Awake, O Sleeper! -moore

[b]Awake, O Sleeper![/b]
[i]by W. C. Moore[/i]

"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5:14).

"But," someone says, "the Church is active; there is a great move on throughout large sections of the earth among Bible-believing Christians."

True, there is a shaking, a stirring in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek., chapter 37)--a "sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees," (2 Samuel 5:24)--but immediately the command comes, "Then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee."

"Dead Works"

Our "works" may be dead works (Hebrews 9:14), the very things from which we need to be purged. We, every one of us, need the mighty, quickening power of the Holy Spirit all the time in all our service unto God.

"BE filled with the Spirit," is the command of God’s Word (Eph. 5:18). Our Lord says, "Let the children FIRST be filled" (Mark 7:27).

God commands that His children be filled with the Holy Spirit before they work with Him. "Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you" (John 12:35-36). "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

"We are labourers together with God" (1 Cor. 3:9). We are praying for revival, but God is not going to send us revival without our sincere and wholehearted cooperation. There are certain things that God has told us to do, and He will never do them for us.

"Take YE away the stone" (John 11:39-41). Lazarus was to be raised from the dead but the Lord commanded that His followers work with Him to get this miracle accomplished. One great "stone" that many of us have to get out of the way before God will work in His miracle power, is the "stone" of unbelief.

Loose Them From Their Graveclothes!

After Jesus spoke the word of resurrection power, and Lazarus "that was dead came forth" out of the grave, Lazarus was still not in any shape either to see anything or to do anything effectively, for he was "bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin."

Our Lord not only wants us to loose such, in His name, but He positively commands us: "Loose him, and let him go" (John 11:44).

Oh, the black folds of dismal graveclothes that drape the Church today! Unbelief, forms, ceremonies, rituals--as though God does not mean what He says in the Bible, and as though the God of all flesh, the Almighty--our wise and holy Creator, wants us to go through meaningless forms and rituals when our heart is not at all in it, and when we ourselves do not either know or believe in the reality of what we are doing.

"Prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of My people" (Isa. 57:14).

"Prepare YE the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones" (Isa. 62:10). To remove all hindrances to revival is absolutely necessary, but this is only preliminary for we are then to "Lift up a standard for the people" (Isa. 62:10).

Oh, for the standards of holiness, love to God and love for souls, purity, zeal, humility--Oh, for God’s own standards to be lifted up for the people! Oh, for a Jeremiah to weep over this nation and over a world in sin!

"Awake thou that sleepest" (Eph. 5:14). Even if now we are asleep, there is hope for us if we will now repent and believe God and act accordingly! May God, for Jesus’ sake, put it on the hearts of His ministers to "Cry aloud, spare not," (Isa. 58:1), even though it hurts pride and crucifies self.

Also, to lift up their voices like trumpets and show God’s own people their tremendous need of repentance, and a wholehearted forsaking of every form of compromise with the world, the flesh and the devil, not at all in a "holier-than-thou" attitude, but because God Himself is giving a crisis-hour call to us today--before His judgments sweep the world--and be sure of one thing, our nation shall not in any wise escape, unless we repent, and turn wholeheartedly to God!

Jesus, our Lord, the Head of the Church (Eph. 5:23-24), tells us plainly, "The night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4).

[b]The Sin Of Sleeping On[/b]
"Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion" (Isa. 52:1)

How can a Christian sleep in such an age as ours? When so many harvest fields of labor invite the sturdy arm and glowing heart? When the wails of a world’s sorrow rise on every gale? To sleep through such a period of the world’s history is a fearful crime. Truly it is a sin against heaven to have no pulse that beats in palpitations of an age which trembles with the footsteps of an advancing God.

