AWAKE, YOU WHO SLEEP | Sermon 3 | John Wesley

Awake You Who Sleep

PREACHED ON:

SUNDAY APRIL 4, 1742

BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

BY THE REV. CHARLES WESLEY, M.A.

STUDENT OF CHRIST-CHURCH

"Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead and Christ will give you light."

EPHESIANS 5:14

In discoursing on these words, I shall, with the help of God:

I. DESCRIBE THE SLEEPERS TO WHOM THEY ARE SPOKEN;

II. ENFORCE THE EXHORTATION, “AWAKE, YOU WHO SLEEP, AND ARISE FROM THE     DEAD”; AND,

III. EXPLAIN THE PROMISE, “CHRIST WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT,” MADE TO THOSE WHO

DO AWAKE AND ARISE.

I. DESCRIBE THE SLEEPERS TO WHOM THEY ARE SPOKEN;

And first, as to the sleepers spoken to here. By sleep the natural state of man is signified; that deep sleep of the soul, into which the sin of Adam has cast all who spring from his loins; that supineness, indolence and stupidity, that insensibility about his real condition, in which every man comes into the world, and continues in until the voice of God awakens him.

2. Now, “those who sleep, sleep in the night.” The state of nature is a state of utter darkness; a state in which “darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people.” The poor unawakened sinner, however much knowledge he may have as to other things, has no knowledge of himself; in this respect “he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” He does not know that he is a fallen spirit, whose only business in the present world is to recover from his fall, to regain that image of God in which he was created. He sees no necessity for the one thing necessary; even that inward universal change, that “birth from above,” of which baptism is a figure, which is the beginning of that total renovation, that sanctification of spirit, soul and body, “without which no man will see the Lord.”

3. Full of all diseases as he is, he fancies himself to be in perfect health. Bound fast in misery and iron, he dreams that he is at liberty. He says, “Peace! Peace!” while the devil, like “an armed strong man” is in full possession of his soul. He still sleeps on and takes his rest, though hell is moved from beneath to meet him; though the pit from where there is no return has opened its mouth to swallow him up. A fire is kindled around him, yet he does not know it; yes, it burns him, yet he does not lay it to heart.

4. By one who sleeps, we are therefore to understand (and would to God we might all understand it!) a sinner satisfied in his sins; content to remain in his fallen state, to live and die without the image of God; one who is ignorant both of his disease and of the only remedy for it; one who was never warned, or never regarded the warning voice of God, “to flee from the wrath to come”; one who never yet saw he was in danger of hell-fire, or cried out in the earnestness of his soul, “What must I do to be saved?”

5. If this sleeper is not outwardly vicious, his sleep is usually the deepest of all; whether he is of the Laodicean spirit, “neither cold nor hot,” but a quiet, rational, inoffensive, good-natured professor of the religion of his fathers; or whether he is zealous and orthodox, and, “after the most strait sect of our religion,” lives as “a Pharisee”; that is, according to the scriptural account, one who justifies himself; one who labours to establish his own righteousness as the ground of his acceptance with God.

6. This is he, who, “having a form of godliness, denies the power of it”; yes, and probably reviles it, wherever it is found, as mere extravagance and delusion. Meanwhile, the wretched self-deceiver thanks God that he is “not as other men are -  adulterers, unjust, extortioners”; no, he does no wrong to any man. He “fasts twice a week,” uses all the means of grace, is constant at church and sacrament, yes, and “gives tithes of all that he has”; does all the good that he can “touching the righteousness of the law,” he is “blameless”; he lacks nothing of godliness, but the power; nothing of religion, but the spirit; nothing of Christianity, but the truth and the life.

7. But do you not know that, however highly esteemed among men such a Christian as this may be, he is an abomination in the sight of God, and an heir of every woe which the Son of God, yesterday, today and forever, denounces against “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites?” He has “made clean the outside of the cup and the platter,” but within it is full of all filthiness. “An evil disease still cleaves to him, so that his inward parts are very wickedness.” Our Lord fitly compares him to a “painted sepulchre,” which “appears beautiful on the outside”; but, nevertheless, is “full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” The bones indeed are no longer dry; the sinews and flesh have come upon them, and the skin covers them above; but there is no breath in them, no Spirit of the living God. And, “if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” “You are Christ’s, if it is that the Spirit of God dwells in you”; but, if not, God knows that you abide in death, even until now.

