The Ideal King


Zechariah 9:9
W. Forsyth

I. BEAUTIFUL VISION. Poets in rapt moments have had glimpses of the highest (Psalm 45:72). The character, the life and work of a true King, have passed before them as things fair to see. But where is the reality? "Find me the true king or able man, and he has a Divine right over me" (Carlyle).

II. PASSIONATE LONGING. The heart yearns for what is best. The need presses. Circumstances now and again arise that intensify the feeling and the cry. There is so much to be done - evils to remove, wrongs to be redressed, rights and liberties to be secured. Oh for the coming of the true King! "What he tells us to do must be precisely wisest, fittest, that we can anywhere or anyhow learn, the thing which it will in all ways behove us, with right loyal thankfulness and nothing doubting, to do. Our doing and life were then, so far as government would regulate them, well regulated" (Carlyle).

III. IMMORTAL HOPE. There have been kings, good, bad, and indifferent. Some began well, but did little. The best have come far short of the highest standard. The true King "not yet." Still hope. Faith in the possibilities of human nature; above all, faith in the promise of God.

"Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good....
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land.
Ring in the Christ that is to be." F.

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