Bible Commentaries

Chapter21

True Almsgiving—No Compulsion In Religion—the Meaning of Long Prayers—the Hypocrisy of Fasting

Prayer

Almighty God, we would hide ourselves under the wings of thy mercy. We dare not look at thy law, for we have broken it, nor at thy righteousness, for it is now unto us as a two-edged sword; but thou hast permitted us to look at thy mercy. Thine eternal pity, those tears of thine that bid us silent but large welcome to all the love of thine heart. God be merciful unto us sinners. We have done our alms, and men have seen the doing of them; we have prayed, and behold our prayers have fallen back unheard, unanswered. We have fasted that we might draw attention to the dejection of our face. God be merciful unto us sinners. We have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things that we ought to have done; we pierce ourselves with many accusations, we cannot spare the infliction of bitter self-reproach, we mourn, we repent, we bow down ourselves before thee in utterest humiliation, no voice have we of self defence. God be merciful unto us sinners. Our standard has been short, our balances have been unequal, our purposes have been double, our words have had one meaning to others and another meaning to ourselves; we have lied without speaking, by smiling, by action, by hint. God be merciful unto us sinners, make us clean of heart, clean in the spirit, right in our motive, holy within; then shall our life be a sacred sacrifice, thou wilt receive it daily in thy heavenly places as a well-meaning offering of the soul.

We bless thee for all thy patient care, thy long-suffering, thy tender mercy. Thou hast taken care of us, as if we were of consequence to thee; thou hast numbered the hairs of our heads, as if thou hadst not to count the innumerable planets, and set the stars in their places. Thou hast hidden us in the hollow of thine hand, and drawn us very near to thine heart, and many a message of tenderest love hast thou addressed to us in our low estate. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gifts. Thou hast given as thine only-begotten Matthew 6:1-18.

1. Take heed 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.

2. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a 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.

3. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth;

4. That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

9. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11. Give us this day our daily bread,

12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

14. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

16. 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.

17. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;

18. That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

"When thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets." The boxes in the temple treasury were shaped like trumpets. Jesus Christ said, "Do not make a trumpet of the box: it looks like one, but do not use it for the purpose of calling attention to what you are about to put into it." It is strange how we may pervert the most exquisite beauty, and turn it to false uses, forms, and colours, which God meant to lead us to higher thought and finer feeling. It is a box for the reception of secret alms, not a trumpet for sounding for the purpose of calling public attention to what is about to be done. Use everything for its right purpose, and beware of perversion; do not say you got the suggestion from the thing itself—it was never meant to convey such a suggestion, it was meant for a totally different purpose. He is the honest Matthew 6:19-34.

19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21. For where your treasure Matthew 6:24-34

24. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;

29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith?

31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek): for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

"No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." I venture to say that the true meaning of this passage has not been always represented. The common notion is that a man may try to serve God and mammon. Jesus Christ does not ask you for one moment to believe so flagrant an absurdity. The experiment cannot even be tried. What, then, becomes of your interpretation of your neighbour about whom you have said, many a time, "That man is trying to serve God and mammon." The experiment does not admit of trial. You must get into the profound meaning of this word cannot. It indicates an impossibility even so far as the matter of trial or experiment is concerned. So the passage is a consolatory one; it is not a warning against any kind of practical hypocrisy and double-handedness—Jesus is not lifting up his voice against the ambidexters who are trying to do the same thing with both hands—he lays down, as he always does, a universal and everlasting law; ye cannot serve God and mammon, equal to—ye cannot go east and west at the same time. Have you ever tried to do that, have you ever made such a fool of yourself as to endeavour to cross the Atlantic by staying on shore? The meaning is, if a man's supreme purpose in life be to seek God and to glorify him, whatever his business upon earth may be, he elevates that business up to the level of his supreme purpose.

Where, then, is the value of your criticism upon the rich Christian man? You have said, mockingly, "That man has served God and mammon to some purpose, for he has accumulated immense wealth." Your reasoning I would call childish but for my fear of degrading the sweet name of child. Where a man's heart burns with the love of God, if he be the owner of the Bank of England, he lifts up all his property to the high level of the purpose which inspires him.

I now see a new and gracious light upon the Saviour's words. I have cudgelled myself mercilessly in many a piece of self-discipline, by imagining with the foolish that I could be serving God with one hand and serving mammon with the other. I thought the Saviour was teaching that narrow lesson. To-day he says to me, "I lay it down as a law that the supreme purpose of a man's life gives a character to all he does."