8. This is another character of the sleeper that is spoken to here. He abides in death, though he does not know it. He is dead to God, “dead in trespasses and sins.” For, “to be carnally minded is death.” Even as it is written, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men”; not only temporal death, but likewise spiritual and eternal. “On the day that you eat,” God said to Adam, “you shall surely die”; not bodily (unless as he then became mortal), but spiritually; you shall lose the life of your soul; you shall die to God; shall be separated from Him, your essential life and happiness.

9. Thus, the vital union of our soul with God was first dissolved; in as much as that “in the midst of” natural “life we are” now “in” spiritual “death.” And we remain in this until the Second Adam becomes a quickening Spirit to us; until He raises the dead - the dead in sin, in pleasure, riches or honours. But, before any dead soul can live, he “hears” (listens to) “the voice of the Son of God”; he is made aware of his lost estate, and receives the sentence of death in himself. He knows himself to be “dead while he lives”; dead to God, and all the things of God; having no more power to perform the actions of a living Christian, than a dead body to perform the functions of a living man.

10. And it is most certain that one dead in sin does not have “senses exercised to discern spiritual good and evil.” “Having eyes, he does not see; he has ears, and does not hear.” He does not “taste and see that the Lord is gracious.” He “has not seen God at any time,” or “heard his voice,” or “handled the word of life.” In vain is the name of Jesus “poured forth like ointment, and all his garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia.” The soul that sleeps in death has no perception of any objects of this kind. His heart is “past feeling,” and understands none of these things.

11. And hence, having no spiritual senses, no inlets for spiritual knowledge, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; no, he is so far from receiving them that whatever is spiritually discerned is mere foolishness to him. He is not content with being utterly ignorant about spiritual things, but he denies the very existence of them. And spiritual sensation itself is to him the foolishness of folly. “How,” he says, “can these things be? How can any man know that he is alive to God?” Even as you know that your body is now alive. Faith is the life of the soul; and if you have this life abiding in you, you lack no marks to evidence it to yourself; but [elegchos pneumatos,] that divine consciousness, that witness of God, which is more and greater than ten thousand human witnesses.

12. If He does not now bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God, O that He might convince you, you poor unawakened sinner, by His demonstration and power, that you are a child of the devil! O that, as I prophesy, there might now be “a noise and a shaking,” and may “the bones come together, bone to his bone!” Then “come from the four winds, O Breath! and breathe on these slain ones, so that they may live!” And do not you harden your hearts and resist the Holy Spirit, who even now has come to convince you of sin - “because you do not believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

II. ENFORCE THE EXHORTATION, “AWAKE, YOU WHO SLEEP, AND ARISE FROM THE  DEAD”; AND,

1. Therefore, “awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead.” God calls you now by my mouth; and bids you to know yourself, you fallen spirit - your true state and your only concern here below. “What do you mean, O sleeper? Arise! Call upon your God, if it may be that your God will think upon you, so that you do not perish.” A mighty tempest is stirred up around you, and you are sinking into the depths of perdition, the gulf of God’s judgements. If you would escape them, cast yourself into them. “Judge yourself, and you shall not be judged by the Lord.”

2. Awake, awake! Stand up this moment, so that you do not “drink at the Lord’s hand the cup of his fury.” Stir yourself up to lay hold of the Lord, the Lord your Righteousness, mighty to save! “Shake yourself from the dust.” At least, let the earthquake of God’s threatenings shake you. Awake, and cry out with the trembling jailer, “What must I do to be saved?” And never rest until you believe on the Lord Jesus, with a faith which is His gift, by the operation of His Spirit.

3. If I speak to any one of you, more than to another, it is to you who think yourself unconcerned in this exhortation. “I have a message from God to you.” In His name, I warn you “to flee from the wrath to come.” You unholy soul, see your picture in condemned Peter, lying in the dark dungeon, between the soldiers, bound with two chains, the keepers in front of the door, guarding the prison. The night is far gone, the morning is at hand, when you are to be brought out for execution. And in these dreadful circumstances you are fast asleep; you are fast asleep in the devil’s arms, on the brink of the pit, in the jaws of everlasting destruction!

