The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American Character — John Shaqi
The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American CharacterSpeer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Philosophy
The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American Character
Speer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Character; Christian life; Conduct of life; Moral education
One of the great purposes of our Lord’s coming here to earth was that
He might show men the value of a man’s life in the plan and thought
of God. Even the most sacred and time-honoured institution our Lord
weighed over against one man and found him outweighing the institution.
What was His own example but the illustration of the immeasurable value
of man? He did not come to teach the uselessness of human life, but
its pricelessness. He did this by becoming a man Himself. And this
principle of God’s need of men and their latent possibilities is not
mere theological theory. It is the hard historic fact that God has ever
needed men and waited for them and for what they were the men to do for
Him. Look at the great inventions, discoveries, achievements. What is
the whole lesson of the Incarnation but that there are things that God
Himself will not do except as He uses man? God Himself, we must say
reverently, was communicable and a Saviour only as man. And His call
to-day as it has been all through the years is for men who will believe
that the thing God wants done can be done by Him through them. The
Western Hemisphere was here before ever Columbus drew aside the veil
and broadened the horizon of mankind. These great energies which drive
the modern world were here from the beginning. We did not invent any
of them. There is not an ounce of power in the world to-day that was
not here when the world began. All that man has done has been simply to
discover existing secrets. He has created no power. He has only found
out what God has put here for him to find out. It took man a long time
to discover this. But God waited for him. And God needs these finding
men now as much as He has needed them at any time. He needs such men
now to break open what is still concealed. The past has not exhausted
all the heroisms, has not accomplished all the tasks. There are greater
ones yet for the days that are, if God can only find His men.
Think how greatly God needs men to-day just to bring need and supply
together in the world. You remember the incident in the life of our
Lord as He came by the Pool of Bethesda where the sick lay, and spoke
to one poor man lying on his pallet.
“Are you going in?” said He.
“No,” said the man. “I have no friend who will help me in and others
get the benefit before I can come near.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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