Amos 4:12 Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel: and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. I. GOD MEETS US NOW, AND WE MEET HIM AT SUNDRY TIMES AND IN DIVERS MANNERS. If in His own appointed ordinances we draw nigh to Him, it is our privilege to feel assured that He will most certainly draw nigh to us. But there must be antecedent preparation. God meets us in the time of trial, and we should prepare to meet Him. We should carefully and honestly examine ourselves — search, as before Him, our thoughts, feelings, opinions, and habits. There are temporal blessings in which God meets us, and in which we should prepare ourselves to meet Him, by habitually cherishing a contented and thankful spirit. II. GOD MEETS US HEREAFTER. That meeting is certain. The doctrine of a future judgment is, no doubt, peculiar to Divine revelation, but it receives the strongest confirmation from the natural conscience. It well-nigh overwhelms the mind to think of the disclosures of the great day. The final inquisition shall be spiritual. We all admit that the character of an act is determined by the motive in which it originates. God will then "make manifest the counsels of our hearts." There is in this much call for alarm, but there is also abundant consolation. To the ungodly there cannot but be something terrible in these words, "Prepare to meet thy God." How unbearable is the thought when it flashes even for a moment on the guilty conscience, "Thou God seest me"! We must remember that our Probation is limited to this present life. We must prepare to meet our God now or never. (R. W. Forrest, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. |
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