CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Ephesians 5:3. Let it not be once named.—After the things themselves are dead let their names never be heard.
Ephesians 5:4. Nor jesting.—“Chastened insolence,” as Aristotle’s description of it has been happily rendered. “Graceless grace” [of style], as Chrysostom called it. It is the oozing out of the essential badness of a man for whom polish and a versatile nature have done all they can.
Ephesians 5:5-6. Because of these things cometh the wrath of God, etc.—Look down beneath the pleasing manners to the nature. If such terms as are used in Ephesians 5:5 describe the man, he is simply one of Disobedience’s children, and all his versatility will not avert the descending wrath of God.
Ephesians 5:7. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.—Do not wish to share the frivolity and impiety of their life, as you would shun the wrath that inevitably awaits it. How could they so partake and continue to be what Ephesians 3:6 calls them?
Ephesians 5:8. Ye were … ye are … be.—The lesson must be learnt, and therefore reiteration is necessary.
Ephesians 5:9. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.—Neither here nor at Galatians 5:22 does St. Paul intend a complete list of the fruits of the Spirit. St. John’s tree of life bore “twelve manner of fruits.” All Christian morality lies in the good, the right, and the true.
Ephesians 5:10. Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.—Each is to be an assayer—rejecting all base alloys. Nothing must be accepted because it looks like an angel of light—“the spirits” must be put to the proof (1 John 4:1).
Ephesians 5:11. Rather reprove them.—It may be with a voice as firm as the Baptist’s; it may be by gentle and yet unflinching “showing up” of certain proceedings (cf. St. John 3:20). “This chastening reproof is an oral one,” says Meyer.
Ephesians 5:12. It is a shame even to speak of.—Though the only sign of their shame having touched them is that they seek the cover of secrecy, and our own cheeks burn as we speak of what they do, we must convict.
Ephesians 5:13. Made manifest by the light.—Whatever the light falls upon is no longer of the darkness, but belongs to the light. Shame is one of the influences by which the light conquers a soul from darkness.
Ephesians 5:14. Wherefore He saith.—What follows is “a free paraphrase from the Old Testament formed by weaving together Messianic passages—belonging to such a hymn as might be sung at baptisms in the Pauline Churches” (Findlay). The thought is that of the change from darkness to light—a change produced by the opening of the eyes to the light shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ephesians 5:3-14
The Children of Darkness and of Light.
I. The children of darkness are known by their deeds (Ephesians 5:3-5).—A loathsome and unsightly list! Sin marks its victims. Deeds done in darkness do not escape detection and exposure. The revolting sins of the heathen reveal the depth of wickedness to which man may sink when he abandons God and is abandoned of God. Every single sin, voluntarily indulged, weakens the power of self-control, and there is no deed of darkness a reckless sinner may not commit. Sensuality is a devil-fish—a vampire of the sea—preying upon and devouring the best powers of mind and body.
1. Their deeds exclude them from the inheritance of the good.—They have no “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:5). The children of darkness can have no company and no place with the children of light; the two cannot co-exist or blend together. The sinner excludes himself, and unfits himself for fellowship with the good. Their purity is a constant reproof of his vileness; he shrinks from their society, and hates them because they are so good. We may well be on our guard against sins that shut us out of the kingdom of grace on earth, and out of heaven hereafter.
2. Their deeds expose them to the divine wrath.—“Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6). The wrath of God is already upon them (Romans 1:18), and shall remain so long as they are disobedient. Deeds such as theirs carry their own punishment; but there is also the righteous vengeance of God to reckon with. For sin God can have nothing but wrath; but yet that is mercifully restrained to afford every opportunity for repentance. The Roman magistrates, when they gave sentence upon any one to be scourged, had a bundle of rods tied hard with many knots laid before them. The reason was this: whilst the beadle was untying the knots, which he was to do by order and not in any other or sudden way, the magistrates might see the deportment and carriage of the delinquent, whether he was sorry for his fault and showed any hope of amendment, that then they might recall his sentence or mitigate his punishment; otherwise he was corrected so much the more severely. Thus God in the punishment of sinners. How patient is He! How loth to strike! How slow to anger!
