Feb 4, 2013
Listen At Your Own Risk (Keith Green’s “Asleep in the Light”)
Unexpected Tears
I had another worship song I thought I’d be posting today.
But as I looked for that song, I stumbled upon Keith Green’s “Asleep in the Light.”
I listened — and God brought me to tears with deep longing to see people saved. And I thought — I need to post this song.
You’ve Been Warned
This is a convicting song. Listen at your own risk.
It’s Keith Green sounding like fiery John the Baptist out in the wilderness — exposing our sin, urging us to repent, waking us up to lost people around us.
But after a stern call to repentance, the song ends with God tenderly calling us to come away and be with Him.
Maybe the point is that God calls us to repent, but also to come to Him to for assurance of forgiveness, security in His love, and strength to obey.
Or maybe it’s the promise that when our lives are over we will be with Him forever — which will make whatever we’ve suffered well worth it.
Either way — it’s a powerful ending to a convicting song.
Listen to this song —
- if you need more compassion for the lost.
- if you feel spiritually dull.
- if it’s been a while since you’ve been convicted of sin.
- if you need a kick in the pants.
Let me know what God does in your heart. I’ll post the lyrics below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXb45UTUFWU
Here’s The Lyrics —
Do you see, do you see
All the people sinking down
Don’t you care, don’t you care
Are you gonna let them drown
How can you be so numb
Not to care if they come
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done
“Oh bless me Lord, bless me Lord”
You know it’s all I ever hear
No one aches, no one hurts
No one even sheds one tear
But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds
And He cares for your needs
And you just lay back
And keep soaking it in,
Oh, can’t you see it’s such a sin?
Cause He brings people to your door,
And you turn them away
As you smile and say,
“God bless you, be at peace”
And all heaven just weeps
Cause Jesus came to your door
You’ve left him out on the streets
Open up open up
And give yourself away
You see the need, you hear the cries
So how can you delay
God’s calling and you’re the one
But like Jonah you run
He’s told you to speak
But you keep holding it in,
Oh can’t you see it’s such a sin?
The world is sleeping in the dark
That the church just can’t fight
Cause it’s asleep in the light
How can you be so dead
When you’ve been so well fed
Jesus rose from the grave
And you, you can’t even get out of bed
Oh, Jesus rose from the dead
Come on, get out of your bed
How can you be so numb
Not to care if they come
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t pretend the jobs done
Come away, come away, come away with Me my love,
Come away, from this mess, come away with Me, my love.
Comments? Thoughts?
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Steve,
We are called to share the truth of the gospel, even though we know it’s a message people don’t want to hear. Paul tells us in Romans that mankind suppresses the truth that is written on their hearts, we are charged to share something that the world doesn’t want to know. The story of the rich man suffering in hades who wanted Abraham to send a prophet to warn his surviving brothers to repent so they would not suffer the same fate as he. Abraham answered they have the Law and the words of the Prophets, and even if a dead man came back to life they still would not repent.
The truth of the gospel must be shared in love and genuine concern. We could stand on a street corner with a sign and plead with strangers to repent and begin to trust in Christ Jesus, but I don’t believe that would bring about a great harvest. We must befriend unbelievers, there has to be some level of trust and genuine concern, some discernible degree of true compassion.
It will cost us something to truly share Christ love, time and energy, things we count as valuable commodities. But I think it comes down to obedience, we are called to invest our lives into others, so will we?
“How can you be so dead
When you’ve been so well fed”
Steve,
One more thought about these lyrics, perhaps the reason we are so dead is because we have it so well. ‘Asleep in the Light’ what a powerful title, so telling of where a majority of believers are at. We can get so caught up in trying to maintain a certain lifestyle that we lose our focus about what is truly important. We can pour so much time and energy into things that will eventually rot away. Take a new car and leave in a open field, and in time, it rusts away and becomes dirt once again. In fact everything in this world if left to the elements, will degrade and become dirt once again. When you think about it, everyone is struggling to own a newer and shiner piece of dirt.
Will we trade away our time and energy for things that won’t last, or will we spend it investing in a Kingdom that has no end.
Makes me think of ‘cliche’ by Eowyn. Explaining the song, she says that its about speaking to others about God and wanting to annoy people so they hear. I’m not particularly ‘old and wise’ and as much as like the song, i’m convinced by mankind’s behaviour that annoying someone doesn’t work and never will. It just pushes them away more, like Paul commented.
It s a lovely idea to speak of God and have people flock to you, like those images of Jesus, everybody gathered around but pride tells people to stay away so instead they laugh and mock because that’s what the rest of the flock is doing.
I do have a leading example in my life for this though.
There’s an older man living on my street that the whole town seems to know and is a well known Christian. Stand with him long enough and he will start filtering God into conversations and even though some might walk away afterwards rolling their eyes they never just say, ‘oh shut and go home’ and walk away, like they would if he was standing in the middle of town with a microphone. They stand and talk back honestly with him.
The difference is respect.
My parents can be vocal about how other Christian’s make them feel, as though the pulpit they stand on is used to look down instead of up and yet they would describe my neighbour as the nicest man they have ever come across.
I know its easy to say the Christian in town is just being obnoxious because they’re stranger and you don’t know them personally but when people see that you practice what you preach and are genuinely a patient and compassionate person, people will come to respect that. Very few people are nasty to a lovely person. I think that’s a better way for people to actually hear what you’re saying instead of just noise. They can see through you what it actually means to follow God and let God do the rest in their lives.
So in my opinion, the best way to lead others to God is to truly focus on yourself and when you’ve reached a point in your train of thought where only compassion and forgiveness is coming through, people will pick up on that and life is a domino effect. Somewhere there could be a little girl sitting at the dinner table and hears her parents talk about you.