It comes like the morning bugle to an army, 'Awake, thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead.' Now, I am not going to waste your time by
talking about the old, well-worn, interminable, and unprofitable
controversy as to God's part and man's in this awaking, but I do wish to
insist upon this plain fact, that the command here presupposes upon our
parts, whether we be Christian people or not, the ability to obey. God
would not mock a man by telling him to do what he cannot do. And it is
perfectly clear that the one attitude in which we may be sure of God's
help to keep any of His commandments, and this amongst the rest, is when
we are trying to keep them. 'Stretch out thy hand,' said Christ to the
man whose disease was that he could not stretch it out. 'Arise and
walk,' said Christ to the man whose lifelong sadness it was that his
limbs had no power. 'Lazarus, come forth,' said Christ unto the dull,
cold ear of death. And Lazarus heard, wherever he was, and, though his
feet were tangled with the graveclothes, he came stumbling out, because
the power to do what he was bid had come wrapped in the command to do
it. And if these other two men had turned to Jesus and said, 'What is
the use of telling me to stretch out my hand, or me to move my limbs?
Thou knowest that I can not,' they would have lain there paralysed till
they died. But when they heard the command there came a tingling sense
of new ability into the withered limb. 'And he stretched forth his hand,
and it was restored whole as the other.' Ay, but the process of
restoration began when he willed to stretch it out in obedience to the
command, which was a promise as much as a command. So we need not
trouble ourselves with the question how the dead man can arise, or how
the sleeper can wake himself.
This, at all events, is clear, that if what I have been saying is true
as to the main point in view in both the metaphors, viz. the
unconsciousness of the unseen world, and the slumbering powers that we
have within us, then the remedy for that _is_ in our own hands. There
are scarcely any limits to be put to a man's capacity of determining for
himself what shall be the object of his thought, his interest, his
affection, or his pursuits. You can withdraw your desires and
contemplations from the intrusive and absorbing present. You can coerce
yourselves to concentrate more thought than you do, more interest,
affection, and effort than you have ever done, upon the things that are
unseen. You can turn your gaze thither. You cannot directly and
immediately regulate your feelings, but you can settle the thoughts
which shall guide the feelings, and you can, and you _do_, fix for
yourselves, though not consciously, the things which shall be uppermost
in your regard, and supreme in the ordering of your life.
And so the commandment of my text is but this, 'Wake from the illusions;
rouse yourselves to the contemplation of the things unseen and eternal.
Let the Lord always be before your face.' And you will be awake and
alive.
III. And so my last point is the promise of the morning light which
gladdens the wakeful eye. 'Christ shall give thee light.'
Now, if the words of my text are an allusion to the prophecy to which I
have already referred, it is striking to observe, though I cannot dwell
upon the thought, that Paul here unhesitatingly ascribes to Jesus Christ
an action which, in the source of his quotation, is ascribed to Jehovah.
'Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and the glory of _Jehovah_ is
risen upon thee,' says the prophet. 'Arise! thou that sleepest,' says
Paul, 'and _Christ_ shall give thee light.' As always, he regards his
Lord as possessed of fully divine attributes; and he has learned the
depth of the Master's own saying, 'Whatsoever things the Father doeth,
these also doeth the Son _likewise_.' But I turn from that to the main
point to be insisted upon here, that the Apostle is setting forth this
as a certainty, that if a man will open his eyes he will have light
enough. The sunshine is flooding the world. It falls upon the closed
eyelids of the sleepers, and would fain gently lift them, that it might
enter. A man needs nothing more than to shake off the slumber, and bring
himself into the conscious presence of the unseen glories that surround
us, in order to get light enough and to spare--whether you mean by light
knowledge for guidance on the path of life, or whether you mean by it
purity that shall scatter the darkness of evil from the heart, or
whether you mean by it the joy that comes in the morning, radiant and
fresh as the sunrise over the Eastern hills. 'Awake, and Christ _shall_
give thee light.'
The miracle of Goshen is reversed, in the case of many of us, the land
is flashing in the sunshine, but within our houses there is midnight
darkness, not because there is not light around, but because the
shutters are shut. Oh, brethren, it is a solemn thing to choose the
darkness rather than the light. And you do that--though not consciously,
and in so many words, making your election--by indifference, by neglect,
by the direction of the main current of your thoughts and desires and
aims to perishable things, and by the deeds that follow from such a
disposition. These choose for you, and you, in effect, choose by them.
I beseech you, do not let Christ's own trumpet-call fall upon your ears,
as if faint and far away, like the unwelcome summons that comes to a
drowsy man in the morning. You know that if, having been called, he
makes up his mind to lie a little longer, he is almost sure to fall more
dead asleep than he was before. And if you hear, however dim, distantly,
and through my poor words, Christ's voice saying to you, 'Awake! thou
that sleepest,' do not neglect it. The only safe course is to spring up
at once. If thou dost, 'Christ shall give thee light,' never fear. The
light is all about you. You only need to open your eyes, and it will
pour in. If you do not, you surround yourself with darkness that may be
felt here, and ensures for yourself a horror of great darkness in the
death hereafter.