Are You Ready?

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 20, 1857

WHO ASKS THIS QUESTION?

Your Maker. He does it in his word. One of the grand objects of that blessed volume is to enable you to give it an affirmative answer. By judgments and by mercies does his holy providence press this matter upon you. When reason and conscience are permitted to speak, they urge attention to this great concern. Cast away from you for half an hour the charms of the world: press your way out of that torrent of cares, or pleasures, which sweeps every serious thought away; rebuke every other appeal, and let that only be heard which the unblinded reason and the unscared conscience make, and you will perceive that this inquiry is solemnly addressed to you. By your frailty and mortality is this question pressed. Nothing can be more precarious than your hold on life. Your body is the tie that binds you to the earth. How frail a flower! "The wind passeth over it, and it is gone." It is in health and vigor to-day; to-morrow it is lifeless and cold, and a mass of corruption. The worm is thy sister and thy mother. Job xvii, 14. Your frailty, therefore, cries, Are you ready? and the voice waxes louder and louder with every wasting hour of your probation. Eternity seems uttering the same appeal; as if, with a living voice, it presses every human mind with the momentous truth, that, beyond the grave, man's destiny is fixed for ever; the righteous are "righteous still," and the filthy are "filthy still." And it utters the earnest admonition, "Beware of unpreparedness." But there is yet another voice; and, reader, if there be any voice that should drown all the appeals of the cares and pleasures of this world, which should excite the soul's most intense and devout attention, which should penetrate its lowest depths, and arouse its strongest emotions—it should be the voice of the Redeemer. "Be ye also ready," is his admonition. No voice breaks upon human ears in so much tenderness and love; for no friendship has man experienced like that shown him by the Son of God, and no voice is so suited to inspire solemnity and awe as that of the final Judge!

WHY ASK THIS QUESTION?

Because none can be conceived of so much importance. Because, disturbing men's sinful minds as it does, they are not disposed to press it honestly and earnestly upon themselves. Because an honest, serious, enlightened decision of this question may be of everlasting benefit to your soul. Because, amid the hurry of business or the whirl of pleasure, you may at this hour need something to lead you to consider your character and eternal prospects. Because, if the subject which this question urges upon you is not attended to, you will be lost!

WHO ARE NOT READY?

Common opinion, in a gospel land, allows that many are not ready for death; as the murderer, the thief, the drunkard, the idolater, the profane swearer, the adulterer, the scoffer, the liar, and the hypocrite. But the word of God includes more still: such as the covetous, the lewd, the lovers of pleasure more than of God, the fraudulent, the unmerciful, the formalist, the prayerless, the worldly—indeed every one who has not been washed in the blood of Christ, and renewed by the holy Spirit. Not one of all these can give an affirmative answer to the question now urged.

WHY ASK ME THIS QUESTION?

Because it respects interests of yours of infinite value—interests in fearful peril if you cannot answer this question in the affirmative. Because this question is suited to arouse attention to what you may have totally neglected. Because you may be the very person of all others who most needs such an appeal; being, perhaps, the victim of a false hope, or a fatal error, and borne every day farther and farther from God by the growing power of sin. Because it is of infinite importance that you make a correct decision as to this question. And, especially, because the next bosom pierced by the dart of death may be your own!

“HOW MAY I BE READY?”

"God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Acts xvii, 30. You must repent of your sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, "the just for the unjust;" and whom God "hath exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins." Acts v, 31. You must place your trust in him—in him alone, as your all-sufficient Saviour, "able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Heb. vii, 25. Trusting in him, you will be ready for life, and death, and eternity. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. iii, 11.

IF I AM NOT READY, WHAT THEN?

Then—1. You have already run a most desperate hazard of losing your soul. You could not have said in any hour of life, the next should not be your last; and, as you are now unprepared to die, you have run as many risks of everlasting ruin as you have lived hours. You have stood on the dizzy height of a most frightful precipice! Your feet had well nigh slipped! Look back: it would seem your heart would grow faint and sick at the dreadful peril to which you have been exposed.

2. Your not being now ready implies very great guilt. It implies insensibility to the most powerful and affecting motives; stubborn refusal of a thousand kind and affectionate invitations; contempt of most solemn warnings; reckless indifference to the soul's value. I ask not for vices and crimes in proof of sin; there is evidence enough without this to prove you stained with crimson guilt.

3. If you are not ready, then there is no work so important, no obligation so pressing, as your immediately seeking the favor of God. Bid the world retire. Its highest and most pressing claims should not impede you for a moment in the great work of getting ready for heaven.

IF I AM READY, WHAT THEN?

If, after a serious examination of yourself by the word of God, that infallible test, you can humbly hope you are accepted in Christ, then show with the warmest zeal, and in every possible manner, your love to the great Author and Finisher of your faith. Let all men see that your hope purifies you, and that your faith works by love. Let them see that your whole character has been cast anew in the mould of the gospel. By every energy you can employ, endeavor to make your fellow-men possessors of a like glorious hope.