Acts 20:6-12
And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.
When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): This Eutychus is the father of all such as fall asleep under sermons. And he well deserves all his fame, for he fell sound asleep under an action sermon of the Apostle Paul. We do not know how much there may have been to be said in exculpation of Eutychus and his deep sleep during that sacrament service.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It was a very long sermon: He “continued his speech until midnight;” for he had a great deal to say, and knew not that ever he should have another opportunity of preaching to them. After they had received the Lord’s Supper, he preached to them the duties they had thereby engaged themselves to, and the comforts they were interested in, and in this he was very large and full and particular…We know some that would have reproached Paul for this as a long-winded preacher, that tired his hearers; but they were willing to hear: he saw them so, and therefore continued his speech. He continued it till midnight; perhaps they met in the evening in conformity to the example of the disciples who came together on the first Christian sabbath in the evening. It is probable he had preached to them in the morning, and yet thus lengthened out his evening sermon even till midnight. We wish we had the heads of this long sermon.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Long sermons tend to quench the fire instead of kindling it…Paul’s power in the churches was very great, and yet he was not always able to maintain attention when his sermon was long, for at least one hearer went to sleep under him with serious result.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): This has been viewed by some as a penalty for inattention.
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Mark, though the sermon continued till midnight, and it was a youth that slept, yet he fell down as dead. It was a small sin—a sin of infirmity—a boy’s sin; yet God would leave this warning. I do not criticize too severely upon this infirmity, only give you caution. Yet we are to strive against it, and be sure it may be said of us as of them: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Matthew 26:41. Make conscience of avoiding this sin; do not compose yourselves to sleep; do not come to these duties spent with labours and worldly cares, nor clogged with excess of meat or drink.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): But how regardless are those of this direction, who, instead of hanging on the preacher to hear him, doze or sleep whilst he is speaking to them from God?
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): This fellow wasn’t the last man to be overpowered by drowsiness in a meeting!
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Woe to many today, when God shall once send out summonses for sleepers.
MATTHEW HENRY: Now this youth was to be blamed, that he presumptuously sat in the window, unglazed perhaps, and so exposed himself; and that he slept, nay, he fell into a deep sleep when Paul was preaching, which was a sign he did not duly attend to the things that Paul spoke of, though they were weighty things. The particular notice taken of his sleeping makes us willing to hope that none of the rest slept, though it was sleeping time and after supper; but this youth fell fast asleep, he was carried away with it—so the word is, which intimates that he strove against it, but was overpowered by it, and at last sunk down with sleep.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): I see no cause why some interpreters should so sore and sharply condemn the drowsiness of the young man, that they should say that he was punished for his sluggishness by death. For what marvel is it, if, seeing the night was so far spent, having striven so long with sleep, he yielded at length? Whereas, against his will, and otherwise than he hoped for, he was taken and overcome with deep sleep, we may guess by this that he did not settle himself to sleep. To seek out a fit place wherein to sleep had been a sign of sluggishness, but to be overcome with sleep, sitting at a window—what is it but without fault to yield to nature?
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): And also from the length of service, and the lateness of the night, all which contributed to bring on this deep sleep. It can hardly be thought that he purposely composed himself to sleep, for he would never have chosen so dangerous a place to sit in as a window, and at so great an height from the ground; but this sleep seemed to come upon him at an unawares; what hand Satan might have had in it, with a view to the young man’s hurt, both as to soul and body, and to bring reproach and scandal upon the church, and the Gospel, it seems evident that the providence of God was in it, which overruled it for a good end, even the greater confirmation of the Gospel, and very probably to the spiritual good of the young man.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: A miracle was wrought by Paul—the young man was raised from a state of death by the power and goodness of God in His servant and the friends were not a little comforted.
C. H. SPURGEON: Under Paul’s preaching, Eutychus went to sleep, and Paul never blamed him.
THE EDITOR: Maybe Paul blamed himself.
MATTHEW HENRY: Paul did not now go on in a continued discourse, as before, but he and his friends fell into a free conversation, the subject of which, no doubt, was good, and to the use of edifying.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: We must add, however, that we do not think the Lord’s table is the place for long sermons.
ALEXANDER WHYTE: Paul did not know when to stop that night. Even after the accident to Eutychus, he was still so full of matter and of spirit, that he went on with his post-communion address till the sun rose on the cups still standing on the table, and on the elders standing beside them, and Paul still pouring out his heart from the pulpit.
C. H. SPURGEON: Send hearers away, not loathing, but longing. Long sermons only make people long for the end of them; the best discourses are those which leave us longing for more.
THE EDITOR: By recording this incident, maybe that’s a lesson the Holy Spirit intended preachers to notice—that they should not weary their people. A young lad once stood looking at an old plaque on the church wall, exhibiting the names of congregation members who had died during the World Wars. “What are those?” the boy asked. “Those are all the names of our church members who died in the service,” explained his pastor. “Oh,” the boy replied, “did they die during the morning or the evening service?”
C. H. SPURGEON: I had many things to say, but I remember Paul’s mistake—and as I could not possibly raise a sleeper from the dead, as Paul did, I will not try the experiment of preaching as long as Paul did!
