Has anyone here ever been afflicted with somnambulism?
Okay, does anyone even know what somnambulism is?
Well, it's a technical term for sleepwalking.
So, back to the original question--has anyone here ever had a sleepwalking experience?
How did it go? Did anyone get hurt?
The reason I ask is that sleepwalking is a dangerous occupation. I checked it out on the internet, and the Mayo Clinic says that sleepwalkers often engage in routine activities--even driving a car. So there's something that we could call sleep-walking. But sometimes they engage in non-routine activities, like jumping out a window.
I think that could result in a very rude awakening!
The reason I ask is that there's a parallel between physical sleepwalking and spiritual sleep-walking. Spiritual sleepwalkers are often completely unaware of the spiritual dangers that surround them, and what they don't know can hurt them, and others.
That was what the Apostle Paul was concerned about for the Corinthians as he concluded his first letter to them in the mid-50's A.D. I imagine that as he concluded the letter he considered what he neeed to tell the Corinthians about how they coul prevent experiencing more of the multitude of spiritual problems and pitfalls that had already plagued the church. If you've been with us during our study of I Corinthians, you know that the letter is a difficult letter. It was written as a correction to many of the spiritual problems the Corinthians were experiencing, like spiritual pride, selfishness, strife, quarrels and divisions. There were even some who practiced gross immorality, and the church not only accepted this sin, but congratulated themselves for their tolerance of it. They also had arrogantly become involved in idolatry, and when they did worship the Lord, during the Lord's supper, they were guilty of drunkenness and gluttony, if you can imagine that. On top of that they had entertained false teachings, some of which even gutted the Gospel of its importance. And the Apostle Paul must have been thinking that these Corinthians were taking a very casual view of their spiritual lives--that they were casually sleepwalkiing through life as though there were no real dangers to their continued walk with Christ.
So, he tells them that they need to be alert. They need to watch out. That they couldn't tolerate any more spiritual sleep-walking, spiritual free-lancing or
And apparently, from the great Apostle Paul’s perspective, that is exactly what the church at Corinth had been doing in a spiritual sense. They were casually sleepwalking their way through their spiritual lives, not recognizing that this world and the unseen spiritual world of evil spirits, was an extremely dangerous place. They had not been alert spiritually. Their casual approach to Christianity and the spiritual dangers in their pagan climate had resulted in pride, divisions among them, cliques, gross immorality, legal disputes, idolatry, the abuse of spiritual gifts and involvement in false and spiritually destructive teachings.
Paul’s summary exhortation for how the Corinthains could avoid all the spiritual pitfalls they had experienced is found in I Corinthians 16:13-14. They are two verses that are worth committing to memory, especially for anyone who aspires to or is involved in spiritual leadership. Paul tells the Corinthians in light of all their problems to “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
If only the Corinthians, or for that matter, any believer, could apply these two verses, it would have saved them much grief. Their problem was that they were rather casually coasting through the so-called Christian life as though there wouldn’t be, or weren’t any bumps in the road, there wouldn’t be any temptations to jump the rails. And boy had they jumped the rails.
Make no doubt about it, verses 13 and 14 are not optional. They are commands. “Be on the alert,” is in the present tense, indicating that we are to be ever and always vigilant. Stay on the alert is the sense that Paul gives the command. You can’t afford to let your guard down. The world is always looking to press you into its mold. And the evil one is always just around the corner with another temptation and another trick to use to attempt to shipwreck your Christian life, your testimony for Christ and perhaps the very existence of your church.
the poor creature doesn’t have a chance.
And the commands here are in nature. Once you have been alert, and have detected the danger, then there’s another step that must be exercised. “Stand firm in the faith.” I believe when Paul talks about “the faith” here he’s talking both about the content of the faith—the biblical and doctrinal teachings that we must continue to exercise in terms of both beliefs and behavior. We must be discerning regarding the truth of the Gospel, the truth of what the Bible teaches, and then knowing that what we believe will determine how we behave, we must act accordingly. We must be careful to recognize when we are compromising Scripture and compromising Christianity with the result that we dishonor God, sin and lead others to sin. And once we have developed that discernment, the ability to tell the difference between truth and error, then we must stand. And we must stand firm. We must not give an inch.
