A Young Man Turns From Sinful Company to the Lightby sirrscott
5:14Ephesians 5:14
Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
Awake from spiritual sleep and rise from death in sin and trespasses, and Christ will give light and life to all who respond in faith. His light makes manifest and reproves the unfruitful works of darkness, calling for no fellowship with them and for walking circumspectly as wise, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, and being filled with the Spirit rather than with excess. That word gives life as the word that first gave life to man and raised the dead, delivering from darkness into Christ's kingdom, and through the Holy Spirit it restores the faculties to be united with God's will and employed in His service. Awakening means repentance toward God and faith toward Christ, confession with contrite heart and earnest seeking, going from light to greater light while secret sin laid bare in judgment is put away. The call is urgent in the last days when Christ's coming is near and powers of darkness are rising, so every member who knows the truth is to be waiting, watching and working, warning the dormant and carrying the light to the world.
Sleep Death and Awakening
Sleep is spiritual sleep and death is being dead in sin and trespasses, and the call is to awake and arise from the dead so that Christ gives life and light to those who respond. The promise belongs to those who hear and obey God's Word, live wisely, and understand the Lord's will, making good use of time in evil days. Awakening in this sense means gaining spiritual sight to recognize deception and spiritual danger, rejecting the works of darkness, and living in the light. For ministers and church members grown lethargic it means awakening and letting their lives shine in a dark world.
The sleeping condition includes congratulating oneself for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good and noble deeds, standing as trees in God's garden expected to bear fruit yet registered as cumberers of the ground for good left undone through grace. It includes being spiritually dead and unconcerned in backsliding, failing to recognize one's state and feeling secure as though guided and protected while works deny God, in darkness not because light diminished but because one does not walk in its rays. It includes fatal sense-benumbing infatuation that dulls the senses, weakens the soul's powers, and brings deadness of spiritual inaction, which must be shaken off to live faithfully. It includes being wrapped up in own desires and interests with God and His work forgotten in a dangerous cold dead condition, and unhealthy habits and self-interest dulling judgment and obscuring sacred things, requiring change of course, a realizing sense of the shortness of time and the work to be done, getting rid of self-interest, and agonizing until holy unction rests for effective testimony. It also embraces cold formality with no room for the Spirit, drowsy prayers while professing faith, and insensibility that does not heed warnings, correction and reproof.
The death-stupor involves Satan's deception and representations keeping the unconsecrated occupied with jealousy, fault-finding and division instead of proclaiming truth, as well as moral stupor and formalism and darkness and error. Awakening therefore means gaining spiritual sight to recognize deception, reject the works of darkness, and live in the light. It requires a moral earthquake to bring realization of the true situation, with remorse of heart and crying to God for mercy. It is a resurrection of spiritual life and enlightened understanding, rousing clergy from moral stupor and churches deadened by formalism back to life, followed by earnest activity in warning others and spreading truth in view of Christ's coming and the closing scenes.
Awakening means repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, confession of sins with contrite heart, laying guilt on Him and claiming His merits for abundant pardon while mercy is still offered. It means personal humiliation before God and earnest seeking of Him, without which people remain spiritually asleep, and resisting the devil and laying hold of everlasting life before the Spirit is grieved away. It means going on from light to greater light and from faith to greater faith into a rich deep experience, bringing faculties once used for selfish purpose into God's service, letting the plowshare of truth go deep and thorough in the inner man with power over daily life and character. Secret unconfessed sin will be laid bare in the great day of judgment, and rejecting the call risks reaching the end without salvation.
Christ Gives Light and Life
Awake and rise from the dead, and Christ will give light and life to those who respond. Receiving His word in faith brings spiritual life to those dead in sin. The call reaches young people to hear and obey God's Word, to live wisely and to understand the Lord's will. It reaches believers whose efforts, zeal and self-sacrifice fall short of their faith and calling, and ministers who must wake from sleep and inactivity rather than turn from labor, for self-centered work and worldly indulgence leave Christ forgotten and drain strength. It reaches those whose unhealthy habits and self-interest have dulled judgment and obscured sacred things, who must change course to receive life from Christ.
His word gives life as the word that gave life to the first man, and as the command that raised the young man at Nain. To receive it is to be delivered from the power of darkness into His kingdom. Spiritual life and energy for this rising are sought through communion with God and earnest prayer.
