How many people still have an actual alarm clock? Maybe the kind that you have to wind up with the two bells on top? Maybe you plug it into the wall? Maybe it is the kind that has a digital readout in those big, bright red glowing numbers that looked like monster eyes when you woke up and looked at them with blurry vision (OK, that was traumatic for me when I was younger). Those were always the most annoying kind because of the loud noise they made. They worked, but I always woke up in a foul mood because of it.
But today, everyone uses their phone as an alarm. You can customize the alarm sound and set multiple alarms with names. You can set one alarm to start to wake up. Then another to be your fist snooze. Maybe 3 or 4 to be more snoozes. But you have one alarm that you know that you know that you know it is absolutely the last chance to leave. Your final warning.
Dalaney, my bonus daughter, uses her phone as her alarm. Most school days, I hear it going off in the next room as I am drinking my coffee. And it just keeps going and going and going. Same sound over and over and over. It drives me nuts!
Dalaney has two dogs that sleep with her BJ (a mixed breed) and Dipper (Chihuahua). If any stranger comes near the house, they both start barking suddenly and loudly. And they bark especially loud when they hear someone knock at the door. (You know what I’m about to say next, don’t you?)
I never even have to get up out of my chair. The wall behind me is also her bedroom wall.
I bang on it three times, but before I get to the second one, those dogs are coming unglued, jumping off the bed and running to the door to tear up whatever they think that is knocking. And, at that very same moment, I can hear Dalaney usually say something like “What are you dogs doing?” or “Lay down!”.
But, the important part to me is that she shuts the alarm off. Mission accomplished.
Even then, she keeps hitting the snooze and sometimes she falls back asleep anyway and by the time she wakes up, she realizes that she is late. That’s when I get asked “Why didn’t you wake me up??”
You see, she didn’t turn the alarm off when it started because she was used to the sound of it. She had heard it many times and it was nothing that caused panic enough to wake her up. Or, she thought that someone else would wake her up if she didn’t wake up. That’s called “being a teen”.
I believe that in this day and time that God has been sounding an alarm for a very long time. And because some people have heard it over and over, they either have been ignoring it or they keep hitting the snooze.
Sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn’t. And, when it doesn’t work, the snooze eventually stops and you end up being late to where you need to be.
There is a time coming very, very quickly where God is going to make the snooze button stop. That day will be when He tells His Son, Jesus Christ, that it is time to step out on the clouds and call for His bride. It is the day that the midnight alarm will go out that cries “The bridegroom is here! Come out to meet Him!” (Matt. 25:6)
And those who hear the alarms and arise to meet Him will go into Him for the wedding feast because they were ready and didn’t hit the snooze button.
And verse 10 gives us a sad, depressing truth. “And the door was shut”
The door was shut. And not only was it shut, but it was locked from the inside so that nobody else could enter. It is too late.
The next verse says that the ones who kept hitting the snooze over and over again because they thought that they had plenty of time ran to the door, banging on it and yelling “Open the door! Let us in! We’re here! We’re here!” You see, there will be many who will frantically rush around at the last second thinking that if they hurry fast enough, they can make it. But, it will be too late beause the door will be shut.
At that time, many will be asking their friends and family “Why didn’t you wake me up???”
Verse 12 will make the whole room get quiet because it ends the discussion for those outside who are banging and clawing at the door. The Groom says something with a broken heart that He never wanted to say…”I don’t know you.”
Have you been hitting the snooze button instead of getting up when the alarm sounds and getting ready? Have you prepared yourself to be on the INSIDE of the door or do you keep hitting the snooze thinking to yourself “just 15 more minutes”.
You see, we are ALL invited to the wedding dinner. Every single one of us have an open invitation. But, not all of us will be inside when the door is shut. Where will you be?
higley rides again 