Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Alarum (Psalm 42:8) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Alarum (Psalm 42:8) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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You know you've probably experienced this at some point.
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You're driving home from work on a route you've taken, I don't
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know, 1000 times. You pull into your driveway, you
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put the car in park, and suddenly you realize you have 0
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memory of the last 10 miles. Oh yeah, highway hypnosis.
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It's terrifying. Right.
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I mean, your eyes were open, your hands were on the steering
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wheel. You stopped at the red lights,
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you made the turns, you responded to traffic.
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Physically you were entirely awake, but mentally you were
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completely gone, just operating on pure autopilot.
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Just completely checked out. Yeah, now take that terrifying
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phenomenon of driving asleep and apply it to your soul.
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What happens when your spiritual life operates the exact same
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way? You're walking, you're talking,
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going to work, sitting in a Pew on Sunday, singing the songs,
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answering the questions. You look wide awake to everyone
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around you, but on the inside you are dangerously quietly
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asleep. And no one would even know.
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Nobody. So we are so glad you were here
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with us today for this deep dive into Reformed thinking.
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Our source material today is a sermon from 1871 by Charles
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Haddon Spurgeon called the Alarum.
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He based it on a single striking phrase from Psalm 57, verse 8,
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which is I myself will awake early.
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Our mission today is to understand the stark difference
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between chronological wakefulness and actual spiritual
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vitality. We are going to unpack
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Spurgeon's urgent call to arouse the slumbering soul,
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specifically looking at how this plays out in a really
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fast-paced, highly distracted world.
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OK, let's unpack this, because Sturgeon starts with something
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very tangible, right? He doesn't begin with high
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theology, he starts with literal early rising.
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He talks about the Do of dawn, the health benefits of
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physically getting out of bed, and even references John
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Milton's poetic phrase about awakening the morning.
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He does, and it's a brilliant rhetorical move.
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He begins with the physical act because it's something everyone
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understands. He points out that the old
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Saints practically made it a habit to rise before the sun,
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and they did this not just to get ahead of their agricultural
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shores, but to consecrate those first quiet moments to devotion.
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Right, like an intentional quiet time before the chaos starts.
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Precisely. He mentions the economy of time.
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He points out that early rising literally lengthens your life by
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giving you more usable hours, and you know it contributes to
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better physical health. But he is very careful to
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establish this physical reality as a baseline.
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He's painting a picture of someone who refuses to let the
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day just happen to them. Instead, this person takes
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command of the morning. They set the tone.
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Yeah, he says late rising is the token of indolence and the cause
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of disorder for the rest of the day.
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Because if you wake up late, you're rushing and you basically
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spend the next 12 hours playing catch up.
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Which we've all done. Oh, absolutely.
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But then he takes a hard turn. He makes it clear that while
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getting out of bed early is good for your body and your schedule,
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that is not why he is speaking to his congregation.
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He is using the physical alarm clock to point to something much
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more critical. What's fascinating here is the
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contrast he immediately sets up between our physical ambition
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and our spiritual passivity. He observes A glaring
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inconsistency in human nature. He notes that we will apply
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maximum effort, extreme vigilance and incredible
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discipline to physical gains and temporal interests.
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Like setting 3 alarms to make sure we don't miss a flight for
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a business trip. Right, we will drink terrible
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coffee and stay up late to close a deal.
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We will exhaust ourselves for things that decay.
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But regarding eternal realities, we remain entirely dormant.
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So he pivots from the literal alarm clock to the spiritual
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one, asking a piercing question. What does it mean if the
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faculties of a person's manhood are completely awake to the
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stock market, awake to politics, awake to their social standing,
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but completely asleep to God? Wow, that is such a conviction.
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And he uses this great historical comparison to
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illustrate the changing pace of the world.
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He talks about how years ago affairs move like a broad wheel
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wagon. Such a great image.
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It really is very heavy, very sleepy, leisurely.
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He jokes that the son of the snail had a chance to succeed
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back in those days. But then he describes his own
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era, and this is 1871 as the pushing times where men almost
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fly. If a man wants to succeed in
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trade, he has to be wide awake. I was thinking about this and it
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feels like comparing dial up Internet to modern fiber optic
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speeds. Oh, that's a perfect way to look
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at it. Right back in the day with a
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dial up connection, you can click a link, wait for the page
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to load, go make a sandwich, come back and it was fine.
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That's the broad wheel wagon. But today, if your business is
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running on dial up up while your competitors are running on fiber
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optic, you are dead in the water.
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The speed of life is accelerated.
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So think about this for a second.