II. The children of light are divinely illumined.—
1. They were once in darkness. “Ye were sometimes darkness” (Ephesians 5:8). Their present condition as children of the light should remind them by contrast of their former state, and should excite their gratitude to God for the change He had wrought in them. They were not to be deceived by specious arguments (Ephesians 5:6) that they could return to their old sins and yet retain their new inheritance. To go back to the old life is to go back to darkness.
2. Their possession of divine light is evident.—“But now are ye light in the Lord.… For the fruit of the Spirit [the fruit of light] is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:8-9). True virtue is of the light and cannot be hid. Genuine religion manifests itself in goodness of heart, in righteousness of life, and in truthfulness of character and speech—in a holy reality that is both experienced and expressed. On Herder’s grave at Weimar there was placed by royal authority a cast-iron tablet with the words, “Light, Love, Life.” The life illumined by the Spirit is its own bright witness.
3. Their conduct aims at discovering what is acceptable to God.—“Walk as children of the light, … proving what is acceptable unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8; Ephesians 5:10). Their outward life must be in harmony with the new nature they have received. They were adopted as children of the light, and they must think, speak, and act in the light and with the light they had received. The light will show what it is that God approves; and striving in all things to please Him our light will increase. We may sometimes be mistaken, but we shall get light from our mistakes, as well as from our success, as to the will of God. Life is a trial, and our conduct will be the test as to how we are using the light God has given us. The light we shed will be a help and guide to others. There is a kind of diamond which, if exposed for some minutes to the light of the sun and then taken into a dark room, will emit light for some time. The marvellous property of retaining light and thereby becoming the source of light on a small scale shows how analogous to light its very nature must be. Those who touched the Saviour became sources of virtue to others. As Moses’ face shone when he came from the mount, so converse with spiritual things makes Christians the light which shines in the dark places of the earth. “Let your light so shine before men.”
III. The children of light cannot participate in deeds of darkness.—
1. They are to shun them. “Be not ye partakers with them … Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:7; Ephesians 5:11). We may not actually commit certain sins; but if we tolerate or encourage them, we are partakers with the transgressors. The safest place is that which is farthest from evil. It is a perilous experiment to try how near we can approach and how far dally with sin without committing ourselves. The easiest way to resist temptation is to run away. It is beneath the dignity of the children of light to patronise or trifle with sin.
2. They are not even to speak of them.—“It is a shame even to speak of those things” (Ephesians 5:12). There are some subjects about which silence is not only the highest prudence but a sacred duty. The foolish talking and jesting of Ephesians 5:4 belonged to the period when they were the children of darkness. Sparkling humour refreshes; the ribald jest pollutes. The best way to forget sayings that suggest evil is never to speak of them.
3. They are to expose them by bringing the light of truth to bear upon them.—“But rather reprove them.… All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light,” etc. (Ephesians 5:11; Ephesians 5:13-14). Silent absence or abstinence is not enough. Where sin is open to rebuke it should at all hazards be rebuked. On the other hand, St. Paul does not warrant Christians in prying into the hidden sins of the world around them and playing the moral detective. Publicity is not a remedy for all evils, but a great aggravation of some, and the surest means of disseminating them. It is a shame—a disgrace to our common nature, and a grievous peril to the young and innocent—to fill the public prints with the nauseous details of crime, and to taint the air with its putridities. The fruit of the light convicts the unfruitful works of darkness. The light of the gospel disclosed and then dispelled the darkness of the former time. So will it be with the night of sin that is spread over the world. The light which shines upon sin-laden and sorrowful hearts shines on them to change them into its own nature. The manifested is light; in other words, if men can be made to see the true nature of their sin, they will forsake it. If the light can but penetrate their conscience, it will save them. “Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest.” With this song on her lips the Church went forth, clad in the armour of light, strong in the joy of salvation; and darkness and the works of darkness fled before her (Findlay).
