Prepare To Meet Thy God # 2
God has equipped us all with capital. He gave you your mind. He gave you your hands, your will, your heart. He gave you your feet, your lips, your eyes. You must give an account. Have your eyes looked upon that which is evil? Has your heart held thoughts that were impure? Has your mind been in rebellion against Him? Have your hands pushed down instead of lifted up? To what houses have your feet taken you? Prepare - prepare to meet thy God. I ask you to prepare because you may meet Him sooner than you think. I have no desire to frighten anyone, but I would do even that if it were the only way. Perhaps you may soon face Him. You may meet Him before tomorrow morning? There is a doctor of repute beside you. Turn and whisper to him. How about it, doctor, nine o'clock in the morning? I know what his answer will be. He will say: Only God knows. When you close your eyes in sleep tonight your vitality will drop, and drop, and drop, until at last it will reach the lowest point. Then it will rise again until the day is born and you awake - unless God should touch you with His finger. I don't understand why men stay away from God. I don't understand young college men. There has never been a day since colleges were established when trained intellects were at such a premium. Trained minds and strong characters can do more today than ever before, yet business men, professional men, and students, too, plunge into sin. Tomorrow, is eternity.
I stood at the foot of my pulpit and a man came to me and said: "I wish that you might have such perfect health as I have. Never in my life have I had a headache, never a pain, never have I called a doctor for myself." I was his minister. A few months after, my telephone bell summoned me to his house. An excited voice said: "Hurry, hurry." I went, to find his daughter alone with him, the rest of the family had gone away. Her father had risen saying that he must keep an early business appointment. "Meet me in the break room," he said. In fifteen minutes she was there, but her father was not. She climbed the stairway to his room and found him seated in his chair with a newspaper on his knees, head back, eyes shut. Never an ache or a pain! Never a doctor! Fifteen minutes warning! Dead! But yon young men say: "How old was he?" Past sixty. We were seated in a hotel in Australia and were resting for the evening, when a quick knock came at the door. I took a cable from the boy, and got the code book and deciphered this: "Charles died today. Sick two days." He was dead. My nephew. A promising athlete, trained in a military school. Never sick a day in his life. Not a man in the college could surpass him in physical strength. Gone in two days. Prepare to meet thy God.
Let me say a word to you men. I want to say that if you turn away from God's only means of preparation, you miss the best for this life. There is only one way to prepare. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! Turn from your sins! Accept Him! A friend of mine was going to preach in a country village. One of the officers of the church met him, and, as they walked along an old-fashioned board walk, my friend stopped and said: "What is that?" There came from the window of a house near them an agonizing cry of a man. As they listened, they heard the voice say, "Oh, Jesus, can't you help me?" The church officer said: "The man who lives there is dying, and he has rejected God all his life. He has led scores of our boys and girls away from the faith of their fathers. He is dying in infidelity." And the cry came again. "Oh, Jesus, can't you help me?" Every minister in the community was trying to help him. Many of the Christians were interested in him. He could not find the way. The last thing they heard him say was the sentence: "Oh, Jesus, can't you , can't you?" Prepare to meet thy God.
I do not want you to think that God is other than just, or that He is other than loving. It is true that ever since you came into the world He has been seeking you. Jesus Christ came all the way to Calvary for you. He is seeking you now. Listen! He is seeking you now. Don't reject Him. Hear this text again: "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." Driving swiftly down the streets of one of our western cities, brought the horses to a standstill and saved a man's life. By a strange coincidence the man whose life was saved was charged with murder. The trial judge was the man who had saved him. Later the trial came on. The lawyers had made their pleas. The judge had charged the jury. They had reached a verdict, and just as the judge turned to speak to him, the prisoner arose and said: "Your honor, I don't think you know me." The judge said: "Answer my question. Have you anything to say why a sentence of death should not be passed upon you?" Stretching out his arms, the prisoner said again: "I don't think you remember me. I am the man you saved. Don't you remember? Have mercy! Have mercy!" The judge leaned forward with tears on his cheeks and said: "Yes, I do remember you. I have known you ever since you came before me, but then I was your saviour, now I am your judge. I must sentence you to die." And today Christ is your Saviour, tears in His eyes, blood upon His brow, scourges upon His back, agony in His heart, saying: "Turn ye, Turn ye, for why will you die."
I had read the funeral service in a beautiful home, when the undertaker came to the door and said: "Will all the friends kindly retire. The members of the family are coming in." The daughter of the home came in leading her father. The mother was lying in the coffin. The old man bent forward and said to the wife who had journeyed with him all the years: "Goodbye. I will soon see you." The daughter said it after him, and two or three of the boys said it. The oldest boy was a drunkard. He stood inside the door with the hot tears running down his cheeks. I walked over to him and said: "Tom, come and say goodbye to your mother." Partly from weakness and partly because he was under the influence of drink, he staggered forward. But I never heard a boy cry like that. Such sobs as came from his heart! Over and over he kept saying: "Mother, Mother!" His sister stepped forward and said: "Tom, don't take on so. Mother has gone to heaven, and you will soon see her." He threw one arm around my shoulder and the other around hers, and cried out: "Oh, my God! I am not going! I am not going!"
Prepare to meet thy God. Acknowledge your sins. Accept Him as your Saviour and Lord. Confess Him before men. Follow Him faithfully. One day you will meet God, and will hear His welcome - "Well done."
~J. Wilbur Chapman~
(The End)
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