High
Time to Awake!
And
that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for
now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent,
the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let
us put on the armour of light. Rom. 13:11, 12.
The great controversy is nearing its end. Every report of calamity by sea
or land is a testimony to the fact that the end of all things is at hand.
Wars and rumors of wars declare it. Is there a Christian whose pulse does
not beat with quickened action as he anticipates the great events opening
before us? The Lord is coming. We hear the footsteps of an approaching God.
This knowledge
of the nearness of Christ's coming should not be allowed to lose its force,
and we become careless and inattentive, and fall into slumber--into an insensibility
and indifference to realities. In slumber we are in an unreal world, and not
sensible of the things which are taking place around us. . . .
There are
those who have the blazing light of truth shining all around them, and yet
are insensible to it. They are enchanted by the enemy, held under a spell
by his bewitching power. They are not preparing for that great day which is
soon to come to our world. They seem utterly insensible to religious truth.
Are there
not some youth who are awake? Those who see that the night cometh, and also
the morning, should work with untiring energy to arouse their sleeping associates.
Can they not feel their peril, pray for them, and show them by their own life
and character that they believe themselves that Christ is soon to come? .
. . The rapidly diminishing space of time between us and eternity should more
deeply impress us. Every day that passes makes one less left us to complete
our work of perfecting character. . . .
As long
as there are many asleep, many sporting away the precious hours in careless
indifference, as it were, upon the very brink of the eternal world, those
who do believe must be sober, must be awake, must be earnest and diligent,
and watch unto prayer. . . .
Have you,
dear youth, your lamps trimmed and burning?