Matthew 6

Matthew 6:1-34

THE SECOND SECTION OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT Matthew, Chapter 6. THE last verse of Matthew 5 concluded, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect”. What can a writer say after he has voiced that appeal? What more can be said? Why should more be even attempted? The answer is at hand— “Perfection is not the instant product of an injunction!” It is the faraway attainment between any moral altitude and this mountain-peak of soul attainment. The distance is great! The climb is difficult! The way is tedious! The adjustments are many. The corrections are a multitude. Hence the opening of the sixth chapter. “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. “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. “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: “That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. “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. “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. “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall he heard for their much speaking. “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. “Give us this day our daily bread. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. “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. “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you: “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “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. “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; “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.” The lessons in this Scripture are both evident and important. VS. Vanity shows are poor expressions of spiritual life. There were three exercises by which the Jew sought to make himself acceptable to God—“almsgiving”, “prayer” and “fasting”, and, in fact, the giving of alms, the utterance of prayers and the abstinence from meats, may, and often do represent the fruits of the spirit. But Christ’s auditors had turned the Divine program entirely about, and instead of giving alms, uttering prayers, and for the sake of the soul, abstaining from meats, because the indwelling spirit so prompted, they concluded that to give alms, repeat formulas and restrain the appetite, were meritorious works that God admired and must reward. In other words, instead of doing all these things as the fruits of the spirit, they proposed to purchase God’s good opinion by their assiduous practice; and between doing what the1 indwelling spirit prompts and purchasing the Divine favor by some calculating custom, there is the width of an infinite distance. The last is of the earth, earthy. The first comes down from Heaven.