Then he tells the Corinthians to "act like men." What he means is that they must be courageous in the defense of their faith. People will be unhappy when they take a stand against false teaching and spiritual compromise. They will be buffeted, accused, slandered and possibly even rejected, persecuted by their own so-called fellow believers. They must act like men, be courageous in the face of these matters.
And then they must also be strong. The verb is actually in the passive tense. And it should read like this: "Be made strong." Paul is thinking that this matter of standing firm in the faith is not going to be something we are going to be able to do in our own strength. We must be made strong by the Lord. We must pray for the courage and strength to stand when all the powers of hell come against us because we stand for what's right from heaven's perspective. As Paul tells Timothy in II Timothy 2:1: "Be strong in the Lord." Find your strength through prayer and submission to His will, depending on His power, because it may take more than you have, and all that God supplies to stand against the powers who would have you compromise.
The sense is this: “Watch out for spiritual danger. There are dangers all around. As the Apostle Peter puts it, in I Peter 5:8: “Be on the alert, for your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” I didn’t recognize this reality as I came to Reno to plant a church. I was naïve. Boy, have I learned the hard way.
When it comes to physical sleepwalking, I've experienced it three times, and as it turned out, it was a dangerous experience.
It was dangerous, because I wasn’t completely aware of where I was going, or how I was going to get there.
The first two episodes went okay only because I woke up in the midst of my travels. The third one I didn’t fare so well. I followed the directive I was somehow given to get up but was not aware entirely of the problem of getting up when one of my legs was asleep-asleep, if you know what I mean. I had been sleeping awkwardly, apparently, with the result that somehow the circulation to my right leg had been cut off. You know that tingly feeling you get when that happens. Well, that’s the leg that I had to step out of bed onto, and when I did, my foot hit the floor toes first, mashing the toes alternately up and down, and ultimately, the leg collapsed beneath me, resulting in excruciating pain. I screamed at that point, in the middle of the night, and my always vigilant mother heard the scream from her bedroom, leaped out of bed in a crouch, and in sprinter’s fashion launched herself into the doorjamb of her bedroom. So, there were two of us injured.
But the really interesting fact about it was that my physical sleepwalking was the result of spiritual sleepwalking. I was a brand new believer and spiritually naïve when the pastor of my church encouraged me to attend the meeting of a famous faith healer by the name of Kathrynn Kuhlmann. I went and enthusiastically, and blindly, participated in the worship service and all the prayers, not knowing that all along she was a false prophet who preached a false Gospel whose miraculous works were not the result of the Holy Spirit but counterfeit holy spirits, or demons, who supported her false teaching. My spiritual leader was spiritually sleepwalking because he was not discerning, he did not realize he was sending his young new convert into spiritual danger. I was harassed by demonic spirits for years at night without knowing what was going on--it took me 25 years and plenty of Biblical study to finally figure out what was going on. And when I renounced Kathryn Kuhlmann after yet another more dramatic harassment in my early 40s, that ended all of those weird things that had gone on in my sleep for decades.
The problem with Satan is that he’s so subtle. He will so gradually get you off track that it’s possible that without even knowing it you can be totally out of the game, completely off the track spiritually. . It’s like the proverbial frog in the kettle. The water warms so gradually and imperceptibly that eventually the frog simply falls asleep in the warmth, and then the water is brought to a boil with deadly consequence.
