Awake, O sleeper Eph 5:14
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Awake, O Sleeper
Awake is a verb that implies to stop sleeping; means to wake up!
Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
arise from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”
Satan is directing behind the scenes, and he knows that a Christian unconsciously will not thrive, if he is asleep to the awful need of the world. If he can lull God's watchmen asleep, he will take the city with ease .
Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel. Whenever you hear the word from My mouth, then warn them from Me.
IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP!
People, it’s time to break out of our spiritual laziness and get busy!
The verse says our “salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Romans 13:11
Furthermore, knowing the time, now is the moment to awake from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed.
"But," someone says, "the Church is active; there is a great move on throughout large sections of the earth among the United Pentecostal Movment” 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," ( Mullberry Trees can grow up to 30-80ft tall ) but immediately the command comes, "Then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee." (2 Samuel 5:24)
When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, pay attention, because at that point the Lord is going before you to defeat the army of the Philistines.”
Often in the Scriptures believers are exhorted to awake. They are warned of the dangers of spiritual sleep, that such a slumber is like a coma that will result in death unless the believer awakens. There is a figure in the book of Proverbs called the sluggard. He is the slothful man who sleeps while others work.
There are the words of the great prophet Isaiah, “Arise, shine for thy light is come!” Jesus the light of the world has appeared; what are we doing lying down in the dark? The Book of Jonah addresses 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 your God.” Jonah 1:6
The captain came to him and said, “What are you doing asleep? Get up, call to your god! Perhaps your god will consider us, so that we will not perish.”
Then the sailors were afraid, and each cried to his god. They tossed the ship’s cargo into the sea in order to lighten the load.
But Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. The captain came to him and said, “What are you doing asleep? Get up, call to your god! Perhaps your god will consider us, so that we will not perish.”
Jonah chapter 1, verse 6, the verse. You're all, I'm sure, most of you, familiar with the story of Jonah - it reaches the point where the storm is breaking up the boat, and the crew is calling upon their pagan gods to save them. Then in verse 6: "The shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not".
Does the lost world not have the right to ask the same question of all of us as Christians today - 'What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not'.
WE are so caught up in our own death that even the Lost people are looking for some other gods to save them, because we so caught up in our own sleep, that we do not even reconize the LOST PEOPLE aroud us who are crying out for help, because they know that we have A GOD that can turn impossible to possible?
OF all the men in the ship, Jonah was the person who ought most to have been awake; but nevertheless, he was not only asleep, ( The Bible said, he was FAST ALSEEP) ; all the creaking of the cordage, the dashing of the waves, the howling of the winds, the straining of the timbers, and the screamiing sailors didn't arose him out of his blissful oblivious sleep to their awful reality.
Now if we see many things in the prophecy of Jonah, which we do, if we were to study the four chapters of this book, one thing that we can clearly see for sure - even only reading the first six verses of the first chapter - is the deadly effects of sin upon the life of the believer. In fact, there is no anaesthetic that can knock you out like sin. Jonah's sin was disobedience, that was his problem, and we read in verse 6 and see that that sin made him numb to the present NEED of those who were around him.
The tragedy of verse 5 was that every man cried to his own god, yet Jonah was the only one who had the true and living God yet he was silent in prayer - there wasn't a prayer uttering from the lips of God's prophet. Where are our prayers for the lost? Now listen, I'm not talking about prayers for the sick, I'm not talking about even our loved ones who are unsaved that mean so much to us, but what about the millions who are unknown to us in this world, who have never heard the name of JESUS, nor been FILLED in the HOLY GHOST in the EViDENCE of SPEAKING in TONGUES ACTS 2:38 “Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” - What about their souls?
I know it's hard to pray for some people, it's hard to pray for some places, some countries, even our own - but I just wonder are there any Abrahams left who will intercede for Sodom.
Are you ASLEEP in your own DEATH?
Are you so caught up in your own sin and the distractions of this world, that you don’t even notice the sound of God trying to wake you up? It’s time to wake up from your coma, God is wanting to use you in a mighty way and in His Kingdom, He’s trying to wake you up, He’s to trying to lead you to a LOST and HUNGRY SOUL
The people around us are not crying for physical water to quench their thirst, they may not even know that they need spiritual water - but the fact of the matter is that we are the ones that have that water, who have that bread of life, and who do not give it to them!
C. H. Spurgeon said: 'O could you once see with your eyes a soul sinking into hell;
Oh, that we could hear their cries just now, just at this moment in hell, the multitudes that fall into a bottomless pit - would it not awaken us? Would it not waken us out of any slumber that we may be in, whether it is the slumber of disobedience or any particular sin? Men are perishing, children are dying, hell is filling, yet you are sleeping!
And I am sleeping.
The shipmaster says: 'What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise' - get up! Get going! Have we arisen to meet the need, not only in the world, but in the district that God has placed us?
Jesus has told us all to GO into ALL the world and PREACH the GOSPEL!
Jesus said, in Matthew chapter 9 and verse 37, to his disciples: 'The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few' - there is so much work to be done! So many souls to be won! And the question that the shipmaster of the world asks us is: 'What are we doing?!'.
Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
We've got so caught up in ourselves that we cannot see the need. Where and how we lost it, I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: we need to get it back
Ask yourself these questions.
Am I living a life true to myself?
Is my focus on things that matters?
Am I being the person who God wants me to be? Eph. 5:2-8
Am I living a godly life by being an example to others?
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
And do not let sexual immorality, or any impurity, or greed be named among you, as these are not proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse joking, which are not fitting. Instead, give thanks. For this you know, that no sexually immoral or impure person, or one who is greedy, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.
For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—
We know the spiritual realities: we know of the love of God, we know of the great eternity, a hope of heaven and the horrors of hell, yet at times we sit ignorant to it all in our own selfish existence!