Spiritual Sleepiness

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Greetings to you in Christ's name this morning. Grace, mercy, and peace to each one. I would like to turn to Romans chapter 13 for a text this morning. But I would like to read in, maybe I should say the word vigilance or vigilant and sober [00:00:33] fit in with the topic that I would like to address. And I've titled this message, Spiritual Sleepiness, Spiritual Sleepiness. I'm going to start reading here in Romans chapter 13 verse 11, Paul writing here. And that knowing the time that now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. [00:01:07] Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. The duty of spiritual vigilance with relation to the timetable of God was not lost on Paul. And constantly in many different places, Paul speaks about the urgency, the urgency of the hour, the urgency. [00:01:40] We need to wake up. Paul is urging believers to wake up. And if it was important for him to preach that message back then, it's probably far more important today. or as important at least, put it that way. And Paul was not necessarily pulling that out of his hat. If you look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ over and over again, look up the word watch and see how many times it appears in the New Testament [00:02:15] and how many times Jesus said it. Matthew 24, verse 42 and 43 start out this way. Watch therefore, watch, watch therefore, for you know not what hour the Lord doth come, but know this, that if the good men of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house and be broken up. But you know what? The Lord does not come as a thief in the night to believers. He only comes as a thief in the night to professing Christianity. [00:02:49] Professing Christianity will be unprepared for the appearing of the Lord. And it is a timeless message that Paul was presenting. It's sobering to recognize that there will be those that miss heaven because they are asleep spiritually. Asleep. But I would like to notice something this morning. There will be many people that will be in an unsaved position when the Lord returns. But that decision was made. They fell asleep long before the Lord returned. [00:03:22] And yes, he returned as a thief in the night for the will for these people. But the decision to go down that road was made long before the Lord appeared. And that's what I would like to speak about. Being sleepy is taking steps down the wrong road, going the wrong direction. I don't know if we think about these terms very much, but there's a difference between being asleep and being sleepy. [00:03:52] Maybe I'm splitting hair by doing this, but I looked it up. What does sleepiness, what does the dictionary say about sleepiness? And sleepiness is the time before you fall off to sleep. You're not awake, fully awake. It's the drowsy feeling of wanting to go to sleep but not being quite there. Partially awake would be another definition. Not asleep, but not totally awake either. [00:04:23] When we get to this point in our spiritual walk, our senses are dull. We don't hear the voice of the Lord anymore. We're in a twilight zone. We're getting to the point where the things that look so dangerous to us, the sin that looks so sinful, just doesn't appear that way anymore. There's no sense of urgency anymore. You know, we may still be awake enough to attend a church service. We may still be alive enough spiritually that we want to go. [00:04:56] We want to look right. But we can already be asleep. And as we sit in that church pew, our body fills the church pew, and we're there in that service, our minds are wandering. That business deal. What we're going to do next week. What we're we may be we may be attentive even we may even have something to share. But when we're asleep in that sense, spiritually, we may be thinking about the ballgame. There's iron is no longer sharpening iron. [00:05:31] We're in that twilight zone and we just we just want to relax, make it easy. Maybe this is what Paul is saying when he speaks to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 verse 5. We now have a form of godliness, but there's no power there anymore. There's no power. We're denying the power thereof. From such turn away, he says. Spiritual sleepiness is paralyzing to spiritual growth. [00:06:01] There is no growth spiritually when we just want to relax. We want our brother to lead out. We don't want to contribute anymore. We just want to, we're just in that almost to fall asleep, but we keep going to church because we're awake enough that we feel we should do that. You know, in the physical sense, I don't know of anything, when you're tired and you've worked a long day, I don't know of anything that feels better than just laying back on that recliner, just dropping off. [00:06:33] It feels good. And that alarm clock ringing in my ear the next morning is just a thorn in my side. Oh, how I hate that alarm clock. I just wish I had another two hours of sleep. There's never enough sleep. Well, I didn't feel that way when I was about 10 years old, but things have changed. I like to sleep now. And it's no different in the spiritual sense, I don't think. Many times people get to this stage, they do not want to be roused anymore. We get to the point where we don't want to hear it anymore. [00:07:07] We've had enough. We want to relax now. We've had all this, maybe we get tired of the preaching or the teaching that we've heard. But we fall into this spiritual sleepiness and we want to stay there. And the message that comes to us, the messenger, the alarm clock that comes to rouse us out of sleep, we become critical with the messenger, not knowing that God is placing that messenger there to wake us up, [00:07:42] get us back on the road, get us going