Christ awakens the spiritually dead through the Holy Spirit, whose voice rouses hearts made powerless by transgression and brings sinners to conversion. The work requires as great an outlay of power as raising the physically dead, giving new tastes and motives. Subjection to God's Word restores the self, so the mind is carried along with Christ and consecrated energies are inspired of God and the noblest powers called into exercise for His service. Faculties once used to serve self and advance selfish, unworthy and unrighteous purposes are brought into captivity to Christ, united with God's will, employed by Him to honor His name and to serve and glorify Him.
The light Christ gives is Bible truth suited to the present time, revealing nearby dangers and calling for diligent study of Scripture and careful examination of belief. As sleepers turn reverently to Scripture, previously obscured truths become clear, including truths about God's law, so that even babes in Christ understand what eludes learned teachers ignorant of Scripture and God's power. Those converted are to understand Scripture well enough to share words of light and salvation with those perishing in sin. Refusing truth is choosing darkness, while receiving its saving power leads to obedience through opened eyes and heart. Churches and families asleep without knowledge of the Lord's requirements need converted spiritual eyesight to discern the signs of the times, lest common earthly business become all-absorbing, frame a self-chosen religion, and open the disobedient to fallen angels appearing as angels of God whose light is spiritual death to the receiver. Sleep is insensibility that does not heed warnings, correction and reproof, and those appointed to watch for souls and be an example must walk in His way, for abiding in Christ brings order, purity from every defilement, and peace.
Waking to life means leaving tame lifeless routine, having the Holy Spirit make a correct impression on souls, and revealing advanced light and truth as righteousness and power in the human agent. Those awakened become living epistles known and read of all, carrying the missionary spirit that watches for souls as those who must give an account.
Holy Walk in Context
In its setting the call to awake and rise means having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but reproving them, for the light Christ gives makes manifest and exposes what is reproved. That separation refuses life-destroying practices, inordinate appetite for unhealthful things, and selfish gratification and pleasure-seeking even when surrounded by pleasure-lovers, and it refuses even to speak of shameful secret sins done in darkness. The light so received produces walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil, and understanding what the will of the Lord is. Even those who congratulate themselves for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good are not beyond hope, for the same call bids them awake, walk carefully, and make good use of time in evil days.
It means not being drunk with wine in excess but being filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with melody in the heart to the Lord. It means giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ instead of corrupt and worthless talk, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, by which the whole body fitly framed grows into a holy temple in the Lord. It means remembering that body and life are God's property and not one's own to treat as fancy dictates, presenting the body a living holy sacrifice, being transformed rather than conformed to the world, and standing against common opinions and modes of thinking and practice without being influenced to wrong.
It belongs to those who were darkness but now are light in the Lord, walking as children of light and proving what is acceptable to the Lord. That walk bears the fruit of the Spirit in all goodness and righteousness and truth, filled with the fruits of righteousness, sincere and without offense. It includes the pattern of wives submitting to husbands and husbands loving wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it holy without spot or blemish, with lessons for the guidance of every married man and woman in love, faithfulness, and special care.
The church as repository of gospel truth and agency for shining God's light in clear distinct rays must so awake and walk as followers of God in love as Christ loved and gave Himself. It is to be blameless and harmless sons of God without rebuke in a crooked and perverse nation, approving excellent things, shining as lights in the world so the glory of the Lord rises upon them and draws others to their light. A church that has received great light but fails to carry it to enlighten the world is spiritually asleep and needs to be aroused into active witness.
Church Aroused to Mission
Every member who knows the truth is to awake from sleep and rise from the dead so that Christ gives light, meaning to be waiting and watching and working and to be alive unto God through faith. Every man, woman and child with a knowledge of the truth is to discern the signs of the times, and the weakness and inefficiency of the church must pass away as creative power from above imparts life to human agents so they can cooperate with divine intelligences and no longer remain dead in trespasses and sins. Awakening means being aroused from moral deadness and quickened with power from above, with the Spirit entering the living messenger so that truth goes with power to do the great work to be done. It is consenting to be laborers together with God and to work in Christ's lines, exercising mental powers with purpose to make those within influence wise and better, to uplift and strengthen the weak, and to make straight paths for the feet so the lame are not turned out of the way, while joining together to invite people everywhere to come to the fountain of life.
This awakening includes walking in unity and carefully, taking on fewer burdens, and relying on Christ as helper and strength instead of self-power, so that the awakened become children of light rather than remaining in darkness. It means pledging to shake off stupidity and awaken out of sleep and to stand firmly one for another with heart and soul, doing the work appointed in each place, which brings to a higher standard. God helps every determined effort to obey the call, and obedience starts from present condition and necessities. For those spiritually asleep and in need of conversion, many dying in their sins, receiving Christ's peace brings peace between believers.
