Warning and Encouragement

Next Part Warning and Encouragement 2

I sleep, but my heart wakes: it is the voice of my beloved that knocks,

saying, "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled:

for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night."

--Song of Solomon 5:2.

How changeable is the creature! In the verse preceding our text, we find the spouse in a happy, healthy, heavenly frame of mind, for her Beloved was with her, and she was in the enjoyment of the closest communion with him. We find him saying, "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved." Yet, from the height of this glorious fellowship, how soon the spouse comes down to the depths of such a cry as this, "I sleep, but my heart wakes"!

Truly, the weather of our isle is not more variable than the feelings of believers. One day, the sun shines hot and strong; the next day comes a black cloud, accompanied with the lightning-flash and the voice of thunder; then come the rattling drops of hail; and anon, in a few more hours, it is hot again, or perhaps the chilly north-wind begins to blow. Have you not been on Mount Tabor at one moment, and at another in the Valley of Achor? Have you not been at one time, like the chariots of Amminadab, driving so fast that the axles were hot with speed, and soon after you have been like Pharaoh's chariots when the wheels were taken off, so that you crave heavily.

Now you mount as upon eagle's wings, and anon you sink as in deep mire, where there is no standing; at one moment, delighting in God's goodness and mercy, and the next moment, crying, "All your waves and your billows have gone over me." Lord, what a changeable creature is man! When you have taken him up to his highest altitude, how speedily he comes down, by the force of your hand, to the very depths! How soon do you bring him down from his highest eminence even to the very dust!

Christian, when the Lord favors you, and your soul walks in near fellowship with him, remember that there is a devil within you and a devil outside of you. Be careful of your footsteps; even when you are on the top of the mountain, even when Jesus is sitting by you, and whispering in your ear that you are his, watch with the greatest, possible care, for never do you lose your inward corruption. Your communion with Christ may be transient, but your corruption is perpetual. To be with Christ is but a thing of a moment with you, but to be, with your corruption is a thing of every hour in the day. I beg you, keep this in mind; and whenever you are in your best frame, then be doubly careful, lest you should lose your Beloved, and have to cry once, again, "I sleep, but my heart wakes."

Dr. Ives, who used to live on the road to Tyburn at the time when prisoners were always carried in a cart to be hanged there, would frequently say, when he had any friends with him, if he saw the criminals riding by, "There goes Dr. Ives;" and when they asked him what he meant, he replied, "Such crimes as that felon has committed I would have committed but for the grace of God that has made me to differ." That is true even of you who live nearest to God. You, who have the most familiarity with Christ, and enjoy the most holy fellowship with him, may soon become the very leaders of the hosts of Satan if your Lord withdraws his grace.

David's eyes go astray, and the sweet psalmist of Israel becomes the shameless adulterer, who robs Uriah of his wife. Samson one day slays a thousand of his enemies with the might of his arm, and the valor of his heart; another day his honor is betrayed, his locks are shorn, and his eyes are put out by a strumpet's treacherous wiles. How soon are the mighty fallen! Behold Solomon, the wisest of men, yet the greatest fool who ever lived. Even Job fails in patience, and Abraham, staggers as to his faith. "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." These observations seem to rise at once to our minds when we consider such passages as abound in this "Song of songs." We find, at one moment, that the spouse is so happy that she cries out, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love;" and, at another moment, she is searching for her Beloved, and cannot find him, and mourning because of the darkness, and of the cruelty of "the watchmen that go about the city."

The text very readily suggests three subjects for meditation: -- first, a lamentable state: "I sleep;" secondly, a hopeful sign: "but my heart wakes;" and, thirdly, a potent remedy: "It is the voice of my Beloved." Nothing can wake a believer out of his sleep like the voice of his Beloved.

