Zechariah 3:8 - Homilies By W. Forsyth

Portents.

"Men wondered at." There are times when there are signs in the heavens and on the earth—prodigies which rouse attention. So in society. There are men who stand out from others. Their characters have a special significance. Their lives are prophecies. Perhaps most of the great men of the Bible were of thin sort. So here—

I. REPRESENTATIVE OF THEIR GENERATION . They breathe the spirit of the age. The evil and the good, of their times, are seen in them at the highest. "There were giants in those days"

II. ADUMBRATE GREAT FORCES . Powers have been at work for long that come out. Embodied. We see the height to which corruption may rise. Intellect without conscience, passion without principle, power without God. Or it may be otherwise. Men of genius and resolution faithful to the truth, ardent for the good of their brethren—reformers, professors, martyrs, whose glory was to live not to themselves, but to God.

III. FORESHADOW COMING JUDGMENT . Like Pharaoh, they have been raised up for God's glory. Like the Jews, they are "ensamples" of God's judgments. What they do, what they suffer, what they enjoy, are as forecasts and foreshadowings of what will be, on to the perfect end. Often such men obtain a certain worship. "There is so much of chance in warfare, and such vast events are connected with the acts of the single individual, that the proper temperament for generating and receiving superstitious impressions is naturally produced" (Coleridge). But they are "for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world have come."—F.