Those roused are to rouse themselves by personal effort to bring others to Jesus and the truth, and this very work awakens and strengthens their own spiritual powers. They are to warn and plead with those who remain spiritually dormant and pray for love to soften them, so that even when efforts are refused they bless those who make them, and they are to stir the spiritually insensible by telling how they found Jesus and the joy and blessings of learning from His Word and serving Him, which can awaken many to the Christian life. This awakening means earnest repentance and seeking God followed by going out to proclaim the final warning to people in darkness as earth's history nears its end, carrying truth to all tongues and nations with a certain trumpet sound against idolatry and sin, doing utmost to circulate literature to help seekers of clearer understanding of present truth, and taking up gospel work in places such as London and among Black people in the American South under solemn accountability if souls perish unwarned. The world asleep in danger and the churches not knowing the time of their visitation must be awakened by watchmen ringing the warning bell, especially canvassers bringing before people through reading matter they would otherwise never hear the glad tidings of salvation through Christ in obeying God's law and bringing multitudes from darkness and error into Christ's light.
Receiving the light means each person doing the work God has given him, working and watching and praying in close touch with Christ the Masterworker, feeling concern for souls ready to perish, putting away worldliness mingled with service, and standing out in sharp distinction from the world as those laboring together with God. The awakening means utilizing the gospel as God's power unto salvation to everyone who believes, for God is an overflowing fountain of life and strength and efficiency and power, and when His gospel power is utilized it will be more than a match for the power of the enemy. It is a cry especially to those in responsible positions, since the Lord has a controversy with His people because they have felt so little concern for the perishing. Awakening means ceasing to spend strength in self-serving to labor to bring souls to salvation and advance the triumphs of the cross, thereby gaining heavenly treasure whose work withstands the final test and receives reward.
Mercy Urgency and Warning
Those deceived about their true standing congratulate themselves for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good and noble deeds, yet their case is not utterly hopeless. They are trees in God's garden expected to bear fruit and held accountable for all the good they could have done through grace, and for failure they stand registered in the books of heaven as cumberers of the ground for good left undone. Even after slighting mercy and abusing grace, long-suffering love still pleads with them to awake from sleep and arise from death that Christ may give them light. That awakening is to walk circumspectly and redeem the time because the days are evil.
The call is to respond while mercy is still offered by coming to Jesus by faith, confessing with contrite heart, laying guilt on Him and claiming His merits, and God will pardon abundantly. Rejecting the call risks reaching the end without salvation, for remaining asleep in death-like slumber leads to eternal death.
The call is urgent in the last days of earth's history amid solemn realities and the closing scenes, with clear signs of Christ's coming and many unawake. Each person must be made ready to meet Him with joy and not grief, with lamp trimmed and burning, losing no time and bringing every entrusted talent and capability into active service. It is to work while it is day before the night comes in which no one can work, showing by conduct, words, preaching and prayers that Christ is near and that probation's final hours are here. Preachers and people must therefore become active and earnest in warning others and spreading the truth instead of being occupied with jealousy, fault-finding and division, and instead of presenting truth without living fervently by it, for sleeping preachers leave hearers asleep. The inner work must be carried on with repentance toward God and faith toward Christ, forsaking sin, ceasing embittered minds and unjust dealing, going from light to greater light and faith to greater faith into a rich and deep experience, bringing faculties once used for selfish purpose into God's service, and letting the plowshare of truth go deep and thorough because every secret unconfessed sin will be laid bare in judgment and God has a work for each to do with power over daily life and character.
The urgency grows because the powers of darkness are rising and may gain victory over those who do not rise to put on the Lord's strength. Time stands upon the very borders of the eternal world and satanic agencies are working with new power never before realized while souls perish for lack of the light of truth as it is in Jesus. Professed bearers of truth at ease with no weight or burden for souls must therefore awake from the dead, and Christ giving light means Christ giving life. Awakening means taking the yoke of Christ and lifting His burdens, moving from merely nominal interest to Christlike, unselfish, intense ardor that does not flag under difficulties or cool because iniquity abounds. God's people must receive new power from above with intensity in faith and in proclamation of sanctifying truth, earnest agonizing prayer, self-examination by God's Word and God's law, and full surrender of property, time, talents and influence to the work.
Ephesians 5 is instruction for standing firm when Satan makes every effort to tear up the foundation of faith in the third angel's message. Not a pin or pillar has been moved from the building of the work of the last sixty years, and its past history must be reprinted and held fast.
