So we turn tonight to Matthew, chapter 6.
Chapter 6, we'll begin reading with, "...that ye
do not your alms before men, to be
seen of them.
Otherwise ye have no reward of your Father
which is in heaven.
Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound the trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their
reward.
But, at times, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth, that thine
alms may be in secret, and thy Father
which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee
openly.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be
as the hypocrites are, for they love to
pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corner of the streets, that they may be
seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their
reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet.
When thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret, and thy
Father which is in secret shall reward thee
openly.
When ye pray, use not vain repetitions as
the heathen do, for they think that they
shall be heard for their speaking.
Be not ye therefore alike unto them, for
your Father knoweth what things ye have need
of before ye ask him.
After this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it
is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and
forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the
hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure
their faces that they may appear unto men
to fast.
Verily I say unto you, they have their
reward.
But thou wilt thou fastest anoint thy head
and wash thy face, that thou appear not
unto men to fast, but unto thy Father
which is in secret, and thy Father which
is in secret shall reward thee openly.
1.
In verse 1 of this chapter you have
a general exhortation from the Lord Jesus to
his disciples, and actually there is a change
of one word that will be helpful to
us here.
I don't know if the margin of your
Bible shows this, but in verse 1 the
word alms should be righteousness.
In other words, what the Lord Jesus is
saying in verse 1 is that no matter
what form of righteousness we practice, we should
do it privately and in secret.
Then he goes on to give three types
in the sections that follow.
Verse 1 is general.
He says, When you do your righteousnesses, do
them in secret.
Then the first he takes up alms, then
the second prayer, and the third fasting.
He gives three particular types.
So we'll read verse 1, He that ye
do not show righteousness before men to be
seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father which is in heaven.
It's wonderful how the word of God pierces
through and exposes the human heart.
A lot of times there's a tendency to
do things to be seen of men, and
if men didn't see you do it, there'd
be no fun in it at all.
Well, in approaching God in service and in
worship, God doesn't want that attitude to control
our lives.
He doesn't want that to be the motive
of our lives.
We have a God who's invisible, but who
sees in secret, and he will reward openly.
Now, the first exhortation is that when we
do our alms, we should do them in
secret.
And alms, of course, have to do with
deeds of kindness, deeds of charity.
And the rather ridiculous picture is given in
this portion of Scripture that the hypocrite liked
to go down into the marketplace and blow
a trumpet and attract all kinds of attention
before they gave their gift to the Red
Feather Fund, or some other notable work of
charity.
And of course you can see the humor
in such a situation, and yet it's real
and true to life.
It isn't the Christian way, but it is
the way of the world.
And you know, it's too bad that it
has even crept into Christendom today.
For instance, you have great organizations that promise
to publish the lists of donors if they
give above a certain amount.
Well, that's the very type of thing that
is spoken of here.
I remember not so long ago being in
a neighborhood, and a certain church went around
collecting money from the people in the neighborhood,
and they promised them that if they gave
a certain amount, their names would be inscribed
in the marble floor in front of the
altar.
Well, that's the very type of thing that's
spoken of in this portion of Scripture.
And sad to say, in Christendom today there
is a lot of giving that never would
take place unless it was publicized.
And of course, this is directly contrary to
the spirit of the Lord Christ.
He says, when you do your arm, don't
let your right hand know what your left
hand is doing.
Isn't that a lovely way of putting it?
Don't let your right hand know.
In other words, of course, it's a figurative
expression, and you mustn't press it too far.
But the idea is to do it so
secretly, over on this side, that the hand
over on this side doesn't really know what's
going on.
Of course, it does know, because they're both
connected to one central nervous system to the
brain.
But never mind.
We know what this means in practice, and
thank God we know Christians who are practicing
this too.
And I thank God for Christians with whom
I am associated, with whom I have fellowship,
and who live this type of a life.
They don't let their right hand know what
their left hand is doing.