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If the world, the flesh and the devil are operating on high
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speed fiber optic Internet. If they're wide awake,
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constantly pushing and relentlessly competing for your
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attention, why do Christians accept a dial up connection for
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their spiritual lives? That is the core tension
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Spurgeon is highlighting. The world demands fiber optic
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speeds just to survive. Economically or socially?
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Spurgeon asks, if we are all so intensely awake to temporal
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things, why are we so terribly lethargic in the spiritual
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realm? Because the devil isn't
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operating on a leisurely schedule?
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Definitely not. The enemies of the soul do not
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take vacations, and Spurgeon warns about the dreamy influence
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of this age. He likens the modern world to
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enchanted ground. OK, let's pause on that
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enchanted ground. It sounds like something out of
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a fairy tale, but he's referencing something very
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specific, right? Yes, that is a direct nod to
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John Bunion's The Pilgrims Progress.
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Of course. Yeah, in that narrative, the
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travelers have to pass through a specific territory called the
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Enchanted Ground. And the danger of this territory
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isn't monsters or traps. The danger is the atmosphere
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itself. It magically lows travelers into
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a heavy, fatal sleep. If they fall asleep there, they
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do not wake up. And he applies that to his own
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culture. He does.
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He applies this to the culture itself.
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With all its pushing, it's rushing for material gain and
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it's constant noise. The culture, paradoxically acts
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as a sedative to the soul. It lulls the believer into
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apathy regarding eternal things. The sheer exhaustion of keeping
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up with the pushing times drains the spiritual battery, leaving
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the person awake to the world but entirely anesthetized to
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God. Which makes total sense
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psychologically if you spend all day fighting in a fiber optic
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hyper competitive environment. When you finally get a moment to
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yourself, you don't want to engage in rigorous spiritual
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devotion, you just want to check out.
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You want to sleep? You want to zone out, and that
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brings us right into how this sleepiness effects our actual
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worship. Spurgeon makes an observation
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that stopped me in my tracks, he says.
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We hear a lot of discourse concerning private prayer, but
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we almost never hear anything about private praise.
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That's very true. It's like a private Thanksgiving
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has just become this sleepy, forgotten affair.
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Why do you think that is? Why is prayer so much easier
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than praise? It is a striking observation and
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the mechanics behind it are quite revealing.
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Prayer is almost always driven by our immediate needs.
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When we are in trouble, when a loved one is sick, when the bank
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account is empty, we are wide awake to our lack.
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Pain and fear are excellent alarm clocks.
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They really are. So we ask for things, we cry
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out. But praise requires a completely
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different kind of alertness. It requires us to consciously
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recognize the goodness of God when we are not necessarily in a
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moment of crisis. It requires theological
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reflection. Spurgeon suggests that because
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our minds are half asleep on that enchanted ground, we
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neglect the solitary singing and private Thanksgiving that should
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characterize A believer's daily life.
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We only talk to God when something is broken.
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Spot on. We only interact with God when
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the alarm bells of tragedy are bringing, rather than
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maintaining a constant wakeful posture of gratitude.
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And he doesn't stop at private praise.
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He looks at public worship on Sunday mornings, and he points
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out something hilarious but also kind of devastating.
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He talks about mechanical worship.
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Oh, this part is brilliant. Literally outsourcing our
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adoration. He mentions the heathens of
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Tibet turning the wind to account religiously by making
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windmills pray for them. You write a prayer on a flag,
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the wind blows, the flag flutters, and the prayer is
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said. It's automatic.
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Said it and forget it. Right.
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But then he turns the mirror right back on his own English
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congregation and says we do the exact same thing.
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He talks about adjusting pipes and bellows to make a machine do
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the praising. He is talking about the massive
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pipe organs in Victorian churches.
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Or he mentions forming a choir as skilled singers, people who
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would be just as comfortable performing at the opera or the
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theater and letting them perform on behalf of the assembly.
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I have to ask because when I read this I wondered, does
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Spurgeon just hate beautiful music?
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Is he against a choir sounding good?
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Not at all. It is crucial to understand his
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target here. His critique is absolutely not
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about the aesthetic quality of the music.
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He is not advocating for bad singing or broken instruments.
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His target is the condition of the human heart.
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OK. So it's about the intention.
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Yes, the issue is the act of outsourcing.
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The danger Alizes when a congregation assumes that
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because the organ is playing loudly or because the
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professional singers are hitting the right notes with perfect
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harmony, that God is receiving genuine praise from the church.
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He is arguing against substituting mechanical or
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professional performance for personal, heartfelt adoration.
