Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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 —Matthew 6:34.

Let us see how our Lord deals with this problem, this worry and anxiety about the future. He shows it for the foolish thing it is as He asks in effect: Why do you allow yourself to be worried thus about the future? “The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” If the present is bad enough as it is, why go to meet the future? To go on from day to day is enough in and of itself; be content with that. Not only that, but worrying about the future is so utterly futile and useless; it achieves nothing at all. We are very slow to see that, yet how true it is. Indeed we can go further and say that worry is never of any value at all. This is seen with particular clarity as you come to face the future. Apart from anything else, it is a pure waste of energy because however much you worry you cannot do anything about it. In any case its threatened catastrophes are imaginary. They are not certain; they may never happen at all.

But above all that, says our Lord, can you not see that, in a sense, you are mortgaging the future by worrying about it in the present? Indeed, the result of worrying about the future is that you are crippling yourself in the present; you are lessening your efficiency with regard to today, and thereby you are reducing your whole efficiency with regard to that future which is coming to meet you. In other words, worry is something that is due to an entire failure to understand the nature of life in this world. Our Lord seems to picture life like this. As the result of the fall and sin there are always problems in life, because when man fell he was told that henceforward he was going to live and eat his bread by the sweat of his brow (Gen. 3:19). He was no longer in Paradise, no longer able to just take the fruit and live a life of ease and enjoyment. As the result of sin, life in this world has become a task. Man has to labor and must meet trials and troubles. We all know that, for we are all subject to the same tribulations.

The great question is: How are we to face them? According to our Lord, the vital thing is not to spend every day of your life in adding up the grand total of everything that is ever likely to happen to you in the whole of your life in this world. If you do that, it will crush you. That is not the way. Rather, you must think of it like this: There is, as it were, a daily quota of problems and difficulties in life. Every day has its problems; some of them are constant from day to day, while some of them vary. But the great thing to do is to realize that every day must be lived in and of itself and as a unit. Here is the quota for today. Very well, we must face that and meet it; and He has already told us how to do so. We must not go forward and tack tomorrow’s quota onto today’s, otherwise it may be too much for us. We have to take it day by day. You remember how our Lord turned upon His disciples when they were trying to dissuade Him from going back to unfriendly Judaea to the house where Lazarus lay dead? They pointed out to Him the possible consequences, and how it might shorten His life. His answer to them was, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9). You have to live twelve hours at a time and no more. Here is the quota for today; very well, face that and deal with that. Do not think of tomorrow. You will have tomorrow’s quota, but then it will be tomorrow, and not today.

This is perhaps the lesson which many of us need to learn, that not only must we learn to divide up our life in this world into these periods of twelve or twenty-four hours; we must divide up our whole relationship to God in exactly the same way. The danger is that, while we believe in God in general and for the whole of our life, we do not believe in Him for the particular sections of our life. Thereby many of us go wrong. We must learn to take things to God as they arise. Some people fail very grievously in this matter because they are always trying to anticipate God. As you must not anticipate your own future, do not anticipate God’s future for you. Live day by day; live a life of obedience to God every day; do what God asks you to do every day. Never allow yourself to indulge in thoughts such as these: “I wonder when tomorrow comes whether God will want me to do this or to do that.” That must never be done, says our Lord. You must learn to trust God day by day for every particular occasion, and never try to go ahead of Him.

There is a sense in which we commit ourselves to God once and forever; there is another sense in which we have to do it every day. There is a sense in which God has given us everything in grace once and forever, but He gives grace to us also in parts and portions day by day. We must start the day and say to ourselves, “Here is a day which is going to bring me certain problems and difficulties; very well, I shall need God’s grace to help me. I know God will make all grace to abound. He will be with me according to my need.” We may also say, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deut. 33:25). That is the essential biblical teaching with regard to this matter—we must learn to leave the future entirely in God’s hands.

Take, for instance, that great statement in Hebrews 13:8. The Hebrews were passing through troubles and trials, and the author of that epistle tells them not to worry, and for this reason: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” In effect He says you need not worry, for what He was yesterday, He is today, and He will be tomorrow. You need not anticipate life; the Christ who takes you through today will be the same Christ who takes you through tomorrow. He is changeless, everlasting, always the same, so you must not think about tomorrow; think instead about the changeless Christ.

We can sum it all up by saying that, as we learn in wisdom to take our days one by one as they come, forgetting yesterday and tomorrow, so we must learn this vital importance of walking with God day by day, of relying upon Him day by day, and entreating Him for the particular needs of each day. The fatal temptation to which we are all prone is that of trying to store grace against the future. That means lack of faith in God. Leave it with Him; leave it entirely with Him, confident and assured that He will always go before you. As the Scripture puts it, He will “prevent” you (Ps. 59:10). He will be there before you to meet the problem. Turn to Him and you will find that He is there, that He knows all about it, and that He knows all about you.

Worry is always a failure to grasp and apply our faith. Faith does not work automatically. How often we have seen that during these studies. Never think of faith as something put inside you to work automatically; you have to apply it. Faith does not grow automatically either; we must learn to talk to our faith and to ourselves. We can think of faith in terms of a man having a conversation with himself about himself and about his faith. Do you remember how the psalmist puts it in Psalm 42? Look at him turning to himself and saying, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me?” (v. 5). That is the way to make faith grow.

Finally, a large part of faith, especially in this connection, consists of just refusing anxious thoughts. That to me is perhaps the most important and the most practical thing of all. Faith means refusing to think about worrying things, refusing to think of the future in that wrong sense. The devil and all adverse circumstances will do their utmost to make me do so, but having faith means that I shall say: “No; I refuse to be worried. I have done my reasonable service; I have done what I believed to be right and legitimate, and beyond that I will not think at all.” That is faith, and it is particularly true with regard to the future. When the devil comes with his insinuations, injecting them into you—all the fiery darts of the evil one—say, “No; I am not for tomorrow. I refuse to listen; I will not think your thoughts.” Faith is refusing to be burdened because we have cast our burden upon the Lord. May He, in His infinite grace, give us wisdom and grace to implement these simple principles and thereby rejoice in Him day by day.

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Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981), minister of Westminster Chapel in London for 30 years, was one of the foremost preachers of his day. His many books have brought profound spiritual encouragement to millions around the world. Adapted from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount © 1972, pp. 148–152, 156–157. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Reprinted by permission of the publisher; all rights reserved.

Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth. Used with permission.