I pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? Arithmetic.
Are there any arithmetic words in this text? "Added." What other
arithmetic words? "First."
Now, don't you think you could not have anything better to seek
"first" than the things I have named to do what is right, to live
at peace, and be always making those about you happy? You see at
once why Christ tells us to seek these things first--because they
are
The best worth seeking.
Do you know anything better than these three things, anything
happier, purer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you
do not, seek first the Kingdom of God. I do not tell you to be
religious. You know that. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom
of God. I tell you to seek the Kingdom of God FIRST. FIRST.
Not many people do that. They put a little religion into their
life--once a week, perhaps. They might just as well let it alone.
It is not worth seeking the Kingdom of God unless we seek it FIRST.
Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bow,
and send that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side?
Certainly not. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its
place, and it will take you straight through life and straight to
your Father in heaven when life is over. But if you do not put
it in its place, you may just as well have nothing to do with it.
Religion out of its place in a human life is the most miserable
thing in the world. There is nothing that requires so much to be
kept in its place as religion, and its place is what? second? third?
"First." Boys, FIRST the Kingdom of God; make it so that it will
be natural to you to think about that the very first thing.
There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made
telegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself.) One day this
boy was up on the top of a four-story house with a number of men
fixing up a telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was
getting late, and the men said they were going away home, and the
boy was to nip off the ends of the wire himself. Before going
down they told him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when he
was finished, with his master's tools.
"Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do," said the
foreman.
The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the
wire. It was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering.
He lost his hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then
over and over to the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across
the "green" on which he was just about to fall, caught him on the
chest and broke his fall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay
unconscious among some clothes upon the green.
An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all
soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and
went for the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back to
consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got back on his feet. What do
you think he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He
climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered
up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when
he got to the ground again fainted dead away.
Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously
wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some
time. I am glad to say he got better.
What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty.
He was not thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master.
First, the Kingdom of God.