CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 6:25. Therefore.—Denoting a connection between the service of mammon and “taking thought.” Take no thought.—Be not anxious (R.V.). Life.—The Greek word is the same as that commonly rendered “soul,” and the passage is interesting as an example of its use in the wider sense, which includes the lower as well as the higher life (Plumptre.)
Matthew 6:26. Fowls.—Old English for birds.
Matthew 6:27. Stature.—The Greek word admits either this meaning (as in Luke 19:3, and perhaps Luke 2:52), or that of age (as in John 9:21; John 9:23, and Hebrews 11:24). The latter best satisfies the teaching of the context. Men are not anxious about adding to their stature. They are often anxious about prolonging their life (Plumptre).
Matthew 6:28. Lilies of the field.—The hill-sides of Galilee are clothed in spring, not only with what we call “lilies,” but with the crown imperial, and the golden amaryllis, and crimson tulips, and anemones of all shades from scarlet to white, to say nothing of the commoner buttercups and dandelions and daisies; and all these are probably classed roughly together under the generic name of “lilies” (ibid.). Dr. Thomson (Land and Book, p. 256), thinks the Hûleh lily is meant, but Canon Tristram (Natural History of the Bible) claims this honour for the beautiful and varied anemone coronaria.
Matthew 6:30. The grass of the field.—The wild flowers which form part of the meadow growth, are counted as belonging to the grass, and are cut down with it. Cut grass which soon withers from the heat, is still used in the East for firing (Alford). The oven.—A large round pot of earthen or other materials, two or three feet high, narrow towards the top. This being first heated by a fire made within, the dough or paste was spread upon the sides to bake, thus forming cakes (Abbott).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 6:25-34
The perils of prudence.—Covetousness is one thing, prudence is another. The one craves more than enough. The other is satisfied with a competency. Can it ever be wrong for us to labour for this? Especially, can it be so, when our labours are undertaken not so much for ourselves as for others? It may be so, even in that case—so the Saviour teaches us here—if the spirit in which we do so be that of distraction and doubt. Even in being prudent, never be “anxious” as well. Four times over, in slightly differing forms, this counsel is given us here (Matthew 6:25; Matthew 6:28; Matthew 6:31; Matthew 6:34). The considerations which here support it may be put down as three. Never be anxious because such anxiety is:—
I. Wholly uncalled for.—Wholly uncalled for, in the first place, by the nature of the case. He who gave the “life” and made the “body” can do for both all that is needed. If the original and greater was in His power, much more is the subsequent and the less. It cannot be impossible for Him to provide raiment and food (Matthew 6:25)! Wholly uncalled for, next, by anything taught us from the observation of nature. In the creatures God has made we see living evidence of the non-necessity for such anxiety. The “fowls of the air” (Matthew 6:26) are not anxious, the “lilies of the field” (Matthew 6:28) cannot be, yet their wants are supplied. May not those, therefore, who are “better than they” (Matthew 6:26) look without “anxiety” for the same? May not they rely on the Fatherly hand which thus reaches beneath them, to reach as low as them too? Not called for, lastly, by the nature of the resources which have been placed in our hands. What can we do with the powers possessed by us, to provide with certainty for ourselves? Will any amount of anxiety suffice to make us certain as to the supply of our needs? Will it add to our stature? Will it lengthen our lives? (so some). Much less can it do for us what we see God do for the flowers, when, without anxiety on their part, and although they are but for a day, He “clothes” them with a degree of glory which the most favoured of men cannot obtain for themselves. Why, in a word, should we suppose ourselves “called” to attempt what He has made us unable to do? Rather, why should we suppose, what such “anxiety” implies, that He has left that task on our hands?
