If you would turn with me to
Ephesians chapter 5. Let me say while you're turning
that my message this morning is meant to comfort you and to
encourage you and to exhort you. It's to strongly urge you to
keep looking to Christ. He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. He begins our faith. He finishes
our faith. So we must look to Him and Him
alone. But I want to remind you also
that this message is for me. I don't consider any of you to
need this message, this warning from the scriptures any more
than I do. You know, preachers are in need of Christ, in need
of the gospel, as every sinner is. And I don't personally know
a true gospel preacher that does not think themselves to be somewhat
a hypocrite. And I don't know a single God
called pastor that perfectly believes the gospel as they ought
to believe it. Even the gospel we preach, we're
imperfect like every sinner. Lord, help us. Help thou our
unbelief. And I ask you sincerely to pray
for me. Usually at the close of one year
and the beginning of another, we often hear or even say things
like, where's all the time gone? I'm sure most of you have said
that at the beginning of this year, at the end of last. Or
how about this one? I can't believe how quickly the
years gone by. They fly by, don't they? Last
Sunday, I was with two gospel preachers, pastors, and it just
happened to be my birthday. Now one of these men is a year
older than me, and the other a couple years younger than me,
and none of us are spring chickens. One's gonna turn 70 his next
birthday, the other one's 65, and I'm right dab in the middle
at 68. But none of us in talking could
get over just how quickly the time had passed. Not only just
the past year, but our lives in general. One of the pastors
has been married for over 50 years, and me and the other for
over 40, and we shook our heads in disbelief as we considered
how quickly the anniversaries have passed. Seems like yesterday
that Amanda, our youngest daughter, was born, and now she has children
of her own. And I can't believe that my granddaughter
is already 11 years old. Well, it won't be long, she'll
be a teenager, and we're praying for you, Derek. Where has the time gone, sincerely? Lord, help us to redeem the time
in these days of evil. Time is defined as the continual
progress of existence. But soon we'll leave this world
and this realm of time that we know, and we're gonna enter into
eternity forever to exist. Life doesn't end with time. It's
appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. There's a judgment coming after
this realm of time. Our Lord said, I am the resurrection
and the life, and he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? That's a
good question. Do you believe this? And not
everyone is going to live in the bliss of heaven. There is
a place called hell. And it's not going to be empty.
Do you believe this? Do I believe this? Or are we
asleep? And I'm certain it's the same
with you as the years continue to go by. And I mean this sincerely. An hour seems like a minute.
And a day seems like an hour. A week goes by as quickly as
a day used to. And a month seems like only a
week. A year like a month. And a decade
soon goes by and seems like just a year. And then quickly, a half
a century's gone by. 50 years. How many times have you referred
to something in the past and you said, you know, I can't believe
we did that four or five years ago. And then someone interrupts
and says, that was 10 years ago. That was 12 years ago. And you
go, oh my, it seems like only yesterday. I was speaking with Brother Paul
Mahan last week, who's the same age I am, and he said to me,
years are like sleep. You go to bed at 18 and you wake
up at 68. And that's so true. And I'm sure
that Paul's mother, Ms. Doris, who's now 99 years old,
would tell you the same thing. Doesn't matter if it's 40 or
50 or 68 or 99. The years fly by. Many of you are now over 70 and
some 80 and older. Where have the years gone? Being the beginning of
a new year with time fresh on our minds, we must stay focused,
dear friends, on eternity in spite of the fleeting time that
we find ourselves in. And this morning, I wanna take
a question from, and the answer, from the Apostle James for us
to consider. He asked, what is your life? Have you ever thought about what
your life is? Well, the answer James gave is it's even a vapor
that appeareth for a little time, little time, and then vanisheth
away. Seems like only yesterday that
my father died, and that assumed to be 27 years ago. I remember
when Brother Winford died shortly after my dad did. That's been
27 years ago. My mother had been gone for 22
years, and I said all that to say this. Time is passing us
by. It speeds up as we slow down. And none of us have much time
left. Even you younger folks. To those who profess to trust
in Christ, the verses before us this morning denote a careful
and a diligent use of the valuable and precious time that we have
left. So this time is not to be squandered
or lost. It can't be recalled or prolonged. We have a short opportunity of
duty and service to our God, to our own souls and to the souls
of others. In other words, we don't have
time to waste. We've got to be about our Lord's
business for this is the service for which until we were called. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 14,
the Apostle Paul is writing to the believer, and by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, he warns those who are spiritually asleep. This is a warning to each of
us. Some are spiritually asleep. And the message from God is simple.
