“In the Days of Thy Youth”

Youth is a time of great advantage, if we will just take advantage of it. God told the children of Israel concerning His law, “Teach these things to your children. When you lie down, when you rise up, when you walk by the way, in the morning and in the evening, teach these things to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Why did He do that? Because that was the time for the children to get them. He realized that the children coming up were going to meet the problems of the world after a while and they needed a good foundation. They needed some fortifications. They needed something in them to direct them in that trying time of their lives out there. Children and young people can grasp things that they can’t get later on.

When I was a boy growing up, at different times the Sunday School that I grew up in sponsored scripture memorizing contests, and the one who memorized the most scriptures would receive some kind of a little prize. We would just go into it like we were playing for keeps. We would really work at it, memorizing whole chapters sometimes. Most of those verses that I memorized back there I have now in my mind. I can quote them without reading them and tell you where they are found, chapter and verse. But I don’t get a hold of them like that now; now it is more difficult for me to memorize things. I used to not forget much, but I forget lots of things now. I forget some things that I would be a lot better off if I remembered, but I have just reached that age of life when things don’t register with me like they did then. You will do that, too, if you live long enough. Now is the time for you to get what you are going to need on through life. Right here in the period of your youth when your mind is plastic, you will grasp and remember things. Right now is the time for you to fortify yourself for the things that you are going to meet out there. We ought to be applying ourselves. We ought to be learning God’s word, we ought to be opening our hearts to God’s word, and getting the truth down into our souls. We ought to be working at that earnestly and sincerely, because the time is going to come when it won’t register with you like it does now. It will take a lot more effort for you to get hold of it later on than it does now.

God would like to get hold of you and your life and direct your life in the right channel. God needs workers for Him, and in the time of youth we have the energy, the strength, the vitality, the mind and the intellect to go ahead and make a good, profitable worker for the Lord. He would like to save you and make a worker out of you and use you in a good cause right on up the rest of your life. Here is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who will just accept this admonition, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.”

One of the major religions of the world today says, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” They implant things in those children’s minds, drill them, catechize them and educate them in those fundamental principles of their religion to the point where they have it and they have it good. They can go right out in the world, but they are still going to be governed by that. Truth is that way, too, if you and I will get it (Proverbs 22:6). We have God’s word, we have parents to teach us God’s word, we have preachers and teachers to instruct us in the ways of God. We could get it that way, too, so that we would just be sealed by the Truth before we ever go out in the world and begin to meet all the deceptions there are out there.