"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." (Rom. 12:1).

We have here a call for volunteers, not an order for a draft. 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 does not 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. An Offering of Gratitude

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 is 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 your service. He doesn't want you to serve Him through fear, but because you realize His love for you and appreciate and respond to it. Just consider whether God has been good to us. How many times and how much has He been good to us!

A man who loves his wife will never be too busy to do something for her, never be 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 men who do not, are not worth a nickel a bunch. Has God done anything for us as a nation; has He done anything for us as individuals that commands our gratitude?

A man was out walking at night with his little daughter, and the stars were out and very bright. The little girl looked up into the shining vault of Heaven, so thickly studded with the shining orbs, and said: "Let's count them, Papa." And, beginning at on, she counted five, and then ten, and twenty, and thirty, and forty, and fifty, and up to 100, and 125 and 126. And then she said: "Oh, I'm tired, Papa. There 126. I didn't know there were so many." Astronomers have counted 380,000,000 stars, and they have not yet commenced. Why, you might as well try to count the drops of water in the sea or the grains of sand upon the shore, or the office-seekers after a presidential election. If we only think, we shall say with David: "According to thy tender mercies."

God will not force you to count His mercies. He will not choke you into doing His will. But if you refuse to do His work, knowing of the many mercies God has bestowed upon you, you have lost all right to be called a man.

Go back one short year in your life and try to count the many blessings God has given you. You will find yourself unable to count them all.

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 two o'clock she threw up her hands and said: "They come three times too fast for me to count."

Thank God for Your Reason

    A visitor to an insane asylum was walking through the grounds as he passed one of the buildings he heard a voice from a barred window high up in the wall, and it said: "Stranger, did you ever thank God for your reason?" He had never thought of that before, but he says that he has thought of it every day since. Did you ever think that thousands of people who were just as good as you are, are beating their heads against the walls of padded cells?

Did you ever think what a blessed thing it is that you are sane and can go home to be greeted by your wife and have your children climb about you? Did you ever thank God that you have a mind and can think?

A lot of you folks ought to thank God that you are not pounding on the lining of a padded cell, and that God allows you to keep your reason. He gives you reason and the ability to exercise the brain with which He endowed you. He spreads before your eyes the wonderful panorama of nature, fills your ears with melodies and songs and permits you to enjoy a sunrise or a sunset; and yet how many of you ever think of thanking Him for it?

Thank God for Sight, Hearing and Sense of Taste Did you ever thank God for your eyes? Did you ever thank Him that you can see the sunrise and the sunset, can see the flowers and the trees and look upon the storm? Did you ever thank God that you have two good eyes while so many others less fortunate that you must grope their way in blindness to the coffin?

Did you ever thank God for hearing? That you can hear music and the voices of friends and dear ones? That you can leave your home and business and come here and hear the songs and the preaching of the Word of God? Did you ever think what it would mean to be deaf?

Did you ever thank God for the blessing of taste? Some people can't tell whether they are eating sawdust and shavings or strawberries and ice cream. Think of the good things we enjoy! Others have tastes so vicious that they find it almost impossible to eat. God might have made our food taste like quinine. God might have made everything taste like garbage -- but He didn't. Did you ever thank God that we don't have to hold our noses when we sit down to the table?

Thank God for Ability to Breath and Sleep and for Medical Care

    Did you ever thank God that you can breathe without pain? One person in every ten dies of consumption -- and you can breathe. Think how many women die of cancer -- one out of eight -- and you are free from it.

Did you ever thank God that you can sleep? If not, you ought to be kept awake for a month. Think of the thousands who suffer from pain or insomnia so they can sleep only under opiates. Did you ever wake up in the morning and thank God that you have had reason to be thankful. If there is anything for which you should thank God, it is for the blessing of sleep. It was said that Napoleon could get along with four hours' sleep, but I have him beaten. I don't suppose there is a man anywhere who sleeps and eats less and works harder than I do. Night after night I tumble and toss, unable to sleep. But I am on the high gear for God. I am speeding up in His work, and whenever I have to go into low, I'll beat it. I am going to fight for God as long as I can stand, and when I cannot fight any longer, I am ready to go.

