Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus SERMON X. SPIRITUAL THINGS NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN. I. _Corinthians_, ii., 14. 127 The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned SERMON I. TAKING THOUGHT FOR TEMPORAL THINGS. ST. MATTHEW, VI., 24, 25. . . . “Ye cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” . . . EVERY one who has thoughtfully read that description of the Samaritans in the second book of Kings—“they feared the LORD and served their own gods”—must have been struck with the mockery, the blasphemy, the absurdity of such a fear. Fear Him, who claims to be the only GOD, and yet regard many others as equally and independently gods! Worship Him, all whose service is pure, and innocent, and self-emptying, and righteous and yet worship Ashtaroth, the goddess of licentious pleasure—Moloch, the god of cruelty—Chemosh, and his abominations—Belial, and his worldliness! This, my brethren, we all see is not simply a _forbidden_ but an _impossible_ service. The commands, the sanctions, the promises, the service of Jehovah, and of any one of these others, are so thoroughly opposite, so condemnatory of each other, that the man who attempts to observe them both, is far more impious and more foolish than the benighted heathen who carves an idol out of a block of wood or piece of stone and bows down to it alone in homage, and looks up only to it for blessings. If, then, mammon means a false god—either a deified human being, or a personified vice or virtue, or an actual dumb, senseless idol,—we feel that Christ has rightly said, not ye “_shall_ not,” but ye “cannot” serve it and GOD. There is no room for the question whether GOD will wink at a divided homage; whether, provided He is _one_ of the objects of worship, He will not be over-severe with you for having other objects. The attempt to serve both is an attempt at what is impossible; not at what may not be, on account of certain commands and restrictions, but at what cannot be from the very nature of things. GOD altogether—or mammon altogether, if you will; but “ye cannot serve GOD and mammon.” You see this, you approve Christ’s teaching, you are ready to condemn, you do now condemn—the impiety, the folly of attempting to serve GOD and mammon.