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If the believer is sitting in the Pew, essentially asleep,
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looking at their watch, thinking about lunch, letting the machine
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or the choir do the work, then the Lord is being robbed of the
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very thing he requires, which is the heart.
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OK, so if cold outsourced praise is the issue, how does Spurgeon
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suggest we actually fix it? Does he give a practical
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mechanism for waking up our worship?
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He does. He provides 3 specific realities
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we must wake up to if our praise is going to be genuine.
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The first one is remembering the mercies we have received and he
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gets incredibly granular here to shock the listener out of their
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apathy. He says we need a vivid, present
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sense of what we actually possess.
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He lists temporal mercies first to ground the concept.
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He tells his listeners you are not in a workhouse, you are not
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in a lunatic asylum, you are not in hell.
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You have food, you have clothing, you have a roof over
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your head. It's almost like he's telling
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them to look down at their own hands and realize I am breathing
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right now. I am not suffering in a
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hospital. He is forcing them out of the
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abstract and into the physical reality of God's provision.
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Precisely. And from those temporal mercies
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he moves to the spiritual mercies which are infinitely
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greater. He speaks of eternal love,
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redeeming grace from Calvary, the immense patience God shows
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toward our constant I'll manners in the wilderness.
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He argues that if we were actually awake to these massive
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historical and personal facts, if we truly comprehended what we
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have been saved from and what we have been given, our songs would
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naturally have volume and body. The silence in the Pew is a
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direct result of spiritual amnesia.
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That makes total sense. And that brings us to a second
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reason for waking up knowing the audience.
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And this is a massive shift in perspective.
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When we sing in church, we often think about the people around us
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like, are they looking at me? Am I off key?
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This person says look at who you are actually addressing.
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To praise God is to stand in the immediate presence of the
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blessed and only Potentate. Let's unpack that word
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potentate. It refers to a supreme ruler, A
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sovereign monarch possessing absolute authority.
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Spurgeon uses the analogy of courtiers in a royal palace to
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make his point. Like people waiting on a king.
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Right. If you were invited into the
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throne room of an earthly king or queen, you would not yawn
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while they were speaking to you. You would not nod off in the
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middle of a royal presentation. You would be hyper aware of
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every movement, every word. Furthermore, he points out that
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even the Seraphim, the burning, sinless angelic beings in
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heaven, veil their faces in that August presence.
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They are completely absorbed in the holiness of God.
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Therefore, for a sinful human being to offer sleepy, half
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hearted worship to the Creator is not just lazy, it is entirely
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inappropriate. It demonstrates A fundamental
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misunderstanding of who is actually in the room.
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Yeah, it's honestly insulting when you put it like that.
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And that leads right into the third reason, which is about the
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necessity of heart warmth. It's where he uses a phrase and
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I am not going to forget anytime soon.
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He says cold praise is semi blasphemy, Sam 5 blasphemy.
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That is an intense charge. Why does does he use such strong
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language? He uses that language because of
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what cold praise communicates. When you bring a cold, lifeless,
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muttered song to God, you are essentially making a theological
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statement. You are saying to the Creator of
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the universe you are not worthy of ardent praise.
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This poor sleepy effort, this leftover energy is good enough
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for you. It is an insult to his worth.
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To illustrate this, Spurgeon uses the biblical imagery of
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incense in a sensor. In the Old Testament temple
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system, incense was carefully compounded to be sweet and
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fragrant. But if that incense is just
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sitting in a cold bowl, it does nothing.
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It doesn't matter how sweet the ingredients are, it requires
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heat. You have to put actual burning
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coals of fire in with the incense so the smoke can ascend
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to heaven. Without the fire of the heart,
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the words of the hymn are just cold powder.
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OK, but where does that heat come from?
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I mean, it's easy to say be passionate, but we can't always
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manufacture feelings. If I'm having a terrible week,
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my heart might just feel cold. Does Spurgeon address how we get
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those coals of fire? He does, and his answer is
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highly countercultural. He suggests that the requirement
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for heat for those burning coals often comes from the most
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difficult circumstances imaginable.
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Spurgeon introduces the concept of the song of the afflicted.
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He provides examples of praise that are born entirely out of
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deep suffering. He mentions Job.
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Job is not sitting in a comfortable Pew.
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He is sitting on a dunghill covered in agonizing boils,
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scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery because he has
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lost his family, his wealth and his health.
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Just the worst situation imaginable.
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And yet, in that moment of ultimate devastation, Joke says,
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the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord, The heat of his suffering
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produced the most fragrant incense of praise.
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Spurgeon also mentions the three holy children, Shadrach,
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Meshach, and Abednego singing inside the literal flames of the
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fiery furnace. He even brings up a fable right
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the old story about the Nightingale.
