‘The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” (Romans 11:7-8).
The Spirit of the almighty God over the ages continue to warn humanity of pending judgements against evils.
Even though His judgement seldom come without extensive warnings from the mouth of His servants, including numerous warnings in the scripture, man goes about his business in a casual way without any sense of urgency until divine judgment falls.
As it is commonly said, as it was in the days of Noah, so it is now, as men flippantly consider the warnings of the end times and the eventual coming of the Lord Jesus.
A valid question to ask is this: why do men dance around dangerous omens and warnings from the Lord ahead of His judgement? It is often caused by the spirit of slumber, spiritually speaking.
This spirit sponsored by Satan, the enemy of our soul, weakens our early warning and response systems to the dangers of the end time.
There are many ways the devil achieves this objective, he makes us to become physically and mentally so engrossed with the things of this world with little or no time for the things of the spirit until we are worn out and useless for spiritual exercises like prayers, evangelism, bible reading, fasting and church activities.
To this end the bible warns all men:
‘And do this, understanding the occasion. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed’. (Romans 13:11).
Now, every generation may sometimes exhibit different symptoms of slumber as they engage with the things of the spirit, it will therefore be helpful to examine a few sponsors of spiritual slumber in our generation.
Clearly, slumber comes as we extol anything as more important than our personal relationship with God, and there are not a few things in the modern world that justles for our attention with God.
No one is immune from one slumber or the other and the purpose of this message is wake us all from our slumber as the end of this age and the coming of the Lord Jesus continues to press upon this generation.
Now if the barometer of our state of mind derives from success or failure in any of the things of this world listed below, if our testimony is only about these things, if our resources and time are invested in these things, with little or no time spent increasing our spiritual barometer in Christ, then we have failed the acid test of standing tall for God in this last hour, and we are indeed in deep slumber.
Spiritual slumber is induced by the love and pursuit of self-glory and image, career, money, materialism, social media and television with worldly content, entertainment, immorality, comfort, influence, fame, and even time spent in church activities without a heart or zeal for God.
When the resurrected Jesus accosted Peter and the other disciples by the lakeside after a failed fishing expedition he gave them a divine direction on how they could catch abundance of fish and to their surprise their net was filled to a breaking point.
Even though He was the provider of their miraculous catch he was less impressed about this miracle that astonished them, but He was more interested in calling out their spiritual slumber.
He told Peter, ‘Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” (John 21:4).
Now, it is the will of God that we prosper and enjoy the things of this life, but it is His preference that we enjoy life in a utilitarian way and not for worldly pursuit of success to consume us and kill our love for Jesus.
Jesus Christ lived His life on earth as an example for us in such a way that He commanded material things, but they did not possess Him.
When His acid test came he confidently said, ‘for the prince of this world is coming, and he has no claim on Me’. (John 14:30).
Beloved, when our own acid-test comes can we have a similar confession?
Reading
John:1-14
