Amen, brothers and sisters. Well, good morning. I hope you are all awake this morning, and I hope you all stay awake this morning.
We have a number of Scriptures we want to go through before we get started. I will ask some to help me out here with some of these Scriptures. Let us start with Ephesians 5:8-17. I will be reading primarily out of the New American Standard.
For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light
(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.
For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
That is better translated, “Redeem the time, for the days are evil.”
So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of God is.
Now, those verses, and especially that phrase, “Awake, sleeper, arise from the dead,” are taken from some verses in Isaiah. Turn over to Isaiah 60:1-5.
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth
And deep darkness the peoples;
But the Lord will rise upon you
And His glory will appear upon you.
Nations will come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.
Lift up your eyes round about and see;
They all gather together, they come to you.
Your sons will come from afar,
And your daughters will be carried in the arms.
Then you will see and be radiant,
And your heart will thrill and rejoice;
Because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you,
The wealth of the nations will come to you.
Then turn over to Isaiah 26. I am going to start with verse 16, Isaiah 26:16-19. Part of that “Arise, O sleeper” comes from this also.
O Lord, they sought You in distress;
They could only whisper a prayer,
Your chastening was upon them.
As a pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth,
She writhes and cries out in her labor pains,
Thus were we before You, O Lord.
We were pregnant, we writhed in labor,
We gave birth, as it were, only to wind.
We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth,
Nor were the inhabitants of the world born.
Your dead will live; their corpses will rise.
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy,
For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
And the earth will give birth to departed spirits.
Now, some supplemental verses that I want to include here: Titus 2:11-14.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.
Our brother Darby translated that as, “in the present course of things.”
Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed,
and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
Darby translates that as, “a particular people.” I will ask Tom Robertson if he will do me a favor and read Ephesians 1:15 through 2:10.
We are not quite done yet. First Thessalonians 5:1-11.
Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.
For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.
While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.
But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;
for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.
So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.
For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep—rather, whether we are alive or dead—we will live together with Him.
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
A couple more verses, believe it or not. Luke 12:32-40.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.
Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.
Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.
Matthew 26:40-41. The Lord Jesus again is addressing the disciples at Gethsemane.
And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?
Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
We are going to return back to Ephesians. You do not have to turn there; we have already heard it. Ephesians 5:14:
For this reason it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
And finally, Romans 13:11-14.
And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.
The night is almost gone, and the day is near.
Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
Let us go to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, we do not want to hear the voice of men. We want to hear from You this day. And Lord, hearing from You, we want to be faithful to what we hear.
Lord, we do not want to be those that are asleep. We do not want to be dull of hearing, but we want to be those that are alert and awake, ready to do Your will. So, Lord, help us in this time and hour, that we may hear from You from heaven and do Your will on the face of the earth.
Lord, we ask this not for our own sake, but Lord, we ask this for Your sake. For Your kingdom is ready to come. Lord, we want to be those prepared as good servants, as good stewards, not asleep. Help us, O Lord, to hear Your voice and to wake up. We ask in Your name.
Well, if you cannot tell what the subject matter is—and if I see any yawning out there, we are going to have trouble—the subject matter of this is awake.
Now, as a young man, fourteen or fifteen years of age, I needed not an alarm clock in my room because my grandmother lived with me. My grandmother would come into the house in the morning, come into my room, and sing a little song to me. She would go:
Wake up, wake up, wake up,
The sun is in the sky.
The moon and stars are all asleep.
And you all may think, “Oh, that is so precious. That is just wonderful. How wonderful.” No. Now, you had to know my grandmother. There was nothing about this that was precious. She was like, “The grass needs to be mowed. The leaves need to be raked. You are laying in the bed. I am going to annoy you until you get out of bed, and I will sing this to you over and over again.”
That was my grandmother.
Likewise, I think the Lord Jesus is trying to wake up His church. Not in a mean-spirited way, but He is crying out, “Wake up, wake up, wake up. The sun is in the sky. The moon and stars are about to go to sleep. It is time for you to wake up.”
There are a few things I want to cover this morning, the Lord willing and, as we say down south, the creeks do not rise. I want to look at us awakening to these things: the present course of things, as our brother Darby translated that verse in Titus; the power available to us; and the purpose that we are here for.
