of love, so contrary to the mind–which
God would have His Spirit work in all His people. Alas, that they
should have sunk into so dead a sleep! There are others, dear Friends,
who are prone to be overtaken with an oft-recurring sleep. I know a
Brother who often takes forty winks in the daytime–you may nudge him
and he will wake and listen to you, but he goes to sleep again in a few
minutes if you leave him alone. He will attend to you with much
pleasure if you pull his coat again, but he soon returns to his dozing.
Who can blame the sleeper when it is a question of infirmity or sheer
exhaustion? I never like to blame people too hastily when they go to
sleep in a place of worship, for I remember thinking rather harshly of
a Brother who went to sleep one Sunday morning under my sermon–when I
found that he had been sitting up two nights with a sick wife and had
been doing a full day's work besides, then I was sorry enough to have
thought a harsh thought of a worthy man. I rather wondered, when I
understood the case, whether I should have been able to come to worship
at all. Well, without blaming any of you, then, for the weakness of the
flesh, I take this sleepy habit to be a fit illustration of the state
in which some Christians are to be found. They go to sleep and then
they wake up for a little. They have fits and starts of wakefulness and
then off to sleep again they drop.
Does this describe you, dear Friend? At that missionary meeting you
woke up when you heard the cry of the perishing heathen. You wanted to
get out into the street at once and tell poor sinners about Christ–and
you emptied your pockets into the plate before you left the building!
Have you cared much about China or India since then, though you know
that there are millions of people–millions dying for lack of
knowledge? They have not troubled you much, have they, since that
missionary meeting? Perhaps tonight I shall pull your coattail a little
and you will be awake, again, and you will be very much concerned.
Perhaps you will pray earnestly for your neighbors and your ungodly
friends. But, I fear, you will soon go to sleep again.
You have gone back to your slumbers so many times before that now it is
"sleeping made easy." Could not your ministers lodge a grievous
complaint against you for this? You get on fire with love for souls
when the discourse is specially arousing, but then, after the sermon is
over and the week of special services has ended, you go to sleep again!
There are many Sunday school teachers of that kind. They sometimes talk
to their children about their souls with tears in their eyes and then,
again, their ardor evaporates and they get through their duties in
little better form than merely reading the Scriptures and explaining
them in a dry, dull fashion.
My slumbering Brothers, you could be awake! You might be awake! For
sometimes you are! There are times when your whole soul seems on fire!
If anybody had spoken of you, then, they would have said, "What a fine
man that is! What love he has for Christ! What concern for the souls of
men! He ought to be sent forth as a missionary at once." Wait till you
see him asleep! He can sleep very soundly! In fact, he is as great at
sleeping as at waking! He can descend into depths of stupidity and
indifference as naturally as he just now rose into heights of fervor
and enthusiasm! Yes, there are many such, and I would say to any
Brothers and Sisters who are conscious of a propensity in that
direction–is it not high time that you, that I, that any, that ALL OF
US should awake out of sleep?
There are those, again, who fall into a kind of somnambulistic state.
They are doing a good deal for their Lord and Master, but they are
asleep. If judged by their outward actions, we should think they were
wide awake and they do what they do very well. But have you ever seen a
person who has a habit of walking in his sleep? It is a strange sight!
Persons have been known to walk along giddy heights safely enough when
they have been fast asleep where they would not have thought of
venturing if they had been wide awake! And we have known, sometimes,
professors going on very safely, carefully, exactly in positions where
others have fallen–and we have admired their prudence and discretion
and attributed it to the Grace of God–whereas in part it has been
attributable to the fact that they were spiritually asleep all the
time!
It is very possible to walk long and far and yet remain asleep! It is
very possible to appear very devout when, indeed, you are very sleepy!
It is very possible to sing hymns when you are not awake to the sense!
Yes, and it is very probable that you will betray your absence of mind
by sitting down at the last verse, although there is going to be a
chorus afterwards. You know it is coming, but your part of the worship
is performed so mechanically that you dropped down in your pews as a
mere matter of habit–and then were all in a flurry to be up again! I
have detected many of you doing it. I have felt convinced that you were
virtually asleep at the time–not really drinking in the spirit of the
hymn, or else it would not have happened. It is very easy to hear
sermons and to be asleep all the while–at least with one ear open and
one eye–but the major part of the faculties of the soul still steeped
in slumber.