II. Most dishonouring to our Father.—Dishonouring, on the one hand, because it reflects on His power. To be “anxious” is to imply that He cannot do what He has undertaken to do; or, that there are doubts about it at least. It is to regard Him as having done the greater, but as being incompetent for the less. It is to “limit the Holy One of Israel” (Psalms 78:41), a grievous sin indeed, in regard to His ability to provide. And to be, in a word, like those disciples of Christ at a subsequent date, who, after seeing their Master twice over feed thousands of men by His word, thought He was blaming them for having “forgotten” to provide for a few (Matthew 16:7). “Can He give bread also, or provide flesh for His people?” There is more than doubt, there is the spirit of complaint, in that question. Dishonouring, on the other hand, because it reflects on God’s love. Those heathen people (Matthew 6:32) who did not know God as He is, might be almost excused, if not wholly pardoned, for the questions they asked (Matthew 6:31). Not so those professed “disciples” who are here addressed by the Saviour. These He had taught, only a little before, to address God as their “Father in heaven”; and, therefore, to ask from Him, as being such, the “daily” supply of their wants. For Him, therefore, to “know” their wants—as of course He did, being their Father in heaven—was also, of course, being their Father, to care for and supply them. And for such, therefore, to be “anxious” about them was to deny both of these truths. What would become of His love, indeed, if He could and knew, yet omitted to do?
III. Most injurious to ourselves.—Most injurious because doubly so, and in two different ways. Most injurious, first, because of that of which we deprive ourselves in this way. Putting the kingdom of God first, and leaving all else in His hands, is to obtain that kingdom, and all its happy “righteousness,” and all these other things too. For God Himself in that case is pleased to “add” them to us so far as this can be, and is well. On the other hand, to seek these other things first and be “anxious” therefore about them, is to gain them in appearance only, if to gain them at all; and to miss altogether that kingdom of God which should have been sought by us first. Most injurious, in the next place, because of that which we attain to thereby. For what is it that we are really doing when we are thus anticipating the evils of the future, and when our present thoughts are thus taken up with the possible evils of to-morrow? We are making those possibilities, by so doing, the certain evils of to-day. And we are voluntarily “adding” them, by so doing, to what are great enough as it is! So exactly opposite, therefore, both in spirit and issue, are the two courses in view. God, in the one case, whilst giving us His chiefest blessing, “adds” others beside. We, in the other case, whilst keeping our daily troubles, add others beside!
The best application of this teaching is that of the Saviour Himself. Seek His kingdom—seek it first—seek it just as it is. This seems the special significance of the word “righteousness” in this case. For what in fact, and in strict essence, is the “kingdom of God”? The Apostle shall tell us: It is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). So also the psalmist has spoken (Psalms 85:10), so the prophet averred (Isaiah 32:17). There is a seeking of the kingdom in which these things are forgotten. That is no seeking at all, or rather it is seeking a kingdom which cannot exist. Only where we are seeking “peace” through the blood of the cross; only where, as a proof of this, we are led by the Spirit, are our feet really on the way to that “kingdom which can never be moved” (Hebrews 12:28).
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 6:25-34. Distrustful anxiety.—This distrustful anxiety for food and raiment in time to come, which is a branch of covetousness, covered with the appearance of necessity, our Lord refutes by eight reasons.
1. God, who hath given life, which is more than food, will take care to provide food for maintenance of life, so long as He hath appointed life to continue; and God, who hath framed the body, which is more worth than the raiment, will also provide a garment.
2. God, who provides food for birds and fowls, will certainly provide for His own children.
3. Anxious care about the success of means cannot produce any good effect; therefore it should not be entertained, for even when a man hath eaten, he cannot make himself stronger or more tall than it shall please God to dispose.
4. God doth clothe the grass and flowers of the field with more colours than all the glory which Solomon’s garments had; therefore anxiety in God’s children for food and raiment (as if God were not careful for them) is unlawful.
5. Anxious seeking of the things of this earth is the fault of the Gentiles, who are destitute of the knowledge of God and ignorant of these heavenly things prepared for His children; therefore Christians, who are better instructed, should eschew this godless anxiety.
6. Christians are not fatherless, nor is their Father ignorant, unable or careless about them.
7. You have the kingdom of God and His righteousness whereupon to bestow your first and chiefest cares, which, if you seek after earnestly, ye shall not need to be anxious for food or raiment, or any other needful thing on earth, for all these things shall be superadded unto the grant of your chief desires.
8. The morrow shall bring with it troublesome cares of its own; and the day, or the time present, hath sufficient trouble by itself; therefore neither time present nor time to come should be rendered more miserable by anxious anticipating of troublesome cares before they come.—David Dickson.
Undue anxiety reproved, and the chief good urged, in the kingdom of God.—“Therefore” introduces the winding up of the argument respecting the unity of aim, of purpose, of object, of life, which Jesus Christ has been earnestly urging in the previous verses.
