I was sitting in my office studying one afternoon when a loud sound vibrated the building and shocked me out of my concentration. A minute later the phone rang. It was my wife asking, “Is it loud enough where you are at? It is here.” I replied, “Yes, very much so.”At our old house, you could hear the sirens faintly only if you were standing on the front porch. Last year, a tornado flew just over our neighborhood and took down a couple of very large trees just two blocks south of us. If there was a siren, there was no way we would have heard it if we were indoors. It was unsettling and caused worry as to whether we could hear the warning sirens when we needed to. Fortunately, we now live where we can hear the sirens loud and clear
That reminds me of another warning signal I have read about.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thess 4:16-17).”
This is an event that will not go unnoticed. The Bible also says, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him (Rev 1:7).” But when the trumpet sounds it will not be so much a warning as an announcement. It will announce the end of the world as we know it. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, prepared for us by God. But not everyone will go there. This text tells us that God will bring with him those who are in the Lord.
“For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; ... let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. (1 Thess 5:2-8).”
When the trumpet of God sounds, it will be too late to get ready. In other words, the “warning” has already been sounded by Jesus himself while he was on this earth. Until he returns with the blast of the trumpet, we are to be alert and sober, always ready. He even tells us how we are to be ready. It is through the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of the hope of salvation. When we put on faith, hope and love and never take them off, we will be ready.