The first is always acceptable to God, and the last is always His offence. Degenerations take hold of such a bartering procedure, and that which was meant to be spiritual in nature will become merely a degenerate show,—the doing of alms, not because the spirit prompts them, but “to be seen of men”; the utterance of prayers, not because there is a heart hunger—a soul cry—“but to be seen of men”; a fasting, a disfiguring of faces, not because contrition has taken hold of the conscience-stricken heart, but in the hope that this pious appearing hypocrisy will bring one’s brethren to believe that he is pious indeed. We have yet to know one man whose gifts were always publicly announced, who employed publicity methods of getting the acts of his generosity reported to the ends of the earth; we have yet to know one woman who sought the great assembly to make loud, her long prayers; we have yet to know one unkempt individual who boasted that he had lived in the very presence of God and for a week had not tasted either meat or bread; whose intelligent, well-balanced acquaintances counted a spiritual individual. The greatest souls of the present-day church, like those of Jesus’ time, make their gifts without sounding a trumpet or cackling over the same as a hen does when an egg is laid; they do not utter their long prayers in public assembly, but like their Lord, in the secret place and alone with God; and when they fast, they wash their faces, rubbing ruddiness into the flesh, that men may not imagine the sweet and intimate relations they are enjoying with the Great Spirit Himself who hath appointed them a precious trysting place. But I must not pass over these eighteen verses and fail to call attention to another fact The truest prayer finds for itself the fittest expression. There are men among us, modernists of the present-day pulpit, who deny the Deity of Jesus Christ; but even these ministers of another gospel will consent that somehow this matchless Man spake as never another; and that, when He taught His disciples to pray, He gave to them the model prayer of all centuries, and it is recorded in five verses, Matthew 6:9-13 : “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. “Give us this day our daily bread. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. “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.” Where in human language was ever another prayer uttered in such brief space and simple language and so vast in its scope and varied in its application? When we go about asking God to bring in His Kingdom, we feel that we must remember the pastors and churches; we must pray for the missionaries at home and abroad; we must remember the boards created for the purpose of propagating His truth; we must remember the institutions established and endowed to the same ends; we must remember the individuals on whose shoulders the heavier burdens rest; we must pray for the new and weak converts that they may become strong and be fruitful; we must remind God of the great and blessed burden-bearers that he may strengthen and uphold them in their arduous tasks; we must keep in mind the ships and trains that carry missionaries to their destiny; we must not neglect the printing presses that are publishing His precious truth, nor yet the books that are being written in exposition of the same or the great company of colporteurs that are selling. Oh, there is an endless chain, and when we have finished the night of agonizing utterances and have included every interest that seems to be involved, we know that we have but begun to enumerate the individuals and the needs, and lo, He took the entire prayer and without leaving out of it a single suggestion, compressed it into one brief sentence of two lines, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. Isn’t it all there? When we come to pray for our personal needs, we are equally elaborate. God must be reminded that the day is long and the duties are difficult, and He must give us physical strength. He must be told that the wife is half sick and He must lay His hand of healing upon her. He must be reminded that the children are going to school and He must guard them both in their studies and in their play, preserve them against prevailing epidemics, attend them at crossings lest they be run down; keep them considerate of teacher and loyal to lesson, and bring them home at night in health and happiness. Concerning the business of the day, He must be reminded of the problems that the husband will meet at the office, of the wisdom and discretion that he will need to righteously handle the same; of the difficult men with whom he has to deal and a necessity of having their evil plans and purposes against him forestalled; of the temptations that may cross his path, that strength against falling may be given, and of ten thousand other things too numerous to mention in the poor brief space that we have for prayer; and Christ sums it all up in one little sentence which includes the whole, “Give us this day our daily bread”. Does not that cover it all? We imagine that in our prayers, we must tell God of the thorny path that we travel, of the dangers and besettments of the entire way; of the lurking enemies on either side of the path; of the sudden and unexpected attacks of the adversary; of the sins already committed, so multitudinous in number as to be overwhelming, and those likely to be committed, so insidious as not to be anticipated and resented. In agony of soul, we must pile up a consciousness that tells of the iniquities big and little, of sins consciously committed, of wilful ways, of unrighteous acts, of soul-condemning decisions, and when we have finished, we feel that we have only begun and know that we should remain longer on our knees because the half has not been told. And yet, He put it all into three sentences, “Forgive us our debts”; “Lead us not into temptation”; “Deliver us from evil” and gave the grand and glorious reason of hope, “Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen”. Beloved, the truest prayer that ever goes up to God is the spirit-indicted one, and our candid judgment is that that is seldom lengthy, but a simple, straightforward appeal for what one needs, and no man lives and uses language at all who cannot acceptably pray, if only the Spirit of God is in his heart. If Christ had never wrought else in the earth than to teach men how to pray, to ask in simplest words for what they need and want, His mission had been worthwhile. Learn still further— The soul that has secret access to God need not concern itself about open rewards. The Lord will take care of all of that. He need not be anxious that the neighbors must know it, and is under no necessity of going around to tell them, lest they should not find out his communion with the Father. He need not be anxious that the neighbors know about his gifts and get it into the newspapers that the whole people may understand. He need not be anxious that it be quietly communicated that he is a man of such intensity of spirit that he prayed all night and fasted for days at a time. These are things that no mortal has yet been able to cover or keep a secret when once they were sincerely exercised. Jesus Christ, when He wrought miracles of healing, did His best to silence both the subjects of His blessing and the intimate onlookers. “Tell this to no man” was His injunction. Could He keep it a secret? Impossible! They went out and emblazoned it abroad. The one thing that is absolutely certain is this, that if you live a spiritual life, men will know it; and if you fail, they will know that. If your prayers are sincerely made, a publicity agent is not essential.

The proofs of their own power will be on every hand. If you fast not “to be seen of men”, but because in your soul agony, you have forgotten to eat, your face will shine and men will discover that, as Moses in the day of old, you have been “in the mount with God”. If you are generous, if the Church of God can count on you in every exigency; if you bear your part in the fellowship of the same and more, you may seek by every means at your command to silence tongues, every single member of the fellowship knows the story of your generosity and of your honest effort to cover it up; and if you are niggardly and small, if you withhold more than is meet from God, if you join other highwaymen and rob Him, there is no power under heaven that can keep that from coming to the knowledge of your fellowchurchmen. “That which is spoken in the ear in the closet will be proclaimed upon the housetop”, and eventually every man has his just reward. If one could know the secret and intimate relationships that believers sustain to the Father in Heaven, he would find an explanation of many things that mystify and make him to marvel. Years ago, in the West, I met a young man. He was in Colorado fighting tuberculosis, but he believed God and trusted in Christ as his Great Physician, and confidently asserted to me that he would yet have health. He was poor, and in his illness found it difficult to meet the daily demands of the wife and the little brood of blessed babies. But he told me with a shining face that when one day he became rich, he would see that God’s share was not selfishly appropriated. With that poor judgment, the best that unaided man can exercise, I said in my secret soul, “Characteristic of a tuberculosis patient! They are always hopeful!” But a few days since, I met him again.

