1 Chronicles 22:9 Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about… The anticipative description of Solomon, as the man conceived by God to be fitted for the work of building his temple, is this - "He shall be a man of rest." Very remarkable is the fact which may constantly be observed, that successors in office are usually marked contrasts in character, disposition, and modes of working. This is often observed in clergymen and ministers, and it is very marked in the succession of Solomon to David. The connections between the two we often cannot trace, and it seems as if the one could not possibly carry on to its completion the work of the former. Yet what seem to us to be contrasts may seem to God to be relations, the one becoming an actual preparation for the other. There are times when the work of God in the world needs the men of battle - the Davids and the Wellingtons; and there are other times when God needs the men of rest - the Solomons and the Gladstones. It may be well to show what gracious work for the well-being of mankind has always been done in times of peace and by men of peace. And yet such times have their peril, and round again comes the necessity for the rougher ages of conflict and intenser feeling. These points may be dealt with under several headings. Before presenting these, a few sentences from F. W. Robertson's lecture on Wordsworth may be given, as suggestive of the mission of the men of rest. He says, "I will remark that Wordsworth's was a life of contemplation, not of action, and therein differed from Arnold's of Rugby. Arnold is the type of English action; Wordsworth is the type of English thought. If you look at the portraits of the two men, you will distinguish the difference. In one there is concentrativeness, energy, proclaimed; in the eye of the other there is vacancy, dreaminess. The life of Wordsworth was the life of a recluse. In these days it is the fashion to talk of the dignity of work as the one sole aim and end of human life, and foremost in proclaiming this as a great truth we find Thomas Carlyle... In opposition to this, I believe that as the vocation of some is naturally work, so the vocation, the Heaven-born vocation of others, is naturally contemplation." I. WHAT MAY BE DONE BY "MEN OF REST" IN THE NATIONAL ORDER? Explain the perilous sentiments, painful conditions, and sense of exhaustion left from war-times. Harvests soon wave again where heroes shed their blood, but the moral condition of a nation cannot soon be recovered from the evils of war. New sentiments have to be inculcated, and the arts of peace have to be cultivated. Show how much peace-loving men do in our day towards keeping the nations, in their disputes, from seeking the fearful arbitrament of war. Nations ought to thank God more for her great peace-leaders than for her great war-victors. II. WHAT MAY BE DONE BY "MEN OF REST" IN THE SOCIAL SPHERES? In war-times social evils are neglected, and suffered to grow rank, as ill weeds do in the untended garden. And the good things of education and artistic culture, and the right development of the family life, are lightly esteemed. The "men of rest" find out the prevailing evils of an age, reveal them in satire, or poetry, or picture, or moral teachings, and devise schemes for national and social reformations. Illustrate from some of the social and educational schemes of the last sixty years of comparative peace since Waterloo. Recall names of men who have done good social work. III. WHAT MAY BE DONE BY "MEN OF REST" IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD OF THOUGHT AND LIFE? Apply to Christian doctrine. Men have framed doctrinal schemes in times of conflict - conflict of opinions and conflict of nations - and the man does an infinite good to Christian thought who, only in small degrees, relieves from Christian doctrine the mischievous war associations, and puts in their place the truer family ones. But we may apply also to Christian worship and Christian life. Mystical and spiritual insight of the fuller truth is given only to the "men of rest." Solomon's times remind us that peaceful ages have their own perils, and peaceful men their own temptations. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. |
    |