And I think in that connection it would
be fitting for me just to pause here
and express our thanks to the Saints here
in Durham and the Gospel Center for their
loving interest in the work of the Lord
at Emmaus, and also to those associated with
the LNM Bible class, and to many others
who stand by faithfully in prayers and in
sacrificial giving.
It might surprise you tonight to know that
rich people don't support the work of the
Lord.
I don't know whether you realize that or
not, but the work of the Lord is
carried on by people with very moderate means.
I have some reason to know that, because
I've been there at the work of the
school for over 14 years now, and have
watched the gifts coming in from all over
the country.
And it bows my heart in gratitude to
God when I think that the work has
been supported, oftentimes in crucial moments, by people
like widows who have given not out of
their abundance, but out of their deep poverty.
And we've learned the lesson that little is
much if God is in it.
I often think of what dear Hudson Taylor
once said in connection with the work of
the Lord.
He said, What we greatly have to fear
is not too little money, but too much
unsanctified money.
Well, that isn't exactly the emphasis in Christendom
today with all its begging.
You think the only problem in Christianity today
was a shortage of money.
Well, that isn't the case at all.
Hudson Taylor was right.
What we have greatly to fear is not
too little money, but too much unsanctified money.
Well, the Lord Jesus here teaches us that
when we do make our alms, we should
do so in secret.
He says, That thy alms may be in
secret, and thy father which seeth in secret
himself shall reward thee openly.
If a person just gives to be seen,
then he already has his reward.
He won't get any reward in heaven.
In other words, the purpose that he had
in giving was to be seen of men.
Well, when he is seen of men, he's
achieved his purpose.
And you know, it is too bad that
a lot of giving today is done with
an idea of giving a person prestige in
the community or even business connections, something like
that.
Well, it's all hostile to the spirit and
intent of the word of God.
And then in the next verse, as you
have a section on prayer, and the Lord
Jesus says the same thing, he says, Don't
be as a hypocrite when you pray.
They love to pray standing in the synagogues
and in the corners of the streets that
they may be seen of them.
Now, I've seen this plenty of times.
I've gone by certain buildings and I've seen
a man out in a black robe with
a little black book in his hand, and
he's praying up and down in public sites
and gives the impression of being a very
holy man.
And of course, you can go to other
sections of the world, and this is very,
very common.
The very thing that's described here.
In our culture, it almost seems strange that
anybody would do this, but men do it,
and they do it not too far away.
Well, the word of God says they have
their reward.
They pray to be seen by others, and
they are seen by others, and that's it.
Now, dear friends, this doesn't have anything to
do with public prayer in the assembly of
God's people.
It doesn't have anything to do with that
at all, because there are very explicit instructions
to us in the word of God that
when we come together, we are.
Men ought always to pray, and men are
to take the lead in prayer, of course,
in the assembly of God's people.
I know a lot of Christians that have
trouble in their mind with this question of
praying in public.
They say, well, I don't like to get
up and pray in public because I'm afraid
I'm just praying to be seen.
Well, of course, we shouldn't pray to be
seen, and yet I think that we should
remember this, that as I said one night
before, that in a sense everything we do
is stained with sin, and we have a
great high priest above, and he has on
his forehead a mitre with the words holiness
unto the Lord on it, and the mitre
on his forehead is for the iniquity of
holy things.
This is a comfort to me.
I confess to you that sometimes I stand
up to pray, and perhaps my motive is
not 100% pure, but I do it,
and I realize that the Lord is there,
and all the iniquity in my holy things
is removed before it ever gets to God
the Father.
So I try not to let my own
shortcomings hinder me in my desire to obey
the word of God.
This section doesn't have to do with that.
This section has to do with men out
in the marketplaces and in public places, just
parading up and down, praying to be seen
of men.
It says, when you pray, enter into your
closet.
Of course, a closet in Bible times wasn't
like where you hang your coat, but it's
a room.
