What do you do for a living? I’m a snuffer-outer and a knocker-upper. If you were an elderly man or a pregnant woman, this is a job you might have had during the early-to-mid 20th century if you lived in the Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, and some other countries. Sometimes, police officers would do this job to supplement their income.
A snuffer-outer was the person who would walk the streets of a city in the early morning hours with a bell-shaped cup on the end of a pole. They would use these to extinguish the gas lights. Then, they would use their snuffer-outer to be a knocker-upper, banging on a person’s window to wake them up. The long poles helped them reach someone’s window at a second-story level.
The job of knocker-upper paid very little, usually just a few pennies per week per client. The more clients you had needing assistance waking up, the better. Some knocker-uppers would rap on a window a few times before moving on to the next place. Others would keep knocking until their client came to the window, letting the knocker-upper know that the client was awake.
Mary Smith and her daughter, Molly Smith Moore, had this occupation. Moore claims that she was actually the last person at this profession. Rather than rapping on a window with the long pole, she used “a long rubber tube to shoot dried peas at their clients’ windows.”1 I’m thinking that wouldn’t have worked to get me awake.
What does it take to get you awake? I have had a couple of individuals tell me that they don’t use an alarm. Their internal alarm clock is so accurate that they wake up at the same time nearly every day. I would be afraid to try that! I set two alarms – my phone and a tablet alarm. However, I can’t remember the last time that the alarms woke me up. Instead, I start waking up one to two hours before the alarm goes off, usually around 4 a.m. and I’ll be in and out of sleep for the next hour before getting frustrated and giving up. This doesn’t happen everyday but it does happen most.
It would seem that the Lord wants His church to be awake. Romans 13:11 says, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” In Ephesians 5:14 we read, “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” And 1 Corinthians 15:34 says, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great preacher from the 19th century, wrote, “This sleepiness in the Christian is exceedingly dangerous, too, because he can do a great deal while he is asleep that will make him look as if he were quite awake… The man who is asleep does not care what becomes of his neighbors; how can he while he is asleep? And oh! Some of you Christians do not care whether souls are saved or damned… It is enough for them if they are comfortable. If they can attend a respectable place of worship and go with others to heaven, they are indifferent about everything else.”
Are you a sleepy saint? If so, awaken, the time is at hand and there is much to do!
1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up