And you can keep on teaching in the Sunday school, pay your religious
contributions punctually, maintain the habit of family prayer and even
your private devotions may not be wholly neglected, and yet you may be
walking in your sleep! All these duties may be done with a sort of
sleep-walking life and action and not at all with the life of a
thoroughly wakeful man. Oh, I would like to hear a man speak about
Heaven who was altogether awake to it! I would like to hear a man
preach about Hell who was awakened to the true pitch! It would make
your very hair stand on end as you should hear how he told of the
terrors of the wrath to come! It would make every drop of blood dance
in your veins to hear a man speak of Christ who is all on fire with
Divine love and all awake with Divine delight in Him!
But that slumber is apt to come over the most lively minister. Who will
not confess it? Oh, if you have ever read a chapter of the Bible when
your soul has been all awake, how the promises have glowed and burned!
How bright have they been like "the terrible crystal." But too often we
have nodded over the Bible; nodded over the promises; nodded over the
precepts till there seemed neither life nor power in them. The life was
there, but we were asleep!
Well, dear Friends, I must add and then I shall have said enough about
sleep, that a very large number of us are half asleep. Whether there is
one man alive that is spiritually awake all over, I do not know. Such a
man as Rutherford, who loved his Lord so that he scarcely ever thought
of anything but Jesus–that was a man all awake! Such a man as Mr.
Whitefield–preaching his very heart out morning, noon and night with a
seraphic eloquence–that was a man wide awake! There have been many
such; I trust there is a remnant of such now. But the most of us are
painfully conscious that we are waking and need greatly to be more
awake still.
O God, make us feel the solemn weight of those eternal things in which
we believe! You have saved us–make us awake to feel from what You have
saved us and by Whom You have saved us! Awaken us to realize to what
you have saved us and what the privileges are which belong to us now
that we are saved! Oh, when I think how trivial are the things of time
and how all-important are the unseen realities of eternity, I cannot
but again conclude that most of us are nothing more than about half
awake as to the things of God! And if it is so, it is high time that we
awake out of sleep!
II. Now, in the second place, I want to occupy a few minutes by saying
that whereas many Believers are asleep IT IS HIGH TIME THAT THEY SHOULD
AWAKE. And why high time that they should be awake? Why, first, because
what right have we who are Believers to be asleep at all? The Lord has
saved us–saved us from death–saved us from the sleep which is the
first cousin to death. He has saved us from indifference, from
unbelief, from hardheartedness. He has saved us from carelessness.
Well, now, if the Lord has done this for us, what business have we to
be in a sleepy state?
When the five wise virgins went out to meet the bridegroom and took
their lamps with them, what right had they to be asleep? I can very
well understand those sleeping who had no oil in the vessels with their
lamps, because when their lamps went out they would be in the dark and
darkness suggests sleep. But those who had their lamps well trimmed,
should they go asleep in the light? Those that had the oil, should they
go to sleep while the oil was illuminating them? They needed to be
awake to put the oil into the lamp. Besides, they had come out to meet
the bridegroom! Could they
meet him asleep? When he should come, would it be fit that he should
find those who attended his wedding all asleep in a row, insulting his
dignity and treating his glory with scorn?
Child of God, you are expecting Christ to come soon? He may come
tonight, or He may, if He pleases, delay His coming, but why, oh why,
do you think of sleeping? What is there congruous to your
character–what is there suitable to your expectations–in your sleep?
If, then, you have caught yourself having a sinful nap, bestir yourself
and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken you, for since you have no right to
sleep at all, it is high time that you should awake out of sleep! It is
high time because a great many opportunities have already slipped away!
I address myself to some of you who have been converted, say these 10
years. And what have you done for Christ? You are saved–we are not
going to question that–and your glorious salvation is nearer than when
you believed.
But what have you done during these many years? You have been eating
the fat and drinking the sweet, but have you fed the hungry? Have you
brought in the wandering? You have enjoyed the means of Grace, you tell
me. And is this all you were created for–to enjoy, yes, even to enjoy
good things? Have you not asked yourself the question, "What shall I
render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" Dear Friend, if you
have been saved a week and you have done nothing for Christ during that
week, you have already wasted more than enough time in having lived
through seven fruitless days! Let the time past suffice you to have
suffered opportunities to pass before your door unwelcomed.