Did you ever thank God for the doctors and nurses and hospitals? For the surgeon who comes with scalpel and trocar to save your life or relieve your suffering? If it hadn't been for them, you would be under the grass. For the nurse who watches over you that you may be restored to health?

Thank God for Every Blessing All good comes from God. All that is bad comes from the Devil. Why, then, be on the side of the Devil? Any man or woman is a fool to be on the Devil's side when all he ever does is hurt you.

Did you ever thank God for the bread you eat, while so many others are hungry? Did you ever thank Him for the enemy who has been baffled, for the lie against you that has failed?

   Out in Elgin, Illinois, a friend took me out riding. He said that he wanted me to go with him to see a man. He took me to see a man who was lying in bed, with arms pitifully wasted by suffering. The poor fellow said he had been in bed for thirty-two years, but he wasn't worrying about that. He said he was so sorry for the well people who don't know Jesus. I went out thanking God that I could walk!

By you baby that you will kiss good-night when you go home, spared to you when some other mother's darling is laid away; by your wife and your children; by your mother, your health, your happiness -- by all these God has blessed you. Have you ever counted those blessings?

If your hearts are not made of stone or adamant, they will melt with gratitude when you think of the many mercies, the tender mercies of God. The Appeal Is to "Brethren"

"Brethren" -- That is what God had Paul call His true followers. No speaking from the loft. If there is any lesson we need to learn, it is that of being "brethren."

A Friend of mine went to England to preach and one day spoke at a noonday meeting of workingmen, presided over by the daughter of an earl. She said to those men: "You ought to be convinced that we of the aristocracy are interested in you people of the working class and in your problems, now that we bring this gentleman from America to speak to you."

They applauded, those workingmen did! They cried, "Hear! Hear!" That will go in aristocratic England, where they bow and scrape to royalty, but it won't go in democratic America.

Sinners are not called "brethren" in the Bible. God commands sinners. There are in rebellion. He entreats Christians. When Lincoln called for volunteers, he addressed men as "citizens of the United States," not as foreigners.

The man who is appreciative of God's mercies will not have much mercy on himself. Don't stand up and say: "I'll do just what Jesus bids me do, and go where He bids me to go," then go to bed. Present your body -- not mine nor your wife's; you must present your own. Present your -- body -- not your neighbor's, not your children's; it is their duty to do that. Do you trust God enough to let Him do what He wants to do? Moody - Example of Surrendering All;

Henry Varley said to Moody, when that great American was in England, that God is waiting to show this world what one man could do for Him. Moody said, "Varley, by the grace of God, I will be that man"; and God took hold of Moody and shook the foundations of Hell with him. God would shake the world with us today if only we would present our bodies as living sacrifices to Him, as Moody did.

   Are you willing to present yourself? I believe that the angels are leaning out over the battlements of Glory tonight waiting to hear how you answer this appeal to God.

At the opening of the Civil War many a man was willing that the country should be saved by able-bodied male relatives of his wife, who made themselves bullet-meat, but he didn't go himself. God isn't asking for other men's bodies. He is asking for yours. If all would give to God what rightfully belongs to Him, I tell you, He would create a commotion on earth and in Hell.

Surrender Your Feet

    If God had the feet of some of you, He would point your toes in different ways than you have been going for many years. If He had you feet, He would never head you into a booze joint. If had your feet, He would never send you to a ballroom.

If He had the feet of some of you, He would make you wear shoe leather lugging back what you have taken that does not belong to you. If God had your fee, He would take you to prayer meetings. I am afraid the preacher would have nervous prostration, for he hasn't seen some of you there in years.

If God had your feet, you would find it harder to follow the Devil. He would make your daily walk conform to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount.