Verse 14, Awake thou that sleepest. and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light." Now most of the time when this
verse is preached upon, it's addressed to the unbeliever,
the ungodly who's in darkness and dead and trespasses and sin.
But there's no doubt in my mind that the fifth chapter of Ephesians
was written to God's church. If you look at the beginning
of the letter, Ephesians 1.1, it tells us, it's written to
the church at Corinth, His elect, the saints of God, not to unbelievers,
but to believers. Paul's writing to the faithful
in Christ Jesus, who appear to be asleep. This is the call of
God to the church of Ephesus in Frizz. This is the call of
God to the church of Madisonville. And this is the call of God to
churches, His churches everywhere. The child of God often needs
to be revived. We need to be awakened and rebuked
for our indifferences. And we need to be chastened and
corrected for our carelessness. You remember the 10 virgins?
Five wise and five foolish. Five were grace-filled believers.
The other five were just empty professors. But we're told they
all slumbered and slept. So I've got to ask you and I've
got to ask myself, do you feel a coldness, a deadness in your
soul? Do you feel as though your Savior
is far away? If so, just maybe some of us
are asleep. And God in mercy and grace says,
Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light. You know, often in the Scriptures,
death is compared to sleep. In the case of Lazarus, you know,
the Lord told his disciples, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,
but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. But we know that
Lazarus was dead. And when the Lord called him
to come forth out of the tomb, the scripture tells us that immediately
he that was dead came forth. That was the case with Jairus'
daughter. You remember her when the Lord
Went to his house. First he was stopped by the woman
with the issue of blood. And I just pictured Jairus so
many times sitting there, just like, oh, we've got to get to
my house. My daughter's dying. And all
these interruptions. And finally when the Lord got
to her house, they were crying and mourning because a young
girl was dead. And the Lord said, give place.
Get out of my way. For the maid is not dead, but
sleepeth. And the scripture says they laughed
him to scorn. Why doesn't he know anything?
This girl is dead. The Lord said she sleeps. But
we know this young maid was dead and the Lord gave her life. However,
there are many believers who are not dead. A believer's not
dead, but deadly asleep. And the message to them is simple.
Awake thou that sleepest. The people of God may not be
spiritually dead in the sense that the ungodly are, yet we
often speak and we act as though we're without life. Paul is speaking
here of a comparative death. There are many believers who
for all practical purposes are outwardly dead as to their usefulness
to God. This is a state of mind in which
a believer often falls into, myself included. Some are asleep
and don't know it. A part of sleep is an unconscious
state. What a dangerous place for a
believer to be. How so? Because a man or a woman
can believe that they're doing a great deal while they're asleep. Sometimes dreams are so real,
aren't they? Have you ever woke yourself up
from a dream because it wasn't going well? And then I'm sure there's times
where you didn't want to wake up. But people talk in their
sleep and many walk in their sleep. And I've even preached
in my sleep. There are many today who pray
in their sleep, not in their natural sleep, but in their spiritual
sleep. When praying, we often repeat
the same prayers and the same praises. It seems that our hearts
are asleep to the true spirit of praise and worship and thanksgiving
to the Lord. We often unconsciously memorize
a prayer that doesn't come from our hearts, And it's because
we're asleep to the true spirit of praise and thanksgiving we
should have. Is that not talking and praying
in our spiritual sleep? Some men and women only dream
of a perfect righteousness, but in their sleep they can't lay
hold of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need
to wake up. And this is the sad thing. Many
who sleep get themselves in a nice, comfortable position in a gospel
preaching church. Oh, there's nothing like being
a part of a church like this that preaches the truth. And
we see God, who He is, is who He is and what He's doing for
us. And they find that gospel bed,
oh, it's long enough to stretch out on. And they discovered that
this gospel bed, it's comfortable and it's soft and it's warm.
And we climb into it and we do what? We go to sleep. We need
to wake up. We need to arise from this sleep.
An unbeliever is in the sleep of death, but a believer can
fall into the state of a spiritual sleep. Sleep can look a lot like
death. Have you ever seen someone asleep
that looked like they were dead? Sometimes it's hard to tell the
difference. You go up to them and kind of put your hand under
their nose to see if you can feel their breath. And then they
move and it scares you. A lot of folks today have sleep
apnea. They stop breathing when they
sleep. It can be really hard to tell if a person's asleep
or dead when they do that. And that's why when we're asleep,
our dreams don't make any sense at all. We don't perceive things as they
really are when we're asleep, do we? What causes this spiritual
sleepiness that keeps us from seeing and perceiving things
as they really are? Basically two things, sin and
flesh. You know, at Gethsemane's gate,
while the master was sweating, as it were, great drops of blood,
an agonizing prayer to his father. What were the disciples doing?