But some professors are growing old; gray hairs are upon them! How long
have you been a Christian? Have you loved the Lord these 30 years and
done so little? Or what, if though you are an old man and yet only a
baby in Grace? That is worse still, is it not? As to all the past, is
your account grievously unprofitable?–A wilderness where there might
have been a garden–a desert where there might have been a fruitful
field? Can you endure the painful retrospect? Oh, when I look back, one
of the joys of my life is to have been converted to God while yet a
child and to have begun to preach the name of Jesus when still a youth!
And yet though that is a subject for joy, I find abundant reason for
accusing myself of wasting opportunities of service!
If it is so with me, though for years I have lived unto the Lord–I am
sure it must be so with many of my Master's servants. So let me say to
them, by all those wasted opportunities it must be high time for you to
awake out of sleep! Time is hastening on, my Brothers and Sisters! Each
flying moment holds another by the heel. Life rushes on as a rapid
stream! It bears us along swiftly and silently. If you are going to do
something, it must be done very soon, young man! You are not a child
now. Your sun has not quite reached its zenith, but it is rising high.
It may go down before it is noon. If something is to be accomplished
before you die, get at it, Man, get at it, or your life will be a
failure!
And you of middle life. Well, you are in the very strength and prime of
your days. If God is to be glorified by you and souls brought to Christ
by you, I urge you, in the name of all that is reasonable, get at it
and lay to, for if you do not work now, when will you? When the days of
weakness come and those that look out of the windows are darkened, you
will say, "I am too old." Oh, now, let the prime of your days be the
Lord's! Or, has the evening of life descended upon you? Are the shadows
lengthening and does strength fail? Brother, Sister, you are saved! You
would not like to go to Heaven, would you, without glorifying Christ
here below? Then do it now! All hand, all heart, all mind, all thought
must be given to the present pressing duty. You have such a little
while before you–so scanty an evening is left you– surely it should
be all spent with the utmost diligence in the Master's service.
"Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep."
Do you not see that it is high time to awake out of sleep because there
were so many people that had a claim upon us who are beyond our power,
now, even if we do wake? Have you ever felt the sadness of neglecting
to visit a person who was ill until you heard that he was dead? You
said to yourself, "Why did I not go and speak at least one word of
warning before that soul was gone into eternity?" Death is sweeping
away multitudes of our neighbors and friends! And it is high time that
we were diligent in seeking those that remain, if we are to do them any
good, for when that knell is tolling and that grave is closing, our
regrets will be useless to the departed and, at the same time, very
bitter to ourselves.
Many are passing away from us and from the sphere of our influence in
the common course of Providence. Your children, for instance. They were
little. Some of you still have little children. Well, they will not be
little long! Already, Mother, that boy is beginning to show a good deal
of independence of spirit! He will not even listen to you now as he
once did and you feel a little grieved at it. It will be more so soon!
If you do not bend the twig when it is a twig, you will not do much
with it when it gets to be a tree! We let our children slip from under
our fingers while they are plastic. We
forget to mold them and then they get into manhood and become less
amenable to our counsels and our cautions–and we grieve that we did
not do something more to train them up in the way they should go.
Now is your time, Mother, God helping you. Now is your time, Father!
Parents, avail yourselves of your opportunities and remember that good
is done by constant watching and by small degrees. And your servants,
too. Cannot you remember some servants that lived with you and you
always meant to talk to them about their souls and to pray with them?
But they left you and they were gone before you had commenced to bless
them. They are very worldly now. Perhaps if you were to trace them out,
you would find they were Christless and you would hear them say that
they once lived with a religious mistress, with a pious master and they
hoped they would never do so again, for it was the most miserable time
they ever had–"and whatever religion Master might have had, he kept it
all pretty well to himself, for we never heard much of it." "Oh," you
say, "I hope they do not say that!" I hope so, too, but I have known
such things said. And it is very possible that men and women may be so
asleep about the souls of those round them that opportunities which
were in their way may be sliding away never to return.
I believe that if we were awake we might often avail ourselves of
opportunities to speak to men who otherwise hold themselves aloof from
any religious conversation. There is a time with almost every man, when
conscience is awake. Perhaps he is saddened by affliction or cowed by
adversity–then he will respect as friendly what he might otherwise
resent as insulting. The most hardened, at some season or other, become
amenable to reproof, or exhortation, or direction. If you are ready,
take a shot at him and you will have him. But, if not at that moment,
you may never have another occasion of getting the Truth of God where
the man will feel it! We ought to be ready in a minute. Those who would
shoot the running deer have to be very, very clever in taking sight and
seizing the moment while it is running by. And those that would take
running souls–and the most of our fellow countrymen are just
such–must be sharp-sighted and quick-witted. They run by us and we
must have them in a minute or else they will have gone beyond our
reach. We cannot do this unless we are awakened out of our sleep. God
grant we may be so awakened!