I. A prohibition.—“Take no thought,” etc. The Bible teaches us, and the instinct of self-preservation binds us, and self-respect constrains us to the wisdom of foresight. We are made to look forward. We are naturally anticipative. But Jesus Christ speaks of a very common evil—an undue anxiety and care. To be careful is good, but to be full of care is ruinous. “Take no excessive or harassing thought for the morrow,” because:
1. It is injurious to yourselves.—It makes you unhappy; it confuses your mind; it clouds your perceptions; it ages you; it breaks you down; it is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity.
2. It incapacitates you for life’s success.—Success in life depends upon the wholesome restfulness of the mind.
3. It is a sin against God.—It is a sign of distrust; it ignores His fatherly care; and it gives the lie to His precious promises.
II. The reasons adduced for such a prohibition.
III. The divine command enforced.—“But seek ye first the kingdom of God,” etc. This is the positive side of duty. We are taught—
1. That “seeking the kingdom” must be our chief concern.
2. That this search shall be rewarded.—“All these things shall be added unto you.” “Providence will be your mighty partner and helper in the business.” “Other things being equal,” says Livermore, “the good man prospers better in worldly affairs than the bad man. All vices are expensive and losing, as all the virtues are gainful and thrifty.” “Godliness is profitable unto all things,” etc.—J. Harries.
Matthew 6:26-30. Nature and nature’s God.—Perhaps the first thought that occurs as one recalls these words, is the unbounded admiration which our Lord manifested for the world of nature. Of Tauler, the mystic, it is recorded that his constant custom was to wander in the convent garden with his monk’s hood well drawn over his face and his eyes partially closed, lest the sight of the flowers might disturb his meditation. But, though Tauler was a true Christian and one to whom the fifteenth century owed a great debt of gratitude, for the seeds of the reformation were already sown in his heart, he was in this respect utterly unlike his Master. If, then, we give ourselves up to the thoughtful admiration of the world in which we live; if we open our eyes to see its beauty, and, from the more or less sordid and belittling enterprises in which we are called to take part, let our hearts go out with wistful gladness to the good and beautiful works of God, we are following in the footsteps of the Master Himself; and as He pleased God in this as in all respects, so do we please Him when we admire the works of His hands. More than this, we train our spirits to rise above the common circumstances of our lot into thoughts of illimitable freedom and range. I think one great value of these beautiful words consists in this, that they show us very clearly the two vital characteristics which distinguished Christ’s delight in nature from that of most men.
I. He saw God’s hand in the visible creation.—In everything around Him He saw tokens which told Him God had been at work, making all things beautiful in their season.
II. He saw how infinitely more precious in God’s sight is the human soul than all these works of His hands.—“If God so clothe the grass,” etc.—G. E. Troup, M.A.
Matthew 6:26. God’s children and the fowls.—
I. We excel the fowls of the air in regard of the better circumstances we are in to provide for our wants than they: for that we can and are allowed to sow, and reap, and gather into barns, which they cannot do.
II. But these words, Are ye not much better than they? signify likewise the greater dignity of men above fowls, and that upon that account likewise they may expect to be more immediately taken care of by God’s providence.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Matthew 6:27. Anxiety hurtful to life and youth.—The word which we translate “stature” signifies likewise “age,” and especially the most flourishing time of one’s age, when we are in the prime of our youth and strength. The bare adding a cubit to the stature seems uncouth, and a thing which the anxious man would not desire, whereas the adding to life, especially the youthful and prosperous time of it, is a thing which most men would desire.
I. Anxiety, as to the world is needless, as neither adding to life, nor to the comfortable part of it, but is rather hurtful to both. Example, 1 Samuel 25:37.
II. A cheerfulness and resignation, which are quite contrary to anxiety, are of great use in all the parts of life (Proverbs 17:22.)—
1. Whatsoever troubles beset us, they are either things within our power to remedy or not. If they are within cur power to remedy, there is no temper of mind so fit to apply those remedies, as the cheerful, resigned temper. But that it may more distinctly be apprehended what advantage this temper has above the solicitous and anxious one, to wrestle with the difficulties of life, I shall instance some particulars which unfit the anxious man for going cheerfully through the business of life, but are easily overcome by the cheerful man who puts his trust in God’s providence.
(1) He who believes a concurrence of divine providence with his own endeavours, acts with another sort of life and vigour than the man that goes only upon his own skill and strength (see 1 Samuel 17:45).
