Will You Be Ready

Will you be ready on Judgment Day

Will your sins be as scarlet or be washed away

Will His peace and joy fill your heart that day

Will you be ready on Judgment Day?

This is a part of a song I wrote quite a while ago.  This is a song that asks a very important question – “Will You Be Ready On Judgment Day?” -- which by the way is the title of the song.  

The church that I was going to at the time was rehearsing this song, which I was told they were going to sing.  They rehearsed it for a while but never sang it because they didn’t know if it would be appropriate or not at the time.  I had a hard time trying to understand their way of thinking, maybe they thought it might be offensive to some people.  

I know that many people don’t want to hear about the final judgment but it is a reality, it is going to take place whether we want to hear about it or not, so why are we so timid to talk about it?  Someday everyone will stand before the Lord and the Books will be opened and your sins, not your mistakes, will be exposed to the whole world.  On that day their will be no excuse, if your name isn’t in the Lamb’s Book of Life you will be ushered into Hell, where you have chosen to go, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  And make no mistake about it, Jesus died for your sins and not your mistakes.  So no matter how many times you hear about your mistakes from a preacher, Jesus didn’t die for anything but your sins and we better call sin, sin, Jesus calls it sin and we had better make it quite clear also.  

Jesus talked about the leaven or hypocrisy of the Pharisees which is sin in Luke 12:1–3, “Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: ‘Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.  There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (NIV)

There are many in the church that have this same problem, they are hypocrites.  I have heard this saying, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.”  And one person you will never fool is the Lord, you are either born-again or you are not, end of story.  What is a hypocrite?  It is a pretender, an actor, someone who is playing a role pretending to be something they aren’t.

There was a lot of peer pressure on the Pharisees to look respectable among their peers plus they were the leaders in that day and they enjoyed the popularity and prestige they had with the people so it would be hard to expose themselves as being power hungry imposters and be humiliated by the people and be excommunicated from the sect.  In our day these same things are taking place, there are many people full of religiosity in high positions in the church, they are there for many reasons and some may even think they are born-again but just like the teachers of the law in Jesus’ day they have no idea what it means.  It seems like every religion or sect or cult claims to be Christian but without being born-again they are just fooling themselves.  

The greatest thing is that God loved all of us so much that He gave His Son, Jesus, to be our sacrifice, our atonement for our sins.  What an exciting thing this is when you really grasp it!  This was a miracle, something only Jesus could do for us and He was willing to suffer and die in our place so that we will never have to die spiritually if we repent of our sins and confess them and ask the Lord to forgive us and to be the Lord of our lives.  If anyone sincerely does this he will be born-again and will have eternal life, praise the Lord!  If this has taken place in your life you have something to shout and get excited about, so don’t hold back.  

But if this hasn’t happened in your life, it can.  If you do what I mentioned above, and mean it, you will know what it means to have the peace that surpasses all understanding and be born-again, praise the Lord.  God bless you richly and have a great day.