shame; so that when the harvest is spent, and the summer is ended, they are not saved. Sleep often expresses a state of sloth, of deadness, of indifference, in which all ungodly men are found, according to the words, “It is time for us to awake out of sleep.” “Let us not sleep as do others, but let us who are of the day be sober.” There are many who are sleeping the sluggard’s sleep, who are resting upon the bed of sloth, but an awful waking they shall have, when they shall find that the time of their probation has been wasted; that the golden sands of their life have dropped unheeded from the hourglass; and that they have come into that world where there are no acts of pardon passed, no hope, no refuge, and no salvation.
4. In other places you find sleep used as the figure of carnal security, in which so many are found. Look at Saul, lying asleep in fleshly security — not like David, when he said, “I will lay down and sleep, for you Lord make me to dwell in safety.” Abner lay there, and all the troops lay around him, but Abner slept. Sleep on, Saul, sleep on. But there is an Abishai standing at your pillow, and with a spear in his hand he says, “Let me strike him even to the earth at once.” Still he sleeps; he does not know it. Such are many of you, sleeping in jeopardy of your soul; Satan is standing, the law is ready, vengeance is eager, and all saying, “Shall I strike him? I will strike him this once, and he shall never wake again.” Christ says, “Stop, vengeance, stop.” Lo, the spear is even now quivering — “Stop, spare it yet another year, in the hope that he may yet wake from the long sleep of his sin.” Like Sisera, I tell you, sinner, you are sleeping in the tent of the destroyer; you may have eaten butter and honey out of a lordly dish; but you are sleeping on the doorstep of hell; even now the enemy is lifting up the hammer and the nail, to strike you through your temples, and fasten you to the earth, that there you may lie for ever in the death of everlasting torment — if it may be called a death.
5. Then there is also mentioned in Scripture, a sleep of lust, like that which Samson had when he lost his locks, and such sleep as many have when they indulge in sin, and wake to find themselves stripped, lost, and ruined. There is also the sleep of negligence, such as the virgins had, when it is said, “they all slumbered and slept”; and the sleep of sorrow, which overcame Peter, James, and John. But none of these are the gifts of God. They are the results of the frailty of our nature; they come upon us because we are fallen men; they creep over us because we are the sons of a lost and ruined parent. These sleeps are not the blessings from God; nor does he bestow them on his beloved. We now come to tell you what those sleeps are, which he does bestow.
6. I. First, there is a miraculous sleep which God has sometimes given to his beloved — which he does not NOW bestow. Into that kind of miraculous sleep, or rather trance, fell Adam, when he slept sorrowingly and alone; but when he awoke he was no more so, for God had given him that best gift which he had then bestowed on man. The same sleep Abram had, when it is said that a deep sleep came on him, and he laid down, and saw a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, while a voice said to him, “Fear not, Abram; I am your shield, and your exceedingly great reward.” Such a hallowed sleep also was that of Jacob, when with a stone for his pillow, the hedges for his curtains, the heavens for his canopy, the winds for his music, and the beasts for his servants, he laid down and slumbered. Dreaming, he saw a ladder set upon the earth, the top of which reached to heaven, the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Such a sleep had Joseph, when he dreamed that the other sheaves made obeisance to his sheaf, and that the sun, moon, and seven stars were subject to him. So often David rested, when his sleep was sweet to him, as we have just read. And such a sleep was that of Daniel, when he said, “I was asleep upon my face, and behold the Lord said to me, Arise, and stand upon your feet.” And such, moreover, was the sleep of the reputed father of our blessed Lord, when in a vision of the night, an angel said to him, “Arise, Joseph, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” These are miraculous slumbers. God’s angel has touched his servants with the magic wand of sleep, and they have slept, not simply as we do, but slept a wondrous sleep, they have dived into the tenfold depths of slumber, they have plunged into a sea of sleep, where they have seen the invisible, talked with the unknown, and heard mystic and wondrous sounds: and when they have awoken, they have said, “What a sleep! Surely, my sleep was sweet to me.” “So he gives his beloved sleep.”
7. But, nowadays, we do not have such sleeps as these. Many people dream very wonderful things, but most people dream nonsense. Some people put faith in dreams: and, certainly God does warn us in dreams and visions even now. I am sure he does. There is not a man who cannot mention one or more instances of a warning, or a benefit, he has received in a dream. But we never trust dreams. We remember what Rowland Hill said to a lady, who knew she was a child of God, because she dreamed such-and-such a thing: “Never mind, ma’am, what you did when you were asleep; let us see what you will do when you are awake.” That is my opinion of dreams. I never will believe a man to be a Christian merely because he has dreamed himself one; for a dreamy religion will make a man a dreamer all his life — and such dreamers will have an awful awaking at last, if that is all they have to trust in.
8. II. He gives his beloved, in the second place, the sleep of a quiet conscience. I think most of you saw that splendid picture, in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy — The Sleep of Argyle — where he lay slumbering on the very morning before his execution. You saw some noblemen standing there, looking at him, almost with compunction; the jailer is there, with his keys rattling: but positively the man sleeps, though tomorrow morning his head shall be severed from his body, and a man shall hold it up, and say, “This was the head of a traitor.” He slept because he had a quiet conscience: for he had done no wrong. Then look at Peter. Did you ever notice that remarkable passage, where it is said that Herod intended to bring out Peter on the morrow; but, behold, as Peter was sleeping between two guards, the angel struck him? Sleeping between two guards, when on the morrow he was to be crucified or slain! He did not care, for his heart was clear; he had committed no wrong. He could say, “If it is right to serve God or man, you judge”; and, therefore, he laid down and slept. Oh sirs! do you know what the sleep of a quiet conscience is? Have you ever stood out and been the butt of calumny — pelted by all men; the object of scorn — the laugh, the song of the drunkard? And have you known what it is, after all, to sleep, as if you cared for nothing, because your heart was pure? Ah! you who are in debt — ah! you who are dishonest — ah! you who do not love God, nor Christ — I wonder that you can sleep, for sin puts pricking thorns in the pillow. Sin puts a dagger in a man’s bed, so that whichever way he turns it pricks him. But a quiet conscience is the sweetest music that can lull the soul to sleep. The demon of restlessness does not come to that man’s bed who has a quiet conscience — a conscience right with God — who can sing —
With the world, myself, and thee,
I, before I sleep, at peace shall be.
“So he gives his beloved sleep.”
9. But let me tell you who have no knowledge of your election in Christ Jesus, no trust in the ransom of a Saviour’s blood — you, who have never been called by the Holy Spirit — you, who never were regenerated and born again — let me tell you that you do not know this slumber. You may say your conscience is quiet; you may say, you do no man any wrong, and that you believe at the bar of God you shall have little to account for. But, sirs, you know you have sinned; and your virtues cannot atone for your vices. You know that the soul that sins, if it sins only once, must die. If the picture has a single flaw, it is not a perfect one. If you have sinned only once, you shall be dammed for it, unless you have something to take away that one sin. You do not know this sleep, but the Christian does, for all his sins were numbered on the “scape goat’s head of old.” Christ has died for all his sins, however great or enormous; and there is not now a sin written against him in the Book of God. “I, even I,” says God, “am he that blots out your transgressions for my name’s sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Now you may sleep; for “so he gives his beloved sleep.”
10. III. Again: there is the sleep of contentment which the Christian enjoys. How few people in this world are satisfied. No man ever need fear offering a reward of a thousand pounds to a contented man; for if anyone should come