Meanwhile, dear Friends, there is this reason why we should be
awake–we have plenty of enemies that are awake if we are not. You may
sleep, but you cannot induce the devil to close his eyes. Protestantism
may slumber, but I will guarantee you Catholicism never does! You may
see evangelicals asleep, but you will not find ritualists slumbering.
The Prince of the power of the air keeps his servants well up to their
work. Is it not a strange thing that the servants of Satan serve him so
enthusiastically while the servants of the Lord often serve Him at a
poor, cold, dead-alive rate? Oh, may the Lord quicken us! If we could,
with a glance, see the activities of the servants of Satan, we should
be astonished at our own sluggishness! It is while men sleep that the
enemy comes and sows tares among the wheat and it is because men sleep
that the tares are sown in the Lord's field. If we were more awake, the
adversary would not have the opportunity of scattering his evil grain.
It is high time that we awake out of sleep, for it is daylight. The sun
has risen! Will you sleep now? We are getting far into the Gospel
dispensation. Can you still sleep? It is time that we were awake, for
our Lord was awake! What wakefulness He exhibited! How did His eyes
stream with tears over perishing Jerusalem! He was all heart. The zeal
of God's house consumed Him. Ought it not to consume us? We ought to be
awake, for our own day may be over within an hour or two! The preacher
may be delivering his last sermon. You may go home tonight to offer the
last prayer at the family altar which you will ever utter on earth! You
may open shop, tomorrow morning, for the last time. Should not these
possibilities bestir you? How near, how very near, is the ultimatum of
every man here present! Have you fixed upon a grand purpose, Brother?
Fulfill it! You have scarcely time to get through it, therefore waste
not an hour.
Have you been planning? Leave off planning and get to executing your
work! You have been speaking about being generous. Be generous! You
have been talking about being spiritually minded. Leave off talk and
get at it, man! You have intended to be consecrated to God. Come, do
not squabble about consecration and about perfectionism, but be
consecrated and be perfect. Go in for the highest possible form of
devotion and service! We have lived long enough at this poor
half-and-half rate. If there is any higher platform, may the Lord lift
us up to it! If there is a way of living–spirit, soul and
body–wholly, unreservedly devoted every moment to the Lord, oh may His
Spirit conduct us into such a state!
This is our ambition! We aspire to this! We dare not say, as some do,
that we have gained it, for if we did we believe that we should give
evidence that we knew not what it was, or else we should not talk so
loftily. But Brothers and Sisters,
while the Master's personal coming may be so near and while His coming
to us by death may be nearer, still, it is high time that we awoke out
of our sleep!
III. I close with a third remark. IT IS WORTH WHILE WAKING, FOR THERE
IS SOMETHING WORTH
WAKING FOR. Paul says that it is high time that we wake out of sleep,
for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. As I already
remarked, he does not say, "for if you do not wake you will be lost."
Neither does he say, "You Christian people, if you remain in this dull
state, will perish without hope." No, that is the threat of the Law and
suits the tongue of Moses, but Jesus does not talk so. No, no! He sets
His servant speaking to us in a Gospel tone, "Now is your salvation
nearer than when you believed."
Undoubtedly, dear Brothers and Sisters, it is nearer in order of time.
How long is it since you believed? Ten years? You are 10 years nearer
Heaven, then. Your salvation, that is, your ultimate, complete
salvation–the display and manifestation of your complete deliverance
from evil, from sin, from death, from Hell–is nearer by so many years
than when you believed. Some of us are 25 years nearer Heaven than we
were. Ought we not to be more awake? The farther we are off from
Heaven, the less we may feel its influence–but we are getting so much
nearer that we ought to be increasingly sensitive to its mysterious
spell. Oh, to feel more of its power!
We shall soon be in Heaven, Brothers! We shall soon be there, Sisters!
Do not let us go to sleep, now, with the golden gate right before us
and Jesus waiting to admit us! Nearer Glory! Is it not a good argument
for being more alive unto God? Some of you are 60 years nearer to
Heaven than you were! You have been in Christ now more than half a
century. Well, well, Brothers and Sisters, are you not glad of it?
