This Spurgeon quote sums up the atmosphere of preaching in Burbank.
"What is “the power” of darkness? I suppose everyone will admit that it is a power which tends towards slumber. It is a composing power. God has given us the night in which to sleep. Whether or not there is any absolute power in darkness to engender sleep, I do not know. But I do know this, that it is much easier, when reclining on your bed, to sleep in the dark than it is to sleep in the full glare of the sun. There seems to be some sedative influence about darkness, something which assists a man to fall into a state of inaction which we call, “sleep.” Now, Beloved, look upon the race of men. They are under the power of darkness and, in consequence, they sleep. Does not the Apostle say to us who are delivered from that power, “Let us not sleep as do others”? “They that sleep,” he says, “sleep in the night,” that being the proper time sleep—the night with its raven wing seeming to engender sleep—“but let us that are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of love.” If you look abroad in the world, I say, you will see men under the soporific influence of sin given to slumber. Do you believe that men would go on to sin as they do if it were not that sin stupefies them, prevents their using their reason, drowns their conscience and will not permit them to judge accurately concerning things that differ? Why, can you imagine that a man would run the risk of everlasting misery for the sake of a few days of carnal delight if he were not, by some means or other, besotted and made a fool of by sin? Can you conceive that a man would hear the tidings of pardoning mercy through Jesus Christ and be solemnly assured that if he turned from the error of his ways, God would accept and receive him—and that then he would treat that message with levity and go his way, even to ridicule it, if it were not that sin has made him so unreasonable, even in these matters, and made him, if not an idiot, a madman, so that he will not think? He willfully chooses his own mischief, ruins himself and that with a sort of Satanic malice against himself as well as against God—choosing rather to inherit eternal misery than to give up the poor delights of time— choosing rather to feast upon the empty husks of this world than to come and sit down at the table of mercy and eat and drink of the Grace which God has provided! So, then, it is very clear—observation shows it to us and we also have felt it in ourselves—that sin has a soporific, a drowsing, a sleep-giving power! It makes men careless and indifferent. Makes them say, “I’ll chance it! I do not care what the future may bring!” It makes a man go right to the very edge of Hell with his eyes blindfolded and his heart like Nabal’s heart—which was turned to stone—careless even of the “terrors of the Lord” and of “the wrath to come”!
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