Chapter 6

Matthew chapter six is really a prophecy which anticipates the Church Age as well as briefing the disciples with regard to the operation of serving the Lord. In this chapter we have a subject primarily for those who have personally accepted Christ as saviour, and that is service. This is the application: if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are in full time Christian service whatever you do in life.

Verses 1-18, the problem of motivation in service. The key to this particular section of chapter six is the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees is a phoney facade, it is a whitewash, it is a front, and it is generally characteristic of religion. It is self-righteousness and this is the subject that will be examined under motivation.

Introductory principles

1. The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was overt, hypocritical, legalistic and religious.

2. This righteousness was personally condemned by Jesus Christ in Matthew 23.

3. This righteousness sponsors two categories of false doctrine: salvation by works and spirituality by works. 4. The disciples cannot operate under such righteousness and at the same time serve Christ. The disciples are on the mountain with Jesus Christ at this time. They are going to be sent out to serve the Lord — to the lost sheep of the house of Israel — but already these disciples have been influenced by the religion of Israel, by Judaism, by the scribes and the Pharisees. Therefore at this point Jesus Christ must cut through this facade of self-righteousness, this phoney front of legalism, and He must give them a true basis for serving the Lord. In order to do this they must have some change of principles on the inside.

5. This righteousness substitutes religion for regeneration and the social gospel for the Bible gospel. Jesus wants the disciples to present regeneration rather than religion.

In this passage we are going to have the indicting of self-righteousness under three cases. The first case will be the alms case and will cover the principle of giving in service. The second case is in verses 5-15, the prayer case. The third case in verses 16-18 is the fasting case. In each case Jesus Christ is going to present a system of false motivation: motivation of human good, motivation of self-righteousness. For example, in the alms case the key is at the end of verse 2 — “that they might have glory of men.” People often give for approbation lust, they want to be recognised. This is the motivation of self-righteousness and the phoney front. Then in the prayer case, verse 5, we have the phrase repeated, “that they might be seen of men.” Again we have the concept of approbation lust. In the fasting case, verse 16 — “that they might appear unto men to fast.” So here are the three phases which help us to see the perspective of the first eighteen verses.

Verse 1 — the alms case. Here is the principle of doing a good thing in a wrong way. If you have a good thing plus a wrong motivation it equals wrong. If it is a good thing done in a good way it is right. So we have immediately before us the issue of human good versus divine good — the greatest issue in the world today and the greatest issue in the spiritual life.

“Take heed” — a present active imperative — present tense, linear aktionsart. It means keep on being alert with regard to this problem. As long as we live the present tense must apply to us, we must be constantly alert that we do not get into legalism and into operation human good. Human good is never acceptable to God — Isaiah 64:6; Romans 8:8. “Take heed” means to beware, to hold a matter in your mind so that you are alert and ready to apply at a moment’s notice. So alertness comes from divine viewpoint in the frontal lobe.

Now He takes up something which is quite common at this time in Israel. The religious system always develops a system of giving. Wherever you find religion well developed you find one of the wealthiest organisations in the world. Any organised religious system is extremely wealthy. It may have impoverished constituents due to the fact that they have been milked in the name of religion. Here in verse 1 this is not giving under the Mosaic law and that is why it is called alms — “that ye do not your alms before men.” However, the Greek says: “Beware that you do not your righteousness before men.” Alms will be brought up in the next verse but it is not mentioned here where we are dealing with the general principle: don’t parade your human righteousness before people. This is a reference to human good from the old sin nature. The issue to a lost and dying world is the righteousness of God. The only righteousness the world should see is the righteousness produced by the Holy Spirit and that doesn’t need to be paraded. To believers of this age giving money to the Lord is a virtue but giving depends on motivation, upon mental attitude, and it depends on who controls your life when you give.

“to be seen of them” — here is the false motivation, the approbation lust factor — “otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven” — “of your Father” is the preposition para, the preposition of immediate source. And from the immediate source of your Father you can give until you are blue in the face and it has absolutely no reward in time. There is reward in eternity and there is reward in time, but here it refers to reward in this life. We know this from the preposition para.

