“WHEREFORE,” He saith, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” (Eph. v., 14). The “wherefore” bespeaks our attention to facts of solemn import going before in the chapter, and to a due consideration of these facts we are called upon to awake. They are facts which cannot be overlooked, as they must be reckoned with in the matter of our soul’s salvation. “Awake thou that sleepest:”
(1) To view sin in the light of God’s Word, and not in the false gleam of the fantasies of sleep. What a black list of the sins is unrolled before us in verses 3, 4, and 5—sins often spoken of in a way of foolish jesting, but plainly declared to be reproved and made manifest by the light. Wherefore awake! Take God’s Word as a lamp to your feet, and as a light to your path on the great question of sin. Read it that in its light you may see your sins reproved and made manifest. “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”
(2) To see that your sins expose you now in this present life to the wrath of God. “For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (verse 12). Drops of His wrath fall now in divers ways; the deluge of it you will experience in hell unless you awake and arise. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” “Who knoweth the power of Thine anger?”
(3) To be on your guard against deception. “Let no man deceive you with vain words.” Be on your guard against the “vain words,” the “isms” and ideologies of men and the false gospels which proclaim “Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.”
We are called upon not only to awake, but to act. “Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
“Arise from the dead.” Arise from your dead attitude to God’s Word in the matter of sin and salvation. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.”
Arise like the prodigal son from the far-off land of the spiritually-dead, and give up feeding on the empty husks of the pleasures of sin. Realise that you are thus heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Arise and return to your Father’s house where there is enough and to spare to meet the needs of your immortal soul. You need not fear that your sins, however heinous, bar the way. God in His wondrous mercy would have you rather make an excuse of them to return. “Come now; and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Arise and see that your duty is your privilege; and do not infer because you are “dead in trespasses and sins,” that you are on that account absolved from your duty, or that your duty to repent and believe is dispensed with because salvation is of grace. To come to such conclusions is to wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction; to make excuses of these conclusions to continue in sin is to hold the truth of God in unrighteousness, for which you shall be damned. “The duty is ours, the power is God’s.” (Flavel).
“And Christ shall give thee light”—in the paths of duty only, and yet altogether in a manner free, sovereign and unmerited. “By grace are ye saved,” and of grace is it that you are called to awake and to arise and to walk in the duty-path of obedience to God’s revealed will. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
“And Christ shall give thee light.” He will have the glory of giving that which is His by means of His Word and Spirit. Be on your guard, therefore, of accepting the light which is darkness of those who teach that sinners have the ability to accept Christ whenever it suits them, and who would thereby make the Christ of God the toy of their caprice, while the choice of their will is still joined to their lusts. Cults and sects of every hue and dye of error invariably hold and maintain this anti-Scriptural falsehood. It has currency too in the majority of modern religious tracts. That false light will be quenched in sorrow. “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.”
Wait patiently for the dawning of the light in the path of duty. Only in Christ’s acceptance of you will you be able to accept Him; in His light only will you be able to see light to rest upon Him alone, as He is freely offered to you in the gospel. “He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not, He will save his soul from going down into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” “Wherefore, He saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”—W.M.