4. O may the Angel of the Lord come upon you and the light shine into your prison! And may you feel the stroke of an Almighty Hand raising you up, with, “Arise up quickly, dress yourself, and put on your sandals, put your cloak on and follow me.”

5. Awake, you everlasting spirit, out of your dream of worldly happiness! Did not God create you for Himself? Then you cannot rest till you rest in Him. Return, you wanderer! Fly back to your ark. This is not your home. Do not think of building tabernacles here. You are but a stranger, a sojourner upon earth; a creature of a day, only just launching out into an unchangeable state. Make haste. Eternity is at hand. Eternity depends on this moment. An eternity of happiness or an eternity of misery!

6. In what state is your soul? If God, while I am still speaking, required it of you, are you ready to meet death and judgement? Can you stand in His sight, who is of “purer eyes than to behold iniquity?” Are you “fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light?” Have you “fought a good fight, and kept the faith?” Have you secured the one thing necessary? Have you recovered the image of God, even righteousness and true holiness? Have you put off the old man, and put on the new? Are you clothed upon with Christ?

7. Do you have oil in your lamp, grace in your heart? Do you “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength?” Is that mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus? Are you a Christian indeed, that is, a new creature? Have old things passed away, and all things become new?

8. Are you a “partaker of the divine nature?” Do you not know that “Christ is in you, unless you are a reprobate?” Do you not know that God “dwells in you, and you in God, by his Spirit, which he has given you?” Do you not know that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God?” Do you have the witness in yourself, the earnest of your inheritance? Have you “received the Holy Spirit?” Or are you surprised at the question, not knowing “whether there is any Holy Spirit?”

9. If it offends you, be assured that you are neither a Christian, nor desire to be one. No, your very prayer is turned into sin; and you have solemnly mocked God this very day, by praying for the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, when you did not believe that there was any such thing to be received.

10. Yet, on the authority of God’s Word, and our own Church, I must repeat the question, “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” If you have not, you are not yet a Christian. For a Christian is a man who is “anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power.” You have not yet been made a partaker of religion that is pure and undefiled. Do you know what religion is? - that it is a participation in the divine nature; the life of God in the soul of man; Christ formed in the heart; “Christ in you, the hope of glory”; happiness and holiness; heaven begun on earth; “a kingdom of God within you; not food and drink,” no outward thing; “but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”; an everlasting kingdom brought into your soul; a “peace of God that passes all understanding”; an “unspeakable joy, and full of glory?”

11. Do you know that “in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails for anything; but faith that works by love”; but a new creation? Do you see the necessity of that inward change, that spiritual birth, that life from the dead, that holiness? And are you thoroughly convinced that without it no man shall see the Lord? Are you labouring after it? - “using all diligence to make your calling and election sure,” “working out your salvation with fear and trembling,” “agonizing to enter in at the strait gate?” Are you in earnest about your soul? And can you tell the Searcher of hearts, “You, O God, are the thing that I long for! Lord, you know all things; you know that I would love You!”

12. You hope to be saved; but what reason have you to give for the hope that is in you? Is it because you have done no harm, or because you have done much good? Or because you are not like other men; but are wise, or learned, or honest, and morally good; esteemed by men, and of a good reputation? Alas! all this will never bring you to God. In His account it is lighter than vanity. Do you know Jesus Christ whom He has sent? Has He taught you that “we are saved by grace through faith; and that is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; not by works, so that no man should boast?” Have you received the faithful saying as the whole foundation of your hope, “that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners?” Have you learned what that means, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance? I am not sent, except to the lost sheep?” Are you (he who hears, let him understand!) lost, dead, damned already? Do you know your just deserts? Do you feel your needs? Are you “poor in spirit” and mourning for God, and refusing to be comforted? Has the prodigal “come to himself,” and well content therefore to be thought to be “besides himself” by those who are still feeding upon the husks which he has left? Are you willing to live godly in Christ Jesus? And do you therefore suffer persecution? Do men say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for the Son of Man’s sake?