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Yes, it was an old myth that the Nightingale, a bird known for
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its beautiful song in the dark, would only sing its absolute
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sweetest music when a thorn was physically piercing its breast.
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Spurgeon uses this to show that comfort often lulls us to sleep,
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while the thorn wakes us up to sing.
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I don't want to pause there and just speak to you listening
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right now. Think about your own life.
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How do you respond to God during a financial pinch, or when you
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are facing the sudden loss of property, or when you're sitting
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in a doctor's office dealing with a terrifying diagnosis?
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It is so natural in those moments to become bitter or to
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just shut down entirely. But Spurgeon is pointing out
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that those specific strokes of the rod often produce the
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purest, most awake adoration a human being can offer.
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When life is easy, we drift into that enchanted ground.
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We fall asleep. We get comfortable.
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Exactly. But when the foreign pierces the
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breast, the song that comes out is entirely awake.
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The suffering acts as the fire that makes the incense ascend.
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It burns away all the mechanical outsourced religion and leaves
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only genuine reliance on God. That intense reliance forces a
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person completely out of conventionality, and this leads
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directly into Spurgeon's critique of the environment
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where conventionality thrives the most, the pews of the
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church. He moves from individual worship
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to corporate critique. He speaks of entire
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congregations stuck in a rigid, unbreakable lethargy.
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He calls it the Sleepwalking Church.
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He goes hard here. He is not pulling any punches.
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He describes what he calls dissenting churches.
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Now, for context, dissenting churches were those outside the
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official Church of England. Historically, these were the
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groups that broke away because they wanted a pure, more fervent
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faith. They were the radicals at one
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point. They were the ones wide awake.
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Right. But Spurgeon looks at them in
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his day and says the fire is gone.
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He says the minister preaches in his sleep, the people sing in
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their sleep, the prayers are offered in sleep and even the
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communion. The Lord's Supper is celebrated
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in a huge spiritual slumber. It's a terrifying image of
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people doing all the right religious motions, saying all
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the right theological words, but remaining completely
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unconscious. To shatter that image, to
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breakthrough that calcified religious routine, he employs an
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incredibly intense metaphor. He says that if a real earnest
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sermon were preached among them, it would be as if the King of
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Prussia's Krupp guns had dropped a live shell into their midst.
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OK. The Krupp guns.
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We have to explain that because in 1871 that was a very specific
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and probably very shocking historical reference to make in
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a church. Absolutely.
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The Franco Prussian War had just occurred in 1871.
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The Krep guns were the most fearsome destructive artillery
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in the world. They were highly advanced breach
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loading steel cannons utilized by the Prussian army and they
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utterly devastated the opposition.
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So weapons of mass destruction for that era.
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Weapons of absolute carnage When Spurgeon says he wishes a
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spiritual live shell from one of those guns could fall into these
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sleepy congregations, he is using language that would have
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made his listeners gasp. He wants a sermon to burst among
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them, killing their conventionality and wounding
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their self satisfaction. He is stating that polite,
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gentle encouragement is no longer sufficient.
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Only a massive explosive disruption can wake up a church
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that has fallen asleep in its own traditions.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, why is that level of
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violence, spiritually speaking, necessary?
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Why can't we just let people enjoy their quiet, sleepy Sunday
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mornings? What's the harm in a little
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religious relaxation? If we connect them to the bigger
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picture, the necessity for that disruption comes from the
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reality of the environment. The church is not a resort, it
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is enemy territory. Spurgeon points out that the
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devil is constantly operating while believers sleep.
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The old lion is always growling, always prowling.
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He brings up two wild biblical examples to illustrate this
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danger. The 1st is King Saul.
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Saul is hunting David, trying to kill him.
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But one night Saul falls asleep on the ground.
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David and his military commander Avishai sneak right past the
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guards and into the center of the camp.
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Avishai is standing right over Saul with a spear.
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He is begging David for permission to just pin Saul to
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the earth with one strike. And Saul has no idea.
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None. Saul is completely oblivious,
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snoring away while a lethal weapon is hovering inches from
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his chest. And then the second example,
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Samson. Samson, the strongest man in the
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world, is sleeping on Delilah's lap.
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He's comfortable, he feels safe. It's a moment of intimacy and
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rest. And right in that moment of huge
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slumber, his hair is cut, his strength is stolen from him, and
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he wakes up only have his eyes gouged out by the Philistines.
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Spurgeon tells these stories and then shouts to his congregation.
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Up, you drowsy professors. The Philistines are upon you.
