“Awake you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Messiah will shine on you” – Ephesians 5:14
Often in the Bible believers are exhorted to awake. They are warned of dangers of spiritual sleep, that such a slumber is like a coma that will result in death unless the believer awakens.
In Proverbs they are called the sluggard. He is the slothful man who sleeps while others work and God casts on him a pitiless gaze. The great prophet Isaiah said, “Arise, shine for the light is come!” Jesus the light of the world has appeared, what are you doing lying down in the dark? Amos addresses the laid back church of his day, “woe to them that are in ease in Zion.” Or you think of the mighty storm threatening death to all aboard a ship while the prophet Jonah sleeps through it all. “What do you mean O’ sleeper?” cries the captain. “Arise and call upon you God.”
In the New Testament, there is the same. This is the era of the new covenant, but Christians can sleep. They can hear the gospel preached with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven but they sleep. These were times of successful evangelism and revival but Christians could still sleep. They see mighty miracles but still sleep. Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray. There were a number if parables Jesus used at the end who He called “wicked and slothful servants. The risen Jesus addresses the church in Sardies and tells them, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.”
Paul is constantly exporting churches to take up. He tells the congregation in Rome, “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert” (1 Thessalonians 5:6).
It is possible to be a true believer in Jesus and become a sleeping Christian to fall asleep. When this state falls upon anyone we cannot say it is because of God.
I remember a young man who came to our church a few years ago and saw us praying in small groups and told the group I was in that he never learned how to pray like we were praying. He grew up in a church, and has been going for over 30 years he never learned how to pray. Sadly he returned to the church he grew up in because that was all he knew and was comfortable there. I urged him to open his noble and start praying straight off the pages of the Bible. Although I don’t know if he did. If you are at a church like that, please don’t stay there because that’s where you are comfortable. There is so much more out there for you to learn and many blessings to be obtained.
God is saying “Wake up!“ and all that God commands he enables us to perform, it is not for us to cry, “We cannot wake up. We are too deeply asleep. Don’t fall into to the “can’t-help-mysel-ism. Listen to what God is telling you and depend on His grace and trust in the power of His Holy Spirit.
From Pity to Praise 