Awake, You That Sleep – Modern John Wesley

“Awake, Thou That Sleepest“

Preached on Sunday, April 4, 1742, before the University of Oxford, by the Rev. Charles Wesley, M.A., Student of Christ Church

“Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14, Berean Standard Bible)

With God’s help, I will:
First, describe the sleepers to whom these words are spoken;
Second, urge the exhortation, “Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead”; and
Third, explain the promise made to those who do so: “Christ will give you light.”

First, who are the sleepers addressed here? By sleep Scripture means the natural state of man—the deep sleep of the soul into which Adam’s sin cast all his descendants: that carelessness and spiritual numbness, that lack of feeling for our true condition, in which every person is born and remains until the voice of God wakes them.
“Those who sleep, sleep at night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:7, BSB). The state of nature is a state of darkness—“darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness the peoples” (Isaiah 60:2, BSB). However much the unawakened sinner may know about other things, he does not know himself; “he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2, BSB). He does not see that he is a fallen spirit whose main business in this world is to rise from his fall, to recover the image of God in which he was created. He sees no need for the one thing necessary—that inward, universal change, the new birth from above (John 3:3, BSB), symbolized in baptism, which begins total renewal, that sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14, BSB).
Though full of spiritual disease, he imagines he is well. Bound tight in misery and irons (Psalm 107:10-16, BSB), he dreams he is free. He says, “Peace, peace,” while the devil, like a strong man fully armed, holds his soul (Jeremiah 6:14; Luke 11:21, BSB). He sleeps on and takes his rest, though hell stirs beneath (Isaiah 14:9, BSB), though the pit without return opens its mouth. A fire is kindled around him—indeed it burns him—yet he does not take it to heart (Isaiah 42:25, BSB).
So the sleeper is (may God help us see it!) the sinner satisfied with sin—content to remain fallen, to live and die without God’s image; ignorant of his disease and of the only remedy; one who never heeded God’s warning “to flee from the coming wrath” (Matthew 3:7, BSB); one who never saw he was in danger of hellfire, or cried from the heart, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30, BSB).
If this sleeper is outwardly decent, his sleep is often the deepest—whether he is lukewarm, neither cold nor hot (Revelation 3:16, BSB), a quiet, respectable follower of his fathers’ religion; or zealous and orthodox, living as a Pharisee—self-justifying, striving to establish his own righteousness as the ground of acceptance with God (Romans 10:3, BSB).
This is the one who has a form of godliness but denies its power (2 Timothy 3:5, BSB)—and likely mocks it as frenzy wherever it is found. Meanwhile the self-deceived soul thanks God he is “not like other men—adulterers, unjust, extortioners” (Luke 18:11, BSB). He wrongs no one; he fasts, uses the means of grace, attends church and Communion, and tithes. “As to the righteousness of the law,” he is blameless (Philippians 3:6, BSB). He lacks only the power of godliness; only the Spirit; only the truth and life of Christianity.
Do you not know that, however highly such a “Christian” is esteemed, he is detestable to God—heir to the woes Jesus pronounces on “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites”? (Matthew 23, BSB). He has cleaned the outside of the cup and dish, but inside is full of filth (Matthew 23:25, BSB). “A deadly disease clings to him” (Psalm 41:8); his inward parts are very wickedness. Our Lord rightly compares him to a whitewashed tomb—beautiful outside, but full of dead bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27, BSB). The bones are no longer dry; sinews and flesh and skin cover them—but there is no breath in them (Ezekiel 37:8, BSB). “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” (Romans 8:9, BSB). “You are Christ’s, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” If not, God knows you remain in death even now.
Here is another mark of the sleeper: he abides in death, though he does not know it. He is dead to God, “dead in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1, BSB). “The mind of the flesh is death.” (Romans 8:6, BSB). “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people” (Romans 5:12, BSB)—not only bodily death, but spiritual and eternal. “In the day you eat of it you will surely die”—not only bodily, but spiritually: lose the life of your soul; die to God; be cut off from Him, your life and joy (Genesis 2:17, BSB).
Thus the vital union of our souls with God was first dissolved; so that in the midst of natural life we are in spiritual death. We remain this way until the Second Adam becomes to us a life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45, BSB)—until He raises those dead in sin, pleasure, riches, or honor. But before any dead soul lives, he hears the voice of the Son of God (John 5:25, BSB). He becomes aware of his lost status and accepts the sentence of death in himself. He knows he is “dead while he lives” (1 Timothy 5:6, BSB)—dead to God and the things of God—no more able to do the acts of a living Christian than a corpse can do the functions of a living man.
Surely the one dead in sin does not have spiritual senses trained to discern good and evil. “Having eyes, he does not see; having ears, he does not hear” (Jeremiah 5:21, BSB). He does not “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8, BSB). He has not seen God, nor heard His voice, nor handled the Word of life (1 John 1:1, BSB). The name of Jesus to him is not like “oil poured out” (Song 1:3, BSB); the fragrance of Christ does not move him (2 Corinthians 2:14-15). His heart is beyond feeling (Ephesians 4:19, BSB) and understands none of these things.
Lacking spiritual senses—no inlet for spiritual knowledge—the natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit; those things are foolishness to him (1 Corinthians 2:14, BSB). He is not merely ignorant; he denies that such things exist. Even the sense of the Spirit to him is the folly of follies. He says, “How can anyone know he is alive to God?” Even as you know your body is alive. Faith is the life of the soul; if you have this life in you, you need no other mark than the Spirit’s witness—that divine assurance, the witness of God, greater than ten thousand human testimonies (Romans 8:16, BSB).
If He does not now bear witness with your spirit that you are God’s child, O that He would convince you, poor unawakened sinner, by His power, that you are a child of the devil (John 8:44, BSB). O that, as I speak, there might be a noise and a shaking; that bone would come to bone! Then, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live!” (Ezekiel 37:7, 9, BSB). Do not harden your hearts or resist the Holy Spirit, who even now comes to convict you of sin because you do not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:18; 16:9, BSB).

