Awake! Arise & Shine! Part 1

Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith.

I�m Sharon from The Sound of Faith. Not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. If they�re adults, they can even look back into their younger years and their young adult years and say, �Things since that time have gotten really bad.� And they�re only getting worse all the time. Amen? And so that�s why we are being exhorted here, and even stronger than exhorted, as Christians, we�re being told to, �Awake thou that sleepest, and then arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.� Now, I know that this also fits sinners and unbelievers who do not know God because they are dead in trespasses and sin.

And so, of course, the Word is going out to them. You need to wake up. You need to wake up before it�s too late because the days are evil. But he�s talking primarily here to Christians.

How many know that? And so he�s telling us to wake up. He�s not talking about natural sleep, but the Greek word means spiritual sleep. And what is spiritual sleep? It�s a state of inactivity. It�s a state of apathy.

It�s when a Christian can be going through the motions of being a Christian and going to church and doing all of those things and be asleep and not even know it. Amen? He said, �Wake from the dead.� Now, the root word there in the Greek literally means corpse. And how many know corpse has definitely breathed its last breath.

Isn�t that right? So figuratively, as a metaphor, it means someone who is spiritually inactive, inoperative, and without power or life. Amen? And unfortunately, this is the case with a lot of Christians today. You see, Jesus said that one of the signs of the last days would be, he said this in Matthew 24 12, �Because iniquity does abound, the love of many would wax cold.� So in other words, as iniquity, which is not only a specific sin, but it is the force of sin. It is the nature of sin.

It�s the bent in someone that makes them keep sinning. And because that would abound or would increase, then the love of many would wax cold. In other words, so many Christians would just get so overwhelmed because everywhere we look, we just see evil.

And everywhere we look, we see it getting worse. And we see it even has crept into the church. And sometimes we get so overwhelmed by it all that we just kind of like let our hands fall to our side. And our zeal and our love and our passion begins to wax cold. And the fact that he used that old English word wax means it�s a progression. And the thing about progression is you�re usually not aware that you�re going through that process until one day you look and think, �Oh, wow. I used to, but now I am.� Amen?

And you see it, it�s not a good thing. So he said, �Awake from your sleep and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light.� He�s going to give you light. Now Jesus had people from time to time that wanted to follow him and wanted to be his disciple. In one instance, a man came to him and said, �Jesus, I want to follow you and I want to be your disciple.

But first I�m asking you, can I have a little time? I want to go home and bury my father.� His father had died. And he said, �I want to go home and bury my father.� And Jesus said, �Let the dead bury the dead and you come follow me.� Now I think we can understand what he was saying, but let�s look at it for a moment. How can a dead person bury a dead person? Amen? How can a dead person do anything?

A dead person can�t bury a dead person. Amen? So what he was talking about, he was talking about the spiritually dead. The spiritually dead. He was saying, �If you really want to follow me, you got to come out of the spiritually dead.

Let them do what they do, but you come and follow me. Amen? Awake! Arise! Respond to the call of the Spirit and Christ shall give you light.� Now, where he says, �Arise!� It means to stand up, but it doesn�t just mean to stand up on your feet in a physical sense, but it means to stand up against something. You�re standing against something and that something is antagonistic to what you�re standing for. And in this case, we�re standing for the light.

And what does light represent? We�re standing for the truth. Amen? So arise means to stand up and that means you�re going to stand up against something. Here�s how it�s used in Matthew 24 where Jesus said, �Nation shall arise against nation.� It�s the same thought that they�re going to be at war.

There�s going to be an antagonism there. The kingdom of darkness is at war with the kingdom of light. The powers of Satan, the powers of evil are launching a campaign to destroy people. Jesus said in John 10, 10, �The thief,� meaning Satan, he personified Satan as a thief, �has come but to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly, that you might have life to the full and overflowing.� There are people that are walking around and they�re alive, but inside of them, they feel dead. They feel empty. They feel confused.

Like I preached last week, they feel rejection. And Jesus said, �That�s all the work of the devil.� That�s what he does. He�s the one that puts that on people. Amen. But Jesus said, �I�ve come to give you life.� Amen.

And that more abundantly. So when Paul was giving his goodbyes to the church of Ephesians where we�re reading here, the elders of Ephesus, and he loved this church, he stayed in this church longer than any other church. He was there with them for three years.

And that was unusual for Paul to stay that long in one spot. So when he was saying his goodbyes to them, he told them, �When I leave, grievous wolves will enter in among you. They�re going to come from without, grievous wolves.� And you know what a wolf is. It�s a false prophet. It�s a false preacher.