Lessons.—The children of darkness and of light differ—
1. In their conduct.
2. In their spirit and aims.
3. In the way in which they are divinely regarded.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Ephesians 5:3-6. Christian Sobriety inculcated.
I. The vices condemned.—
1. Impurity. Fornication is sometimes used in Scripture to comprehend the grosser forms of uncleanness, as incest, adultery, and prostitution; but in common speech it is appropriated to intimacy between unmarried persons. If acts of uncleanness are criminal, so are impure thoughts and desires. The gospel forbids filthy communication, which indicates a vicious disposition and corrupts others. Christians must abstain from everything that tends to suggest wanton ideas, to excite impure desire, and to strengthen the power of temptation.
2. Covetousness.—An immoderate desire of riches.
3. Foolish talking and jesting.—The gospel is not so rigid and austere as to debar us from innocent pleasures and harmless amusements. Jesting is not foolish when used to expose the absurdity of error and the folly of vice. The apostle condemns lewd and obscene jesting, profane jesting, and reviling and defamatory jesting. Evil-speaking never wounds so deeply nor infuses in the wound such fatal poison as when it is sharpened by wit and urged home by ridicule.
II. The arguments subjoined.—
1. Impurity, covetousness, and foolish talking are unbecoming in saints.
2. Foolish talking and jesting are not convenient, as the heathen imagined them to be, but are criminal in their nature and fatal in their tendency.
3. The indulgence of these sins is inconsistent with a title to heaven.
4. These sins not only exclude from heaven, but bring upon the sinners the wrath of God.—Lathrop.
Ephesians 5:4. Against Foolish Talking and jesting.
I. In what foolish talking and jesting may be allowed.—
1. Facetiousness is not unreasonable which ministers harmless delight to conversation.
2. When it exposes things base and evil.
3. When it is a defence against unjust reproach. 4. When it may be used so as not to defile the mind of the speaker or do wrong to the hearer.
II. In what it should be condemned.—
1. All profane jesting or speaking loosely about holy things.
2. Abusive and scurrilous jesting which tends to damage our neighbour.
3. It is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters.
4. To affect to value this way of speaking in comparison to the serious and plain way of speaking.
5. All vainglorious ostentation.
6. When it impairs the habitual seriousness that becomes the Christian.—Barrow.
Ephesians 5:6. The Dissipation of Large Cities.
I. The origin of a life of dissipation.—Young men on their entrance into the business of the world have not been enough fortified against its seducing influences by their previous education at home. Ye parents who, in placing your children on some road to gainful employment, have placed them without a sigh in the midst of depravity, so near and so surrounding that without a miracle they must perish, you have done an act of idolatry to the god of this world, you have commanded your household after you to worship him as the great divinity of their lives, and you have caused your children to make their approaches to his presence, and in so doing to pass through the fire of such temptations as have destroyed them.
II. The progress of a life of dissipation.—The vast majority of our young, on their way to manhood, are initiated into all the practices and describe the full career of dissipation. Those who have imbibed from their fathers the spirit of this world’s morality are not sensibly arrested in this career, either by the opposition of their friends or by the voice of their own conscience. Those who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and have brought it into competition with an evil world, and have at length yielded with many a sigh and many a struggle, are troubled with the upbraidings of conscience. The youthful votary of pleasure determines to be more guarded; but the entanglements of companionship have got hold of him, the inveteracy of habit tyrannises over all his purposes, the stated opportunity again comes round, and the loud laugh of his partners chases all his despondency away. The infatuation gathers upon him every month, a hardening process goes on, the deceitfulness of sin grows apace, and he at length becomes one of the sturdiest and most unrelenting of her votaries. He in his turn strengthens the conspiracy that is formed against the morals of a new generation, and all the ingenuous delicacies of other days are obliterated. He contracts a temperament of knowing, hackneyed, unfeeling depravity, and thus the mischief is transmitted from one year to another, and keeps up the guilty history of every place of crowded population.