Verse 2 — “Therefore when thou doest thine alms.” This is the first time the word “alms” occurs in the Greek. In the first verse it should have been translated “righteousness.”

“do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do” — sounding a trumpet was the modus operandi of the Pharisees. They had a regular system for giving. Usually on the Sabbath they had a line in the temple. There was a part of the temple called the treasury and there was a large table there with someone sitting behind it. They laid the money down on the table so that all could see it. Always there was a big audience around them and when a Pharisee filed by he would always bring his own orchestra or musical accompaniment to sound off. As soon as everyone is looking he would bring out his gold pieces and as they clunked on the table he would get higher and higher on approbation lust until he goes out of there drunk on lust. Everybody thinks he is great — “as the hypocrites” refers to the Pharisees and the scribes. Why do they do it? — “that they may have glory of men,” desire for approbation lust. Then follows the commentary of Jesus: “Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.” That is all they are going to get, the human good recognised by human beings. God is never interested in human good accomplished by human beings. The plan of God for the human race is grace and there is no place in operation grace for one ounce of human good. The principle of grace: grace equals God does the doing; man does the receiving; God gets the glory. But religion or legalism (operation alms): man does the doing and God is supposed to receive it but He doesn’t; man gets the glory. God rejects man’s good and only man will glorify man.

Jesus said to be sure when you do something for the Lord that you are in fellowship, and that you are not doing it to stimulate approbation lust or power lust, or in response to ego lust. It must be done in the power of God otherwise it is no good.

Verse 3 — the principle of giving must involve true motivation. “But when thou doest thine alms.” Here is the case of charitable giving again; “let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” In a casual reading of this is the person who is giving right or left handed? He is right handed because the left hand isn’t to know what the right hand is doing. Imagine doing something with your right hand and the left hand not knowing what it is all about. It would be the quintessence of non-coordination. So this is an idiom, an idiom of motivation. It is an idiom for: Do not be run by the lust factor, do not be motivated, do not be stimulated, to do not pressed into doing something by you lust factor in your old sin nature. We are controlled in our case by the Holy Spirit; be in fellowship when you give, or whatever you do, then you produce divine good. This really means, Do not be controlled by your lust pattern, by your old sin nature, because the old sin nature can only crank out human good and human good is never acceptable to God. Only things that are accomplished in the power of the Spirit glorify God and this is the issue again of divine versus human good.

Verse 4 — “That thine alms may be in secret” — that is, not seen by men to incite their approbation and/or praise. Giving in secret keeps the false motivation factor out of the modus operandi. Giving in secret means simply making no attempt to indicate what you are giving, how you are giving, when you are giving, and so on. This is the principle of being correctly motivated in giving. “and the Father that seeth in secret himself shall reward thee.” The word “openly” is not found in the original. And this is reward in time. We learn that from the preposition para in the first verse.

Introduction to the prayer case

1. One of the areas in which Jesus attacks the pseudo-righteousness of the Pharisees and the religion of the day is public prayer.

2. In the midst of this attack on hypocritical prayers of the Pharisees Jesus is going to present the model prayer for the disciples, and the reason He gives this is to demonstrate the failure of the Pharisees. It is a rebuke of the Pharisees and to illustrate how they failed.

3. To understand the so-called Lord’s prayer we must understand the context of this prayer.

4. The first lesson of the model prayer is brevity.

5. The so-called Lord’s prayer in this passage was never intended for liturgy. It is a model prayer for the crash program prior to the Church Age.

6. Part of the prayer was designed to expose the self-righteousness and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who would not admit to personal sinfulness.

7. Remember that the sermon on the mount was a way of life for the disciples during the three years of our Lord’s public ministry. Jesus has already amplified the Mosaic law by extending it to thought pattern and motivation and this amplification demands the insertion of grace and grace principles. This prayer was a model prayer to be prayed by the disciples for three years. We are going to learn many things from this model prayer but this is not a prayer we could pray today. The real Lord’s prayer is John chapter seventeen.

8. With the declaration of grace the most subtle forms of legalism are going to be exposed. Legalism is that part of the self-righteousness that seeks to gain approbation from God and praise from man on the basis of human works. This legalism is opposed to grace and this will be emphasised in the Lord’s prayer.

