Are You Ready To Meet God?
Roy Blizzard III © 2014
Text: Amos 4:12, “…prepare to meet thy God,…”
Matthew 24:44, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Many years ago, the Grand Trunk Line Railroad, knowing the dangers that were ever threatening and the death that was sure when one of its huge steam locomotives collided with some vehicle at one of its railroad crossings, offered a prize of $2,500.00 to the person who could suggest the best three words to be used as the warning words at railroad crossings. The fortunate winning person was wise enough to offer up three words that are still used today, “Stop…Look…Listen.”
However, I’d like to point out that ordinary care requires one who is about to go upon a railroad track a necessity to look and listen, but you must stop, look and listen at the precise time or you won’t recognize an immediate danger. From this, then, I think we can presume that a reasonable man should look and listen at some time for some danger, by way of recognizing any “Stop, Look and Listen” rule.
These three words avail nothing for the safety of the railroad crossings unless they are heeded, by stopping what they are doing long enough to ascertain the situation by both visual and audible cues. Destroyed vehicles and mangled bodies all testify to the truth of this statement.
What avails the word STOP, if the people do not stop?
What avails the word LOOK, if the people do not look?
What avails the word LISTEN, if the people do not listen?
What warning will you have if you do not Stop and Look and Listen?
So I want to ask you a series of simple questions and how you answer these to yourself determines how ready you are for Jesus.
Can medicine have any efficacy if it is only left in a bottle?
Can a person avoid starvation if he doesn’t eat?
Can a man avoid freezing in a blizzard if his coats are left in a closet?
Can a man avoid drowning in the open ocean if he refuses a life boat?
Can all the invitations and urgings to be one with your God avail for you if you turn a deaf ear to them?
Will the cross be your condemnation if you flee from it?
What blessings can you expect from Jesus’ exhortation to make ready for his “sudden appearance” if you don’t get ready?
So, “What will you be profited when God commands you to prepare to meet him, if you make no preparations?” Every man counted by God as wise must be ready for Jesus’ coming when we all meet God. Everyone, from all nations! The rich, the poor, the educated and the ignorant; everyone will meet their God.
Let’s read Romans 14:12, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
A man may avoid going to worship God…as is the custom of many today.
A man may avoid reading the Bible and gaining wisdom…as do the foolish.
A man may avoid acknowledging God… as do the sinful.
A man may avoid committing outlandish sins…as do the morally precise.
A man may avoid all the courts of men…as do many law abiding citizens.
But, you can’t avoid God!
Someday, some time, everyone will stand before the creator of all and give an account of the deeds done while upon this earth. It matters not what religion you are or who you think created you, or how good a life you think you are living or how blissfully ignorant of the whole process you are. Someday, some time you will meet your creator face to face.
Right now, today, you may dethrone Jesus as King.
Right now, today, you may stubbornly refuse him as your savior.
Right now, today, you may ungratefully reject him as the sacrifice for your sins.
Right now, today, you may even deny him and scorn him as a friend.
But, sooner or later you will meet him as God Almighty, as the God who knows all your thoughts and all your dreams, who counts all your footsteps, and to whom time means nothing.
You see, you may not be as bad as millions and you may even be better than the multitudes, but the fact remains that we are all in need of the cleansing blood of Jesus so along with others, both good and bad, we all must meet our God! Are you ready to meet him? …Are you ready to meet him?
It appears to me that concerning “getting ready to meet their God”, for most people there seems to be both an ignorance and an indifference! Prepare. Be ready at any time. How much more simple can we get the message? Be ready is no mystery to anyone. You don’t have to be a Hebrew or Greek scholar to understand the context and grammatical intricacies of the message. We don’t have to understand the higher mathematics and physics in order to “Be Ready”. This is not some obscure message that can only be deduced by logic and reasoning for a lifetime. It definitely isn’t the answer to a riddle or puzzle. Everyone, at all places should know what the simple words Be Ready means.
Are men and women able to escape retribution for crimes by pleading ignorance? Do you think God will allow us to stand before him and say, “Well I didn’t know that killing Johnny was not a good thing?”
What does Roman 2:12 & 13 say, “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” We must both Hear and obey. This means to DO. It means to Be Ready! We must Stop, Look and Listen and then Do what is right.
Let me speak to you about the Laws of God for a minute. Any lawyer can tell you three truths about Law:
1) Words of law are to be understood in their ordinary sense.
2) Where law is uncertain, there is no law.
3) A law, when it expresses one thing, it excludes everything else.