Were they praying with him? Were they watching for his enemies?
Were they guarding him against any surprise attack? We find
bold Peter, who said he would never forsake his master with
his eyes closed, asleep. We find the beloved John, the
disciple whom Jesus loved, with his head upon his own bosom,
instead of the Lord's, fast asleep. Our Lord told these sleeping,
unconscious disciples, the Spirit is willing, but, The flesh is weak. And that's the same with us.
That's why Paul tells us for what the law could not do and
that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. And that's the only hope that
you and I have. because we can't keep the law
of God because of our flesh, because of our sin. We cannot
not sin. We can't keep God's law, much
less as God requires, which is to perfectly keep it. God sent his own son in the likeness
of sinful flesh to keep the law for us. to work out a perfect
righteousness for us, that we may trust in Him and have life
eternal. May we never lose sight that
it's Christ's finished work of righteousness that saved us.
And out of gratitude and out of thanksgiving and love for
our Savior, we ought to be about our Father's business as the
Lord Himself was. And our Lord is in heaven interceding
for us. And many of us are here, down
here, sleeping. Our Lord is in glory, showing
His wounds with the travail of His soul, and we're wasting precious
time while souls around us are being lost. Like men and women
in the midst of a plentiful harvest, the laborers are few, our Lord
said. Why? Because a lot of them are
asleep. And you can be assured that our
adversary, the devil, is not asleep. He's the busiest bishop
in the kingdom. He's constantly going to and
fro in the earth, walking up and down and seeking whom he
may devour. No wasting of time with him.
He's out to kill, steal, and destroy your spouse. He is out
to murder your children. He's constantly sifting your
family and friends as wheat. And while we sleep, time is roaring
on and souls are being lost. And it ought not be, ought not
be. Awake, awake. Lord, awaken us. And instead of passing to the
other side of the river into the land of promise, many are
drowning and dying in the Jordan's flooded waters." Awake. That's God's call to His elect. This is the call of the Lord
Jesus to His bride. We know from the promise given
that soul, because it says, and Christ shall give the light. Aren't you thankful? When we
sleep, we're in darkness. Isaiah prophesied the people
that walked past tents in darkness have seen past tents, a great
light. They that dwell, present tense,
right now, dwell in the land of the shadow of death. It's
only the shadow of death, not death unto those that believe
and trust. Upon them hath, past tense, the
light shined. We've seen the light. Christ
is that light. He's the son of righteousness.
He alone is light and he alone gives light. Wherefore he saith,
awakest thou that sleepest. And his command is always effectual
because with the command comes the power to obey. Awake. And his people awake. The Spirit
of God is warning us not to fall into the habits of the children
of darkness. He's encouraging us to walk as
children of light. We're prone to wonder. Lord,
we feel it. We're prone to leave the God
that we love. And the sooner we realize that,
the more on guard we will be. We're often sleeping, but there's
within us a spirit persuading us to awaken. No doubt the believer
is kept by the power of God. The spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. He will not
leave us to ourselves. That's his promise to us. He'll
never forsake those that he loves. In loving kindness, He's drawn
us into everlasting life. In the Song of Solomon, it's
written, listen to this, where I won't turn you there, but listen
to this. It says, I sleep, but my heart waketh. It's the voice
of my beloved that knocketh. saying, open to me my sister,
my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew
and my locks with the drops of night. Our Lord will see to it that
we're awake. So the question is, are you asleep?
Does God's grace stir your heart within you? Do you enjoy and
rejoice in hearing the gospel of Christ? Do you love being with God's
people? These are telltale signs. Has
the joy of life in Christ left you? The warning to you and me
is simple. Awakest thou that sleepeth. Now listen to me on this. Just because God is sovereign
does not mean that we're not responsible to God. That's put
many a Calvinist to sleep. But we're not Calvinists. We're
Christians. We're believers. We trust in
Christ. We're followers of Christ and
we cannot follow Christ if we're asleep. Fate has not destined
the course of our life. Fate. God has chosen, elected,
and called and saved. And man's destiny is not a spun
thread of chance that's measured and cut by blind fate. Man's destiny has been predestined. It's been predetermined. He foreknew us, He predetermined,
He determined beforehand, He predestinated to save us before
we were born or had done any good or evil. Why? So that the purpose of God according
to election, His choosing might stand. Not of works, but of Him
that calleth. Blind faith will put men to sleep. Many say, well, if I'm one of
God's elect, no matter what I do or say or think, I'll be saved. That's blind fate. The choosing
and saving of God will cause certain men and women to rest
without sleeping. I'm resting, aren't you? I'm
not sleeping by God's grace. I'm resting. Prosperity puts
many to sleep. Fullness of bread can make one
sleepy. You know how you eat a big meal,
and the first thing you want to do, I'm going to take a nap.
