| The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. |
| —1 Peter 4:7 |
As a teacher, I identified second graders as “seven, social, and silly.” They had discovered that school gave them a chance to giggle and have fun with others their own age. It didn’t take much to get them concentrating on silly things at the expense of the reasons they should have come to school. I remember some lessons that I toiled over and even included learning games. But, some crazy stunt by one of their classmates took everyone off task.
Sometimes, I look at God’s people and wonder if they have taken “silly pills,” too. The prophet Jeremiah had a sobering message for God’s ancient people, whom he saw headed for exile. In his frustration he stated the following, as recorded in Lamentations 1:12:
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?”
The people who had the Holy Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, were, so to speak, “fiddling while Rome burned.” In these days of collapsing countries, tyrannical leaders, weather disasters, moral decay, pride, and complete neglect of truth, what is God calling His people to do?
In another passage of Scripture, 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6, the Apostle Paul admonishes us:
But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
I have no way of knowing when Christ will come back for His church. But, when things go awry all over the world, it begins to look like the “growing pains” leading to the Second Coming that the Bible talks about. Along with the society in which we live, we can be tempted to “eat, drink and be merry,” to enjoy life, and to try to forget the terrors experienced by Christians in other places of the world.
Instead, God calls us to live sober-minded lives. He calls us to live in this way, so that we can pray, so that we can live urgently to serve Him and, as best we can, to call others to know Him and prepare for His coming.
Let us not disappoint our Heavenly Teacher with our giggling and silly distractions. Instead, let us face Him soberly and live seriously, as He has instructed. The days call for a spiritual work force, clear minded and ready to serve, relying upon Christ’s power and wisdom.
