Last week a FedEx hub worker fell asleep in the process of loading an aircraft in Memphis, TN.  He woke up and was startled to find the plane was flying over Texas.  While the thought of this man mistakenly nodding off and travelling hundreds of miles unbeknownst to him is humorous, there is a sobering spiritual lesson that came to my mind when I heard this news.

Perhaps, we have all heard the adage: “sin will take you farther than you want to go and make you pay more than you want to owe.”  Sin surrounds us, and, if we are not alert, we can be lulled to a spiritual stupor where we no longer think sin is a big deal.  While today the world may look at things that were considered unthinkable 50 or 100 years ago as “no big deal,” God’s word is timeless.  Long after our short time on this earth is expired, if the world still stands, God’s word will still say the same as it always has regarding the works of darkness and light.

Consider Ephesians 5:3-14:

But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)  Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.  And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.  For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.  But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Christians are called to be awake and ever vigilant to the spiritual dangers the world poses.  If we do not keep our eyes out, we may well end up some place we never intended to be: in the place of God’s wrath.  Let our sleep come at the end of life’s day when we can rest in Jesus:

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.  Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,  Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him (1 Thessalonians 5:5-10).

-Mark Day