I've seen it time and time again. People say, but God's blessed
me and prospered me, and it's His will that I am full. Well,
be careful what you blame on God. Be careful what you blame
on His providence. It's need. Oh, it's need that
causes sinners to lean and trust on Christ. Not a lack of interest, it's
a lack of need. Any independence that we think
that we have apart from the Lord Jesus Christ is a sure sign that
we're asleep and we need to be awakened. What about spiritual
pride? Spiritual pride will put people
to sleep. To become proud of doctrine and
condition and knowledge and accomplishments and usefulness, it'll put you
to sleep. Spiritually, I had a man call
me back in November of last year and ask me if I'd come to preach
at his church in Western Kentucky. They'd been without a pastor
for over four years now. And back then in November, I
told him to give me a call after the first of the year, and he
called me just this past week. He also called me about four
years ago asking me if I knew anyone that could come and preach
for them. And I spoke to Gabe Stoniker, and Gabe has some capable
young men, and Gabe asked Luke Coffey and Obie Williams to go
down and preach for them. And I asked that man about Luke
and Obi. I said, a friend of mine sent
a couple of young men down to preach to you a year or two back. How did that go? And he said,
well, not, it didn't go well. He said, they believed in easy-believe-ism. I said, easy-believe-ism? I said,
no, they do not. I told him that I preached the
same gospel they did. And this group still hadn't found
a pastor, and I know why. It's called spiritual pride.
The first thing he asked me this week when he called, he said,
you know, I talked to you back in November about coming down
and preaching for us. And I said, yeah, I remember
that. And he said, well, I want to know if you use the King James
Bible. And I said, yeah, I use the King
James Bible. I said, why do you ask? And he said, well, we don't
allow anyone to preach in our church if they don't exclusively
use the King James Bible, the King James Version. And I again
asked him why. Well, why is that? He said that
it was the only inspired, the only infallible version of the
Bible. I told him, no, it's not. I said,
matter of fact, no translation of the Bible is infallible. The
King James Version, like all translations, has its issues,
even though I believe it is the most accurate. And he said, well,
how can you believe the Bible if it's not divinely inspired?
And I said, the scriptures are divinely inspired. Those who
wrote the scriptures were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
but not those that translated it. Then he asked me if I preached
election and predestination. I said, have you ever heard me
preach? He said, oh yeah, I've listened to you on Sermon Audio.
And he said, but I need to know, do you preach election and predestination
in every message? I told him that preaching election
and predestination was not preaching the gospel. Preaching Christ
is preaching the gospel. You can preach predestination
and election until you're blue in the face, but those doctrines
alone never saved anyone. He said, when can you come? I said, thank you for asking
me, but I'm not interested in coming. And this man and his
church are asleep in spiritual pride. And listen, you can't
learn anything if you know everything. And it became very apparent to
me that they're not interested in the gospel, they're more interested
in arguing and debating the scriptures, and I'm not. Not gonna do it. The Lord Jesus lovingly calls
us to awake us. And here's the gospel. Christ
shall give thee life. This is God's promise to all
who heed His call to awake and rise from the dead. In Jeremiah
chapter 32, y'all read it sometime, God promises us that He will
not turn away from us to do us good. Isn't that good news? I
won't turn away from you to do you good. I'm gonna do you good.
He will put His fear in our hearts and we shall not depart from
Him. He will rejoice over us to do us good. Not only will
He do us good, He's gonna rejoice as He does it. Isn't that amazing? And He'll plant us in the land
assuredly with His whole heart and with His whole soul, the
passage says. He will, He will bring upon us
all the good that He's promised us. Now look at verse 15 here
in Ephesians 5. See then that you walk circumspectly,
circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. That word circumspectly
means diligently. It means to walk without risk,
to walk cautiously. to walk perfectly or maturely,
carefully, with accuracy. Watch where you're stepping. Don't walk as a fool would walk. Walk as someone wise would walk. Verse 16, redeeming the time
because the days are evil. You know, time, as we've already
discussed, is a precious thing. Paul does not say redeeming time. That's good advice in itself. But Paul here says redeeming
the time. The use of that little definite
article, the, calls attention to the time that God has given
us. And it's God that gives us. He's
appointed the day that we're born. We're not born a minute
early or a minute late. We're born right on time, according
to His time and His purpose. And we don't hang on and live
longer than we're supposed to. God has determined the day of
our death, the minute, the second, and we will live no longer than
that. Redeeming the time here means
buying up the opportunity. We shouldn't wait for opportunity
to fall in our laps. I'm just sitting waiting on the
Lord to move. No, no, no, no. No, we must buy the opportunity. Now in buying something, a price
has got to be paid. And when you buy something, you
part with one thing to obtain another. When you go to the grocery
store, you part with your money to receive the groceries. The
Spirit of God here is telling us to never refuse to part with
any temporal convenience to obtain something useful in eternity. Be willing to spend all. Everything that we have is just
temporary. It's all going to burn, it's
all going to rust, corrupt, it's going to be stolen. Time is a precious commodity.