(2) As the man, who is free from anxiety goes upon his business with more courage, so he takes much more pleasure and satisfaction in it.
(3) If difficulties and troubles occur in business, the anxious man, instead of bearing them with patience, magnifies and multiplies them in his own mind, by his disturbed imagination and illboding fears; whereas the man, who is clear from anxiety, has a great deal of reason still to hope for the best; and though he cannot see through all the intricacy and difficulty in his affairs, yet being conscious to himself of the honesty and goodness of his designs, and having a firm, implicit faith in God, he is not discomposed in his thoughts, knowing that God, if He sees it best for him, will bring to pass whatever he is about; or if He sees it will prove to his hurt will disappoint him in that particular, but will answer his expectation in general, and make all things co-operate for his good (Psalms 37:3, etc.).
2. There are a great many other troubles which are altogether out of our reach, and which we can no way think of removing, and must therefore be patiently endured, if we intend any peace and quiet with respect to them. Now as to all these, the man who is free from anxious and solicitous thoughts has much the advantage, from the temper of his mind, to live easy and quiet under them.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Matthew 6:28. The lessons of the lilies.—I. Consider the lilies—and identify little things with God’s care.—Can you make a lily? You cannot make a sun; can you make one drop of dew? God writes minutely as well as largely. He writes the great letters of the stars; He writes also the small letters of the violets and daisies.
II. Consider the lilies—and see the superiority of the natural over the artificial.—Let the glorious dress of the king represent the artificial. God makes the original; man makes the copy. For all originality—mental and moral, as well as physical—we must go to the Father.
III. Consider the lilies—and look on things beneath, as well as on things above.—Look for God when thou lookest at the dust. The dust is alive with the life of God.
IV. Consider the lilies—and have faith in your Father.—Think of God clothing the grass and forgetting the child! It is impossible. Let a lily detach itself from its root, and it must perish. So with man. Let him cut himself off from God, and he will become as a withered and driven leaf.—J. Parker, D.D.
Flowers.—We are now “at school.” Surrounded by educational agencies and influences. Chief lesson-book the Bible. But we have another of God’s lesson-books in nature. Nature a book of illustrations of biblical truth. Christ used it freely. Would have us use it too. The seasons replete with instruction and suggestiveness. Summer, the season of flowers. Not only do they adorn our gardens, but make “a variegated embroidery on the green mantle of our meadows and commons.” Whether we will or not they influence us. But our will is to be brought into action. We are to “consider the lilies.” It was evidently to wild flowers that Christ called the attention of His disciples—“lilies of the field.” Palestine a land of flowers. We may regard Christ as directing attention to all the floral world, using the specific for the generic.
“Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book.”
I. Flowers manifest God’s love of beauty.—They are embodiments of divine ideas and sentiments. We manifest a God-like quality when we admire what is really beautiful in nature or art. God delights in “the beauty of holiness.” In His beloved Son He was well-pleased because He was perfect in this respect. And He delights in us in proportion as we resemble Him.
II. Flowers exhibit God’s exceeding generosity—His bountifulness.—Mary Howitt has said:—
“God might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,
The oak tree and the cedar tree,
Without a flower at all.
He might have made things grow enough
For every want of ours,
For luxury, medicine, and toil,
And yet have made no flowers.”
William Wilberforce used to call flowers, “the smiles of God’s goodness,” and a poet has described them as “God’s thoughts of beauty taking form, to gladden mortal gaze.” They testify to the happiness of the ever-blessed God and to His desire that we should participate in it.
III. Flowers teach God’s loving care of all His creatures—the small as well as the great.—This is the lesson which our Lord specially enforced. We are despondent; we should be trustful and contented.
IV. Flowers speak to us of resurrection and immortality.—Though the flowers pass away with the summer, the next summer will see the face of the earth enamelled and adorned again. And there will be an important connection between the life and beauty of the next year and the decay and death of this. Thus, the flowers are
“Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.”
H. M. Booth.
Matthew 6:33. Geography, arithmetic and grammar. (To boys.)—
I. Geography tells us where to find places. Where is the kingdom of God? Heaven is only the capital of the kingdom of God; the Bible is the guide-book to it; the church is the weekly parade of those who belong to it. “The kingdom of God is within you.” Every kingdom has its exports, its products. What comes from the kingdom of God? “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy.”