again. Finally, the end result is people drop off to sleep. There's no connection with God anymore. And if you think about it, sleep is actually a remarkable phenomenon. It's like an animated death almost. In sleep, I'm oblivious to the world. Hardly ever do I remember. Well, I'm not asleep if I remember something. [00:08:13] I guess you could say it that way. Oblivious to the world. The thief may be at the door. We have no idea what goes on if we're asleep. The fire may be burning up the shades already. We're sound asleep. Oblivious. It doesn't matter. It doesn't affect us because we're not awake. We don't know what's going on. We have no concept of what's really happening. [00:08:44] What's really happening around us when we're asleep. We don't care, nor know. And on the other hand, if we're asleep, and if we dream, it's usually just elusive or just some... We wake up and laugh about it if we can remember it, and that's about as far as it goes. You know, spiritual sleep is not much different than that. Not a whole lot different. Spiritual sleep comes to men's souls when the gospel is weak and nothing, nothing is as irritating to the person that is asleep spiritually than being reminded you have things to make right. [00:09:27] There's some issues. There's some things that need to change. Paul writes again in Ephesians 5 and I think I'm going to read quite a bit of that. I know that there's only about one verse here that I really want to focus in on, but I think I'm going to read the chapter from verse 1 to 17. Maybe I'll ask you to stand while I read that. It's quite a bit of reading, 17 verses. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. [00:10:06] But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. [00:10:37] Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness But rather reprove them For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret [00:11:08] But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light For whatsoever doth make manifest is light Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee life. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. You may be seated. [00:11:40] Verse 14 is the one I would like to focus on. Paul gives a list. He writes to the church. He has a whole list of things that should be far from them. Things that destroy their walk, destroy their connection with the Lord. No child of God should ever be involved in much of this. It gives a lot of admonition. But then he comes to verse 14 and he says, Awake thou that sleepest, awake. [00:12:12] and not only just wake up, we can wake up and lie in bed, not sure if I can even say this, but I think Vance Havner says this, we can wake up, we can lie in bed and fall asleep and dream that we're awake. That's almost a paradox, hard to understand. But the truth of the matter is, there are times when we can feel like we're awake, We're actually asleep spiritually. We need to know the mind of God. But he says, wake up. And then he says, arise. We need to do more than just wake up. We need to get up. He's exhorting to rise up and be about the Lord's business. [00:13:01] But there's something I want to notice here that I don't think I've ever noticed before in this portion of scripture from verse 14 to 17. Seems like we heard a message on wisdom just recently here. And Paul connects being awake to being wise. If you look at it, wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. There is no way that we will understand what the will of the Lord really is for our lives if we're not awake, if we're not watching. [00:13:38] We have to be awake spiritually. There is much that the scripture says about being in a state of not quite clearly seeing where God wants us to go. And the word sleep appears 78 times in my Bible and many times it appears in the literal sense where people are sleeping. If you read Psalms, there's a lot of you see a lot of that or Jeremiah. There's a number of different places, but this is what I would like to see here this morning. [00:14:12] In 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 6, Brother Gary read this Wednesday evening Therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober Let us watch and be sober I went back and checked the original Greek definition for the sleepiness that I'm speaking about this morning And especially in this 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 6 And the Strong's says this To yield to sloth and sin [00:14:44] But the second one, or it's an ongoing To be indifferent to one's salvation You know what, if we're in that state of being between awake and fully asleep Or dropped off to sleep We are indifferent We are just kind of neither here nor there And that's the way it works with our spiritual life And that's the type of sleepiness I'm speaking about this morning. Jesus said this in Matthew 25 verse 13 at the end of the parable. [00:15:20] They had these ten virgins and again these virgins made a decision before the bridegroom, before it was time. But he said this, after this he said, Watch therefore for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. Let me reiterate this morning. People have made decisions many times long before the end of their life, but they've gone down that road of spiritual sleepiness where they could not help themselves anymore. [00:15:53] As I was studying for this message, there was a story that kept coming back to me. Not a story, but a happening. Something that I vividly remembered, but I hadn't thought about it for many years. There was a young man that I knew, a little Amish boy, and I knew this family well. I spent many weekends at their home. I was with his older brother with the youth group and good friends with his older brother about my age. [00:16:29] This young boy, this home, he was from a home of a