Romans 13:11 “Do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”

The Bible often uses slumber or sleep as a metaphor for unbelief. Other times “sleep” is a picture of death. I think it’s clear that Paul is writing this letter to members of a Christian church, so he assumes that they are spiritually awake by faith. And obviously he wouldn’t write a book of the Bible to dead people. “Slumber” has to refer to something else.

Sometimes we Christians let our faith become lukewarm. We have very little fire in our belly for loving our neighbor or reaching the lost. Our prayers lack fervency and grow fewer and farther between. We aren’t much concerned about getting to know God better. We still go to church or Bible study, but mostly as a matter of habit. We don’t feel a particular need or desire to be there. Seeing the church grow produces no particular joy. Its struggles arouse no sense of alarm. We could always go somewhere else, or do something else, on Sunday.

Our problem is distraction. We have become too concerned with purely earthly circumstances. We pour our energy into having the things we want, achieving the lifestyle and experiences we desire. Not all of them are bad, maybe not most of them. They are simply items on our bucket lists. We want to check to check them off before we die.

What if you never earn that degree for which you study, or land the job on which you set your heart? What if your career goes nowhere? What if you never find love or raise a family? What if you never build the house you planned to make your home, or your retirement doesn’t turn out the way you dreamed?

All of these things may occupy a legitimate part of our time and attention. They are good and wholesome in and of themselves. But if they leave no place for God; if they move into a place ahead of God, we need Paul’s words to confront us. “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber.” Spiritually, we are asleep. That makes us useless for more important things.

At the present time, this presents two concerns: “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” Many speak about “salvation” happening when we come to faith. Sometimes it refers to Jesus and his saving life and death. Simeon used the word this way when he took the baby Jesus in his arms: “…my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people” (Luke 2:30-31).

In this passage, Paul uses salvation to refer to God’s final rescue. God brings salvation when he puts a final end to all his enemies and takes us away to heaven’s safety.

That is nearer every day. “The night is nearly over, the day is almost here.” Jesus could return at any time. Our lives in this world could end at any time. Our days here are limited. There are people I know personally whose salvation is doubtful at best. The clock is running out on our time to win them.

The second concern regards our own faith. Physically, I would like to die in my sleep–no long, painful struggle; just drift off to sleep and never wake up. Spiritually, that would be a catastrophe. What if our casual neglect of word and worship, prayer and service, love and witness slowly bled our faith dry until there wasn’t any left? What if we got to the point where we felt no twinge of guilt over our sins, no urge to fight temptation, no comfort in God’s grace, no relief in forgiveness? We need to understand the present time. We need to wake up now, before we lose what little faith we have.