9. Before Jesus can offer the disciples certain supernatural powers to go out and represent Him and to fulfil their ministry He must expose legalism. This will be brought out in that prayer.

10. If He doesn’t expose legalism the disciples will abuse the powers that are given to them by catering to their approbation lust and seeking to impress people with these powers.

11. It is imperative that the disciples be warned about legalism before they begin their ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel — Matthew 10:2-8 — and consequently this model prayer is designed to help them avoid all the pitfalls of legalism.

There are three cases in this chapter. There is the alms case in verses 1-4, the prayer case in verses 5-15, and finally the fasting case in verses 16-18. In connection with these three cases motivation is given, first in the alms case in verse 2: “that they might have glory of men”; the prayer case: verse 5, “that they might be seen of men”; the fasting case: verse 16, “that they might appear unto men to fast” .In each case the motivation is exposed and is false, erroneous, incorrect and indicates the operation of the old sin nature in the field of approbation lust, power lust, and so on.

The prayer case, verses 5-15.

Verse 5 — “And when thou prayest” is a reference to these believing disciples. The present tense indicates that they should make prayer a lifetime habit; the active voice: they must initiate prayer; the subjunctive mood: whether their prayer is effective or not depends upon the utilisation of divine operating assets and understanding doctrine pertinent to prayer. This present active subjunctive is very important because it tells us that we can spend a lot of time praying and none of it be effective.

“the hypocrites” refers to the religious leaders, the scribes, the Pharisees — “for they love.” The word “love” is not the usual word for divine love but it is a word which is sometimes connected with ego. They love to pray, their ego is stimulated by their public prayer because they receive attention of men as a result of it. The principle: Ego is stimulated through the titillation of approbation lust, “standing in the synagogues and in the streets", so that everyone can see them and applaud them and recognise them; “that they may be seen of men” — their motivation in public men is that men might praise them. In other words, they are doing this to stimulate their approbation lust.

“Verily I say unto you, They have their reward” — “they have” does not mean to have at all. It is a business term for receiving full payment, they have no reward at all. Rewards are for believers only for that which glorifies God. This is obviously unbelievers under the energy of the flesh and they have full payment. What does full payment mean? It means all the payment for whatever good deed they are doing is what they glean out of approbation lust.

Verse 6 — Private prayer is always a test of approbation lust and Jesus tells His disciples to go into a private place. If you want to eliminate the approbation lust factor from prayer do it in a private place where no one can see you.

“But thou” — “but” is a conjunction of contrast. The contrast is between the Pharisees and the religious crowd of verse 5 and the believing disciples of verse 6; “when thou prayest,” present active subjunctive, “enter into thy closet.” Three hundred years ago when the King James version was translated a closet wasn’t a closet as we know a closet. A closet means a private room anywhere where you can be unseen; “and when thou hast shut thy door, pray” — “pray” is an aorist active imperative which only comes after you have shut the door for privacy; “to thy Father” — “to thy Father” is a radical change. To the Jew this is amazing. Why? Because the Jews in the Old Testament always prayed to the one who was speaking to them now, they prayed to the God of Israel, Jesus Christ. Why? Jesus Christ was not on earth and the many times when they said, “Jehovah” or “Holy One of Israel,” they were praying to the Lord Jesus Christ. But you see Jesus Christ, when He comes into the world is a Priest, He is our High Priest and makes intercession for us, and He prays to the Father. Now, of course, all prayers are addressed to the Father. So here is something that was quite shocking to them: You pray to the Father. The Father is the recipient of all prayer; “in secret.” This means that you have eliminate approbation and power lust and you are operating on the principle of Colossians 3:17 — “Do everything as unto the Lord.”

“and they Father which seeth” — the Father always sees; “shall reward thee,” the word “openly” does not occur in the original. He does not reward openly. The reward here has to do with reward in time — answers to prayer, orientation to the plan of God, production.

Verses 7,8 — the pitfalls to prayer.

Verse 7 — “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions.” God isn’t impressed by asking for it a dozen times and there is no great power in it; “as the heathen do” — in other words, they think that if they repeat something over and over again that this is going to impress God, they think there is merit in repeating it many times. Religion is always impressed by repeating phrases in prayer; “for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”

Principle: Repetitious babbling does not force God to bless man. God can never bless man on the basis of man’s merit, He always blesses man on the basis of His person and His merit.

