Note the condescension, the simplicity, and the power of our Lord’s argument. His appeals are homely. He seeks no far-fetched reasonings or facts from antiquity. He points to birds and flowers; an argument for simple people, but equally effective for the learned and the refined. We have no need to go far for lessons of comfort.
We must not overlook the necessary limitations of our Lord’s teaching in these verses. Those limitations are found in the nature of things. Observe, then,
I. Christ does not forbid all anticipations of the future. He cannot mean so much as this when He says, “Take no thought for the morrow.” Man is an inhabitant of two worlds—one material, the other spiritual. This being so, two distinct sets or classes of wants press upon him—the wants of the body, and those of the soul. The wants of the soul point to a future state of existence, for which we must prepare. In relation to these, carelessness—the absence of forethought—would be fatal. According to the state of our souls, the thought of the future gives us terror or joy. To the Christian, the future is the scene of his perfected spiritual growth, and of his consummated happiness. Every aspiration of his soul bounds joyfully towards it, and he instinctively leaves the things that are behind to press forward. In the words before us, Christ does not touch such matters as these. It is not fore-thought which is condemned, but fore-boding.
II. Nor does He discountenance earnest activity in the duties of the present. Work is God’s oldest law. It is only in wilful blindness or in unaccountable delusion that men can plead this teaching as an excuse for indolence. “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat.” Work is often spoken of as a curse; but it is a blessing. With a Christian spirit, it may be gloriously consecrated. It links us in our activity with God who “worketh hitherto,” and with Christ who worked His full day.
III. Christ does not even condemn a legitimate forethought in connection with secular interests. There is a legitimate forethought such as this. Nature teaches it. We must sow in order to reap. We must toil to-day for results which cannot come till to-morrow. “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.” The faith to live by is that which prompts not to sitting down and doing nothing, but to trustful and persevering enterprise. Keep in mind the distinction between forethought and foreboding. It is forethought in a man which leads him to sow for a future harvest; it is foreboding that would fill his heart with fears that the harvest will be a bad one. Forethought is the grand distinction between the civilized and the savage; foreboding is the weakness of distrust.
What the Lord bids us guard against, then, is conjectural brooding over the possible necessities of the future, and our possible lack of the resources required for their supply. “Taking thought” means giving way to anxiety—the constant occupation and worry of the heart in looking forward, gazing into, and dreading the possibilities of the days and years yet to come. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Be warned against forebodings of evil to-morrow. The lesson is, “Do the day’s work as it is appointed by God; accept the day’s mercy, bear the day’s evil; and be not anxious about the evil which to-morrow may bring.”
How common a weakness—nay, rather let us say, how common a sin—this taking anxious thought for the morrow is! We see the lines of care in thousands of faces every day. Anxiety has marked its furrows round lips which every morning say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is a calamity as well as a sin. It disturbs the heart, so that there can be no enjoyment of present mercies. It adds to the present the weight of an unknown but dreaded future. It paralyses religious feeling, and checks religious activity. It defeats its end by shortening the life it would fain prolong.
Now Christ shows that this kind of anxiety reckons falsely, because it is founded on a false estimate of life; and He further shows that to gauge our position aright we must reckon according to the Divine thought respecting it. The whole of the teaching before us on this subject is perfectly plain, consisting of a few simple and obvious points. We cannot hope, indeed, to bring it within the understanding of the mere worldling. The man who has no filial confidence in God has no antidote for care. Anxiety can only be subdued in the heart of him who can look upward, and say, “Father, I trust in Thee!”
What, then, is the first point? It is this, that God—the Author of our life, the Creator of our bodies—will surely give that which, however necessary, is yet less important and less valuable. In bringing us into existence, He has done more than He can do in giving to us any secular blessing which we can need. “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” We have our life from Him; our bodies are His handiwork. Why should we suspect that He will be indisposed to give us whatever may be needful for the existence thus created? Will He, by neglect, frustrate His own purpose? The greater gift can only be sustained and made valid by the lesser ones. Without food and raiment the body must decay, and its life must perish. God does not give imperfectly.
Another point is this, that anxious care answers no good purpose. It is useless. If we could by means of it gain an exemption from future evil, common prudence would dictate it as a wise expedient. But it is not so. Christ puts this consideration very strongly. No amount of foreboding can add a single moment to our life, for the boundaries of our life have been fixed by God. The future is utterly unknown to us; and foreboding will not help us in the least degree to forecast its difficulties and its trials, though it may unfit us for the endurance of them. Whether we are cognizant of it or not, God will take His plan with us, and will carry it out. If we could not believe in the love that He hath towards us, the thought of this would be a dark sorrow; but, assured of His love as we may be, we can also be assured that He will do all things well. At any rate, no over-anxiety of ours will facilitate the order of life we long for. “The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” It will have anxieties enough of its own in spite of every effort of ours to set it free from them. Every day, to the end, will have its own “evil,” and the “evil” of each day will require all our strength for coping with it. So that anxiety for the morrow will not remove care from the morrow; it will only take strength and joy from to-day. Trust in God, and all that He gives you of trouble for to-day will be accompanied by the gift of the strength necessary to enable you to bear it. But do not expect Him to give you strength to bear unnecessary sorrows—sorrows of your own making—the sorrows which spring from worldliness and unbelief. “As thy day”—the day that now is—“so thy strength shall be.”