Would you like to live those 60 years over again? Would you like to go
back and tread that weary road a second time, clambering again Hill
Difficulty and sliding, down again, into the Valley of Humiliation?
Would you wish to march a second time through the Valley of the Shadow
of Death and into Giant Despair's castle?
"No," you say, and you need not fear the return journey, for you shall
not go back again! Rejoice that you are so much nearer Heaven in the
matter of time. Therefore, stay wide awake and looking out for it. When
little children have been taken from their inland homes to the sea,
they have been very eager to see the ocean and yet they have been ready
to go to sleep as they approached the end of the journey. They have
never seen the sea before, and Mother says, "Wake up, children, you are
coming near the sea." Soul, Soul, Soul, we have never seen Heaven but
we are getting nearer! Let us stay awake! Jerusalem, my happy home,
shall I enter your sacred precincts sleeping? Shall I come to the last
hill, from which I am to take a view of your glittering lanes and
golden streets, and shall I be half asleep within view of them? Come,
my heart! No, no, no! Wake up, my heart! Heart, wake up! You are
getting nearer Home. "A day's march nearer Home" you have come even
this day–be ashamed to slumber!
And, if we are getting nearer in point of time, I hope we are getting
nearer in point of preparation. Christ is preparing Heaven for us and
His Sprit is preparing us for Heaven! Well, then, if we are getting
more ready for Heaven, we ought to be more awake, for sleepiness is not
the state of heavenly spirits! Heaven is the home of activity, not the
dormitory of unconsciousness! When our bodies shall have been raised
from the dead, they shall enjoy life and energy and be forever free
from fatigue and sluggishness. Let us, as we are getting ready for
celestial company, be fuller of life and fuller of energy! More ready
for Heaven, then reap, reap, reap with stronger arms. Do another man's
work, if you can, as well as your own!
You have nearly accomplished your life's labor, therefore throw all
your strength into that little which remains. So near Heaven? Then
pluck another brand out of the burning! If you are more fit for Heaven,
you have more love, more Grace, more pity–then reach out both hands to
bring another poor soul to Christ! If the golden gate shall soon be
open to you and you shall be shut in forever in the blest place of
rest, be sure to show others the way to that gate, that you enter not
alone! Your salvation is nearer than when you believed, therefore do
something more to prove that you are ready for it.
And, lastly, as your salvation is nearer than when you believed, let us
hope your realization of it is more clear. Have you tried to realize
the Glory to be revealed? Within a short time you will be with Jesus!–
"Far from this world of grief and sin, With God eternally shut in."
Your head will wear a crown, your hand shall grasp the palm of victory!
You, even you, shall walk the golden streets and see that Face which is
brighter than the sun! It may be that tonight you will be made free in
the New Jerusalem–tonight you may leave that narrow room and that hard
bed, the abode of poverty and care–and you may be away up where they
keep eternal Sabbaths and the congregations never break up. You will be
there, Brother and Sister, even you! There is a crown in Glory which no
head can wear but yours. You will be there!
Well, now, it seems to me that if I can realize that in so short a time
my eternal salvation shall be consummated and I, even I, shall be among
the blood-washed throng and see my Savior's face, I cannot any longer
neglect a single opportunity of serving Him! I cannot any longer let
poor souls go down to Hell without endeavoring to save them! I cannot
any longer neglect prayer–neglect opportunities of usefulness–or live
otherwise than as a man should live who has his foot upon the doorstep
of Heaven and his finger on the latch! What manner of persons ought you
to be to whom Heaven is guaranteed by promise and to whom it has been
sealed by blood to be your special heritage–the portion of a people
whom every moment brings nearer to eternal joy? What manner of persons
ought you to be? May the Spirit of God make you to be just that, now,
and He shall have praise forever. Amen.
I have said nothing to the unconverted because I have been admonishing
you Believers to say something to them. If you will catch the spirit of
my text, you will, each one, feel for them and begin to speak. But if I
were to wrench the text from its connection and apply it to the
unconverted, what a sledge hammer it would be! Shall I read the text as
I should have to read it if it spoke to the unregenerate? It runs to
the Christian, "Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed."
But oh, you unconverted men and women, must I read the text as it would
have to run if it were written to you?
"It is high time that you should awake out of sleep, for now is your
damnation nearer than when you first heard the Gospel and rejected it."
Take heed, take heed! God grant you Grace to take heed and to believe
in Christ. Amen and Amen!