II.

Therefore, “Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead.” God calls you now by my mouth. Know yourself, you fallen spirit—your true state and your one great concern on earth. “What do you mean, O sleeper? Arise! Call on your God!” (Jonah 1:6, BSB). A mighty storm surrounds you; you are sinking into the gulf of God’s judgments. If you would escape, cast yourself upon them—judge yourself, and you will not be judged by the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:31, BSB).
Awake! Awake! Stand up now, lest you drink the cup of the LORD’s fury (Isaiah 51:17, BSB). Take hold on the Lord—the LORD your Righteousness, mighty to save! Shake yourself from the dust (Isaiah 52:2, BSB). Let at least the earthquake of God’s threats shake you. Wake and cry with the trembling jailer, “What must I do to be saved?” Never rest until you believe on the Lord Jesus with a faith that is His gift by the operation of His Spirit (Acts 16:30–31, BSB).
If I speak to any one especially, it is you who feel unconcerned by this call. “I have a message from God for you.” In His name I warn you to flee from the coming wrath. See yourself in Peter, condemned and chained in the dark cell, guards at the door—the night far spent, the morning of execution at hand (Acts 12:3–6, BSB). Yet you sleep—asleep in the devil’s arms, on the edge of the pit, in the jaws of everlasting destruction!
May the angel of the Lord stand by you, may light flash in your prison! May you feel the stroke of the Almighty: “Get up quickly! Dress yourself and follow Me.” (Acts 12:7–8, BSB).
Awake, everlasting spirit, from your dream of worldly pleasure! Did God not create you for Himself? Then you cannot rest until you rest in Him. Return, wanderer! Fly back to your ark. This is not your home. Do not build tents here. You are a stranger and sojourner on earth (1 Peter 2:11, BSB)—a creature of a day, launching into an unchangeable eternity. Make haste. Eternity is at hand. Eternity hinges on this moment—an eternity of happiness or of misery!
In what state is your soul? If God were to require it this hour, are you ready for death and judgment? Can you stand before Him whose eyes are too pure to look on evil (Habakkuk 1:13, BSB)? Are you fit to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Colossians 1:12, BSB)? Have you fought the good fight, kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7, BSB)? Have you secured the one thing needful? Have you recovered God’s image—righteousness and true holiness? Have you put off the old self and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22–24, BSB)? Are you clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27, BSB)?
Do you have oil in your lamp, grace in your heart (Matthew 25:4, BSB)? Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30, BSB)? Is the mind of Christ in you (Philippians 2:5, BSB)? Are you a Christian indeed, a new creation? Have the old things passed away and all things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17, BSB)?
Are you a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4, BSB)? Do you know that Christ is in you, else you fail the test (2 Corinthians 13:5, BSB)? Do you know that God dwells in you and you in God by His Spirit whom He has given you (1 John 4:13, BSB)? Do you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19, BSB)? Do you have the witness in yourself, the promise of your inheritance (Romans 8:16; Ephesians 1:14, BSB)? Have you received the Holy Spirit? (Acts 19:2, BSB). Or do you recoil at the question, not knowing there is a Holy Spirit?
If that offends you, be sure of this: you are not yet a Christian, nor do you desire to be one. You have even turned prayer into sin, solemnly mocking God by praying for the inspiration of His Holy Spirit while denying there is any such gift to receive.
Yet, on the authority of God’s Word and of our own Church, I must ask again: “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” If not, you are not yet a Christian. A Christian is one anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10:38, BSB). You are not yet partaker of pure religion and undefiled. Do you know what true religion is?—sharing in the divine nature; the life of God in the soul; Christ formed in the heart; “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27, BSB); holiness and happiness, heaven begun on earth; the kingdom of God within you—not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17, BSB); God’s everlasting kingdom brought into your soul; the peace of God that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7, BSB); joy inexpressible and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8, BSB).
Do you see that in Jesus Christ neither outward signs nor their absence avail anything, but faith working through love—a new creation (Galatians 5:6; 6:15, BSB)? Are you convinced of the necessity of that inward change, that new birth, that life from the dead, that holiness—and that without it no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14, BSB)? Are you striving after it—making every effort to confirm your calling and election (2 Peter 1:10, BSB), working out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12, BSB), striving to enter through the narrow gate (Luke 13:24, BSB)? Are you in earnest about your soul? Can you say to the Searcher of hearts, “You, O God, are what I long for. Lord, You know all things; You know that I would love You” (John 21:17, BSB)?
You hope to be saved; but what reason can you give for your hope? That you have done no harm? Done much good? That you are not like other people—wise, educated, honest, moral, respected? All this is less than mere vanity before God. Do you know Jesus Christ, whom He sent? Has He taught you that “by grace you are saved through faith—and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9, BSB)? Have you received the faithful saying as the whole foundation of your hope: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15, BSB)? Do you understand, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance… I was sent only to the lost sheep” (Mark 2:17; Matthew 15:24, BSB)? Are you (he who has ears, let him hear!) lost, dead, already condemned (John 3:18, BSB)? Do you know what you deserve? Do you feel your need? Are you poor in spirit, mourning for God, refusing comfort (Matthew 5:3–4, BSB)? Has the prodigal come to his senses, though others think him mad for leaving the world’s husks (Luke 15:17, BSB)? Are you willing to live godly in Christ Jesus—and therefore suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12, BSB)? Do people say all kinds of evil against you falsely for the Son of Man’s sake (Matthew 5:11, BSB)?
O that in these questions you may hear the voice that wakes the dead and feel the hammer of the Word that breaks the rock in pieces (Jeremiah 23:29, BSB)! If you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts (Hebrews 3:15, BSB). Now! Awake, you who sleep in spiritual death, lest you sleep in eternal death. Feel your lost condition and rise from the dead. Leave your old companions in sin and death. Follow Jesus, and let the dead bury their dead (Luke 9:60, BSB). “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40, BSB). Come out from among them; be separate; touch no unclean thing; and the Lord will receive you (2 Corinthians 6:17, BSB). “Christ will give you light.”

