The Lord Himself is God

Why should a man worship God?  Because God — He Himself, and He alone — is God.

Consider Spurgeon’s contemplation of Psalm 100:3 on this topic:

As Matthew Henry has very properly said, ignorance is not the mother of devotion, though it be the mother of superstition. True knowledge is the mother and the nurse of piety. Really to know the deity of God, to get some idea of what is meant by saying that he is God, is to have the very strongest argument forced upon one’s soul for obedience and worship: The Godhead gave authority to the first law that was ever promulgated when God forbade man to touch the fruit of a certain tree. Why might not Adam pluck the fruit? Simply and only because God forbade it. Had God permitted, it had been lawful, God’s prohibition made it sin to eat thereof. God gave no reason for saying to Adam, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” His commandment, seeing he was God, was the supremest reason, and to have questioned his right, to make the law would have been in itself flat rebellion. God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. It was a case in which to have introduced an argument would have supposed unwillingness on man’s part to obey. Adam could not want more than to know that such and such was the will of his God. This same truth of Godhead is the authoritative basis of the moral law of ten commands. From Sinai no claim for obedience was set up but this, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” In that word, “GOD,” is comprehended the highest, the most weighty, the most righteous reasons for man’s yielding up his entire nature to the divine service. Because the Lord is God therefore should we serve him with gladness, and come before his presence with singing.…

It was upon this point that God tested Pharaoh, and Pharaoh may be regarded as a sort of representative of all the enemies of the Lord. “Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go.” There was no reason given, no argument, but simply this, “Thus saith the Lord;” to which Pharaoh, fully appreciating the ground upon which God was acting, answered, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” So they stood foot to foot in fair battle, Jehovah saying, “Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go,” and Pharaoh replying, “I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go.” You know how that battle ended. That song of Israel at the Red Sea when the Lord of Hosts triumphed gloriously, was a prophecy of the victory which will surely come unto God in all conflicts with his creatures, in which his eternal power and Godhead are assailed.

The argument derived from the Godhead has not only been used with haughty rebels, but also with questioners and debaters. Observe how Paul speaks. He has entered upon the thorny subject of predestination, a matter which none of us will ever comprehend, a matter wherein it is better for us to believe than to reason, and he is met with this, “If all things happen as God decrees why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will?” to which the apostle gives no reply but this, “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” Against God there can be no answer. If he wills it, so let it be. It is right, it is good because he so decrees. Is he God? Submit. If there were no other argument, or reason, let Godhead convince you.

Good men have been argued with in the same way for their profit. That is the core and pith of the Book of Job. There is Job in conflict with his three friends, who are arguing that he must be a wicked man or else God would not so sorely smite him; to which reasoning he replies that he will hold fast his integrity, and will not let it go. Then comes Elihu, and he has much to say that is wise, but he cannot settle the matter. At last comes God into the controversy, and what is the Lord’s argument? Does he proceed to justify himself in what he has done with Job, to give Job reasons for covering him with boils and blains, and excuse himself for having taken a perfect and upright man and laid him prostrate on a dunghill? No, but instead thereof he unveils a portion of his Godhead, and reveals his power in some such language as this: “Where wast thou when the foundations of the earth were laid? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laith the corner stone thereof? Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? Hast thou an arm like God? Or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? “Thus the Lord displayed the greatness of his power, while Job sat cowering down, and cried out, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and recent in dust and ashes.” Ah, men and women, if ye did but know what God is, and who he is, if but some flashes of his divine omnipotence, or any other of his glorious attributes, were let loose upon you, you would perceive that he has the fullest claims upon your allegiance, and that you ought to live for his glory.