Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
SLEEPING SAINTS
(This illustration was adopted and modified for this sermon from an illustration that was posted to the following Internet web address: http://storm.cs.swau.edu/pipermail/vga-l/2001-November/000510.html)
ILLUSTRATION:
There is a plague that seems to have stricken the church. At first glance it seems to be encephalitis, better known as “the sleeping sickness”, but news reports have begun to surface indicating that these sicknesses are the result of certain “cell groups” who perpetrate satanically inspired attacks upon the Children of God.
Here is a News Bulletin that I received in our church email today. It’s important that you all hear and listen carefully because this could mean the difference between life and death to our church and to each of us individually.
Latest news reports claim that 5 terrorist’s cell groups, specially trained in Spiritual Warfare have been identified as operating in all parts of the Church world. The Security Chief for the World Church Council advised earlier today there are actually 6 cells working in the Church but that the sixth is not a terrorist organization and is actively engaged in the identification and eradication of those cells that are determined to rid the world of true Christianity. The five destructive terrorist cells must be eradicated as soon as possible.
The five terrorist cell groups are led and organized by their leaders whose names they have personified by their actions. Here are there names so that you can be on the lookout for them:
Osomehave Bin Sleeping
Osomehave Bin Arguing
Osomehave Bin Fighting
Osomehave Bin Complaining
Osomehave Bin Missing
Each of these leaders is trained in subversive spiritual warfare by their chief, Bin Lucifer, for the purpose of defeating the Body of Christ. Their mode of operation is to come into the Church disguised as followers of Jesus Christ then work within each fellowship to discourage, disrupt, and to destroy each part of the work that is going on.
The sixth and smallest cell group in the Church is Osomehave Bin Working. Of all the cells that are in the Church this group is the easiest to spot, they are the only group that is active in ministry. The terrorist cell groups may not be seen so easily because they blend in with whoever and whatever comes along and are not easily spotted.
The Bin Working Cell will be seen doing whatever is needed to uplift and encourage the Body of Christ. The Security Chief for the World Church Council states that he has noticed that the Bin Working cell group has different characteristics than the others; they are led by several strong leaders whose names have been identified as:
Osomehave Bin Watching
Osomehave Bin Waiting,
Osomehave Bin Praying
Osomehave Bin Longing Jesus Christ to return.
We have also been instructed that every member of the Body of Christ has already been indoctrinated and absorbed into one of the above described cell groups within the church without even realizing that it has happened. Each member is instructed to examine their own mind, heart and activities to see which of these cell groups has had their impact upon your spirit!
While the illustration given above may be based upon current events, the message that is given is not new to the heart of man. I want us to take a look at an example in the Old Testament, of a Prophet of God who was stricken with a “sleeping sickness” when he should have been involved in Spiritual Warfare. This was to be his only assignment as a Prophet. There is no record anywhere that this prophet was ever given another message to deliver and he came very near missing out on the one opportunity to do God’s perfect will for his life.
Jonah 1:1-6, "Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not."
Jonah 1:15-17, "So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows. Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."
Before any of us begin to point fingers at Jonah for running from the Lord lets examine what is happening and remind ourselves that we are sometimes guilty of the same thing. How many Christians do you know that are running from the Call of God on their lives and who will find anything they can or allow anything that comes along to distract them from doing what God has commanded them to do?
All of us are guilty of falling into the categories of those subversive activities of the “cell groups” described in the illustration above. I have never known a single man or woman of God who does not complain, murmur, fight, fall asleep spiritually or skip out on church from time to time. The Word of God says that there is none righteous, no not even the Sunday School Teacher, not even the Youth Pastor, and especially not even the Pastor. All of us come short of the Perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ in all of His holiness, majesty, glory and power!
It’s only by the cleansing power of the Blood of the Lamb that any of us can stand and hold our head up and claim to be anything of value to the Kingdom of God. Without the anointing I can’t preach, I can’t even talk very well. Without the anointing of the Holy Ghost none of us can do anything to reach a lost soul or teach a class or bring for the Word of the Lord to anyone.