If God had your feet, a lot of you women would not be running around talking about your neighbors. A lot of you men would not be going to saloons, and a lot you boys and girls would not be going to the dance halls.

If God had your feet, they would be headed toward the church rather than to the theater or the ballroom. Your feet would be pointed to God, not the Devil.

Some people work only with their mouths. God wants that part that is on the ground. Some soldiers only sit around and smell the coffee and watch the bacon frying. Some preachers need the cushions of their chairs upholstered much oftener that they need their shoes half-soled.

Surrender Your Hands

If God had your hands, He would make you let go of a lot of things you hold onto with a deathlike grip. If you don't let go of some of the things you hold so tightly, they will drag you down to Hell. He would have you let go of some of the things you pay taxes on, but don't even own, and He would make you let go of money to pay taxes on some that you do own. Some people are so busy muckraking that they will lose a crown of glory hereafter.

If God had your hands, how many countless tears you would wash away. A friend of mine bought a typewriter, and when he tried to use it his fingers seemed to be all thumbs, but now he can write 125 words a minute. Let God have your hands and He will make them do things that would make the angels wonder and applaud.

     A young man went down to Thomasville, Alabama, and while there was invited to a dress ball -- or rather to undress ball, if what I read about such affairs properly describes the uniforms. A young lady -- a young lady with eyes like the dove and with beautiful tresses -- came up to him and said the young man: "Won't you pledge a glass of champagne with me?"

The young man thanked her, but said: "No, I don't drink.

"Not with me?" she said, and smiled.

Again he answered no.

Then she said: "If I had thought you would refuse me, I would not have asked you and exposed myself to the embarrassment of a refusal. I did not suppose you would think me bold for speaking to you in this way, and I thought you might be lonely."

A litter late she cam back to him and repeated her invitation.

Again he said no.

Others came and laughed. He took it and hesitated. She smiled at him and he gave in and drank the champagne, then drank another glass and another, until he was flushed with it. Then he danced. At two o' clock the next morning a man with a linen duster over his other clothes walked back upon a railroad station platform, waiting for a train for the north; and as he walked he would exclaim, "O God!" and would pull a pint flask from his pocket and drink. "My God," he would say, "what will mother say!" Four months later in his home in Vermont, with his weeping parents by him and with four strong men to hold him down, he died of delirium tremens.

When that girl received a letter from the mother of the man she had ruined, she must have cried lake Lady Macbeth, "Will not all great Neptune's seas wash his this blood away?" She knew the great harm she had done.

The Epworth League's motto is: "Look up, lift up," but you will never lift much up unless God has hold of your hands. Unless He has, you will never put your hands deep in your pockets up to the elbow and bring them up full of money for His cause.

A man who was about to be baptized took out his watch and laid it aside, then he took out his knife and bank book and laid them aside. "Better give me your pocketbook to put aside for you," said the minister. "No," said the man, "I want it to be baptized, too."

There is no such thing as a bargain counter religion. Pure and undefiled religion will do more when God has something besides pennies to work with. Your religion is worth just what it costs you. If you get religion and then lie down and go to sleep, your joints will get as stiff ad Rip Van Winkle's did, and you will never win the religious marathon.

   

Gratitude Measured by Sacrifice A man said to his wife that he had heard the preacher say that religion is worth just what it costs, and that he had determined to give more for religion, and to deny himself as well. "What will you give up?" she asked. He said that would up coffee, for he dearly loved coffee -- used to drink several cups at every meal, the very best. She said that she would give up something too -- that she would give up tea. Then their daughter said she would give up some of her littler pleasures; and the father turned to his son, Tom, who was shoveling mashed potatoes, covered with chicken gravy, into his mouth, and said: "I'll give up salt mackerel. I never did like the darned stuff anyway."

There too many salt-mackerel people like that in the pews of our churches today. They will take something that they don't like and that nobody else will have, and give it to the Lord. That isn't enough for God. He wants the best we have.