Now let us look at the subject from the other end, and thus get double light upon it. Ye cannot serve mammon and God. The meaning is—If your supreme purpose in life be selfish, narrow, little, worldly—if your one object in life be to accumulate property, power, renown, anything that is sublunary, ye cannot serve God, though you may sing hymns all the day long, though you may attend church whenever the gates are open, though you may give your body to be burned and your goods to feed the poor.

All these, are but so many mammon arrangements, without religious value. The supreme purpose of your life is to be satisfied with the things at hand, within the circumference of this world, and therefore ye cannot be religious, ye cannot serve God, God can only be served by the supreme purpose, the dominating and all-inspiring impulse that moves the heart and controls the behaviour.

Poor soul, you thought when you asked for an increase of income that the people would suspect you of being something of a mammon-worshipper. Never mind: they were cruel and foolish, and they did not know Christ's great gospel. You were no money-lover, no money-grubber, you only wanted to work your way honestly in the world, and to eat the wealth gotten by honest labour. And you, when you told that huge lie, so black that there is no paint in the darkness grim and gloomy enough to give it right character, when you said that if you had a thousand pounds more you would feed the poor and support the church and did not mean a bit of it, it was a lie you told—you were serving mammon. As the poet says of you, anticipating your coming into the world, "You stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in."

The passage no longer affrights me, I understand its glorious meaning now. It is impossible to go east and west at the same time: the whole law of gravitation says "No," in an instant. It cannot be done. And so if I want to be heavenly and worldly it is impossible; if I am heavenly I sanctify the world, if I am worldly I debase the heaven. You are therefore one of two things, and there is no mixture in your character. Judge ye what I say.

Now we come again to the long and yet pithy lecture on earthliness, and its mean and fruitless anxieties. I have gone at length into that subject, yet I have something more to add. You tell me, when the Saviour warns you against thought—understanding by that word, as explained in the last lecture, cankering anxiety, killing fretfulnsss—that man is an anxious being; you say that no allowance is made for that great constitutional fact that man must forecast and provide and previse and meddle with things contingent and uncertain. You say the gospel arbitrarily forbids that which is instinctive. Let me once more correct your mistake. Jesus Christ does provide for this very instinct of anxiety; in effect he says, "You say you must be anxious: very good, by all means be anxious; be true to your nature, obey the law of your constitution—only this is what I have to say to you, be sure you direct your anxiety along the right lines. Do not waste your anxiety, do not make your anxiety a leak in your nature through which all that is sweetest and best may ooze." Anxious? Certainly, be anxious, but fix your anxiety upon the right object. Thus: Here is a friend who is going to take a railway journey. We will, in imagination, accompany him up to the point of starting. He has gotten everything with him that he thinks he requires. He drives to the station, he hastens to the book-stall, he is most anxious to get the last and best news. He buys papers representing every section of religious and political thought, he fills up his compartment with that varied literature. He has been most anxious about it, most fussy, almost turbulent; he has pushed other people aside in order that he might get his favourite paper and the principal antagonist to the doctrines which he believes in. And now there he is, with his compartment almost snowed up with the literature of the morning. The train will start in a minute. "Tickets, please." He has not got his ticket. Then he cannot go—too late; the law may run that if you have not got your ticket there is no time to get it, and you must wait for the next train. Has the man been anxious? Most anxious—about nothing, about the wrong thing. Of course I say to him "Be anxious, be vigilant, be on the alert, be on the qui vive, do not close your eyes and fall into a slumber; be anxious, but be anxious about the right thing, sir." What avails it that he has stuffed his carriage with the literature of the morning and has forgotten the one thing without which he cannot go? How would you accost him, if he explained his case to you on the platform? You might audibly accost him in the language of sympathy—I fancy you would mentally accost him in a more appropriate tone.

That is precisely what many of us are doing, and Jesus Christ says: "Be anxious, most certainly, but do not waste your anxiety; fix it on the right objects, direct it to the proper quarter and the right end; seek, seek, seek"—and that word seek, as he spoke it, has in it agony, paroxysm, passion, importunity—"seek." O, how you did misunderstand him when you thought he forbade anxiety, and had omitted a constituent element of your nature, and had made no provision for the outgoing and association of an almost necessary anxiety. He hits the case very graphically, with a sharpness the dullest eye must see; for he says, "Which of you by taking thought, by doing all this kind of thing, of the nature of fretfulness and peevishness, which of you by indulging in that expensive luxury, can add one cubit to his stature?" What does it all come to in practical effect? is the meaning of Christ's doctrine. Which of you by fretting about tomorrow, planning for it and scheming about it, and worrying out your very souls concerning its fortunes and destinies, can make one hair white or black? There are rocks which your anxiety cannot melt into water; there are great rolling seas which it is not in the power of your anxiety to divide. Spend your solicitude upon the right objects; be careful about the supreme purpose of your existence: in that direction there cannot be too much solicitude. Give your eyes no rest nor close your eyelids in slumber until you have acquainted yourselves with God and become at peace with him. And remember that anxiety, improperly used, wastes your nature, dissipates your energy, incapacitates you for the discharge of the noblest duties of life.