III. The effects of a life of dissipation.—We speak not at present of the coming death and of the coming judgment, but of the change which takes place on many a votary of licentiousness when he becomes what the world calls a reformed man. He bids adieu to the pursuits and profligacies of youth, not because he has repented of them, but because he has outlived them. It is a common and easy transition to pass from one kind of disobedience to another; but it is not so easy to give up that rebelliousness of heart which lies at the root of all disobedience. The man has withdrawn from the scenes of dissipation, and has betaken himself to another way; but it is his own way. He may bid adieu to profligacy in his own person, but he lifts up the light of his countenance on the profligacy of others. He gives it the whole weight and authority of his connivance. Oh for an arm of strength to demolish this firm and far-spread compact of iniquity, and for the power of some such piercing and prophetic voice as might convince our reformed men of the baleful influence they cast behind them on the morals of the succeeding generation! What is the likeliest way of setting up a barrier against this desolating torrent of corruption? The mischief will never be combatted effectually by any expedient separate from the growth and the transmission of personal Christianity throughout the land.—T. Chalmers.
Ephesians 5:7-12. Fellowship in Wickedness and its Condemnation.
I. Illustrate this fellowship in wickedness.—
1. Not to oppose, in many cases, is to embolden transgressors, and to be partakers with them.
2. We have more direct fellowship with the wicked when we encourage them by our example.
3. They who incite and provoke others to evil works have fellowship with them.
4. They who explicitly consent to and actually join with sinners in their evil works have fellowship with them.
5. To comfort and uphold sinners in their wickedness is to have fellowship with them.
6. There are some who rejoice in iniquity when they have lent no hand to accomplish it.
II. Apply the arguments the apostle urges against it.—
1. One argument is taken from the superior light which Christians enjoy.
2. Another is taken from the grace of the Holy Spirit, of which believers are the subjects.
3. The works of darkness are unfruitful.
4. This is a shameful fellowship.
5. If we have fellowship with sinners in their works, we must share with them in their punishment.—Lathrop.
Ephesians 5:8. Light in Darkness.—I was in a darkened room that I might observe the effect produced by the use of what is called luminous paint. A neat card on which the words “Trust in the Lord” were printed rested upon the bookcase and shone out clearly in the darkness. The effect startled me. How remarkable that if from any cause the light of sun or day failed to rest upon the card its luminousness gradually declined, but returned when the sun’s action infused fresh light! Truly we also, if hidden from the face of our Lord, cease to shine. “Are ye light in the Lord? walk as children of light.”—H. Varley.
Ephesians 5:9. Fruit of the Spirit.—As oftentimes when walking in a wood near sunset, though the sun himself be hid by the height and bushiness of the trees around, yet we know that he is still above the horizon from seeing his beams in the open glades before us illuminating a thousand leaves, the several brightnesses of which are so many evidences of his presence. Thus it is with the Holy Spirit: He works in secret, but His work is manifest in the lives of all true Christians. Lamps so heavenly must have been lit from on high.—J. C. Hare.
Ephesians 5:10. The Rule of Christian Conduct.—
1. We cannot conform ourselves to what is acceptable to the Lord and walk as children of light except we make serious search into the rule of duty revealed in the word and do our utmost to come up to that rule. We walk not acceptably when we do things rashly without deliberation, or doubtingly after deliberation, nor when the thing done is in itself right, but we do it not from that ground, but to gratify ourselves.
2. It is not sufficient to make this inquiry in order to some few and weighty actions, but in order to all, whether greater or less, whether advantage or loss may follow our conforming to the rule.
