The Enchanted Ground

"Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober." 1 Thessalonians 5:6

OUTLINE–
I. What Is That State of Sleep into Which the Christian Man May Fall?
The man who is asleep is in a state of insensibility
The man who is asleep is subject to various illusions.
The man who is asleep is in a state of inaction.
The man who is asleep is in a state of insecurity.

II. Some Considerations to Wake up Sleepy Christians.
Awake from your slumber, because your Lord is coming.
Will you sleep while souls are being lost?

III. When Is the Christian Most Liable to Sleep?
When his temporal circumstances are all right.
When all goes well in spiritual matters.
When we get near our journey’s end.

IV. A Little Good Advice to the Sleeping Christian.
Keep Christian company.
Look at interesting things.
Let the wind blow on you.
Think of the place to which you are going.

As the spiritual guide of the flock of God along the intricate mazes of experience, it is the duty of the gospel minister to point out every turning of the road to heaven, to speak concerning its dangers or its privileges, and to warn any whom he may suspect to be in a position peculiarly perilous. Now, there is a portion of the road which leads from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, which has in it, perhaps, more dangers than any other portion of the way. It does not abound with lions, there are no dragons in it; it has no dark woods, and no deep pitfalls, yet more seeming pilgrims have been destroyed in that portion of the road than anywhere else, and not even doubting Castle with all its host of bones can show so many who have been slain there. It is the part of the road called the Enchanted Ground. The great geographer, John Bunyan, well pictured it when he said- "I then saw in my dream, that they went on until they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull, and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, I do now begin to grow so drowsy, that I can scarcely hold up my eyes; let us lie down here, and take one nap. "CHR. By no means, lest sleeping we never wake more. "HOPE. Why my brother? sleep is sweet to the laboring man; we may be refreshed if we take a nap." "CHR. Do you not remember that one of the Shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that, that we should beware of sleeping; wherefore "let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober."

There is no doubt, many of us, beloved, who are passing over this plain; and I fear that this is the condition of the majority of churches in the present day. They are lying down on the settles of Lukewarmness in the Arbors of the Enchanted Ground. There is not that activity and zeal we could wish to see among them; they are not perhaps, notably heterodox; they may not be invaded by the lion of persecution, but they are somewhat worse than that- they are lying down to slumber, like Heedless and Too-Bold in the Arbor of Sloth. May God grant that his servant may be the means ofarousing the church from its lethargy and stirring it up from its slumbers, lest haply professors should sleep the sleep of death. This morning I intend to show you what is meant by the state of sleep into which Christians sometimes fall; secondly, I shall use some considerations, if possible, to wake up such as are slumbering; thirdly, I shall mark sundry times when the Christian is most liable to fall asleep: and shall conclude by giving you some advice as to the mode in which you should conduct yourselves when you are passing over the Enchanted Ground, and feel drowsiness weighing down your eyelids.

I. First, WHAT IS THAT STATE OF SLEEP INTO WHICH THE CHRISTIAN MAN MAY FALL?

It is not death. He was dead once, but he is now alive in Christ Jesus; and therefore shall never die; but though a living man shall not die, being quickened by an immortal life, yet that living man may sleep, and that sleep is so nearly akin to death, that we have known slumbering Christians mistaken for dead, carnal sinners. Come, beloved, let me picture to you the state of the Christian while he is in a condition of sleep.

First, sleep is a state of insensibility and such is that state which too often is upon even the best children of God. When a man is asleep he isinsensible. The world goes on, and he knows nothing about it. The watchman calls beneath his window, and he sleeps on still. A fire is in a neighboring street, his neighbor’s house is burned to ashes, but he is asleep and knows it not. People are sick in the house, but he is not awakened; they may die, and he weeps not for them. A revolution may be raging in the streets of his city; a king may be losing his crown; but he that is asleep shares not in the turmoil of politics. A volcano may burst somewhere near him, and he may be in imminent peril; but he escapes not; he is sound asleep, he is insensible.

The winds are howling, the thunders are rolling across the sky, and the lightnings flash at his window; but he that can sleep on cares not for these, and is insensible to them all. The sweetest music is passing through the street; but he sleeps, and only in dreams does he hear the sweetness. The most terrific wailings may assail his ears; but sleep has sealed them with the wax of slumber, and he hears not. Let the world break in sunder, and the elements go to ruin, only keep him asleep, and he will not perceive it.

Christian, behold your condition- have you not sometimes been brought into a condition of insensibility? You wished you could feel; but all you felt was pain because you could not feel. You wished you could pray. It was not that you felt prayerless, but it was because you did not feel at all. You sighed once; you would give a world if you could sigh now. You used to groan once; a groan now would be worth a golden star if you could buy it. As for songs, you can sing them, but then your heart does not go with them. You go to the house of God; but when "the multitude that keep holy day" in the full tide of song send their music up to heaven, you hear it, but your heart does not leap at the sound. Prayer goes solemnly like the evening sacrifice up to God’s throne; once you could pray too; but now, while your body is in the house of God, your heart is not there. You feel you have brought the carcass of your being, but the soul is gone away from it: it is a dead lifeless corpse. You have become like a formalist; you feel that there is not that savor, that unction, in the preaching, that there used to be. There is no difference in your minister, you know; the change is in yourself.