It�s a false teacher. They�re going to come in amongst you. And then he said, �Also, also of your own selves, out of your own congregation, out of your own church shall men arise and they will speak perverse things trying to draw away disciples after themselves.� So I wanted you to see that because I want you to understand the point that he was saying amongst the Christians, amongst the body of Christ, will arise. And they�re going to rise up against the truth.

Against the truth. Oh, we know the wolves when they come from without. Amen. We understand.

We expect wolves to try to get in. But from amongst yourself will arise those who with perverse teachings. What is a perverse teaching? The word pervert or perverse means you have twisted something. You have warped it out of its normal proper shape.

Amen. It�s warped. It�s twisted. And today the gospel that�s being preached across many churches in America is twisted.

It�s warped. It�s perverse. Amen.

It takes the truth of God and makes it into a lie. And he says that�s going to occur. They�re going to rise right in your own midst. Amen. It�s a strong word that he�s using here in the Greek. So he said, �I am commanding you. I want you to awake and I want you to arise.� They�re not the same thing.

They�re two different words. I want you to awake. I want you to come out of your spiritual lethargy and your spiritual apathy.

Amen. I want you to get a vision and a burden and see what is going on in the spiritual realm and don�t just sit in the church and look the other way. Because the forces of darkness are infiltrating the church of God. See that�s why Jesus said when I come will I find faith in the earth.

He�ll find plenty of churches but is he going to find churches that are preaching the truth and preaching light. Let�s drop down to verse 8. �For you were sometimes darkness but now you are light in the Lord.� So here�s the conclusion. �Walk as children of light for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth proving what is acceptable unto the Lord and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them.� Reprove? You�re not supposed to reprove people when they come to church. They may not come back. If you reprove people they�re not going to like you.

But that�s what he said. Rather reprove them for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Amen. So I don�t know about you but I have made up my mind that with the strength that God gives me in my body for as long as he gives it to me I am going to arise and I am going to sound the alarm. Amen. And I am going to preach the truth.

If it�s only 10 people here I�m going to preach the truth. And sometimes that�s going to mean reproof. Like I said last week you can preach five Sundays in a row. God loves you. God wants to bless you. God�s got gifts for you. God wants to do all this for you. And then the sixth Sunday you preach on sin and everybody says I�m not going back to that church. All they do is preach on sin. Once every six weeks.

If you only took a bath once every six weeks. Amen. You get the point don�t you. So he says you have to if you say that you�re children of light you got to walk as children of light. Don�t name the name of the Lord if you�re not going to walk as children of light. If you have more fellowship and you�re fellowshiping with the works of darkness don�t say you�re a child of the light. Amen.

If you�re going to claim Jesus Christ then walk according to his word. It�s sort of reminiscent of what we talked about last week when we talked about the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is the good and the acceptable and perfect will of God that you may prove that you have the proof. Amen. That you are a child of the light. And so if we will arise and awake then Christ will give us light. In other words he�s going to enlighten us. He�s going to shine his truth on us. The truth that allows us to arise and stand up against the onslaught of the works of darkness. Let�s turn to Isaiah the 60th chapter and you will recognize these verses right away but they fit with what we�re talking about here. Isaiah 60 verse 1. Arise and shine.

I like that. You can stop right there and preach for a while. Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth.

Wow. And gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall arise upon you and his glory shall be seen upon you. Now we know that this was literally fulfilled in the Messiah.

Jesus Christ. Amen. But when we put it together with what we read here in Ephesians we are seeing truly the darkness has covered the earth. And gross darkness that means the thickest deepest impenetrable type of darkness there is has covered the people.

Like we preached two Sundays ago that Paul said if our gospel is hid it�s hid to them that are lost because the God of this world Satan has blinded their minds so that the glorious light of the image of Christ the gospel of Christ cannot shine unto them. Amen. Gross darkness is all around us but that�s why we�ve got to arise and stand up against the darkness.

We can�t just throw up our hands and say oh well that�s how it is today. Amen. We�ve got to stand up against it because when we do he said my light and my glory shall break forth upon you. Amen. You are going to be a light in darkness and I want you to know that whenever the light is shining the darkness has to flee.

It�s got to back up. Amen. Sometimes I stand at my front window if I get up early enough in the morning and I know that I look to the east and now I can�t really see the horizon because of all the houses and the trees but there�s a certain point when the sun comes around the corner of the house down there on the corner and it�s just like somebody hits a light switch it comes around and boom a burst of sunshine just washes my whole front yard all in front of me. The sun is just bright and dazzling and when that happens I don�t know I feel happy. I just feel happy.