III.

Now to explain the promise. How encouraging this is, that whoever obeys God’s call cannot seek His face in vain. If you awake and rise from the dead, He has sworn Himself to give you light. “The LORD gives grace and glory” (Psalm 84:11, BSB); “your light will break forth like the dawn, and your darkness will be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:8, 10, BSB). “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6, BSB). “For you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2, BSB). “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1, BSB). Christ will reveal Himself in you—for He is the true Light (John 1:9, BSB).
God is light (1 John 1:5, BSB), and He will give Himself to every awakened sinner who waits for Him. Then you will be a temple of the living God, and Christ will dwell in your heart through faith; being rooted and grounded in love, you will begin to grasp with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:17–19, BSB).
See your calling, brothers and sisters. We are called to be “a dwelling place for God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22, BSB) and, through His indwelling, to be saints here and heirs with the saints in light (Colossians 1:12, BSB). So great are the promises actually given to us who believe! “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (1 Corinthians 2:12, BSB).
The Spirit of Christ is that great gift of God promised in many ways and fully poured out since Christ was glorified (John 7:39, BSB). God fulfilled what He said: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27, BSB). “I will pour water on the thirsty land… I will pour My Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants.” (Isaiah 44:3, BSB).
You may all be living witnesses—of forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23, BSB). Who among you fears the LORD yet walks in darkness and has no light? (Isaiah 50:10, BSB). I ask you in Jesus’ name: Do you believe His arm is not too short to save (Isaiah 59:1, BSB)? That He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8, BSB)? That He has authority on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10, BSB)? “Take courage; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2, BSB, lightly adapted). Receive this not as human word, but as God’s (1 Thessalonians 2:13, BSB), and you are justified freely by His grace (Romans 3:24, BSB). You will be sanctified by faith in Jesus (Acts 26:18, BSB) and will set your seal that “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1 John 5:11, BSB).
Men and women, let me speak freely, and bear with this word of exhortation from one least in the church. Your conscience witnesses in the Holy Spirit that these things are true—if you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:3, BSB). “This is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3, BSB). This experiential knowledge alone is true Christianity. A Christian is one who has received the Spirit of Christ; whoever has not received Him is not a Christian. Nor is it possible to receive Him and not know it: “On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20, BSB). “The Spirit of truth… the world cannot receive… but you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:17, BSB).
The world cannot receive Him, but rejects the Promise of the Father, contradicting and blaspheming. Every spirit that refuses this is not from God; indeed, “this is the spirit of the antichrist” already in the world (1 John 4:3, BSB). Antichrist is anyone who denies the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or that the indwelling Spirit is the common privilege of all believers—the blessing of the gospel, the unspeakable gift, the universal promise, and the mark of a real Christian.
Some say, “We do not deny God’s help, only this inspiration, this receiving the Holy Spirit and being aware of it. We deny any feeling, any moving or being filled with the Spirit in sound religion.” In denying this, you deny all Scripture—its promise, truth, and testimony.
