"Are You Asleep" - Week 9

Hark! The herald angels sing

Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King;
        Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!”
        Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies;
        With th’angelic host proclaim, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
        Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”
        
Christ, by highest heaven adored; Christ, the everlasting Lord;
        Late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb.
        Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’incarnate Deity,
        Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.
        Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”

        Hail the heavenborn Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
        Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.
        Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
        Born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.
        Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”

​From John Wesley's Sermon - "Awake, Thou that Sleepest"

2. Now, "they that sleep, sleep in the night." The state of nature is a state of utter darkness; a state wherein "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." The poor unawakened sinner, how much knowledge soever he may have as to other things, has no knowledge of himself: in this respect "he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." he knows not that he is a fallen spirit, whose only business in the present world, is to recover from his fall, to regain that image of God wherein he was created. he sees no necessity for the one thing needful, even that inward universal change, that "birth from above," figured out by baptism, which is the beginning of that total renovation. that sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, "without which no man shall see the Lord." 

3. Full of all diseases as he is, he fancies himself in perfect health. Fast bound in misery and iron, he dreams that he is at liberty. he says, "Peace! Peace!" while the devil, as "a strong, man armed," is in full possession of his soul. he sleeps on still and takes his rest, though hell is moved from beneath to meet him; though the pit from whence there is no return hath opened its mouth to swallow him up. A fire is kindled around him, yet he knoweth it not; yea, it burns him, yet he lays it not to heart. 

4. By one who sleeps, we are, therefore, to understand (and would to God we might all understand it!) a sinner satisfied in his sins; contented to remain in his fallen state, to live and die without the image of God; one who is ignorant both of his disease, and of the only remedy for it; one who never was warned, or never regarded the warning voice of God, "to flee from the wrath to come;" one that never yet saw he was in danger of hell-fire, or cried out in the earnestness of his soul, "What must I do to be saved?" 
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5. If this sleeper be not outwardly vicious, his sleep is usually the deepest of all: whether he be of the Laodicean spirit, "neither cold nor hot," but a quiet, rational, inoffensive, good-natured professor of the religion of his fathers; or whether he be zealous and orthodox, and, "after the most straitest sect of our religion," live "a Pharisee;" that is, according to the scriptural account, one that justifies himself; one that labors to establish his own righteousness, as the ground of his acceptance with God.

Rev. Meredith Mills

Senior Pastor