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Those narratives perfectly illustrate the extreme
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vulnerability of the sleeper. The enemy does his most
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efficient work not when the believer is actively engaged in
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battle, sword and hand, but when the believer is resting in a
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false sense of security. The danger is that a person can
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be heavily involved in Christian activity, attending the
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services, participating in the rituals without any actual
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spiritual alertness. This introduces A psychological
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state that Spurgeon finds horrifying.
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Here's where it gets really interesting, this idea of
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habitual motion versus true life.
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He calls it spiritual somnambulism, Sleepwalking.
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I find this fascinating because he notes that physical
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sleepwalkers can do incredible, dangerous things.
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They can walk on dizzying heights, bouncing on window
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ledges or roof peaks, places they would never have the
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courage to walk if they were awake.
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Because the fear is turned off. Right.
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Their lack of awareness removes their natural fear, and Spurgeon
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connects this directly to churchgoers who engage in
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covetousness or who spend all their time with worldly company.
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If they were spiritually awake, their conscience would be
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screaming. They would be terrified of the
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danger. They would see the sheer drop
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beneath them and run away. But because they are asleep,
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their conscience is silenced. They wander right to the edge of
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the Cliff of sin without a second thought.
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It is the terrifying reality of unthinking habit.
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The physical body can perform complex tasks through muscle
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memory, while the brain is effectively offline.
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In the same way, Spurgeon warns that people can pursue their
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callings, answer social signals, teach a Sunday school class,
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hand out gospel tracts, and you genuinely useful charitable work
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entirely out of habit. Which looks great on the
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outside. It looks fantastic.
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They maintain the outward appearance of immense industry,
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but there is no vital communion driven life behind the action.
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The hands are moving, the mouth is speaking, but the soul is
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utterly dormant, and this dormancy inevitably leads to
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spiritual poverty. He says sleep brings thistles,
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thorns, and rags. That is what grows in the field
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of a sluggard. But more than that, you miss
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out. The sleeping Christian misses
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the King's entertainments. There are specific glorious
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promises in the Bible that are meant only for the watchful.
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If you just fold your arms and toss upon the bed of indolence,
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you missed the banquet entirely. That internal poverty of the
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soul translates directly into a loss of outward effectiveness.
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A sleeping church cannot impact a waking world.
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This introduces the intense urgency of the hour and
21:12
Spurgeon's argument. He shifts his focus from the
21:14
internal state of the church to the sheer brevity of human life.
21:18
He points his listeners to the expanding cemeteries and the
21:21
constant funeral processions wending their way through the
21:23
streets of London. He says while you sleep, men are
21:26
dying. That is a punch to the gut.
21:28
It really is. The cemeteries are getting
21:30
bigger every single day. The opportunity to speak truth
21:34
is vanishing, and to explain this time sensitivity, he uses
21:38
an incredible analogy of the seal and the wax.
21:41
In 1871, if you wanted to seal a letter, you melted wax onto the
21:45
paper and pressed a heavy metal seal into it to leave an
21:48
impression. Spurgeon says there are specific
21:51
moments in life when a person's conscience is soft like hot wax.
21:54
Right like after a major life event.
21:56
Exactly. Maybe they just went through a
21:58
tragedy, or maybe they're asking deep questions about life.
22:01
That is the exact moment the believer must press the seal of
22:04
the gospel down onto their heart.
22:06
But if the believer's spiritually asleep, they miss
22:09
the moment entirely. The wax cools, it hardens back
22:12
up, and the opportunity to make an impression vanishes forever.
22:15
Their conscience becomes seared. And you cannot press a seal into
22:18
cold wax. It is a brilliant illustration
22:21
of how fleeting our opportunities are.
22:23
The window for spiritual impact is extraordinarily narrow.
22:27
If the Christian is not highly alert to the subtle softening of
22:30
a neighbor's heart or a family member's sudden inquiry about
22:33
faith, the moment passes, often permanently.
22:36
This urgency is precisely why Spurgeon expresses a stark,
22:40
almost offensive preference regarding the makeup of a church
22:43
congregation. He explicitly say it's he would
22:46
rather have half a dozen red hot believers than half a dozen 100
22:50
ordinary formal professors of religion.
22:53
He actually says he would as soon hunt with dead dogs as try
22:56
to work with a crowd of sleepy professors.
22:59
That is such a vivid dark imagery.
23:01
Imagine trying to go fox hunting, blowing the horn, but
23:04
all your hounds are just lying dead on the ground you're not
23:06
going to catch. Anything.
23:07
Not a single thing. He says these massive crowds of
23:10
formal checklist Christians are adults by nature and practice
23:15
and all their slothfulness has drained out their soul's life.