So let us start with this: let us talk about the present course of things. What is the present course of things?
I have kind of looked at this in two areas. Let us look at it as the New American Standard translates it: the present age that we are in. So, what is the present age we are in, brothers and sisters? Where are we at in the eternal clock? Where are we at in this period of time, in this age? Where do we think we are?
We are in the dispensation of grace. What hour in the dispensation of grace are we at? We are at the last hour. If we put our day at starting at twelve o’clock midnight, we are at eleven-something, I would say.
I do not know the exact minute, and if I was up here telling you that minute, I would be in trouble, because the Lord Jesus said, “No one knows the day or the hour. Only the Father knows.”
But if we look around in this present age, in this present world, and look at the things that are going on—the disasters that have happened, the frequency of them, the earthquakes in various places, the tsunamis, the tornadoes, the unprecedented upheaval of nations, governments being torn apart by their own people—we see the signs.
We kind of applaud that and say, “Yeah, that evil dictator is getting thrown over.” Well, Britain is having that now. There was something in the news about upheaval in cities in the United States. They were worried that things were transpiring.
I do not think, as the apostle Paul said to us, I do not think I need to write you anything. I do not think I need to stand up here for an hour and teach you about the day and the hour that we are living in. Is that correct?
Now, when I float in other circles—when I was, I will say it this way, when I was in denominational circles—we used to do something when we taught the Word. We would say, “Can I get an amen?” Can I get an amen on that? We know the day and the hour, right? Amen.
Well, there is a counter to that. If we know the day and the hour that we are living in, and we are living like there is going to be tomorrow after tomorrow, why are we doing so?
Now, the counter to that was, “Oh me.” That is not Hebrew; that is Southern. Oh me.
Why, if we see the day and the hour and the signs that are about, are we living like this world is going to continue forever?
The Lord talked about how the sky turns red in the morning, and you know that it is going to storm. “Can you not read the signs? Can you not understand?” Have we gotten so dull of hearing that we have become almost like the people in Revelation? The earthquakes came and the rocks fell on them, and instead of praising God, we are like, “Well, why is this interrupting our day?”
Have we gotten to that point? We know the day and the hour, brothers and sisters. We know time is short. I cannot say if it is going to be ten minutes, ten days, ten months, ten years, or ten thousand years, but it really does not matter.
We see time is short. It is shorter than it was when we first believed. And we need to be awake to this fact, because the Lord is leading us into things that we need to be doing.
In this present course of things, do we understand where we stand? Which side are we on?
Do you understand that there are two dimensions in this world? Now, I am not talking scientific, even though I am a Star Trek fan. I am not talking about going to the alternate dimension and any of that stuff.
What I am talking about is this: do you not understand that on the cross of Calvary, the kingdom was brought to bear on this world?
Do we not understand that the Father has taken us out of the dominion of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His beloved Son? That is what I am talking about.
Which kingdom are we living in? Which kingdom are we spending our time in? Which kingdom are we paying more attention to in this day and age, at this present course of things, in this present time?
My brother Dana, during the conference, made an announcement, and I do not think it should have shocked us: the kingdom is here. Believe it or not, the kingdom is here.
I know most of you do not listen to contemporary music, but I was listening to a contemporary Christian group, and they basically said this very thing: “Why are we waiting on forever? Forever is now.”
We tend to think that one day the Lord Jesus Christ will come back in all His glory, and things will just size up and it will be smooth sailing from there. But, brothers and sisters, He has come. Two thousand years ago, He did come. He died on the cross of Calvary.
To bring to remembrance something Stephen said during the conference: He won every bit of the victory needed for His kingdom to come.
Why do we see so little of the manifestation of the kingdom of God in this world, in this present age, and in this day? Which side of the world are we living on? Which kingdom have we decided to put our time into?
I had to ask myself these questions. So, I am in the boat with you. I am not preaching at you; I am preaching to myself more than anything.
Where am I putting my time and my effort? Am I putting it into the kingdom of the beloved Son, or am I still fooling around with the kingdom of darkness and the things of the world that I should not be loving?
Where are we at in this present age? If we know that the hour is short, and we know that the kingdom is here, where should we be putting our focus?