II. Arithmetic.—Are there any arithmetic words in the text? “First,” “added.”
1. You see at once why Christ tells us to seek these first—because they are the best worth seeking. Do you know anything better than these three things, anything happier, purer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you do not, seek first the kingdom of God. It is not worth seeking the kingdom of God unless you seek it first. Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bows, and send that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side? Certainly not. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its place, and it will take you straight through life, and straight to your Father in heaven when life is over. But if you do not put it in its place you may just as well have nothing to do with it. There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made telegraphs. The gentleman told me this himself. One day this boy was up on the top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing up a telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was getting late, and the men said they were going away home, and the boy was to nip off the ends of the wire himself. Before going down they told him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with his master’s tools. “Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do,” said the foreman. The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the wire. It was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering. He lost his hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then over into the air, down almost to the ground. A clothes rope stretched across the “green” on to which he was just about to fall, caught him on the chest and broke his fall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay unconscious amongst some clothes upon the green. An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and went for the policeman. And the boy with the shaking came back to consciousness, rubbed his eyes, got upon his feet. What do you think he did? He staggered, half blind, away up the stairs. He climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when he got to the ground again fainted dead away. Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously wrong, and carried him away to the infirmary, where he recovered after some time, and is now doing well. What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty! He was not thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master. First the kingdom of God.
2. But there is another arithmetic word, “added.” Very few people know the difference between addition and subtraction when they begin to talk about religion. They always tell boys that if they seek the kingdom of God everything else is to be subtracted from them. I do not mean by added that if you become religious you are all going to become rich. God pays in better coin.
III. Grammar.—What is the verb? “Seek.” What mood is it in? The imperative mood. It is a thing that must be done, because we are commanded to do it by our Captain.—Prof. H. Drummond.
The righteousness of the kingdom.—Our Lord carries His principle (ch. Matthew 5:17-18) all round the practical life of man, and points out how in every part of conduct He heightens obligation. But this is all summed up under two more general characteristics which are to mark all righteousness of His kingdom.
I. The first of these characteristics is that so far from being lax it was to exceed the righteousness of the most exemplary of their contemporaries, the scribes and Pharisees. Notice the prominence given in Matthew 5:20 to the word περισσεύσῃ. “Except your righteousness exceed that of those whom you regard as irreproachable, ye shall in no case,” etc.
1. The externality of Pharisaic righteousness is in Christ’s kingdom to be exchanged for inwardness (Matthew 5:21, etc., Matthew 6:15, etc.). The Pharisee may have the right outward appearance; but, after all, this may be only the fleece laid on, not produced from the animal’s nature, the fruit artificially adhering where it never grew.
2. The righteousness of the kingdom of God is to exceed that of the Pharisees in spontaneity. What the Pharisee did he did on compulsion. Our Lord lays His finger on this damning blot in Matthew 6:2, etc., (“hypocrites”). Delitzsch, in one of his little tracts, draws a picture of a Jerusalem Pharisee contriving that he should be surprised by the hour of prayer in the open street, and straightway girding on his ponderous phylacteries, and making his prostrations. What is done through fear or compulsion, or with a selfish end in view, rises no higher than its source.
II. The righteousness of Christ’s kingdom was also to exceed the righteousness currently required among men (Matthew 5:46-47). Christians are not to be content with rivalling natural and everyday virtues. There must be a principle in virtue which applies to the whole of man and to the whole of life; which creates virtues where before there were none, which touches human nature at its roots, and radically purifies and ennobles it.—Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D).