Lives Transformed in Practice
In marriage the call searches the heart as with a lighted candle and guides every married man and every married woman. It requires rejecting self-conceit, uncleanness, filthiness, foolish talking and jesting, and choosing instead love, faithfulness and special care. It shakes off a fatal infatuation that dulls the senses, benumbs spiritual perception, weakens the powers of the soul, and holds the spiritually drowsy in deadness and inaction until Christ gives light.
At the St. Helena health institution the same awakening requires receiving regenerating power and spiritual life by living by every word of God. Hearts of stone are taken away and hearts of flesh are given in conversion unto eternal life. There must be complete renovation by working from Christlike principles, distinguishing between the precious and the vile. Moral power comes not by inheritance but by a minute-by-minute fight of faith. Workers unlearn criticizing and judging brethren and learn to love one another, practicing the wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, so that the cloud is rolled back and souls are saved.
Young people are to hear and obey God's Word, live wisely, and understand the Lord's will. They should take up Christ's burdens and gain valuable experience while present opportunity remains. Teachers and youth together are to take up God's work with courage and faith, faithfully doing their part to advance it and strengthen the schools.
The awakening brings spiritual sight to recognize deception, reject the works of darkness, and live in the light, which is essential in California in solemn times. It rises to active service in large cities, training young men and women for service and freeing the schools from debt. In America it brings intensity and earnestness to faith and to proclaiming the truth. Believers must show the unconverted by consistent lives that they believe and practice the truth, or the world will not believe it.
Ministers and church members grown lethargic must awaken and let their lives shine in a dark world. Ministers are to persevere and put all their powers to work rather than turn from labor, refusing self-centered work and worldly indulgence that leave Christ forgotten and drain energies. Those with only cold nominal faith need arousing because people around them are perishing in darkness and error, and their words need vital force from connection with heaven to reach hearts. Lifeless presentation fails to rouse careless hearers, and sleeping preachers leave hearers asleep, for ministers who do not live fervently by truth cannot awaken others. Awakening comes through preaching the naked plain truth in solemnity and dignity, sharp as a two-edged sword cutting both ways, not through meetings that charm the senses with music and worldly preliminaries, and unless ministers are converted the people will not awaken. Ministers must show by conduct, words, preaching and prayers that Christ is near and people stand in the final hours of probation.
The awakened church turns from selfishness, sin, dishonesty, unbelief, criticism and faultfinding, believes Christ died for them, and lives with Christ abiding within. Such believers bear a living Holy Spirit-inspired testimony to those who are perishing. Families knowing truth yet not half awakened to discern the signs of the times need converted spiritual eyesight, especially fathers and mothers in Israel who claim to be the Lord's people while not obeying His Word. Common earthly transactions must not become all-absorbing until the stamp of the world is upon parents and children, framing a self-chosen religion and making business the grave of religious service. Disobedience opens the way to evil fallen angels appearing as angels of God whose counterfeit light is spiritual death rather than the light Christ gives.
The light makes manifest and reproves unfruitful works of darkness shameful even to speak of, and there is to be no fellowship with them. Awakening refuses life-destroying practices, inordinate appetite for unhealthful things, and selfish gratification and pleasure-seeking even when surrounded by pleasure-lovers. Body and life are remembered as God's property, not one's own to treat as fancy dictates, so the body is presented a living holy sacrifice. The awakened are transformed rather than conformed to the world, uninfluenced to wrong by common opinions and modes of thinking and practice, walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil and understanding what the will of the Lord is. Those whose unhealthy habits and self-interest dulled judgment and obscured sacred things must change course and Christ will give life. To awake is to take a decided stand for truth and righteousness as a holy people, shown by faithful Sabbath observance and commandment keeping. It rises from death slumber to use all influence by personal example to rescue those ruined by drink instead of watching men go into the saloon and come out with brain power lost in liquor and bodily control broken while drink rules them and their families.
Neglect of duties in the home eclipses the light and prevents it shining through right example in daily life. Parents must awake from deathlike sleep and stop neglecting the Lord's instructions. Renewed obedience shapes character into Christ's likeness so lives show heaven's image rather than the world's.
Cold formality with no room for the Spirit shuts out marked demonstrations of the Spirit and leaves brethren sleeping the sleep of death. Putting formality away and opening the heart to the Spirit awakens and decidedly changes the church, so sinners do not perish out of Christ and Spirit-filled converts go from country to country and city to city proclaiming truth. At the Maine meeting truth and the Spirit of Jesus stirred slumbering hearers to confession and drawing near to God. When preaching has stirred some feeling but sleepers still need full awakening, God helps and arouses them.
