In the context, (i.e. the passage immediately connected with the text,) we shall behold an additional evidence to the solemnity and importance of the warning before us. There the prophet is reciting the various judgments with which God had visited Israel; the end he had in these severe visitations; and the strange incorrigibleness of the people under them, and after their removal. The judgments were, famine, drought, blasting, and mildew, the pestilence, the sword, and an overthrow of some of their cities, judicial and final, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Dreadful and numerous as those public, those national calamities were; yet Israel was not humbled, did not repent. _Yet have not ye returned unto me_, _saith the Lord_, is the complaint of God himself, as annexed by the prophet to every verse, that recites their visitations. Jehovah spoke to them repeatedly, and awfully, by the _rod_; but they would not hear it, nor did they regard HIM who had appointed it. He _met_ them in his judgments. All of them were his _messengers_; each had a _voice_, that spake loudly for God and vehemently against sin; and all, in accents thundering through their land, solicited the dutiful attention of the inhabitants. But in vain. Though they were obliged to give those dreadful visitants the meeting, yet they would not give them an humble audience. They were too busy to hear; too proud to submit; too stubborn to obey. Well, since the embassadors are despised, the king will resent the affront: since they would not regard the harbingers, all the MAJESTY of God shall summon them to an interview. One meeting more is therefore determined upon; in which the holy and eternal God himself shall be one of the parties, and an incorrigible and rebellious people, the other. _Prepare to meet thy God_. From the words thus stated, I propose, with a view to our personal improvement, considering, I. That there will be a certain, an awful, a swiftly-approaching, and an inevitable _interview_ between God and sinners. II. What kind of _preparation_ it is incumbent upon sinners to make in the prospect of that interview. III. After which, I shall, in an applicatory way, consider, _to whom_ the warning is directed. I. The interview;—1. at death; 2. in the day of judgment.