His face was ruddy; his form in perfect health; his blessed babies grown to manhood and womanhood; his poverty a thing of the past. He had a great business at his command. I could not attribute it to his intellect or acumen, for he is not brilliant above his fellows; and I confess that as I looked upon it all and remembered the conversation of twenty years since, I said, “Truly this man knew the way to the Father’s presence, the language of effective appeal, and these are God’s ‘open rewards’”. But I pass to the verses that follow (Matthew 6:19-23), in order that I may bring before you Christ’s words concerning THE SAFETY OF RICHES. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness”! Mark you, what Christ is here saying! The place where you deposit your riches is important. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal”. The oriental riches consisted largely of three things: fine linen and embroidered goods. This was the Jew’s notion of great wealth, and that notion to the Jew attains to this day. Of all things he most prefers to have clothing, and yet clothes have always been endangered by moths. Their treasures in that day were not in banks, but largely hidden in the earth. There rust wrought. Their houses were of bamboo poles or mud walls, and into them the thief could break his way; could take the treasure while the family slept.

And hence these three warnings! Moth, rust and thieves are types of enemies to earthly treasures. Marvelous provisions by men have been made against them. We now have mothballs and many another precaution against the destructive insect. We now have banks and dry boxes in which treasures can repose some-what assured against rust; and we now have steel vaults in which to lock our treasures, and yet have we succeeded in making it possible to create places of perfect safety for our deposits? By no means!

The moth, the rust and the robbers never wrought more havoc than now. The moth takes a new form. He comes as a boll weevil and destroys our goods in the bud and before we get them boxed with balls. He comes as the corn-borer that destroy our treasures before they are turned into silver or gold. He comes as the Japanese beetle and smites the fruit before the blossom itself is fully dropped away. The rust of high rates of interest, exorbitant taxations, and unexpected charges, how they eat! And as for the robber, this is his heyday! Every morning the newspaper reports his rich hauls: $150,000 in diamonds snatched most unexpectedly; one hundred banks held up and their current clerks compelled to pass over; or entered in the night and their safes blown. Truly this earth has no place of deposit that is dependable. God alone can guard our possessions, and the wise man will lay up his treasures in Heaven where moths do not enter, where rust doth not corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. Yet such is the triumph of the flesh over the spirit that thousands this morning are making only temporal investments, despising the eternal, simply because their faith is so weak and poor that they count “the bird in the hand worth a dozen in the bush”, and the riches of the day better than the wealth of eternity. But Christ speaks further and tells us THE DEPOSIT THE HEART. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart he also. The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye he single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness”! These three verses express one thought. The heart life is that thing or experience upon which one has set the eyes of his soul. As one said: “It is the heart that touches the supreme solicitude”; that upon which a man sets his eyes with determination to accomplish his soul’s decision. It voices the motive and determines the course and conduct of life. And after all that is what God judges, and that alone. “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart”. If the heart is fixed upon things of this life only, if all its ambitions are temporal and personal and all its accumulations are linen and gold, then when death smites and time ends, instant pauperism overtakes us, and we sweep into eternity where we have not a treasure. In the days of my convalescence my heart was smitten with fear lest in case of my failure to recover, my finances would prove to be in a hopeless tangle, and my little riches should be reduced to nothings, and my family should face want. I almost smile now when I remember that most of them are in health, and honest work might bring them the greatest blessing of life itself, and in the light of after events my fears seem to have been groundless. But who can tell the agony of the hour of death when eternity of pauperism is faced because he has failed to send before him, into everlasting life, a single treasure! It is little wonder that Jesus during this great subject became almost rigid and severe in speech and said, “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” (Matthew 6:24). Ye cannot serve God and mammon! The Master meant that every man must make his choice. Christ was a fundamentalist. Certainly He was not a middle-of-the-roader. Certainly compromise to Him settled no question. Certainly a halfway house was to the Lord of Life a poor stopping place. Be one thing or the other! Do one thing or the other! Stand on this side or that. Choose God or mammon. He did not believe that one could do right and do wrong at the same time. He did not believe that one could travel both east and west in the same moment. He did not even see how two could walk together except they were agreed. Decision and character were not the only characteristics of Christ Himself, but the absolute essentials in His philosophy of life. Mark you, Christ is not here inveighing against people who have wealth in their possession. He is inveighing against people that wealth holds in its possession. The one house that gave Christ the greatest hospitality was that of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, the wealthiest home in Bethany. The one man who surrendered to Jesus the most acceptably was that of Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax-gatherer. The one individual whose loyalty proved itself beyond that of apostle and disciple in the hour of his death was that of Joseph, who begged the body and gave it a beautiful burial. The possession of riches is not a sin, but the SLAVE of riches.