Awake from spiritual sleep and rise from death in sin and trespasses, and Christ will give light and life to all who respond in faith. His light makes manifest and reproves the unfruitful works of darkness, calling for no fellowship with them and for walking circumspectly as wise, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, and being filled with the Spirit rather than with excess. That word gives life as the word that first gave life to man and raised the dead, delivering from darkness into Christ's kingdom, and through the Holy Spirit it restores the faculties to be united with God's will and employed in His service. Awakening means repentance toward God and faith toward Christ, confession with contrite heart and earnest seeking, going from light to greater light while secret sin laid bare in judgment is put away. The call is urgent in the last days when Christ's coming is near and powers of darkness are rising, so every member who knows the truth is to be waiting, watching and working, warning the dormant and carrying the light to the world.
Sleep Death and Awakening
Sleep is spiritual sleep and death is being dead in sin and trespasses, and the call is to awake and arise from the dead so that Christ gives life and light to those who respond. The promise belongs to those who hear and obey God's Word, live wisely, and understand the Lord's will, making good use of time in evil days. Awakening in this sense means gaining spiritual sight to recognize deception and spiritual danger, rejecting the works of darkness, and living in the light. For ministers and church members grown lethargic it means awakening and letting their lives shine in a dark world.
The sleeping condition includes congratulating oneself for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good and noble deeds, standing as trees in God's garden expected to bear fruit yet registered as cumberers of the ground for good left undone through grace. It includes being spiritually dead and unconcerned in backsliding, failing to recognize one's state and feeling secure as though guided and protected while works deny God, in darkness not because light diminished but because one does not walk in its rays. It includes fatal sense-benumbing infatuation that dulls the senses, weakens the soul's powers, and brings deadness of spiritual inaction, which must be shaken off to live faithfully. It includes being wrapped up in own desires and interests with God and His work forgotten in a dangerous cold dead condition, and unhealthy habits and self-interest dulling judgment and obscuring sacred things, requiring change of course, a realizing sense of the shortness of time and the work to be done, getting rid of self-interest, and agonizing until holy unction rests for effective testimony. It also embraces cold formality with no room for the Spirit, drowsy prayers while professing faith, and insensibility that does not heed warnings, correction and reproof.
The death-stupor involves Satan's deception and representations keeping the unconsecrated occupied with jealousy, fault-finding and division instead of proclaiming truth, as well as moral stupor and formalism and darkness and error. Awakening therefore means gaining spiritual sight to recognize deception, reject the works of darkness, and live in the light. It requires a moral earthquake to bring realization of the true situation, with remorse of heart and crying to God for mercy. It is a resurrection of spiritual life and enlightened understanding, rousing clergy from moral stupor and churches deadened by formalism back to life, followed by earnest activity in warning others and spreading truth in view of Christ's coming and the closing scenes.
Awakening means repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, confession of sins with contrite heart, laying guilt on Him and claiming His merits for abundant pardon while mercy is still offered. It means personal humiliation before God and earnest seeking of Him, without which people remain spiritually asleep, and resisting the devil and laying hold of everlasting life before the Spirit is grieved away. It means going on from light to greater light and from faith to greater faith into a rich deep experience, bringing faculties once used for selfish purpose into God's service, letting the plowshare of truth go deep and thorough in the inner man with power over daily life and character. Secret unconfessed sin will be laid bare in the great day of judgment, and rejecting the call risks reaching the end without salvation.
Christ Gives Light and Life
Awake and rise from the dead, and Christ will give light and life to those who respond. Receiving His word in faith brings spiritual life to those dead in sin. The call reaches young people to hear and obey God's Word, to live wisely and to understand the Lord's will. It reaches believers whose efforts, zeal and self-sacrifice fall short of their faith and calling, and ministers who must wake from sleep and inactivity rather than turn from labor, for self-centered work and worldly indulgence leave Christ forgotten and drain strength. It reaches those whose unhealthy habits and self-interest have dulled judgment and obscured sacred things, who must change course to receive life from Christ.
His word gives life as the word that gave life to the first man, and as the command that raised the young man at Nain. To receive it is to be delivered from the power of darkness into His kingdom. Spiritual life and energy for this rising are sought through communion with God and earnest prayer.
Christ awakens the spiritually dead through the Holy Spirit, whose voice rouses hearts made powerless by transgression and brings sinners to conversion. The work requires as great an outlay of power as raising the physically dead, giving new tastes and motives. Subjection to God's Word restores the self, so the mind is carried along with Christ and consecrated energies are inspired of God and the noblest powers called into exercise for His service. Faculties once used to serve self and advance selfish, unworthy and unrighteous purposes are brought into captivity to Christ, united with God's will, employed by Him to honor His name and to serve and glorify Him.
