Matthew 6:1-18

Chapter 21

True Almsgiving No Compulsion In Religion the Meaning of Long Prayers the Hypocrisy of Fasting

Prayer

Almighty God, we would hide ourselves under the wings of thy mercy. We dare not look at thy law, for we have broken it, nor at thy righteousness, for it is now unto us as a two-edged sword; but thou hast permitted us to look at thy mercy. Thine eternal pity, those tears of thine that bid us silent but large welcome to all the love of thine heart. God be merciful unto us sinners. We have done our alms, and men have seen the doing of them; we have prayed, and behold our prayers have fallen back unheard, unanswered. We have fasted that we might draw attention to the dejection of our face. God be merciful unto us sinners. We have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things that we ought to have done; we pierce ourselves with many accusations, we cannot spare the infliction of bitter self-reproach, we mourn, we repent, we bow down ourselves before thee in utterest humiliation, no voice have we of self defence. God be merciful unto us sinners. Our standard has been short, our balances have been unequal, our purposes have been double, our words have had one meaning to others and another meaning to ourselves; we have lied without speaking, by smiling, by action, by hint. God be merciful unto us sinners, make us clean of heart, clean in the spirit, right in our motive, holy within; then shall our life be a sacred sacrifice, thou wilt receive it daily in thy heavenly places as a well-meaning offering of the soul.

We bless thee for all thy patient care, thy long-suffering, thy tender mercy. Thou hast taken care of us, as if we were of consequence to thee; thou hast numbered the hairs of our heads, as if thou hadst not to count the innumerable planets, and set the stars in their places. Thou hast hidden us in the hollow of thine hand, and drawn us very near to thine heart, and many a message of tenderest love hast thou addressed to us in our low estate. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gifts. Thou hast given as thine only-begotten Son, Son of Mary, Son of Man, Son of God, Lamb of God, Saviour of the world, whose name gathers unto itself all music, and comes down upon our sin and woe like the very gospel of thine heart. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

Thou hast not left thyself without witness in our hearts. Thou hast given unto us thy Holy Spirit to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; to purify us as with flame, to illuminate our minds as with the very light of thy throne, to teach us the meaning of thy truth, and to help us to apply it to our varied necessities. What shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards us. Truly we can render nothing in return, but it shall be well with us if with our hearts and lips we can bless thee for all thy love.

Thou art still in the world, thou hast not withdrawn thy rule from the sons of men, Still the horn of thine anointed doth bud, and still thou givest unto him a lamp that shall be a perpetual light. Thou liftest up the crushed truth, and thou givest renewed beauty to graces that have been trampled upon by heedless or cruel feet. The Lord reigneth, his throne is in the heavens, and his sceptre is stretched out over all. We know not what we do; we cannot tell what a day may bring forth; we hide ourselves in the infinitude of thy love; we put our whole life into thy care; we would expend it in thy service, we would yield it to thy glory.

Wherein any heart is heavily burdened to-day, let special messages of grace be sent to it from heaven. Wherein the light of any house has been suddenly put out, O thou, who hast all the lamps of the universe, do thou set a now light to chase away the sudden and heavy darkness. Where great tears of woe are starting from the eyes, because of bereavement, bitter disappointment, brokenness of heart because of family trouble, the Lord's own hand touch those tears and dry them, for our hands cannot touch a grief so great and heavy. Wherein our purposes are right, do thou prosper them; wherein they are wrong or mistaken, do thou confound them. We put our life again and again, day by day, with every waking and every sleep, into thine hand: thou didst give it, and it shall all be thine.

Send thy word out to those who are not with us to-day, to those who are shut up in solitude in the sick chamber, suffering or waiting upon others; be with those who are called upon suddenly to travel and leave us for a while, with those in trouble on the sea, with weary hearts too tired to pray, with those to whom life has become a great despair. The Lord lift the great cross higher, and let it burn with all the fire of his love, and throw out its heat so that the coldest heart may feel it and the most desponding life may answer its warming ray.

The Lord's light be held above his word, and the Lord's light spring out of his word, that in the light coming from heaven and springing from the written page we may see God's meaning, and give it loving welcome to our mind and heart. Amen.

Matthew 6:1-18 .

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth;

4. That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

9. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11. Give us this day our daily bread,

12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13. 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.

14. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

16. 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.

17. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;

18. 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.