23:18
Why is he so dismissive of large numbers?
23:21
I mean, most pastors today would kill to have 600 people show up
23:24
regardless of their spiritual temperature.
23:26
Why does Spurgeon prefer 6 awake people to 600 asleep ones?
23:31
Because spiritual momentum depends on vital felt life in
23:35
the soul, not mere head counts. A dull formal servant offers
23:39
zero utility to the actual mission of the Church.
23:42
In fact, they are worse than useless.
23:44
They're a liability. A large crowd of sleeping people
23:47
create the illusion of strength where there is only lethargy.
23:50
It makes the church think it is healthy simply because the
23:53
building is full. A false sense of security.
23:55
Yes, but six people who are fully awake, whose hearts are
23:58
burning with conviction, who are deeply engaged with God in
24:00
prayer can impact a city far more effectively than 600 people
24:04
who are just occupying space and answering signals out of habit.
24:08
The Holy Spirit works through the red hot believer.
24:10
The Spirit does not bless apathy.
24:12
So what does this all mean? How do we actually fix this?
24:15
If a listener is sitting there realizing, wow, I am the person
24:19
operating on spiritual dial up, I am the one sleeping on the
24:21
edge of the Cliff, what do they do?
24:24
Spurgeon doesn't just diagnose the.
24:26
Disease and leave us to. Die.
24:28
He provides an entire arsenal of awakening.
24:30
He gives 7 specific remedies to rouse the soul, and I want to
24:34
walk through these carefully because the mechanics of how
24:37
they work are fascinating. Let's start with the first one,
24:39
which seems obvious but is usually the hardest to actually
24:42
do. The first remedy is prayer.
24:44
He states clearly that the knees are the posture for conquering
24:47
sloth. We cannot manufacture spiritual
24:50
life on our own through sheer willpower.
24:52
It must come from outside of us, from the source of all fresh
24:54
springs. He instructs the listener to
24:57
make it a point of direct transaction with God.
24:59
Do not just pray generally. Explicitly ask the Spirit to
25:02
arouse you from the couch of indolence.
25:05
Recognize your inability to wake yourself and ask for divine
25:07
intervention. OK, so after prayer, the second
25:10
method is what he calls keeping a spiritual alarm, an internal
25:15
alarm clock. But how does he define that?
25:18
He says it is a tender conscience, and the way he
25:21
describes it as brilliant. He says your conscience should
25:24
be as quick as the apple of the eye.
25:26
Think about the mechanics of the human eye.
25:28
If a tiny speck of dust, something you can barely even
25:31
see, gets near your eye, your eyelid instinctively snaps shut
25:35
to protect it. It is hypersensitive.
25:37
It reacts instantly. Right, Spurgeon says.
25:40
Your conscience should be that sensitive to sin or to an
25:43
opportunity to do good. When a temptation gets near,
25:46
this internal alarm should ring loudly and immediately.
25:49
Not 10 minutes after you have already failed, not a week later
25:52
when you feel guilty. It needs to ring the second the
25:54
dust gets near the eye. Which leads to the third method,
25:56
involving external help. He calls this method the
25:59
policeman, referring to an earnest minister.
26:02
In that era, people who needed to be up very early for work,
26:05
like factory workers, would sometimes pay the local
26:07
policeman on his beat to knock heavily on their door as he
26:09
walked by. Like a human alarm clock.
26:12
Exactly, Spurgeon says. A faithful preacher acts in this
26:16
exact capacity. His job is not to sing
26:18
lullabies. His job is to strike the door.
26:21
And he warns the listener, do not get angry at the policeman
26:25
for waking you up. This is such a common human
26:28
reaction. We hate the person who wakes us
26:30
from a comfortable sleep. But Spurgeon says, what is the
26:33
use of a dog that never darks when a burglar comes?
26:36
Why hire a doctor if you were going to get furiously mad when
26:39
he points out the source of your disease?
26:41
Ministers are not there to pander to your taste or flatter
26:43
your vanity. They're there to knock on the
26:45
door heavily to startle you out of the burning building.
26:48
The 4th method he provides is beautifully poetic yet highly
26:52
practical. Sunlight in the face.
26:54
He suggests that if you want to wake up, you should draw the
26:57
blinds so the morning sun hits your face directly.
27:00
Spiritually, this means intentionally walking in the
27:03
company of the Sun of Righteousness.
27:05
He references the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
27:09
They were walking with the resurrected Christ, and later
27:11
they asked, did not our heartburn within us?
27:14
Constant, intentional fellowship with Christ naturally chases
27:18
away the shadows of spiritual sloth.