The light Christ gives is Bible truth suited to the present time, revealing nearby dangers and calling for diligent study of Scripture and careful examination of belief. As sleepers turn reverently to Scripture, previously obscured truths become clear, including truths about God's law, so that even babes in Christ understand what eludes learned teachers ignorant of Scripture and God's power. Those converted are to understand Scripture well enough to share words of light and salvation with those perishing in sin. Refusing truth is choosing darkness, while receiving its saving power leads to obedience through opened eyes and heart. Churches and families asleep without knowledge of the Lord's requirements need converted spiritual eyesight to discern the signs of the times, lest common earthly business become all-absorbing, frame a self-chosen religion, and open the disobedient to fallen angels appearing as angels of God whose light is spiritual death to the receiver. Sleep is insensibility that does not heed warnings, correction and reproof, and those appointed to watch for souls and be an example must walk in His way, for abiding in Christ brings order, purity from every defilement, and peace.
Waking to life means leaving tame lifeless routine, having the Holy Spirit make a correct impression on souls, and revealing advanced light and truth as righteousness and power in the human agent. Those awakened become living epistles known and read of all, carrying the missionary spirit that watches for souls as those who must give an account.
Holy Walk in Context
In its setting the call to awake and rise means having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but reproving them, for the light Christ gives makes manifest and exposes what is reproved. That separation refuses life-destroying practices, inordinate appetite for unhealthful things, and selfish gratification and pleasure-seeking even when surrounded by pleasure-lovers, and it refuses even to speak of shameful secret sins done in darkness. The light so received produces walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil, and understanding what the will of the Lord is. Even those who congratulate themselves for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good are not beyond hope, for the same call bids them awake, walk carefully, and make good use of time in evil days.
It means not being drunk with wine in excess but being filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with melody in the heart to the Lord. It means giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ instead of corrupt and worthless talk, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, by which the whole body fitly framed grows into a holy temple in the Lord. It means remembering that body and life are God's property and not one's own to treat as fancy dictates, presenting the body a living holy sacrifice, being transformed rather than conformed to the world, and standing against common opinions and modes of thinking and practice without being influenced to wrong.
It belongs to those who were darkness but now are light in the Lord, walking as children of light and proving what is acceptable to the Lord. That walk bears the fruit of the Spirit in all goodness and righteousness and truth, filled with the fruits of righteousness, sincere and without offense. It includes the pattern of wives submitting to husbands and husbands loving wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it holy without spot or blemish, with lessons for the guidance of every married man and woman in love, faithfulness, and special care.
The church as repository of gospel truth and agency for shining God's light in clear distinct rays must so awake and walk as followers of God in love as Christ loved and gave Himself. It is to be blameless and harmless sons of God without rebuke in a crooked and perverse nation, approving excellent things, shining as lights in the world so the glory of the Lord rises upon them and draws others to their light. A church that has received great light but fails to carry it to enlighten the world is spiritually asleep and needs to be aroused into active witness.
Church Aroused to Mission
Every member who knows the truth is to awake from sleep and rise from the dead so that Christ gives light, meaning to be waiting and watching and working and to be alive unto God through faith. Every man, woman and child with a knowledge of the truth is to discern the signs of the times, and the weakness and inefficiency of the church must pass away as creative power from above imparts life to human agents so they can cooperate with divine intelligences and no longer remain dead in trespasses and sins. Awakening means being aroused from moral deadness and quickened with power from above, with the Spirit entering the living messenger so that truth goes with power to do the great work to be done. It is consenting to be laborers together with God and to work in Christ's lines, exercising mental powers with purpose to make those within influence wise and better, to uplift and strengthen the weak, and to make straight paths for the feet so the lame are not turned out of the way, while joining together to invite people everywhere to come to the fountain of life.
This awakening includes walking in unity and carefully, taking on fewer burdens, and relying on Christ as helper and strength instead of self-power, so that the awakened become children of light rather than remaining in darkness. It means pledging to shake off stupidity and awaken out of sleep and to stand firmly one for another with heart and soul, doing the work appointed in each place, which brings to a higher standard. God helps every determined effort to obey the call, and obedience starts from present condition and necessities. For those spiritually asleep and in need of conversion, many dying in their sins, receiving Christ's peace brings peace between believers.