minister, I would say an upbuilding home. And I'm saying all this because I thought this young man was a man of promise. He, his parents were upstanding people. I appreciated them and still do as far as that goes. But something happened in this young man's life. And I don't know if I can put my finger on it and I don't know if anybody else can. [00:17:05] But it's just this thing of sleepiness, gradually falling into something, moving away from God and what he had been taught. What happens when we fall asleep spiritually? Well, in this case, this man fell asleep in the physical sense as well. He got going with the wrong crowd, and it all seemed good for a while. And we know how this lifestyle keeps going and people get involved in this drinking and partying and we all think that's out there and it is hopefully. I hope it is. [00:17:45] But this young man consumed too much alcohol one Sunday evening, and he never made it home. He drove in the path of an oncoming something, and I'm not sure where all this happened. I didn't know about it until after the fact. But what happened? What happened in this young man's life? The thing that happens so many times. Now, this is drastic. He fell asleep in the physical sense. [00:18:16] This is drastic. He lost his life physically. But the choice was made long before he got to that point. The choice might have been made as he was sitting in a church service. It doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to me. That evening, I'm sure, I'm sure the officers were knocking on that door. You know, your son. He's gone. Gone. How about when we sit in a church service and we make that choice. [00:18:54] We don't allow the truth of God's word to sink in our hearts and the word comes to God. They're falling asleep. They're falling asleep. You know, I think there was probably overwhelming grief in that home that evening. I would expect that. I would expect if that happened to anybody, there would be overwhelming grief. Do we grieve the Father when we walk away? Walk away. Let's be careful. You know, as individuals, each one of us now, [00:19:28] as we hear the Word, We have a responsibility and we have a responsibility to act upon what we've heard. We have the responsibility to be alert and to keep sin out of our lives. It's the little foxes that spoil the vine. It's just the gradual going away. There have been many individuals that have sat just where you sit this morning, But they somehow got away. Somehow got tired of it. Somehow they fell asleep. [00:20:05] And today they don't care. It doesn't matter anymore. God doesn't. They might name the name of Christ. I don't know. But there are people that don't care anymore. It doesn't matter. And it started with that falling away, that sleepiness, that getting tired and no longer being able to see where I'm at. You know, I was thinking about some of these things and I'm not going to name just a whole list of things that don't look dangerous to us anymore. [00:20:42] But I thought of one thing. What about our internet service? We get so involved in technology. That's not the only thing. There's a lot of things. Fattish dress. You could name a whole list of things that just looked outrageous ten years ago. But today we're kind of used to things. We kind of get used to things. And it doesn't appear that dangerous anymore. Our guard is down. It comes down and we no longer are able to see. [00:21:14] But there's something beyond this, and I don't want to lose any of you this morning. We're not all fathers and mothers, but for those of us that are fathers and mothers, you have a responsibility. We have a responsibility. We are the gatekeeper of our home, and not only am I responsible for myself, I am responsible for the children that God has entrusted into my care. I am responsible for watching for their souls [00:21:46] God has asked that of us as fathers and mothers we are responsible to guide our children and I know that our children have a volition of their own they make their own decisions I understand that well but the thing of it is if I am asleep when I should be speaking to my son If I am, if I don't know where he's at or what he's doing, I am shirking my duty. I am not doing what God has asked me to do. And I, we will be accountable for that. [00:22:23] Is there anything in my home or in any of our homes that we would not want there when the Lord should come back? Or is there something that I yet need to go back and tell my child? I just missed it. I just didn't do it. Let's do it today. Now, what are some signs of sleepiness that we see or sense? And I don't have a conclusive list and I'm not going to attempt on that this morning. But random thoughts rather. What happens when there's sleepiness in a group of people, in a church, in a family? One of the first things that becomes seemingly becomes evident is there's no longer a connection with God. [00:23:10] And along with that, there is no longer a lot of prayer and fasting done. And I don't know if that is always as obvious as we think it might be. But you know what? I've caught myself thinking, how much time have I spent on my knees? And why didn't I spend the time that I was reading that magazine on my knees? God will hold us accountable for that. It's a sign that I am slipping away. [00:23:42] What holds priority is what I do in life. Spiritual sleepiness. Vance Havner says this, When the people of God become desperate and cry out to God, No, I'm sorry. The tragedy of the hour is that the situation is desperate, but the saints are not. We're not desperate enough. When we become desperate, revival comes. Revival comes. God has promised, and I believe it's a promise, we know the verse 2 Chronicles 7, 14 [00:24:15] If my people, he says, will seek my face and then the promise, then will I hear from