The Apostle identifies a dangerous condition: sleeping saints, and the consequent degrees of inactivity, unresponsiveness, forgetfulness, dreaminess, and sleepwalking that are suffered by such. Here is Bunyan’s ‘Enchanted Ground’ – the spirit of the age makes the saints sleepy as they buy into the dullness and laziness of Western society, and succumb to the restraining and sidelining of Christianity as a vital religion.
In the light of this, Paul brings an urgent message: “Wake up!” He calls upon the church to rouse itself, for spiritual sleepiness is incompatible with the position we occupy in the grand drama of redemption.
He presents a pressing reason: the day of our salvation is nearer than when we first believed, the day is close at hand. Since Christ has died and risen, we are all living in history’s epilogue, “the last days,” and we need to live accordingly, in the light of Christ’s imminent return.
This leads to an earnest exhortation: Paul provides a blueprint for Christian liveliness and alertness in these days – to stop sinning and start striving, to avoid all sinful indulgence, sexual impurity and selfish aggression and to put on the armour of light by which we fight the good fight of faith. Let us not be the generation or the church that hears the call of God’s Spirit, “Wake up!” and who then roll over and go back to sleep.
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