Let us put the thing again before us illustratively. Here is a man whose son is very delicate. He has not known what it was to enjoy a day's real health since he was born. He appears to be declining day by day in strength. The father comes to us, and we ask questions concerning the child; and in reply to our inquiries the father says, "I am always most anxious that he should dress well, that his gloves should fit him like his skin, that his boots should be of the best possible quality, and that he should never go out without being so dressed as to attract the admiring attention of those who may pass him on the road." What would you think of a man who could talk so under such circumstances? Do not be hard upon him, because your admission I will take and apply to you as a whip. Do you acquit him? Remember that the judge is condemned when the guilty are acquitted.

This is the very thing we are doing, and Jesus Christ comes to us and says, "Is not the body more than raiment?" So you have said to the man described thus imaginatively, " sir, what about your boy's health? Is he getting stronger?—is he more robust?—what can be done to establish his health? And as for his dress and his gloves and his attire altogether—all these things may be left to settle themselves. Seek ye first the establishment of the child's health."

Well, then, this Christian doctrine is not so impracticable and otherworldly. This Christian doctrine is not a metaphysical quibble in the clouds; there is downright common-sense—strong, robust, graphic common-sense about this Christian preaching. I should not wonder if this carpenter's Son seated upon the mountain talking to his disciples should turn out, in the long run, to be the world's greatest preacher. Let us not, however, anticipate, but attend him, and listen with the understanding to. the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth.

It is not enough to speak against anxiety or to direct it into proper quarters. Jesus Christ, recognising this fact, proceeds to mitigate the anxiety that eats up the life like a canker. What do you think he does in the way of mitigation? Something most beautiful. He takes us all out for a day into the open fields. It is only recently that some doctors have learned from the great Physician to get their patients out of town as soon as they could. I speak now to many doctors: stand by that rule, get your patients away out of their old associations, out of their old chambers, where they know every pattern upon the paper, and get them away to the sea, and into the country, and up the mountains and by the riversides as soon as you possibly can, and take your own course as to whether yon throw physic to the dogs. This was Jesus Christ's plan: he said, "Take a walk, change your circumstances, get rid of these narrow brick walls, get into the wide fields, read the flowers, listen to the music of the birds." Was this a novel suggestion on the part of Jesus Christ? Not at all. Did he borrow from any man? No, other men borrowed from him, only he was not always the revealed and incarnate Teacher; he was the invisible and incomprehensible Inspirer of all that went before him in the kingdom of truth and light. Where do we find this recipe before? A thousand years prior to the incarnation of the peasant teacher, and a thousand years more than that. Once Zion was ill; she was bowed down to the dust; there was no more hope in her fainting heart, and Jacob was slain with an intolerable thirst. What was the recipe of the divine Physician? Nature. How did it run in English? Thus: "Lift up your eyes and behold who hath created all this." First he points to the stars, then to the lilies, then to the birds—to all nature; its infinite light, its minute flushes and blushings of colour, and its little trills of song from tiny and tremulous throats. Are you in great trouble and care and anxiety? Go away as soon as you can. First of all get a right theological conception of your circumstances and understand that anxiety is wasted energy, if it be directed to such things as lie beyond your control. And then, having taken a right theological view of the case, go away, go into the fields—there is healing in nature; she is a kind and noble mother, always ready to nurse and carry us in her generous heart. The soft wind cools our fever, the infinite light charms our despair, the great space offers us new liberties; the all-filling music, subtle as an odour wafted from distant paradises, stirs the heart to better hope. You have no money to go far away, do you say? Then go as far as you can walk. You cannot tell how healing and medicating this is. Kind Nature, Alma Mater, Loving Mother, she spreads her bounties with infinite hospitality, and by every open way to our natures she sends her healing ministries.