Verse 8 — “Be not therefore like unto them.” The Greek says: “Therefore, do not imitate them.” One of the greatest dangers in the world is for a believer to imitate religious people.

Verse 9 — we have now come to a model prayer for the disciples. It is not the Lord’s prayer. “After this manner therefore pray ye” — “pray ye” is present active imperative, Keep on praying along this pattern. “After this manner” doesn’t mean to use these exact words, it means to use this pattern. This is a model to follow without imitating the words. “Our Father” — all prayer is addressed to the Father, Matthew 6:9; in the name of the Son, John 14:13,14; in the power of the Spirit, Ephesians 6:18.

What is the first principle of prayer? Fellowship. You must have fellowship with God — be in fellowship. The word “Hallowed” gives us this concept. It means to be set apart or to be sanctified — “set apart be thy name” — aorist tense, referring to the point of time when one prays. His person must be set apart when you pray, this means to be in fellowship. It is in the passive voice and this means that His name receives this through the believer who is praying being in fellowship. It is an imperative mood and it is commanding God that His name be set apart. The aorist tense plus the imperative plus the passive voice addressed to God. Receive a set apart name, actually adds up to an idiom. It is the principle of being in fellowship. If you pray out of fellowship — Psalm 66:18. You cannot be effective in prayer unless you are in fellowship.

Verse 10 — an eschatological petition. Jesus Christ is on earth, the potentialities of the kingdom are there with the King. “Thy kingdom” is a reference to the rule of Jesus Christ on the earth; “come” — the Greek goes in the opposite direction. “Come, thy kingdom” is the literal Greek. The word “come” is an aorist active imperative. These imperative moods also indicate the power of the faith-rest technique in prayer, indicating the principle of Matthew 21:22. You have a right to demand that God do certain things and the basis of course is knowledge of doctrine and the operation of the faith-rest technique.

“Come, thy kingdom” — aorist active imperative, ordering the kingdom to come. We can’t pray “Come, thy kingdom” today. The kingdom cannot come today, God Himself could not bring the kingdom today. It was possible when the disciples were on the mount because the King was on earth, but the King is in heaven today seated at the right hand of the Father. When the King is in heaven the kingdom can’t come. Furthermore, the King is going to stay there until operation footstool is completed. After operation footstool the Church will go up to meet the King but the King will meet the Church in the air and He still won’t be on the earth. He is then going to cleanse His bride and then the King will come back to the earth and then the Millennium. The kingdom is the reign of the King on earth. In the meantime the Rapture must occur, all of the events of the Tribulation, the return of Christ, and then the kingdom will come. But in their day the disciples could pray “Come, thy kingdom” because the King was there, and this was to be a part of their message to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: the King is here. It couldn’t happen today. Impossible. “Come, thy kingdom” pertains to the Millennium and is a petition you cannot pray today, even as you cannot pray as David did: “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me” — Psalm 51.

How will you know when the kingdom occurs? There is a third petition which amplifies the second — “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” “Thy will” is the will of God. Do you think today, by any straining of the imagination, that the will of God is being accomplished on the earth as it is in heaven? It is totally impossible. The devil is the ruler of this world and will rule it until the last phase of operation footstool when he and all demons will be cast off the earth. But the devil is the god of this world, he is the prince of the power of the air, and he will rule this world until the second advent. And when the devil rules the world the will of God cannot be done on earth as it is in heaven; even among those who belong to God, believers, His will is not being accomplished.

Principles

1. The believer in the Church Age cannot pray for the kingdom to come because certain events must be fulfilled.

2. This is a legitimate petition for the disciples during the three years of our Lord’s ministry.

3. It will be a legitimate prayer for believers at the end of the Tribulation.

4. At the time of the sermon on the mount Christ was present on the earth and His presence or the possibility of His presence without unfulfilled prophecy makes it possible for this petition to be bona fide.

5. This prayer recognises the plan of the Father. And so today there is a principle: we cannot pray that prayer today but our petitions must be oriented to the plan of God. This means you have to know the plan of God.