It was an upper room in the home,
and it was a place of privacy where
a man could go and carry on his
devotion with God, and the promise is that
God who is invisible, who sees in secret,
will reward you openly.
And then the word of God tells us
that we're not to use vain repetitions in
our prayer life.
Now, vain repetitions mean, well, say, five hour
fathers, or something like that, just for the
idea that going through a certain ritualistic prayer
that God hears you for your much asking.
Well, of course, that's ridiculous.
In certain sections of the world, they have
prayer wheels, and they spin these prayer wheels,
and the idea is that the more the
prayer wheel goes around, the more God hears
it.
Well, how vain and how full of folly
such an idea is.
Use not vain repetitions, it says, of the
heathen do, and that means the Gentiles.
Gentile religions have been characterized by that sort
of thing.
They think that they'll be heard for their
much hearing.
It says, don't be like them.
What God wants us to do is come
to him in simple faith, and just speak
to him as a child would speak to
his father.
That's the best prayer.
That's the best prayer, just coming to God
as to a loving, heavenly father, and telling
him what is on our heart, making our
needs and requests known to him.
And then the Lord Jesus gave us this
model prayer in verses 9 through 15, commonly
known as the Lord's Prayer.
Now, remember, as we go over this, that
he has just finished saying, don't use vain
repetitions, and I personally don't believe that the
Lord intended us just to take this prayer
verbatim and use it over and over again.
I don't believe he intended us to do
that.
I don't think it's wrong if you want
to do it, but I don't think that
was the idea that the Lord had in
mind.
I believe this is the model, or the
pattern, that our prayers should follow.
What is the pattern?
Well, it begins, Our Father which art in
heaven.
What does that mean?
Well, it means our prayers should be addressed
to God the Father in heaven.
And you know, that's really what prayer is.
When I bow on my knees in prayer,
by faith, I'm not on the earth any
longer.
By faith, I enter into the heavenly sanctuary,
and I'm in the presence of God, the
sovereign of the universe.
That's what prayer is.
And I want to tell you, that's no
mean privilege.
You know, I couldn't go down and see
J.F. Kennedy tonight.
I couldn't get into the world's dignitaries.
The guards outside would give me a hard
time.
But it is a wonderful thing to know
that at any time of the day or
night, I can bow before God, and I
can come into his presence in the worthy
name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's prayer.
Our Father which art in heaven.
Well, what's the next thing I learned about
prayer?
Well, I learned that instead of beginning with
my own request and what I need, I
should begin by ascribing honor, worship, and praise
to him.
Hallowed be thy name.
And this is exactly right.
This would be the Christian approach.
Before thinking about myself and what I need,
I should think of all that God has
done for me, and so I should begin
my prayers with thanksgiving to him, shouldn't I?
And praise him for his glorious name and
for the gift of his love, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Hallowed be thy name.
You know, the name in the Bible is
always taken for the person, and when you
say, Hallowed be thy name, you mean, Hallowed
be God, praised be God, worshiped be God.
That's really what it means.
Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, it means after worshiping and praising God,
I think of God's interests here on earth,
and I put his interests first, because I'm
taught that later on in this same chapter,
seeking first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness.
Now, thy kingdom come, that really means, Lord,
I pray for the time when the Lord
Jesus Christ will come back and set up
his reign here on earth, and when the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall
cover the earth as the waters cover the
sea.
That's what it means.
You know, this poor old world is in
a mess tonight, and Christ isn't where he
ought to be.
The Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven tonight,
but he shouldn't be in heaven tonight.
He should be on earth, reigning where he
should be.
The Spirit of God is on earth today.
He shouldn't be on earth today.
He should be in heaven with God the
Father.
The presence of the Spirit of God in
the world tonight is witness to a rejected
Christ.
So, I pray thy kingdom come.
I look forward to that glorious day when
the Savior himself shall come and set up
his worldwide rule, when he shall rule for
a thousand years over this earth.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven.
