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AWAKENING
The Term
"AWAKENING" Is Often Ascribed To Religious Movements In Which
Conservative Religious Faith And Practice Changes culture: We think of
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield with the Great Awakening in
America (beginning about 1734) and Timothy Dwight, James McGready, the
Campbells, and Barton W. Stone with the Second Great Awakening
(beginning about 1787). Similar movements in Europe are identified with
Pietism and in England with the Methodist revival. Often the catalyst
for this kind of movement is disgust at the deplorable decline in
morality and general godlessness in the populace. Sometimes war makes a
nation of people appear to be turning back to God and awakening to
righteousness.
On the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening, the
increase in numbers of people who joined "churches" caused communities
to think about their
conduct, to speak out against drunkenness and profanity, and to create a
stronger
spirit of brotherhood, helpfulness, and decency in their towns. In
addition to building church buildings where people went to worship on
the "Lord's Day," they read their Bibles and prayed in their homes.
Of course for there to be any kind of mass awakening, individual
believers must
come out of lethargy and dedicate themselves to God. Paul said, "Let
us not sleep, as others do but let us watch and be sober" (1 Thes. 5:6).
And again, "...It is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our
salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent,
the day is at hand..." (Rom. 13:11,12).
In 1969, neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote an article for the British
Medical Journal
entitled "The Origins of Awakenings." In 1973, he published his book,
Awakenings, upon which the movie by that title is based. Sacks worked at
a hospital in the Bronx, New York, which specialized in the treatment of
people suffering from chronic mental illness. Unlike other hospitals,
few there were expected to get much better. Dr.Sacks had twenty patients
who were victims of encephalitis lethargica, an obscure form of sleeping
sickness that left them in almost catatonic states. Some had been
unresponsive for almost forty years. One day, he noticed a patient
suddenly bend over to catch her glasses that had fallen from her face.
Theoretically, she should not have been able to do that. The quest to
awaken her and others from their darkness became a passion. After years
of research, Dr. Sacks finally found the drug Levodopa which 2000 Nobel
Prize winner Arvid Carlsson tested on animals with symptoms similar to
Parkinson's disease in the 1950's. Sacks believed he could use this drug
to help his patients awaken to living. He risked his career and all that
he had to test this cure. His passionate love for his patients won some
of their freedom from darkness.
God has been trying passionately to awaken us. He has provided the
cure. He has given His only begotten Son (Jno. 3:16) and accepted
His blood as the antidote. We can continue to live in darkness and sin
or we can come alive in the Light. "This is the condemnation, that
the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil" (Jno. 3:19). All of us pity
those who merely exist and cannot be awakened to meaningful life. An
aneurysm, a head injury, a
traumatic emotional experience -- all of these have stopped people in
their tracks. Is it not also true that we can be immobilized spiritually
if we do not have life in Jesus Christ?
And what about those who have gone into a catatonic state as
Christians? Having once experienced true life in Christ, we have now
become inactive.
What a shame. What a loss.
I should be asking, "Do I pray as I should?" "Do I worship in
spirit and in truth?" "Do I join in the work of the church?" "Do I take
advantage of my opportunities to influence others to do right?" Again,
the example of Jesus Christ is our cure. We must get up and get busy.
Life must not be lost.
When Israel lost her spiritual life, Ezekiel stood looking out over
the ancient battlefield strewn with the bleached-white bones of what had
once been a mighty army. God asked, "Can these bones live?" Then
He declared, "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you
shall live" (Ezek. 37:1- 10).
The gospel story is about the Great Physician who is moved with
compassion for His lifeless patients. Jesus said, "...I have come
that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly"
(Jno. 10:10). Those who have experienced that spiritual
transformation have "passed from death into life."
Paul advised in light of the fact that we will all be raised from
the dead and will meet God in judgment, "Awake to righteousness and
do not sin..." (1 Cor. 15:34). What sound advice that is!
----- C.G. "Colly" Caldwell in Biblical
Insights,
Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2007.
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