Aye, that is iniquity, indeed. One can take the mammon of unrighteousness and compel it to create for himself friends, and one can yield to the mammon of unrighteousness and be himself doomed in hell forever. Choose, then, who shall be your God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or that silver piece that you call a dollar, and know that in the choice you determine your eternal destiny. Let us hear then the conclusion of the whole matter. “SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD”. From the 25th to the 34th verse He moves to that glorious conclusion. He begs men to cease from that carking care over “what they shall eat and drink”, and what “they shall wear”, and learn from the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, for they are alike eloquent in teaching men to trust God. They illustrate that faith and industry free one from anxiety. And mark you, they combine in a marvelous way these two essentials of true Christianity, faith and industry. The fowls are never afraid that God will forget them, and while they “sow not, neither do they reap, or gather into barns”, they trust the Heavenly Father to feed them, yet with that trust they combine a marvelous industry. What fowl is there that does not work at his job from morning until night? He does not remain on his perch until the sun has risen to high noon waiting for some man to come and feed him. He is up at the break of day and at the task of feeding himself. But while thus engaged he is without alarm; he rises in the sweet assurance of Infinite care. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin”. But they are not indolent. If they exceed “Solomon in all his glory” in their beauty and perfection of dress, it is because they fulfil their life function better than Solomon himself ever did. Every root is busy working its way deeper into the earth, that it may draw life therefrom, and every leaf is engaged with a thousand open pores to extract the gases from the air that are essential to its success, and even the beautiful blossom itself is more industrious than the devoted scientist in breaking up the rays of the sun, compelling them to do its bidding, con-tribute to its coloring and growth. When did you ever know a man that wrought as assiduously as the fowls of the air work, and as intelligently as the lilies of the field, that God forgot or neglected, left him without food, sent to him no drink, gave him no answer to his endeavor, no clothing? Never! The Psalmist again voices a truth illustrated ten thousand times: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. He shall he like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. Be what God wants you to be: do what God wants you to do, and you will never want. “I have been young, now am I old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread”. To put first things first, aye, that is the greatest lesson of life. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you”. The marvelous thing about the teaching of Jesus is that it is true to experience. God is talking here of giving you a million, and certainly not promising you a billion. What He is promising is food and raiment to the faithful and what more can even the millionaire or the billionaire have than these same? His food may be more highly seasoned—often the less healthy on that account. His drink may carry a larger per cent of alcohol and become thereby the more tasty, but also the more tempting and ruinous; his clothing may be of finer texture and more gaudy in color, but neither of these contribute to warmth of body, though they do meet often unrighteous ambitions and contribute to false pride. The clothing of the birds is complete, their feathers are both warm and beautiful.

The seeds of the earth are sufficient for their supply, the color in the lilies make them to be admired of all men. These are God’s contribution and shall He who “lets not a sparrow fall to the ground” without His presence, or a lily be trampled under brutal feet without His consideration, forget to clothe you, “Oh, ye of little faith!”?. Our God is our sole and complete sufficiency “All these things shall be added unto you, take no thought, therefore, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things”. “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”. Then again, the sufficiency for the evil of the day is the sufficiency of the God of all days, who is also the God of all grace. He it is that is willing to give the Kingdom to His little flock—the Kingdom with all its fullness; the Kingdom with all its glorious beauty; the Kingdom with all its unending reward; the Kingdom with all its unthinkable joys: the Kingdom with the KING Himself. What a prospect! And what a contrast to anything that this earth can pledge, or its wealth can promise. Recently an increasing number of people have righteously decided to invest their surplus in spiritual things rather than houses and lands and bonds. There are gracious members of this church whose wills are made and the work of God is remembered.

