PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD

We are back again, friends. And I am thrilled that you have received me into your homes. Thank you.

I want to speak on something that I consider very very serious and urgent: Prepare to meet your God.

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD

And out text is taken from the book of Amos 4, reading at verse 6.

Amos 4:6-12

⁶ “Also I gave you cleanness of teeth [God is saying] in all your cities,
And lack of bread in all your places;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

⁷ “I also withheld rain from you,
When there were still three months to the harvest.
I made it rain on one city,
I withheld rain from another city.
One part was rained upon,
And where it did not rain the part withered.
⁸ So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water,
But they were not satisfied;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

⁹ “I blasted you with blight and mildew.
When your gardens increased,
Your vineyards,
Your fig trees,
And your olive trees,
The locust devoured them;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

¹⁰ “I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt;
Your young men I killed with a sword,
Along with your captive horses;
I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

¹¹ “I overthrew some of you,
As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

¹² “Therefore…

Whenever you see a therefore, see what it is therefore. And that’s what we have read earlier: that is what this therefore is therefore

¹² “Therefore  thus will I do to you, O Israel;
Because I will do this to you,
Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD

Backsliding Israel would not respond to God’s call to return to Him. God used various means to get their attention. We read in verses 6, hunger; verse 7 and 8, drought; verse 9, natural disaster; verses 10 and 11, disease and death severe enough to compare them to Sodom and Gomorrah. When He would not get a favorable response from them He told them to prepare to meet their God. This command of God applies to us today. When we see what is going on in our land, when we see the way people live their lives, friend you will agree with me that this command is applicable. Prepare to meet your God!

Why do you need to prepare to meet your God? How do you prepare to meet your God? When do you prepare to meet your God? Very briefly, we will go thorough those.

Why do you need to prepare to meet your God?

Why?

1. You need to prepare to meet your God because He is your God whether you acknowledge Him or not. He is your God because He made you – you did not make yourself, and because God made you, you will return to Him eventually. Prepare to meet your God. He is your Creator, and created you for Himself. You will give account ultimately to Him.
2. You must prepare to meet your God because of the brevity of life. Life is short. Life is short – and none of us knows when it will be our turn. You must prepare to meet your God, not only because of the brevity of life – but because of the finality of death. When you are dead you are dead. It’s final. There is no question of reincarnation; because the bible says it is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment. This is the finality of death. You must prepare to meet your God, not only because of the brevity of life, not only because of the finality of death – but because of the certainty of judgment.

In acts 17:30-31 the scripture says:

³⁰ Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent,

Friend, God commands you to repent. Why?

³¹ because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all [to all! to all!] by raising Him from the dead.

Judgment is certain. The certainty of it is found in the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Why do you need to prepare to meet your God?

How do you prepare to meet your God?

You must prepare to meet your God with no outstanding moral debt or moral deficiency. That is impossible, isn’t it? How can somebody born in sin and somebody who has committing sin, some swimming in sin…how can such a one meet God with no outstanding moral debt or deficiency?

You must meet Him without sin because the God you will meet is a Holy God. But the only way this is possible is by accepting the provision He has made for you and for your sins.

The Apostle Paul told the Jews in Antioch in Pisidia,  and

Acts 13:38-39:

³⁸ Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [Jesus Christ] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; ³⁹ and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the Laws of Moses.

Hebrews 9:22

²² And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

– There is no forgiveness. Jesus has shed His blood.

1 John 1:7

⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

The only way you can meet your God with no moral debt or deficiency is to give your life – to surrender your life to Jesus: because His blood His shed blood on the Calvary – is what will cleanse you from all your sins. And this shed blood does not only cleanse you from your sins, it also breaks the power of the sins that God has cancelled.

Finally,

When do you prepare to meet your God?

You prepare to meet your God now. Now! Job 22:21

Job 22:21, its says,

²¹ “Now [Now]  acquaint yourself with Him [that’s, God], and be at peace [that is, with Him];
Thereby good will come to you.

O friend, can you listen to this? Now acquaint yourself with God, and be at peace with God. And how can you be at peace with God – except you accept the Prince of Peace: Jesus Christ? And when you do, He says Good Good will come to you.

2 Corinthians 6:2

² For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,
And in the day of salvation I have helped you.

Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. God is insisting that the time to prepare to meet Him is no. Do not postpone it.

Proverbs 27:1

¹Do not boast about tomorrow,
For you do not know what a day may bring forth.

Do not boast about tomorrow. Do not procrastinate. The Apostle Paul presented Christ, talked about judgment, talked about righteousness, self-control, to Governor Phillips. Instead of opening his heart and receiving Christ, he said to him…(he was afraid, he feared, he trembled but he said) “go, at a more convenient  time I will send for you”. He procrastinated. That more-convenient-time did not come. Procrastination has been identified as the thief of time. If care is not taken, it will steal your preparedness to meet your God. And if you keep procrastinating after some time your heart will become hardened.

Let me conclude with what Hebrews 4:7 says.

Hebrews 4:7

⁷ again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.

Today, if you will hear God’s voice, and you are hearing it now through me, through his servant, do not harden your heart. Friend, prepare to meet your God. Prepare to meet your God! If you prepare to meet Him by surrendering your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, repenting from your sins, you will be glad to meet Him any time, and you will be ready to meet Him any time – but do not trifle with this serious matter.

PRAYER:

Faithful Father, I commit into Your hands, all who have heard me today, this serious call from You: to prepare to meet You. Please, Spirit of God, go after each one that has heard until he or she yields to the Lord Jesus Christ whose blood will prepare him or her to meet the Creator our God. And for those who have already yielded themselves to Christ, Lord, remind them that those who desire to see the face of God must be holy: even as He is holy. You will grant us this, O Lord, by the power of Your Spirit…in Jesus Name. Amen!