Now that everyone carries professional video equipment with them everywhere they go (my equipment of choice is an iPhone 15 Pro Max), the number of criminal acts that flood our social media feeds has skyrocketed. I’m sure that crime has increased, but the age of technology that we live in has made me feel the increase even more.

Sometimes, there is just so much of it that I find myself tuning it all out. That is, until I hear something or see something that happened in New York City, and specifically in the Brooklyn part of the city. That’s because one of my sons lives there, and when we have someone we love living in an area that is under attack, we lean into the news, not away from it.

So you can imagine what I was feeling when I saw video after video flooding my feed on X (the app that will forever be known as “the social media app formerly known as Twitter”) about a fatal shooting on a subway train as it pulled into a station in Brooklyn (he’s fine, by the way — thanks for asking), and I immediately had this verse go through my mind:

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold… ‭‭(Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭12‬, emphasis mine)

Did you know that the word used here for “increase” is used 12 times in the New Testament, and all the other 11 describe good things? It means “to multiply” and describes numerical growth in the church (Acts 6:1, 7; 7:17; 9:31), the growing influence of God’s word (Acts 12:24), and an increase of God’s blessings in our lives (2 Corinthians 9:10, Hebrews 6:14).

These are all good things, and I do pray for God to multiply disciples and the kingdom in our world. But if we keep reading past the verse about the growing evil, we may find that we need something else to multiply even more.

Notice that the initial response — maybe we’d be better off to say, the majority response — is to see a decrease in our love in response to the increase in wickedness. But look what Jesus says in the next two verses:

…but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (‭‭Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭13‬-‭14, emphasis mine)

Plenty of people are fascinated with the end times right now, and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I believe that there is a shared sense of urgency right now in the global church that should wake many believers out of their slumber about the days in which we’re living. These are “sound the alarm” days more than “kick back and rest” days, and I’m thankful for the ministers and ministries God is raising in our time to provoke us to “wake up and strengthen what remains” (Revelation 3:2).

But waking up isn’t all that’s required. The ver next verse says that our works are incomplete. Translation? We’ve got things to do, and so we also need to understand why we’re awake. It’s so we can live as an end-time army for the Lord, with an increased courage that enables us to stand firm and preach hard in a culture of increased wickedness.

Can I suggest that a supernaturally bold and courageous Church might be the greatest — and most underrated — sign of the end times? We talk about wars, and earthquakes, and astrological events, but maybe what we should be pointing to is the growing army of believers that will not back down, and whose love will not grow cold.

Make no mistake, that brutal attack on a crowded subway isn’t just “life as usual” in New York, and the fact that it can be reported as such only proves the truth of Jesus’ prophetic words about cold hearts. But it also highlights that this is the time for a sold-out, fired-up, end-time army of believers filled with a passion for compassion to rise up.

These are the days we were born in, and made for, and it’s time to fan the flame hotter and brighter, and carry it into the darkest places.

It’s time to stand firm and preach hard, until the gospel is preached in every people group, and having been to New York numerous times, I can tell you that a lot of those people groups can be found on the subways. As fear rises and people run from them, there are everyday missionaries who will run to them.

Let’s be those missionaries. Here we are, Lord. Send us.

In a culture of outrage, mobs are too easily formed, and sometimes, lives are too easily damaged. That was my first thought as I read an article in the New York Times about the infamous “Victoria’s Secret Karen” video that went viral a couple of years ago.

I’m not going to take the time to educate you about the meme culture that labels certain white women as “Karens” along with videos of their behavior. That’s what Google is for. I also won’t recap the entire story about the incident that happened in the New Jersey Victoria’s Secret. That’s what this link is for.

It is important to note that the woman who was videoed and outed as a whining, aggressive Karen that day, is actually a legally disabled woman with a long history of medical and psychological conditions. Instead of being upset with a black woman for bothering her, she was afraid that a posted video would cause her to be kicked out of her apartment in a complex reserved for residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Clearly, there are times when racist behavior needs to be brought to light, and I’m thankful that so many of us carry the means to do that with us everywhere we go. There are so many positives that come out of holding people accountable for their actions.

But what happens when we rush to judgment? When, instead of being slow to anger, we’re quick to post? Lives that need our help become targets of our outrage, and, I would argue, everyone loses.

My brother lived with disabilities. I minister regularly to adults living with disabilities. And while the woman who recorded the video, posted the video, and earned money from the video, had no way of knowing the mental and emotional state of the woman she was filming, she does now. And so does the virtual mob that added harassing calls and death threats to the mix.

I don’t know what the answer is in the specific case of the Victoria’s Secret Karen. I’d like to think the lawsuit against the disabled woman would be dropped by the woman who was attacked now that she knows the rest of the story, but that’s for the lawyers to work out.

But we can – and I would argue, as apprentices of Jesus, must – learn the lessons of scripture, and the value of slowing down the viral toxicity by being people of peace.

“A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but one slow to anger calms strife.” (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬ ‭CSB, emphasis mine)

“My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,” (James‬ ‭1‬:‭19‬ ‭CSB, emphasis mine)

Today, let’s practice the slow things that bring peace more than the quick things that destroy it.

That’s a strong title, but I’ll back it up.

There are so many points that will be made on social media and news outlets over the coming days and weeks. I’m certain that almost all of them will be made by people who are much smarter than I am in the arena of geopolitical realities.

But none of the things that you and I will hear from mainstream media (or “side-stream media” for that matter) will be the most important lesson that we must learn from the invasion launched by Vladimir Putin last night on the Ukrainian people. What is it, you ask?

Our enemy never went away.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

The discussions people will have about Russia will reveal rather quickly what the generations think about the country. Many who only know Russia in her current state will struggle to understand why the older generations only think of Ivan Drago and the former Soviet Union when they hear about Russia.

Only one of those groups is surprised today about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Many followers of Jesus view Satan the same way our current culture has viewed Russia: he’s around us, but probably isn’t as bad as others have tried to make him look. The devil is seen as this kind of misunderstood figure who likely had something bad happen to him that made him the way he is today. This is what happens when a generation consumes origin stories like candy. But the origin story for Satan is a quick one: he wanted to be God, he tried to take over from God, and now he’s fighting against God.

He may be defeated, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. He is seeking to devour, and when we think of him in any other way than that, we let down our guards and become his target.

Russia has prowled around the border of Ukraine for decades, and the world has been lulled to sleep. Satan has used the same tactic, and the church has stopped believing he’ll ever do anything more than just prowl around.

But prowling isn’t Satan’s endgame, any more than just being near Ukraine was Russia’s. He wants a complete take-over, and the easiest way for our enemy to invade us is to convince us that he never will.

But he is patient, and he will wait as long as it takes.

The truth that our enemy never went away isn’t supposed to fill us with fear. Instead, it must fill us with vigilance. The verse doesn’t say to “be afraid” because he prowls around, but rather to “be alert” because of it.

It’s time to wake up, Church. It’s time to admit that we have played with fire and been burned. We’ve gone swimming with sharks and called “foul” because they attacked, without realizing the inevitable outcome of swimming with creatures that attack.

We’ve allowed the enemy to roam around our borders too long, and we’ve forgotten that he only prowls until he finds something to devour. Both personally and corporately, it’s time for followers of Jesus to inspect the conditions of their walls (see Nehemiah 2:15), and begin rebuilding the low places that our very real enemy wants to access.

Watch the news. Listen to the talking heads. But in all of it, please learn the ONE thing that matters most: our enemy is still looking for a way to devour, and we are the standard that God wants to raise up against him.