Verse 11 — temporal needs. “Give us this day our daily bread” — this is not what this verse says. The literal translation is: “Give us today tomorrow’s bread.” Bread stands for living, so: “Give us today tomorrow’s living” — aorist active imperative. We have a right to ask this. We have a right to ask for needs and bread is a need. The principle behind this request is that we should live one day at a time. God has faithfully provided our needs today, we should ask for them a day ahead of time. When God keeps His representation on the earth He provides their needs. This petition is an imperative mood to remind us that the responsibility for taking care of taking care of us is not ours. We do not belong to ourselves, we belong to Him.

Verse 12 — “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is the fifth petition and at this point the principle of grace is introduced. “Forgive us our debts” — the Greek word here is used for a legal debt, a monetary debt. Sometimes, but very rarely, it is used for a moral obligation. For example, the moral obligation of the Jew to keep the Mosaic law. This is why some people have translated it “sins,” but that is not a translation it is an interpretation. “Debts” here refer to monetary obligations and this petition appeals for restoration on the basis of grace. The disciple does not deserve forgiveness or the cancellation of debt.

“as” — introduces an analogy. This is an illustration. The petition is, “Wipe out my debts”; the illustration is brought in to show that it can only be done on the basis of grace. How can God do this since we don’t deserve it? He can only do it on the basis of grace and so the illustration of this petition is given. If the disciples under the principle of grace, Matthew 5:44,45, can forgive, much more can the Father forgive. So they are saying to Him: “Wipe out my debts.” Here is the disciple who as a human being has forgiven others, and if he can do it then God who is infinitely superior to a member of the human race can do it and do it in a non-meritorious manner. Grace is recognised here: grace is the only foundation for rebound and restoration to fellowship. When you ask for forgiveness it is only on the basis of grace, you do not ask — they did but you do not — you simply confess, and you know you are forgiven even though you don’t deserve it.

The first eighteen verses of chapter six deal with motivation. Jesus is speaking to His disciples who are being prepared to serve Him and there are three factors in service: Motivation, verses 1-18; mental attitude, verses 19-30; the faith-rest technique, verses 31-34. These are the three principles which are going to prepare the disciples for service.

We resume with the sixth and last petition in this model prayer, found in verse 13. “Lead us not into temptation” — James 1:13 tells us that God cannot tempt, it is impossible and incompatible with His character to solicit to evil, and this petition does not mean to be led into temptation. God never provides any temptation of any kind for any member of the human race. What it does mean is, “Do not carry us into testing.” The real secret of this is in the word “lead", which isn’t lead at all but it means to carry into. The Greek word is e)isferw, a compound verb. The e)ij generally means into and ferw means to bear or to carry. Testing is inevitable and testing is a means of development, testing being suffering, pressure, adversity; and the whole point of this simply means that when testing comes we don’t want to be helpless, useless, hopeless, we do not want to fall apart. The whole point is not the concept of being led by God into something such as temptation but actually the Greek is talking about when we are in pressure we do not want to be carried, we want to be able to stand up under pressure. So this is a prayer to be able to stand up under pressure in a manner which is glorifying to God. When pressure comes we do not want to fall apart, we do not want to move into panic palace. When adversity comes — pressure, trial, heartache, catastrophe — we want to have the same peace, the same happiness, the same power we have at any other time. This doesn’t even come close to leading into temptation. “It can be translated: “Do not carry [bear] us into catastrophe [testing, pressure].” We want to be able to stand in pressure and this means to stand on what He has provided, without being confused, becoming frantic, worrying, etc. And this last petition is simply a petition which says: “Lord when the suffering and the pressure comes I want to be spiritually self-sustaining. I want to be able to stand up under it with what you have provided for me.” What should be our condition and attitude when pressure and catastrophe and heartache and difficulty come? Calm, thoughtful, relaxed, having inner peace, stability, no anxiety, no fear, and no falling apart. You and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, cannot serve the Lord if we fall apart under pressure, God cannot use us if we fall apart.

