Sleep

SLEEP

We have slept, our minds at peace. Resting in the arms of the Lord unafraid. Now commeth days of worry and fretting when few can sleep without troubled minds. Where did we go wrong? Was it gradual and could not be discerned or were we just too satisfied in the staleness of our religion that we did not perceive the coming darkness? Sleep in the appropriate hour is needful and is for the body. Alert wakefulness of the soul in prayer and supplication is mandatory. We have been told to work and to pray. There is a time for slumber and refreshment, but our work is not finished until God calls us to our promise of rest.

Psalms 4:8 “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”

Most everyone finds the writings in Psalms and Proverbs pleasant and informative reading. Therein we can receive long standing truths; the good and the not so pleasing.

Psalms 13:3 “Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; (Psalms 76) 4 “Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. 5 The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep: and none of the men of might have found their hands. 6 At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. 7 Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? 8 Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, 9 When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah.”

God is slow to awaken His children when they slumber even if to their own destruction. There are choices in ever facet of life; good and bad. We who bring glory and praise to God will, in due time, be awakened. Sometime it is a gentle nudge but sometimes a world shattering shaking.

Proverbs 6:9 “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?”10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: 11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man. (Proverbs 4:16) “For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.” (1 Thessalonians 5:7) “For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. (1 Thessalonians 5:6) Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”

Romans 13:11 “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

Spare not the rod and spoil the child. Teach a child in the way it is to go and when it is grown it will not depart from it. Children obey thy parents in all that is good. Too, long have children been neglected with abundance of things and lack of caution and conservatives practices. The dilemma of today is one product of our growth in inattention to God’s warnings.

Second Peter 3:3 “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

Let us be a Godly people. Know God, know peace. Amen. 04-30-2020