The negligent Christian displeases God because he does not fulfil the end for which he was created. What is the end for which God created us? Certainly it is not for ourselves, for before God created us we were not, and could not have been the end for which He made us. He must have made us for Himself, for His glory. Yes, this is the end for which He does every thing, for Himself. From the very fact that we are created, our end must be to love and serve God. We are bound, then, to love and serve God, and we are bound to do it with perfection and alacrity. What kind of creature is that which renders to God a reluctant and imperfect service? Suppose a king were to appoint a day to receive the homage of his subjects, and while he was holding his court, and one after another was coming forward to kiss his hand or bend the knee, some one, ill-attired, and with slovenly demeanor, should approach and offer a heedless reverence. Would it not be taken as an act of contempt and an offence? Now, God is our King, and He holds a levee every morning and invites the creation to renew its homage. The world puts on its best array. The sun comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. The mountains and hills clothe themselves in blue, and the trees put on their robes of green. The birds sing, and the waters move and sparkle. Holy and humble men of heart rise from their beds to enter on their daily course of duty and of prayer, while within the veil the spirits of the just and the ten thousand times ten thousand angels bow before the Throne of Him that lives forever. And now in this great Act of Praise, this ceaseless sacrifice that creation is offering to its Maker, there comes in the negligent Christian, cold, distracted, and unprepared to take his part. He does not kneel down to pray. He goes to work without a blessing. He does not think of God. Nay, in His very presence says and does unseemly things. Oh! is he not a blot on the scene? Is not his presence an offence? {322} In the Old Testament, God complains of the Jewish priests because they brought to Him the halt and the blind and the sick for sacrifice. He says: "Offer it now to thy prince, will _he_ be pleased with it, or will _he_ regard thy face?" [Footnote 67] [Footnote 67: Mal. i. 8.] So in like manner, negligent Christian, God complains of you. You bring to Him a "lame sacrifice," those feet of thine that stumble so often in the way of justice; a "blind" and "sick sacrifice," that heart of thine, so fond of the world and so weak in the love of God.