One of the most interesting lectures I every heard in seminary was from a great history of theology professor at Dallas Seminary by the name of John Hannah. He had examined the major mainline denominations in U.S. history, and if you know anything about mainline denominations, they have largely abandoned the Biblical Christian faith. They were all founded upon Biblical teachings, and then most of them have gradually fallen away from those teachings, denying things like the virgin birth of Christ, then miracles, denying the infallibility of the Bible, and then they ultimately came to a place where they often denied the crucial and essential issues of our salvation—the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of Christ and even the deity of Christ. As Jude spoke of that happening in the first century, he says that so-called believers among them had even denied that Master who had bought or redeemed them. And so, this professor then traced how it had happened in each of the major mainline denominations that had become apostate. It generally began with small compromises of important teachings. And then what would happen is the president of a denominational Seminary who had developed a close friendship with one of his professors who had adopted this false teaching, refused to confront or remove him from his position. And eventually that professor was then foolishly promoted to a position of leadership so that he began hiring other folks who agreed with him in his unbiblical stance so that eventually the entire seminary was full of apostate or nearly apostate professors who were then responsible for teaching all the young men who came in to be trained in that denomination to preach and teach the same false teachings they had come to believe. . And in this way the major denominations of the Presbyterians, not all Presbyterians, but most of them, and the United Methodists, and the Episcopalians and many of the Lutheran churches were completely liberalized, so that the Bible was no longer taught, no longer regarded to be authoritative and the pastors or leaders did as they pleased, so that they not only deny salvation is through faith in Christ, but are busy ordaining homosexuals to the ministry. It’s all because there was a seemingly small compromise at one point by probably a very good man who let a relationship, his heart, rule his head, and tolerated compromise. It's the proverbial story of the finger in the dyke, holding back the flood waters. Once the finger is removed, and the water begins to flow, the entire dyke is eroded and the land is flood with the poisonous waters of false teaching. It often begins with denying the infallibility of Scripture, of the Bible, and when that happens, it’s the hole in the dam that causes the entire dam to break. And anything goes at that point. He pointed out that at that time there had been only one major denomination that had successfully resisted Biblical compromise when the liberals began to come and take over. That was the Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church, and that only took place when a seminary President came in and basically fired the entire infested faculty of their main seminary in St. Louis in the late ‘70s. Later, the Southern Baptist Convention waged a successful battle against the so-called moderates in their seminaries and insured Biblical fidelity for years to come. But it wasn’t easy. It required a great deal of courage to stand firm.
Let me read to you about a recent event that occurred at Northpoint Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a church pastored by a former classmate of mine at Dallas Seminary by the name of Andy Stanley. The church consists of 40,000 people. This is from a story in a fall issue of World magazine.
“As attenders at a sold-out parenting conference at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, streamed out the doors into the parking lot, twin lines of blue-shirted volunteers cheered and held signs that read, “You are loved,” “You’ve got this!” and “You’re not alone.”
North Pont held the conference, called “Unconditional” at the end of September for “Parents, ministry leaders, and counselors who want to love and support the LGBTQ+ Community well. Attendees snapped up every available ticket weeks in advance, even though some cost well over $500. The event’s 14 speakers included Andy Stanley, North Point’s founder, and senior pastor, as well as two men, Justin Lee and Brian Neitzel, who are married to other men. Lee believes God blesses same-sex marriages and Neitzel co-founded Renovus, a nonprofit that aims to create “a world where no one has to choose between their faith and sexual orientation.”
Well, this is heresy. And a Dallas Seminary Graduate, Andy Stanley, who attended Dallas Seminary instead of any of the Southern Baptist's own seminaries even though his dad was the President of the Southern Baptist Convention because of the seminary’s stand on Biblical infallibility—even he has now caved to the culture, and compromised with the world, and is supporting and apparently teaching that you can be saved and be a practicing homosexual at the same time. Its’ unbiblical, and it’s a false gospel. This letter of Paul, in a time when homosexuality was rampant in the Roman Empire, addresses the this question of whether someone can be saved and practice homosexuality in I Corinthians 6:9-11: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, no drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
In other words, the faith that saves is also the faith that repents, and if there is no repentance from gross sins like homosexuality and gender mutilation, there is no salvation, no forgiveness, no kingdom of God, and no heaven.