I. First, here is A LAMENTABLE STATE: "I sleep."

I think I can describe this state pretty well, because I experience it too often, and I am afraid many of you could also describe it with some degree of accuracy, for frequently you too fall into it. What is it for a Christian to sleep? Well, thank God, there is a sleep which the believer never knows. He can never again sleep that deadly sleep in which Christ found him while he was in his sinful state; he shall never sleep the judicial sleep into which some were cast as the result of sin; he shall not sleep, as do others, to his eternal ruin: yet he may sleep dangerously and sinfully; and this is the state in which the Christian is found when he thus sleeps -- 'in a state of inaction'. You are doing something for God, but you are rather doing it, as a matter of habit, rather than as a matter of loving earnestness. You do pray; you do go up to the house of God; you do teach in the Sabbath-school; but you do these things mechanically, as a man walks who is sound asleep. You are in a sort of spiritual sleep-walking. The work that you are called upon to perform, you do after a fashion; but there is none of the power of God in the work, there is no earnestness thrown into it. It is done, and there the end of it; but your heart has been absent from it.

Coupled with this, there is 'a lack of vigor in everything to which such a man sets his hand'. If he preaches, there is no force or burning energy, no boiling, scalding periods; he just takes his text, and speaks upon it. Perhaps God's people are edified, perhaps sinners are saved; but that man has no enjoyment in his work during the whole time that he performs it thus sluggishly. A man, to enjoy the work of the Lord, must throw his whole strength into it.

It is the same, when you come to prayer. You do pray after a sort; but it is not that wrestling with the angel which gets the blessing from him. You do knock at the door, but not with that force which causes it to open. You have forgotten your former vigor. Whereas, once your place of prayer was the witness of groans and tears, now you can go into it, and come out of it, without so much as a single sob.

And it is just the same when you read the Scriptures. Once, the page sparkled with promises, and your soul was satisfied with marrow and fatness; but when you read it now, it is very dull, and you no longer derive refreshing consolation from it. Like the temple out of which God has left, you walk through it; there are the pillars, there stand all the symbols of worship; the altar is there, but God, the King, has gone; and a voice has been heard to say, "Arise, let us go hence;" and so, you go through the sacred edifice, and find nothing there.

In this same sleepy state, we go up to the house of God to listen to his Word; and if our sleep has gotten a strong hold upon us, we cannot get any comfort. We begin to rail at the minister; because we are not edified as we used to be, we think that a change has come over him. That is possible; but it is just as likely, and more so, that our lack of enjoyment of God's Word is owing to ourselves. We sit and hear as God's people hear, and we sing as God's people sing, and pray as they pray, after the 'outward' form; but we go out as a man rises from his bed whereon he has tossed all night, and we feel that we are not a whit refreshed; and the Sabbath, that was once a joy and delight to us, has perhaps become a weariness and a burden.

There is 'no enjoyment' while a man is thus asleep; and, as there is no enjoyment, there is 'no consciousness of pain'. Ah, beloved, I have known seasons when I would almost have given my right arm to be able to shed tears of repentance-- wherein I wished that I might again have a broken heart-- when I have longed to make my soul feel even the pains of hell rather than not feel anything; for this is one of the worst states a Christian can be in-- to go nodding on through life, slumbering over eternal realities, dreaming over heaven, and nodding his head, and continuing still to sleep, when he is in the presence of the Most High God, and should have gathered up all his powers, and strung them to the highest pitch of intensity. Have not you been in such a state? If you have not, happy man are you! There are most holy men, some of the giant servants of God, who have fallen into this state, and have been compelled to cry out, "I sleep," finding themselves happy indeed if they could add, "I sleep, but my heart wakes."

Such a state as this is 'very sinful'. Is it not sinful, O my soul, to be trifling with the eternal state, to be playing at prayer? Can you be so dull and heavy about eternal things, when worldlings are so thoroughly awake about their silver and gold and commercial pursuits? When souls are being hurried to eternity, how is it that I can still be indifferent? While time is speeding on, and eternity is so near, how can I still betake myself to my slothful couch, and cry, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of your hands to rest?"