You see, this is what the child of
God longs for.
Today we live where the King has been
rejected and where man's will is predominant and
where the will of God means nothing among
the people of this world.
So we pray, Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven.
After that, we introduce our own needs.
I take it that this expression, Give us
this day our daily bread, is just a
short summary that at this point in our
prayers we are permitted to come to God
and make known our needs.
This expresses our dependence upon him for the
very food that we eat.
Give us this day our daily bread.
It's not only physical food, but we should
pray every day for spiritual food, too.
Give us this day our daily bread.
I don't think the Lord just intended this
to mean the food we eat with our
bodies, but also the spiritual food, the word
of God, and that he should give us
a suited portion each day for our soul.
Then it says, And forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
Oh, you say, that doesn't sound like Christianity,
does it?
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
It really does.
It's very Christian.
It's very Christian, because in the verses that
follow, we learn that if we don't forgive
our debtors, how can we expect God to
forgive us?
Oh, people say to me, but Mr. MacDonald,
you forget that forgiveness of sins is through
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's true.
When you come to God in the first
place for forgiveness of sins, it has nothing
to do with your forgiving others.
Nothing to do.
But you see, what we must remember in
this prayer is that there are different types
of forgiveness in the Bible.
When you come to God as a guilty,
lost sinner, confess your sins and receive Jesus
Christ as Savior, you receive what we call
judicial forgiveness.
Judicial forgiveness.
Your sins are gone, buried in the deep,
deep sea.
God will bring them into remembrance no more.
But there's another type of forgiveness, and we
call that parental forgiveness.
Now, you know that in your home when
your boy is naughty, you don't sentence him
to the electric chair.
That's the judicial act.
But you have in your home what you
call parental forgiveness, don't you?
Well, after you become a child of God
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you
don't need judicial forgiveness anymore.
When you sin, God doesn't sentence you to
die in hell after you're saved, but you
need parental forgiveness after you've sinned.
And God is saying here that if you
don't forgive men their debts, how can you
expect parental forgiveness from him?
In other words, you're not acting like God
has acted toward you.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
And then it says, It will lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
That's a hard one, isn't it?
Would God ever lead anybody into temptation?
That's hard, isn't it?
Well, you know, although it's hard, and although
that's difficult to understand, yet I pray that
prayer, and I think I know what it
means when I pray it.
I think that what we're praying here is
that God deliver us from being put to
the test.
You know, he allowed Job to be put
to the test in the Old Testament, told
Satan he could do anything but take his
life, and poor Job went pretty low.
Well, I'm afraid I wouldn't have the strength
and fortitude that Job has, and I say
to the Lord, lead us not into temptation.
Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me
from evil.
I think this prayer suggests a sense of
my own weakness and my own worthlessness, and
that if left to myself for an instant,
I can do nothing but fall.
And I think it's a prayer for God's
sustaining grace through all the trials and difficulties
and temptations of life, and life is filled
with them.
And so once again, I say that although
I might not be able to explain all
the theological meanings of a verse like that,
yet I can pray that I'm satisfied in
my own soul that I know what it
means and that God knows what it means
to lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
And your prayer closes again with praise to
God and acknowledgement of his supremacy and his
sovereignty over all the earth.
And then the Lord Jesus goes back to
verse 12, and he knew that that one
was going to cause us a little difficulty,
and he says, For if ye forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you.
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
And once again, we just want to say
that that has to do with parental forgiveness
and not judicial forgiveness.
Judicial forgiveness is completely on the basis of
the shed blood of Christ.
Parental forgiveness has to do with our fellowship
with God the Father, maintaining fellowship with him,
and his dependence to a certain extent on
how we treat others.
And then he comes thirdly to the subject
of fasting, the third kind of righteousness found
in the Word of God in this chapter
has to do with fasting.
Now, does fasting have anything to do with
the present dispensation?
Well, of course, the Word of God teaches
that it does.
