As the world is full of contrasts—light and darkness, joy and sorrow, calm and storm, riches and poverty, cleanliness and filth, health and sickness, life and death—so the Scriptures present to us many opposites.
1. Abel, the man of confidence; and Cain, the man of conceit (Gen 4:3-7).
2. Abraham, the man of faith; and the king of Sodom, the man of the world (Gen 14:22-24).
3. Isaac, the man of promise; and Ishmael, the man of the flesh (Gal 4:29).
4. Jacob, the man of prayer; and Esau, the man of pleasure (Hsa 12:4; Hbr 12:16).
5. Moses, the man of God; and Pharaoh, the man of stubbornness (Num 12:3; Exd 8:32).
6. David, the man of consecration; and Saul, the man of compromise (Act 13:22; 1Sa 15:26).
7. John, the man of fearlessness; and Herod, the man of vacillation (Mat 14:1-12).