3. The finding out of what is acceptable to the Lord, especially in some intricate cases, is not easily attained. There must be an accurate search, together with an exercising ourselves in those things we already know to be acceptable, that so we may experimentally know them to be such, and get our knowledge bettered in those things of which we are ignorant.—Fergusson.
Ephesians 5:11-12. Works of Darkness.—
1. Though we are not in all cases to abstain from the fellowship of wicked men, but may converse with them as we are bound by necessity, or by any civil, religious, or natural bond, yet no tie of that kind can warrant us to partake with them in their sins.
2. Though the command to reprove the sins of others is an affirmative precept, and not binding at all times and in all cases, yet not reproving when occasion offers is a partaking with them in their sins.
3. There should be such a holy bashfulness in Christians as to think shame to utter in speech, at least without detestation, those things godless sinners are not ashamed to practise. Ministers in their public preachings should be modest and sparing in deciphering filthy sins, lest they teach others how to commit the sin they reprove.
4. When men do not seek the veil of secrecy to cover their sins, but glory in their shame, they are more corrupt than the grossest of pagans.—Fergusson.
Ephesians 5:13-14. Slumbering Souls and their Awakening.
I. The character of the persons addressed.—They are in a state of sleep.
1. If you allow yourselves in the practice of known wickedness, your conscience is asleep.
2. If you live in the customary neglect of self-examination, you are in a state of slumber.
3. If you have never been in any degree affected with a sense of your guilt and your dependence on the mercy of God in Christ, you are among those who are asleep.
4. If you have no conflicts with sin and temptation, you are in a state of slumber.
5. The prevalence of a sensual and carnal disposition is a sign of spiritual death.
6. Stupidity under the warnings of God’s word and providence indicates such a state of soul as the Scripture compares to sleep.
7. The soul in which the temper of the gospel is formed hungers and thirsts after righteousness, desires spiritual growth, and reaches after perfection.
II. The awakening call.—
1. This awakening must suppose and imply a conviction of your sin and a sense of your danger.
2. This awaking from sleep and arising from the dead imply a real repentance of sin and turning to God.
3. They who have awoke from their sleep and risen from the dead will experience the properties and maintain the exercises of a holy and spiritual life.
III. The encouragement to attend to the awakening call.—“Christ shall give thee light.”
1. This may be understood as a promise of pardon and eternal life on your repentance.
2. The words import God’s gracious attention to awakened souls when they frame their doings to turn to Him.—Lathrop.
Ephesians 5:13. The Light of God.
I. Light comes from God.—God is light, and He wishes to give light to His children. “Whatsoever doth make manifest is light”—that which is made manifest is light. There has been a steady progress in the mind of the Christian race, and this progress has been in the direction of light. Has it not been so in our notions of God?—a gradual discovery that when God is manifested, behold, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all—a gradual vindication of His character from those dark and horrid notions of the Deity which were borrowed from the pagans and the Jewish rabbis—a gradual return to the perfect good news of a good God which was preached by St. John and by St. Paul. The day shall come when all shall be light in the Lord—when all mankind shall know God from the least unto the greatest, and, lifting up free foreheads to Him who made them and redeemed them by His Son, shall in spirit and in truth worship the Father.
II. In the case of our fellow-men whatsoever is made manifest is light.—How easy it was to have dark thoughts about our fellow-men simply because we did not know them,—easy to condemn the negro to perpetual slavery, when we knew nothing of him but his black face; or to hang by hundreds the ragged street boys, while we disdained to inquire into the circumstances which had degraded them; or to treat madmen as wild beasts, instead of taming them by wise and gentle sympathy. But with a closer knowledge of our fellow-creatures has come toleration, pity, sympathy. Man, in proportion as he becomes manifest to man, is seen, in spite of all defects and sins, to be hallowed with a light from God who made him.
