Don’t Let Jesus Find You Sleeping

Mark 13:32-37

Intro:             Another day, another week, another Sunday, and another service. Life, if we’re not careful, can lull us to sleep. You begin to feel like nothing is worth getting excited about. I’ve always got tomorrow, there’s always next week. Beware, that kind of thinking may be hazardous to your health. Sleep is good physically speaking and God wants us to get plenty of it. He said that he gives his beloved sleep. But Spiritual Sleep is another story. Instead of being good for us it is very harmful and destructive to our Spiritual well being. God wants us spiritually alert, especially as we draw closer to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus has given us many warnings of the danger of falling asleep spiritually. But when you get tired you tend to forget the warnings.

When a person is out in the bitter cold and the body begins to fall asleep the tendency is to go ahead and sleep, don’t worry about anything. However the warnings have been given. What ever you do don’t let yourself go to sleep or you will freeze to death. Yet many have lost their lives in the cold due to sleep. The spiritual danger of sleep is just as real, and really more deadly than being frozen to death.

We can be wide awake physically, but drifting off in spiritual sleep without even realizing what is taking place. Listen very closely today because the last thing you need is to fall asleep, especially in church.    ( Read Mk 13:32-37)

Jesus is Coming Again

Spiritual sleep causes us to somehow forget that fact and the urgency of our salvation and the salvation of others is lost. When sleep comes we have the attitude that I can always :

• Find God

• Repent

• Get Baptized in Jesus Name

• Receive the Holy Ghost

Later – Tomorrow – Next Week – Before I Die!

But God doesn’t look at it that way. His word is very clear on the subject of salvation.

Hebrews 3:15- 4:2

15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?

18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?

19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

1  Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

2nd Corinthians 6:2

2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

The  Effects  of  Spiritual   Sleep !

* Spiritual sleep causes us to be dull and hard of hearing !

-This causes us to be insensitive to God’s direction in

our lives

– God is trying to deal with us about our lives every day but often we tune Him out or                   don’t listen at all.

– You can’t hear when you’re sleeping !

 

– Acts 28:27

* Spiritual sleep causes an insensitive attitude about

the needs of others to hear the Full Gospel

* Spiritual sleep causes lack of Vision

– you can’t see when your sleeping

* Spiritual sleep causes lack of Burden

– you can’t feel the needs of others

– you can’t feel period when your sleeping

* Spiritual sleep causes a lack of Prayer

– you can’t sleep and pray at the same time

* Spiritual sleep causes an awakening of the carnal

man within us, because the only thing that keeps

the carnal man in control is the activity of the

spiritual man.

* Spiritual sleep causes sin to lose its ugliness and become

something to be desired.

* Spiritual sleep causes compromise with the world and even appears to be God directed.

* The longer a person remains asleep the harder it is to

awaken them. Too long a sleep leads to an almost

comatose state where getting out is almost never

done.

* Spiritual sleep also causes a lack of spiritual appetite,

– you can’t eat when your sleeping

– hunger is dissolved

It’s Time to Wake Up

Rom 13:11-  “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

Eph. 5:14 – “Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!”

·        Become

·        Alive

·        Vibrant

·        Active

·        Involved

BY :     Walking in the light

You:

• See clearly

• See pitfalls hidden by the darkness

• Can walk easily, it’s hard to walk when you’re

sleeping