This is what it’s saying: Don’t fall into the same dark deeds and ways as the children of darkness. Arise from there. Show yourself to be the people of the living God. He’s your Father. You’ve been saved by Christ. Wake up. This is the message: Wake up, church of God. Wake up. We get lulled to sleep. This enemy, this enemy that we have – I talked last night about the fact that a flood comes out of his mouth. He seeks to attack the woman with this flood. What comes out of his mouth are lies.
And you know what he says? He just: Christians, things are okay. You’re a Christian now. Everything is good. What really matters is you have a good church, your trials aren’t too great, you have enough money in your pocket, the job’s going okay, the children are healthy right now. Just, it’s good. Go have a picnic. Go enjoy yourself. Concern yourself with the curriculum for the children. Concern yourself for the drapes in the bedroom. You’ve got to go shopping. You need blueberries today. Just everything is okay. Just go to sleep. There’s no war. Your neighbors are okay. Look at them. Their grass is green. The birds are singing in their yard. Look, they smile. You smiled at each other. Everything is good. See them go out to get the mail. They’re over there healthy. See them jogging up and down the street. They’re riding their bike. Everything is good. The country is good. We’ve got somebody conservative in the White House. It’s all good. Just go to sleep.
You know how it was. Pilgrim’s Progress. They came to the Enchanted Ground. I think it was Hopeful. He said let’s just lay down and go to sleep. Christian said no, no, no, you don’t want to go to sleep here. Remember the shepherds warned us. You go to sleep here, you may never wake up. He’s a liar. And we need to wake up.
It’s like we were talking about: being alert. We need to wake up. The truth is it’s not okay. It is the blackness of darkness in their minds and in their souls. They are the darkness. And you are the light. There may be some in here that are still in their darkness. There’s a number of you, you’re in the light. Wake up. Wake up. The world is in the dark.
“The world hates Me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” And you know what? That’s hard. Because if you’re going to shine the light you’ve got to go to them and you’ve got to say to them: it is not well with your soul. Death is coming and you’re not ready. And God provided a means and it’s on that cross He paid for sin. They know Christ died on the cross. They know that happened. But they don’t appreciate what He did. They have no love for that. They don’t know what that’s about. They feel like, well, you know, we know He did something. We’re not exactly certain. I know there’s a lot of Jews in the area. They despise Him altogether. Don’t bring His name up. The reality is people basically think, you know it, you know they are in the dark and they don’t recognize God’s demands and they don’t know about God’s holiness. And the fear of God has not touched these people. They are heading through life and they’re just thinking it’s okay.
You know what would happen if everybody out there right now suddenly saw themselves in 100 years where they are and what they’re enduring? What they’re going through? Do you recognize if all these people out here suddenly had their eyes open to hell and eternal destruction and could taste it for a few seconds, what do you think this place would look like? What do you think Long Island would look like if the people saw for five seconds the hell, the lake of fire, that they are to be immersed in shortly and they saw that and suddenly it was taken away and they were back here? Do you know what would happen? We would not go out there to the way things are. It would be totally different.
This excerpt is from the full sermon, “A Call to Arise and Shine“.