The chief object of pursuit.—
I. There is an order and relative value in the objects of our human pursuit.—Very much of the confusion and mistake of life comes from the inversion of the true order. We are placed at grave disadvantage in deciding the relative merit of the claims made on our thought and time by the disturbing influence of sin. The pleasant rules us rather than the right. But in our text our Lord says: There is one great end and purpose in your being, and that you must put the very first of all. There may be intermediate ends and objects which rightly call for your attention, but there is one which must never be forgotten. You were made for God, to love Him, to serve Him, to praise Him, to live in fellowship with Him, to do and to bear His holy will. “Seek ye first His kingdom and righteousness.” The true order then of our human pursuits is: first, God; second, others; third, self. Or to express it in another form: first, righteousness; second, duty; third, pleasure. Confuse or misplace these, and your life can never unfold into its perfect beauty. The “kingdom of God” is this: The rule of God over every part of our being, and over every aspect of our relationship. When, therefore, our Lord urges us to seek first the kingdom, we may express His meaning in words of our own and say: “Seek to do everything thou doest as unto God. Nay, more, in everything strive to be like God. Seek His ‘righteousness’ as well as His ‘kingdom.’ ”
II. That which is worthy to be the first object of human pursuit ought to be always in its first place.—The rudder sways to either side by the movement of the waves; it needs a firm hand ever upon the wheel, to hold it so that the prow shall point for the harbour. Firm, constantly renewed resolve is needed in order to hold our soul, steadily and continuously moving amid the winds and waves and currents of life, towards righteousness and God. The psalmist says, “I have set the Lord alway before me.” Can we then estimate some of these hindering influences against which we need to be on our guard, and against which we should anxiously and persistently strive? Three things claim our notice:
1. The intensity of business may repress the endeavour to live an earnest life for God.
2. The fulness of living in our times makes it hard to live our life really setting God and righteousness first.
3. The current of public opinion is often against setting the kingdom of God first. He who would follow the Lord fully must dare to be singular.—Weekly Pulpit.
Matthew 6:34. Crossing the bridge before you come to it.—The sin of borrowing trouble. Such a habit of mind and heart is wrong:—
I. Because it puts one into a despondency that ill fits him for duty.—Our dispositions, like our plants, need sunshine.
II. Because it has a tendency to make us overlook present blessing.
III. Because the present is sufficiently taxed with trial.—God sees that we all need a certain amount of trouble, and so He apportions it for all the days and years of our life.
IV. Because it unfits us for misfortune when it actually does come.
V. Because it is unbelief.—T. De W. Talmage, D.D.
Anxiety for the morrow forbidden.—
I. The precept by way of antithesis or opposition to anxiety. “Take therefore no thought,” etc. There is a certain care for the future which is proper for the present time. The Israelites gathered a double portion of manna on the sixth day, to serve them both for that day and the following Sabbath. This precept I take to be only a prohibition of those cares, which are more proper for the future than for the present time. We are not to think it unlawful, if God gives us opportunity, to lay up for sickness or old age, or for the provision of wife and children, so that it be done without anxiety or carking care.
II. The enforcement of this precept.—The reasons are two:
1. That the morrow, or future time, when it comes, will be more proper to take care of its own matters than any time at a distance from it.
(1) It is not certain we shall ever see this future time, for which we are so anxious and solicitous, and in that case all our labour is like to be lost.
(2) It is impossible, supposing we may live to that time, to foresee so long before what circumstances we shall then be in, so as to answer them exactly by all our pre-anxiety.
(3) It is very possible, if we take our aim in the dark, that we may do more hurt than good by the methods we shall lay down.
(4) Our circumstances may chance so much to alter, that when we come to that futurity itself, and to see all the circumstances of it in a true light, we shall then wish that we had taken other measures, and shall begin to pull down what with all our anxiety we had been building up.
2. That the present time has enough to do with its own cares. “Sufficient unto the day,” etc.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Be not anxious for the morrow.—No precept of divine wisdom has found so many echoes in the wisdom of the world. Epicurean self-indulgence, Stoic apathy, practical common-sense, have all preached the same lesson, and bidden men to cease their questionings about the future. That which was new in our Lord’s teaching was the ground on which the precept rested. It was not simply the carpe diem—“make the most of the present”—of the seeker after a maximum of enjoyment (Hor., Od., I. xi. 8) nor the acceptance by man’s will of an inevitable destiny, nor the vain struggle to rise above that inevitable fate. Men were to look forward to the future calmly, to avoid the temper
“Over exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils,”
because they had a Father in heaven who cared for each one of them with a personal and individualising love.—E. H. Plumptre, D.D.
The sunset limit.—Of all the blessed guards placed by Holy Scripture along the Christian’s way to keep him from presumption, on the one hand, or despair, on the other, the most divinely helpful is the sunset limit. If we obey with childlike simplicity our Saviour’s command: “Take no [anxious] thought for the morrow,” all the intolerable part of the burden is lifted from us. We can bear whatever comes to us between the sun’s rise and set, for alongside of this command about taking no thought beyond the day stands a starry promise—is there not always a promise waiting upon a command?—that “as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”—Christian World Pulpit.