Dear friends, I want some of my hearers to-day who have never
honestly asked themselves the question of what their relation to God
is, to go down into the deep places of their hearts and test
themselves by this simple inquiry: 'Do I do anything to please Him?
Do I try to serve Him? Is it a joy to me to be near Him? Is the
thought of Him a delight, like a fountain in the desert or the cool
shadow of a great rock in the blazing wilderness? Do I turn to Him as
my Home, my Friend, my All? If I do not, am I not deceiving myself by
fancying that I stand neutral?' There is no neutrality in a man's
relation to God. It is one thing or other. 'Ye cannot serve God and
Mammon.' 'The friendship of the world is enmity against God.'

IV. And now, lastly, note how our Lord here touches the deep thought
that this ignorance, which is sin, and is more properly named hatred,
is utterly irrational and causeless.

'All this will they do that it might be fulfilled which is written in
their law, They hated Me without a cause.' One hears sighing through
these words the Master's meek wonder that His love should be so met,
and that the requital which He receives at men's hands, for such an
unexampled and lavish outpouring of it, should be such a
carelessness, reposing upon a hidden basis of such a rooted
alienation.

'Without a cause'; yes! that suggests the deep thought that the most
mysterious and irrational thing in men's whole history and experience
is the way in which they recompense God in Christ for what He has
done for them. 'Be astonished, O ye heavens! and wonder, O ye earth!'
said one of the old prophets; the mystery of mysteries, which can
give no account of itself to satisfy reason, which has no apology,