“But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”—Jonah 1:5-6.
Of all the men in the ship, Jonah was the person who ought most to have been awake; but nevertheless, he was not only asleep, but fast asleep; all the creaking of the cordage, the dashing of the waves, the howling of the winds, the straining of the timbers, and the shouting of the mariners, did not arouse him; he was fast locked in the arms of sleep. See here, in Jonah’s heavy slumber, the effect of sin. No noxious drug can give such deadly sleep as sin. The body never knows so dread a sleep when under the influence of opiates, as the soul does when sin hath cast it into a slumber. If men could be awake to the evils, to the danger, to the desperate punishment of sin, sin were not half so deadly as it is; but when it puts its sweet cup of nightshade to the lip, that cup soon blinds the eye and “steeps the senses in forgetfulness,” and man knoweth not what or where he is. Nor is sin the only cradle in which evil rocks the soul, the world too, casteth men into slumber. I do not know that Jonah ever slept so soundly anywhere as when he had gotten into the midst of busy mariners who were going to Tarshish. Ah, it is comparatively easy for us to keep awake in the midst of God’s Church; ’tis easy for us to maintain our stedfastness and integrity when we meet with those who rejoice in His name; but the world is an enchanted ground, and happy is that Christian who is able to survive the deadening influence of business, the soporific influence which creeps over the minds of men whose merchandise increaseth, whose houses are filled with the riches of nations. What downy pillows doth the world sew to all armholes! What beds of ease she spreads for those whom she entraps.
See also, the slumbering effects of the flesh. It was to spare himself a little toil, it was to avoid personal dishonor that Jonah fled. Ah, flesh! when thou art yielded to, into what follies wilt thou not drive us, into what prostration of strength dost thou not hurl us? Pleasures and comforts, if sought as ends, are desperate drains upon the vigor of the spirit. When body is indulged, then the soul lies cleaving to the dust. It is not possible for us to pamper the flesh without, at the same time starving the soul. If we sacrifice unto our own lusts, we are quite certain to get the sacrifices by robbing God’s altar. The body shall not have pleasure in sin, except the soul shall soon be in a state of misery and decay.
See also, in our text, one of the devices of Satan. He seeks to lull God’s prophets into slumber, for he knows that dumb dogs that are given to sleep will never do any very great injury to his cause. The wakeful watchman he always fears, for then he cannot take the city by surprise; but if he can cast God’s watchman into slumber, then he is well content, and thinketh it almost as well to have a Christian asleep as to have him dead: he would certainly sooner see him in hell, but next to that, he is most glad to see him rocked in the cradle of presumption, fast asleep. May we be delivered from Jonah’s condition; but since like Jonah, we are infested by sin, incumbered by the flesh, surrounded by the world, and tempted by the devil, we have good cause occasionally that the shipmaster should come round and shake us by the shoulders, or even roughly strike us with the rope, lest we should sleep as do others, and so fall into spiritual decays.
I shall this morning act the shipmaster’s part, and, as captain of this vessel, I will cry both to slumbering saints and to sleepy sinners, “What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, and call upon thy God.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
