Word of Salvation – Vol. 19 No.46 – August 1973
Youth Ahoy
Youth Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on Eccl.11.9 – 12.1
N.T. Reading: Phil.4:4-13
Psalter Hymnal: 14:1,2; 14:3,4; 251; 454; 316:3 (after Ben.)
Ecclesiastes is a sombre book, on the whole.
Written by a bloke who made plenty of mistakes in his life and is somewhat nostalgic when looking back on it all. Yet the message he has for young people here at the end of his book, is surprisingly positive.
YOUTH AHOY! he calls, I suppose from a large distance. His hair must have gotten all grey by now or maybe he hadn’t any left.
The message he gives the young people is threefold:
1. ROLL OUT THE BARREL!
2. FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS and
3. CHECK UP YOUR BEARINGS!!!
1. Roll Out the Barrel!
“Rejoice o young man in your youth!
and let your heart cheer you in the days of your being young!
walk in the ways of your heart
and delight in the sight of your eyes!
Well!
If that’s not an encouragement and a half I wouldn’t know WHAT is. No policeman here lifting a wagging finger whenever you’re having a good time!
No, the guy talking here knew what makes for a good time. Didn’t he have 1000 wives? Ah yes, and these wives tricked him into sin, too, and no doubt he found out that TOO MUCH of a good thing makes it not all that good any more.
But and that’s the beauty of it, that does NOT stop him from saying that they ARE not good! Rejoice! Life is worth living! Roll out the barrel and find how FULL of goodness and blessing it is when it comes from the hand of a good God!
Walk in the ways of your heart:- the things we desire when we’re young and life beckons; the promises and dreams; the strength and good health and the good prospects of freedom in our fair land. You enjoy them says your God: you’re young IN THIS SENSE only once, so make the most of it!
The sight of your eyes, when you wonder about the treasures of nature, and gaze at the beauty of what the Lord made.
When a young man learns the beauty of young women, and a young woman’s eyes can feast on the strength of young men. Well, not for nothing made God these attractive – you may as well enjoy them!
Life is rich! Life is wonderful!
Many youngsters do not believe that so much anymore. But God’s Word is not so negative!
Rejoice!
Enjoy!
Roll out the barrel!
It is full of beauty! says your Bible.
The invitation to the Party is there! And it is given in your Bible only one page away from that book on human love and beauty which we call the best Song of all, the Song of songs. No, believe me, your God is no life-hater. Rather He is a DEATH-HATER! He does not want you to die – he wants you to live! And therefore there follows that warning:
2. FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS!
Yes when God’s Word writes the verses we just saw, it’s like your rich Dad giving you a nice powerful car capable of beaut speed and superb handling.
Rejoice in your youth!
Let your heart cheer you!
Walk in the ways of the heart and the desire of the eyes.
Ah yes – but your Dad does not want all these things to become your DOWNFALL’
He wants them to be your JOY!
And so: FASTEN SEAT BELTS!
“BUT KNOW that for all these things
God will bring you into judgement.
Therefore remove vexation from your mind
and put away pain from your body
for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
or, (for that’s what that ‘vanity’ means here!) they are only short-lived.
Why does God say that, now?
To spoil it all?
No!
HE did not put those dangers on the road, WE did. But He wants us to avoid these. He does not want us later on to curse the good things of God because we spoiled them when we were young. He wants us to fasten our safety belts, the safety belt of His Holy law which He gave to safeguard human life and keep it enjoyable. You won’t really enjoy that beautiful fast car if you drive yourself into the broken-bone ward of a hospital. The Lord Himself created youth and knows what it is to be young. He never got beyond 33 years of age when here on earth in human form. Most of HIS life was teenage and youth, ever realized that?
And He’s the one who wants young life to glow with beauty and joy. He HATES to see a good thing go rotten! He says “Thou shalt not kill’ because he LOVES life.
And he wants you to LOVE life too and not to see it waste away in slavery to cigarettes or – worse – addiction to killer- drugs!
He loves the beauty and intimate togetherness of marriage. And therefore He hates to see that ruined when the believing boy fools around with the unbelieving girl or when the believing girl starts getting hooked to a boy she can never thank Him with.
He hates to see a good thing spoiled and does not want two youngsters, one in bed, but miles apart in the deepness of their heart.
He loves life and therefore He hates death!
FASTEN SEAT BELTS He says, and that looks like a spoilsport at the beginning of the trip. .But it’s only because He wants to keep you going real strong!
Remove vexation from your mind!
Put away pain from your body!