Oh, but with that anointing; with that anointing that “breaks the yoke” of bondage; (Isaiah 10:27) there is nothing that impossible to him that will believe and trust in Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Ghost I can do as David said in his song to Lord when he had been delivered from the hand of Saul, “2 Samuel 22:30, "For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall."
The problem is that we don’t hear and obey the Call of God and we run like Jonah!
How many times does God have to shake us and remind us to go out into the world and preach the gospel to every creature? Perhaps it’s that word “preach” that scares us off. Preaching doesn’t mean that we have to stand on some crowded city street corner with a guitar in one hand and microphone in the other, shouting the gospel and screaming in the ear of every passerby while they stare us down in disgust and contempt. Preaching simply means that we should talk to people and tell them about Jesus.
I know that none of us have trouble just talking. Everywhere you look people are talking. In the church, during the preaching, during the praise and worship, in the parking lot, on the phone, in the mall, on the job, wherever, people are talking and most of the time they aren’t really talking about anything. People love to hear the sound of their own voice!
The problem arises when we know that we must guide the conversation to tell others about Jesus. Spreading the message of the gospel is no harder than talking about the weather when it comes right down to it. The reason many of us don’t talk about Jesus like we talk about the weather is that we know more about the weather than we know about Jesus! Another reason is that we aren’t afraid that someone is going to get mad or upset because we talk about the weather but they might if we mention Jesus!
Fear is the greatest limiting factor in the spreading of the gospel! We are afraid of what others may think, say or do! Its as though the person we are speaking to has their hand upon the string that is holding a sword that hangs over our head and they might let go if we just mention the name of Jesus!
So, what do we do? We run off into our own little comfortable world, our place of seclusion, our comfort zone, just like Jonah and we promptly “fall asleep” spiritually.
That’s what Jonah did too. He bought a ticket, buying into the lie that he could run from the call of God and hide in a foreign land where he felt that God would not find him or bother him. Let God find someone else to go to Nineveh. There are plenty of other men of God in Israel that God can use. I don’t want to be put in danger by preaching to those heathens!
Children of God, we are just like Jonah. We run and hide in our comfort zones and in our worldly desires and pleasures because we know that in those things we can drown out the ”still small voice” of the Lord as He tries to speak to us. We can “hide” from Him in our excuses. We can just go and do our own thing without worrying about what God wants.
It isn’t written in the Word of God, but I can just imagine that Jonah was thinking just like we do. He may have said, “I will just get away for a while. God will forget about me and call someone else to go to Nineveh. Then, when the job is done and Nineveh either repents or burns, I will come back to Israel and pick up my life where I left it.”
I want you to know that according to Romans 11:29, "… the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." That scripture means that no matter how far we run, or how long we run, God will always hold us accountable for the commandments that He has given to us and for the work that He had called us to do. WE CAN RUN BUT WE CAN’T HIDE! God knows where you are and He knows how to get your attention.
Jonah found that God wasn’t going to let him get by so easily and neither will we! He was comfortable in his own knowledge of the Lord. Jonah was at peace and resting in the fact that he was “a man of God”. He trusted in the Lord, at least as far as his own safety was concerned. He was unconcerned of the storms of life that those around him were facing. He was fast asleep in the bottom of the ship, secure in the arms of God, while those who sailed with him suffered untold fear, anguish, terror and trouble because of Jonah’s disobedience.
Brother and Sister in Christ let me tell you that people who live around you are facing a multitude of storms while we lie sleeping in our little world of “spiritual comfort”.
How many babies will never see life? How many homes will be broken? How many will die from drugs, alcoholism, and diseases that come as a result of the sin in their lives? How many will die and split hell wide open because we don’t witness of the Love of Jesus Christ to them? How can we sleep so peacefully when we see heathens around us in the storms of life and dying by the thousands everyday? God help us to wake up and see what is happening before we lose our loved ones, before we go down with them, and before this world disappears into the depths of oblivion!
God will allow a “shipmaster” to come into our comfortable life and shake us enough to wake us up if He has to! Souls are hanging in the balance and we must not slumber and sleep while they are passing into eternity without God. It’s high time for us wake up, shake ourselves and get involved in what’s going on around us.