It isn't very popular, but fasting means to
abstain from food or drink for a period
of time in order to give oneself more
undistractedly to prayer or to meditation on the
Word of God.
I think that you all realize that we
can think and we can concentrate better.
We're more sharp and keen and alert on
an empty stomach than we would be on
a full one.
And so God has allowed in his word
for this matter of fasting.
But you know, once again, if you fast
and people don't know about it, it kind
of robs it of some of this joy.
And that's just what the Lord is saying
here.
When you fast, don't let anybody know about
it.
It must be done in private.
It must be done in secret.
You know, in the Lord's day when they
fasted, the hypocrites would get some ashes and
they'd cover their face with ashes, and then
they'd turn on the tears and they'd start
to wail, and the tears would start flowing
down through the ashes.
And you can remember, you can just imagine
what they looked like by the time they
got through.
Somebody would come along and say, Boy, that
man's really been fasting, hasn't he?
But that's just what he wanted them to
say.
And so that's what the Lord says here.
That's just what the Lord says here.
He said, Moreover, when ye fast, be not
as the hypocrites of a sad countenance.
And were they ever sad?
For they disfigure their faces that they may
appear unto men to bat.
I say, Do they have their reward?
What does that mean?
Well, it means that they wanted men to
see them and to acknowledge and to say
that passing word, and the men did it.
And so they have their reward.
There's nothing in it as far as God
is concerned.
He says, When you fast, anoint your head
and wash your face.
Well, anoint your head and wash your face
really means just carry on as normal, because
those were two of the everyday methods of
keeping oneself at that time.
And it means just don't do anything out
of the ordinary, just wash your face and
carry on as you ordinarily would.
That thou appear not unto men to fast,
but unto thy father, which is in secret.
Thy father, which he is in secret, shall
reward thee openly.
And so these three illustrations of righteousness to
be practiced in secret, bring before us the
inward character of true Christianity.
It's not doing things to be seen of
men.
And you know, it'll be a wonderful thing,
I think, to stand before the judgment seat
of Christ and to, in that day, to
see revealed at the throne, all that was
done so quietly and so secretly unto him.
And I want to tell you, there's a
lot, there's a lot been done by saints
right here, and nobody else knows about it,
but it's been done and God knows about
it, and it's going to be rewarded openly.
And that's true Christianity, according to the sermon
on that.
And then the Lord Jesus comes to the
whole subject of, of caring for tomorrow.
And the whole subject of material things.
And what he says here is not very
popular.
And what he says here, I'm sorry to
say, is not accepted in most of Christendom
today.
And very, very serious, I think.
Very, very serious.
The Lord Jesus says in this next verse,
lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves break through and steal.
You know, to lay up treasures on earth
is just as, is just as contrary to
the word of God as theft or adultery
or murder.
It is just as contrary to the word.
I didn't say it was just as serious,
but it's just as contrary to the word
as theft or adultery or murder.
To lay up treasures on earth.
Now, a clever theologian can give you 60
reasons why the Lord didn't mean what he
said here.
But I want to tell you, if you
want to be a Christian that goes on
for the Lord, you take the word of
God the way Jesus said it.
Because mark my words, the Lord Jesus knew
what he was talking about.
And when men get through with verses of
scripture today, they've extracted all the milk out
of them.
There's nothing left.
And I'd like to suggest to you, my
dear friends tonight, and this comes from the
bottom of my heart.
If you come to a verse of scripture
that the Lord Jesus said, and it seems
difficult or impossible to obey as it's written.
Well, that's probably the right explanation probably is.
And when men can take that verse and
make it to mean something that an ungodly
person could do just as well, that isn't
the right interpretation of the verse.
Brilliant.
The Lord Jesus said, lay not up for
yourselves, treasures on earth.
For moth rusts of corruption, where thieves break
through and steal.
Now to the Jewish mind, there were various
kinds of treasures.
And strangely enough, one of the first kinds
of treasures, when a Jew thought of treasures,
he thought of expensive clothing, Hart, Shatner and
Mark and so forth.
And that's where the moth comes in, you
know, that's where the moth comes in.
And then of course, money, that's where the
rust comes in.
And then thieves break through and steal.
Well, that's any kind of treasure at all.
The Lord says, lay up your treasures in
heaven, where neither rust nor moth does corrupt,
and where thieves do not break through nor
steal.
So where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.
You know, the difficult thing about riches is,
it's almost impossible to have them without trusting
in them.
That's the thing.
And what the word of God teaches, and
I just like to throw this out for
your consideration and your prayerful contemplation.
I believe this with all my heart that
what the Bible teaches, and it teaches for
every Christian, not just for those who are
in full-time work.
It teaches that we should work hard and
industriously for the supply of our current needs
and the needs of our family, and leave
the future to God.
Now, I don't blame you if that makes
you uncomfortable.
It makes me uncomfortable, too, and my flesh
doesn't like it.
But I believe that's what the Bible teaches.
In other words, our lives as Christians should
be a perpetual crisis of dependence upon the
living God.
It should be.
You say, oh, I don't like that.
Well, I sympathize with you.
I don't like it, either.
That is, naturally speaking, I don't like it.
And yet I know that God can't fail.
He can't go back on his promise.
Why do I hesitate to trust him?
Now, it's enough to drive an unsaved man
mad to have no visible means of support.
But I'd like to ask you this question
tonight.
Wherein do our lives differ from the lives
of the unsaved people when we lay up
treasures on earth?
This is a problem, and this is what
the Lord has had dealings with me about.
I thought I was living the life of
faith, and I look around and I see
that I'm just living the same kind of
a life as far as financial things as
the unsaved man, by a system of clever
reserves and so forth.
Well, this is very searching, dear friend.
I'd like to suggest again, just for your
consideration, that what the Bible teaches is that
we should work hard and industriously and zealously
for the supply of our current necessities, and
everything above that should go into the work
of the Lord.
Everything above it.
I'll probably never get invited back to Durham.
I was telling Brother Jetwater that last summer
I was out in California, and one night
we were sitting at a table, Stacey Woods
and myself, and there was a young couple
there.
And this young couple, they were working very
hard.
In fact, I think each of them was
holding down two jobs, and they were really
raking in the money.
And Stacey Woods, in his own incisive way,
said to them, and I thought it was
really quite a bombshell, he said, Did you
ever get down before the Lord and decide
on some standard of living that you would
be satisfied with, and then decide that everything
above that should go into the work of
the Lord, and that if you got a
pay increase that your standard of living wouldn't
go up accordingly, but that it would just
go into the work of the Lord?
That was quite a question.
It was really an atomic bomb.
You know, God has used that, and there's
been a change in that young couple's life.
I've been rather close to them, and it's
wonderful how a little question like that could
influence the whole direction of people's lives.
Now, notice, we must go on.
The only thing I don't like about Durham
is the way time flies.
It says in verse 22, The light of
the body is the eye.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light.
Well, if you just read that verse and
look at it, it almost seems grotesque, a
body with one eye.
But that is what it means.
It says the lamp of the body, that
word light is lamp, the lamp of the
body is the eye.
What does it mean?
Well, it means that all the light your
body gets, it gets through the eye.
It's true, too, isn't it?
Close your eyes, no light.
It says the lamp of the body is
the eye.
If your eye be single.
Now, single there has a slightly different meaning
than we have for it today.
It really means they're healthy.
If your eye is in good condition.
If your eye be single, your whole body
is full of light.
But if your eye be evil, that is,
if it's diseased or damaged, your body is
full of darkness.
Now, he says there's a spiritual meaning to
this.
There's a spiritual meaning to this.
If your eye is single, that means if
your motives are pure before God, you're not
trying to feather your own nest, but you're
trying to live for the glory of God
and live sacrificially and devotedly and passionately for
him, your whole body will be full of
light.
