Alarming Alarms

You might know that I'm an assistant janitor at our church. While some people may find the job not to their liking, I really enjoy it. I love helping behind the scenes at our church. So every week I'll go and clean windows, vacuum rugs, empty trash cans, etc. I feel happy inside to know that I have helped our church.

I like to joke that a "normal" week at the church is always un-normal. Something always ends up happening, an event to make more mess, a week with nothing going on (few and far between, but much appreciated!) and sometimes my jobs being switched around.

Last month there was a week in which my jobs were switched around, so I was to help clean the gym on Friday instead of Thursday. My boss and I entered the gym, and she typed in her code to stop the alarm. It worked just fine. Until a few seconds later another alarm started going off! BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!......
and on and on it went. The technical director wasn't at the church yet, so he couldn't help my boss. She tried to turn it off, but it wouldn't work! The beeping keep on going.

So while we waited for the technical director to come, we just started on our work and tried to drown out the alarm. Finally the technical director came and turned off the alarm, but until then we had a constant rhythm to work to: BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!

When I was thinking about this experience later I thought it interesting how it parallels with our spiritual experience. The alarm in the gym was probably to alert people to a fire or someone breaking in. The alarm needed to be loud so everybody could be alerted and get out of the building!

Then I thought about a different kind of alarm. In Matthew 24:6,7 Jesus tells about the signs, or alarms, that will precede His coming:

"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places....

These are some of the "alarms" that Jesus has revealed to us. They are occurring more and more often. They are meant for a reason-to catch our attention.

We are in the end times. There is only a very short time left before the alarms will cease to sound and Jesus will come back.

Are YOU ready to meet Jesus??