Good afternoon, please turn with me to Romans chapter 13 as we continue our study expository through the book of Romans. Follow along with me as I read verses 11 through 14, both in the New King James and then in the amplified version. Romans 13 follow along as I begin reading at verse 11 and do this knowing the time. That now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. And then the same text in the amplified. Besides this, you know that or what a critical hour this is, how it is high time now for you to wake up out of your sleep, rouse to reality. For salvation, final deliverance, is nearer to us now than when we first believed, adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ the Messiah. The night is far gone and the day is almost here. Let us then drop, fling away the works and deeds of darkness and put on the full armor of light. Let us live and conduct ourselves honorably and becomingly as in the open light of day, not in reveling, carousing and drunkenness, not in immorality and debauchery, sensuality and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and make no provision for indulging the flesh. Put a stop to thinking about the evil cravings of your physical nature to gratify its desires and lusts. I worked for a Christian ministry for almost 20 years. Many of you are aware of that. And one of the hosts of the radio ministry was named Omar and deal. And he and I used to work together once a month on certain programs that were live that would present the needs of the ministry. But he was unique as a host. He had a special style and he was very affable and approachable. He's very warm and gifted as a broadcaster, but he was a vibrant Christian as well. and he had the unique privilege of having the drive time morning show and his program began at six a.m. and went till about nine or ten in the morning. So he had the unique opportunity of waking waking Christians up and hear him being the first voice that many Christians would hear as they turned on the radio and as he began his program. The first three words which open it up were very unique. He would say up, up, up. And I'll never forget that some of you who are perhaps older in the faith who remember Omar. He had a very upbeat, very vibrant, positive way of communicating the word of God and encouraging believers. And he was always rousing believers to wake up out of sleep. And he did so, at least in a physical way, by challenging and encouraging us to get out of bed, to get our day started with the Lord and wake up. And I'll never forget that. And I think there's a spiritual corollary here. And in that, the New Testament scriptures are literally saturated with exhortations and admonishments to wake up. And such language suggests that Christians constantly are tempted to fall asleep. And when we talk about being lulled to sleep or falling asleep, obviously it's not physically. We're tempted to fall asleep to spiritual issues that God commands us to stay awake over to be awake in our relationship. To those issues. And as we look at this text in verses 11 through 14, the larger context, of course, goes all the way back to chapter 12 and verse one. God at the very end of this long section of exhortations and admonishments and moral teachings. He now adds one final important truth to reinforce two truths and particularly that we already looked at in chapters 12 and 13. The first truth is found In the immediate context Romans thirteen eight where we read oh no one anything except to love one another for he who loves another has fulfilled the law or oh no one in a anything except to love one another and has fulfilled the law. And obviously the most important thing where we are to remain awake concerning is the weightier matters of the law especially in this case love. We are to be awake. To love and the title of this message is Christians wake up. Wake up. And this is a message not only to Christ Bible Church and the members, but also to all believers everywhere, God is constantly beckoning us and calling us to remain in his position and state of watchfulness and that of being awake. Because remaining sin and corruption in our spiritual, in our old man rather, constantly is leading us to a place of spiritual lethargy and apathy, complacency and spiritual sleep. And so whatever we need to do legitimately and biblically to stay awake, God commands us in the end to stay awake. The second truth that God Calls us to in terms of the context and scripturally to be a wakeover is what he brought out in Romans 12, one and two. the beginning text of this long series of moral and spiritual teachings in chapters 12 and 13. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. If you integrate the practical Christian responsibilities identified in these two verses into your daily life and are consistent in practicing them, you will remain awake spiritually. If you make it your business To present yourself daily as a living sacrifice in your individual walk with God, which is no strange thing, which is no big sacrifice. It's your reasonable service. If you stay at arm's length from being conformed to the world. If you are transformed by the process of being renewed in the spirit, in your relationship with God every day, using the means of grace as a tool, and if you walk in the perfect will of God, proving what is God's perfect will for you in your life, you will remain spiritually awake at all times and coupled With that is Chapter 13 and verse eight, the responsibility to love one another. And we find that we are commanded to remain awake in these particular things. This brings us to the first point, and that is wake up. Jesus is coming when we talk about. The responsibility Christians have to stay awake when we look at the constant pressing urgent calls of God in the Scriptures to his people for Christians to wake up. We're talking about the fact that God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is returning to this world. Jesus is coming. And in light of the second coming of Christ. Scripture after Scripture, parable after parable in the Gospels, long section of the epistles after long section of the epistles, command us to be awake specifically with an eye that is looking for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he says in verse 11 through 12. Look at it. Get your Bibles and I want you to see it. And do this knowing The time that now it is high time to wake up out of sleep. For now, our salvation is nearer than when we first believe the night is far spent. The day is at hand. Look at the first phrase and do this. The King James, the authorized version, says, and that I see, I don't think that's the best translation. I think the best translation is and do this, which actually means in addition to or on top of this or and another thing besides the exhortation in verses eight through ten to love one another. He says besides that, in addition to on top of that, another thing I want you to understand is what he's going to bring out in verses 11 through 14 and what he says. First of all, knowing the time. Now, there are seven references to time in verses 11 through 12a. In one and a half verses, there are seven references to time. God is emphasizing here that time does matter