It is the Kingdom of the bird and the flower and the horse and
the motor-car and the motion-picture house and the office and the
theatre and the ballroom and the school and the college and everything
else that man has evolved for himself. He has evolved these things
wrongly because nine times out of ten he has seen them as outside God's
Kingdom, instead as being God's own undertakings because they are ours.
All that we have to do to seek His Kingdom is to do what we are doing
every day, with energy and fun, but to do it knowing we are His agents
and co-workers. As a matter of fact, most of us are, to some extent,
doing that already, getting food, shelter, clothing, and all other
necessary things as our reward. What we do not get is relief from fear,
because we do not understand that fear above all things is what He
would take away from us.
VI
The second point is a curious one, and all the more emphatic for being
curious. Our Lord invents a false god. He names the false god of fear,
who was never named before. Mammon is the word which the modern
translator gives as gold. As Mammon it is translated in the Authorised
Version, whence we get the familiar phrase, "Ye cannot serve God
and Mammon."
But Mammon was never the name of an idol or other form of false deity.
The word, which is Syriac, means money.
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