1. _Because it is essential to the Divine honour._ God is not
regardless of His glory, He might have remained alone; but He chose
to call into existence creatures able to contemplate His glory.
Before them He has set His works. He wishes to live in their thoughts
and affections, not merely as a distant object of awful
contemplation, but as one enshrined in their heart's love. He desires
to be so real to them as that they shall connect Him with all the
events of history and all the experience of life. But this cannot be,
if He is unknown or regarded as one of many. The honour of the
sovereign cannot be divided; neither can the honour of God. It is
something by itself. He is jealous of it. So are His people. They are
anxious that He receive His proper honour from all the world.
2. _Because it is necessary to religious worship._ Some religious
worship enters into the life of mankind everywhere. But it cannot be
indifferent whether it shall be offered to the only Being capable of
receiving it, or to nothing. The notion entertained of the object of
worship regulates the nature of worship. Contrast heathen with
Christian worship. An unknown God cannot be satisfactorily
worshipped. The God of Christianity can be the object of a worship
that is real so far as the worshipper is concerned, and acceptable to
Him to whom it is presented.
3. _Because it affects the experience of life._ A man's thoughts
respecting God must affect his life at every point. He must not
believe in any. He may believe in many. He may believe in one. He
will be influenced in relation to the duties, the trials, and the
difficulties of life. Is not the ideal of possible excellence for
humanity higher under the influence of the Christian than under any
other form of belief or unbelief respecting God? In the inevitable
sorrows of life, is it not a very different thing to be ignorant of
God from what it is to know Him as one who sympathises with the
sufferer, and whose hand will remove the suffering when it has
accomplished its appointed work? The knowledge of God is the most
practical of all knowledge. It moulds our life, character,
experience, conduct, at every point.
4. _Because it secures the salvation of the soul_ (John xvii. 3).
There must be an experimental acquaintance with Him. It is realised
in the friendship with Him that comes through faith in Christ. It is
an abiding spiritual life, gradually unfolding into eternal life.