In reading such a compiled record as the foregoing, it is to be remembered that in all things that affect spiritual values the only true record is that which is kept in another world. Enough has been shown, however, to make clear that Sunday practices what he preaches when he urges Christians to whole-hearted service.
SUNDAY'S "CONSECRATION" SERMON
"I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
The armies of God are never made up of drafted men and women, ordered into service whether willing or not. God never owned a slave. God doesn't want you to do anything that you can't do without protest. This is not a call to hard duty, but an invitation to the enjoyment of a privilege. It is not a call to hired labor to take the hoe and go into the field, but the appeal of a loving father to his children to partake of all he has to give.
If there is nothing in you that will respond to God's appeal when you think of his mercies, I don't think much of you. The impelling motive of my text is gratitude, not fear. It looks to Calvary, not to Sinai. We are being entreated, not threatened. That's the amazing thing to me. To think that God would entreat us—would stand to entreat us! He is giving me a chance to show I love him.
If you are not ready to offer it in gratitude, God doesn't want you to serve him through fear, but because you realize his love for you, and appreciate and respond to it.
A business man who loves his wife will never be too busy to do something for her, never too busy to stop sometimes to think of how good she has been and what she has done for him. If men would only think of the things God has done for them there would be less card-playing, less thought of dinners and of concerts and other diversions of the world. God wants us to sit down and think over his goodness to us. The man who doesn't isn't worth a nickel a punch. Has God done anything for us as a nation, has he done anything for us as individuals, that commands our gratitude?
Astronomers have counted three hundred and eighty million stars, and they have barely commenced. Why, you might as well try to count those countless stars as to try to count God's mercies. You might as well try to count the drops of water in the sea or the grains of sand upon the shore. If we only think, we shall say with David: "According to Thy tender mercies."
God's Mercies
An old lady said one morning that she would try to count all God's mercies for that one day, but at noon she was becoming confused, and at three o'clock she threw up her hands and said: "They come three times too fast for me to count."