for Christians. The shortness and brevity of time should be used as a constant instrument of. Helping us stay awake. And watchfulness looking for and hastening to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word for time in Greek karyos means season or knowing the season. God is saying to you and me, look, knowing the season. Why? Because Christians are always looking for the signs of the times. We're more than looking introspectively at our own selfish desires. We are people who more than just observe the current events. of the day or the worldly developments and desires that the world has and even that we struggle with. Christians always have this this third eye in the back of their minds where they're looking for the second coming of the Lord, Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, we are very sensitive to the signs of the times. And therefore, he says, knowing the time, you should be knowing what time it is. And for the last 2000 years, Christians of every generation were commanded to be awake and be watchful and should be very sensitive to these events that would precede the second coming of our Lord, knowing the time. And so the word for time is better interpreted season. Knowing the season, since we don't know the day nor the hour or the exact time, When Jesus will come, God has given us signs that will alert us to the season in which Jesus will return. Whether that season is 40 years or within 50 years or within 20 years, no one knows. But as Christians, the Holy Spirit has given us a heightened sense of spiritual discernment to put prophetic scriptures together, two plus two, as it were, To understand that the Lord's coming soon, the Lord's coming soon. And through this sense of expectation of the second coming of Christ, we should be motivated and moved by the fear of God to be awake and ready for his second coming. So knowing the season signifies being fully aware of the significance of the present time, are you? Are you, as a believer, fully conscious and aware of the significance of the present day and age in which you and I live? Are we aware of the significance of the day and age in 2014, October 19th, that we live in? Let me ask you, if you are, maybe some of you are, I trust most of you here are, Are you aware that by and large the church is apostate. Thank God not every church is unfaithful and dead. Has little or no life but most of them are that way and I don't say that in a deprecating gloating or judgmental way. I don't. I say that with tears. I say that with a heart that is broken. I say that as one who has wept and continues to weep tears before the throne of grace over the state of the church in general, not just our particular church and our needs and our spiritual needs, but the church in general. I say that with a heart of compassion, with a heart of concern, with a jealous heart over the purity of the church, as all of us should have. But the church is apostate. How can you and I remain indifferent to such a thing and fall asleep spiritually to such a state, being indifferent to the apostasy of the church? Also, do we understand the spiritual implications of the church being saturated with worldliness and with false teachings? Do we just shrug our shoulders to such things and say, well, you know, it's not affecting me. Why bother? Why care? Doesn't affect my church. What does that have to do with me? Well, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, and we are to be concerned that our own individual church would be affected by such a thing. Also, do the pollutions and harlotries and adulteries and idolatries and defilements of the bride of Christ cause you to mourn and weep for her? There was a lot packed in that question. Did you get that? When was the last time? Let me rephrase this. When was the last time that the pollutions and harlotries and adulteries and idolatries and defilements of the bride of Christ cause you to mourn and weep? Because those are the words the Lord uses in the scripture to define and describe His church when it is not faithful. Read the book of Revelation chapters two and three. Read Isaiah chapter one. Do the rapid developments of the signs of the times cause shock and awe within us? I tell people all the time that the developments we see in the world Preparing it for the second coming, as well as in the church, take my breath away. They are so quick. The changes are taking place at such a drastic and accelerated rate. It's hard to keep up with it. It's hard to know how to minister to people accordingly. So what is our response and attitude to these startling and amazing and changing events in the world that's having such a transforming effect on the church? What should be our response, what should be our attitude? Well, we can't afford to be indifferent to these things, that's for sure. We're to remain awake over them, we're to be concerned over them, we're to be in prayer over them, we're to be weeping and mourning and lamenting that God, at least beginning with our church, would keep his church from the defilements and pollutions of the world, that he would keep us holy and pure, and all of our other sister churches, that even we should believe him for a revival, an outpouring of his grace and of his spirit upon the church that would cleanse the church from its wickedness, And would it bring a large influx of unsaved people into the church? Because if you are a believer like I am, we long to see his churches full and overflowing with true believers who are filled with the spirit of God and the spirit of prayer and the spirit of worship. You see this text, brethren, this text. There's nothing soft about it. It's a very strong exhortation for the church to wake up. To wake up spiritually, if you're tired, please stand up. This is not a sermon for you to fall asleep in. The very title of it says wake up. Well, what are we to wake up to and what does the Lord want us to be looking for? Well, the answer is we're to be looking for the second coming of Christ. That's what we're to be looking for. We're to wake up to that. We're to be constantly in an ongoing way looking for the second coming of the Lord Jesus. And we are also to wake up to the fact. Of his imminent return. He could come in any minute. And those two things should motivate us to live holy lives and to evangelize the lost. Do you believe that? When are we going to wake up to these things? Well, the next verse says, and now it is high time to wake out of sleep. Well, now is the time we need to wake up, he says, and now and now it is high time to to awake out of sleep. Are you awake right now? As he says, because he's speaking to us in real time, is he not? He's speaking to us right now in the present. Now, it's high time. High means the time for us to wake up is at its zenith. There's no more time to wait. The waiting period is over. It's high time. The waiting period has filled up to the top. It's high time to wake up out of sleep. That's what he's saying to the church, saying this to you and me. Are you hearing what he's saying? I said there were seven references to time in the text. Look back at verse one and do this, knowing the what? The time. Second reference, that now. Now is the time. Third, it's high