Those roused are to rouse themselves by personal effort to bring others to Jesus and the truth, and this very work awakens and strengthens their own spiritual powers. They are to warn and plead with those who remain spiritually dormant and pray for love to soften them, so that even when efforts are refused they bless those who make them, and they are to stir the spiritually insensible by telling how they found Jesus and the joy and blessings of learning from His Word and serving Him, which can awaken many to the Christian life. This awakening means earnest repentance and seeking God followed by going out to proclaim the final warning to people in darkness as earth's history nears its end, carrying truth to all tongues and nations with a certain trumpet sound against idolatry and sin, doing utmost to circulate literature to help seekers of clearer understanding of present truth, and taking up gospel work in places such as London and among Black people in the American South under solemn accountability if souls perish unwarned. The world asleep in danger and the churches not knowing the time of their visitation must be awakened by watchmen ringing the warning bell, especially canvassers bringing before people through reading matter they would otherwise never hear the glad tidings of salvation through Christ in obeying God's law and bringing multitudes from darkness and error into Christ's light.
Receiving the light means each person doing the work God has given him, working and watching and praying in close touch with Christ the Masterworker, feeling concern for souls ready to perish, putting away worldliness mingled with service, and standing out in sharp distinction from the world as those laboring together with God. The awakening means utilizing the gospel as God's power unto salvation to everyone who believes, for God is an overflowing fountain of life and strength and efficiency and power, and when His gospel power is utilized it will be more than a match for the power of the enemy. It is a cry especially to those in responsible positions, since the Lord has a controversy with His people because they have felt so little concern for the perishing. Awakening means ceasing to spend strength in self-serving to labor to bring souls to salvation and advance the triumphs of the cross, thereby gaining heavenly treasure whose work withstands the final test and receives reward.
Mercy Urgency and Warning
Those deceived about their true standing congratulate themselves for wrongs avoided while neglecting required good and noble deeds, yet their case is not utterly hopeless. They are trees in God's garden expected to bear fruit and held accountable for all the good they could have done through grace, and for failure they stand registered in the books of heaven as cumberers of the ground for good left undone. Even after slighting mercy and abusing grace, long-suffering love still pleads with them to awake from sleep and arise from death that Christ may give them light. That awakening is to walk circumspectly and redeem the time because the days are evil.
The call is to respond while mercy is still offered by coming to Jesus by faith, confessing with contrite heart, laying guilt on Him and claiming His merits, and God will pardon abundantly. Rejecting the call risks reaching the end without salvation, for remaining asleep in death-like slumber leads to eternal death.
The call is urgent in the last days of earth's history amid solemn realities and the closing scenes, with clear signs of Christ's coming and many unawake. Each person must be made ready to meet Him with joy and not grief, with lamp trimmed and burning, losing no time and bringing every entrusted talent and capability into active service. It is to work while it is day before the night comes in which no one can work, showing by conduct, words, preaching and prayers that Christ is near and that probation's final hours are here. Preachers and people must therefore become active and earnest in warning others and spreading the truth instead of being occupied with jealousy, fault-finding and division, and instead of presenting truth without living fervently by it, for sleeping preachers leave hearers asleep. The inner work must be carried on with repentance toward God and faith toward Christ, forsaking sin, ceasing embittered minds and unjust dealing, going from light to greater light and faith to greater faith into a rich and deep experience, bringing faculties once used for selfish purpose into God's service, and letting the plowshare of truth go deep and thorough because every secret unconfessed sin will be laid bare in judgment and God has a work for each to do with power over daily life and character.
The urgency grows because the powers of darkness are rising and may gain victory over those who do not rise to put on the Lord's strength. Time stands upon the very borders of the eternal world and satanic agencies are working with new power never before realized while souls perish for lack of the light of truth as it is in Jesus. Professed bearers of truth at ease with no weight or burden for souls must therefore awake from the dead, and Christ giving light means Christ giving life. Awakening means taking the yoke of Christ and lifting His burdens, moving from merely nominal interest to Christlike, unselfish, intense ardor that does not flag under difficulties or cool because iniquity abounds. God's people must receive new power from above with intensity in faith and in proclamation of sanctifying truth, earnest agonizing prayer, self-examination by God's Word and God's law, and full surrender of property, time, talents and influence to the work.
Ephesians 5 is instruction for standing firm when Satan makes every effort to tear up the foundation of faith in the third angel's message. Not a pin or pillar has been moved from the building of the work of the last sixty years, and its past history must be reprinted and held fast.