He knows best, He made mind and body and the beauty of it all was HIS idea! Then don’t let any sneak come in and spoil it. Don’t let any jerk come in with a weasly song on a record to talk you into slinky tricks with the beauty of sex. Or into trips that will not widen your mind but will only burst you apart!
Fasten safety belts; the One Who gave you your beautiful young life and likes it and loves it, will be at the end of it to ask you: what have you done with it? You will not come into judgement for enjoying life, not really, but you WILL come into judgement for spoiling it. For God hates a good thing spoiled! He hates it as only the Maker can hate what spoils the very work of his loving hands. As only a Toiler and Worker can hate what breaks down the thing he spent hours and days and years on!
THAT’S A BEAUT CAR I GAVE YOU!
You’d better fasten seat belts, kid!
I want you to enjoy it!
I want you to live!
And then our text comes with a final warning:
3. CHECK YOUR BEARINGS!
Know your road, your course!
Well that is only possible – is it not! – when you know where you come from and where you are heading for.
REMEMBER YOUR CREATOR it says, and then we look back. I, my young life, with all that makes it good and enjoyable, come from the hands, the mind, or shall I not rather say: “the HEART? – the LOVING HEART of a Creator. I know now Who that creator is and you can know it, for He has introduced Himself to us. He Who made us good but against Whom we sinned, He Who made us and then came to redeem us! He Who is interested in each one of us and became one of us to get us back from death!
REMEMBER YOUR CREATOR! says the Bible! Do not race around aimlessly as so many do! What’s the use of being young when it means going nowhere? What’s the joy of carting from party to party; from girl-friend to girl-friend; from day to boring day; seeking new thrills and kicks all the time – but not knowing from where, whereto or why?
Remember…! says your Bible. That is difficult because then we must also remember our sins – our failure – the sins also of our youth. It is impossible to remember the creator without seeing His holy claims on our life and the way we muffed those claims. But that Creator is not just God. It is also the Word Who was with God and Who was God. Who became flesh to change water at dreary weddings into the wine of new life!
Who came to share our sicknesses and our death that we might rise up and start anew!
Remember! For life without God is death! Ask any missionary, I would say. Or rather: I would have said that when the influence of the life-giving Gospel of Jesus was still great in a country like Australia and life – THANKS TO THAT INFLUENCE – was good everywhere. Then you had to go to New Guinea to see the faces… BEFORE CHRIST… and after.
I have seen them on Jim Erkkila’s slides. The faces of young people who were old early for they always lived in fear. I have seen what happened when Jesus came into those lives. But what do I say? Life in Australia is drifting away from the Gospel and faces in our city’s streets can also be empty and bitter and hard.
Young people who should have a beaut time come roaring past on expensive bikes and boy you should see the hard snarls on their faces.
For whether you are young or old, the Word of your life-loving Lord holds true: “What’s the good of having all these things… things… things… even if it were the whole world. . . and you’d lose your own soul?”
Remember. . . . your creator!
The devil wants you violently unhappy and sick of it all, and broken. And so he goes around from school to school whispering to young people that there is no Creator and of course when there is no Creator there cannot be a real Redeemer either, can there?
And anyway, what on earth must we THEN be redeemed FROM? There is no sun, there is no light, but then, what you’re in is no darkness either, and the misery you feel is just being normal.
Normal?
I hope my young friend, that you won’t buy that nonsense. That you will love life more than that! Remember your Creator, for He has wonderful plans of never-ending life for those Who believe in His Son! It is said about Him in Psalm 104 that he RENEWS OUR YOUTH LIKE THAT OF AN EAGLE. And that’s real renewal, not telling our grandchildren that Granny just turned 21 while granny’s heart screams: NO, NO, NO! I don’t WANNA get old, I don’t WANNA die! I WISH I were 21!
Now it’s great to be 21, especially when you know that being 61 is also something filled with the laughter of God. Then it’s especially great! And in between there’s 41 – a great age to be in. All kinds of things you learned since those 20 years. And there’s the Creator right alongside keeping going – renewing your youth. And when at last this body is ready to be traded in, they carry it to the grave but they still sing psalm 103: Bless the Lord, who renews your youth like that of an eagle, and God’s eagles look like Phoenixes then, the real youth, the never-ending delight of the yes is THEN ONLY TO BEGIN!
Remember NOW thy Creator. . . and THEN He will remember you! That is the message of our text today, and if this is not positive and glad in our age of doubt I don’t know what is! There is laughter and youth in all of life when Jesus is invited into the start of it. You try any road outside of Him. . . and you find it runs dead. But you remember and love Him, and He is the Road, the very Life Himself. He made it all, remember? And He wants to say again:
Look! Very good!
Amen.