13. O that in all these questions you may hear the voice that wakes the dead; and feel that hammer of the Word which breaks the rocks in pieces! “If you will hear his voice today, while it is called today, do not harden your hearts.” Now, “awake, you who sleep” in spiritual death, so that you do not sleep in death eternal! Feel your lost estate, and “arise from the dead.” Leave your old companions in sin and death. You follow Jesus, and let the dead bury their dead. “Save yourself from this perverse generation.” “Come out from among them, and be separate, and do not touch the unclean thing, and the Lord will receive you.” “Christ shall give you light.”

III. EXPLAIN THE PROMISE, “CHRIST WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT,” MADE TO THOSE WHO DO AWAKE AND ARISE.

1. I come, lastly, to explain this promise. And how encouraging a consideration is this: that whoever you are, who obey His call, you cannot seek His face in vain! If even now you “awake and arise from the dead,” He has bound Himself to “give you light.” “The Lord shall give you grace and glory”; the light of His grace here, and the light of His glory when you receive the crown that does not fade away. “Your light shall break forth like the morning, and your darkness be as the noon-day.” “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shall shine in your heart, to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” On those who fear the Lord “the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.” And on that day it will be said to you, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” For Christ will reveal Himself in you; and He is the true Light.

2. God is light, and will give Himself to every awakened sinner who waits for Him; and you shall then be a temple of the living God, and Christ will “dwell in your heart by faith”; and, “being rooted and grounded in love, you shall be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that love of Christ which passes knowledge.”

3. You see your calling, brethren. We are called to be “a habitation of God through his Spirit”; and, through His Spirit dwelling in us, to be saints here, and partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So exceedingly great are the promises which are given to us, actually given to us who believe! For by faith “we do not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God” - the sum of all the promises - “so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.”

4. The Spirit of Christ is that great gift of God, which at sundry times and in diverse ways, He has promised to man, and has fully bestowed since the time that Christ was glorified. Those promises, previously made to the fathers, He has thus fulfilled, “I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” Ezekiel 36:27. “I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring. Isaiah 44:3

5. You may all be living witnesses of these things; of remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” “Who is there among you who fears the Lord and” yet walks on “in darkness and has no light?” I ask you in the name of Jesus, “Do you believe that His arm is not shortened at all, that He is still mighty to save? That He is the same yesterday, today and forever? That He has power on earth to forgive sins now?” “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven.” God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you. Receive this, “not as the word of man; but as it is indeed, the word of God”; and you are justified freely through faith. You shall also be sanctified through the faith which is in Jesus, and shall set to your seal, even yours, that “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

6. Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you, and you allow the word of exhortation, even from one who is the least esteemed in the Church. Your conscience bears you witness in the Holy Spirit that these things are so, if it is that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. “This is eternal life, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.” This experimental knowledge, and this alone, is true Christianity. He is a Christian who has received the Spirit of Christ. He is not a Christian who has not received Him. Nor is it possible to have received Him and not know it. “For, at that day” (when He comes, says our Lord), “you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” This is that “Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him, nor knows him; but you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you”. John 14:17

7. The world cannot receive Him, but, contradicting and blaspheming, utterly reject the Promise of the Father. But every spirit which does not confess this is not from God. Yes, “this is that spirit of Antichrist, of which you have heard that it should come into the world; and even now it is in the world.” Whoever denies the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or that the indwelling Spirit of God is the common privilege of all believers, the blessing of the gospel, the unspeakable gift, the universal promise, the criterion of a real Christian, is Antichrist.

8. It does not help them to say, “We do not deny the assistance of God’s Spirit; but only this inspiration, this receiving the Holy Spirit, and being aware of it. It is only this feeling of the Spirit, this being moved by the Spirit, or filled with it, which we deny to have any place in sound religion.” But in only denying this you deny the whole of Scripture; the whole truth, and promise, and testimony of God.

9. Our own excellent Church knows nothing of this devilish distinction; but speaks plainly of “feeling the Spirit of Christ”1 1[Article 17]; of being “moved by the Holy Spirit”2 2[Office of consecrating Priests] and knowing and “feeling that there is no other name than that of Jesus”

3 3[Visitation of the Sick] by which we can receive life and salvation. She teaches us all to pray for the “inspiration of the Holy Spirit”4  4[Collect before Holy Communion]; yes, that we may be “filled with the Holy Spirit”5 5[Order of Confirmation]. No, and every Presbyter of hers professes to receive the Holy Spirit by the imposition of hands. Therefore, to deny any of these, is, in effect, to renounce the Church of England, as well as the whole Christian revelation.

