The Warning of All Warnings

Everywhere you look, everywhere you listen, it seems, there are warnings. Weather warnings. Disease warnings. War warnings. Violence warnings. Threats, risks, troubles, and warnings are everywhere, all the time, aren’t they? Times have changed. Risks are rampant and ever on the increase. Risks to your health. Risks to your peace. Risks to your very life. You heed the warnings. You take precautions before big storms. You watch what you eat because of your health. You wash your hands as protection against germs. You read the newspaper and watch the news to keep up with threats of war. You keep your eyes peeled, and your ears perked, for the latest warning.

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A road with a bump in it? A hurricane? Tornado? Newest disease? Threat of war? How is it then, my friend, that you pay attention to everything happening in the world but perhaps neglect to pay attention to the signs of the times? You prepare yourself and your loved one for every possible disaster, but what have you done in response to the warning of all warnings? Or, are you too caught up in your day to day life and the world around you to pay attention to the signs of the times as a whole and to make yourself ready in response to the greatest warning of warnings? Or do you not know?
If you are at all surprised by the intensity, and the extremity, and the seriousness, and the severity, and the rapid increase and how widespread are the monstrosity of the troubles and trials and tribulations and catastrophes and risks and threats and the endless array of everything imaginable and everything unimaginable in the news locally and at large, then perhaps you have missed the greatest warning of all – the warning that exceeds these all.

The warning that makes it so utterly clear that we ain’t seen nothing yet. What we are seeing now is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared with what is to come. But even now, are you paying attention to the greatest warning of all? Or do you not even know? And if you do know, or if you are about to hear the warning of all warnings for the first time, what are you doing about the warning? Are you prepared? Are you ready? Have you taken the necessary precautions? Do you understand that your very life, your very eternity, depends on how prepared you are for what is to come?

Battening down the hatches at your home won’t prepare you for what is coming. Washing the germs off your hands a hundred times a day won’t make a difference. Wearing protective gear in combat won’t provide adequate protection. Slowing down for a bump in the road won’t cut it. But then, a bump in the road is not even comparable, not even close, not in the least, for what is coming our way.

Our way? Yes, our way. The way of humanity. Because all of humanity needs to pay heed to the warning of all warnings. For the wrath of God for the sins of all humanity is coming in a way and with an intensity that we cannot possibly fathom, and the signs are intensifying that the time is approaching. And there is no physical protection that we can possibly prepare ourselves with that will spare us from the horrors of what is to come. Our very lives are at stake. Our very eternity is at stake. And the signs of these times should be warning enough that now is the time to get our acts together. This very day. This very hour. And there is only one response, one response above all others, that we must have to make ready for what is coming.

We must repent from our sins and believe the Gospel that God sent His only begotten Son Jesus to the cross to bear God’s wrath for our sins upon Himself before God raised Jesus from the dead three days later. Why must we repent and believe the Gospel? Because our sins which separate us from God will lead to death and eternity in hell without the atonement Jesus made when He died on the cross for us. We cannot be in the presence of our holy God, our righteous God, our just God, because of our sins – with one exception. Jesus paid the death penalty of our sins for us. He took God’s wrath upon Himself. He was separated from God on the cross for us. He died so we could live through faith in Him. He is the only way we can be forgiven by God and avoid forever in hell. Jesus died so that if we repent and believe in Him, we can be reconciled to God and spend forever with Him in heaven rather than suffer the eternal consequences of hell which will be worse than any human on this earth can possibly imagine.

We must confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead to be forgiven, to be saved from God’s wrath and to be born again spiritually. We must deny our own, old way of living and take up our crosses and our Bibles and learn to follow Jesus and live according to God’s ways. We must prepare our hearts daily, we must crucify our selfish wants and lusts daily, we must turn from the past daily, we must turn from our sins daily and turn to the living God – to God almighty.

Not just with our mouths, though most assuredly we must confess Jesus as Lord with our mouths. Not just with our hearts, though most definitely we must believe Jesus died on the cross and that God resurrected Him from the dead. But with our very lives, daily, we must bring forth fruits of our repentance – decisions and actions that demonstrate we are truly saved and followers of Christ. We must show by the way that we live that we are truly born again and adopted into the Kingdom of God, renewing our minds with the Bible and ever growing in the image of God rather than in the ways of the world.

The only protection we have from the wrath of God to come on this earth, and from a future in fiery hell forever, is the protection Jesus Christ died a most gruesome death on the cross for us to have. Salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus the Christ! Jesus Christ is the only way. Our only protection. God has not only given us fair warning, time and time again, but He has given us the only way of escape. In Christ.

And to believe in Jesus Christ is but the beginning. For we can believe and yet continue to live in our despicable sins. Or we can believe and learn to follow our Savior. For Jesus makes it abundantly clear that there will be those who expect to get into heaven because they have done good deeds for Him. But He will turn them away not because they do not believe in Him, but because they do believe in Him and have continued in their wickedness. They have continued in their evil ways.

If Jesus came today, what would He find you believing? What would He find you doing?

God’s wrath is on its way. What we have seen already in our world in the way of trials and tribulations is NOTHING compared with what is coming. But who are we to say God didn’t warn us? He has warned us – over and again. The Bible is full of warnings, and the signs of our times are like a ticking clock. For soon it will be too late. Too late to repent and to undergo the transformation of our hearts and lives such that we are full-fledged, committed followers of Jesus Christ.

What are we doing with the warning of warnings?

What are you doing this very day?

Are you ready?

Please read the passage to follow. If you have read it already, I encourage you to read it again. I encourage you to warn others. If you have not read it, I pray you will read it and repent and believe the Gospel and become a wholesale follower of Christ not only in words but in your heart and in your actions. For no warning is more important. For your eternity depends on it. 

Mar 13:5  And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: 
Mar 13:6  For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 
Mar 13:7  And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. 
Mar 13:8  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. 
Mar 13:9  But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. 
Mar 13:10  And the gospel must first be published among all nations. 
Mar 13:11  But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. 
Mar 13:12  Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. 
Mar 13:13  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 
Mar 13:14  But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: 
Mar 13:15  And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 
Mar 13:16  And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 
Mar 13:17  But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 
Mar 13:18  And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. 
Mar 13:19  For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 
Mar 13:20  And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. 
Mar 13:21  And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: 
Mar 13:22  For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. 
Mar 13:23  But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. 
Mar 13:24  But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 
Mar 13:25  And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 
Mar 13:26  And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 
Mar 13:27  And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. 
Mar 13:28  Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: 
Mar 13:29  So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. 
Mar 13:30  Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. 
Mar 13:31  Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. 
Mar 13:32  But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 
Mar 13:33  Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.