Now, I should have begun this time by telling you something: I am not going to teach you anything new. Actually, I am going to ask a series of questions in this, and you will see why later.
But why? I had to ask myself that. Why, if I really believe that the Lord is coming back at any second, and why, if I really do believe that I am living in the kingdom, do I behave the way I do and put emphasis on the things that I do?
I did not like the answer.
We are not in this situation without hope, though, brothers. There is a tremendous amount of power that has been given to us, for us to accomplish what the Lord has set forth for us to do.
Let us talk about that a little bit.
I have strongly become convinced that every bit of power that we need to live the Christian life is available to us; that in every situation that we face, God has given us the grace either to go through it, to go around it, or to change it.
The wisdom is asking God what He wants us to do. There are a lot of times I want to change the situation, and the Lord is like, “No, I want you to go through this.”
A lot of times I go through and endure stuff that I do not need to do because God says, “No, I want you to change this.” And there are some things that the Lord says, “You should have avoided that like a plague, son. But even so, My mercy is great for you.”
Do we understand what grace is? Now, the best definition of grace—and I told you I am not teaching you anything new—has been said before. Brother Dana, I think, gave the most excellent definition of grace.
Grace is basically the inherent power to accomplish the will of God that has been given to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. That is grace.
Grace is not something that we say over a meal. Grace is not what gets us out of bad scrapes. Grace is the very power that the Lord Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth with.
This is something that just totally changed my entire view of what we are supposed to be doing—what I am supposed to be doing—on the face of the earth. Because the Lord Jesus Christ walked the earth as a man, empowered by the Holy Spirit. He did not pull His divinity down and use it from time to time.
He walked in the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God, and overcame everything, including going to the cross of Calvary to die for our sins.
He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if there is any way, can this cup pass from Me? But nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.” That is grace. Grace came into action at that very moment.
He operated this way to teach us that we too can be overcomers in this world, that we can walk as we should.
The enemy tells us we cannot. The Lord Jesus is the proof that we can.
And you cannot use the excuse when you stand before Him, “But Jesus, You were God. That is how You got through.” He is going to look at you and say, “No. Every bit of power that was available to Me while I walked on the face of the earth was available to you to overcome.”
That is why Hebrews warns us. It says, “Do not let anyone fall short of the grace of God.” That grace is the very power that we should have operating in our lives.
Let us go on and talk about a couple of other things. We have the power to overcome our own selves.
Now, I went to the doctor when I first came here, and I discovered that I had type 2 diabetes. It explained a lot of things. The doctor gave me a little visual clue. He said, “When you get tempted to eat sugar, just think about this: every time you eat sugar, it is like little shards of glass running around in your bloodstream.”
So when someone comes up and hands me a cupcake or a candy bar, I think of that. I think about eating glass, and I go, “That is not very tasty.”
The Lord gave me kind of a visual picture of what the old man is like. You all have to forgive me for this.
What is the old man in Christ? Is he alive or dead? He is dead. Yet, in many of our lives, he is up walking around doing things.
Now, in fiction, and especially in science fiction, what do you call something that is walking around dead that has human form?
The Lord said, “That old man of yours is like a zombie.” Do you like that? I go, “O Lord, help me. I have pulled the zombie out of the grave and let him walk around.”
You put him in the grave. You crucified him with You, and I keep digging him back up and letting him walk around.
You know what? That is where the old man belongs. He belongs in the grave. He does not need to be walking around in our lives.
The Lord Jesus has given us the power to put the old man—or He has put the old man—in the grave. He has given us the wisdom not to go digging him back up.
We need to be conscious of these things, brothers and sisters. We do not need to be running around in our old man, trying to accomplish things.
Do you know why the church is in such a mess today? We look at the church of God and say, “It is in total chaos.” Most of the things that cause the church of the living God to be in chaos are because men, in their own power, have resurrected their own life and are trying to do the things of God by the old man.
A zombie has no place in the kingdom of God, nor in the works of it.
That is why the church is in such a mess. It is not because God cannot build His church. It is not because God does not want to build His church. It is not because there was a golden age in the past when the disciples walked the face of the earth, everything was going well, and everything is a mess now and will never get better.
The Lord Jesus Christ’s heart for His church is that His church returns to church ground. That church ground is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—life in Him.
