Having taught what should be done, Amulek encourages his audience to actually do what he has taught. Although Amulek says that they should “harden not your hearts any longer,” this is a people who had come in humility, desiring a change. Thus, this is not a call to repent of wrongdoing, but perhaps of not doing. They have felt that they couldn’t worship God without a proper place, and they have now been taught that the place is much less important than the state of the heart.
What should modern members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints understand when Amulek says that “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God”? Is there not opportunity in the next life to repent and grow prior to the time of the final judgment? Yes, there is, but that isn’t what Amulek is teaching.
Alma also taught that “this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God” (Alma 12:24). Alma and Amulek are focused on what people should do in this life, not the next. We do not know if they had an understanding of how the gospel might be preached to the dead, and in the world that they knew, it was not really an issue. In the ancient world, there were often fewer choices in what one believed. One believed what everyone else believed. Therefore, because Nephites had the gospel, and the people of Antionum once had that gospel, it was important for them to act in this life.
In particular, the people who were cast out of Zoramite worship had a clear choice. They could continue in their unsatisfactory relationship with the Zormanites, or they could follow God. That was a question they needed to answer in this life. Even when we do take the next life into account, it is still true that what we do on earth matters. It is still a place where we have come to perform our labors. Those labors will factor into our final judgment.