The contrast of Divine calm with human bustle, hurry, and excitement.
When men take a matter in hand wherein they feel an interest, and set themselves either to carry out a certain design of their own, or to frustrate the designs of others, nothing is more remarkable than the "fuss" that they make about it. Heaven and earth are moved, so to speak, for the accomplishment of the desired end; the entire nation is excited, stirred, thrilled to its lowest depths; a universal eagerness prevails; all is noise, clamor, haste, bustle, tumult, whirl, confusion. Assyria's "noise" is compared (Isaiah 17:12) to the roar of the sea, and the rushing of mighty waters. Ethiopia's stir is like the sound of many wings (Isaiah 18:1). Even Cyrus, though he has a Divine mission, cannot set about it without "the noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together" (Isaiah 13:4). It is in vain that men are told to "stand still and see the salvation of God" (Exodus 14:13), or admonished that "in quietness and confidence should be their strength" (Isaiah 30:15); they cannot bring themselves to act on the advice tendered. Great minds indeed are comparatively quiet and tranquil; but even they are liable upon occasion to be swept away by the prevailing wave of excited feeling, and dragged, as it were, from their moorings into a turbid ocean. And the mass of mankind is wholly without calm or stability. It trembles, flutters, rushes hither and thither, mistakes activity for energy, and "fussiness" for the power of achievement. This condition of things results from three weaknesses in man:
1. His want of patience.
2. His want of confidence in himself.
3. His want of confidence in God.
I. MAN'S WANT OF PATIENCE. Man desires to obtain whatever end he sets himself at once. The boy is impatient to be grown up, the subaltern would at once be a general, the clerk a partner, the student a professor of his science. Men "make haste to be rich" (Proverbs 28:20), and overshoot the mark, and fall hack into poverty. They strive to become world-famous when they are mere tyros, and put fetch ambitions writings which only show their ignorance. They fail to recognize the force of the proverb, that "everything comes to those who wait." To toil long, to persevere, to make a small advance day after day—this seems to them a poor thing, an unsatisfactory mode of procedure. They would reach the end per saltum, "by a bound." Hence their haste. Too often "most haste is worst speed" "Vaulting ambition cloth o'er leap itself, and falls on the other side."
II. MAN'S WANT OF CONFIDENCE IN HIMSELF. He who is sure of himself can afford to wait. He knows that he will succeed in the end; what matters whether a little sooner or a little later? But the bulk of men are not sure of themselves; they misdoubt their powers, capacities, perseverance, steadiness, reserve fund of energy. Hence their spasmodic efforts, hurried movements, violent agitations, frantic rushings hither and thither. If they do not gain their end at once, they despair of ever attaining it. They are conscious of infinite weakness in themselves, and feel that they cannot tell what a day may bring forth in the way of defeat and disappointment. They say that it is necessary to strike while the iron is hot; but their real reason for haste is that they question whether their ability to strike will not have passed away if they delay ever so little.
III. MAN'S WANT OF CONFIDENCE IS GOD. He who feels that God is on his side has no need to disquiet himself. He will not fear the powers of darkness; he will not be afraid of what flesh can do unto him. But comparatively few men have this feeling. Either they put the thoughts of God altogether away from them, or they view him as an enemy, or they misdoubt, at any rate, his sympathy with themselves. Mostly they feel that they do not deserve his sympathy. They cannot "rest in the Lord," and they cannot find rest outside of him. Hence they remain in perpetual disturbance and unrest. Strangely in contrast with man's unquiet is God's immovable calm and unruffled tranquility. "The Lord said, I will take my rest" (Isaiah 18:4). None can really resist his will, and hence he has no need to trouble himself if resistance is attempted. "The fierceness of man" will always "turn to his praise." Time is no object with him who is above time, "whose goings have been from the days of eternity" (Micah 5:2). In silence and calm he accomplishes his everlasting purposes. Himself at rest in the still depths of his unchangeable nature, it is he alone who can give his creatures rest. As they grow mere like to him, they will grow more and more tranquil, until the time comes when they will enter finally into that rest which "remaineth for his people" (Hebrews 4:9).
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON