Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

There are three subjects brought before us in this part of our Lord's sermon on the mount. These three are fasting, worldliness, and singleness of purpose in religion. Fasting, or occasional abstinence from food in order to bring the body into subjection to the spirit, is a practice frequently mentioned in the Bible, and generally in connection with prayer. David fasted when his child was sick; Daniel fasted when he sought special light from God; Paul and Barnabas fasted when they appointed elders; Esther fasted before going in to Ahasuerus. It is a subject about which we find no direct command in the New Testament. It seems to be left to everyone's discretion, whether he will fast or not. In this absence of direct command we may see great wisdom. Many a poor man never has enough to eat, and it would be an insult to tell him to fast: many sick people can hardly be kept well with the closest attention to diet, and could not fast without bringing on illness. It is a matter in which everyone must be persuaded in their own mind, and not rashly condemn others who do not agree with him. One thing only must never be forgotten: those who fast should do it quietly, secretly and without ostentation. Let them not "appear to men to fast." Let them not fast to man, but to God.

Worldliness is one of the greatest dangers that beset man's soul. It is no wonder that we find our Lord speaking strongly about it: it is an insidious, specious, plausible enemy; it seems so innocent to pay close attention to our business! It seems so harmless to seek our happiness in this world, so long as we keep clear of open sins! Yet here is a rock on which many make shipwrecked to all eternity. They "lay up treasure on earth," and forget to "lay up treasure in heaven." May we all remember this! Where are our hearts? What do we love best? Are our chiefest affections on things in earth, or things in heaven? Life or death depends on the answer we can give to these questions. If our treasure is earthly, our hearts will be earthly also. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be."

Singleness of purpose is one great secret of spiritual prosperity. If our eyes do not see distinctly we cannot walk without stumbling and falling. If we attempt to work for two different masters, we are sure to give satisfaction to neither. It is just the same with respect to our souls. We cannot serve Christ and the world at the same time: it is vain to attempt it. The thing cannot be done: the ark and Dagon will never stand together.God must be king over our hearts: his law, his will, his precepts must receive our first attention; then, and not till then, everything in our inward man will fall into its right place. Unless our hearts are so ordered, everything will be in confusion. "Thy whole body shall be full of darkness." Let us learn from our Lord's instructions about fasting the great importance of cheerfulness in our religion. Those words, "anoint thy head and wash thy face" are full of deep meaning. They should teach us to aim at letting men see that Christianity makes us happy. Never let us forget that there is no religion in looking melancholy and gloomy. Are we dissatisfied with Christ's wages and Christ's service? Surely not! Then let us not look as if we were.

Let us learn from our Lord's caution about worldliness what need we have to watch and pray against an earthly spirit. What are the vast majority of professing Christians round us doing? They are laying up treasure on earth: there can be no mistake about it. Their tastes, their ways, their habits, tell a fearful tale. They are not laying up treasure in heaven. Let us beware that we do not sink into hell by paying excessive attention to lawful things. Open transgression of God's law slays its thousands, but worldliness its tens of thousands.

Let us learn from our Lord's words about the single eye, the true secret of the failures which so many Christians seem to make in their religion? There are failures in all quarters. There are thousands in our churches uncomfortable, ill at ease, and dissatisfied with themselves; and they hardly know why. The reason is revealed here: they are trying to keep in with both sides. They are endeavouring to please God and please man, to serve Christ and serve the world at the same time. Let us not commit this mistake. Let us be decided, thorough-going, uncompromising followers of Christ. Let our motto be that of Paul: "One thing I do" (Philippians 3:13). Then we shall be happy Christians: we shall feel the sun shining on our faces; heart, head, and conscience will all be full of light. Decision is the secret of happiness in religion. Be decided for Christ and "thy whole body shall be full of light."

These verses are a striking example of the combined wisdom and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ's teaching. He knows the heart of a man: he knows that we are always ready to turn off warnings against worldliness by the argument that we cannot help being anxious about the things of this life. "Have we not our families to provide for? Must not our bodily wants be supplied? How can we possibly get through life if we think first of our souls??" The Lord Jesus foresaw such thoughts and furnished an answer.

He forbids us to keep up an anxious spirit about the things of this world. Four times over he says, "Take no thought about life."About life, about food, about clothing, about the morrow, "take no thought." Do not be over-careful, be not over-anxious. Prudent provision for the future is right; wearing, corroding, self-tormenting anxiety is wrong.

He reminds us of the providential care that God continually takes of everything that he has created. Has he given us "life?" Then he will surely not let us want anything necessary for its maintenance. Has he given us a "body?"Then he will surely not let us die for want of clothing. He that calls us into being will doubtless find meat to feed us.

He points out the uselessness of over-anxiety. Our life is certainly in God's hand; all the care in the world will not make us continue a minute beyond the time which God has appointed. We cannot add one hour to our lives; we shall not die till our work is done.

He sends us to the birds of the air for instruction. They make no provision for the future: "they sow not neither do they reap; they lay up no stores against time yet to come; they do not gather into barns.They literally live from day to day on what they can pick up by using the instinct God has put in them. They ought to teach us that no man doing his duty in the station position to which God has called him, shall ever be allowed to come to poverty.

He bids us observe the flowers of the field. Year after year they are decked with the gayest colours, without the slightest labour or exertion on their part: "they toil not neither do they spin." God, by his almighty power, clothes them with beauty every season. The same God is the Father of all believers. Why should they doubt that he is able to provide them with raiment, as well as the "lilies of the field"? He who takes thought for perishable flowers will surely not neglect the bodies in which dwell immortal souls.

He suggests to us that over-carefulness about the things of this world is most unworthy of a Christian. One great feature of heathenism is living for the present. Let the heathen if he will be anxious he knows nothing of a Father in heaven. But let the Christian, who has clearer light and knowledge; give proof of it by his faith and contentment. When bereaved of those whom we love, we are not to "sorrow as others, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). When tried by anxieties about this life, we are not to be over-careful, as if we had no God, and no Christ.

He offers us a gracious promise as a remedy against an anxious spirit. He assures us that if we "seek first" and foremost to have a place in the kingdom of grace and glory, everything that we really want in this world shall be given to us: it shall be added over and above our heavenly inheritance. "All things shall work together for the good to them that love God. "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."(Romans 8:28; Psalm 84:11)

Last of all, he seals up all his instruction on this subject by laying down one of the wisest maxims. "The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." We are not to carry cares before they come: we are to attend to today's business, and leave tomorrow's anxieties till tomorrow dawns. We may die before tomorrow: we know not what may happen on the morrow; this only we may be assured of, that if tomorrow brings a cross, he who sends it can and will send grace to bear it.

In all this passage there is a treasury of golden lessons. Let us seek to use them in our daily life: let us not only read them, but turn them to practical account; let us watch and pray against an anxious and over careful spirit. It deeply concerns our happiness to do so. Half our miseries are caused by fancying things that we think are coming upon us: half the things that we expect to come upon us never come at all. Where is our faith? Where is our confidence in our Saviour's words? We may well take shame to ourselves when we read these verses and then look into our hearts. We may be sure that David's words are true: "I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread" (Psalm 37:25).

The first portion of these verses is one of those passages of Scripture which we must be careful not to strain beyond its proper meaning. It is frequently abused and misapplied by the enemies of true religion. It is possible to press the words of the Bible so far that they yield not medicine, but poison.

When our Lord says, "Judge not?"he does not mean that it is wrong, under any circumstances, to pass an unfavorable judgment on the conduct and opinions of others. We ought to have decided opinions: we are to "?prove all things,?" we are to "?try the spirits?" (1 Thess.5:21? 1 John 4:1). Nor yet does he mean that it is wrong to reprove the sins and faults of others until we are perfect and faultless ourselves. Such an interpretation would contradict other parts of Scripture. It would make it impossible to condemn error and false doctrine; it would debar anyone from attempting the office of a minister or a judge. The earth would be given "?into the hands of the wicked?" (? Job 9:24). Heresy would flourish; wrong-doing would abound.

What our Lord means to condemn is a censorious and fault-finding spirit. A readiness to blame others for trifling offenses or matters of indifference, a habit of passing rash and hasty judgments, a disposition to magnify the errors and infirmities of our neighbors and make the worst of them—this is what our Lord forbids. It was common among the Pharisees. It has always been common from their day down to the present time. We must watch against it. We should "?believe all things?" and "?hope all things?" about others, and be very slow to find fault. This is Christian charity (I Corinthians 13:7.)

The second portion of these verses teaches us the importance of exercising discretion as to the persons with whom we speak on the subject of religion. Everything is beautiful in its place and season. Our zeal is to be tempered by a prudent consideration of times, places and persons. "Reprove not a scorner,?" says Solomon, "?lest he hate thee?" (? Proverbs 9:8). It is not everybody to whom it is wise to open our minds on spiritual matters. There are many who, from violent tempers or openly profligate habits, are utterly incapable of valuing the things of the Gospel. They will even fly into a passion and run into greater excesses of sin if we try to do good to their souls. To name the name of Christ to such people is truly to "cas?t pearls before swine.?" It does them not good, but harm: it rouses all their corruption and makes them angry. In short, they are like the Jews at Corinth (? 18:6), or like Nabal, of whom it is written that he was "?such a son of Belial that a man could not speak unto him?" (? 1 Samuel 25:17).

The lesson before us is one which is peculiarly difficult to use in the proper way. The right application of it needs great wisdom. We are most of us far more likely to err on the side of over-caution than of over-zeal: we are generally far more disposed to remember the "?time to be silent?" than the "?time to speak?" (? Ecclesiastes 3:7). It is lesson, however, which ought to stir up a spirit of self-inquiry in all our hearts. Do we ourselves never check our friends from giving us good advice, by our moroseness and irritability of temper? Have we never obliged others to hold their peace and say nothing, by our pride and impatient contempt of counsel? Have we never turned against our kind advisers, and silenced them by our violence and passion? We may well fear that we have often erred in this matter.

The last portion of these verses teaches us the duty of prayer, and the rich encouragements there are to pray. There is a beautiful connection between this lesson and that which goes before it. Would we know when to be silent, and when to speak, when to bring forward holy things and produce our "?pearls,?" we must pray. This is a subject to which the Lord Jesus evidently attaches great importance: the language that he uses is a plain proof of this. He employs three different words to express the idea of prayer: "?ask,?" "?seek?" and "?knock.?"He holds out the broadest, fullest promise to those who pray: "?Everyone that asketh receiveth.?"He illustrates God's readiness to hear our prayers by an argument drawn from the well-known practice of parents on earth. "?Evil?" and selfish as they are by nature, they do not neglect the wants of their children according to the flesh; much more will a God of love and mercy attend to the cries of those who are his children by grace!

Let us take special notice of these words of our Lord about prayer. Few of his sayings, perhaps, are so well known and so often repeated as this. The poorest and most unlearned can generally tell us that "?if we do not seek we shall not find.?" But what is the good of knowing it, if we do not use it? Knowledge not improved and well employed will only increase our condemnation on the last day.

Do we know anything of this asking, seeking and knocking? Why should we not? This is nothing so simple and plain as praying if a man really has a will to pray. There is nothing unhappily which men so slow to do: they will use many of the forms of religion, attend many ordinances, do many things that are right, before they we will do this; and yet without this no soul can be saved!

Do we ever really pray? If not, we shall at last be without excuse before God except we repent. We shall not be condemned for not doing what we could not have done, or not knowing what we could not have known; but we shall find that one main reason why we are lost is this that we never asked that we might be saved.

Do we indeed pray? Then let us pray on, and not faint. It is not lost labor; it is not useless. It will bear fruit after many days. Those words have never yet failed: "?Everyone that asketh receiveth.?"