You now tell me that whilst you nave no doubt about the doctrine, that you are confronted by certain facts which astound and distress you, facts, for example, of this kind, that good men of your own acquaintance are often in great trouble, that praying men who really and truly love God and wait upon him are sometimes in great straits, and you are puzzled to harmonize the doctrine and the fact. There I think you occupy solid ground, and deserve a respectful answer. My reply is threefold. Trials are useful, trials often develop the best faculties of our nature, qualities that stir us sometimes into our healthiest energy. I would never have known how rich and good some friend were hut for the afflictions that befell me. I have seen what I thought were pampered children, spoiled boys and girls; I have sometimes ventured to reason with the parents as to their method of bringing up their children; I have ventured perhaps to say, "Now, what can become of them in the event of any misfortune befalling you?" I have seen that misfortune come, and I have seen the children of such parents turned out to make their bread, and they have done it with such noble temper, such high quality of heroism, as to affect me deeply with a consciousness of my entire ignorance of what lay hidden in their character. Those children themselves have come to bless the misfortune that battered in the roof of the old house they called their home, those children have, in some cases, traced the beginning of their best and healthiest developments to afflictions which, for the time being, distressed them with intolerable agony. I call you to witness whether you would have been the man you are to-day in wisdom, in range of experience, in mellowness, if your one ewe lamb had not been taken from you, if your fig-tree had not been barked, if your little heritage had not been shaken by the rude winds. You are the sweeter for every loss you have sustained. You are the kinder and nobler for every affliction you have rightly received, your weakness has become your strength.

Then I would remember in the second place that prosperity has its pains and trials. Do not imagine that prosperity of a worldly kind is another word for heaven. You think what you would have done if your circumstances of an outward kind had been very different. You are mistaken. Let us go into this rich man's fine house and sit in the sumptuously garnished room until he comes in. What a room it is; I see the artist's hand everywhere. What a beautiful outlook, what noble grounds, what ancient trees, what singing birds! The man who lives here cannot be unhappy; surely this is the very vicinage of some better land. So you soliloquise, and when you get into confidential conversation with the occupant of that noble mansion you may find that there is a thorn under every rose, a worm at every root, bitterness in every cup, and that the house is but a garnished sepulchre. It may be so, it may not be so—still the solemn fact remains that prosperity itself is a continual temptation, a subtle and persistent trial of every virtue of the heart.

To this double reply I add another answer, namely, that God knows exactly with how much he can be trusted. If he knows what temptations We can bear, understanding that word in its narrow sense as including only diabolic assaults on the heart, he knows also what prosperity we can bear. He gives me just what I can do with; he that gathers much has nothing over, he that gathers little has no want. A contented spirit is a continual feast; when the heart has rest in God there is always bread enough on the table. We think we can do with more, but God knows what we can do with, and he will see that we shall have it. Your Heavenly Father knows what ye have need of, and his knowledge is the measure of his service. I rest in that doctrine, and no fool can throw a troubling stone into the pacific lake of my profoundest confidence.

Is this a new doctrine in the church assembling in this place? We have often reminded ourselves that the church was founded by the most learned man of his day, the illustrious Dr. Thomas Goodwin, two centuries and a half ago. What was the doctrine he preached—what kind of preacher was he? Did he mumble platitudes that had no meaning? Did he speak without accent, or was there a strange sharpness and an occasional tartness in his way of delivering: himself? Was he figurative, illustrative, metaphorical? I will tell you. The other day I met with a short passage in his writings upon this very subject, and I have it before me. Let our founder speak to us, let the illustrious Goodwin come back as it were to his own pulpit and preach a homily in our hearing, and let us listen with a view of ascertaining whether the pulpit of to-day contradicts the pulpit of two centuries ago. Says Goodwin on this particular text, "To do unnecessary things in the first place and neglect those which are most necessary, and put them off to the last—is not this the part of a fool? If a man should go to London to get a pardon, or about some great suit at law, and should in the first place spend the most or chiefest of all his time in seeing the lions at the Tower, the tombs in Westminster Abbey, or the streets and buildings of the city, or in visiting friends, and put the other off to the last—would he not be a fool?" Why, then, this church is keeping up its old traditions, is speaking in the old, old language, is trying to be as graphic and as keen as was the man who humanly founded it. Yes, a fool. There have been some persons who have objected to the use of that word in the pulpit; I am glad to find that our founder was not among those dainty people. We had better know exactly what is the value of our actions; do not trifle with us, speak a plain clear language about our conduct: if we are acting foolishly do not address us in terms of mere courtesy which would convey a false impression to the mind, tell us exactly what we are and what we are doing, and then in the final day we shall not be able to turn upon our teachers with reproachful face and to pour into their ears an accusing voice.

Now what are we seeking? What is our supreme purpose? What is the set and ambition of our life? Is it to glorify God? Then all the rest will come right. Is it to glorify self? Then nothing we do can ever make it right. You may paint it, decorate it, visor it, mask it—it is a lie.

The Lord inspire us with the spirit of truth: may we be found at last, though faint, yet pursuing, our hands indeed weak and tremulous, but using their last energy in gripping the right plough!