There�s something about it it wasn�t there and now it�s there. The brightness the sun. Amen. Oh and it just makes me feel like saying it�s going to be a good day. This is the day the Lord has made. I�m going to rejoice and be glad in it because no matter what else is going on in my life I know the light of God is shining on me. Hallelujah. He said it�s going to break forth on you God�s light. Now let�s keep it in its metaphorical sense God�s truth. God�s truth. How much joy do you feel when you have been pondering something in the scriptures or a situation you�ve been pondering and then one day it�s like somebody hit the light bulb in your mind and there it is.

How many know what I�m talking about? You�ve been pondering something. What does this mean or how am I supposed to take this or what is the Lord trying to tell me or I don�t understand this passage of scripture I don�t get it and you just kind of have it always turning up there in the wheels of your mind and one day it just opens up to you and you got it and you just feel like you want it.

Tell everybody. Only they wouldn�t get as excited as you are because they don�t know what you�ve been thinking all along but the light of the truth just comes shining on you. Amen. Oh, that�s what God wants to do for us and if you don�t know the Lord, if you�re not serving Him, if you�re not in relationship with Him, He wants to do for you. He wants the light of the truth to penetrate your heart and all of the burdens and the sorrows and the troubles and the questions that you have not been able to figure out for yourself.

He wants to just shine on you and open up to you the truth. Amen. John said in John 1 5, �And the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.� Now the word comprehend there is catalambano in our English and it means to perceive and to understand but it also means to overcome and to hold down and that�s the definition being used here.

Let me read it again to you. �And the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. And the light shines in darkness and the darkness did not overcome the light.� The truth of God is shining and the darkness and the lies of Satan cannot overcome the truth. Oh, he�s got a very good campaign going on to try to deny the truth.

Amen. But he cannot overcome it. He cannot hold the truth down. In fact, Romans 1 18 tells us that the wrath of God is against all men who are ungodly and unrighteous who hold down the truth. There are some people that try to stifle the truth and hold it down but they are on the losing side. All they�re going to do is bring all kinds of chaos and trouble in their own lives.

And if they never ever accept the truth, it�s going to get worse as they get older. They�re going to have more trouble and chaos. But it is not going to change the truth of God�s Word. God�s Word, as we know it, when God gave His Word to men by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, amen, that Word has survived over 4,000 years. Kingdoms have come and kingdoms have fallen.

Great men have risen and great men have fallen. Many things have come and gone, but the truth of God�s Word will stand forever. Jesus said, �If you follow my word, you�ll find mercy. You will find mercy and grace, but if my word falls on you, it will grind you to a powder.� Amen. That�s the dichotomy of God�s Word.

For those who receive it, they get the blessings, the mercy, the forgiveness, the healing. For those who resist it, you cannot resist God�s Word and come out on top. God will deal with you for a very long time.

He�ll deal with you over and over again because He loves you. He wants you to come to the knowledge of the truth. Scripture says that God would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but He will not force or make anyone. One thing God did was He gave us free will, and free will is not free will if you don�t get to choose.

He said, �I set before you the way of life and the way of death, the way of light and the way of darkness. Now you choose whom you will serve. You get to choose, amen, but you don�t get to choose the consequences. You get to choose whom you will serve. Now, you know sometimes I think why don�t you just, you know, why don�t you just make us serve you because after all it�s the better way. Heaven is the better destination, but God will never violate your free will even if it was better for you if He did, but He won�t.

Amen, you have to choose. Amen, what an exciting exhortation of the Lord, awake, arise and shine. Jesus warned in Matthew 24 His discourse on the signs of the end time because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Now the Greek term iniquity means without law or lawlessness. It describes a departure from and disregard for God�s laws, the Bible. When there is no restrainer, it allows evil to abound and instead of the saints standing up against the tide of wickedness, their love and their passion for God and His word waxes cold.

This implies a progression into apathy and inactivity. But Paul declared with his pen of passion five things we are to do in this chaotic climate. Awake from your sleep and Christ will give you light. Arise, arise means to stand up, not just on your feet in the physical sense, but to stand up for or against something. The church must stand against the hostilities of the world. We are at war against the kingdom of darkness. Shine, you are the lights of the world, Jesus said, let your light shine before men. Walk circumspectly, like a tightrope walker, with extreme focus and balance, and redeeming the times.

You can�t change the past, but you can buy back each moment wasted in sin and failures to finish your course strong with joy. Awake, Arise and Shine can be ordered on CD for a radio love gift of $10 or more. Request SK198, mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. You can also order online at soundoffaith.org, soundoffaith.org, where MP3s are also available. But to order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 and SK198. Until next time, this is Sharon Notts saying, Maranatha.