The church has slept while the powers of darkness have ravaged our world. The church world is living in an ivory tower, perched like an eagle that’s sitting on the high rocks above the storms of life because of the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Jesus in our hearts. Let us never, ever forget that there are multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision and it’s our job to help them decide for Jesus.
Now, let’s examine this story in the Word of God a little more and see how God will get our attention.
Jonah finally was forced to confess that he was running from God. God will bring us to the point where we will have no choice but to speak forth and testify for Him. Jonah had to admit his fault. He had to confess that God was in control. He also had to admit that it was his disobedience that brought such a terrible storm upon those who innocently worked to bring him to shore safely.
Wouldn’t it be a terrible tragedy to discover that you made it safely but many who carried you along and made your journey easier did not fare so well? boss who helped you through the storms of life by paying your salary? What about your family members who stand beside you even when you are sick, discouraged or in trouble? What about your friend who believes in you and yet doesn’t know God as their Savior? These are your “shipmates” who are helping you stay afloat, lightening your load, providing for your desires – and yet we sleep on and never tell them about Jesus! We are no better than Jonah!
Jonah finally had to be thrown overboard into the stormy seas. Those stormy seas represent the people of the world who are all around you and who are in such turmoil. God will cause us to be thrown into the same storm as those around us so that we can learn to obey Him and also that we may be a more effective witness to those around us.
God brought along the “big fish”, let’s call it a whale; that swallowed Jonah whole. God’s punishments and judgments are tempered by His love and mercy. In this case God wanted to teach Jonah a lesson for his disobedience but He also wanted to preserve Jonah because Jonah still had a job to do.
Jonah could not go back to the comfort of the ship. It was driven away by the storm. He could not swim for shore; it was too far! He was going to drown and he knew it. I’m sure that he was crying for God’s help and yet he wondered whether God would even hear because Jonah had been so disobedient! I wonder just how close he came to drowning before God let the whale come along!
Do you ever feel that God is a million miles away and that the storms of life are going to take you down for the last time? Perhaps you have gone under once, twice and going down for the third time, then out of nowhere, deliverance comes and the storm is gone.
That’s the way it was for Jonah, but – wait, something is wrong! When he could no longer feel the wind and the waves weren’t breaking over his head anymore, Jonah may have thought that he had died, but it wasn’t going to be that easy for him! God still had a lesson to teach Jonah!
I wonder what Jonah felt like when he began to realize that he was inside the belly of the whale? All hope was lost! I’m being eaten and swallowed whole! Oh God, I’m going down into the pit and there is no way out of here!
Jesus, my life is a waste! I’ve failed so miserably! I’ve been so lax, so uncaring, so self-centered, so pre-occupied, so full of excuses for not obeying you, so…. I don’t deserve your mercy or your grace. I know I deserve death. I don’t deserve your attention – but God, please help me!
Jonah is a type of Christ for us also. The name Jonah is interpreted at meaning, “dove”! He spent three days and nights in the belly of that whale and then came back as one who was dead when the whale spit him out on the shore! I’ll bet you couldn’t get Jonah back near the water after that! He had the fear of God within Him now and nothing and no one could keep Jonah from obeying the Call of God! Seaweed, fish scales, smelly and filthy, Jonah headed off for Nineveh as fast as he could go! He had learned his lesson well!
Will God have to allow a “whale” into your life to swallow you? How far into the pits of despair will God have to bring us before we learn to reach out to lost souls? How bad must the storm get before we call upon God in repentance? How many nights are we going to spend in the belly of the whale before we turn our eyes back toward Jesus and seek to obey Him with all our heart?
Rest assured, Child of God; He won’t allow you to continue in disobedience! He will not allow you to continue running from His call to ministry. He will not allow souls to die lost because you are too scared, too intimidated and too shy to tell others about Jesus. God is going to get your attention! What will He have to do to wake up His sleeping church?
Don’t wait for the storm to come or force God to bring a fish into your life! Don’t live in the pits of despair! Move on your Nineveh! Obey the call of God to go and tell them about Jesus! Do it now while you are still walking in holiness or you can do it later, after you have been in the belly of the whale and then spit out in repentance, smelling and covered with the seaweed of your storms! Let’s wake up, sleeping saints – DON’T LET GOD HAVE TO WAKE US UP!
