Manhood

It is not one's age that makes that person a man, it is character.

To be a man is not to grow taller in stature only, but also in favor with God and man.

Physically one must stop growing. Yet spiritually, if one believes that they have attained full stature, than they have just betrayed how small they truly are.

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

The pursuit of knowledge

I have met young men who, in the pursuit of knowledge, have forgotten the pursuit of almost anything else.

The pursuit of knowledge is no excuse for not pursuing wisdom, which is much more precious. Knowledge without wisdom is like a deadly weapon in the hands of a child.

 

This is not to say that knowledge is bad, it is very good is many senses. However, the ultimate pursuit is not knowledge; it is the glory of God.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

Biographies

“Study men.”
Patrick Henry-

Biographies. From John G. Paton's Missionary Patriarch, to tales of Livingstone, Knox, or Calvin. The scriptures tell us to seek out wise men and learn from them. While many great men have lived and died, their wisdom, their stories, their lives are still with us, and can teach us many things. The life of Richard the Lion heart can teach us to guard against pride, the lives of the martyrs can encourage us to stand fast, and the life of Earnest Shackleton can give us a passion for exploration, so yes, "Study Men", however, recall with Job's friend that "Great men are not always wise." (Job 32:9)

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott

On the Shootings

Last Friday, December 14 2012, a tragedy occurred in a school in Connecticut. Twenty seven precious lives were lost to a gunman's fury. Twenty six lives not only precious to their friends and those around them, but also precious to their Creator. Such a crisis needs to be met with wisdom, not fear and panic.

Not long ago the people of America watched on their television screens or heard from other sources of another shooting that happened in Colorado. The cases were similar, and the results in both were tragic. However, this is not a time for Americans to cry out against the weapons used, but against the depravity displayed. Take away the guns, and men will kill with their fists. In both of these cases men who refused to believe on the Son, placed themselves in the stead of God, to decide who may live and who may die. The sin that lurked in the heart of these men is within all of us, and only the Providence of God stays it from pouring out. Rather than acting as if we are above such things, we should thank God it was not us that did the deed. We should repent of the sins in our own lives, for all are equally horrible in the eyes of God.

And now I may say that, that after all of this, that today, the first school day after the tragedy, thousands of parents got up this morning, gave their children breakfast, and sent them on the little yellow school bus once again, to be indoctrinated in the ways of Charles Darwin, a way that, if taken logically to its full conclusions, (although many would say otherwise, and few would countenance such behavior), provoke such things as these shootings, with the strong dominating the weak, and fighting to survive in "Survival of the Fittest."

In the 1960s, a show ran on television called "The Twilight Zone," about all sorts of odd things. One of the episodes run was called "The Shelter." In it, a perfectly presented social life is carried on until there is threat of a hydrogen bomb, there is only one shelter, and only room for one family. These social perfectionists and rich party goers begin to fight like animals for the the bomb shelter. That is the end of all of mankind without the redeeming power of the gospel. Only borrowed Christian principles and social pressures keep back these impulses, the natural state of man in his lost condition is a thing horrible and dreadful. Man, in his natural condition, will kill his own family for food. These shootings have reminded us how far we can fall, even as it is a tragedy, it pales compared to the amount of murders perpetrated by white collared "civilized" doctors in abortion clinics every day. When one man was asked what he though of Western Civilization, he said it would be a good idea.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott

Youth

Lam 3:27-28 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.


When a man crosses the mountains he naturally would like to get across as fast as he can. However, if he carries weights he will profit more by the experience by becoming stronger. If he shuns the weights he will have an easier time of it, but will not have the strength and endurance he may have gained when he reaches the other side of the pass.

In youth young men want to do what they wish. They want to climb this range of mountains without weights, to go fast up the hill, to feel the wind in their faces and the experience of standing free on top of a summit. And yet those that bear no weights will not gain what they could have, what they must have when they reach the other side of the range of youth and into the fields of life. If they have been unrestrained, have run free, if they have built no character or ignored all yokes of ethics and morals, they will find themselves much to weak to work in the plains, and to do what they were created to do.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott

Always Ready

1Pe 3:1 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
The conversation went something like this "Why do you believe God exists?"
Christian for over a decade: "I have no clue."
No, it is not uncommon, I have met pastors who thought that to believe the Scriptures, we had to give up logic. I have met many young men who were confused and shaken in their faith by such simple questions as "why do you trust a God you cannot see with your soul" or "how do you know the Bible is better than any other religious book on earth?"
If I am an atheist, and I know why I do not believe in God, and ask a Christian why he does, if he says he does not know, than why should I convert, so I can be relegated to the mindless faith I think Christianity is?
I once talked to a college student who was not sure if he believed in God, he told me that he had asked many Christians how a God could have no beginning and no end, and had never received any answer.
I have traveled a great deal, and will proclaim that to find a Christian  who knows what they believe and why they believe it, and can converse on it in a coherent, sound, logical and Biblical fashion, is a rarity.
I am not saying that we ought know every fact and every argument, that is an impossibility, but to know the Scriptures, which are profitable for reproof, (II Tim 3:16-17), to know logic, not in the fashion of Plato, but in the fashion of Christ.
The atheist may not be persuaded, he probably will not be, for the naturual man recieveth not the things of God, for to him they are foolishness. However, the Holy Spirit may draw him, and the person's mind may be changed about Chrisianity because of your answers.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott

Stop Waiting for the Clock

1Ti 4:1 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
I have met many young men who, because of their youth, think they are too young to do anything great, or, in some cases, too young to do anything at all. However, I do not need to tell you how many young men all throughout history have done great things. I could mention the boy Joash who became king, or the young boy who became caption of a ship at age twelve, on which the prisoners mutinied, and the boy had to put them down, or we could speak of King David, who killed Saul in his teenage years. But that is not what I want to speak about, because you probably know those stories, what I wish to remind you is that being young does not give you a licence to goof off, to be a jester, or to waste your life with comic books and movies, rather "be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

I am not saying that if you are not an ambassador to to Russia at age fourteen that you are not mature, but I am saying to stop saying "I am too young." The seeds planted in youth will grow into trees in adulthood. If you waste time now, or if you sit around waiting for an event, you will do so, perhaps forever.

Benjamin Franklin said "Lost time can never be found again." Instead of waiting for your age to increase, seek to make your character and maturity do so. Stop waiting for the clock, start seeking to build yourself into a man.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

Washington Irving's Christmas Essay

Please forgive how long it has been since I last posted, I have been rather busy. However, I would recommend a Christmas Essay recently sent to me by a friend, by Washington Irving, a very good true story of a Christmas Mr. Irving spent in England.