What does that mean?
It means, dear friends, your life will be
flooded with divine illumination.
That's what it means.
It means you'll never lack the guidance of
the Lord.
That's what it means.
The body is taken as a symbol for
your life.
And if you, if so, the eye of
your soul is healthy before God, and you're
not trying to live for two worlds at
the same time, if you're living for the
glory of God and willing to get by
on essentials down here, God says your whole
life will be flooded with light, with illumination,
with guidance to walk the Christian life.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness.
That is, if your motives are not pure.
If you say, yeah, well, I want to
serve the Lord, but I want to set
aside twenty-five thousand for my old age,
too.
And your motives are mixed, you know.
Says your body will be full of darkness.
You'll wonder, why have I lost the glow?
Why am I not getting guidance from the
Lord?
I don't seem to be enjoying the spiritual
warmth I did before.
Well, God says, watch out, maybe your eye
is diseased.
Maybe your eye has become damaged.
And then I think this next expression is
most stretching.
It says, if therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is the
darkness?
What does that mean?
Well, I think it means that here's a
Christian, and God has given him a certain
amount of light on this subject, but he
doesn't avail himself of it.
Well, the darkness and the light of a
man like that is worse than the darkness
and the light of a man who's never
known about these things.
That's what it means.
This is a strange principle in God's dealings
with men, that when we reject light, we're
given darkness.
And the worst kind of a darkness, here
it would mean a Christian who starts off
brightly for the Lord.
He really is going to go out and
give the Lord his very best, and then
in creeps the love of filthy lucre.
And he hides his light under a bushel,
and the old zeal and fire aren't there
anymore.
The love of material things has come in.
I believe it means that the darkness and
a light like that is worse than the
darkness in his life before he was saved.
It doesn't mean that he's lost his salvation,
but boy, he can sure get out of
tomb and out of touch under those circumstances.
And so the Lord says, no man can
serve two masters.
He will either hate the one and love
the other, else he will hold to the
one and despise the other.
Can't serve God and mammon.
And this is the great tragedy today.
People try to hold on to both worlds.
In fact, there are Christian organizations that will
tell you today that if you buy their
annuities, let's say, you'll get reward down here,
you'll get reward up there, and it's contrary
to the word of God.
It's just contrary to the word of God.
You can't serve God and mammon.
You either love the one and hate the
other, or cleave to the one and despise
the other.
And so the Lord Jesus says in verse
25, therefore, I say unto you, take no
thought.
Now what that really means is be not
anxious, be not anxious for your life, what
you shall eat and what you shall drink,
nor yet for your body, what you shall
put on is not the life more than
meat and the body than raven.
Well, this is what we were talking about
Sunday morning.
God made us for a higher purpose than
to be perpetually worried about food and clothing,
more to life than that.
And he says, don't spend your life in
anxious thoughts for this type of thing.
When he says, look at the fowls, the
birds of the air, they don't sow, neither
do they reap, nor gather into barns, and
your heavenly father feeds them.
Aren't you much better than they?
Well, that's an interesting thought.
The sparrows don't worry about what they're going
to eat next winter.
You ever think of that?
They don't worry about that.
They go out and work like little beavers
for what they're going to eat today, but
they don't worry about next winter.
They trust God for that.
That's the thought of the passage.
God is going to be their provider as
far as that's concerned.
He says, well, if that's true of sparrows,
how much more true is it of you?
And the idea is that it would be
utterly impossible for a man to give himself
completely and utterly and wholeheartedly to the Lord
and ever lack bread.
And then he says, in which of you,
by thinking, can add one cubit unto his
stature?
That's an interesting verse.
You ever try it?
You start thinking real hard, you see yourself
going up 18 inches, because that's what a
cubit is.
Well, it's ridiculous, isn't it?
A cubit was a distance from the middle
finger down to the elbow, about 18 inches.