III. It has been equally so in the case of the physical world.—Nature, being made manifest, is light. Science has taught men to admire where they used to dread, to rule where they used to obey, to employ for harmless uses what they were once afraid to touch, and where they once saw only fiends to see the orderly and beneficent laws of the All-good and Almighty God. Everywhere, as the work of nature is unfolded to our eyes, we see beauty, order, mutual use, the offspring of perfect love as well as perfect wisdom. Let us teach these things to our children. Tell them to go to the light and see their heavenly Father’s works manifested, and know that they are, as He is, Light.—C. Kingsley.
Ephesians 5:14. Moral Stupidity.—How many scarcely think of God from day to day! It cannot therefore be uncharitable to consider the mass of the people, compared with the wakefulness their infinite interests require, as sunk in a profound slumber. Unless this slumber is soon broken they must sleep the sleep of eternal death.
I. Search for the cause of this stupidity.—The proximate cause may be comprehended in these two words—ignorance and unbelief. The remote cause is opposition to God and truth. Were not the heart opposed, no man with the Bible in his hand could remain ignorant of truths which claim to have so important a bearing on his eternal destiny. Fortified by sevenfold ignorance, men can no more be awakened to contemplate their condition with alarm than the pagans of the wilderness. It is perfectly in character for them to slumber. But there are men who are respectable for their knowledge of Christian truth who yet are asleep. The cause with them is unbelief—the want of a realising sense. Their understanding assents to the awful verities of religion, but they do not realisingly believe them.
II. Apply some arguments to remove the evil.—Consider that these awful truths are as much realities as though you were now overwhelmed with a sense of their importance. Neither the ignorance nor the unbelief of man can change eternal truth. God is as holy, as awful in majesty, He is as much your Creator, Preserver, and Master, He as much holds your destinies in His hands, as though you were now lying at His feet beseeching Him not to cast you down to hell. What would it avail if all the people should disbelieve that the sun will ever rise again, or that spring-time and harvest will ever return? Can the soldier annihilate the enemy by marching up to the battery with his eyes and ears closed? You have the same means with others: why should you remain ignorant while they are informed? If your knowledge is competent and it is unbelief that excludes conviction, then call into action the powers of a rational soul and cast yourselves for help on God. If you ever mean to awake, awake now. The longer you sleep the sounder you sleep. The longer you live without religion the less likely that you will ever possess it. You are sleeping in the presence of an offended God. In His hands you lie, and if He but turn them you slide to rise no more.—E. D. Griffin.
The Call of the Gospel to Sinners.
I. The state in which the gospel finds mankind.—A state of sleep and of death.
1. It is a state of insensibility and unconcern with respect to the concerns of another world.—Busied about trifles, men overlook the great concerns of eternity. Having their minds darkened, they see no world but the present, they live as if they were to live here for ever. And if at any time this false peace is shaken, they try all means to prevent it from being destroyed, and to lull themselves again to rest.
2. How indisposed and unwilling men are to set about the work of true religion.—Nothing but this religion of which men are so ignorant, about which they care so little, against which they have conceived such a dislike, can in the end deliver them from everlasting shame, sorrow, and punishment. Here is their extreme misery and danger. They are unconcerned about an object which of all others ought to concern them most, and are set against the only remedy which can be of any real service to them. They are every moment liable to fall into utter perdition; but they are not aware of their danger, and reject the only hand which is stretched out to save them.
II. The duty the gospel calls on them to discharge.—To awake out of sleep and arise from the dead.
1. Their duty is to consider their state and danger.
2. To break off their sins by repentance.
3. To seek the knowledge and favour of God.
III. The encouragement the gospel affords.—
1. Christ will give thee knowledge. He will enlighten thy darkened mind, He will teach thee by His good Spirit, and will effectually lead thee into all saving truth.
2. Christ will give thee peace.—Whatever peace thou mayest have arising from not knowing and not feeling that thou art a sinner and daily exposed to the wrath of God, the peace which Christ offers thee is a peace which will arise from a consciousness that thy sins are forgiven, and that, although thou art a sinner, thou art yet reconciled to God.
