James H. Cagle
“I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned to me, saith the LORD. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amos 4: 11, 12).
Everyone will meet God. Our meeting with God is mandatory. We cannot refuse to meet with God, nor skip or cancel our meeting. The appointment for our meeting with God is already set up. We don’t know when we’ll meet God but He knows, and we need to prepare for that meeting.
Everyone must prepare for their meeting with God. God in all His majesty and glory and power will be there and we will be there in the spiritual state of either saved, regenerated, justified, pardoned, forgiven, as a child of God, covered by the blood of Jesus, or lost, unregenerate, condemned, unforgiven, as a child of the devil.
God the Father has given all judgment to His Son Jesus Christ (Jn. 5: 22; Acts 10: 42; 17: 31; Rom. 2: 16; 14: 10; 2 Tim. 4:1). And He sits as Judge for He is the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18: 25; Ecc. 3: 17).
Some people have prepared for their meeting with God, but the vast majority have not. Those who believe they will as individuals meet a thrice-holy God face to face have made preparations for their meeting. Those who for whatever reason, do not believe they will as individuals meet with a thrice-holy God face to face have not made preparations for their meeting.
To be prepared and actually eager to meet God, one must have trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and been washed in His precious blood. They then at the Rapture will meet the Lord in the air and go to a place prepared for them in Heaven (1 Thess. 4: 13-18; Jn. 14: 1-4).
To be unprepared and actually indifferent to their meeting with God, one must be lost and full of unbelief, and have rejected God’s free offer of salvation through His Son. They then at the Great White Throne Judgment will be cast into the Lake of Fire, where they will spend eternity (Rev. 20: 11-15).
There is no labor or work or individual effort necessary on our part to be prepared to meet God. All one has to do is believe, to have faith in the work of redemption that was finished at Calvary by Jesus Christ. They then are prepared and will be accepted by God.
The hope that Jesus may come at any moment for His own is the impetus that the saved have to live pure and separated lives that they might be prepared at His coming (1 Jn. 3: 1-3).
The saved will experience God’s mercy at their meeting, but the lost will experience His wrath. “ . . . it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment (our meeting with God)” (Heb. 9: 27).
