Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2934
“And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last” Luke 13:30.
IN some of the books printed in the olden times, the authors were known to put a hand in the margin, as if to point out some passage to which they would have particular attention directed. Now, wherever we see in Holy Scripture the word, “behold,” it answers the same end. It is intended to show us that there is either something new, something impressive, or something which is speedily to transpire and, therefore, needs immediate attention. Or else there is usually something contrary to what men expect and, therefore, their consideration is the more earnestly directed to it. Seeing this, “behold,” in the margin, a signpost as it were—a directory for us to stop and pause and learn—let us do so tonight and may the Spirit of God be our Instructor, that we may listen to profit.
“There are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.” Similar passages occur in Matthew and Mark as well as in Luke. In Matthew, the connection in which it stands shows that there Christ intended it to relate to temporal circumstances. Peter had told him that he, together with his fellow Apostles, had left all that he had to follow Christ. And his Master informed him that he should be no loser by it, but rather, he should greatly profit through having left house and lands, and children and wife for Christ’s name’s sake and the Gospel’s. “For,” said Christ, “there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.” Brothers and Sisters, let us then hear and understand this, that circumstances shall very soon be altered. The high and mighty shall not always be so elevated! The base and mean shall not always occupy such a humiliating position! Throughout the whole history of the world, sin has been striding in high places with shoes of iron and brass, while godliness has walked barefoot through the valley.
Multitudes of most ungodly men have worn the tiara and have thrown the purple about their shoulders while a far more than equal number of the virtuous have been slaves to tug the galley oar, or have been condemned to long imprisonments, or have “wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” Still, Dives wears the scarlet and fine linen and fares sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lies at his gate full of sores and the dogs give him the charity of their tongues. Still Nero is on the throne and Paul rots in the Mamertine dungeon. Still a Charles II shall have the crown while the Puritan shall be found “despised and rejected of men.” You can scarcely turn to any page of history in which you do not see the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree, while the righteous is plagued all daylong and chastened every morning!
Well, the time is coming when all this shall be changed! One wave of your hand, O Death, and where is the dignity of sin? One blast of Your breath, O God, and where are the glories of the mighty? Where are the pomp and the power of the ungodly man who vexed Your saints? See there, Dives has gone down to the nethermost pit and Lazarus is lifted to the Throne of God! See there, Nero rots and is corrupt, while Paul, on angels wings, is borne to the right hand of the Majesty on high! Poverty-stricken, having hardly a place where he can lay his head, the humble tentmaker took rank with the very lowest, but, though last, he now stands first, nearest the eternal Throne of God—
“Midst the bright ones, doubly bright.”
Proud, having all the earth at his beck, Rome’s legions at his call, Nero reigned and thought himself a god, but now the meanest slave is greater than he and they mock and jeer him, even they, the princes who lost their thrones by him and the men whom he trampled in the dust! In Hell they greet him with the cry, “Are you become like one of us?” and marvel greatly because the mighty are fallen and the proud are stained in the mire! Patience, then, patience, you who are the sons
of poverty and yet the sons of God! Hush your boasting, you that are the heirs of wrath and yet the heirs of fortune—the tables shall soon turn—eternity shall undo the incongruities of life! Time, your inequalities shall all be forgotten, Justice shall right every wrong, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”
So, Brothers and Sisters, to pass on, there is no doubt that this is equally true with regard to the world’s esteem. For many a long year the precious sons of God, comparable to fine gold, have been esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter. For the first three centuries there was no villainy too vile to be laid at the door of the Christians. They were baser than the greatest miscreants. The world hooted them from the streets! No terms were thought bad enough for them. “It is not fit that they should live,” was the world’s verdict upon the followers of the Crucified. And even today a godly man is held in no reputation. There are no racks, ‘tis true—no prisons, no fines—but there are the jeers and the mockery, the shrugging of the shoulder, the reviling, the shame and the spitting! These have not ceased even now. Genius, intellect, science, taste, poetry and literature have their golden shrines. Godliness it just tolerated in its own conventicle.