A third point is, that, reasoning from analogy, we may be sure that God will provide for us. He feeds the birds, and He clothes the lilies. They can do nothing for themselves; yet how well are they provided for! “Are not ye much better than they?” A wonderfully simple, beautiful, and effective argument this! How grand the view it gives us of God’s position in His universe! What knowledge must be His! What power! What vastness—what variety of resource! What minuteness of kindly, loving interest! Who would not gladly entertain such a conception of God and of His Providence as this, in preference to the atheism and the materialism which have intruded so grievously into the science of our times? “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?... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Thus, God is not content with giving what is simply necessary for life; He gives for beauty also. Showing His goodness in such a manner to objects inferior to man, why should man suspect that the same goodness will be denied to him? Observe, that Christ does not teach that birds and flowers are better than men because of their immunity from toil. His meaning is, that creatures which do not and cannot toil—creatures which do not and cannot forecast the future—are clothed and fed; will God neglect the nobler creatures to whom He has given the power of thought, and whom He has put under the obligation to labour? Even with these higher powers, man is still as dependent as any of the inferior creatures around him. Will his needs be overlooked, while theirs are supplied? Such a question is all the more pertinent when we remember, that whilst they live for a day, he was created for eternity, and needs the special gifts which can shape his present life into a preparation and a discipline.
An additional point is, that unholy anxiety is essentially ungodly, irreligious, unworthy of the position and the professions of a Christian man. “Take no thought,” no anxious thought, “saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.” Anxious thought, therefore, is the characteristic of heathenism, and must be excluded from the religion which is true. It is the spirit of the world, not the spirit which is of God. We see this clearly enough when we compare the amount of thought and care which we bestow upon our earthly interests with that which we devote to the interests which are spiritual and eternal. What anxiety we give ourselves about the future of our health, the future of our business, the future of our worldly position, the future of our children’s secular education, the future of their rank in society! Is it not ten times as great as that which we bestow upon our Christian consistency, our religious usefulness, our growth in grace? If we could hold the balance steadily, which would prove to be the preponderating scale? Our Lord puts the case in an indirect manner, no doubt; nevertheless, it is impossible to avoid the implied conclusion. That conclusion is this: “If you suffer yourself to be anxiously absorbed in earthly things, you rank yourself with ‘the Gentiles,’ to whom this world is all.”—Besides, such anxiety is ungodly because it is untrustful. Heathens, who cannot blind themselves to the fact that their gods leave them for the most part, if not entirely, to themselves, may be excused if they feel that there is room, yea even necessity, for anxious foreboding. But how different should it be with those who know the one living and true God, and who can recognize Him as their Father! Surely He may be trusted as knowing His children, recognizing their needs, loving them, and tenderly caring for them. Taking anxious thought implies the weakness, if not the extinction, of faith.—Moreover, its impiety is seen in the fact that it is a practical subordination of the spiritual to the secular. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Let the most important things have the first attention. Give due scope to the higher aspirations of the soul, and the lower ones will shrink into their due proportions, and will take their proper place. God will give the earthly as it is needed to those who first seek the heavenly, and the true spirit of religion will make us rich by making us content.
To Christians this teaching, taking it as a whole, covers the entire ground of their secular life, and much more than that. Look at two or three samples of the cases to which it applies.
1. To personal secular positions. “What will the future be? Shall I live to be old? When I am old, shall I be provided for? Will health and strength be continued to me according to my years?” Leave that! Do your work to-day. For this you may have the needful strength from God. Do not trouble about anything further. Use prudently the means which God has put into your hands for providing for the future, and then commit their safe keeping to Him. If you have no such means, still trust. There are many promises on which you may implicitly and calmly rely.
2. “How about my children? Will they grow up to be manful, good, godly; a seed to serve the Lord, and a generation to call Him blessed; my comfort, my pride? Or will they take evil ways; prove, like so many more, vicious, ungodly, and bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave?” Leave that! Do your duty to your children to-day. Train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Use a wise and godly forethought on their behalf. Pray for them. Instruct them. Set before them a Christian example. You may trust the rest with God, calmly and thankfully expecting the fulfilment of the words: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
3. “What about my religious future? If I make a Christian profession, shall I be able to live consistently with it? Shall I have strength to resist temptation? What if I should fall? Can I so live as not to dishonour the Church and the cause of Christ?” Leave that! Nurse your Christian graces to-day. Lay up spiritual strength in reserve. That is required by a wise forethought. But having done so, leave the rest. God will take care of it all. You may stedfastly trust that He will gloriously complete the work which He has graciously begun.
4. “My Christian work—what about that? Shall I be permitted to go on with it for a few years longer, and thus to have some opportunity of realizing my ambition as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or shall I be called away comparatively early? And if so, what will become of all the plans and projects upon which I have expended so much thought and prayer and toil?” Leave that! Do your work to-day, and be not anxious about the rest. When to-day merges into to-morrow let the new to-day bring its own work with it, to be done in the day. Nothing more of solicitude than that is needful. You are not indispensable to God; nor are you essential to the work which by His will you are doing. If it be worth doing, and you be separated from it, He will find a suitable successor, or as many successors as the accomplishment of the work may require.
5. “How about the prosperity of the cause of Christ in the world? Will it go steadily forward, or will new and fiercer foes rise up against it?” Leave that! Do all you can for it whilst you are here, and entrust the rest, as you entrust your own work, to God. Do not hinder it by wasting time in forebodings which ought to be spent in service.
6. “What of death—my own death? Shall I have grace enough to support me when the time comes?” Leave that! No doubt you will; but do not be anxious about it. To-day you are “the living;” be “the living to praise the Lord,” and trust the needs of your dying hour to Him.
The words of Christ recorded in these verses must have startled His hearers. They taught new truth concerning life, and, beautiful as they were, the truth they taught was strange. It would have been so strange as to be without weight, if He had not first taught equally new and equally beautiful truth concerning God. How does Christ here speak of God? “Your heavenly Father.” The heathen instructors had not taught that! Pharisees and Sadducees had not taught that! But Christ was now in the world; He had come forth from the Father, and He could say to men: “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” Thus the whole teaching of these verses on the subject of Providence and of Faith becomes plain and demonstrative. The great requirement is for us to love Him filially as He loves us paternally; and then, from that point, all is clear. We are dependent, but He will provide. There are present difficulties, and probably there will be future trials; but all takes the form of wise and holy discipline under His guiding and beneficent hand.