| Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close in on you suddenly like a trap. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. |
| —Luke 21:34 |
Look carefully at the photo above. It illustrates one of my elementary school chorus rehearsals from more than 20 years ago. But, the point of this photo is the box inside the red circle.
From your visits to various public buildings, you may recognize this as an appliance that the general public calls a “fire alarm.” There is quite an interesting story related to this particular lone appliance.
During an extensive renovation of my elementary school building, the contractor installed a new, state-of-the-art fire alarm system. The installation took place over the Christmas holiday break when no children nor teachers were present and none of the normal sources of ambient sound existed throughout the building.
This meant that no children in my classroom were singing. In other classrooms, children were not watching instructional videos, or having noise-producing group learning sessions. Nevertheless, on the first “nice weather” day after we returned to school, the principal decided to hold a fire drill. But, the children in my classroom were singing. We didn’t hear the sound of the new fire alarm system alerting us from the hallway outside my classroom and we missed the fire drill.
Naturally, I complained about the lack of warning. No one at the school seemed to know what to do about this.
One day, a short time later, a technician came to my classroom and installed the appliance shown in this photo. I asked him if he was installing additional “speaker/strobes” in other classrooms. “No,” he replied. “Just this one.” I guess it sometimes does depend on who you talk to to try to get things fixed.
In any case, the valuable lesson here is that when an emergency exists, the warnings should be heard and heeded. The warning must be “loud enough” for people to hear. This means the person giving the warning must do so loudly and clearly. And, when the people hear the warning, they must act swiftly.
I think the Church sits in a very similar position at the present moment:
- Do we see the present moral, political, and spiritual emergency?
- Do we hear the warnings given to us in God’s written Word and in the voices of His faithful servants?
- And, are we going to act swiftly to respond to the warnings regarding these emergencies?
What should we do? What can we do? Consider these additional questions:
- Do we have the urgency in our prayers that prompts us to fall on our knees before God and plead for our country and our world?
- Are we willing to set aside specific times to gather with our fellow believers and plead with God to bring a sweeping revival to our nation and the world?
- Are we consciously listening for the nudging of the Holy Spirit when He prompts us to gently and kindly share our faith with those whom we may encounter along the normal pathway of life?
- Or, do the other “sounds” in our life drown out the warning signals that God is so clearly giving us?
Biola University’s, Barry Krammes, Professor Emeritus, wrote the following in a recent devotional: 1
For far too long Christians have taken many of their cues from the world. Someone recently referred to the church in the West as “a cruise ship” where professionals meet all the needs of its passengers. In this unprecedented time of deception, the church must transform itself into “a battleship” where every person on board is alert and ready for an impending attack. Author Rod Dreher’s new book, Live Not by Lies: A Handbook for Christian Dissidents 2 warns about the new totalitarianism that is currently sweeping the world. In it he writes:The old totalitarianism conquered societies through fear of pain; the new one will conquer primarily through manipulating people’s love of pleasure and fear of discomfort … admirers love being associated with Jesus, but when trouble comes, they either turn on him or in some way try to put distance between themselves and their Lord … The follower recognizes the cost of discipleship and is willing to pay it.
A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming. Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact. Christians today must dig deep into the Bible and church tradition, and teach themselves how and why today’s post-Christian world, with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity.
We need to get close enough to the warning signals of Scripture that we hear the urgent message that God is sending to us. Then, we must set our hearts and minds to watch and pray.
We must pray specifically for the corruption and decay all around us. Can we see that the old Snake, who tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, is prowling around seeking which churches and which Christians he can devour, which governments and institutions he can destroy, and how he can deafen the world to the sound of the gospel—for the gospel alone can save us from the wrath to come?
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| 1 Krammes, Barry. The Lent Project. La Mirada, California: Biola University Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts, 2021. Devotional for February 27, 2021. |
| 2 Dreher, Rod. Live Not By Lies. New York, New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2020. p. 162. |
