Plain Sermons, Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street

by James Galloway Cowan

Who is free from idolatry now?

“But,” some are ready to exclaim, “taking thought for these things is a very law and necessity of my being. I came into this world needing food and clothing. Others had to take thought to feed and clothe me. They early impressed upon me as one of the clearest duties of my responsible life that I should take this thought for myself, and now I can only get these things for myself and my family by taking thought for them.” Ay, and the very Word of God enjoins the duty: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise”—learn, that is, from her forethought and provision; look about thee, be industrious, store up for future wants. Our Lord Himself set the example of such forethought, when He committed the care of a bag to one of His disciples, that food, and money to buy food, might be carried about with them; and the Apostle Paul plainly taught—“If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” “If any man provide not for his own, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.”

My brethren, the law of nature has imposed, and the Word of God therefore approves, that we should look about and provide for our necessities. Wherever there is power to do this, the power must be exercised, or we must run the risk of want. The lilies of the field are fed by God’s own hand with nourishment, which they cannot seek. The unfledged bird has but to open its mouth to receive the food, which divinely implanted instinct has caused the parent to bring; but when it is grown it must itself make provision—it must search the trees for berries and the earth for worms, or it must die of starvation. God takes thought for sparrows, yet He requires, if I may so speak, that they should think for themselves; and thereby He teaches us, confirming this teaching by plain words of revelation, that it is incumbent upon us to make provision for our necessities, and so, of course, to think about them. But thinking is not taking thought. When our Bible was translated, to “take thought” meant (as the Greek word which it represents does) to be anxious, troubled, perplexed about a thing, and so to be drawn off by its consideration from other thoughts, and cares, and duties. The consistent, devoted servant of God, while intent upon his due and loved service, may and should use precaution and diligence to sustain in appointed ways the lower life and wants of himself and his; but if he takes thought about them, cares more or thinks more about temporal things than spiritual; if he leaves undone religious duties, or transgresses divine commands, or wears out his zeal, or consumes his time (of choice) in securing or seeking worldly provision, then does he attempt to serve mammon as well as God, and in so doing—attempting what cannot be—he actually foregoes the service of God and becomes an idolater.

My dear brethren, let us go into this matter, and pick out its plain and wholesome lessons, and ask God to engrave them deeply on our hearts. The text is especially addressed to such as we are. It is not mainly for the grossly covetous; for the would-be hoarders of great wealth; for the epicure, intent upon dainty dishes and costly wines; for the giddy votaries of fashion, ever meditating fresh extravagancies and greater absurdities, betraying by their silly, unchristian finery the emptiness of their minds and the callousness of their hearts, making themselves gazing-stocks to the thoughtless and objects of pity to the thoughtful. It is not, I say, chiefly for these (though it is indeed for them, and it behoves them to regard it very seriously), but it is for those who take thought for necessaries that our text was spoken and written; who are in concern not for a superabundance, but for a sufficiency of the things of this life. To them it says, Take no thought, be not anxious, perplexed. Let not these things engross your hearts, or cause you in any way to swerve from the pure and entire service of God, for—this is the first reason—to do so is to sin, it is to give up God and choose mammon. Ye who do it are idolaters. Make no plea of opposing difficulty or necessity, count upon no indulgence. If you serve mammon, you do not serve God. God will have no part of a divided heart, and will not be served at all by those who do not serve Him altogether.

Dear brethren, try to embrace this truth. God’s commands are not to be explained away, nor are excuses to be made for disregarding them. Obey them at all hazards—do not pare them down by pleas of expediency. Doubtless, the service is a very hard one. It is very difficult not to take thought for immediate and pressing wants. It is a great temptation to a very poor man to have an opportunity of making a few shillings by working or keeping his shop open on the Lord’s Day. It is a great temptation to one who is hard-worked during the week to have the power of turning the day of holy rest into one of worldly pleasure. It would be very convenient to the man of business to make up his ledger when he should be reading his Bible; to be thinking of his projects and prospects in this life rather than his coming eternity; to be pushing a bargain which is very advantageous, though it is a little unjust; to get what he can for his goods, rather than what he ought; to tell little untruths; to grind down his dependents; to withhold from charitable purposes the money which can be made useful for self; in short, to be ever taking thought for temporal things and not taking thought for spiritual, and so to miss opportunities of meditating, and reading, and praying, of worshipping, and communicating, and doing good, and preparing for heaven. The comparatively well-to-do man doubtless finds this worldly taking thought agreeable and in a sense advantageous; the poor man is hard pressed to give way to it; but still the command of God stands out—“Take no thought.”

Do not say you must—you must not.

“My wants,” says one, “must be relieved; my family must be fed and clothed; my work must be done; my interests must be looked after; my health must be preserved.” No, brethren, there is no must in any one of these. God must be served; all the others may be, if they can be included in His service, not otherwise.

And would you really come to want, if you were more religious? Would your family be left unprovided for? Would your health suffer? You do not seriously think it would. But what if it did? Welcome want, welcome sickness, welcome death—anything rather than worldly prosperity, if it can only be obtained by renunciation of God’s enjoined service and idolatrous devotion to mammon. The world will laugh at such preaching, brethren, and call it foolishness; but the world is nothing to us. It is doomed to pass away with all the things in it which lure us to take thought; but you and I must live on to eternity, and how we are to live shall be decided by the master we serve—God or mammon.

A second reason why we are not to take thought is—that doing so will not insure what we want. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature;” or, rather, such is the real meaning, can increase, even by a little measure, the length of his life. And, on the other hand, avoiding taking thought (from religious motives) will insure what we want. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you;” i.e., you shall not want (no more is promised here) food and raiment. At first thought, doubtless some of you fancy that your experience contradicts both these divine statements. You know many men who by taking thought have secured ample provision, have apparently even added to their lives, and you think you know some who have trusted in God’s promise and fulfilled its conditions and yet suffered grievous want. That some—yea, that many—by taking thought have secured what they wanted, is notorious; but that others, who have taken equal thought, have failed, is also notorious. Can you count the disappointed ambitious? the thwarted seekers of pleasure? the distressed hard-working? the bankrupts who have devoted every thought and effort, soul and body, to business? No! Well then taking thought does not insure what we want.

And, on the other hand, though a Lazarus is sometimes fed with crumbs only, if you knew the inner life of the seeming waiters on God who are in want, you would nearly always find that their necessity remains unrelieved, because they have not thoroughly performed the prescribed conditions; or that it was in some fit of independence, by some forbidden taking thought that they overreached themselves and fell. In proportion as any one has opportunity to investigate the causes of distress, he will surely be more and more ready to confirm the testimony of a great observer:—“I have been young and now am old, and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken or his seed begging their bread.”