The Alarm Is Ringing: Romans 13:11-14

And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

The alarm rang at 6 AM. Same as every morning. But this morning was different.

Augustine had been sleeping—not just physically but spiritually. For years. A brilliant mind, a restless heart, a life tangled in pleasures he couldn't quit. His mother prayed. His friends argued. Nothing changed.

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.

He had heard the gospel a hundred times. He had even believed it, intellectually. But something in him remained asleep—drugged by habit, dulled by compromise, dormant despite conviction.

So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Put aside. The phrase was simple. But the deeds clung. The mistress he couldn't release. The ambition that bent his choices. The darkness he had made peace with.

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

The list described his life. Carousing—the parties that blurred one night into another. Drunkenness—the wine that made the emptiness bearable. Sexual immorality—the relationships that promised intimacy but delivered slavery. Dissension—the arguments that fed his ego. Jealousy—the comparisons that poisoned his joy.

He was living in the dark while claiming to love the light.

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Clothe yourselves. Put on. Like getting dressed in the morning—deliberate, intentional. Put on Christ like a garment.

And do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Don't plan for sin. Don't arrange circumstances for compromise. Don't leave doors open that need to be closed.

Augustine sat in a garden in Milan, 386 AD. He had been weeping. The conviction was unbearable, the resistance exhausted. He heard children playing nearby, chanting: "Take up and read. Take up and read."

He grabbed the scroll of Romans. Opened it at random. His eyes fell on these verses.

The night is nearly over.

He felt it. The long night of compromise was ending. Dawn was breaking.

Put aside the deeds of darkness.

He could. He finally could. Not because he was stronger but because the hour had come.

Put on the armor of light.

Christ was available. Christ was sufficient. Christ could be put on like clothes for a new day.

Not in sexual immorality.

His mistress. The relationship he had excused for years. It had to end. Not gradually. Now.

Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.

He read the words again. And this time, they were not information but invitation. Not command only but grace. Put on Christ. Let Christ be your identity, your covering, your new self.

Augustine closed the scroll. The weeping had stopped. Something had shifted—irreversibly, permanently.

His mother Monica would learn that day that her prayers of thirty years had been answered. Her son had finally woken up.

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The alarm rings for all of us. Different gardens, different struggles, different years of slumber.

But the hour has come. The night is nearly over. The day is almost here.

Will you put aside the deeds of darkness?

Will you clothe yourself with Christ?

The alarm is ringing. It's time to wake up.