“but deliver us from evil” — deliver us from the source of evil, literally. The evil here means legalism, religion, the things that hinder the believer from using God’s assets in time of pressure. If you are legalistic, if you are religious, if you are self-righteous, you will never, never stand up under pressure. You will not be able to take it and you will be just like any unbeliever, you will be miserable in catastrophe and happy in success. In other words, a slave to circumstances. One of the worst slaveries that has ever existed is the fact that most members of the human race are slaves to their circumstances.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” This is not even in the original. It is true but it isn’t here. And this prayer ends on the highest note and it is a prayer involving people, not praise; this is a petition prayer.

Verse 14 — the grace principle in rebound is amplified, first in a positive way and then in a negative way in verse 15. “For if” — third class condition indicating that how you live the Christian life depends upon your volition, your knowledge of doctrine, and then whether you utilise it or not. So “if” means maybe you will and maybe you won’t; “ye forgive men [men in the sense of mankind]” — aorist tense, the point of time in which they offend you; “their trespasses” — this is different from the word “debts” in the prayer. The word “debt” was used to illustrate the principle of grace; “trespasses” means a sin which is specifically committed against you and you know about it — “your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

Principles

1. Discipline is obviously in view if you do not forgive, so in this case the disciples have to break away from the concept of the Mosaic law as stated in Matthew 5:38; Exodus 21:24; Deuteronomy 19:21.

2. Grace is substituted for the law of retribution.

3. To emphasise grace in rebound Jesus demands that His disciples begin to live by grace, i.e. forgive their trespasses. And they are forgiven before they ask for forgiveness, before they ask for anything.

4. In the crash program — the three years that Jesus taught on earth — God trades out grace for grace rather than an eye for an eye. All of their lives these disciples had been taught “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” But the law isn’t grace. Now they have to understand something entirely new.

Verse 15 — the negative side. “But if ye forgive not” — operation legalism; “men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses” — the principle is, the burden of rebound is based upon grace, the exercise of grace. Those who live by grace will be the recipients of grace and grace will break the back of religion in this way. These disciples are religious and that is why it takes so much to get them straightened out. God cannot use religious people. The worst people in the word are religious. Saul of Tarsus, before he was saved, was religious.

Verse 16 — the fasting case. Fasting is not dieting. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we are not making points with God by going without food. Fasting is taking time ordinarily devoted to other things which are legitimate and using that time for Bible study and prayer. In this verse we begin with the principle of doing a right thing in a wrong way.

“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites” — the hypocrites are the religious crowd. They are defined in the book of Matthew chapter 23, “Woe unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites.” These people went to the synagogue or the temple at least three times a day, they prayed at least seven times a day and they spent a great portion of every day running around trying to do good. They were very self-righteous, they were extremely religious, more so than anyone you could find today, and Jesus called them hypocrites. Every time you find the word “hypocrite” in the book of Matthew it doesn’t refer to the publicans and the sinners, it refers to the religious crowd. The “hypocrites” played to the grandstand, they wanted everyone to know that they were fasting, so the first way to do it was to have a sad face — “of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.” In other words, they did this to fulfil approbation lust.

Verse 17 — “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head [put on some hair oil], and wash thy face.” In other words, if you are doing something for the Lord, look your best.

Verse 18 — “That” introduces a purpose clause; “thou appear not unto men to fast.” No one should know what you are doing, you are doing this unto the Lord and therefore whether people know about it or not is beside the point; “but unto thy Father which is in secret: and the Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee.” The word “openly” is not found in the original. This again refers to reward in time, not in eternity. There is a reward for eternity and there is reward for time. When you serve as unto the Lord the Lord rewards, and these rewards have to do with His great blessing. Again, it is the concept of inner happiness.

Verses 19-30, we have the second ingredient of service: mental attitude.

Remember that Jesus is challenging His disciples up in the mountains. He has separated Himself from the crowd to organise them and in order to challenge them to be true in their motivation of service. Service is not service unless it is properly motivated and we begin the mental attitude study at this point.

Verse 19-21, mental attitude in our scale of values. We might ask the question: What is more important to us than anything else in life? If doctrine is first in your scale of values then your life is going to be filled with great happiness and peace, but if you have something that is before the Word — the living Word and the written Word — then of course you are in trouble.