We must redeem this time. We must be willing to pay a price
for it. This goes back to what I was
saying in the beginning. When we're young, we think we
have a super abundance of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
months, and years. We don't think much about death
or dying, but then soon they're used up. And the older we get,
the more we begin to think about those things. My dad was 78 when
he passed. That's if I lived to be as long
as he did. I've got 10 years left. My mother
was 75. Seven years left if I live as
long as they did. And the thing about it, young
people, is that you never were, you're not promised tomorrow. I have many friends that didn't
live long in this world. Many didn't make it to their
16th birthday. Some died sooner than that. Some
died shortly after that. And when we were lost, dear believer,
we lost much time to Satan. We lost much time to the world
and to our own vanity. Oh, I wish I had the time back
that I wasted. So let us strive to employ every
means to redeem the time that we lost. We must not let the
opportunity slip away because these days are evil. Paul said, as we have therefore
opportunity, let us do good unto all men. We may not always have
the opportunity to do so. Certain opportunities are not
often long given. The opportunity to redeem our
time is no different. We must redeem what time we can
for one reason, because this is why. These days are evil. We live in evil times. Nothing
new under the sun, I know. And our days in this world are
few as it is, especially compared to eternity. But the Spirit of
God here is teaching us that in these evil days in which we
live, we are to buy up every opportunity to serve and honor
our God and our Savior. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, after
all, our Lord came to earth, became a man, and he did for
us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Don't we owe Him everything?
Of course we do. We're to purchase every opportunity
to serve the interest of Christ's gospel, His church, and His king.
We're to redeem every occasion to serve His people and do them
good. Time is one of the most precious
things in all the world. And I'd give anything And I know
you would too. Those of you who have lost loved
ones would give anything to have more time with those that are
gone. Good news for sinners is found
in the promise that God gives us in Christ. Christ shall give
thee light. Not baby, not might, but shall. It's the only way sinners are
saved. It's the only way believers are awakened. It's the only way
any of us have eternal life. Do you want eternal life? Do
you want to live forever? This is the only way. In the
Lord Jesus Christ. This light is not merely the
light of direction. It's not simply the light of
guidance. It's not only the light of knowledge. This light is Christ himself. Jesus Christ is the light and
the life. Light, Christ is given to them
that are in misery and life, Christ unto the bitter in soul,
Job 3.20. For with thee is the fountain
of life, in thy light shall we see light, Psalm 36.9. John 1.4,
in him Christ was life and the life was the light of men. The Lord Jesus said, I'm the
light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8.12. Paul speaking to Timothy concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ said, he had saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing
of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has
brought life and mortality to light through the gospel. The Lord will give us light to
instruct us in the scriptures. The Lord will give us light to
guide us in His way. The Lord will give us light to
know His will and His purpose. The Lord will give us light that
we may rejoice in our hearts. But we cannot see the precious
light if we're asleep. So let us awake. For the time
shortens and sinners are perishing. May God awaken us to the certainty
of eternity. May God awaken us to see and
think on the souls of man. May God awaken us to think of
the coming judgment in which we'll all stand. May we be awakened
by God to consider the terrors of hell Think of the glory of Christ
in a way. Think of His robes of righteousness
that are yours by God's giving. Think of the forgiveness of your
sin and the sin of others. You know, there's not anything
that I desire more in this life that the Lord might save my children.
that he might save my grandchildren. I've talked to many of you who
have lost children. I know you feel the same way.
I want you to think about forever being face to face with the one
who loved you and gave himself for you. The son of righteousness,
he's called. He's risen with healing in his
wings. So let us awake and arise and
be healed. Awake. God enable us to awake. May he be pleased to make it
so. for His glory, our good, and for Christ's sake.