# Summary It was difficult to read this as something other than like a classic, tent revival, call to salvation message. I do recognize the frame of the unbeliever as being "asleep" or "spiritually dead" and bonhoeffer's "call to discipleship" as the call that wakens the sleeper. Maybe I'm missing some theological content here, beyond "you should seek salvation that comes from Jesus Christ, friend." # Revisit (Transcribed and edited from vocal recording) So this is my second response to Awake Thou That Sleepest. I chose to go over it again because it was not my favorite work that I read that week, and so I think I wanted to really closely attend to what Charles was trying to say about either the moment or the season of decision when each person chooses to follow Christ, right? Some of the finer points that are made here, even I, you know, a total theology geek who loves to belabor some of these points just to drill down on why it is that we believe what we believe, sometimes I wonder why they spend so much time on them when pastorally the difference is supposed to be clearly kind of moot. Maybe you'll understand what I mean if we look at how both Charles and John, they want to make it really clear that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer that enables them to decide to follow Christ, and they spend time describing the state of the person before the Holy Spirit quickens their spirit to attend to him, right? In this work that is described as, you know, someone who sleepest. But here, you know, section 1, paragraph 4, "by one who sleeps we are therefore to understand, and would to God that we all might understand it, a sinner satisfied in his sins, contented to remain in his fallen state." This describes, pastorally, the person I've understood as just someone who doesn't know that they need anything. Not even doesn't know that they need God, just someone who doesn't know that they need something else out of this life, right? And, you know, I've met these people, I'm sure we all have, some of us are related to them, and some people, you know, are just kind of pretty straightforward that this is where they are, this is where they will remain, you know, they're not interested in a, they're not a joiner, right? So this state, one that's asleep, both Charles in this sermon, and John in the next sermon, "Working out our salvation", to me, seem to make contradictory motions, They want to describe a phenomenon that we see out there, right, that there are people who are, you know, hellraisers and tomcats, and they profess to be just fine with who they are, and, and also, we want to say that Christ continually beckons all men to himself, really, so that none may have any excuse in the coming judgment, where God separates the wheat from the tares, or the goats and the sheep, right? What's very clear, you know, Charles and John are not people with a liberal soteriology, they don't have this sort of permissive space, or this sort of anti-rigid sense of belonging to the kingdom of God. For them, it's very clear that there are people who belong, people who don't, and people who don't are not going to spend eternity with God, right? And so, that to me, that sort of desire, or that movement, or even just that sort of internal conviction, that there are people who have not responded to the call of Christ, but Christ calls all continually. So, what's the difference between the person who, in this sort of frame, is, you know, dead asleep, you know, in our metaphor for a sleeper, right? Someone who is like, it's two in the morning, and they are not waking up till seven, hell or high water, what's the difference between that person, and the person that they also describe, uh, who is kind of like, it is 7:30, and the alarm is going off, and this person refuses to wake up, right? In Bonhoeffer's sort of metaphor, Christ is calling to him directly, and saying, you, Sam, time for you to follow me now, right? So, it seems to me, in my reading, that they don't really allow for a lot of space and difference here, which is okay, except they take a lot of time to describe these two different groups of people, which, to me, is confusing. Charles is a little bit less interested in that difference, in this sermon, spending more ink on the page, therefore time in the pulpit, addressing people who are religious in their habits but in a spiritually dead way. People who are into the ritual, they're into the means of grace, they're into the social practices of the church that belongs to Christ, but they are not, you know, lit ablaze by the power of the Holy Spirit. My home context would describe a born-again believer as someone who shows the primary evidence of a life transformed, and that simply availing yourself of the physical-space practices of the church does not, by itself count you as a member of the family of faith. So I dislike Charles less than the first time I read this sermon, but I am getting a bit more comfortable letting the parts that smell like dispensational evangelicalism go without being directly opposed every single time, or we'd be here all night.