By J.C. Philpot
Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on Thursday Evening, March 31, 1859 (A Posthumous Sermon)
"Be careful for nothing; by in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6, 7
I think this is the third or fourth Thursday evening that I have been trying to preach from this text. I have come to chapel with this text in my mind, and yet something has occurred when I stood up in the pulpit to take the text away, so that I have been obliged to take another. I cannot account for this. I cannot tell why it should be so, or whether there is anything of the purposes of God in it or no. This evening I have thus far succeeded in giving out the text; but what I may say I must leave to the Lord. It is of him to grant and of him to deny. It is of him to shut and of him to open. If he grant me a speaking tongue, he may grant you a hearing ear. If he deny me the tongue of the learned, he may deny you the ear of the wise. But whatever he do, we know it is right, and as far as regards the vessels of mercy, not only right but good and well.
With this short preface I come to our subject, in which I see, or seem to see, three leading things.
I.--First, The exhortation, "Be careful for nothing."
II.--Secondly, The godly counsel, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."
III.--Thirdly, The promise, "And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
In opening up the first clause of our text I must drop a few remarks upon the expression, "Be careful for nothing." Now the words do not mean that we are not to have any concern or any forethought about the things of time and sense. The meaning of the original is, "Let not your mind be distracted." The word means "tearing the mind," "dividing it asunder." So that the Lord does not mean to exclude by these words that necessary forethought, without which there would be no harvest to be reaped, and without which not a single plan could be begun or executed. But what the Lord the Spirit by the pen of Paul means here is to warn us against over-anxiety and distracting care, against being so overcome and overburdened by the things of time and sense that the mind is torn and distracted thereby. The Lord uses the same word in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, where he says, "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment." "Therefore, take no thought, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or' What shall we drink?' or 'Wherewithal shall we be clothed?'"
The Lord did not here mean we were to take no thought at all; in fact we could not live without taking thought. We are maintained day by day by that which has been the object of thought. That provision, but for which the body would die, has been the object of thought. But what the Lord meant is to exclude that distracting care, that over-anxiety, that burdened mind, that dejected spirit, that carking care for the things of time and sense, as if there was no God in heaven to satisfy the wants of the body as well as take care of the soul. In this sense, therefore, we must consider the words, "Be careful for nothing." That is, let not anything of whatsoever nature it may be, and especially of temporal matters, so distract your mind, so burden your spirit, and exercise that influence over your thoughts as to take possession of your soul and shut God out.
Now, is not this an evil that the saints of God are much subject to, and there was one of whom we read that was cumbered about much serving. When the Lord came to take his meal in her hospitable house she thought she could not do enough for him. She must bustle about here and there, and neglect her soul that she might please the Lord with much serving him. But what said the Lord to her? "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." So in the words before us, "Be careful for nothing." It may be that your prospects are not very bright as regards this world. It may be you have many fears as to the future, what the future may bring; and we know how Satan can work upon our minds and fill us with a thousand fears; of troubles which will never come to pass; he may set before our eyes gloomy prospects, none of which may happen, and which, if they do, the Lord can effectually thwart by a single glance of the eye. But Satan has such access to the saints of God to distract them in this way.
How everything can be magnified by his prospective glass! how he will magnify this little molehill into a mountain, this passing trouble into a weighty concern, and so set things before their minds and fill their hearts with so many unbelieving objections that they think the end will be the workhouse. How many a saint of God has died comfortably with respect to his body, surrounded by all those comforts which heart could wish, such as affectionate friends and relations and everything to mitigate the sufferings of that awful hour; when he, years before, had been painting himself dying on a workhouse pallet and given up to the cold mercies of an unfeeling nurse; yet the end has been different.
