Don'T Wake Me

Charles Finney had this to say about the church in need of revival. He observed, When there is a worldly spirit in the church, there is need of revival. The church is clearly backslidden.

When Christians conform to the world in dressing attitudes, seeking worldly entertainment, it shows they are far from God and need awakening. I agree with Finney, friends. A sleepy church is often headed by a sleepy-headed pastor who is as worldly as his backslidden members.

I know evangelists who can't wait to sit in front of their big-screen TV to watch the ballgame and sit there aimlessly for hours until their eyes are as big as saucers and their brain the size of a pea. We need a heaven-sent revival to awaken us out of our spiritual slumber. In 1740, when God moved through New England, it was called the Great Awakening.

Revival has often been referred to as an awakening. At Gethsemane, Jesus faced the crisis point of his earthly ministry and his disciples slept right through it. Today, the church is in a crisis point and we are sleeping right through it.

In the book of Jonah, we read in chapter 1 and in verses 4 and 5, But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. I reckon that observation can describe a good many of us in ministry today.

A storm of herculean proportions rages all around us as this sin-sick world is aboard a sinking ship. And many pastors have carved out for themselves a comfortable place in ministry where they can be left alone and undisturbed, unmolested by the rising waters. People drown all around them as the tide of humanity passes into a crisis eternity.

And instead of the church throwing out life preservers to save the parishion, with the cry, Help is here! All that is heard is snoring from a ministry, sound asleep on pillows of conformity and compromise. The cry of the modern church today is, Don't wake me! I believe the revival historian, Ted Randall, hit the nail on the head when he said, God is looking for a man who will throw himself entirely on God whenever self-effort, self-glory, self-seeking, or self-promotion enters into the work revival. Then God leads us to ourselves.

I agree with that, friends. And that's where we are today, in our efforts to gain a reputation for ourselves, within our denomination. We have pushed God aside in our scramble up the ladder of recognition and self-promotion.

And God has left us to ourselves. I believe we need more men like John Wesley today, who cried out, Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but God and hate nothing but sin and I will shake the gates of hell. And he went out and did just that.

It's a good thing Wesley didn't own a big screen TV and act like us and sit there and write while hell fills up by the hour. In the Book of Joel we read, Blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord cometh for it is nigh at hand.

Let me ask you, friend, is there anybody out there who cares enough for the souls of men to toss out your TV and go grab a trumpet and go sound an alarm to the sin-addicted generation? Is there anybody willing to die to self long enough so others won't perish? Or will the lost continue to drown all around us as we drown out their cries for help with our snoring?