what? Time. The time is full up to awake out of sleep. Fourth, for when? Now is our salvation. Fifth, nearer. Another reference to time than when we first believe six, the night is far spent. Another reference to time, the passing of the night. Number seven, the day is at hand. The day is quickly approaching again, reference to time. The meaning of night and day here is a separate issue. Seven references to time, it's put here deliberately by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to press home to our hearts, this thing that there is an urgency. for us to wake up, to be awake, to be watchful and to never fall asleep, spiritually speaking. You see, God is using the brevity of time to exhort the church to stay awake spiritually. We never know how much time we have left to serve the Lord, to know the Lord, to walk with the Lord. We can never presume that we have next week, let alone tomorrow, let alone the next hour. We need to use every minute, every hour wisely, because God exhorts us to carefully weigh the fact that we have such a little time left. That time can be taken at any moment. You see, verse 11 provides a motive and a motivation for us to be awake. And the motive and the motivation is the brevity of time. And the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's saying, look, because we have such short time before the Lord comes and because the Lord himself is coming. We have to stay awake. We have to stay awake, we don't know how much time we have left to serve the Lord. Some of you are new believers and you're just trying to get traction in your growth and maturity as a Christian. You're struggling, perhaps some of you look, God's saying time is short. You don't even have time to struggle and to go through a 50 year process of maturity. You need to get on with serving the Lord right now. You need to be awake to the issue of holiness. You and I need to be awake to the issue of total consecration, dedication, dedication of our time, our resources, our all our gifts, to the Lord Jesus Christ, especially as those things come to bear upon holiness of life. The brevity of time and the second coming are the motive for us to stay awake and the motivation to remain awake. Are you hearing this? This is critical for the church. We are the pastors, the shepherds, the leaders that are broken and burdened over these issues. that are mourning night and day, looking for and longing to see the holiness, the purity, the chastity, the righteousness of the Bride of Christ? Where are they? God has given us sanctified emotions and affections. And whenever these issues that we are speaking about and similar issues that we're addressing today hit our hearts with rich power, our emotions and our affections are stretched to the breaking point as our hearts go out with longing for the church of Jesus Christ. He says we're to look for the return of Christ now. Now, in other words, he's saying it's high time to wake up. He's saying you're to look for. The Lord now. But there is a practical element to this as you're looking, the question begs itself. Does your lifestyle reflect the imminence of the Lord's return? Or are we too way down with worldly cares? I have to marry a wife. I have to find a husband. I have to get my GED. I have to get a college degree. I have to get my master's degree. Got to get my Ph.D. I'm on a track. I'm on a mission. I'm on a path to obtain some earthly goal. And nothing can deter me. Now, these earthly goals are good. They're good. Don't misunderstand me. Please don't leave here and say, Pastor Joe said, don't go to college. But it's so easy for our earthly goals and duties and responsibilities to usurp the first works, to usurp our first love, and to usurp our duty to be watchful and awake, looking unto Jesus constantly, daily, hour by hour, moment by moment. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Are you awake? Are you listening with the ears of the Spirit? If anyone will hear. Let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. Our lifestyle is to be conformed to this command. But our culture and society. Our Hollywood culture and society is ideally suited to put Christians to sleep, which is the opposite of being wide awake. Everything around us is saying constantly go to sleep, go to sleep. Put it off. Procrastinate. Don't deal with these weighty spiritual issues, which will occupy the minds of all intelligent beings, both in heaven and hell, with constant, fervent power and intensity forever, without any abatement or decreasing of that intensity. Don't occupy yourself with those eternal issues that relate to the eternal welfare of every intelligent being in heaven and on earth. Well, God commands us to be awake for this very reason. God commands us to be awake to these issues without any diminishing of intensity or care or concern. It's tragic and grievous to see a majority of Christians, therefore, and churches sound asleep. You talk about these things. Even about related practical issues that are of much less significance and multitudes of professing Christians have nothing to say to you. You talk about 200,000 or so people dying every day outside of a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. They have nothing to say. Not a pang of concern moves their heart. Not one shocking ball of light truth enters their mind to wake them up to the fact that people are going to hell. That waiting place for judgment. No light shines in. No conviction. No pangs of burden. Enter their heart. They're dead to these. How can you be a Christian and be dead to the salvation of the lost and the eternal welfare of every living soul and the purity and holiness and righteousness of the local church? How can we be dead and indifferent to these things? Does Elijah have to raise from the dead? Does the Apostle Paul have to be raised and bring these men back into the church to remind us what awaits us one second after our spirit leaves our mortal bodies? Wake up, church! Wake up! I say this in love. The doctrine of staying awake is given much treatment and attention in the New Testament. We can't avoid it. Read the book of 1 John. Read the book of 2 Peter. Read the book of Hebrews. Read the book of 1 Peter. Read the book of Jude. Read any number of parables that challenge and warn those who say they're saved, but are dead to these issues, that are asleep To the weightier concerns of God in these matters. Much treatment in the New Testament. And we can understand why this is so, because the alternative. To staying awake is unthinkable. For example, here are a small assortment of texts that command us to stay awake, I want you to follow me in these texts. Hebrews 10. 25. Turn there, please. Hebrews 10. 25. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching the way the word day there's with a capital D. That means the day of the Lord, the second coming. God only commands us to be awake about. Our Lord's coming. But we're to do practical things. In accordance with this watchfulness were to be exhorting other people who don't attend church that profess to be Christians. Let alone I don't know how. A true believer could stay away from worship services, prayer meetings, communion services, Bible studies, midweek cell group meetings for weeks and months at a time, be a member of a local church and say that they are awake. Unless they're hindered medically or physically, I understand that, no problem with that. I know a woman named Chris Henley. She's basically paralyzed, can't move. The last time she spoke to me before she lost the ability to speak, This is what she said to me, Pastor Joe, can you send someone here to pick me up and bring me to church? Here's a woman who is paralyzed and she wants to come to church. But we have untold thousands and millions who have the free use of their bodies and minds and they're home watching the football game or they're out working on the Lord's Day or they're pursuing vanity and pleasures and amusements which will all perish with the using. When we look at reality and the affairs of this life through the burning eyes of a holy God who sees everything in the light of His righteous, moral, just nature, we will see the smallest sin as the most detestable, abhorrent thing in the entire world. How can we be dead to these issues if we have the Spirit of God living in me, the Spirit of God convicting me, the Spirit of God resisting fleshly impulses within me every day? If I have the Spirit of God informing me, reminding me, helping me to remember on a daily basis, how can I be indifferent to these issues? How can I? Well, maybe that's why in Romans 8, Paul says, if anyone have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If we have the Spirit of Christ, we have the spirit of adoption. The Spirit of God within the believer who constantly cries out against unrighteousness. The Spirit of God who constantly illuminates us to the smallest sinful desires and sinful motives and sinful actions, convicting us that they're wrong, bringing us back to the Lamb of God and those bleeding wounds which wash us afresh and present us as cleansed vessels once again for the Master's use. If you have the Spirit of God in you, you're awake. You're in the light. You're breathing in the air of God. And you're able to respond in kind. to those around you, representing his issues, representing his convictions, representing his burdens as a testimony to the world, as a minimum, as a minimum, as a witness to the world, if they do not repent, We are called at least to be a witness of these things and uphold the high standards of holiness. That if they don't believe on their way in sinking the hell, they will sink into hell as they observe a high standard and banner of holiness in the church. Amen. Where are the pastors today? They're going to draw the line. It's an emergent doctrine. Stay out there. Don't come into this church where the pastors are going to draw the line and say purpose driven philosophy, purpose driven church, purpose driven lifestyle. Don't come into this church. Don't talk to my people. I will get as a shepherd between you and one of my sheep, if you're going to talk to them and try to poison their minds with your poisonous teachings and so on down the line. Where are the pastors who are not worried about their salary? They'd rather work a full-time job and be able to stand with conviction and preach the truth with heart and with soul and with passion, representing the depths of God's burden in these matters. Where are they? Is there not a handful? Are there not a hundred? Are there not a thousand in America, in the West, in Europe? Has all of France and all of Germany and all of South America gone to sleep in the church? Where are they? At this critical moment in church history, almost all of those in the ministry, except a rare few, are falling asleep on these same urgent matters. These matters are no less less burdensome and urgent today than when the Apostle Paul preached them. Where are the pastors who have the spirit of God stirring them up, stirring them up? Suppressing selfish. Desires suppressing self-centered and. Self aggrandizing motives in ministry. So that the glory of Christ can come out in the church in a righteous ministry. A ministry that is solely concerned with God's interest. The Apostle Paul said, I have no one but Timothy who was like minded. That's a huge statement. Huge statement. I have no one but Timothy. I can count some really faithful men about other men that the Apostle Paul had dealings with, but no one except Timothy represented God's interests. Just like the Apostle Paul, with the same perspective Paul had. That's a statement. It's a statement. Where's your perspective on these things concerning being awake? It's high time. There's no more delay. All the waiting has run out. It's high time. We're closer to our Final salvation, the consummation of our faith is very close. If you've been a Christian for 20 years, many of you have. Some of you have been Christians for 30 plus years in this room. Do you realize how close you are to the consummation of your salvation? Do you realize how close you are? Therefore, how can you mature Christians, older believers at Christ Bible Church, be negligent or slothful in any of these matters regarding holiness and evangelism and righteous living before the Lord. Total dedication. The parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. I'll not comment on this. It's too long of a text. But follow along in verse 1. Matthew 25. Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight, a cry was heard. Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, No, lest there should not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut. Afterward, the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you watch, therefore, watch, therefore, for, you know, neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. Obviously, the implication is that during the period of watching and being awake, the five foolish versions were asleep and did not go out and get oil for their lamps during the prescribed time of watchfulness. Mark 13, turn to Mark 13, 32 through 37. Mark 13, 32. But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the sun, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray, for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country who has left his house and gave authority to his servants and to each his work and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning. Lest suddenly, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all. Watch. Oh, may that not be said about Christ's Bible Church, that when the Lord Jesus Christ came, He found us spiritually sleeping. Brethren, some of you need to take inventory. Are you spiritually awake or spiritually sleeping? Respond to the Lord in your answer to that question. Respond to the Lord. Take stock. Take inventory. In any area of your life where you are spiritually asleep, it may not be the entirety of your Christian life, But there may be one or two areas unbeknownst to you, you lost sight of, and you're dragging things on week after week after week. You're not repenting. And you're not coming back into the light. Walking with God in the light as He is in the light. Because when you do that, and you fess up to the Lord in every area of your life, the Bible says when you walk with Him in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of all sin. 1 Corinthians 15.33 First Corinthians fifteen thirty three and thirty four. Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Awake to righteousness and do not sin. He's talking about holiness. Awake to holiness. For some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame in the context He's talking to the church at Corinth. They all profess to know the Lord, but he says some of them don't have the knowledge of God. That is the ongoing, renewable knowledge of God. And therefore, they're asleep to these issues, to the issues connected to righteousness. And many, therefore, were having worldly relationships, friendships, and other illicit relationships, both privately and publicly. And God forbid, if any of us have such relationships. If you do, you need to cut them off now, now, now. For now is the time, he says, to do these things. In Ephesians 5, verse 8. Ephesians 5, verse 8. For you were once darkness, but now you are the light In the Lord walk as children of light for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them for it is shameful to even speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light. In other words, whatever exposes is light. Therefore, he says awake you who sleep arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Here's a key truth that we will tie in with the third point in just a few minutes. The connection between staying awake and the Lord Jesus Christ, the connection with between staying awake with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you maintain a close relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and are renewed by Him in the Spirit every day, you will stay awake. And you will be awake to righteousness. You will be awake to holiness. You will be awake to all things that are of God's concerns and on God's mind. And you will have the mind of Christ and see everything the way God sees everything. You will have wisdom and insight into all issues. And you will be awake to every spiritual occurrence and implication that takes place in your life, whether large or small. You hearing me? First Thessalonians 5, 1 through 9. First Thessalonians 5, 1 through 9. But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you for you yourselves to know perfectly. That the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. If the day of the Lord so comes in the thief in the night as a thief in the night and no one will know when he'll come, he'll take most by surprise. Then we have no choice but to remain awake because even if we nod off for five seconds, he may come during that time. So if he comes as a thief in the light, we must, as a remedy, stay awake perpetually. Of course, he's talking about staying spiritually awake. For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day there's a there that word is again the word day with a capital D. That's the day of the Lord. The second coming should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober for those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet and the hope of salvation. Now, I say this as a pastor and I say this is love. The only way we can do this is not be walking in a perpetual state of spiritual weakness and. Apathy. Now, I'm not saying we're perfect and we will not be weak from time to time, we are all weak inherently, and God teaches us that our strength is in him through constant and many lessons and to look to him only for our strength. But he says that we're not in darkness. We're sons of light, sons of the day. We're not of the night. We're not to be asleep like others do, whether they be unsaved people or unsaved people in the church or even saved people in the church that are not awake. They're sleeping on these matters. But again, if we're saved, we have the spirit of God and we know these things. But he wants us to be consistently and perpetually awake to them and not drift to a place where ninety five plus percent of the time we are basically doing our own thing and paying lip service to spirituality, lip service to the ways of God. And it's the responsibility of pastors and other means that God provides for his church to wake us up to reinvigorate the church, the body of Christ, to wake us up mentally, intellectually, to remind us of these things and also to wake us up spiritually, because we constantly tend to forget these issues, to put them off, neglect them and procrastinate on dealing with the heart issues that are connected with sleepiness, spiritual sleepiness. And if if you don't deal with the root of the issue, the sin or the neglect, it is not going to take care of itself in terms of the problem. You have to go to the root, you have to have dealings with God in your innermost spiritual man over these issues and not set them aside, not put them off. I say this to you in love, my brethren, I struggle with the same things. And for 30 plus years as a pastor, I have ministered to people over and over day after day, almost not a day goes by without addressing one way or another these issues. We cannot put them off anymore. It's high time. Now is the time to wake up to these things, to remain awake from here forward, from here forward. And if it means we have to hold on to the horns of the altar, if it means we have to go to our beloved Lord Jesus, our shepherd who is touched with the feeling of our infirmity, who knows our weakness, who knows we've been delaying and delaying and delaying. He's given us space to repent, but we've been delaying, delaying, delaying. He knows! He knows our weakness. We come to Him. We cling to Him like that woman who had the issue of blood, the flow of blood, and would not take no for an answer. Lord, please, even the dogs are fed with the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table. How much more me, Lord? I'm your child. I've been redeemed by your blood. I have your Holy Spirit in me, and I'm just so weak and so pitiful. Deceiving myself, I keep neglecting certain spiritual areas. You know me, Lord, better than anyone. Come, Lord, and help me. Give me that which I need to bring me over the line. Give me the grace I need to fully repent and put this neglect behind me so that I can remain awake. You do that and He will. He will. He will help you. He will come to your aid. He's your Lord. He's your Shepherd. He cannot deny Himself and His covenant with His sheep. He cannot deny you as His sheep. He says He knows the sheep by name. He loves the sheep. He cares for the sheep. He died for the sheep. Do you think He will say no to the very request that He gives to you to ask Him? Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress on this point of being aware or beware of sleeping. Tells us that when hopeful came to a certain country. He began to be very dull and heavy of sleep. You remember that part when you read Pilgrim's Progress? Wherefore, he said, let us lie down here and take a nap. By no means, said the other. Less sleeping, we wait no more. Why, my brother, sleep is sweet to the laboring man. We may be refreshed if we take a nap. Do you not remember, said the other, that one of the shepherds bid us beware of the enchanted ground? He meant by that that we should be aware of sleeping. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober, slumbering and backsliding are closely allied. Number two. Wake up, we're in a war first, wake up, Jesus is coming next, wake up, we're in a war. Now versus. Verse 12, B. through 13, provide both a negative and a positive motivation to remain awake. Let's look at the negative one first. Look at verse 12B, therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. What is this describing spiritually in this passage, verse 12B through 13? It's describing a war. We're in a war. What kind of war? A spiritual war. A war that would have us succumb to the very sins enumerated in this passage, verse 12b through 13. And this is the language of a soldier, if you read this verse carefully. It talks about casting off at the beginning of this section, verse 12b. Let us cast off the works of darkness. This is what a soldier does. He casts off an enemy that's attacking him and trying to subdue him. He's got to cast them off. And we have these enemies calling remaining sin, lusts, sinful desires. distractions by the world and a thousand other things. They're enemies attacking us. We need to wake up to this because we're in a war. We are not let to have allow these enemies to overcome us. We ought not to be passive about this war because your enemy is not passive. Your enemy is aggressive. He's aggressive. He's relentless. He will not stop until he overtakes you. and stops the spiritual life from your veins, as it were. But also a soldier puts on, he puts on his armor, he puts on his uniform, puts on his gear, his rifle, his helmet. I was a Marine and I was in the U.S. Marine Corps in the infantry for two and a half years before I was transferred to the rifle range. For two and a half years, I walked up and down the hills of Asia and South America in training, mostly. carrying a heavy machine gun. Carrying over 100 pounds. A soldier has to put on his equipment and not just put it on and look at it. So that's nice. I got a rifle, but a soldier has to put it on and use it. Use every weapon available to keep the enemy at bay. Because sometimes the enemy will come in full force and only every weapon you have and every skill and all the experience and all the grace God will bear down upon you at that moment of attack will keep the enemy barely at bay. But some of us are Not in this church, but I don't know how some can be mavericks. Someone said yesterday that they were talking to somebody in this person. I don't need the church. Some of us act that way, I don't need prayer. I mean, I've got something important to do. I don't need this. So are you giving me your Jewish guilt trip again? No, this is the Bible. The Bible commands us to pray, does it not? Just pray. If you don't pray, your silence is suggestive of self-sufficiency. Is it not? Well, I don't believe I'm self-sufficient. Then why don't you pray? Why don't you come to the prayer meeting? Why don't you partake of the Lord's Supper? Why don't you come to every worship service unless you're in the hospital? Why don't you go to the Bible study? I don't need the Bible study. I have college or I have work. I need to work overtime. Believe me, Satan knows every weakness we have, and God commands us, do not let the enemy take advantage of you. I need to do everything I can, even as a pastor, to stay faithful every day. I'm at every Bible study unless I'm sick. Well, you're the pastor. That's what we pay you for. I'm not even going to answer that, because if some of you were thinking that, OK, let's not go there. We're in a war, brethren. The battle is between light and darkness. The metaphors of light and darkness, these contrasting analogies are constantly used in Scripture to describe the battle between good and evil and the battle between the saints with the world, the flesh and the devil. If we're to remain awake and in the battle fighting against these things, we need to live in the light. First, John chapter one, verse five, turn there. Bear with me now. I'll be done in 10 minutes. First John, chapter one, verse five, this is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If you're going to be a powerful participant as a soldier in the war, you've got to have a clear conscience. You've got to be constantly washed from all unconfessed sin in the blood of Christ by faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ as the one who sanctifies you, as the one who renews you by his grace, as the one who refills all the powerful ammunition supply within your heart that you need every day to fight this battle. To do so, therefore, Before you can engage the enemy, you need to make sure you're walking with God in the light, in the light of a clear conscience where no stone is unturned in terms of unrepentant sin. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you might proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The call came for you and me by our precious shepherd who loved us so much that he died for us. He gave us up his life, his whole life he gave up for us. He was punished for our iniquity. He was bruised for our sin. That we might come out of darkness and walk with him first and foremost with a clear conscience and his marvelous life. When we do that, not only will we be able to fight the enemy as a soldier of Christ, but we will be able to proclaim the praises of him who called us into the light with a clear conscience, not holding back. We'll be able to evangelize or manifest the light to coworkers or preach on the streets of gospel or be a witness to our families without hesitation, without our faces blushing because of hypocrisy and unconfessed sin. So we're to walk with God in the light, that means All will be well between us and God. Conscience wise, we'll be able to preach the gospel, share the gospel as well as fight the good fight of faith, not only with a clear conscience, but with the fresh renewed power of God upon us. Are you hearing that? We have to put on the armor of light to not only do we walk, In the light, if we're to be awake, but we're to put on the armor of light. Why? Because first Thessalonians five, four, turn their first Thessalonians five, four says it. This is something we do aggressively in a proactive way. We have to put the armor on. It's a deliberate conscious thing that we do. First Thessalonians 5.4. But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief. That's the second coming. