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Therefore thus will I do unto thee - I will continue my judgments, I will fight against you; and, because I am thus determined: -

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel - This is a military phrase, and is to be understood as a challenge to come out to battle. As if the Lord had said, I will attack you immediately. Throw yourselves into a posture of defense, summon your idols to your help: and try how far your strength, and that of your gods, will avail you against the unconquerable arm of the Lord of hosts! This verse has been often painfully misapplied by public teachers; it has no particular relation to the day of judgment, nor to the hour of death. These constructions are impositions on the text.

Therefore thus will I do unto thee - God says more by His silence. He had enumerated successive scourges. Now, with His hand uplifted to strike, He mentions none, but says, “thus.” Rib.: “So men too, loth to name evils, which they fear and detest, say, “God do so to me, and more also.” God using the language of people” Jerome, “having said, ‹thus will I do unto thee,‘ is silent as to what He will do; that so, Israel hanging in suspense, as having before him each sort of punishment (which are the more terrible, because he imagines them one by one), may indeed repent, that God inflict not what He threatens.”

Prepare to meet thy God - In judgment, face to face, final to them. All the judgments which had been sent hitherto were but heralds, forerunners of the judgment to come. He Himself was not in them. In them, He passed no sentence upon Israel. They were medicinal, corrective; they were not His final sentence. Now, having tried all ways of recovering them in vain, God summons them before His tribunal. But although the judgment of the ten tribes, as a whole, was final, to individuals there was place for repentance. God never, in this life, bids people or individuals “prepare to meet Him,” without a purpose of good to those who do prepare to receive His sentence aright. He saith not then, “come and hear your doom,” but “prepare to meet thy God.” It has hope in it, to be bidden to “prepare;” yet more, that He whom they were to prepare to meet, was “their God.” It must have recurred full often to the mind of the ten tribes during their unrestored captivity of above seven centuries before the Coming of our Lord; a period as long as the whole existence of Rome from its foundation to its decay; as long as our history from our king Stephen until now.

Full oft must they have thought, “we have not met Him yet,” and the thought must have dawned upon them; “It is because He willed to “do thus” with us, that He bid us “prepare to meet” Him. He met us not, when He did it. It was then something further on; it is in the Messiah that we arc to meet and to see Him.” Jerome: “Prepare to meet thy God,” receiving with all eagerness the Lord coming unto thee.” So then, is this further sense which lay in a the words, “he (as did Hosea at the end) exhorts the ten tribes, after they had been led captive by the Assyrians, not to despond, but to “prepare to meet their God,” that is, to acknowledge and receive Christ their God, when the Gospel should be preached to them by the Apostles.” Rib.: “God punisheth, not in cruelty, but in love. He warns then those whom He strikes, to understand what He means by these punishments, not thinking themselves abandoned by God, but, even when they seem most cast away and reprobate, rousing themselves, in the hope of God‘s mercy through Christ, to call upon God, and “prepare to meet their God.” For no one‘s salvation is so desperate, no one is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh to him by holy inspirations, to bring back the wanderer to Himself. Thou therefore, O Israel, whoever thou art, who didst once serve God, and now servest vilest pleasures, when thou feelest God coming to thee, prepare to meet Him. Open the door of thy heart to that most kind and benevolent Guest, and, when thou hearest His Voice, deafen not thyself: flee not, like Adam. For He seeketh thee, not to judge, but to save thee.”

Presenting the Truth Through Our Periodicals—Blessed, soul-saving Bible truths are published in our papers. There are many who can help in the work of selling our periodicals.—Testimonies for the Church 9:63 (1909). CM 145.1

We have been asleep, as it were, regarding the work that may be accomplished by the circulation of well-prepared literature. Let us now, by the wise use of periodicals and books, preach the word with determined energy, that the world may understand the message that Christ gave to John on the Isle of Patmos. Let every human intelligence who professes the name of Christ testify, The end of all things is at hand; prepare to meet thy God.—The Review and Herald, July 30, 1908. CM 145.2

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Amos 4:12, last part. CC 272.1

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 4:12. FLB 337.1

Unlearned peasants and fishermen from the surrounding country; the Roman soldiers from the barracks of Herod; chieftains with their swords at their sides, ready to put down anything that might savor of rebellion; the avaricious tax-gatherers from their toll-booths; and from the Sanhedrim the phylactered priests,—all listened as if spellbound; and all, even the Pharisee and the Sadducee, the cold, unimpressible scoffer, went away with the sneer silenced, and cut to the heart with a sense of their sins. Herod in his palace heard the message, and the proud, sin-hardened ruler trembled at the call to repentance. GW 55.1

In this age, just prior to the second coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven, such a work as that of John is to be done. God calls for men who will prepare a people to stand in the great day of the Lord. The message preceding the public ministry of Christ was, Repent, publicans and sinners; repent, Pharisees and Sadducees; “repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” As a people who believe in Christ's soon coming, we have a message to bear,—“Prepare to meet thy God.” [Amos 4:12.] GW 55.2

Our message must be as direct as was the message of John. He rebuked Kings for their iniquity. Notwithstanding that his life was imperiled, he did not hesitate to declare God's word. And our work in this age must be done as faithfully. GW 55.3