Chosen in Christ, redeemed with his precious blood, quickened by the Divine Spirit, and made partakers of the divine nature, how can it be consistent with our position and condition to sleep as do others? The light of God's grace has shone upon us, is this a time to slumber? Let the world sleep if it will, for its object and aims are not worthy of the Christian's high ambition; but shall you and I sleep, when heaven is before us, and hell behind us, when there is temptation everywhere surrounding us, and angels beckon us to heaven, while a glorious company of saints holds us in full survey? Come, my brethren, we must feel that such a state as this is sinful in the highest degree.

And how 'dangerous' is it, too! A man, who sleeps in his enemy's camp, is exposed to imminent peril. There lies Sisera asleep in Jael's tent. Little do you know, O silly dreamer, when that woman's hand lifts up the mallet to drive the nail through your brain! If you desire to sleep, Christian, wait until you get home; there you shall have rest enough forever in your Father's house; but, to sleep here, is to sleep in the dragon's jaw, to sleep on the top of the mast when the ship is driving before the storm. No, awaken, and think of your position and condition, and sleep no longer. O God, have mercy upon your people who have long slept in prosperity!

There is the pinnacle of the temple; and blessed is the man whose feet slip not when he stands here. I do not think we sleep so much, spiritually, when we have bodily affliction; though pains of body frequently make a Christian long for his rest; nor do I think we have slumbering times when we are losing our friends. Men cannot easily sleep when the funeral knell is tolling in their ears, and when they are following dear departed ones to the grave. Nor do I think we sleep much when we are the subjects of very violent temptations, and have a great many doubts and fears; but when we are in our vessel, when the day is fine, and the sail is spread, and the wind blows softly, and the ship goes on steadily without a motion, gliding as over a sea of glass, then it is that the mariner, perhaps, forgets the rock and the shoal. The poet was right when he said, --

"More the treacherous calm I dread,
Than tempests lowering overhead."

I do not like trouble; and pray God to deliver me from it. I cannot well endure bodily pain; I find myself impatient under tribulation; but I am able to say this, that if I had my choice between the severest affliction and a state of sinful slumbering, I would prefer to have the affliction. "There is no devil," said one, "like having no devil;" that is to say, there is no temptation like the temptation of not being tempted. The worst form of danger is when a man is left to himself, when he is not much tossed about, when he is quiet and easy. It ought not to be so.

The greater our prosperity, the better should we love God; and the more our spirit is at ease, the more we should serve him with both our hands, and render him hearty thanksgiving for his favor towards us: it should be so, but it is not so. In these smooth waters, we are sure to meet with mischief; and, therefore, may the Lord, in his mercy, watch over us when we are in much prosperity!

Do I hear somebody ask, "How may I know when I am asleep? "If you are a true Christian, you will soon know it by a sort of instinct, when an unutterable sense of misery comes over you. The sleep of an unsaved sinner I may compare, to the sleep produced by opium, which gives its victim dreams of the most magnificent character, carrying the soul up to heaven, and then, anon, dashing it down to the depths. All sorts of fantastic imaginings are the offspring's of that deadly drug; yet the man enjoys himself while under its influence; but though it causes some happiness in the use of it, it will bring him to hell as surely as murder itself.

The sleep of a Christian, when he falls into this state, is rather like the sleep produced by henbane: it is a kind of uneasy, short, disturbed, unreeling rest. It does a man little harm compared with the other; and his constitution recovers from the shock much more readily. Such, I say, is the Christian's sleep: there is no pleasure in it as there is in the sinner's sleep; but his sleep is uneasy, his conscience pricks him, his heart wakes, and he finds no peace in it. It lasts but for a little time, and it does him much damage; but, still, not the deadly damage that the world's sleep of sin brings to its votaries. God save you from it! May he ever keep you from falling into that kind of sleep!

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