Posted on 03/20/2020 6:18:30 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread” (Proverbs 20:13).
If a man does nothing, eventually he is going to run out of harvest provisions, and he is going to run out of money. A man that sleeps away his life will come to poverty. There are a lot of impoverished Christians also, for they would rather sleep than study the Word of God. Just as a man needs physical food to sustain his physical health, a Christian needs a steady supply of the bread and water of the Word to sustain their spiritual life.
“Open thine eyes,” in other words, “Get up!” and “thou shalt be satisfied with bread.”
When a man gets saved, something more than just “salvation” occurs: “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). One of the big errors in the world today is that people need a priest to guide them. The Bible teaches the “priesthood of the believer.” We have the same right, in fact a greater privilege than the unsaved religious man, to communicate with God and understand the Scriptures. The idea that no man should attempt to interpret the Bible is one of the chief lies from the pits of hell.
“Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away” (II Corinthians 3:16). That is, when the heart turns to God, the Bible becomes an open Book. God then gives a man a knowledge of the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit continues to expand that man’s knowledge as he studies the Bible.
Why doesn’t a lost man believe the Gospel? Because it is hid from him: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (II Corinthians 4:3-4). He sees it, he hears it, but it doesn’t penetrate—because his heart is all messed up. He loves his sleep, his spiritual slumber, and only cares about physical things to the satisfying of his flesh. As a result, he does not see the reality of eternity, does not see the reality of sin, and the reality of hell. But if he will turn to the Lord, God will reveal all these things unto him, and the truth is no longer hid—as the bondage to Satan is broken to pieces.
Now, we are talking about spiritual sleep here for the most part. There is nothing wrong with enjoying physical sleep—in moderation, of course. There is nothing better to a worn-out saint of God that has spent his waking hours busy in the Lord to curl up and get his physical batteries charged during a good eight hours of deep sleep.
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