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The sermon distinguishes ordinary rest and the spiritual rest God gives His beloved from the deadly sleep of sin and complacency. Spurgeon strongly affirms Reformed doctrines including original sin, election, effectual calling, and final perseverance, grounding assurance in Christ’s redeeming work and God’s preserving grace. Genuine Christianity is shown to involve sound doctrine, real experience, and good practice. Believers may face death with confidence because their souls are with Christ and their bodies await resurrection, while the unconverted are urgently called to seek pardon through Jesus.
Theological center: God graciously gives His redeemed people spiritual peace, salvation security, and blessed rest through Christ, while unconverted sinners remain in peril until they awaken to their need.
Applications: Awaken from spiritual sleep · Examine your salvation · Consider the danger of sin · Rest in Christ’s care
Primary texts: Psalm 127:2 · 1 Thessalonians 5:6 · Revelation 14:13
“For so he giveth his beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:2 THE sleep of the body is the gift of God. So said Homer of old, when he described it as descending from the clouds and resting on the tents of the warriors around old Troy. And so sang Virgil, when he spoke of Palinurus falling asleep upon the prow of the ship. Sleep is the gift of God. We think that we lay our heads upon our pillows and compose our bodies in a peaceful posture and that, therefore, we naturally and necessarily sleep. But it is not so. Sleep is the gift of God and not a man would close his eyes did not God put His fingers on his eyelids, did not the Almighty send a soft and balmy influence over his frame which lulled his thoughts into quiescence, making him enter into that blissful state of rest which we call sleep. True, there are some drugs and narcotics whereby men can poison themselves well-nigh to death and then call it sleep. But the sleep of the healthy body is the gift of God. He bestows it, He rocks the cradle for us every night. He draws the curtain of darkness. He bids the sun shut up his burning eyes, and then He comes and says, “Sleep, sleep My child. I give you sleep.” Have you not known what it is at times to lie upon your bed and strive to slumber? and as it is said of Darius, so might it be said of you, “The king sent for his musicians, but his sleep went from him.” You have attempted it, but you could not do it. It is beyond your power to procure a healthy repose. You imagine if you fix your mind upon a certain subject until it shall engross your attention, you will then sleep, but you find yourself unable to do so. Ten thousand things drive through your brain as if the whole earth were agitated before you. You see all things you ever beheld dancing in a wild phantasmagoria before your eyes. You close your eyes, but still you see. And there be things in your ear, and head, and brain, which will not let you sleep. It is God alone, who alike seals up the sea boy’s eyes upon the giddy mast, and gives the monarch rest, for with all appliances and means to boot, he could not rest without the aid of God. It is God who steeps the mind in lethe and bids us slumber, that our bodies may be refreshed, so that for tomorrow’s toil we may rise recruited and strengthened. O my friends, how thankful should we be for sleep. Sleep is the best physician that I know of. Sleep has healed more pains of wearied bones than the most eminent physicians upon earth. It is the best medicine, the choicest thing of all the names which are written in all the lists of pharmacy. There is nothing like sle…