And then it came to me not only
your height, but the length of your life,
too.
And the Bible says, can you, by worrying,
add some height?
Well, I think if you could, some sisters
would do a lot more worrying, but it
doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
And you can't, by worrying, add years to
your life.
It takes a few off, but it won't
add any on.
But that's what he says here.
And why take your thought for rain?
Look at those wildflowers out there on the
hills.
He says, consider the lilies of the field.
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like unto one of them.
They don't worry about their clothing, do they?
They toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say to you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of
the field which today is, and tomorrow is
cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
You know, that's a tremendous verse.
It shows the passing character of beauty in
the world.
You know, there are people that live in
the world for beauty.
And God says, well, there's a beautiful flower.
Today it is, and tomorrow it's cast in
the fire.
Beauty of the soul is far more important
than any such external beauty.
He says, therefore, take no thought saying, what
shall we eat or what should we drink,
or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things are the Gentiles.
That is the ungodly.
This is what they live for.
Your heavenly Father knows that you have need
of these things, but seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things shall be added unto you.
I don't want to come to the end
of the journey and find that I've lived
my life worrying about things that were included
in the price of the ticket.
But that's what this passage of scripture teaches.
This passage of scripture teaches that if I
seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, it doesn't mean that I'm going to
be lazy.
Far from it.
If you seek the kingdom of God first
and his righteousness, you're going to be diligent
in the King's business, and the whole tenor
of your life will be the glory of
God.
But it does teach that if you do
that, you'll never lack for food and clothing.
All these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for
the morrow shall take thought for the things
of itself.
The fish and the day as the evil
erupts.
It's saying, why worry about tomorrow?
Tomorrow will have its troubles.
Tomorrow will have its trials.
Tomorrow will have its cares, but don't worry.
Tomorrow will have its grace too.
As thy day, so shall thy strength be.
Why am I going to worry about the
future and what the future holds?
You could really work yourself into the lather,
couldn't you?
I could say, well, yeah, you're able to
travel around now and have meetings and you're
supportive, but supposing you get older and you're
dead fast, who's going to take care of
you then?
Well, really, I could just be a nervous
wreck if I were to worry about those
things.
God says, you don't have to worry about
these things.
You serve me diligently today.
You give me all that you have today,
and it's all included in the price of
the ticket.
And so I would suggest to you that
the whole argument here in the latter part
of this chapter is that anxious thought about
the future is unnecessary.
God is going to take care of it.
It's not only unnecessary, it's foolish and it
doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
So may the Lord help us to learn
this lesson.
It's a difficult lesson.
It's contrary to all that we are as
men and women in the flesh, and it's
a side of the truth that certainly hasn't
been emphasized in Christianity.
And yet here it is in the word
of God.
Please don't be angry with me.
I didn't say it.
Jesus said it.
He said, lay not up for yourselves treasures
on earth.
Shall we pray?
And then our brother Jones will lead us
in a closing hymn.
Father, we confess to thee that we do
worry and we do take anxious thought and
we think about the future, and we wonder
what's going to happen to us and all
the rest.
Deliver us from it.
And Lord, we pray thee that thou deliver
us too from making a comfortable nest for
ourselves in this scene which gave our Savior
nothing but a cross and a grave.
Help us to be always dependent upon thyself
and to live in this world as pilgrims
and strangers hastening on to our heavenly home.
We do ask that in 1001 ways thou
will make these truths real and vital and
living in our hearts and lives.
And then again, we pray that should there
be some here who are not saved, that
they will realize that these things we've been
discussing are not the way of salvation.
You're not saved by living a life like
this, but that this is the life that
is called for all of those who are
saved.
We pray that they might understand that this
is the fruit and not the root, that
these are the results and not the causes.
We pray that any such might come simply
in faith to the Lord Jesus and crown
him Lord of all and receive his sufficiency
for such a supernatural life.
We ask you to the Savior's name.
Amen.