One day a week since I received a letter from a man in a far city, who said, “I am putting your work in my will for a thousand dollars”. The very next day another letter came from a man in St. Louis which said, “I am rewriting my will and putting your work in for $3,000”. A little while ago a member of this church went to her reward. She gave the church $3,000. Relatives who had neglected her in life went in and attempted to break the will but the law stood and the provisions thereof will be executed.

Down in Indiana also a gracious, godly woman, a personal friend, put into her will some thousands intended for the Northwestern Bible School. What are these seeking to do? Exactly what the morning text suggests. They never paraded their intent; either in personal letters or by the opening of the lock-box do we learn of these things. They had no intent whatever of buying their way to Heaven and bargaining with God for a chief seat in the coming world. They had but one objective, the Spirit wrought in their minds and whispered His pleasure and they assiduously sought to execute the same. It can be said of them as of Atolus of Rheims, on whose tomb are the words “He exported his fortune before him into Heaven: he is gone thither to enjoy it”. Aye, that is the course that lays up treasure in Heaven, and lays them up because the heart is there already; and that is the course that proves a confidence in the God to whose cause they make these contributions, that God who cares and will keep until the end of time and will provide for all eternity.

Matthew 6:9-13

THE PRAYER OF PRAYERS Matthew 6:9-13. Sermon by Dr. W. B. Riley, First Baptist Church, Minneapolis. March 28, 1925. ONE feels almost ashamed to admit that he remained thirty years in the ministry before attempting an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer; and yet, when one mines in such riches as characterize the Revelation, however many years God may give him, he must leave the most of it untouched. It would be interesting to know how long one might remain in the “Sermon on the Mount” and yet speak with profit every time he appeared before his people. Truly when Jesus went up into the Mount and took His seat and opened His mouth and taught, He went also into a great mount of experience, a bright mount of thought, a beautiful mount of utterance, and ever since that day the world has had an illumination hitherto unknown. But the best teaching is interjected with prayer, and into this lofty discussion our Lord brought the model prayer of the millenniums, encouraging His disciples to say, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed he Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen”. As I have mused upon this petition it seemed to me to cover three great themes: The Revelation of God’s character: The Expectation of God’s Kingdom: and The Manifestation of God’s Grace. THE OF GOD’S . “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed, be Thy Name”, is a phrase involving three distinct and somewhat separate suggestions.

