The Man Who Fell Asleep In Church Series

III. NOTICE IN VERSES 8-9 AN INATTENTIVE LISTENER – “And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. 9 And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.”

Now when I read this, I immediately asked myself, “Why did Eutychus fall asleep?”

Illus. – Andrew Fuller was a great preacher of the Gospel and wrote several books that are considered classics in Christian literature today.

One time when he was preaching, he observed that several in his congregation dozed off almost at the beginning of the service! He banged his huge pulpit Bible three times loudly on the pulpit and exclaimed, “What! Asleep already! I often fear I preach you asleep, and grieve over it; but the fault cannot be mine today, for I have not yet BEGUN!”

Well, there are a number of reasons Eutychus might have fallen asleep that evening.

Let’s examine them:

• First, he might have been a servant and was required to work long hours, and therefore arrived at church in an extremely tired condition.

If so, you really can’t blame him for being tired. In fact, he should be commended for being there at all.

Illus. – I’ll never forget a number of soldiers in my church in Wiesbaden who would pull CQ on Saturday night, and sure enough—there they were in church on Sunday morning in their fatigues, showing an amazing commitment to the Lord and worshiping on the Lord’s Day in His house with His people.

Illus. – Tom Mowers, an MP who works with police dogs, has to work all night just about every Saturday night, and yet he comes in and works in the sound booth every Sunday after staying up all night. – Tom’s only fallen asleep at the computer back there once or twice and I never get on his case because he misses a slide because I’m just thankful he’s here…every Sunday…week after week.

If this was the case with Eutychus, you wouldn’t be able to blame him.

• Second, Eutychus might have stayed up late Saturday evening involved in some purely innocent pleasure or activity, like staying up and playing Bible Trivia (I’m sure they had that back then), visiting with Christian friends, or some other harmless pursuit.

In that case, then I guess you would have to say that he brought this upon himself.

I have two thoughts I’d like to leave with you on this before moving on:

1) First, you should honor the Lord’s Day.

I know that we’re not under the Mosaic Law, and therefore do not have to strictly observe the Sabbath or its Christian replacement, Sunday. But the idea of a special day set aside to worship and honor the Lord goes back to before the Law, and fits in with Jesus’ instruction to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in Matthew 6:33.

So, though I wouldn’t lay down any legalistic practices you must or must not do on the Lord’s day, I’m well within mainline Christian thought to say we ought to set aside Sunday as different from every other day of the week—a day to worship God, to rest from the labors and cares of the rest of the week.