We should not be walking around with dead works in our lives. We should not be operating in the old man. He is dead. Leave him in the grave. Do not resurrect zombies in your life.
The power that is available to us also does one other thing: it is the light of Christ dispelling darkness within.
I took a long ride with one of my former bosses on a trip one time, and he had a lot of Eastern philosophy. He told me his philosophy of life was, “I shed light on stuff, and men will be drawn to the light. Men will embrace the light, and they will become better people.”
I looked at this guy—I will not mention his name—and I said, “Have you looked at the company that you are running right now? How well does that work out for you? When you shine the light and tell people to do stuff, how many people come running in and say, ‘Yay, I will do this’?”
It does not work that way. In the old man, in the natural, when the light is turned on, we tend to scatter and hide in the darkness. We do not want the light to be shined on us.
But in these verses that we have read, I want you to notice a subtle difference. It is not Christ shining in us; it is Christ shining upon us. The light of Christ is to shine upon us.
Now, when Zach was younger, one night he walked up to me while I was sound asleep. I opened my eyes, and there was my son standing beside the bed, just staring at me. I said, “Okay, what do you want? What is going on?”
He said, “There are dinosaurs in my room.”
I said, “Son, go back to sleep. There are no dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have been extinct for thousands of years. They are not there. Just go back to sleep.”
Well, back up there he was. He did not go away. He said, “There are dinosaurs in my room.” I said, “Okay.”
He was about that tall, about five or six. So I walked into the room and said, “Zach, where are the dinosaurs?” “Well, they are under the bed.”
So I went back in my room, turned on a flashlight, and said, “See, there are no dinosaurs there.” “They are in the closet.” We turned on the closet light.
I thought I had this licked. I thought I was going to get a good night’s sleep. “They are outside.”
So we took the flashlight, went outside, and I said, “Okay, this will be the end of it.” I shined the flashlight everywhere he saw a dinosaur. There were no dinosaurs. “All right, are you ready to go to bed? There are no dinosaurs.” “They are down the street.”
“Get in the car.” At that time, I was living in a little community called Napier Field. We drove every street of Napier Field, and everywhere he thought there was a dinosaur, I shined the car lights. He saw that there were no dinosaurs.
The point of this is, that is what the enemy does to us in our spiritual life. The enemy has no real power in this world. He can just generate shadows, figments of our imagination, monsters of our dreams.
When the light of Christ shines on our life, it dispels the darkness. The monsters disappear.
Just as a follow-up, Zach is not afraid of dinosaurs anymore. He better not be; he is a Marine. But I never had any problems with him with dinosaurs after that.
Likewise, when Christ shines His light upon whatever is in our life that we think is such a huge monster that we can never overcome—when the enemy has built it up to some insurmountable odd—when the Lord Jesus Christ shines His light on it, light prevails.
The shadows have to disappear, and the truth of what the Lord Jesus has for us is revealed.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be people who want to walk in the light of Christ. We need to be not like the people of the world who cower away from the spotlight of the Lord Jesus, but to go into that light, stand there, and let the Lord reveal everything about us and everything about the world in the light of Who He is.
This is the power that we have in this present age, that is available to us.
Well, if we have all this power, what should we do with it? I will try to conclude quickly with this. What should we do with it?
There are lots of groups that take these things and use them for their own self. “We have the power. We have power from on high. Therefore, we will go do this, and we will go do that.”
Now, the Lord has some things that He wants us to do with the power that He has given us to overcome this world and to be awake in this present age of darkness.
Here are the purposes that we are here for: we are to reflect the light of Christ.
When the light of Christ shines on us, we are supposed to reflect it. In the beginning, the Lord created two great lights: one to rule the day and one to rule the night.
The sun, in its bright glory, shines rays upon the moon, which has no illuminating power in itself. But I can tell you, and I can attest to this fact, that when the moon is out bright, it is almost like the day.
When there is a full moon out—you are going to get a laugh out of this—you can drive by the light of the moon. Ask me about that later. I will not tell you how I know that for a fact, but you can.
The point of it is this: we are not to be self-serving. We are supposed to be reflecting the light of Christ. We are supposed to be awake in the darkness. We are supposed to be illuminating the deeds of darkness in this world.