27:20
The closer you stand to the fire, the warmer you get.
27:23
The 5th method is what I would call St.
27:25
Noise. You know that feeling when you
27:27
were trying to sleep in on a Saturday, but the garbage truck
27:30
comes clanging down the street? Or the construction crew next
27:33
door starts using jackhammers. Oh, it's the worst.
27:35
You cannot sleep through it. It's infuriating, but it wakes
27:39
you up. Spreading says we should look
27:41
out the window at the activity of the worldling.
27:44
Look at the people in the corporate world, sweating and
27:46
laboring and pushing so incredibly hard, sacrificing
27:49
their families and their health for earthly wages that are going
27:53
to burn up anyway. Their sheer industry should
27:56
shame believers if they work that hard for temporary decaying
28:00
things. How much more should we put
28:02
forth our entire strength for an eternal master and an eternal
28:05
reward? It is a profound use of
28:08
comparison. The 6th Method builds on that
28:10
idea of comparison by suggesting the reading of biographies,
28:13
examining the memorials of eminent servants of the past,
28:16
martyrs who died for the faith, reformers who reshaped history,
28:19
missionaries who gave up everything.
28:21
Spurgeon notes that reading about their lives makes him feel
28:24
ashamed of his own dwarf or stature compared to those
28:26
spiritual giants. I love that he is basically
28:29
saying if you think you were doing great, if you were feeling
28:32
pretty satisfied with your spiritual routine, go read about
28:35
someone who is actually awake. It is deliberate tactic to cure
28:39
the pride of spiritual dwarfs. It shakes us out of our do
28:43
nothing complacency by showing us what a fully awakened human
28:47
life can actually accomplish. And the 7th method is the
28:50
ultimate final wake up call, the trumpet of the second Coming.
28:54
He points to the sudden unexpected return of the
28:57
bridegroom. He references the parable of the
28:59
10 virgins. Behold, the bridegroom cometh.
29:01
Go ye out to meet him. That was the midnight cry that
29:05
woke everyone when they all slumbered.
29:07
We do not know the day or the hour of that event, so that
29:09
imminent reality should keep our minds alert and our lamps
29:12
trimmed. Living with the constant
29:14
alertness that history has a culmination point prevents the
29:17
believer from settling too comfortably into the present
29:19
moment now. Despite all these incredible
29:22
methods, prayer, the tender conscience, the preaching, the
29:24
sun, the street noise, the biographies, the second coming,
29:27
Spurgeon acknowledges a very frustrating human reality, the
29:32
visceral reaction to being woken up.
29:35
He brings in a joke by a guy named Sidney Smith to illustrate
29:37
this. Sidney Smith was a preacher who
29:39
joked about people sleeping in church.
29:41
He said, what good have I done today?
29:44
The people who needed my rebutes slept right through them, and
29:47
only the wakeful people heard me and they didn't need the advice.
29:51
That's the classic preacher's dilemma right there.
29:53
It really is. The slugger doesn't just sleep,
29:55
he actively fights being woken up.
29:58
When the alarm goes off, what do we do?
30:00
We hit the snooze button. We say little more sleep, a
30:02
little more slumber, and we roll over.
30:05
We actually resent the person knocking at the door.
30:07
Spurgeon pleads with the believer to resist that natural
30:10
urge to hit the spiritual snooze button.
30:13
When conviction hits, act on it immediately.
30:15
Do not delay. Up to this point, Spurgeon has
30:17
been speaking primarily to drowsy believers.
30:20
But in the final section of the sermon, the tone shifts
30:23
dramatically. He turns away from the sleeping
30:26
Christian and addresses the completely unregenerate,
30:28
unconverted Sinner. He issues a final chilling
30:32
alarm. Chilling is the right word.
30:35
He talks about the silent approach of justice.
30:37
He says the feet of justice are shod with wool.
30:40
Think about the terror of that image.
30:42
Wool in shoes. You cannot hear them coming down
30:45
the hallway. Complete silence.
30:46
Right. There is no heavy boob step to
30:48
warn you. The approach is completely
30:49
silent. It is incredibly swift, and when
30:51
the stroke finally falls, it will be overwhelming.
30:54
You'll be caught entirely unaware.
30:56
This raises an important question regarding the mechanics
30:58
of salvation. How can someone who is
31:01
spiritually dead possibly wake up to this danger?
31:04
The unconverted person is not just taking a nap.
31:07
They are fundamentally insensible to their own peril.
31:09
Their radar is broken. Spurgeon outlines how God
31:13
sovereignly chooses to wake individuals from this state of
31:15
death. He references the historical
31:17
example of Augustine. Augustine was in a garden living
31:20
a wicked life, distressingly trapped in his sin, unable to
31:23
free himself. He heard a child's voice from
31:25
over a wall chanting take, read, take, read.
