Matthew 6:32

Matthew 6:32

I. In every suffering of body or mind the eternal God knows and measures most exactly our afflictions, be they what they may, great or small. The doctrine was known of old to the Psalmist, and was evidently a great and solid comfort to him. But it was most expressly declared by our Saviour Christ Himself: "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." As much as to say, It is not that God is ignorant of man's distresses, or that, knowing them, He is indifferent about them; but He has good reasons for sending such and such afflictions on such and such persons. If they are truly wise, they will take them, as sent by Him, with constancy, penitence, and hope; if vain and self-willed, they will fret and disturb themselves with useless anxieties, and be in the end nothing the better for what their compassionate Father meant to be of the greatest good to them.

II. But it will be said, If God sees His faithful servants in affliction, and knows what things they have need of, why does not He, the Father of mercy, listen to their supplications and supply their wants? To this what can we answer? Can we say any of us that we arefaithful servants so faithful as to deserve His blessings, so diligent as not to deserve His chastisements? Can any of us venture to say this of ourselves? Besides, we do not know what reasons God may have for afflicting us. Some of these reasons may be plain to a considerate person, but there may be others beyond our reach.

III. Let us bear in mind that we are not placed in the world to enjoy ourselves, but to be exercised and disciplined in order to our admission to a world of real enjoyment, lasting happiness, eternal rest. Let our life be a life of prayer, of constant aspirations after the aid of the Holy Spirit, without which we cannot but fall, without which we have no strength.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. i., p. 109.

Anxiety must be a sin. And it must be a sin very deep in the heart. So large a portion of the Sermon on the Mount would never have been directed against anxiety, and so many arguments would not have been heaped up, if the sin were not very large and its grasp very wide.

I. Anxiety does two things. (1) It makes you unhappy, and unhappiness is not a matter for pity, it is a matter for blame. For whoever is unhappy and disquieted is, in so far, unfitted for the duties of life he can do nothing as he ought to do. And, as far as he is concerned, he is frustrating the purposes of Almighty God, for the design of God was a happy creation. (2) Every shade of anxiety which passes over a man's mind is a positive wrong done to God, it distrusts Him; it sets aside one of His attributes, it gives the lie to one of His promises.

II. The whole stress of Christ's argument rests on the fatherly character of God. We live in our great Father's house, and may look on all the treasures in His creation; we may go up and down in the immensity of the universe; we may travel for ever and ever among the promises; we may survey all the bounties of the vast profusion of God's grace in Christ Jesus, and they are all for the children. You may read it written on all the host of them, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."

III. Remember, that you may expect God to supply your wants as bountifully as He supplies the birds but on the same condition. The birds work from morning to night; they have not a grain but they have sought it, and sought it with patient labour. But if you do this, and still the untrodden path of your future life looks dark, and every tomorrow wraps itself in a thick cloud, do not be afraid, only believe. The same act which made you a child of God pledged Him, as your heavenly Father, to supply all you want for body and soul.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,8th series, p. 169.

Reference: Matthew 6:32; Matthew 6:33. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 93.