Proverbs 3:24

Yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.

The peaceful slumbers of the righteous

Slumber is the common privilege of thousands undistinguished by any great virtue. But slumber may be the ordinary effect of nature. While there is no physical ailment or deep sorrow to hinder it; it is the natural result of weariness and daily toil. The slumbers of the text are those which come through freedom from fear.

I. The security of a good man’s rest. The body demands rest. To withhold this rest, or to give it reasonable limits, is moral suicide. When the good man lies down he is not to be afraid. Afraid of what? Of bodily danger and accidents and calamities. It is an instinct to have more fear in the darkness than in the light. It is in the night that we dread the outbreak of the smouldering spark; it is the night which favours the robber’s murderous purpose; it is the night which adds terrors to the lightning flash and to the storm. The promise of the text supplies a rational warrant for calm security. You may sleep and take your rest, for He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The powers of evil shall not destroy further than may be consistent with the Divine designs of mercy, or with an overruling purpose for good. It is a promise that in lying down we need not be afraid of death. When we close our eyes in slumber we know not in which of two worlds we may wake again. We can only overcome the fear of death by knowing that we have a part in Him who is the destroyer of death. How may we lay down and not be afraid? Only by endeavouring that, whether we wake in one world or another, we may have Christ with us at our rising.

II. Thy sleep shall be sweet. This is a second privilege of the good.

1. Sleep is sweetened by the thought of duties attempted, if not duties done. We are all unprofitable servants, but that is no reason why we should be slothful servants.

2. Sleep is sweet through an enjoyed sense of the Divine forgiveness. It cannot be a healthy sleep which men enjoy while the pillow is pressed by a weight of unpardoned, unrepented sin.

3. Sleep may be sweetened by kind and charitable thoughts towards all mankind. Cultivate those dispositions which minister to a holy and gentle charity. Conclusion. You must share in the good man’s labour if either in this life or in that which is to come you would share in the good man’s rest. Sleep to the labouring man is sweet, so also is the sleep of the labouring Christian. His struggles with sin, his contest with the world, the labour of keeping the heart right, and the hands pure, and the eye single, and the ways direct--these are things which make rest needful for him, which give refreshment to his slumbers and repose to his rest. And this warfare of the Christian every day, followed by a night of rest, is but a type of the whole warfare of time followed by the Sabbath rest of eternity. (Daniel Moore, M.A.)