Now, that does not mean we go up to people and hit them over the head with a Bible and say, “You should not be doing that.” But the very life of Christ should be so illuminated in our life that people, when we walk into a room, expose a situation, or are present in an ungodly situation, know that there is a different character than what they normally walk in.
This is what the Lord wants us to do. He wants us to be a reflection of His very character. There are some groups that take this too far and say, “We will become Christ.” No. We are only reflections of His character.
But it is a vital part of what the Lord wants us to do in this present age of darkness. He wants us to be a light shining on a lampstand. He wants us to be a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. These are the things He wants us to be about.
This is going to be hard to say, but I am going to blurt it out in my normal fashion, so forgive me. One of the things He wants us to do is to be awake and alive to what He has told us.
He does not want us just to sit on the truth, store it up, and say, “Look how much truth I have.”
I want to read something to you, the Lord permitting. This is by A. W. Tozer, from his book The Root of Righteousness. The chapter is called “The Great Disparity.” I have edited this a little bit for time and relevance.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, which in its effect on the Christian religion may be more destructive than anything else. It is the glaring disparity between theology and practice among professing Christians.
So wide is the gulf that separates theory and practice in the church that an inquiring stranger who chances upon it would scarcely dream that there was any relation between them.
A church conference, for instance, may listen and applaud the most spiritual message and, twenty minutes later, adopt the most carnal procedure altogether as if they had not heard the passionate moral appeal a few minutes before.
Christians habitually weep and pray over beautiful truth, only to draw back from that same truth when it comes to the difficult job of putting it into practice.
This can be explained only by assuming a lack of integration in the religious personality. There seems to be no vital connection between the emotion and the volition departments of life. The mind can approve, and the emotions enjoy, while the will drags its feet to go along.
It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of being right, but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right.
So the divorce between theory and practice becomes a permanent fact, though in word their union is declared as eternal. Truth sits forsaken, grieving, till its professed followers come for a brief visit; but she sees them depart again when the bills come due.
They profess great and undying love for her, but will not let their love cost them anything.
Could this be the condition that our Lord had in mind when He said, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead”? Revelation 3:1.
What can be the effect on the spectators who live day after day among professing Christians who habitually ignore the commandments of Christ and live after their own private notions of Christianity? Will they not conclude the whole thing is false? Will they not be forced to believe that the faith of Christ is an unreal and visionary thing, which they are justified in rejecting?
I will not skip this. In the conclusion of that chapter, he says:
In the great and terrible day, when the deeds of men are searched out by the penetrating eyes of the Judge of all the earth, what will be the answer when we are charged with inconsistency and moral fraud? And what, and at whose door, will lie the blame for the millions of lost men who, while they lived their lives on the earth, were sickened and revolted by the religious travesty they knew as Christianity?
Now, Tozer penned this probably thirty to forty years ago. I could not go, “Oh, man.” I had to go, “Oh, me.”
Brothers and sisters, we learn a tremendous amount here, and we pray for the Lord to reveal truth to us. But truth sitting on a bookshelf of our mind and not lived out is worthless.
If we are not walking in the light as He is in the light, we can sit here, prayer meeting after prayer meeting, begging the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal more glorious truth to us. Maybe, in His mercy, He will, hoping that we will awake.
But my fear is that there will come a day when He says, “I have got to find a people who will put the lamp on a lampstand and not put it under a bushel.”
“I do not need brothers and sisters to write books and put them on a bookshelf. I need brothers and sisters to live for Me.”
If there is no transference from here, to here, to here, we are in trouble. If it does not go in the ears, through the head, to the heart, to work out in the hands, we are in trouble. We are like those that are asleep—drowsy—saying, “Yeah, I will do that one day.”
We need to be awake. We need to be those that wake up and do the will of God.
We do not need to be like the old joke about the guy in the flood.
“Lord, I pray. I hear a flood is coming. Lord, illuminate me and give me the truth and rescue me from this flood that is coming.”
The sheriff drives up and says, “There is a flood coming.” The man says, “I know. The Lord will give me truth and illuminate me, and I will walk out of this victorious.”
The waters rise on his house, and he gets up on the second floor. A guy in a John boat comes by—for you all that do not know what a John boat is, it is a flat-bottomed boat with a little motor in the back—and pulls up to the second-floor window. “Jump in. The flood is here. You have got to get out.”