1. “Our Father”. The very phrase lays a limitation upon God. It limits Him in space. He is no longer “a force working unconsciously” in a well-nigh limitless universe. He is no longer “the Creator of heaven and earth”; He is no longer “the Holy One of Israel”, manifesting Himself in “the Holy of holies”, He is God at the hearth-stone, God brought into the home-relation: God dwelling with His people, God the center of the family circle, sweetly surrounded by His own children; God who takes time to give attention to His beloved ones. If the theology of the present day ever succeeds in putting this thought aside the result will be an orphanage for Christians. Dr. A. J. Gordon, when he was alive, reminded us of the fact that “formerly God (in Christ) came down to the level of our common humanity, but now the disposition is to lift up humanity to the level of God in Christ; and the result is the deadly doctrine that all men by nature are sons of God”. The revival of this Pelagian heresy is plainly opposed by the Sacred Scripture, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on His Name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God”. Paternity is always a limited experience; and the relationship is determined by generation, and only those begotten of God are His children; and only such can pray the prayer of the text. Others may repeat the words, but they do not pray. The prince of fallen angels could say, as Milton reports him: “The son of God I am, or was; And if I was, I am. All men are sons of God”. But his declaration is only another of the lies which he has fathered, and it has brought him into no kinship with the Holy One.
2. The heavenly location! “Our Father which art in Heaven”. People often ask where Heaven is? and men have speculated upon the subject, but there is one certainty regarding the same, viz., where God is, there is Heaven. One who heard me give an exposition of the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, said, “I am not much interested in the heaven to which I am going when I am through with this life, for I believe, rather, in bringing heaven into this life than waiting until it is finished before I find it”. But according to the teachings of God’s Word, the one of these experiences is in no wise incompatible with the other; the man who brings God into his life has brought heaven into it. In Luke 11:13, Jesus is reported as saying, “If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him”. E. Barnes Lawrence insists that the literal translation of “Heavenly Father” there is “your Father which is out of Heaven” and if there is anything in the world that would bring God “out of His Heaven” it would be the petition of His child who had approached the chamber of the Father’s palace and reported to Him some need of help in this world-life! Yet, I am glad that “God’s in His Heaven”; I am glad to remember that though I move in an atmosphere that is hostile and unholy, God creates about Himself an atmosphere that is friendly and pure; and there is HEAVEN. It matters little then whether we stand or kneel or lie flat on our faces when we pray, the inner vision is upward, and every blessing of life comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is every good and every perfect gift. No wonder the Master adds the further phrase “Hallowed be Thy Name”.
3. The hallowed laudation! Sir Robert Grant had occasion to write: “O worship the King, all glorious above, And gratefully sing His wonderful love, Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of days, Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise. Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite It breathes in the air, it shines in the light. It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, And sweetly distills in the dew and the fain. Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail: Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end, Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend”! But this Lord’s Prayer also involves THE OF GOD’S KINGDOM. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy mil be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. Here also a brief phrase is full of suggestion. It tells us that the Kingdom is yet to come. Perhaps on no biblical subject have so many people gone astray as on this. Great men; mighty ministers, and well-instructed ones, talk constantly of “the Kingdom” as in the present tense, and discuss every phase of church life and work “in terms of the Kingdom”, thereby ignoring the clear biblical distinction between “the church”—God’s present agency for work in the world—and “the Kingdom”—God’s goal for His Son’s supremacy. The Church was founded when the Spirit of God was poured out at Pentecost; the Kingdom of God will be “set up” in the “last days” when He, who has gone to receive it, shall have returned and taken His throne. Beyschlag declares that “The Kingdom of God is wherever the will of God is done on earth as in Heaven; that is, where it is observed in an ideal manner. Accordingly the Kingdom is that ideal condition to which mankind and the world’s history shall arrive when God, according to His inmost being as eternal Spirit and sacred love, shall be the all-filling and the all-conditioning element in the world”. There are men who seem to be constitutionally opposed to biblical terms, and while we have no special objection to Beyschlag’s definition, we prefer the very words of the text itself, namely, until “the Lord shall reign from sea to sea and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth”; then will “the Kingdom have come”. And for that we pray! Truly, as Dr. Jowett remarked, “The men who pray the Lord’s Prayer need to be SEERS. Our souls must be possessed by the glorious vision of the Lord in the majestic, yet gracious, sanctity of God. The beautiful land must be ours in fact and dream. With Paul we must not look on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen; and with John, we must behold even now, “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God”. * * * The anticipation of triumph is one of the secrets of victory! When we pray for the coming of the Kingdom our souls must rest in the vision of the moral and spiritual glory in which that Kingdom exists”. Departing from the language of Jowett, in order to make the truth more clear, we must behold the King in His beauty; yea, we must see Him in the place of power with the scepter in His hand. That vision makes the disciples invincible; and in spite of all discouraging circumstances he is forever optimistic. It is a Kingdom intended for the earth. “Thy will be done on earth”. A man once said to me “I cannot agree with the premillennialist, for I cannot believe that God’s work in the world is destined to failure”. That is exactly what every premillennialist does not believe! He knows, on the authority of the1 Word itself, that God’s work in the world is destined to succeed; and that even an apostate Church is to eventuate in Kingdom-splendor and unspeakable glory; for, as Horatio Bonar wrote: “Where a blasted world shall brighten Underneath a bluer sphere, And a softer, gentler sunshine Shed its healing splendor here: Where earth’s barren vales shall blossom, Putting on their robe of green, And a purer, fairer Eden Be where only wastes have been; Where a King in kingly glory, Such as earth has never known, Shall assume the righteous sceptre, Claim and wear the holy crown”. If there was ever a time in human history when men ought to learn to take God seriously, that time is now! If there was ever an hour when the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ought to be the desire of the Church of God, that season has come. What a “blasted world” it is! What battle! what carnage! what death! what approaching despair! How all of this ought to increase the cry, “Thy Kingdom come: Thy will he done on earth”. The phrase with which this part of the petition finishes reminds us of another fact, namely— It is a Kingdom Heavenly in character. “As it is in Heaven”. The pattern of the Heavenly Kingdom will not be framed in the Vatican, passed upon by the pope; the pattern of the Heavenly Kingdom will not result from peace conferences at the Hague; or the peace table in France; the pattern for the Heavenly Kingdom will not be found out and expressed by politicians and statesmen. That pattern has existed from the beginning, and when men see it they must lift up their eyes, for it will only be shown in the Holy Mount. It must come down from God out of Heaven. And yet, while we are not to make it, we are to “make ready” for it; we are to labor against the day of His Coming, and of its coming; we are to be crusaders indeed in the name of our Christ, and in the interest of His Kingdom. You can readily imagine that I have been interested in the newspaper discussion of what Minneapolis most needs, and those of you who worship in its temple can well-nigh anticipate my thought. Yes, Minneapolis needs a new library! Yes, Minneapolis long needed a great civic hall! Yes Minneapolis did seem to need a new Y. M. C. A., but in all candor, I believe that Minneapolis needs yet more a great centrally located institution still wearing the biblical name of “CHURCH”, in which the old Gospel, the sinfulness of man and the converting grace of God shall be preached; an institution so conducted as to meet the social demands of the com-munity of which it is a part; an institution that shall be no respecter of persons, but shall assemble in its halls the rich and the poor, the ignorant and intelligent; an institution that shall be a fountain of evangelism with the breath of world-wide missions in its every part; and yet, an institution inspired by the hope of the Coming of the Lord; an institution from which there shall go forth to the uttermost parts of the world laymen and ministers alike to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to be set up un-der the mighty hand of the Son of God; and to be characterized by an obedience upon the part of the world’s inhabitants akin to that which every angel and saint of Heaven now so willingly yields. I want to see Minneapolis have a new library! I want to see Minneapolis have a great civic hall! I want to see the Y. M. C. A prospered in all material and especially all spiritual power; but I am happy that the great block on which the First Baptist Church and the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School buildings now stand, are covered with buildings of such splendid proportions as to make possible to Minneapolis and to the Northwest, and to the uttermost parts of the world, a Gospel testimony and a work of grace that will help in the coming of the Kingdom for which we pray. To me the true Church is the surest precursor of the victorious Christ and the Kingdom of universal righteousness. Finally, this prayer involves the OF GOD’S GRACE. “Give us this day our daily bread”. All good gifts are from God by grace. The testimony of the Word is that they come down from above, from “the Father of lights”. Bread, which is commonly regarded as the staff of life is simply the symbol of life’s heavenly supply. David said: “I have been young, and now am I old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread”; God had never forsaken His own. Perhaps no man of modern times has believed that more firmly than George Mueller, and in his case the words of the Lord were again illustrated, “According to your faith be it unto you”. We commonly think that this was true of Mueller, the man advanced in Christian experience, the man who in long years of dealing had learned to trust the Lord—but it seems to have been true from the very beginning of his regenerate life. When he came into a great consciousness of God’s saving power he wrote to his father and brother entreating them to seek the Lord, and telling them how happy he was. To his surprise an angry answer was re-turned. Later when he asked his father for permission to enter a German missionary institute, the father was greatly displeased and particularly reproached him, saying that he had spent so much money on his education that he had hoped he might comfortably spend his last days with him in a regular parish and as a regular preacher; and since it had all come to naught, he need no more consider himself his son. From that moment Mueller resolved that although he still had two years in the university, he would accept nothing more from his father, but turn to his “Heavenly Father” instead. The Ford in a remarkable way supplied the lad’s needs.