10. But “the wisdom of God” was always “foolishness with men.” No marvel, then, that the great mystery of the gospel should now also be “hidden from the wise and prudent,” as well as in the days of old; that it should be almost universally denied, ridiculed and exploded as mere frenzy; and that all who dare avow it still are branded with the names of madmen and enthusiasts! This is “that falling away” which was to come - that general apostasy of all orders and degrees of men, which even now we find to have overspread the earth. “Run to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem, and see if you can find a man,” a man who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and serves him with all his strength. How does our own land mourn (that we look no further) under the overflowings of ungodliness! What villanies of every kind are committed day by day; yes, too often with impunity, by those who sin with a high hand, and glory in their shame! Who can reckon up the oaths, curses, profaneness, blasphemies; the lying, slandering, evil-speaking; the Sabbath-breaking, gluttony, drunkenness, revenge; the whoredoms, adulteries, and various uncleannesses; the frauds, injustice, oppression, extortion, which overspread our land like a flood?

11. And even among those who have kept themselves pure from those grosser abominations; how much anger and pride, how much sloth and idleness, how much softness and effeminacy, how much luxury and self-indulgence, how much covetousness and ambition, how much thirst for praise, how much love of the world, how much fear of man, is to be found! Meanwhile, how little of true religion! For, where is he who loves either God or his neighbour, as he has given us the commandment? On the one hand there are those who do not have so much as the form of godliness; on the other there are those who have the form only; there stands the open, there the painted, sepulchre. So that in actual deed, whoever were to earnestly behold any public gathering together of the people (I fear those in our churches are not to be excepted) might easily perceive, “that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees”; the one having almost as little concern about religion as if there were “no resurrection, or angel, or spirit”; and the other making it a mere lifeless form, a dull round of external performances, without either true faith, or the love of God, or joy in the Holy Spirit!

12. Would to God that I could except us of this place! “Brethren, my heart’s desire, and prayer to God for you is that you may be saved” from this overflowing of ungodliness; and that its proud waves may be stayed here! But is it so indeed? God knows, yes, and our own consciences, that it is not. You have not kept yourselves pure. We are also corrupt and abominable; and there are few who understand any longer; few who worship God in spirit and in truth. We, too, are “a generation that does not set our hearts correctly, and whose spirit does not cleave steadfastly to God.” He indeed has appointed us to be “the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its savour, it is from then on good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot by men.”

13. And “shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord? Shall my soul not be avenged on such a nation as this?” Yes, we do not know how soon he may say to the sword, “Sword, go through this land!” He has given us a long time to repent. He leaves us alone this year also; but he warns and awakens us by thunder. His judgements are abroad on the earth; and we have all reason to expect the heaviest of all, even that He “should come to us quickly, and remove our candlestick from its place, unless we repent and do the first works”; unless we return to the principles of the Reformation, the truth and simplicity of the gospel. Perhaps we are now resisting the last effort of divine grace to save us. Perhaps we have nearly “filled up the measure of our iniquities,” by rejecting the counsel of God against ourselves, and casting out His messengers.

14. O God, “in the midst of wrath, remember mercy!” Be glorified in our reformation, not in our destruction! Let us “hear the rod, and him who appointed it!” Now that Your “judgements are abroad on the earth,” let the inhabitants of the world “learn righteousness!”

15. My brethren, it is high time for us to awake out of sleep before the “great trumpet of the Lord is blown,” and our land becomes a field of blood. O may we speedily see the things that make for our peace, before they are hidden from our eyes! “You turn us, O good Lord, and let your anger cease from us. O Lord, look down from heaven, behold and visit this vine”; and cause us to know “the time of our visitation.” “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name! O deliver us, and be merciful to our sins, for Your name’s sake! And so we will not go back from You. O let us live, and we shall call upon Your name. Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts! Show the light of Your countenance, and we shall be whole.”

   “Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus throughout all ages; world without end. Amen!”

Preached by Charles Wesley in John Wesley's 53 Sermon | Re-written in Modern English by Nigel Dinneen