Verse 19 — this is not a giving passage, this is a passage to determine what your scale of values are. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” — some people read this and immediately they go out and throw out their bank account or their savings or something, whatever they have accumulated by way of money. Forget it! This does not mean you cannot have a bank account. The word “treasures” is the problem here. It means a scale of values, and this is saying in effect, do not make first on your scale of values materialistic things. Materialistic things have a way of being lost or being in some way removed from you. So if in your scale of values materialistic things are first then you are in for a lot of unhappiness if you lose these things. You will notice that the transience of materialistic things by three phrases. First of all the moth. The moth attacks clothing, rust attacks metals, thieves are the people who move in and take what doesn’t belong to them, and between these three it is sometimes rather difficult to hang on to materialistic things. So the point is that if you have materialistic things first in your scale of values you are going to be unhappy because you can’t hang on to these things in this life. Notice that the moth and the rust corrupts and this means to corrode or to ruin. The thief is said to “break through” here. Actually, he dug through. In the ancient world much of the thievery was accomplished by tunnelling under the ground and coming up into the house and then robbing it.

The principle is very simple. Permanent things such as doctrine must be first on our scale of values; all permanent things are going to last forever. The interesting things is that no one can steal doctrine out of your frontal lobe, no moth can go in and take it out and doctrine will not rust.

Verse 20 — “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Treasure in heaven includes witnessing, praying, giving, teaching, loving, forgiving, relaxing, waiting, trusting, learning, encouraging, comforting, etc. In other words, laying up treasure is whatever you do when you are filled with the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit is laying up treasure in heaven. The principle is, time logged in the filling of the Spirit has permanent results. These permanent results are set forth in, for example, 1 Corinthians 3:12-16, under the nomenclature gold, silver, and precious stones, and this passage goes on to say you can’t lose them.

Verse 21 — the mental attitude in scale of values is now brought out. “For where your treasure is, there will you heart [frontal lobe] be also.” Remember the heart is the thinking part of the mind and the frontal lobe is the evaluator. Your scale of values is in your frontal lobe and if in your scale of values you put materialistic things first, then you are going to be miserable. If you put the Word first you are going to have this great inner happiness, the great peace, the great power and blessing that belongs to you because you are related to Jesus Christ. The point is this: some people get the wild idea that Christians shouldn’t enjoy things, and some believers get a guilt complex if they have one or two things in life. This is nonsense of course. The have-nots often try to make you feel that way but you can enjoy the things of this life provided that you have doctrine first. The whole thing is up in your frontal lobe, your mental attitude, and if you have Christ first and if you have doctrine first then you can’t be miserable. If doctrine is first, and this means occupation with Christ, it is absolutely impossible for you to be miserable. If you put things first then you are going to be miserable and, strangely enough, you can’t enjoy things. In other words, what this verse says is that the way to enjoy things is to enjoy doctrine. If you enjoy doctrine you enjoy everything in life and if you don’t enjoy doctrine you don’t enjoy anything in life.

The second mental attitude concept deals with inner beauty — verses 22-23.

Verse 22 — “The light of the body is in the eye: if thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light” — in other words, this seems to say that if you are single and have a glint in your eye you have it made! However, there is just a little bit of a problem there because that isn’t quite what it says. The “light of the body” is literally, the animation of the body. There are several kinds of body animation. There is muscular animation but you can’t build your happiness on it, it is something that you enjoy for the moment and then it is all over. But you can build your happiness on another type of animation which belongs to every believer, and this is the animation of inner beauty. “The animation of the body is the eye” is the correct translation. This means that the eye manifests what you think. What you think can often be seen in your eyes. The animation of the body is the eye and no matter how beautiful you may be physically without this inner beauty you have had it.

There are four blessings which contribute to the inner life and develop this inner beauty

1. The filling of the Holy Spirit.

2. Mental attitude divine viewpoint.

3. Faith-rest. If you are worried or frightened you can’t have inner beauty.

4. Occupation with Christ.

“if the eye be single” — the word “single” means without folds. This word goes right back to Bible times. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written, and in the time in which this was written people bought cloth over the counter, not in dress or clothing form but in bolts. Sometimes the merchant selling the cloth would fold it so as to hide the blemishes in the cloth. So to be without folds means to be without blemishes. The eyes without blemishes means the mental attitude produced by the filling of the Spirit — love, faith-rest, freedom from worry and fear and anxiety, mental attitude divine viewpoint, application of doctrine to experience, occupation with Christ. The animation of the body is the eye, “if” [third class condition: maybe yes, maybe no] “the eye is without folds [blemishes], the whole body shall be full of light [will be animated]” — this is the great inner beauty.

