THE CHURCH SLEEPS ON

“AWAKE, AWAKE, PUT ON STRENGTH, O ARM OF THE LORD; AWAKE AS IN THE ACIENT DAYS” ISAIAH 51:9

It may sound flippant or even humorous to question; has the Lord’s arm fallen asleep? When you consider that the “Redeemed” are the Lord’s body, then it is very elementary to understand, that it is “WE” who have gone dead on God, not that God is in anyway restricted within Himself.

The Holy Spirit speaks through the Prophet Isaiah saying, “AWAKE, AWAKE, PUT ON STRENGTH, O ARM OF THE LORD; AWAKE AS IN THE ACIENT DAYS” yet I’m afraid the Church sleeps on.

Around us men hunger and thirst and are destroyed by sin; yet the Church sleeps on, Children lie homeless in our cities and run half naked and drug-crazed through abandoned apartments; yet the Church sleeps. We continue to build shopping mall structures of gold and glass to preserve and protect the saints as though the crop of the Lord is not already spoiled, the dying world longs for hope; yet the Church sleeps on.

Our corporate churches are run by men and women with credentials which rival those of the best CEOs in the nation as certainly they must as our houses of worship have become complexes of business. We sleepwalk through our days imagining; dreaming, that somehow we are making a difference while the Evening News tells a different story. As the lost agonize as though in childbirth in the hells of their own destruction; we recline in comfort, take satisfaction in our meetings and our classes and refuse to look beyond the stain-glass as the sanctuary; we don’t want to be disturbed, we may not be able to sleep, but we needn’t worry; for the Church sleeps on.

Our small groups and our little churches are exclusive to those who think and feel and act and look like they do; they convince themselves that all people are welcome however they feel threatened if their little core embraces anyone new; the message is alive; yet the Church sleeps on.

Do not be deceived; this message is for you and me for we are the church; the prophets see our heads nodding and he knows they do no nod out of agreement, but out of our own weariness. He sees that the Church sleeps on and so he cries out through the ages with a loud clarion call, “AWAKE, AWAKE, PUT ON STRENGTH, O ARM OF THE LORD; AWAKE AS IN THE ACIENT DAYS” and the Saints of Heaven echo AMEN!