The man says, “The Lord will illuminate me, and He will give me light, and He will rescue me from this.”
As the floodwaters rage, he climbs up on top of his chimney. A helicopter comes by, lets down a ladder, and the guy’s voice comes over the intercom: “Sir, you have to evacuate now. This is your last chance.”
“The Lord will illuminate me. He will give me power. He will show me how to get out of this. Go on.”
The same saint meets the Lord and says, “I thought You were going to rescue me, illuminate me, give me power, and let me know how to get out of this.” The Lord goes, “I sent a sheriff, a John boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want?”
The point that I am trying to make here is, brothers and sisters, we get very many warnings and very many chances in this world. We are very blessed here to hear, week after week, brothers stand up and minister the Word of God in truth.
And yet, what is our walk?
Are we arguing with the Lord when a brother stands up here and gives us warnings? Are we arguing with the Lord when the Lord gives us truth, and saying we will put it into practice one day?
Is this where we are? We need to be those that wake up and hear the call.
A couple more things, if I have a couple more minutes. In these verses, it says that we need to be those redeeming the time. The New American Standard says it this way: “Make the most of your time.” I do not like that translation.
It is not that we see the situation, know what is going on out here, and think, “There is not a lot we can do, but I can do this one little thing, and that is all we will be able to do.”
I think the Authorized Version had it a little better, and Darby translated it a little better. We are to be redeeming the time.
There is a supernatural act that we, as the children of God, should be doing in this present age. We should be bringing the kingdom into fuller light. We should be buying back the time; that is the literal translation of that.
The Lord set eternity in our heart, and He has the power to buy back time. Now, what do I mean by that?
I do not want to get ethereal on you with this, but the truth is that the Lord can take one day and do a thousand years’ worth of work.
That comes out of Peter. A lot of people are trying to build calculations of when the Lord is going to come back off that verse. I do not think that is the meaning. The meaning that Peter had is this: in one day, the Lord can do a thousand years’ worth of work.
We sit down and think, “The ruined state of the church—Lord, it will take You years. It will take You centuries to recover.” No. One day with the Lord is a thousand years.
Are we asking the Lord to compress time, to do His work in these latter days, when the time is most short, that He can have a people called by His own name, a possession for Himself?
Are we reaching out to the Lord and asking Him to do that? It is possible. It is possible.
Lord, help me if I am wrong on this, but it is possible to see the days of the apostles return amongst us—that the church walk in power and authority.
I do not think I am wrong. I do not think the will of the Lord is for His church to deteriorate to the point that one or two are left. His heart is that all will be redeemed. The reality is, Scripture says there will be a remnant, but it is not this.
Is our heart for the Lord to get everything He wants in the time that we have here, or are we more concerned about going about our everyday lives?
It is not making the most out of a bad situation. It is allowing the Lord to work supernaturally to restore time to what He wants it to be, to transform it out of evil days, to get days that are good and useful for His own purpose.
Are we praying in that vein? Are we asking the Lord for that?
A few more things, then I will let you eat lunch. This is kind of the last point.
In that verse of Scripture talking about awakening, it went through this twice. It said, basically, knowing what the will of God is.
Not only knowing what the will of God is, but doing the will of God. That understanding in Scripture does not mean that we have just a mental knowledge of the truth. It does not mean that we have some understanding here and it is not worked out.
When the Lord talks about understanding, He expects action. He expects something to happen.
The Word of the Lord does not go out in vain. It always returns to Him with something. So when the Word of the Lord goes out, it goes out with power and authority, and there is an action, a response, expected by the Lord.
So what is this will of God that we are supposed to be doing? “I do not know what the will of God is.” Do you know what the will of God is? Does anyone know what the will of God is?
Well, you know what? After the period of time that we have sat under teaching, after the period of time that we have had under the Lord’s authority, after the period of time that we have had walking in His light, I think we have some inkling of what that will of God is.
It is not a mystery.
Now, we may not know every detail of the will of God, but brothers and sisters, standing around going, “I do not know what it is,” is not going to be an excuse for us.
If we do not know, Scripture says, “Ask, and He will reveal.”
