Illusion

Many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first

(Matt 19:30). 

"We are living in a topsy-turvy world.  We have come through the looking glass into the land of the Fall, and all our views are distorted.  Small things seem great and great things seem small.  Our whole world is an illusion, created by Satan to deceive us, and the only spiritual truth in life is to be found in the Word of God.  Those who refuse the Word are unable to see because they have rejected light, have adopted other standards which they think are light, and are therefore in greater darkness.  The Lord said, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness" (Matt 6:23).  Today is the day of darkness, but when the light of God's judgment breaks forth, all standards will be the divine ones, and many of the first shall be last and last shall be first."


(God's Wrath, Romans 2-3:1-20, Expositions of Bible Doctrines Taking the Epistle to the Romans as a Point of Departure, by Donald Grey Barnhouse (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 1953.)