Lives Transformed in Practice
In marriage the call searches the heart as with a lighted candle and guides every married man and every married woman. It requires rejecting self-conceit, uncleanness, filthiness, foolish talking and jesting, and choosing instead love, faithfulness and special care. It shakes off a fatal infatuation that dulls the senses, benumbs spiritual perception, weakens the powers of the soul, and holds the spiritually drowsy in deadness and inaction until Christ gives light.
At the St. Helena health institution the same awakening requires receiving regenerating power and spiritual life by living by every word of God. Hearts of stone are taken away and hearts of flesh are given in conversion unto eternal life. There must be complete renovation by working from Christlike principles, distinguishing between the precious and the vile. Moral power comes not by inheritance but by a minute-by-minute fight of faith. Workers unlearn criticizing and judging brethren and learn to love one another, practicing the wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, so that the cloud is rolled back and souls are saved.
Young people are to hear and obey God's Word, live wisely, and understand the Lord's will. They should take up Christ's burdens and gain valuable experience while present opportunity remains. Teachers and youth together are to take up God's work with courage and faith, faithfully doing their part to advance it and strengthen the schools.
The awakening brings spiritual sight to recognize deception, reject the works of darkness, and live in the light, which is essential in California in solemn times. It rises to active service in large cities, training young men and women for service and freeing the schools from debt. In America it brings intensity and earnestness to faith and to proclaiming the truth. Believers must show the unconverted by consistent lives that they believe and practice the truth, or the world will not believe it.
Ministers and church members grown lethargic must awaken and let their lives shine in a dark world. Ministers are to persevere and put all their powers to work rather than turn from labor, refusing self-centered work and worldly indulgence that leave Christ forgotten and drain energies. Those with only cold nominal faith need arousing because people around them are perishing in darkness and error, and their words need vital force from connection with heaven to reach hearts. Lifeless presentation fails to rouse careless hearers, and sleeping preachers leave hearers asleep, for ministers who do not live fervently by truth cannot awaken others. Awakening comes through preaching the naked plain truth in solemnity and dignity, sharp as a two-edged sword cutting both ways, not through meetings that charm the senses with music and worldly preliminaries, and unless ministers are converted the people will not awaken. Ministers must show by conduct, words, preaching and prayers that Christ is near and people stand in the final hours of probation.
The awakened church turns from selfishness, sin, dishonesty, unbelief, criticism and faultfinding, believes Christ died for them, and lives with Christ abiding within. Such believers bear a living Holy Spirit-inspired testimony to those who are perishing. Families knowing truth yet not half awakened to discern the signs of the times need converted spiritual eyesight, especially fathers and mothers in Israel who claim to be the Lord's people while not obeying His Word. Common earthly transactions must not become all-absorbing until the stamp of the world is upon parents and children, framing a self-chosen religion and making business the grave of religious service. Disobedience opens the way to evil fallen angels appearing as angels of God whose counterfeit light is spiritual death rather than the light Christ gives.
The light makes manifest and reproves unfruitful works of darkness shameful even to speak of, and there is to be no fellowship with them. Awakening refuses life-destroying practices, inordinate appetite for unhealthful things, and selfish gratification and pleasure-seeking even when surrounded by pleasure-lovers. Body and life are remembered as God's property, not one's own to treat as fancy dictates, so the body is presented a living holy sacrifice. The awakened are transformed rather than conformed to the world, uninfluenced to wrong by common opinions and modes of thinking and practice, walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil and understanding what the will of the Lord is. Those whose unhealthy habits and self-interest dulled judgment and obscured sacred things must change course and Christ will give life. To awake is to take a decided stand for truth and righteousness as a holy people, shown by faithful Sabbath observance and commandment keeping. It rises from death slumber to use all influence by personal example to rescue those ruined by drink instead of watching men go into the saloon and come out with brain power lost in liquor and bodily control broken while drink rules them and their families.
Neglect of duties in the home eclipses the light and prevents it shining through right example in daily life. Parents must awake from deathlike sleep and stop neglecting the Lord's instructions. Renewed obedience shapes character into Christ's likeness so lives show heaven's image rather than the world's.
Cold formality with no room for the Spirit shuts out marked demonstrations of the Spirit and leaves brethren sleeping the sleep of death. Putting formality away and opening the heart to the Spirit awakens and decidedly changes the church, so sinners do not perish out of Christ and Spirit-filled converts go from country to country and city to city proclaiming truth. At the Maine meeting truth and the Spirit of Jesus stirred slumbering hearers to confession and drawing near to God. When preaching has stirred some feeling but sleepers still need full awakening, God helps and arouses them.