3. Christ will give thee holiness.—Holiness is our meetness for heaven. It is that state and disposition of heart which alone can fit us for seeing and serving God.—E. Cooper.
A Summons to Spiritual Light.
I. A lamentable moral condition.—Sleep implies a state of inactivity and security. Men are busily employed about their worldly concerns; but a lamentable supineness prevails with respect to spiritual things. The generality do not apprehend their souls to be in any danger—death, judgment, heaven, and hell do not seem worthy their notice. God’s threatenings against them are denounced without effect—they are like Jonah, sleeping in the midst of a storm. Death includes the ideas of impotence and corruption. An inanimate body cannot perform any of the functions of life. It has within itself the seeds and the principles of corruption. The soul also, till quickened from the dead, is in a state of impotence, it is incapable of spiritual action or discernment. Yet, notwithstanding this state appears so desperate, we must address to every one that is under it the command, “Awake.” Your inactivity and security involve you in the deepest guilt; your corruption of heart and life provokes the majesty of God. Nor is your impotence any excuse for your disobedience. They who exert their feeble powers may expect divine assistance. To convince us that none shall fail who use the appointed means God enforces His command with
II. A promise.—Sleep and death are states of intellectual darkness: hence light is promised to those who obey the divine mandate. Light in Scripture imparts knowledge (Isaiah 8:20), holiness (1 John 1:7), comfort (Psalms 97:11), and glory (Colossians 1:12). And all these blessings shall they receive from Christ, the fountain of light (Malachi 4:2; John 1:9).
Lessons.—
1. Let each one consider the command addressed to himself—“Awake thou.”
2. Let all our powers be called into action.
3. In exerting ourselves let us expect the promised aid.—Theological Sketch Book.
The Gospel Call and Promise.
I. Many of mankind are in a state of deadly sleep.—In sleep the animal spirits retire to their source, the nerves are collapsed or embraced; and as the nerves are the medium of sensation and motion, the whole system is in a state of insensibility and inactivity. How exactly resembling this is your spiritual state.
1. You are insensible.—Your eyes and ears are closed; and you have no proper sense of pleasure or of pain.
2. You are in a state of security.—You have no fear of evil, no apprehension of danger, and consequently no concern for your safety.
3. You are in a state of inactivity.—You are not inquiring, labouring, wrestling. When the body is locked in slumber, thought roves at random and produces gay dreams of fancied happiness. Thus many are dreaming their lives away.
(1) In this sleep many are as void of sense and motion as if they were actually dead.
(2) In common sleep a person after due repose spontaneously awakes, renewed in vigour. But from this sleep, unless God should awake you, you will never awake till the heavens be no more.
(3) It is a sleep unto death. Like one who has taken a large quantity of opium, unless you are awakened by some external cause, you will insensibly sink into the second death, the death which never dies.
II. God is using means to awaken them.—While you are asleep, light, however bright and clear, shines upon you in vain. Till warning has waked attention, instruction and illumination will be lost upon you.
1. God calls you to awake from your dreams of fancied happiness, and reflect upon the vanity of the objects by which you are deluded.
2. Struggle to shake off the dull slumber which weighs you down.
3. Consider your misery and danger.
4. Rouse all that is within you to activity. God calls you—
(1) By the language of His law.
(2) By the severe dispensations of His providence.
(3) By the strivings of His Spirit.
(4) By the voice of the gospel.
III. God will give light to all who awake at His call.—It is the peculiar property of light to make manifest (Ephesians 5:13). Christ will give you light.
1. He shall make manifest to yourself your character and your situation.
2. You shall behold the light of life.
3. He shall reveal to you the God of pardoning love.
4. He shall chase the darkness of sin from your soul, and you shall walk in the light of holiness.
5. He shall put an end to your mourning.
Learn.—
1. The deceitfulness and destructive character of sin.
2. How fully God provides for your salvation.
3. Hear the voice of God.—E. Hare.