Two little girls were playing Noah's ark in the bathtub, and after they had become tired of the game, one of them pulled out the plug and said: "Flood's over." Noah had a sacrifice. The other one said, "Let's have a sacrifice." So they took the soap dish and placed a piece of paper on it, and put a broken sheep from Noah's ark on top of that and set fire to it. Cain's altar was bigger than Abel's, but it had nothing valuable on it, while Abel's had real blood. God rejected Cain's and accepted Abel's.

God turns down the man who merely lives a moral life and does not accept the religion of Jesus Christ. You must come with Jesus' blood. If a man gives his wife a 10-cent pincushion at Christmas to show how much he loves her, he's a geezer the Devil's stuck on. How thankful you are depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice.

An Invitation to Show Your Gratitude Now

How many of you are willing to walk down here tonight and give me your hand and say you are willing to do God's will and are ready to count his blessings? How many are willing to show how much you love Christ?

I don't believe that the most honored angel in Heaven has such a chance as we have. Angels can't suffer. They can't make sacrifices. They can claim that they love God, but we can prove it.

What would you think of a soldier if when he was ordered, "Present arms," he would answer, "Tomorrow"? If he would say, "When the man next to me does"? If he should say, "When I get my uniform"? Present -- that means now. It is in the present tense. God wants us to make a present of our bodies to Him -- because we love Him. Are you man and woman enough to do it? Are you man and woman enough to give your body to Christ now, to come down here and hold up your hand and say you will?

A little girl showed a man some presents she had received, and he asked her: "How long may you keep them?" "How long?" she answered. "Why, they were given to me. They are mine." If, when you make a present, you do not mean to give it outright, you are not honest. Will a man rob God? You bet he will -- a heap quicker than he will rob anyone else.

Present Your Head as Well as Hands

"Your body" -- that takes the head as well as hands. God wants brains as well as hands. God wants brains as well as bones and muscle. We ought to do best thinking for God. God is in the greatest business there is, and He wants the best help He can get.

Don't give God the ragtag and scrap end of everything. Bishop Taylor promised God he would do as much hard thinking and planning for Him as he would do for another man for money. He did it. So did Wesley and Whitefield and Savonarola, and look what they did for God! If there is any better way of doing God's business than there was one hundred years ago, for God's sake, do it! He is entitled to the best there is. The old Gospel will never be out of date, but more zeal and better methods get more people to hear it.

This thing of just ringing the church bell to get people to come is about played out. In business, if they have a machine that is out of date and does not produce good results, it goes into the scrap heap. If a man can produce a machine that can enlarge the product or better it, that machine is adopted at once.

But not religion; we have the same old flintlock guns, smoothbore; the same old dips and tallow candles; the same old stagecoaches over corduroy roads; and if a protest is made, some of you will roll your eyes as if you had on a hair skirt, and say: "Surely, this is not the Lord's set time for work."

Present Your Mouths and Eyes

If God almighty only had possession of your mouths, He would stop your lying. If He had your mouths, He would stop your knocking. If He had your mouths, He would stop your misrepresentations. If He had your mouths, He would stop your swearing. If He had your mouths, He would stop your backbiting. If he had your mouths, He would stop your slanders. There would be no criticizing, no social lies, no talking behind backs.

If you knew what your friends say about you and they knew what you say about them, there would not be four friends left in Omaha. The enemies in this world are chiefly without yourself anyhow. When you hear one person knocking another, you know that the knocker is trying to drag the one he knocks down to his level.

If God had your mouths, He would stop all the wicked, proud, lying words that now fall from your lips. He would stop all slander and evil speaking. He would stop all hypocrisy.

One time the wife of Samuel Johnson, the great English writer, said to him: "Don't ask a blessing on the food which in a few minutes you will be criticizing and finding fault with."

If God had our mouths, we would not spend millions of dollars a year for tobacco, booze, gun and cigarettes.

If God had your eyes, He would bring the millennium. His eyes run to and fro through the world seeking for men to serve Him, and if He had our eyes, how our eyes would run to and fro looking for ways to help bring men to Christ.

How hard it would be for sinners to get away. We would be looking for drunkards, the prostitutes and down-and-outers, to lift and save them. How many sorrowful hearts we would find and soothe! How many grief's we would alleviate!

Great God! How little you are doing! Don't you feel ashamed? Aren't you looking for a knothole to crawl through? If God had our eyes, how many would stop looking at a lot of things that make us proud and unclean and selfish and critical and unchristian.

A Living Holy, Acceptable Sacrifice

God wants you to give your body. Are you afraid to give it to Him? Are you afraid of the doctor when you are sick? Your body -- that thing that sits out there in the seat, that thing that sits up there in the choir and sings, that thing that sits there and writes for the newspapers, that body which can show Jesus Christ to fallen sons of Adam better than any angel -- that is what God wants. God wants you to bring it to Him and say, "Take it , God, it is yours." If He had your body, dissipation, overeating and under-sleeping would, for the body is holy ground. We dare not abuse it.

God wants you body as a living sacrifice, not a dead one. There are too many dead ones. A time was when God was satisfied with a dead sacrifice. Under old Jewish law, a dead sheep would do. Now He wants you, a living sacrifice, a real sacrifice.

There never was a victory without sacrifice. Socrates advanced the doctrine of immortality and died with a cup of poisoned hemlock. Jesus Christ paid with a crown of thorns. Abraham Lincoln paid with a bullet in his head. If you mean to give yourself as a sacrifice to God, get out and work for Him. Ask men to come to Him.

"A holy sacrifice." Don't shy at that word holy. Holy vessels were set apart for God's use -- that is all. To be holy isn't to be long-faced and never smile.

"Acceptable unto the Lord." If that were true, then this old desert world would blossom like Eden. If that were taken as our watchword, what a stampede of short yardstick, shrunken measures, light weights, adulterated foods, etc., there would be! What a stopping of the hitting up of booze! There would be no lying advertisements.

Sometimes Hard, but Always Reasonable

Your "reasonable service": God never asks anything unreasonable. He is never exacting. He only asks rights when He asks you to forsake sin. God never made a law to govern you that would not have made if you had known as much as God knows. You don't know that much and never can, so the only sensible thing to do is to obey God's laws. Faith never asks explanations. God asks some things that are hard, but never any that are unreasonable.

God Almighty never made a law to govern us which we would not have made if we had known as much as He knows. Therefore, it is up to us to have faith in God without asking questions.

It was hard for Abraham to take his son up on the mountain to prepare to offer him up as a sacrifice to God, but God had a reason. Abraham understands tonight and Abraham is satisfied.

It was hard for Joseph to be torn from his own people and to be sold into Egypt, and to be lied about, torn from his mother and father, but God had a reason. Joseph knows tonight, and Joseph is satisfied.

It was hard for Moses to lead the Jews from Egypt, following the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and make that crossing of the Red Sea, only to have God call him up to Mount Pisgah and show him the promised land and say: "Moses, you cannot go in." It was hard, but God had a reason. Moses understands tonight, and Moses is satisfied.

It was hard for Job to lose his children and all that he possessed, to be afflicted with boils, and to be so miserable that only his wife remained with him. But God had a reason. Job understands tonight, and Job is satisfied.

It was a hard thing God asked of Jesus -- to leave the songs of the angels and the presence of the redeemed and glorified and come down to earth to be born amid the malodors of a stable, and be forced to flee from post to post, and dispute with the learned doctors in the temple at twelve years of age and confute them, and to still the storm and the troubled waters, and to say to the blind, "Be whole," and finally to be betrayed by one of His own followers and to be murdered through a conspiracy of Jews and Gentiles; but not He sits on the throne with the Father, awaiting for the time to judge the world.

Jesus understands tonight, and Jesus is satisfied.

  

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