Risen King will never cave to the culture as long as I’m here. It will only happen over my dead body!
So, what would Paul say to the Evangelical Church in America today! Wake up, Stop sleepwalking. And stand firmly and courageously in your Biblical faith—the faith that was once for all delivered up for the saints in the New Testament, by the Apostles.
And so even as it has been true that a spiritual leader in Georgia can lead his entire huge congregation astray by his own compromise, so often it does come down to the convictions of the spiritual leaders, the shepherds whose job it is to lead and feed the flock.
Paul begins to talk about that issue in verses 15-18. It becomes apparent that three male representatives of the church at Corinth had apparently visited Paul in Ephesus, had brought the report to him about the condition of the Corinthians church and had delivered the letter which Paul was replying to as he wrote I Corinthians. Their names were Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus. And despite the sad spiritual condition of the church as a whole which met in Corinth, Paul has been very impressed by these three men.
He knows one very well. His name is Stephanus. And Stephanas is mentioned in the first chapter of this letter, where Paul admits that he baptized the whole household or family of Stephanas. Here we find out why. Stephanas and his household were the very first converts to Christianity in Achaia. Achaia was the Roman Province where Corinth was located, and so Stephanas and his family were the first converts of the Church that was in Corinth. Paul knew him very well.
So Paul writes in verse 15: “Now I urge you, brethren, (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints) that you also be in subjections to such men and to everyone who helps in the work and labors. I rejoiced over the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men.”
Now we don’t know precisely how these three men had supplied what lacked from the Corinthians. Maybe it was just spiritual encouragement, maybe it was that they provided some material help, although that seems unlikely in light of I Corinthians 9 where Paul insists that he will take nothing material from the Corinthians. I think they were spiritually encouraging to Paul and brought news to Paul so that he could be of help to the Corinthians. They were apparently great examples of people who were truly following Christ.
And it’s interesting to note what he said about the household of Stephanas. Stephanas and his household had devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints. I suspect they were able to give themselves full-time to Christian ministry in the church at Corinth, and that they had done so voluntarily. In fact, the Greek supports this idea. When verse 15 tells us that they devoted themselves for ministry to the saints, the Greek actually puts it this way--they appointed themselves to this ministry for the saints. They did not receive any official appointment or ordination from the church to be involved in this ministry, but they took on this full-time service all of their own accord. They were truly devoted servants of Christ for the benefit of the other believers in the church.
And Paul is so impressed with the Christian lives of all three of these men who have come to visit him in Ephesus from Corinth that he commends them as potential spiritual leaders among the Corinthians. They may have been unofficial leaders and devoted volunteers, but they apparently had not been officially recognized as spiritual leaders in the congregation. When we consider all the chaos that has occurred in the church there, Paul’s must be thinking that this church needs some responsible and spiritual, biblically-discerning leaders. And these three men are great candidates. So, that’s why he encourages the Corinthians to “acknowledge such men." I think he’s encouraging the Corinthians to make these men official leaders in the church, elders or overseers, if you will. The Corinthians clearly had some leaders, but the leaders had led them into divisive attitudes and practices and hadn’t stopped the gross sin that was being practiced by the Corinthians, so Paul is effectively exhorting them in this way: “Hey, if only these three men were among those who led and shepherded the church there in Corinth, many of these terrible problems might have been avoided. So acknowledge them officially as your spiritual leaders, and then submit to their wisdom!"
So, his point to the Corinthians in verses 15-18 is likely this: “Wake-up—Recognize and submit to the qualified spiritual leaders among you! Namely, Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus. If only these men were your shepherds, you might have avoided sleepwalking your way into all these sins and false teachings you’ve experienced.