"When thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets." The boxes in the temple treasury were shaped like trumpets. Jesus Christ said, "Do not make a trumpet of the box: it looks like one, but do not use it for the purpose of calling attention to what you are about to put into it." It is strange how we may pervert the most exquisite beauty, and turn it to false uses, forms, and colours, which God meant to lead us to higher thought and finer feeling. It is a box for the reception of secret alms, not a trumpet for sounding for the purpose of calling public attention to what is about to be done. Use everything for its right purpose, and beware of perversion; do not say you got the suggestion from the thing itself it was never meant to convey such a suggestion, it was meant for a totally different purpose. He is the honest man, as well as the wise, who seizes the definite intention of providence, and works along that line without putting upon it glosses and twists and perversions of his own.

"When thou doest thine alms." Literally, and this may surprise some of you, when thou doest thy righteousness. In the fifth chapter and the twentieth verse, which we have already expounded, we read, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." What a different meaning is infused into the sentence now, when we replace the word alms with the word righteousness. I thought almsgiving was a matter of pity, transient emotion, kindly feeling. It is more than that: under all the flowers of the earth are the great ribs of rocks, without which the earth could not cohere and exist. I understood that when I gave alms I was displaying pity, kind feeling, nice sentiment, and that I was drawing attention to myself as a man of peculiarly good nature and most amiable sensibility. Nothing of the kind. It is right to give: when the strong man helps the weak, he is not showing you the beauties of amiability, he is not indulging or exemplifying a merely transient emotion, it is not a specimen of social chivalry, it comes out of the righteousness of God, the very law of right. If he had done anything else, he would have been guilty before God of a violation of the spirit of righteousness.

When you took that dear little child off the streets and gave it a chair at your table, it was not an action that could be covered with some such words as pity, kindness, sympathy gentleness, and amiability. All these words themselves are used oftentimes with too narrow a meaning. If our actions do not go back to the rock of righteousness, then they will be, however beautiful in their immediate manifestation, transient in their duration. They will be forgotten as dreams are forgotten when the light comes. On the other hand, only let us get the notion that to help a man, a child, a woman, to give alms to poverty, to do any deed of charity, is a right thing, and then see how our life becomes grand in solemnity, how it founds itself on the immutable and the complete, and how we cease to be moved by caprice and impulse that cannot be calculated and controlled, and become the servants of a great law, the apostles of an infinite and beneficent righteousness.

This almsgiving is to be done, I observe, in the sight of God, Then is God always looking? So the great Master teaches us. "Your Father which is in secret, your Father which seeth in secret, your Father who is always looking on." What, am I ever in the great Taskmaster's eye? Does that eye never close in slumber? Is there not one moment when it tires of looking? In that moment I might snatch his sceptre and dispute his sovereignty. But the Holy One of Israel slumbereth not nor sleepeth: the darkness and the light are both alike unto him. That which is spoken in the ear he hears in thunder in heaven. This gives me a very solemn and grand view of life.

Why, then, many of our processes in the matter of almsgiving must be given up. Sometimes men meet and challenge one another to do good. If it is done with modesty all but infinite, it is permissible. It is a dangerous trick. "I will give fifty pounds if you will give fifty pounds," says a man who imagines he is going to do something great. If it is a mere matter of taste, so far as any matter can be so limited the challenge is allowable, but if it relate to the higher charities, to consecration, to the outgoing and uplifting and offering of the heart to God, do not mention what you are going to do, ask not what other people are going to do. Beware of that most mischievous sophism, which says, "I am only waiting to see what others do." Stand before God, calculate the whole case in his presence, soliloquise in his hearing, have but one auditor, and that your Father which heareth in secret, and then do whatever is right, according to your then sanctified conviction, and God will do the rest.

Compulsion is not to enter into almsgiving, except self-compulsion, the best of all. If you compel me to do an alms or to give a gift, I will undo it if I can, when you are not looking, but if I am compelled by ministries within to do an alms, I do it with my love. I could not withdraw it, it is given to God in holy sacrifice and grateful prayer. In this matter of religion there ought to be no compulsion at all, except the compulsion of love. That love needs continual warming. It is amazing how soon our affections become cooled by the chilling winds of the earth. So I must hasten to the sanctuary, I must get me into the inner spirit of the divine word, I must climb the sacred eminence on which stands the one cross, out of which all other crosses are cut, and so much I renew the fire of my love. For love in the church is nothing if it be not a constant flame. Let us beware of sudden outbreaks of fire. If they be beside the continual burnt-offering, they are good, but the burnt-offering itself must be steady, continual, daily, and if now and again the flame shoot heaven-high, so be it, but the steady glow must never fail.

