Note the condescension, the simplicity, and the power of our Lord's argument. His appeals are homely. He seeks no far-fetched reasonings or facts from antiquity. He points to birds and flowers; an argument for simple people, but equally effective for the learned and the refined. We have no need to go far for lessons of comfort. We must not overlook the necessary limitations of our Lord's teaching in these verses. Those limitations are found in the nature of things. Observe, then, I. Christ does not forbid all anticipations of the future. He cannot mean so much as this when He says, "Take no thought for the morrow." Man is an inhabitant of two worlds--one material, the other spiritual. This being so, two distinct sets or classes of wants press upon him--the wants of the body, and those of the soul. The wants of the soul point to a future state of existence, for which we must prepare. In relation to these, carelessness--the absence of forethought--would be fatal. According to the state of our souls, the thought of the future gives us terror or joy. To the Christian, the future is the scene of his perfected spiritual growth, and of his consummated happiness. Every aspiration of his soul bounds joyfully towards it, and he instinctively leaves the things that are behind to press forward. In the words before us, Christ does not touch such matters as these. It is not fore-_thought_ which is condemned, but fore-_boding_. II. Nor does He discountenance earnest activity in the duties of the present. Work is God's oldest law. It is only in wilful blindness or in unaccountable delusion that men can plead this teaching as an excuse for indolence. "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." Work is often spoken of as a curse; but it is a blessing. With a Christian spirit, it may be gloriously consecrated. It links us in our activity with God who "worketh hitherto," and with Christ who worked His full day. III. Christ does not even condemn a legitimate forethought in connection with secular interests. There _is_ a legitimate forethought such as this. Nature teaches it. We must sow in order to reap. We must toil to-day for results which cannot come till to-morrow. "If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." The faith to live by is that which prompts not to sitting down and doing nothing, but to trustful and persevering enterprise. Keep in mind the distinction between forethought and foreboding. It is forethought in a man which leads him to sow for a future harvest; it is foreboding that would fill his heart with fears that the harvest will be a bad one. Forethought is the grand distinction between the civilized and the savage; foreboding is the weakness of distrust.