This is much like what he had to say in I Thessalonians to the Church at Thessalonica, in Macedonia. Paul had only been able to spend three weeks there before he was run out of town by persecution, and yet a very substantial, even massive church of believers had emerged in that time. There simply had not been time to develop and mature, much less appoint elders or overseers at Thessalonica during that time, but some men had apparently zealously taken on that role, as best they could, though they were very obviously very young believers. So, Paul says to the Thessalonians much like what he says to the Corinthians in I Thessalonians 5:12-13:
“But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another.” So, Paul’s saying about these three men here, “you see these three guys, well, they're the kind of leaders and elders and overseers you ought to appoint to shepherd you in Corinth. Wake up, make them leaders and then submit to them, and maybe you’ll avoid all these problems you’re experiencing!
And so, it stands for us also. And believe me we are working on the matter of pursuing more elders and overseers and the like at Risen King. That will become obvious to some of you in the short term. Pray for us as we do.
Paul then concludes his letter with the typical personal greeting and salutations that occur in many of his letters. However, in the midst of his blessings upon the Corinthians, we have a strange verse that just sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s a group of people, who are perhaps part of the church at least visible in Corinth, whom he does not bless. In fact, he curses them! Can you imagine that—as he comes to, at last, a warm and fuzzy portion of the letter, it seems that there is still some poison in his pen.
The odd verse amid the greetings and blessings is found in verse 22: “If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.”
Wow. So there! Why would Paul be compelled to make such a negative comment in the midst of so much grace and love.
I suspect it’s because the Apostle was aware that the problems in Corinth were not all the work of believers, but unbelievers who had joined the church and appeared as believers, erstwhile wolves in sheep’s clothing. This happens in most churches; there are some who go through the motions and say all the right things, but in their heart of hearts really haven’t come to faith in Jesus.
And who would those folks be? Paul says they are the folks who do not love the Lord Jesus. And how do we define who loves the Lord Jesus. By what do they say? Nope, by what they do. Jesus made it clear in John 14:21 exactly who they are: They are those who obey His commands.
Obedience to God’s Word is what identifies those who love the Lord. Disobedience to God’s commands is what defines those who do not love the Lord. This is what Jesus says in John 14:21: "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Ultimately, faith always produces good works, and if it doesn’t the true faith that saves just isn’t there.
Then, after writing such a letter, all is not sweeter, and all is not light, especially for unbelievers who have infiltrated the church. Thus, Paul feels compelled by the Holy Spirit to make it clear that God’s blessing and his own blessing only applies to those who are true believers, who are in Christ. And the truth of the matter is exactly as he puts it—a curse rather than a blessing is the lot of the person who does not love the Lord.
For these folks the lesson would be: Wake up, you may not just be spiritually asleep, you may actually be spiritually dead. And that’s a bad place to be.
But for the true believers who dominate the Church at Corinth, despite its problems, sweetness and light, grace and love are blessings God will bestow, and blessings Paul provides for them, especially as he makes a point of lovingly greeting and sending greetings from other believers in Ephesus.
Verse 19: “The churches of Asia--that is the Roman Province on the western edge of present-day Turkey which had a number of churches-- he says all those churches greet the Corinthians. And then he mentions Aquila and Prisca. The Corinthians know them personally, because they had been in Corinth when Paul showed up, and they were involved in his tentmaking enterprise in Corinth, so he extends a special greeting to them. And then he speaks for all the believers on the other side of the Aegean Sea in verse 20: “All the brethren greet you.” And he encourages real affection, in a way which was culturally-acceptable, at the time. “Greet one another with a holy kiss" And then beyond verse 22 he wishes God’s grace and his personal love upon all those in Corinth.
Amen!
Paul’s encouraging what Jesus said would be characteristic of all believers. “By this shall all men know you are my disciples, by your love for one another.” He’s saying, Wake up, to this truth. Personally love and the brethren and greet them as Christ would have you do so."
A bright note, on the heals of a final serious exhortation. What happened to the Corinthians in their diversions from the truth and practice of biblical Christianity can happen to anyone and within any church or denomination, and happens every day in America.
Unless we are alert, take a stand, and act courageously for Christ.
Wake up! No sleepwalking, no spiritual freelancing and no spiritual adultery allowed!