Several American gentlemen came to Halle and as they were ignorant of the German language Dr. Tholuck recommended George Mueller to them as tutor. They paid well for his services and of that time he wrote: “Thus did the Lord richly make up to me the little which I had relinquished for His sake”. “Oh fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him’” Forgiveness of our sins depends also upon the grace of God. The prayer reads: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. Here the exceeding grace of God appears in the gift of His Son, by whose Blood alone could the stain of sin be blotted out and the debts of the bankrupt soul be discharged. Robertson reminds us that coal tar is thick, black, ugly, ill-smelling stuff, and yet tells us that it is exactly from this waste product that the most brilliant dyes are made,—celestial creations of color—wonderful transformation, by human chemistry. Not so remarkable is this feat of chemistry however as the chemistry of Divine grace by which our sins are blotted out through the Blood of Jesus, for is it not written that “the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin”? Forgiveness then, is only possible upon the ground of grace. The restraint from sin rests with the grace of God. “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever, Amen”. Some years ago one of the noblest members of my church came to me with troubled face and said; “Pastor, what does it mean, ‘Lead us not into temptation’? Surely God is not our tempter”? He seemed greatly relieved when I said, “No, the more correct translation is “Permit us not to be tempted”—or, “hold us back from the same”, and you may be sure that God will do His part; the failure is not on His side. Campbell Morgan has rather a remarkable discussion of the words to the impotent man. “Take up thy bed and walk”, He says “I think one of the most illuminative and beautiful things I have ever seen about that is from the pen of Marcus Dods, just in a sentence, and a flash. Dr. Dods asks—‘Why was the man to take up his bed’? ‘In order that there should be no provision for a relapse’. Ah, that is the point. Did you hear that? I don’t want you to miss that. No provision for a relapse. That is the principle upon which a man is to start his Christian life.