heaven He has said he will hear, but we need to cry out There's a lack of crying out to God There's another thing, and this is probably so evident that maybe I shouldn't even mention it, but it's so hard for me to see myself sometimes when I just don't have that connection with God anymore. [00:24:50] Self-evaluation, seeing myself, seeing us as God sees us as individuals. What does God think about the way I conduct my business or my life or my family? or my family devotions or you, whatever we do. What does God think about the way I conduct myself? You know what? When we are not thinking soberly, the drunk cannot evaluate properly anymore. [00:25:24] And when we're in this sleepy condition where we're just not quite asleep but not quite awake anymore, and more. We're not able to evaluate where am I going? How fast am I going? Or am I going too slow? Or am I not being there on time? It's all kind of hazy. Confession and repentance become a non-issue. We don't see our need anymore. I don't. What's the problem? And when we get to that point, it's easy to justify. Well, I did it. Well, everybody else was doing it too, so probably was all right. [00:26:00] and spiritual sleepiness will take us down that road. You know, I noticed something in 1 John. We know that verse 1 John 1, 9, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But in verse 8, he says this, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Now I think we'd all be modest enough to say that we have sin. I think we all would be. But when we really get down to the nitty gritty and search our heart, are we able to ask God to search us and see is there anything in the way? Are we able to do it truthfully? [00:26:48] and then verse 10 says if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us but if I get to the point where I think that I'm alright in some sense I'm saying that I have not sinned we need to be open when there's spiritual sleepiness there's a love of entertainment versus the love of truth truth just doesn't do it anymore and soul sleepiness is so widespread in our day that the moral law that God has written himself is Nolen Boyd almost. [00:27:25] And I'm talking about society in general. We live in an age where tolerance is promoted. Tolerance is the word that on everybody's lips it seems gay rights are a common subject. But you know what? It's one thing if tolerance is out in the world. But when tolerance wants to work its way in the church, spiritual sleepiness will allow tolerance to come in a church. Spiritual sleepiness will do that. [00:27:56] You know, it's almost to the point where a church that upholds or tries to maintain what God has put in His Word becomes a novelty. The world around us hardly understands that anymore. But that's our responsibility. Soberness has become a lost virtue. And I've noticed that people that are sleepy, spiritually, want an easy message. But you read Jeremiah, he did not present an easy message to his people. [00:28:30] For 40 years he preached it the way it was, the way God told him to preach. He did not skirt the issue. But you know what? Jeremiah ended up in prison. I'm not sure, I don't have everything in line, but Jeremiah had a rough, a difficult life. There were people around Jeremiah that did not appreciate him, had no respect for him. They wanted the prophets that told them what they wanted to hear. [00:29:04] But in the end, destruction awaited them, and really that's what awaits us if we fall asleep spiritually. There's another thing. When we are asleep spiritually, there's this has been this movement from the beginning of time where the church, the world mixes with the church and the church mixes with the world where we can now go to church and just feel good about it. And we can do part of what the world does and part of what the church does and we mix it up. [00:29:36] But God's word does not uphold that. Nonconformity is the rule. That is God's standard. And love not the world neither. The things of the world is as true today as when it was written. However many years ago that was. But it seems as though these things have a tendency to creep in the door. And as I was studying this morning, it became very real to me that the angel, spiritual sleepiness is the angel of light, a lot more so than the roaring lion, because it's soft. [00:30:16] It comes in just a little bit at a time, until finally we're lulled to sleep. Nonconformity in any way just doesn't seem as necessary anymore. It becomes easy. I want to share this one verse in closing. Jesus said this in Mark 13.37 And what I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch. Watch. If all of us as a group are going to appear justified before the judgment seat, [00:30:51] we are going to have to watch. Not just we are going to have to watch what comes into my life, what I allow, but also our brothers and sisters. We're all headed for a destination that may seem way in the distance or far out there, but for some people that has happened and it has come already, so it's not that far away. What I say unto you I say unto all. Watch. [00:31:24] Let's kneel for prayer with these thoughts. Father in heaven, we bow before you again this morning. Father, we ask that you would protect us from the spiritual sleepiness that wants to invade even our ranks, wants to come in our homes and destroy what you have built up. Father, I ask this morning that you would help us to have a vision for being alert to our own selves and the way, the direction that we're headed and each individual that's here. [00:31:57] I ask, Lord, that you would show yourself strong on our behalf in combating this tool that Satan wants to use to get in the church to destroy your work. We invite your spirit to lead out here further. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.