The hymns and the prayers are just the same, but you have fallen into a state of slumber. Once if you thought of a man’s being damned you would weep your very soul out in tears; but now you could sit at the very brink of hell, and hear its wailings unmoved. Once the thought of restoring a sinner from the error of his ways would have made you start from your bed at midnight, and you would have rushed through the cold air to help to rescue a sinner from his sins. Now, talk to you about perishing multitudes, and you hear it as an old, old tale. Tell you of thousands swept by the mighty flood of sin onwards to the precipice of destruction, you express your regret, you give your contribution, but your heart goes not with it. You must confess that you are insensible- not entirely, but too much so. You want to be awake, but you groan because you feel yourselves to be in this state of slumber.

Then again, he that sleeps is subject to various illusions. When we sleep, judgment goes from us, and imagination holds carnival within our brain. When we sleep, dreams arise and fashion in our head strange things. Sometimes we are tossed on the stormy deep, and anon we revel in kings palaces. We gather up gold and silver as if they were but the pebbles of the shore; and anon we are poor and naked, shivering in the winter blast. What illusions deceive us! The beggar in his dreams becomes richer than Solomon; and the rich man as poor as Lazarus; the sick man is well, the healthy man has lost his limbs, or is dead. Yes, dreams do make us descend to hell, or even carry us to heaven.

Christian if you are one of the sleepy brotherhood, you are subject to diverse illusions. Strange thoughts come to you which you never had before. Sometimes you doubt if there be a God, or if you do exist yourself. You tremble lest the gospel should not be true; and the

old doctrine which ones you did hold with a stern hand you are almost inclined to let go. Vile heresies assail you. You think that the Lord that bought you was not the Son of God. The devil tells you that you are none of the Lord’s, and you dreams that you are cast away from the love of the covenant. You cry,
"I would, but cannot sing;
I would, but cannot pray"

You feel as if it were all in question whether you are one of the Lord’s or not. Or perhaps your dreams are brighter, and you dreams that you are somebody, great and mighty, a special favorite of heaven- pride puffs you up; you dream that you are rich and have need of nothing, while you are naked, poor, and miserable. Is this your state, O Christian? If so, may God wake you up from it!

Again, sleep is a state of inaction. No daily bread is earned by him that sleeps. The man who is stretched upon his couch neither writes books, nor tills the ground, nor ploughs the sea, nor does anything else. His hands hang down, his pulse beats, and life there is, but he is positively dead as to activity. Oh, beloved, here is the state of many of you. How many Christians are inactive! Once it was their delight to instruct the young in the Sabbath-school, but that is now given up. Once they attended the early prayer-meeting, but not now. Once they would be hewers of wood and drawers of water, but alas; they are asleep now. Am I talking of what may happen? Is it not too true almost universally? Are not the churches asleep?

Where are the ministers that preach? We have men that read their manuscripts, and talk essays: but is that preaching? We have men that can amuse an audience for twenty minutes is that preaching? Where are the men that preach their hearts out, and say their souls in every sentence? Where are the men that make it, not a profession, but a vocation, the breath of their bodies, the marrow of their bones, the delight of their spirits? Where are the Whitfields and Wesleys now? Are they not gone, gone, gone? Where are the Rowland Hills now, who preached every day, and three times a day, and were not afraid of preaching everywhere the unsearchable riches of Christ? Brethren, the church slumbers.

It is not merely that the pulpit is a sentry-box with the sentinel fast asleep, but the people are affected. How are the prayer-meetings almost universally neglected? Our own church stands out like an almost solitary green island in the midst of a dark, dark sea; one bright pearl in the depths of an ocean of discord and confusion. Look at neighboring churches. Step into the vestry, and see a smaller band of people than you would like to think of, assembled round the pastor, whose heart is dull and heavy. Hear one brother after another pour out the dull monotonous prayer that he has said by heart these fifty years, and then go away and say, "Where is the spirit of prayer, where the life of devotion?" Is it not almost extinct? Are not our churches "fallen, fallen, fallen, from their high estate?" God wake them up, and send them more earnest and praying men.

Once more. The man who is asleep is in a state of insecurity. The murderer smites him that sleeps; the midnight robber plunders his house that rests listlessly on his pillow. Jael smites a sleeping Sisera. Abner takes away the spear from the bolster of a slumbering Saul. A sleeping Eutychus falls from the third loft, and is taken up dead. A sleeping Samson is shorn of his locks, and the Philistines are upon him. Sleeping men are ever in danger; they cannot ward off the blow of the enemy or strike back.

Christian, if you are sleeping, you are in danger! Your life, I know, can never be taken from you, that is hid with Christ in God. But oh! you may lose your spear from your bolster; you may lose much of your faith; and your cruse of water wherewith you do moisten your lips may be stolen by the prowling thief. Oh! you little know your danger. Even now the black-winged angel takes his spear, and standing at your head, he says to Jesus, (to David) "Shall I smite him? I will smite him but once." (David says) our Jesus whispers, "You shall not smite him. Take his spear and his cruse, but you shall not kill him." But oh! awake, you slumberer! Start up from the place where you now lie in your insecurity. This is not the sleep of Jacob, in which ladders unite heaven and earth, and angels tread their ascending rounds; but this is the sleep where ladders are raised from hell, and devils climb upward from the pit to molest your spirit!

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