[b]Words to Winners of Souls [/b]
[i]by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)[/i]

Vincent, the Non-conformist minister, in his volume on the great plague and fire in London, entitled God's Terrible Voice in the City, gives a description of the manner in which the faithful ministers who remained amid the danger discharged their solemn duties to the dying inhabitants, and of the manner in which the terror-stricken multitudes hung with breathless eagerness upon their lips, to drink in salvation ere the dreaded pestilence had swept them away to the tomb. Churches were flung open, but the pulpits were silent, for there was none to occupy them; the hirelings had fled.
Then did God's faithful band of persecuted ones come forth from their hiding-places to fill the forsaken pulpits. Then did they stand up in the midst of the dying and the dead, to proclaim eternal life to men who were expecting death before the morrow. They preached in season and out of season. Week-day or Sabbath was the same to them. The hour might be canonical or uncanonical, it mattered not; they did not stand upon nice points of ecclesiastical regularity or irregularity; they lifted up their voices like a trumpet, and spared not. Every sermon might be their last. Graves were lying open around them; life seemed now not merely a handbreadth but a hairbreadth; death was nearer now than ever; eternity stood out in all its vast reality; souls were felt to be precious; opportunities were no longer to be trifled away; every hour possessed a value beyond the wealth of kingdoms; the world was now a passing, vanishing shadow, and man's days on earth had been cut down from threescore years and ten into the twinkling of an eye!

Oh, how they preached! No polished periods, no learned arguments, no labored paragraphs, chilled their appeals, or rendered their discourses unintelligible. No fear of man, no love of popular applause, no ever-scrupulous dread of strong expressions, no fear of excitement or enthusiasm, prevented them from pouring out the whole fervor of their hearts, that yearned with tenderness unutterable over dying souls.

"Old Time," says Vincent, "seemed to stand at the head of the pulpit, with his great scythe saying, with a hoarse voice, 'Work while it is called to-day: at night I will mow thee down.' Grim death seemed to stand at the side of the pulpit, with its sharp arrow, saying, 'Do thou shoot God's arrows, and I will shoot mine.' The grave seemed to lie open at the foot of the pulpit, with dust in her bosom, saying,

'Louden thy cry
To God,
To men,
And now fulfill thy trust;
Here thou must lie--
Mouth stopped,
Breath gone,
And silent in the dust.'
"Ministers had now awakening calls to seriousness and fervor in their ministerial work; to preach on the side and brink of the pit into which thousands were tumbling. Now there is such a vast concourse of people in the churches where these ministers are to be found that they cannot many times come near the pulpit doors for the press, but are forced to climb over the pews to them; and such a face was seen in the assemblies as seldom was seen before in London; such eager looks, such open ears, such greedy attention, as if every word would be eaten which dropped from the mouths of the ministers."
Should We Be Less Earnest?

Thus did they preach, and thus did they hear in those days of terror and death. Men were in earnest then, both in speaking and hearing. There was no coldness, no languor, no studied oratory. Truly they preached as dying men to dying men. But the question is, SHOULD IT EVER BE OTHERWISE? Should there ever be less fervor in preaching or less eagerness in hearing than there was then? True, life was a little shorter then, but that was all. Death and its issues are still the same. Eternity is still the same. The soul is still the same. Salvation is still the same. Only one small element was thrown in which does not always exist to such an extent; namely the increased shortness of life. But that was all the difference.

Why then should our preaching be less fervent, our appeals less affectionate, our importunity less urgent? We are a few steps farther from the shore of eternity; that is all. Time may be a little longer than it was then, yet only a very little. Its everlasting issues are still as momentous, as unchangeable. Surely it is our UNBELIEF that makes the difference! It is unbelief that makes ministers so cold in their preaching, so slothful in visiting, and so remiss in all their sacred duties. It is unbelief that chills the life and straitens the heart. It is unbelief that makes ministers handle eternal realities with such irreverence. It is unbelief that makes them ascend with so light a step, "that awful place the pulpit," to deal with immortal beings about heaven and hell.

Hear one of Richard Baxter's appeals: "I have been ready to wonder, when I have heard such weighty things delivered, how people can forbear crying out in the congregation; much more how they can rest till they have gone to their ministers, and learned what they should do. Oh that heaven and hell should work no more upon men! Oh that everlastingness should work no more! Oh, how can you forbear when you are alone to think with yourselves what it is to be everlasting in joy or torment! I wonder that such thoughts do not break your sleep; and that they come not in your mind when you are about your labor! I wonder how you can almost do nothing else; how you can have any quietness in your minds; how you can eat or drink or rest till you have got some ground of everlasting consolations!"

Go, labor on while it is day,
The worlds dark night is hastening on.
Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away-
it is not thus that souls are won.
(from his hymn "Go, Labor on, Spend and Be Spent")