Prepare to meet God

I'm going to turn with me to a book in the Old Testament, and that's the prophecy of Amos. Amos chapter 4, and it's just one verse and that is verse 12. Therefore, thus will I do unto thee, O Israel, and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

This is a warning that comes at the end of a chapter in which God recounts the many ways in which he had been trying to speak to these people. He tells them that he has sent them even the dryness of the land, famine that had come in the land, no rain. He sent them leanness of teeth, he says, they had no food.

He said, he says, diseases upon their animals. He sent diseases upon the people. And yet again and again God says, yet you have not returned unto me, saith God.

God uses many different ways to speak to people. We've heard some of those tonight. We heard a brother talk about how God dealt with him and how others have experienced the same way.

And everyone who was saved in this meeting tonight can relate to the fact God had a time when he was dealing with them. He may have had one way of doing it. He may have had another way of doing it with another.

But God deals with souls so that they might return unto him. And yet he comes to the end of this solemn chapter, a very solemn chapter. At a more solemn verse, God says, because I will do this unto thee.

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. I want to say four things about this one expression that we have in this verse. I want to talk to you first of all about the fact that it is inevitable that you will meet God.

I know that the world is full of people that would deny that. There are people that would like to live, young people, older people. Some that have heard the gospel repeatedly.

Some that have been warned time and time again. And yet they put it out of their mind, they would say to themselves, I'll never have to meet God. But I can assure you, friend, every person that's been born in this world is a person that is responsible to God.

There's no creature, no animal in this world that will have to meet God. There's no one in this creation that stands accountable to a holy God in heaven. But you are, and I am.

And every person, every man, every boy, every girl here will meet God. The Word of God says, as Paul could speak on a hill in Athens to those Greek philosophers, he says, in view of the fact that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, where he has given assurance unto all men in the raising of the dead. Listen, Paul says, regardless of what those philosophers thought, and they had all their ideas formulated in their mind, they had their reasonings, they had their manner of opinion and deriving their opinions, but regardless of what they thought, Paul says this, remember, God in heaven is the one who has appointed the day.

It's not left up to you and me to decide if we will or not. It's not left up to anyone in this world to decide, maybe I won't meet God or maybe I will. God says he has appointed a day, and there's a living man who rose again from the dead who is going to be the one you will meet.

Appointed a day. In Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27, we read that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment. So there's a day appointed when he will judge the world.

There's a day appointed when you're going to die, and you'll leave this world one day, and you will meet God. And you need to face it tonight, and maybe you've never thought of it before. Perhaps you've put it out of your mind and tried to think of other things and be occupied with other events, and the world is so full of things to keep you busy.

But God wants you to stop for a moment and think, because it is inevitable that every person here will meet God. The real question is how will you meet him? You'll either meet him in your sins. You'll either meet him as a righteous judge sitting upon a throne, and this chapter goes on to describe that he is the one that created the mountains.

He's the one that knows your thoughts. He's the one that knows everything about you, and that's the one you're going to meet, inevitably. We find in Revelation 20 that there's a day, he says, when all the dead, small and great are going to stand before God.

He says the books will be opened, and every person who dies who's ever lived in this world will meet God. I wonder, friend, the second question I have, really the question I have to raise with you at the second point. The sad thing is that most people aren't prepared to meet God.

Any other event in life, we make time and we take time to prepare. If we have to meet somebody, if you have a meeting, if you have something you're responsible for, or boys and girls and young people in school, you know you have projects you have to turn, you have assignments you have to accomplish, you have tests you have to be ready for. We prepare for those.

We prepare for them because we know we're obligated to them, and we're responsible for them, and it will have a negative effect if we're not prepared. But I wonder tonight how many here are prepared to meet God. Well, you say, well, I don't need to have to think about that yet, I'm still young.

There's many a person who's thought that, but they're going to meet God anyway. There's many a person that thinks when I get older and I have more time and I'm not so busy with school, I'm not so occupied with other things, then I'll prepare to meet God. Listen, friend, you're not prepared.

And it's not you that appoints the day. God is a part of the day. And the sad thing is that multitudes in this world go out into eternity, and they're unprepared to meet God.

The sad thing is it's too late then. You know, God gives us a period of time in life, a span of days. It may be short, it may be long.

It may be many years, it may be few. But, friend, He gives us a time, a period of time that you can prepare to meet God. I don't think you'd know it, but I tend to be a procrastinator.

You'll say, you can't be that because you always seem to be prepared. But on the other hand, I oftentimes put it off until the last minute. And sometimes it's just a matter of trying to get things together in my mind of how to do the thing or whatever I have to do.

But nevertheless, we have a tendency to put things off if we don't want to face them. We have a tendency to put things off if we would rather not think about them, and especially if we think we have plenty of time. But I want to tell you, friend, you have no certainty that you have tomorrow to prepare.

And those that are in this meeting tonight and you're not saved, you are not prepared to meet God. And that's the most solemn thing, that's the most important thing in life, is to make sure that you're prepared for an inevitable meeting. The real question is, are you ready for that moment? I know there are many people that think they have their own way of becoming prepared.

My brother here was talking about being baptized when he was 12. And there are many who drift on through life in the self-satisfaction of thinking that all is well because there was some water sprinkled upon them, or they are immersed when they're at a certain point in life, and they think, well, that makes me prepared. I remember speaking to a young lady, and she had gotten saved.

And she was telling me that she was helping her younger brother prepare. He was not saved, but he was in the church that they were associated with. And she was helping him prepare for the catechism, past that kind of a thing.

And so she was supposed to ask him the questions, and he was supposed to give her the answers that he had to respond with. And so she asked him a question, and he gave her the answer. She asked him another question about being saved, and he gave her the answer.