The temptation to this man was to say, ‘Well, I am up; I am up! Really I am. Yes, really I am up, and He has done it. But I think I’d better leave that bed. I don’t know how I will get on in the street. I don’t know how I will get on to-morrow! I’d better leave it in case I have to come back’. As sure as he had done it, he would have come back.

No! No! that won’t do. Jesus says, Take up the thing that has been carrying you; master the thing that has mastered you. Take it up! Take it up! When you start to follow Christ, burn your bridges. Don’t give yourself a chance to go back. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon that.

Here is a man who had been a slave of drink—to revert to my previous illustration—he says, ‘Now I am going to quit this in the strength of Christ’. He means it and gets up and starts. When he gets home, in a cupboard, in his house, is a half-bottle of whisky. What is he going to do with it? Oh, he says, I will drive the cork in hard and keep it in case of need. I tell you that man will want whisky within twenty-four hours. No! No! if that has been your besetment, when you get home, smash it; pour it out!

I am not going to say soft, easy things; I am not going to tell you all you have to do is to believe. I want to tell you that you are to believe with the belief that manifests itself in works. Unless you have a belief like that, it is worth nothing. Burn your bridges; cut off your companionships; say farewell to the men who have lured you to ruin. Be a man; stand up and say to the man that tempted you, ‘I have done. I am going the other way’ ”! And I want to say that the chances are that the man will come with you. That is the remarkable thing about it, that the very man that is luring you to wrong will very likely come with you if you are man enough to burn your bridges. I believe all that is involved in the petition “Permit us not to come into temptation; but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever”. No man can pray that who does not propose to co-operate with God, when by grace, He starts to work it out. But the man who is ready to cooperate can pray it, and begin immediately after his first prayer. He can begin before he feels all the fullness of Divine power; begin before God manifests the last ounce of grace He proposes to give; begin, in other words, with what God grants in answer to that petition. Jesse Pullen, a reformed and converted drunkard, was trying to lead to Christ one of his old drinking companions, and when the latter expressed the fear that he would not hold out, Pullen said, “You know that I run a little steamer in the summer. I don’t wait until I get up steam enough to carry me across the sound before I start, the boiler wouldn’t stand it. It would blow the boat all to pieces.

But when I get about twenty pounds of steam I sing out, ‘All right, Captain, go ahead’. Down in the hold I have plenty of coal, and as fast as we use up the steam we make more, and so we go across the Sound, though we never have more than twenty or thirty pounds at one time. Now the Lord Jesus does not start us off with grace enough for a whole lifetime. Poor human nature couldn’t stand it. But He wipes out our past sins with His mercy and gives us grace enough for one day’s duty. But, mind you, He provides plenty of fuel to make more grace, even the Bible, and prayer, and the Holy Spirit; and so all the way along the voyage of life we have grace to help in time of need”, and every conquering step of the Christian forever pays fresh tribute to “the Kingdom, the power and glory of God”!