31:29
He opened the Bible, read a passage in Romans, and was
31:31
instantly, miraculously awakened to his need for a Savior.
31:34
God used a seemingly random circumstance to sovereignly
31:37
Pierce His deafness. Sometimes God uses softer means
31:40
like a child's voice voice, but sometimes he uses incredibly
31:44
painful awakenings. Spurgeon mentions a mother's
31:47
deathbed, the grief of watching a parent die, acting as a soul
31:51
saving sermon for a rebellious family, or a literal Thunder
31:54
clap that terrifies someone into realizing their own mortality or
31:58
a devastating financial loss. He says God will shake heaven
32:01
and earth. He will cause immense pain
32:03
sooner than let one of his elect perish in unfeeling security.
32:07
The pain is a severe mercy. To drive this terrifying peril
32:11
home, Spurgeon concludes the sermon with a highly distressing
32:14
narrative. It is an illustration that
32:16
encapsulates everything he has been arguing The story of the
32:19
Indian in the canoe I. Want to spend some time on this
32:21
because it is an epic piece of storytelling.
32:24
He describes a Native American man in his boat on a Great
32:27
American river. The moorings that held the boat
32:29
to the dock have broken. The man is sound asleep in the
32:32
bottom of the canoe and a current of the river has caught
32:34
him. He is drifting rapidly and just
32:37
ahead of him is a massive roaring cataract, a huge
32:40
waterfall like Niagara Falls. The critical element of this
32:44
narrative is not just the man in the boat, it is the people on
32:47
the shore. The people on the riverbank see
32:49
the man. They see the broken mooring.
32:51
They see the waterfall. They comprehend the absolute
32:54
certainty of his destruction. So they begin shouting.
32:58
They run along the bank, waving their arms, raising alarms from
33:01
all sides. But they're vigilance.
33:03
They're panic. They're wide awake.
33:04
Awareness of the danger is entirely useless to the sleeper.
33:08
Unless he himself becomes aware of his peril, they cannot swim
33:12
out to him. The current is too fast.
33:14
The river speeds up. The canoe is moving faster and
33:16
faster toward the edge. Finally, the shouting from the
33:19
shore penetrates his sleep and the man wakes up.
33:21
He starts up, grabs his paddle and tries to fight.
33:24
He digs the paddle into the water, but the strength of the
33:27
current is now gigantic. It is completely overwhelming.
33:30
The time for paddling was a mile back up the river.
33:32
He sprang upright. He fully realized his doom.
33:35
His eyes were wide open in terror, and he disappeared over
33:38
the falls. It's just devastating.
33:40
He perished not because he never woke up, but because he woke up
33:43
too late. Spurgeon applies this to the
33:45
unconverted soul. He says some people on their
33:48
dying beds wake up just in time to see their danger, but not in
33:51
time to escape it. They finally realize the truth
33:54
of eternity, but the current of death is already pulling them
33:57
over the edge. They're carried right over the
33:59
cataract of judgement. So to you listening to this
34:01
right now, if you are resting in a false peace, if you are
34:04
treating the reality of God lightly, if you are drifting on
34:06
the river of this culture, turn to the reconciling work of
34:09
Christ right now. Do it before the water speeds up
34:12
too much. Do it while the wax is still
34:14
soft. It is a sobering, necessary
34:16
call. The wrath of God and the reality
34:19
of divine justice are not concepts to be smoothed over or
34:22
ignored. Spurgeon pleads with the
34:24
unawakened to turn to Christ immediately, where forgiveness
34:28
and safety are guaranteed to everyone who rests entirely in
34:31
his finished work. The along is sounding precisely
34:34
so you don't have to go over the falls.
34:35
And that. Leaves us with a final thought
34:37
to take with you today. Think back to that incredible
34:39
story of the canoe, and specifically think about the
34:43
people standing on the riverbank every single day.
34:46
You were occupying one of two positions.
34:49
You are either. The person to sleep in the boat.
34:51
Drifting toward the falls. Unaware of the danger ahead.
34:54
Or you are the person standing on the shore watching it happen
34:58
to your friends, your family, your.
34:59
Coworkers, if you are awake. If you are safely on the shore,
35:04
the question you have to answer today is how loud are you
35:06
willing to shout to wake the person drifting toward?
35:09
The drop. Thank you.
35:10
So much for joining us for this deep dive.
35:12
Keep your spiritual. Alarms fully wound and we will
35:15
see you next time.