Our own excellent Church knows nothing of such a false divide. She speaks plainly of “feeling the Spirit of Christ” (Article XVII), of being “moved by the Holy Ghost” (Ordination of Priests), and of knowing and feeling there is no other name than Jesus by which we receive life and salvation (Visitation of the Sick). She teaches us to pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Collect before Holy Communion), yes, that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit (Confirmation). Every presbyter professes to receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. To deny these is, in effect, to renounce both the Church of England and the whole Christian revelation.
But God’s wisdom has always seemed foolishness to people (1 Corinthians 1:25, BSB). No wonder the great mystery of the gospel is hidden from the wise and learned now, as it was then (Matthew 11:25, BSB)—denied, mocked, and branded as crazy; and those who confess it are called fanatics. This is the falling away that was to come (2 Thessalonians 2:3, BSB)—the widespread apostasy we now see. “Go up and down the streets… look and take note; search her squares to see if you can find a man who acts justly and seeks truth.” (Jeremiah 5:1, BSB). Even in our own land, who can count the flood of oaths, curses, blasphemy; lies, slander, evil talk; Sabbath-breaking, gluttony, drunkenness, revenge; sexual sins of every kind; fraud, injustice, oppression, extortion?
And among those who avoid such open evils—how much anger and pride, sloth, softness and luxury, self-indulgence, greed and ambition, thirst for praise, love of the world, fear of man! Meanwhile, how little true religion—who loves God or neighbor as He commands? Here are those with no form of godliness; there, those with the form only: here the open tomb, there the painted one (Matthew 23:27, BSB). Look on almost any public assembly (churches, I fear, not excepted): half are Sadducees—as if there were no resurrection, angel, or spirit; the rest are Pharisees—a lifeless round of outward forms without faith, love of God, or joy in the Holy Spirit!
Would that I could except us of this place! “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for you is that you may be saved” (Romans 10:1, BSB)—saved from this flood of ungodliness; that here its proud waves may be stopped. But is it so? God knows—and so do our consciences—it is not. We are corrupt and abominable; few understand; few worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:24, BSB). We too are a people who do not set our hearts right with God. He appointed us to be the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its savor, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled (Matthew 5:13, BSB).
“Shall I not punish these things?” says the LORD. “Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?” (Jeremiah 5:9, BSB). He may soon say to the sword, “Go through this land!” He has given us long space to repent; He spares us this year also (Luke 13:8, BSB). Yet He warns by thunder; His judgments are in the earth. We have reason to fear the worst of all—that He should come quickly and remove our lampstand from its place unless we repent and do our first works (Revelation 2:5, BSB). Perhaps we are resisting the last effort of grace to save us; perhaps we have nearly filled up the measure of our sins (1 Thessalonians 2:16, BSB), rejecting God’s counsel and casting out His messengers (Luke 7:30, BSB).
O God, “in wrath, remember mercy” (Habakkuk 3:2, BSB). Be glorified in our reformation, not in our destruction. Let us hear the rod and Him who appointed it (Micah 6:9, BSB). Now that Your judgments are in the earth, let its inhabitants learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9, BSB).
My brothers and sisters, it is high time to awake out of sleep (Romans 13:11, BSB), before the great trumpet sounds and our land becomes a field of blood (cf. Isaiah 27:13, BSB). O that we might quickly see the things that make for our peace before they are hidden from our eyes (Luke 19:42, BSB)! “Turn us, good Lord; let Your anger depart from us. Look down from heaven, behold and visit this vine” (Psalm 80:14, BSB, lightly adapted). Cause us to know the time of our visitation (Luke 19:44, BSB). “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for Your name’s sake.” (Psalm 79:9, BSB). “Then we will not turn back from You; revive us, and we will call on Your name. Restore us, O LORD God of Hosts; let Your face shine, that we may be saved.” (Psalm 80:18–19; 80:3, BSB).

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20–21, BSB).