We are to see the divine in the human in this giving of alms. When I give something to a little poor child, to whom do I give it, if my motive is right and pure? I give it to Christ. That is his own interpretation of my action, he astounds me by its vastness and brightness. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat." O hungry one, Christ is suffering the pang that gives thee pain. In all our affliction he is afflicted. Whenever a hand of righteous charity is put out to alleviate our distresses, he feels the tingling of it in his own pierced palm, and writes it, to be spoken of another day.

The hypocrites are not so, the actors are of another temper: their act is the same as the right act, but it is done from the wrong motive, and therefore it has no value in the sight of heaven. It is like a prayer that paints itself on the ceiling, not like a living bird, loosened from the secret heart and sent out to find its invisible nest in heaven.

Jesus Christ, then, is very deep in teaching. He gets down to the fundamental line, and yet in doing so there is a marvellous satire in his tone. Speaking about the actors or hypocrites, he says, "Verily I say unto you, they have their reward." They get what they seek; they seek applause, they get it for the moment and it dies away, and they are left with the void air. They get their heaven, an empty place, a silent chamber, a heaven they would gladly part with; when you have received your applause for your almsgiving that is all you will get, if you did it from a wrong motive. You will hear a clapping of hands and a stamping of feet, and an uproarious "Huzza!" for a second or two and then, gone; and when it is gone, your heaven has vanished. As to the after work, who can tell what that may be when the mask is taken from the hypocrite's face, when the paint is washed from his countenance and he stands out in the ghastliness of his true meaning? My soul, enter not thou into such a secret.

You will find as you proceed with your lesson that Jesus Christ applies the same principle to everything he now deals with. The fire is the same, he does not change the test, his chemistry is not. fickle, throughout the whole he is seeking for purity of heart, and throughout the whole he shows how the trick of the hand may be made momentarily to represent purity of heart and purpose. Thus with regard to prayer, "When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the actors, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men," Right things may be done in a wrong way, and so may lose their value. It is right to give, right to pray, right to fast, but they may all be done in a wrong way.

We do not understand in England what is meant by these words, "long prayers, vain repetitions, and much speaking," though sometimes we say a prayer is long if it went, say, to the length of ten minutes, or fifteen, or twenty; if to half an-hour, we describe it as very Jong and tedious; but that was not the measure indicated by the words of Jesus Christ. It had come to be in his time a matter of settled conviction among certain people, to whom he now definitely refers, that if they only prayed times enough, kept on saying the same things over and over again, they would purchase heaven as a matter of right, as you purchase an article by laying down a certain money value for it on the counter. The article is yours, it is not a gift of the original proprietor, it has passed on to you as having value received on the part of the man who first held it. So among the hypocrites and the actors, they thought that if they read a certain document called the Sch'ma if they read that over and over again, and kept at it, and made a question of regular mechanical repetition of it, by a certain turn of the wheel they would be able to claim heaven as men claim a field for which they have paid the price. Jesus Christ having reference to this mechanical piety, said, "That is a vital mistake on their part; they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Your" Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him." Beware of vain repetition: in other words, beware of a mechanical piety. No prayer is long that is prayed with the heart: as long as the heart can talk the prayer is very brief let that be the measure and standard of our long and much praying. Do not measure your prayers by minutes, but by necessities. Sometimes we have no influence with the King. He appears to have deafened himself against us or to have turned into stone at our approach, and our prayers and utterances are lost upon him as rain upon the barren rock. Sometimes we can talk the whole day with him, we cannot tell where the growing numbers of our praise will end, our heart is enlarged in great and free utterance, and then we enter into the mystery of communion; not asking, begging, soliciting, wanting more and more like the horse-leech, but talking out to him as the dews go up to the morning sun. When you have such opportunities, make the most of them, and do not let the words, "vain repetitions and much speaking," come into your minds as temptations. One sentence may be much speaking, and is so, if it be not meant. A day's long talk, a night's long communion, will be but too short, if you see the King as it were face to face, Thus, again, Jesus Christ brings us to the point "Blessed are the pure in. heart." Jesus Christ came to set purity of heart in opposition to the formalism and corruption of his day. He found that evil hands had written lies and blasphemies upon every beam in the Temple, he found that the windows that ought to have looked heavenward had been cobwebbed with traditions, and curtained and screened so as to conceal the iniquity which was wrought behind them. So, with glowing ardour, burning like an oven, he cleansed the desecrated house, and relighted its shaded chambers with the very glory of heaven, called back the exiled and dishonoured angels of purity, mercy, meekness, peace, and he banished the ghouls of selfishness, oppression, cruelty, and strife. He lifted, peasant's son though he was, an arm of thunder and shattered the vile creations that were set up to mock the holiness of God.

