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.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
If we continue to make moral judgements (and whatever we say shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of nature.
It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me.
Each day has been chained to the previous one. But the weeks have wings. Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live my life.
He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.
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