The first meme I saw when the news of Russia-Ukraine war broke was this:

Something stirred in my spirit and a verse came to my mind.

“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24:6-8)

I first came across this verse when the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami happened.

I wasn’t a believer then, but my cousin was. And while discussing what had happened, she brought up this verse.

In the dark and dingy room, she said this to me which I can never forget: “The end-times are coming. It has already started to happen.”

The end of the world is still to come 

In my short, almost-30 years on this earth, the world has gone through the:

• SARS outbreak (2003)
• Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (2004)
• Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (2011)
• COVID-19 pandemic (2020)
• Israel-Palestine conflict (2021)
• Afghanistan crisis (2021)
• Russia’s attack on Ukraine (2022)

These cataclysmic events have even influenced our culture as we see a rise of apocalyptic shows in recent years too:

• The Day After Tomorrow
• 2012
• Snowpiercer
• Greenland
• Sweet Home
• Hellbound

I don’t know about you, but it feels like it’s time to sit up and start taking notice.

Even as I am writing this, news of a 6.2-magnitude earthquake in Indonesia that struck this morning has started to break.

Unalarmed but not apathetic 

For believers, Jesus told us not to be alarmed because He has revealed to us all these would come.

(Here’s a quick summary about the end-times that you might find useful.)

To be honest, it’s easy to tune out when we live in this part of the world where we are far away from the mess.

I was getting tired of hearing news of wars and disasters. I was getting desensitised – in fact, I wanted immunity.

A part of me wanted to live in denial. When posts urging people not to turn a blind eye and start praying for Russia and Ukraine flooded my social media, I didn’t want to do anything.

By reposting, I had to admit that this was really happening. By sharing, what little I could do. And by commenting, how helpless I was.

But as news of the Russia-Ukraine war started to sink in, I realised that sticking my head in the sand wasn’t going to make this problem go away.

And the problem is this: We live in a fallen world. Sin has corrupted this world, and we are merely living in the consequences of it.

Perhaps this is why the Bible often uses the imagery of pregnancy to describe the end-times. Like a baby in a mother’s womb, our present life is a gestation period.

Scripture describes this as how “creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth” and that we also “groan inwardly” for the redemption of our bodies.

We know this isn’t our final destination and we – consciously or not – yearn for the life after. There must be something more than to live in a world filled with pain only for it to all come to nothing.

Are we ready for it?

The good news is this: Our lives here on earth are finite.

This world isn’t the be-all, end-all. There is a purpose to all this suffering. There is something more.

God is waiting for man to turn back to Him. And when the end comes, we will be restored to a new life that is infinitely better.

Now that the labour pangs have started, are we ready for it?

I know I risk sounding like a madman who yelps on and on about Judgement Day. But better to pay heed than to brush things off.

The Bible also warns us against complacency.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37-39)

So I say this to myself as much as anyone else: Do something. Do anything. But don’t do nothing.

We are called to remain calm but not apathetic.

We can pray. We can offer help. We can rouse the world from its slumber.

In fact, the word “apocalypse” also stands for revelation – to unveil what was hidden before.

We may be unalarmed, but it’s time to sound the clarion call.

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