"What think ye of Christ?" A grand Teacher. He made no beck and bow to his age, saying, "If you please, will you be good enough to hear me?" He spoke the eternal word, and there was something in the human heart that said, "This is he of whom Moses and the prophets did write" You know the true voice when you hear it; there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.

The Saviour then proceeds to apply the same principle to the matter of fasting. He did not find fault with fasting as a religious ordinance, but he said, in effect, "This religious observance has been perverted like prayer and almsgiving; now you must not disfigure your face, and so call attention to the fact that you are fasting; you must fast in your heart, it must be the soul that fasts. Is not this the fast that I have chosen to do unto heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to speak for the dumb, and be feet and hands to them that are lame and helpless?" He did not find fault with the words, almsgiving, prayer, fasting, but he carried them up to their highest definitions. We have degraded every term we have ever used. In our Saviour's time the hypocrites or actors used to spread ashes upon their heads literally, and used to tear their garments and make their faces the very picture and exemplification of hunger and dejection, and they used to walk up and down the streets, saying by these actions. "Look at us, how pious we are, how observant of the law; see to what extreme lengths we carry our devotion." Christ looked at them, and his eyes flashed fire on them, and he said, "Hypocrites, actors, masked men, verily I say unto you, you have your reward. You put out your hand to catch a gilded bubble, you seize it with greedy fingers and it melts and dies."

This matter of fasting was carried so far that one historian tells us it was mimicked and mocked in the Roman theatre. At one play, the audience being seated and in expectation of the performance, a camel was led across the stage, and that camel was in such a lean and miserable condition, looking so utterly dejected and forsaken, that voices called out, "What is the matter with the camel?" and the dramatic answer was, "This is fasting-time amongst the Jews, and the camel has been observing the fast." That is what our canting impiety always comes to; it is the tempting, snivelling hypocrite that is put upon the boards of our novels, and not the earnest and loving and true soul. When I come upon any character in a novel or romance that is meant to typify the ministry of the day or the Christian spirit of the day, I give the artist credit for endeavouring to set forth a hypocrisy and not a reality. I do not look even upon those Roman pagans as traducing a grand religious consecration, but as mimicking and mocking and bitterly taunting men who had forsaken the spirit of their religion, and had perverted and prostituted the letter to the most unworthy purposes. If any man shall attempt to travesty that which is real, true, pure, divine, the thick end of the beam shall fall upon his own head in due time. As to those who take delight in caricaturing things that are counterfeit and unfit and unworthy you have a ministry in life, and I wish you success in the discharge of your grave and responsible function.

"What think ye of Christ?" There is a tone of reality about this Man's teaching. Is his ministry vital, is he working in the right direction, is this the reforming ministry which all ages need? Sometimes we say that our ministers preach to the times in doing so they follow the example of their Lord and Master. If Christ were living now he would speak to the times: he would not speak to some dumb ages, he would speak to the men who are living around him, working all kinds of mischief, and having within them counsels and purposes unworthy alike of their manhood and of the divine vocation that is in all human life. I cannot imagine Jesus Christ coming to read something to us of an abstract kind. He would now and again lay down great breadths of noble doctrine, but he would be swiftly out in the age again. You would find him in the marketplace, you would find him in the broad thoroughfares, you would find him where merchants most do congregate, you would find him in all the activities of life, trying everything by the fire of heaven. He lived in a time of corruption, he never shut his mouth concerning it. He saw a kingdom perverted and lifted up his voice in condemnation of it. He told the painted actors, the dressed coxcombs of his day, that they had not yet crossed the threshold of the kingdom which they pretended to hold in personal custody, and then, having cursed the corruption of his day as no other man had the power to do, he turned round, and with ineffable blessing, and with most tender speech, he spake to the weary and the heavy-laden, and the sad-hearted, to the woman that was a sinner, and to the little child brought for his blessing. And then last of all he poured out his soul unto death. A mistake does any whisper such a suggestion? Looking at the life that preceded it, at the thunder and lightning of the denunciation of all wrong that went before it, at the beatitudes and the gospels poured out upon those whose hearts were broken and whose lives were weary that death was the only fit conclusion; it belonged to the antecedent mistake, it set forth in the most vivid and graphic colours what had been indicated in hasty sketches in every day's beneficent ministry.

He died, he rose again, he lives, he expects us, he is preparing a place for us, and when he prepares, what will the result be? I have seen his earth, his flowers, his summers, his mornings I have seen his sun, I have seen some of his innumerable stars. He will outdo it all, for he will prepare, not to be worthy of me, but to be worthy of himself.