Verse 23 — by way of contrast it is possible for a believer to have inner ugliness. “But if thine eye be evil” — the word evil here refers to mental attitude sins that make for ugliness, including fear, worry, anxiety, fretfulness, hatred, jealousy, etc. In other words, you have these thoughts in the frontal lobe and they come out — “thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” In other words, the believer out of fellowship walks in darkness and he imitates the unbeliever; “how great is that darkness” — operation energy of the flesh.

Verse 24 — mental attitude and money. “No man can serve two masters.” This goes back to an amplification of our scale of values. You either love one and hate the other or else you will hold to one and despise the other. In other words, he is going all out for one or all out for the other and now we have the two masters presented: “You cannot serve God [He is one master] and mammon” — what is mammon? It is a Chaldean word for the god of money. While the accumulation of money is certainly a legitimate function it must not be first in our scale of values. You can never enjoy money, no matter how much you have or how little you have, if money is the most important thing in your life. It doesn’t make any difference how much you have or how little you have, if money is first you’ll be miserable. If you have no money you’ll be miserable because you don’t have it; if you have money and money is first you are still miserable. Sometimes rich people are just poor people with money! So the principle is that if you have Christ first, doctrine first, the principles of the filling of the Spirit, the faith-rest technique, occupation with Christ, etc. then with all of these things you can really enjoy money, whether it be a lot of money or little money. There is a lot of money in the world but there are very few people who enjoy it.

Verses 25-30 — mental attitude and worry. One of the greatest sins in the Christian life is worry. Verse 25 — don’t worry. Verse 26 — illustration: Look at the birds. Verse 27 — again, Don’t worry. Verse 28,29 — another illustration: Look at the lilies. Verse 30 — don’t worry, and in the same verse: Look at the grass. You can’t worry and have your problems in the Lord’s hands. Just make up your mind which way it is going to go. Sooner or later you are going to have to make up your mind whether you are going to be miserable all of your life or whether you are going to have this tremendous happiness that belongs to the believer when he uses divine operating assets. You can’t worry and be happy. In verse 25 the Greek word for “take no thought” is the word for worry. Since the day you accepted Christ as saviour you belong to the Lord, and as long as you live in this earth you are His ambassador and His representative, and it is His responsibility to provide these things for you. God will provide the details just as He has provided the big things.

Verses 31-34, the challenge. Verse 31 — “Therefore take no thought” — do not worry. Whenever we find that phrase “take no thought” in the New Testament it always means do not worry. You do think; you think doctrine. Verse 32 — “(For after all these things do the Gentiles keep on seeking).” The word “seeking” here has a wonderful modern counterpart, “they keep on scrounging for it.” “For your heavenly Father knoweth,” perfect tense, which means He has known it [everything the believer would need] since eternity past. There never was a time when He didn’t know.

Verse 33 — The key to all of this is occupation with Christ or doctrine in the frontal lobe. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” is just another way of saying, “Put doctrine first.” The kingdom of God is the sum total of Bible doctrine as it existed at that time; “and his righteousness” is comparable today to the filling of the Spirit; “and all these things [details of life] shall be supplied for your advantage” — “unto you” is dative of advantage. This means that we can live one day at a time and be relaxed because every day has been planned from before the foundation of the world.

Verse 34 — “Take therefore no thought” — stop worrying. This time it is the aorist tense, “do not worry about tomorrow.” The Greek says, “for tomorrow will take care of itself.” You put your problems in the Lord’s hands and remember to sort out the difference between the essentials and the details. Doctrine is an essential, clothing is a detail. The Word of God in the frontal lobe is an essential, inner beauty is an essential; eating and drinking is a detail of life. So if you have the essentials in your frontal lobe you are an absolutely unbeatable combination in operation phase two.