And she said, what does that mean? He said, I don't know. I don't have to know. I just have to give the answer.

How many people are dependent upon that kind of thing? Just about as empty as anything could be, friend. Not prepared just because they think that they have enough because they can give the answer. I could give all the answers long before I was ever saved.

I could have told you how to be saved. I could have told you about Christ dying for sinners. I would have no doubt of telling you that I was a sinner.

But I was not prepared. But I had all the answers. And friend, you might have all the answers in the book, but if you don't have Christ, you are not prepared to meet God.

The third thing I want to say is this. There's a God in heaven that wants you to be prepared. Listen, there's not the single desire of His heart that any person living in this world and moving in life in any sensibility whatsoever would ever arrive at the point of leaving this world unprepared to meet God.

You know, the Word of God makes it very clear that He seeks to speak in many different ways. For those that don't have a Bible, He'll try to speak to them just by the wonders of creation. Seek to make them think, why does all this exist? Who brought it into being? And certainly there must be someone that I'm responsible to.

Those who respond to the light that God gives them, He sends them more. Brings them to the truth of God's salvation. God doesn't want anyone not to be prepared.

Anyone that arrives in eternity without being prepared to meet God has no one to blame but themselves. You'll have nothing you can say in that day to God. I have this excuse or I have the other excuse.

There was some reason I couldn't. No, you'll never be able to say that. God has done everything possible.

In this passage, in this prophecy, in many different words of the prophets of the Old Testament, it is very clear that God warned. He spoke to the people. He did everything possible to arrest their attention and to get them to realize that they were unprepared.

For the most part, they rejected His Word and they closed their ears. They had no desire to listen. That is not God's desire for any soul.

My Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. There's a great interest that God has in your soul tonight.

God has a desire that every soul, every living person in this world might arrive in eternity completely prepared to be with Him and to enjoy His presence for eternity forever. Because I want to tell you that God has provided the means by which you can be prepared. God has not left you without any possibility.

of dealing with this issue. I can tell you the first thing He has done. He's given you His Word.

There are many people in this world that live in a land where they don't even have a Bible. You can't say that. You have a Bible.

Most homes have more than one and it sits on the shelf and collects dust. I wonder what you'd do with the Word of God. If you recognize that it's God's desire to use that Word His inspired Word with power to make it possible that you can be brought to a knowledge of your sins forgiven.

The Word of God is living and powerful. Sharper than any two-edged sword. Convicting even, dividing even the sunder of the soul and the spear of the joints and the marrow.

It's a deserter of the thoughts and a tense of the heart. I tell you friend, God wants you to be prepared to meet Him. He's given you His Word that tells us who we are.

He's given us Word that tells us what we have done. He gives us His Word that tells us what our need is. He gives us His Word to tell us what He has done to meet that need.

Because friend tonight, God did everything possible to make it available to you. You couldn't ask God to do more, could you? How could you ask God to do more? He has given His own Son to come into this world in the perfectly determined time to move into humanity and lowliness and meekness. And to move in the midst of a world that despised Him or rejected Him and had no time and interest in Him.

He gave His Son to come to endure the abuse of man. The ridicule, the hatred and all the things that they said against Him. But friend most of all, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

And that means He gave Him to be the sacrifice for us. He gave Him to go to the cross of Calvary. That there He might suffer the penalty that your sins and my sins deserve.

It was there, friend, hanging upon the cross that the righteous judgment of God came down upon the holy, innocent, spotless Lamb of God. And men say, well God has to do more for me. For me to be prepared and that's impossible.

God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world. But that the world through Him might be saved. And that means He wants you to be prepared.

Listen friend, God in heaven has a greater interest in your soul and being prepared to meet Him than you have in yourself. Sadly He has a greater desire for you to be ready to meet Him. And to be in a right relationship with Him.

And to know Him and to enjoy Him and have the blessedness of knowing your sins forgiven. He has a greater desire for that for you than you have for yourself. And perhaps you can look back at different ways and you have to acknowledge, yes God has been speaking to me.

And He's been dealing with me in other ways. He's been doing different things in my life to make me stop and think at times. Because God really desires for you to be saved.

But not only has He given His Son, not only has He brought the judgment of God down upon one who was innocent, without spot or without blame, one who himself was the just one, dying for us the unjust, burying our sins in His own body in the tree and enduring the intensity of the wrath and the judgment of God in our place. Friend, He was there so that you might be prepared to meet Him. But more than that as well, He has sent His Spirit into this world to convict men of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

The Spirit of God would like to touch your heart tonight. He would like to awaken your conscience. He would like to arrest you, friend.

You're on a downward course. You're moving through life day by day. And before you know it, you'll be in eternity.

Thousands have moved that direction over the border between time and eternity, even today. If that were you, friend, would you have been prepared? Listen to what God says. I think it's a word that He is using to plead with His people.

And plead with these because of His great desire for them and His love for them. And what He says to them, He would be saying to you. He says, because what I am going to do is absolutely certain.

Because it's inevitable. Because you're unprepared. And because, friend, God wants you to be prepared.

He says, prepare to meet thy God. And if God has done everything possible so that you might be prepared, dear friend, the responsibility is upon you. If He has made it possible, what are you going to do about it? Because what He is telling these people is that you need to prepare.

You need to be the one who takes advantage of what God has provided. And I believe with all my heart that God has provided salvation for all who respond to the voice of the Spirit of God and bow to the truth of what the Word of God says and believe what He has given to us in His Word. And, friend, I can tell you this much.

If you do so, you can be prepared and know for sure that whenever the moment comes, you'll be prepared to meet God. Not in your sins. Not in judgment.

Not to be condemned. But to meet the Savior and to be with Him and enjoy Him for eternity. May God help you to be prepared while there's time.