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do. Let us watch and be sober for those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk or drunk at night. Let us be watchful. Let us be awake. Let us Put on the armor of light. As Ephesians 6, 10 says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6, 10, 11. So we're to be awake because we're in a war. Any soldier who falls asleep in a war is court-martialed. I remember one time in the Marine Corps on Okinawa in the 3rd Marine Division in 1975. I was a duty NCO. And when you're the on-duty non-commissioned officer, you have to stay awake all night, just patrol the barracks, watch. You're the most important person awake. You're to be awake and watch out for any enemies or any disturbances because your fellow Marines are sleeping. The officers are sleeping. And you are the last line of defense between harm and or safety and security. If you fall asleep. They, I was accused of falling asleep one time on Okinawa. They brought me into the captain's office. They held what they call a captain's mask. Brother Carney knows what I'm talking about. He was in the Navy. They bring you before the company commander and the charges are read against you and you have to answer them. I answered the charges and I was found not guilty. But I remember when that, that captain's mask, my, at that time I was a Marine for two years. My whole Marine career was looking at going down the drain. In the Marine Corps, they're very serious about staying awake on duty because it could mean disaster if you don't. And this infinitely more applicable to us in terms of the dangers and the warnings and the negative repercussions that we could experience if we are not awake spiritually at all times. We're to take this principle and apply it to our everyday life and change our schedule accordingly, change our priorities accordingly, to make sure that we do what we need to do to remain spiritually awake and to keep short accounts with God. And to have clean hands, a pure heart, joy in the Lord, peace in our hearts with the Lord. All of these graces and fruits that the Lord will restore to the full if we are awake and walking with him in the light, because the Lord loves his people. He loves to give us the things that he provides for us to remain a faithful and a holy people. So in a war, a soldier must use his weapons and be watchful for the enemy. And in case in the case of the Christian, we must also be watching for the coming of the Lord, for he says, take heed to yourselves. Lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come on you unexpectedly, for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell in the face of the whole earth. So watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. This verse is taking place, is being fulfilled before our very eyes right now. Right now. This verse refers to end times believers. That's us. Just prior to the second coming of Christ. Says don't let your heart be weighed down. Not only with these grosser kinds of sin like carousing, drunkenness, but he also says the cares of this life. We could be living moralized and have a propped up profession of faith and and but we're still Caught up with the cares of this life, running here, soccer mom, this, that, this. And our whole day is filled with important activities. But by the by the end of the day, have we had dealings heart to heart with the Lord Jesus Christ so that he has dispensed a fresh amount of grace in my heart so that I feel like I've entered the Garden of Eden again in fellowship with the Lord. That's our daily priority. If not, if you're not able to do that consistently. And again, there are qualifications here. We have our moments, but this is a daily duty that God commands us to do and not get so caught up and consumed with the cares of this life that we give all of our strength to the world and none of our strength to the Lord. Are you hearing what I'm saying? There is a time. When this truth will come home to you with deep conviction, that sudden realization, that rude awakening, that you've given your strength to your company for all these years and now you have little or no time left to serve the Lord, or you've given all your strength to your family, or you've given all your strength to earning your retirement, to getting your degree, to doing this or doing that, and you have nothing left for the Lord. You say, well, can't we do both, Pastor Joe? Yes. If you do both, though, you need to be warned that you need to do so without lowering God as a priority on the priority ladder lower than one. You need to first do the first works and maintain those first works and everything else comes after that. The first works are maintaining your walk with the Lord. A clear conscience with God. No accusations of conscience. for the short-term or the long-term past that has not been dealt with. You cannot have your strength given to anything of this world, however legitimate that duty may be, that calling may be, that role may be, that usurps the priority of Jesus Christ in your life. Nothing. And that is so easy to do. So if you ask me if you can do both, serve God and serve ma'am and serve God and serve the cares of this life, It is a very, very wise, smart and strong person in the Lord that is able to do both, to do both faithfully. And I am not one of those people. I've had to give up some things, some earthly aspirations and attainments. I've had to give some of them up. I have not been able to achieve everything. Humanly speaking, that I've wanted to do and serve the Lord faithfully, haven't been able to do it. I'm not saying that there are those who aren't, who are not able to do it, but I'm not one of them. At the end of the day, there's always something that I didn't get to do. And usually, you know, who is at the suffering end of that list is God. Did I accomplish everything else that I check off everything on my checklist of this world and the cares of this life? Yes. Where does God stand in all this? Where is God's rights, God's claims, God's cares for us? And. It's true. Some of us have heard this 100 times, but still, the Lord Jesus has his arms open, waiting for us, waiting for us. Number three, wake up to holiness. I've said quite a bit about this. This is the second motivation to stay awake and it's positive. It says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Every church should have a moniker or a badge, and it's called holiness. Holiness, that should be. The felt. Sense of what our church is about when we Have visitors come here. We're about holiness. We should exude holding holiness as a church. That's our badge. That's a badge of every church. And this is what God is saying here, we need to wake up, how do we accomplish points one and two? Being awake to the second coming of Christ and to the brevity of life, how can we stay awake concerning the war that we're in and be faithful soldiers in it? How can we be faithful to the context which God commands us to to obey, which is verses eight through 10 concerning loving one another and verses one and two of Chapter 12. It's by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, putting on Christ as a process that began in salvation, which Galatians three talks about where he says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ had put on Christ. So when you were baptized into Christ, that's referring to a spiritual baptism. Not your water baptism, when you baptized into Christ, that's when you put on the Lord Jesus Christ, that's when the spirit of Christ entered you. But then. The Bible teaches that we continue to put on Christ throughout the duration of our Christian life in Colossians 310, for example, we it talks about This putting on Christ continues as we become more like Christ and are transformed into his image. It says, put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. So it's an ongoing putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this enables us to maintain a level of holiness. You see, walking with Christ in the light keeps us in the light of truth, And in the light of God's will. And God produces from that both a clear conscience. And an awakened sense of watchfulness over our own souls and for the second coming of Christ. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's light that we walk in. It's the light of watchfulness, but it's a subjective personal knowledge. It's a subjective personal light. It's the awareness of Christ dwelling in the inner man, occupying the inner man, controlling and directing the inner man. We don't go by feelings. Yes. But this is the evidence, and this is the effect that is produced within our hearts when we walk with Jesus Christ in the light and are watchful and awake to all of God's concerns and truths. We're not to provide opportunities for the flesh to fulfill its lust, though the Bible says, do not make provision for the flesh. And today in our generation, we have Untold, infinite, innumerable amount of things that could quickly trigger someone fulfilling the flesh. But God says make no provision for the flesh. Get rid of all those things, but mostly put on the Lord Jesus Christ, which provides a spiritual fortifying and insulating of the heart from temptation and from desire for fleshly things to fulfill the lusts. The time is short and we need to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light by maintaining union and communion with Christ. The way we walk properly in the world is by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and making no provision to fulfill fleshly lusts. We're to avoid situations where fleshly desires might be aroused and acted upon. Are you hearing that? We're to put on. What are we to put on? The armor of light. We're to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. These are spiritual clothes that God clothes us with. When we, by faith, look to Christ and trust in Him for the grace and the strength that these things provide. And this is accomplished through faith in Christ. cleansing us by his blood. This is accomplished by meditating on the high priesthood of Christ, that no matter how many times we failed in the past, the Lord forgives us 10,000 times because we've already been forgiven of our sins, past, present, and future. It's not an issue of the Lord resurrecting the issue of unforgiven sin again, no. Our sins are already forgiven, all of them. They're cast behind God's back. It's a matter of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ after repentance, looking to Christ, trusting in Him, meditating on who He is as our High Priest who promised to bring us back again and again in the Holy of Holies to God from a place of weakness, from a place of limitation, from a place of backsliding, from a place of unfruitfulness. The Lord Jesus Christ is our high priest. As you meditate on all the facets and components of his high priesthood, reminds us that he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness and to bring us back again to himself and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, who restores comforts, who restores power within our hearts. To to know that yes, he's still our father. He hasn't forsaken us and he never will. And he's still equipping me like he did to Peter when he Peter was recommissioned to go out. And Peter said, I love you, Lord. I love you. You know that I love you. He recommissioned Peter and Peter went out. and had a tremendous life of ministry resulting in martyrdom. He does the same thing to us. He recommissions us every day after we make things right with God in our hearts by the blood of Christ, through the blood of Christ, through the cleansing blood. He recommissions us and he pours out a fresh grace and comfort and consolation and the spirit of adoption, whereby our own hearts are reassured that we are as child and that all is well with our soul and with the Lord and the Spirit of God cries out within us of a father. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that glorious? But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification. Christ is our holiness. And as we put Him on every day, the lust of the flesh, the attractions of the flesh and of the world, and all of our besetting sins, we become dead to those attractions because we are consumed with the mind of Christ, the knowledge of Christ. They are controlling influences that trump And that blunt, the fine edge of temptation until that temptation evaporates in the light of the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom we are trusting, whom we are trusting as our sanctification. Previously saying Hebrews 10, a sacrifice and offerings, burnt offerings and offerings for sin. You did not desire nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first that He may establish the second. That is the first covenant, the old covenant He took away. And all that was in the old covenant, the types and the figures of Jesus Christ in the temple, in the tabernacle, in the priesthood, and in all the other things pointed to Jesus Christ. When the second covenant, the new covenant, came into being, The old covenant was taken away so that the new covenant would be established. And what is the prime dynamic of the new covenant? By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Upon your conversion upon your salvation, upon your justification, Jesus Christ gave you the right and the authority, and here in Hebrews 10.10, the guarantee That one-time guarantee doesn't have to reaffirm it to you. It's been guaranteed one time through His once-for-all death that you, through the body of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, the blood of Christ, can come into His presence boldly before the throne of grace to find grace and mercy to help in your time of need. And so are we awake. What hinders us to go to Christ to deal with these issues that have hindered our watchfulness and wakefulness? Jesus is coming soon, my dear friends, the whole world is. Anxious for the things that are coming on the earth, Ebola, this AIDS, that and all the other spiritual things that are that are stirring up in heavenly places, all these political and things that are taking place, preparing the world for the second coming. Our children will not have the comfortable place in the world, the comfort zone in the world that we had and our parents had and our grandparents had. When are we going to realize that? So that all of the time and effort and education and all of these earthly preparations that we pour into our children's lives to help them become good children who get high salaries, who are credible, qualified workers, who have children and families themselves, What good is all of that if we neglect the spiritual priorities? And this is a danger, especially for Reformed churches who place a high premium on education and all these things which are important. I myself have sent my children to college working two jobs as a pastor and otherwise put them through college, most of them. It's important. But the first priority, is to stay awake to our spiritual responsibilities and maintain them and have one eye for the Lord Jesus Christ all the time looking for his return. Do you hear me, brethren? That's the key. And we have the Lord Jesus Christ, our intercessor in heaven. If we do that, he's picking us up every day and restoring us. And we have an intercessor within the Holy Spirit who teaches us how to commune with God.