Don't Hit The Snooze

I have never understood those people who use an alarm clock and then will hit the snooze button repeatedly before getting out of bed. It would seem to make more sense to set the alarm later and then get up without the interruption of sleep repeatedly.

I personally do not use an alarm to wake up. I wake up when God calls. Brenda uses an alarm. It goes off at 6:00 a.m. A hideous sound. It does the job. The alarm wakes her up. Brenda is a late night owl. She told me over the weekend she did not go to bed one night until after 3:30 a.m. She is up later than me nearly eery night and I get up before she does.

This blog is not about sleep patterns or alarm clocks. It is about something much more sobering. What is God saying to the United States? What alarms has He sounded to wake us up and we keep hitting the snooze button.

People flocked all over when the solar eclipse was announced. Thousands and thousands went to see it. Not long after that Hurricane Harvey slammed the Gulf Coast with up to 50 inches of rain. I was scheduled to preach in Corpus Christi the very days the hurricane hit. Over and over again people have used the word "unprecedented" to describe the flooding.

Believe it or not another major hurricane is hurtling toward Florida and possibly the Gulf of Mexico by the end of this upcoming weekend. Are these things mere coincidences? Is God sounding an alarm telling us to wake up and pay attention for the end is coming.

I've lived in Texas all my life, except for a couple of summers in Florida and Georgia. Everybody knows the hottest month of the year in Texas is August. How I remember those brutal high school and college football two a day practices in oppressive heat. NOT THIS YEAR. My boys actually went to practice on more than one day when the temperatures were in the high seventies. I have never seen anything like it. Seventies in August in Texas. Definitely abnormal.

All of these things are abnormal. NASA is predicting another epic space event that I do not even understand enough to explain it. It supposed to happen on September 23 just a few days from now. This event has not been seen in centuries. In my mind it is all God's blaring alarm to wake us up and to remind us the end is coming. It is also happening in conjunction with the Feast of Trumpets.

Sleepily people go back to life as usual. People gather for worship as usual. There is no urgency. No sense of something both grand and ominous on the horizon. People eat, drink, marry, and are given in marriage just like the days of Noah. For 120 years God sounded the alarm of warming with Noah building that ark. Judgment came. When God shut the doors of that ark it was too late. As the waters rose and panic ensued people died. They ran in fear as the flood waters rose but they could not find high enough ground. They may have even pounded on the ark doors. It all proved in vain as all the inhabitants outside the ark drowned. It must have been a horrific scene.

Something equally horrific lies ahead. Anarchy. Panic. Fear. Greed. Violence. Selfishness. We saw the way people responded after Hurricane Harvey and the fear of a gas shortage. People blocked roads lining up at the gas stations. Stations ran out of gas. One lady commented seeing a guy filling up several 50 gallon tanks. She commented," I just needed enough gas to get to Walmart but that guy hoarded all the gas."

What will happen when the grocery store shelves are empty? How violent will people get for a loaf of bread or gallon of milk. What will people do when the electrical systems fail like ours did last night. So the boys could sleep I put them in Brenda's car and drove around for an hour and a half. I saw people sitting in their driveways with their cars running to be in air conditioning.

Hard times are ahead. End times are predicted most notably in Revelation. We are fast becoming a cashless society. RFID devices are already planted in animals and humans alike. How long before that becomes mandatory for all citizens and yet God clearly warns and commands believers not to take such a mark or device.

The alarm is sounding. We better not hit the snooze and pretend all is well. Now is the time for America to repent and for gospel preachers to preach repentance. The alarm is sounding. Are we awaking and heeding the alarm? Don't hit the snooze.