End Times Sirens
The headlines blaring, the notifications pinging, the chaos everywhere. It is like end times sirens are going off, and nobody is stopping to ask why. Fear in the streets. Panic in the air. And me? I am caught somewhere between caring too much and pretending I do not, between stressing about the moves of men and remembering the sovereignty of God.
But then I remember He is coming back tomorrow just to get us out of this.
He did not come back when colonizers gave Indigenous people smallpox or forced them on the Trail of Tears.
He did not come back during slavery, the Atlantic slave trade, or the Civil War.
He did not come back during the Black Plague, the French Revolution, or the Great Depression.
He did not come back during the Holocaust, Hiroshima, or either World War.
He did not come back on 9/11 or even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
So why is it now, when one man passes, that you suddenly think He is coming back? Why do we cry for “revival in America” as if one man’s blood was worth more than the millions of lives lost every day?
Yes, what happened was wrong. But should it have been your wake-up call? Really? Meanwhile, the rest of us have bigger problems and burdens to carry. I wake up the next morning thinking, I would hate to get pulled over today. The system, the people with hate in their hearts, the ones who hold power, that is the real scary part.
Children dying by gunfire: accidents in the home, bullets in classrooms, gang crossfire in the streets.
Women, immigrants, the vulnerable: dying because of the hate in others’ hearts.
People killed for existing: walking their dogs, riding the subway, laughing with friends.
And let us be real. The people you support, the ones you say are “just conservative Christians” spreading the gospel, are often the same people making others feel worthless. Their rhetoric fuels hate toward specific communities and you do not feel it because it is not you, not the people who look like you, not your family. The cries of others do not alarm you because you are not them.
And if you can only feel sorry for someone when they share your political views, views that might even cause harm to others, or because they claim the same Jesus you claim, then what about everyone else? Where is that compassion when underserved communities are drowning in this economy, desperate for housing, healthcare, and a fair chance at education?
If you do not believe everyone deserves shelter, healthcare, and opportunity, then we are not standing on the same gospel. And I am not sure we represent the same man who died on that cross.
Because let us not forget. Isaiah 53:2 says of Jesus, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” He walked this earth looking more like the homeless man on your street corner than the celebrity pastor on your stage.
So here is the real question. If you did not know His name was Jesus, would you have even stopped to help Him?
And while we wait, God has always called His people to action. Micah 6:8 says it plainly: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jesus Himself said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
So no, we do not get to shrug and say, “Well, the Lord will work it out,” as if that frees us from responsibility. Yes, the Lord is sovereign. Yes, He holds history in His hand. But we were put here, in this generation, in this moment, to be His hands and feet.
The gospel is not comfortable. It is not convenient. It is radical love, messy action, and the kind of faith that runs toward the broken, not away.
The truth? The gospel has gotten far too comfortable for us all, me included. And maybe the end times sirens are not about the world collapsing, but about the church being asleep. That should wake us up more than any headline ever could.