What this means for us is that the meaning of Be Ready is as clearly seen as a path of tar across a snowy field. It means that it is as easily understood as the starlight on a clear night is seen. There is no mystery here.
Yet, though these words are plain and simple, they seemingly are misunderstood by almost everyone who hears them??? People seem to prepare for everything all the time; hurricanes, tornados, fires, floods, any type of emergency you can think of people are preparing for them, but where are the preparations for death and meeting our God and the coming of the Son of Man?
Men and women get ready to marry…
They get ready to go into business…
They get ready to go for a vacation…
They get ready for athletic competition…
They get ready for political races…
They get ready for old age by preparing a “nest egg”.
Everyone seems to be preparing everything except for the most important thing upon the face of the earth…the most important thing in time and eternity…in life and death!
You know, there are always those who will ask, “Why should I get ready to meet God?”
They may as well be asking, “Why does a fish need water?” or “Why does the body need blood?” Why do people ask these sorts of questions? Because they are not stopping their sin and looking to Jesus for their soul’s cleansing and obeying his desires!
Why does one need to prepare to meet their God? Because in the un-regenerative state all of us are unfit to meet God. Jesus said that we must be “born again” or more properly “Born From Above”. This means we must be Spiritually cleansed. We must become unified with our creator and God. We must be filled to the overflowing with God’s existence, not our own. An unregenerate sinner no more can exist in Heaven than a dry land desert in the open ocean.
Preparation to meet your God is Wise, Sensible and Necessary. Even so, as you can arrive at a plane terminal after the plane is gone, so too you can be too late at getting ready for you and your family. If it is wise and sensible to attend at once when necessary to matters of the body which will rot and decay in just a few years, isn’t even more important to attend to matters of the eternal soul? If it is wise to attend to matters of Time is it not also wise to attend to matters of Eternity? Look at it this way; every bolt of lightning testifies that you really should be ready to meet God. Every hearse you pass on the street testifies that you should be ready to meet God. Every memory we have testifies of the fleeting nature of our lives and the fact that we should be ready to meet our God!
The only sensible life is the life that has obeyed the words in Matthew 24:44, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Not by neglect can one be prepared to meet thy God, for you see there is a question that no philosopher has the answer to and that no salesman can answer but only God has provided the warning in Hebrews 2:3, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…” Neglect is as fatal as contempt.
You can’t be saved by education. A person can know all about the Bible but not know the Savior. A man may know all there is to know about the heavenly bodies up in the sky, but not know the bright and morning star that gave himself for them. A man may know all there is to know about trees but not know the man who died upon the tree at Calvary for their sins. All the degrees and scholastic honors at all the universities can never open Heaven’s gates for you!
Not by Skepticism can you make ready…
Not by self-righteousness can you make ready…
Not by works of the world can you make ready…
And certainly not by making excuses can you make ready…
You may as well try to leap into space off a diving board, or pole vault the Empire State Building with a toothpick or sail the ocean blue on an anvil as to try and make ready to meet your God without obeying God.
Take the step that would make you unashamed and unafraid at his coming, should that coming be soon. All the things about your body, about nature, the truths of the Bible, the uncertainties of life and the certainty of death and most especially the statements of Jesus himself should all drive you to get ready to meet your God!
How do you prepare to meet your God? Well, when you search the Bible from cover to cover you will find one plan and one plan alone given by God on preparing to meet Him.
1) You must believe into Jesus as the anointed one of the living God, sent by God to redeem you from your sins. This belief must be born in your heart through the hearing of the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus is now here to save you. You must reason in your mind that the evidence of God and the facts of the Gospel and the commands and promises are to be understood and expressed through you in faithful action.
2) You must decide to forsake sin, to turn from the evil way, to come back to the Father’s House. You must decide in your heart, “I will arise and go to my Father.” This is repentance.
3) You must come…you must do…you must act… You must confess with your LIFE that Faith that is in your heart. Jesus said in Matthew 10:32, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
4) And finally, you must be buried with Jesus in baptism as Phillip told the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:37, “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest…” Baptism is the unifying ceremony which unites you to Jesus, into his life, death, burial and resurrection. It is the consummation act of conversion from death to life.
In reward for your faithfulness to Jesus, your repentance and your obedience, you have the assurance of God’s word that you will be granted forgiveness of all your sins and be granted the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. My prayer for you today is that God and his Spirit may help you to decide NOW…and that God may help you after having decided, to Act upon his word, and having acted to be Faithful always.
It is time to Stop, Look and Listen to God!
by 