Hid Among the Stuff

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 15, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 27.

Hid Among the Stuff

Many centuries ago a finely formed young man, a giant in stature, was divinely called to a very important position. When the time came that he should be presented before the people, they hunted for him a long time in vain, and finally he was found in the encampment hidden “among the stuff.” His modesty, or his sense of his unfitness, had much to do, no doubt, in leading him to do this. While the parable does not fit in every respect, yet it is wonderfully suggestive in these days. God is divinely calling young men now,—not only young men but old men,—men prominent in life, men of all sorts of nationalities and physique. He is calling them as truly to a kingship as He called Saul of old. He is calling them to a work vastly more important than anything that this world can furnish. He is calling them to a crown more illustrious and enduring than that of the British Empire. He is calling them to riches that can not corrupt, which thieves can not break through and steal. He is calling them to an inheritance that shall never pass away. He is calling them to a work that is worthy of all ambition, all effort. He is calling them to a character that is worthy of the crown and the inheritance which He shall give. How sad it is that so many of those that are called will be found at the last great day to be “hid among the stuff”! Prosperous business, beautiful homes, gold and silver, houses and lands, orchards and vineyards, cares of this life, and a thousand other things have brought heart and mind and physical powers into abject slavery, and God is forgotten. Christ comes, but they do not hear Him. He seeks them, but they are willingly hidden, and He will not force them to be His. He passes by, they do not know that He has been there, but sometimes the great day of awakening comes, and they find that He has passed by forever, and the call, vital and weighty with things of eternal import, has passed forever. God wants you, young men, old men, people of all classes and kinds, to enter His service.