Reason 3

REASON III.

The Lord's daily mercy to us, requires our hearty service to Him. It is noted of the rudest among the Gentiles, in Luke 22:25, their benefactors exercise a lordship over them. Never, never had we any benefactor like to our God, who daily loads us with his benefits. Unthankful wretches are we, if we shake off the lordship of such a Lord. It was an address once made to a governor in Acts 24:2: By you we enjoy great quietness, and very worthy deeds are done to us by your providence. It were a disloyal, an unworthy thing, not to serve such a governor. Truly, from God we enjoy great quietness; by the providence of God, we are delivered from a thousand perils every day; and we are surrounded with ten thousand comforts every day; by the providence of God we are directed, protected, sustained and supplied, every day. This calls for the service of God at our hands. It is said, in Romans 12:1, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice to Him. What a persuasive piece of oratory is that! I beseech you by the mercies of God. He that urges you to the service of God may thus plead with you, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that God may not have one servant in the world the less for you. I beseech you, brethren, that when the goodness and mercy of God is following of you, you do not turn your backs on the service of God. To pursue this argument: I beseech you, brethren, whose light is it, whereby you are every day revived? It is God's. Whose air is it, whereby you are every day refreshed? It is God's. Whose fire is it that warms you? Whose meat is it that feeds you? Whose raiment is it that covers you? All is God's. O then, serve Him. These are the cords of a man, with which we are bound to the service of our Lord. This is the poesy which God has inscribed in the ring of every mercy, O learn to serve the Giver of this! It was a sad complaint which the Lord made in Isaiah 1:2: I have nourished them, and brought them up, yet have they rebelled against me. Alas, what a YET is there? Our God has been as a Father to us; and yet shall not we serve Him as our Master? He relieves us, He supports us, He bestows on us the mercies of children, and shall not we yet return so much as the respects of servants to Him? The heavens will hear and be amazed, the earth will give ear and be astonished, at a thing so much exceeding brutality itself, as this.