The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a loud shout can awaken them out of it!
Interpretation
The quote suggests that society is unaware or indifferent to important truths and requires a strong call to action to awaken them.
George Whitefield's quote emphasizes the apathy present in the Christian community and by extension, society as a whole. It reflects the idea that people are often complacently asleep to significant issues or truths, and that it usually takes a powerful and explicit warning or call to awareness, described as a 'loud shout', to stir them from their ignorance or inaction. This metaphor suggests a need for urgency and passion to bring about enlightenment, change, or revival among the masses.
In practice
In a sermon about spiritual awakening, this quote could illustrate the need for a revival.
And now let me address all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to accept of mercy and grace while it is offered to you; Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation; and will you not accept it, now it is offered unto you?
God is well pleased when all our actions proceed from love, love to Himself, and love to immortal souls.
If your souls were not immortal, and you in danger of losing them, I would not thus speak unto you; but the love of your souls constrains me to speak: methinks this would constrain me to speak unto you forever.
Whoever reads the gospel with a single eye, and sincere intentions, will find, that our blessed Lord took all opportunities of reminding his disciples that His Kingdom was not of this world; that His doctrine was a doctrine of the Cross; and that their professing themselves to be His followers, would call them to a constant state of voluntary suffering and self-denial.
What could the Lord Jesus Christ have done for you more than he has? Then do not abuse his mercy, but let your time be spent in thinking and talking of the love of Jesus, who was incarnate for us, who was born of a woman, and made under the law, to redeem us from the wrath to come.
I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month, than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.
God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered.
If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all
Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.
If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live.
Contemporary industrial society is now characterised more than ever by "the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity."
Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.
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