Near my house is the original cemetery for the city I live in, and the graves there date from the 1830’s, I believe. While I was there one day, I came across the following epitaph:
“Stop travellers, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I,
As I am now so you must be,
Prepare yourselves to follow me.”
This man, long dead, still speaks to any who happen to wander by and read his tombstone. He speaks to a condition common to every man, namely, one day we will all be in the grave, and a need common to every man, that we need to be prepared for when that day arrives. Though the marker doesn’t say what to be prepared for, it is fairly evident what is meant - the need to be prepared to meet our God.
Are we prepared to meet our God?
There are two days in every man’s life which are of supreme importance, two days which surpass all others; the day of our death, and the day of the Lord’s return. It is certain that one or the other of these will end our days here, and it is equally certain that we are completely in the dark as to when either will occur. No man knows when he arises in the morning whether he will see his bed that night, and no man knows when he lays down in the evening whether he will see the morning.
Are we prepared to meet our God?
With every day that passes by, we come ever closer to that great and terrible day, the day in which all of mankind will give an account for the deeds we’ve done in this body. Whether we have done rightly, or we have done wickedly, we will bow before the Lord, we will confess the things we have done, and we will either be set on the right hand, or on the left. We will either enter eternal life, or we will be cast into hell.
Are we prepared to meet our God?
In the 73rd psalm, Asaph, a godly man, was confronted with a sight he simply couldn’t understand. He begins,
“Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
Asaph, a man of God, looked upon the violent and wicked, and saw that they had ease of life, that they had no fear of God, indeed, that, “Their eyes bulge with abundance; they have more than heart could wish.” And then he looked at his own life, and said,
“Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain,
And washed my hands in innocence.
For all day long I have been plagued,
And chastened every morning.”
Asaph looked upon the ease of the wicked, and the trials that he had to endure when he only tried to live godly, and the thought crossed his mind, “What have I really gained by doing this?”
But he had greater faith than this, for he goes on,
“If I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’
Behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of Your children.”
He knew that it was right to follow God no matter what may come, but he couldn’t grasp the inequity of it all, why the wicked prosper, and the godly suffer. Indeed he says,
“When I thought how to understand this,
It was too painful for me —
Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
Then I understood their end.”
“Surely You set them in slippery places;
You cast them down to destruction.
Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment!
They are utterly consumed with terrors.
As a dream when one awakes,
So, Lord, when You awake,
You shall despise their image.”
What gain is it to me if I obtain the riches of the world, surpassing all who came before, what gain is it to me if I should have fame to the ends of the earth, if I should fulfill every desire of my heart, if I want for nothing and am always at ease…if I’m unprepared to meet my God?
Are we prepared to meet our God?