“Flee Also Youthful Lusts”

The writer says, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” That is good admonition for every young person. The time of youth is a very important time. It is at once a dangerous time and a very advantageous time. You see, it is dangerous because youth is a time of dash and dare. Youth is venturesome, and there is something about youth that they just don’t like to avoid taking a dare. Consequently, whatever the crowd is doing—maybe they know better and have been taught better—but they get out and the crowd taunts them and they don’t like that, so they’ll just venture, too.

My oldest brother was born of the same parents as I, was brought up at the same family altar, was taught the same things in the Sunday School, and heard the same preaching of the Word that I was taught. In his youth he had an experience of salvation at one time, but he was like the prodigal son, and he left home before he was ready to leave home. He wasn’t ready to meet the problems out in the world. He thought he was, but he wasn’t. People did things he didn’t know humans did, and he got in with the crowd. He held out against drinking and smoking and different things like that for a long while, but others would taunt him, and called him “preacher.” Finally he just got tired of being called “preacher,” so he broke over and began to drink and smoke with them. As a result of that my brother practically drank himself to death. Now, he didn’t intend to do that—he had higher ideals than that when he left home. He had been taught different from that and he had a better foundation than that, but he got out there and wasn’t able to meet what he met and he was swamped with it, and it ruined him. He practically drank himself to death.

Young folks many times seek for a thrill. They desire a thrill and they venture in search of one, but those ventures overtake them, swamp them, and involve them in things that they never expected to get involved in.

The apostle Paul admonishes like this: “Flee also youthful lusts.”* (2 Timothy 2:22) It seems to indicate that there are special things of this nature that appeal to youth in a special way. “Flee also youthful lusts.” Now, I have noticed this: the evil habits of life that people get into, they usually get into in their youth. A person who gets a few more years on him, a little more experience, a little more developed, and a little more able to meet the situations of life, seldom take up with these evil habits of drinking and smoking, etc. They have a little better understanding. “Well,” you say, “I know somebody that did. He was pretty well up there, too, before he started drinking.” Yes, I know people like that, too, but the percentage is small. If you ran out the percentage, it would be small. Most of the time people take up with these things before they are old enough to comprehend the fruit of these things, the potentials of them and where they will lead them, and these things get hold of them and enslave them throughout their lives.

Youth is the formative time of your life; the pattern of your life is being laid out in the formative years, and that pattern will be the pattern through the rest your life. Whatever is formed in your youth is the course you are going to follow, ordinarily. God can change that. If people will turn to God, He can turn the tide and change the course of events; but most of the time the pattern of life that is laid out in the period of youth is the pattern of life that is followed right on through to the grave. They carry it right along with them.

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” God wants to get a hold of folks before they get a wrong pattern of life laid out. It would be much to your advantage to give your heart to God while you are young and let Him pilot you through this unsettled period of your life. Many times there is a certain stage youth gets to, a certain age they arrive at, that they feel they have all the answers, they know more than Daddy, Mother, school teacher, or anybody else. I heard about one fellow trying to get something across to his young son one time. The son was right at that age when he had all the answers. He knew everything and his daddy couldn’t tell him anything; nor his mother, the school teacher, or anybody else. He was just at that age where he had all the answers. Finally, the daddy gave up in exasperation and said, “Son, I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that twenty years from now you will be just as dumb as your daddy is now?” Now, that’s the way it works out. Sometimes we think Daddy and Mother are old fogies, that they are way behind times, and are not keeping up with things at all. But we get out and we have a little experience and we learn a few things, etc. We look back and we say, “Daddy was a pretty wise old man after all. He sure has wised up. I tell you, he surely has wised up.” It was you who wised up. You just got more in the groove with Daddy’s thinking. But we think Daddy changed, that he wised up. Someday we’ll look back there and say, “He was pretty wise after all.” We didn’t think he was when we were growing up. We thought he was just an old fogey, way behind times, way out of date, not keeping up with the schedule at all. But we get out there and see how things are working out; and when we look back, Daddy was a pretty wise fellow.