We have been asking. This fellowship has been asking for thirty years. I have not been here thirty years; I have only been here three and a half. But this fellowship has been asking for thirty years what the will of God is, and the Lord has been faithful to come back and tell you point-blank, “This is My will. This is what I am after.”
Part of that will of God is that verse of Scripture that I read where the Lord Jesus Christ said, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Brothers and sisters, why are we saved by grace in this day and age? What is our purpose? What are we here for?
This is what I have come to conclude: in a word, we are to be mature children. We are to be stewards of God’s kingdom until He returns again.
We are to be stewards of it. Now, the Lord said in that verse of Scripture, “Blessed is the man who is awake, alert, and, when his master comes knocking at the door, is ready to fling the door open,” whether it is the second or the third watch.
Are we ready to open the door?
Are we in the position as stewards to open the door? Have we grown up in maturity enough that we are doing the Master’s business while He is away? Are we minding the store?
Deep South terms: are we keeping up the business? Are we sweeping the floors? Are we tending the shelves? Are we doing what the Lord has called us to do so that, when He comes back, He finds things in order and not in a mess?
This idea that the Lord is going to come back and set everything right—He is.
Blessed are those slaves, those servants, that were ready, prepared, and waiting on Him; that kept things in order.
He is going to set things up correctly. He is not going to have His children, His kingdom, or His church in disarray. He is going to set it up correctly.
The fact is, though, are we helping Him in this day and age set things in order, or are we hindering?
Are we ushering in the age where the Lord can return, knock on the door, the door be opened, and He finds things in order? Or are we in there at the last minute, hear the door knocking, and go, “Uh-oh. I have got to go clean up the room”?
I did that as a kid. My mother would come to the door and knock on the door. Boy, clothes would fly, toys would get put up, and everything would happen. That was immaturity.
Are we those that want to be mature? Do we want to grow up by what we have heard? Do we want to put into action what we have seen?
Let me put it to you like this and end it this way: there is great hope for us. The Lord has made every provision.
Really, what He is asking us to do is that last part in Romans 13:14 that I read. He says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Are we willing to put off our old selves, which are nothing but a zombie, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to wake up to these facts while it is still time?
In the way my grandmother woke me up in the morning:
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
The Son is in the sky.
The moon and stars are about to go to sleep.
This present age, this life that we live in, is coming to an end, brothers and sisters, in the way that we know it.
Are we awake now to what the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to do? Or are we going to sleepily go about and say, “Well, that was fine. That was nice. That was good,” and ignore this message too, along with the thousands of other messages that are given?
And then one day we hear, and we go, “Oh, I am awake now.”
The Lord has given us great opportunity. He has given us great responsibility. But He has done this in the love of His Son.
It is not for us to go tinker around with the kingdom. We need to let the Lord do His work among us. We need to be awake.
For the day and the hour is coming, whether it is the second watch or the third watch. Be awake. Be found doing the Master’s will.
Let us go to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, we do want to be those that are not in slumber and sleep to what You are doing on the face of the earth.
Lord, we are very grateful for the tremendous amount of teaching that You have given us, for the tremendous amount of knowledge that You have given us, and for the tremendous amount of Word that You have spoken to us.
Lord, we need to be those that, as the Scriptures say, are not only hearing this, but are walking—not as unwise men, but as wise men—walking in those things that You have shown us.
Lord, help us. Lord, where we are asleep, wake us up. Where there is darkness in our life, shine Your light.
Lord, we want to give You permission to do that. We want to ask that You have permission to shine Your light in our lives.
Lord, we want to be those that reflect Your very character. We want to be found as good stewards of Your kingdom while You are away.
Lord, most of all, we do not want to do this for our own sake, our own power, or our own glory. Lord, we want this done because You deserve these things.
Lord, that You would have a people called by Your name, busy about Your business, redeeming the time, putting Your house in order by Your power and Yours alone.
Lord, would You so work in us again? Would You forgive us where we have wasted our lives and our time, where we have let Your Word fall to the ground?
Lord, would You redeem the time? Would You come back and redeem things, and bring them back into their proper place, for Your kingdom’s sake and for Your sake?
Lord, this is our heart’s desire. Help us to be awake. Help us to be busy about Your business. We ask in Your name. Amen.