Four Kinds Of Sleep by Dr. Craig Johnson

The word tardemah is also used in scripture to speak of unholy slumber, sleep which makes us vulnerable to satanic attack.  Just as God has designed sovereign tardemah ‘seasons’ of blessing, so Satan seeks to bring his ‘counterfeit sleep’ into our lives.  These four kinds of counterfeit sleep always represent the most subtle threat to revival in any age.  They are:

The sleep of “escape”

The sleep of “presumption”

The sleep of transgression”

The sleep of “error.”

Jonah And The Sleep Of Escape

“But, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship;  and he lay, and was fast asleep.”  (Jonah 1:5)

What a curious instance of deep sleep.  Willen A. Van Gemeren explains:

“The use of tardemah in Jonah 1:5,6 may be ironic, pointing to a prophet who fell asleep not in order to establish contact with God, but to escape it.”  (Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, Vol. III, Zondervan, 1997, pg. 1057).

I believe that the great reality and power of addiction in our culture parallels Jonah’s express desire to escape through sleep.  When we seek to evade the realities and responsibilities of life through any form of mood altering slumber, we risk the danger of awaking to find ourselves, like Jonah, hidden, isolated and running from God!

Our families and friends are all too often forced to take on the role of Jonah’s shipmaster who cried:

“What meanest thou, O’ sleeper, arise, call upon thy God, …that we perish not.”  (Jonah 1:6).

It’s time to ‘wake up’ to call upon God and turn from the false sleep of escape!

We make ourselves vulnerable to Satan’s greatest bondages when we sleep to God’s will, God’s call, and God’s word!  Such a sleep of escape proves a contradiction even to non-believers who ask: “Why hast thou done this.”  (Jonah 1:10).  Satan watches over all those who presently slumber in escapism.

Notice also the familiar theme in Jonah’s steps toward his sleep of escape:

“He went down to Joppa…He entered the ship…paid the fare…and went down into it…but, when Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; he lay, and was fast asleep

He went down into the sea…then down into the whale’s belly.”  (Jonah 1:3,5; 2:15,17)

When we run from God in order to evade the realities and responsibilities of life we always go down!  The sleep of escape always leads down, and away from God’s blessing.  Notice also that when we run from God, we always pay the fare and never reach our destination!  So it is with the reality of addiction in any of its forms, we pay with our lives to sleep a sleep of utter isolation and fruitlessness.

Let’s heed the counsel of the apostle Paul and:

“Awake to righteousness and sin not…” (I Cor. 15:34).