"Y"

993. Yielding to God, Wisdom of

If a man expose himself to the rush of an avalanche, can he expect the rolling mass to suspend itself in mid air for him? If a mariner will go to sea in a vessel worm-eaten and unseaworthy, will the waves pity the barque, and cease from their rough play and rougher warfare? No, they roll around the leaking craft as they would have done around a better vessel; they toss it, they sink it, the careless mariner perishes. If a man will act contrary to natural laws, he must suffer for it. If you dash your head against a granite rock, it will not for your sake soften into down; and it is just so with the moral laws of God's government, certain results follow from sinful courses of action, inevitably and as a matter of course. Yield, then, to the divine wisdom which has rightly ordained the consequences of sin. Do not necessitate your own destruction. Submit freely where rebellion is absurd. Against Omnipotence it were folly to strive; be wise, then, and submit to the power of the omnipotent God.

994. Young men the Hope of the Church

I do not believe that any age was better than this, all things considered, but this is the time when we shall want our young men to be strong to all the intents of strength. Battles are coming in which they will need to stand with firm foot. There will be strifes in which they will not be of the slightest value if they cannot brave the conflict in the very van, or fight where fly whole showers of fiery arrows and hot bolts of hell. Rest assured these are not silken days, nor times to make us dream that we have won the victory. Our fathers, where are they? They are looking down upon us from their thrones, but what do they see? Do they see us wearing the crown and waving the palm-branch? If so, they see us lunatics indeed, for that were a madman's sport; but rather they see us sharpening our swords afresh, and buckling on our panoply anew, to fight the same fight which they fought under other circumstances. The young blood of the church, under God, is our great hope in the conflict for King Jesus. The young men of the church must be in the next twenty years the very soul and vigour of it, and, therefore, may God raise up among us a goodly seed, a race of heroes, swifter than eagles for zeal, and stronger than lions for faith.

995. Youthful Piety, Loveliness of An apple-tree when loaded with apples is a very comely sight; but give me, for beauty, the apple-tree in bloom. The whole world does not present a more lovely sight than an apple blossom. Painters have declared that there is nothing in the whole world to excel it in beauty. Now, a full-grown Christian laden with fruit is a blessed sight, but still there is a blessedness, a peculiar blessedness, about the young Christian in bloom. Let me just tell you what I think that blessedness is. You have probably now a greater tenderness about sin than some professors who have known the Lord for years; they might wish that they felt your tenderness of conscience. You have now a graver sense of duty, and a more solemn fear of the neglect of it than some who have known the Lord for years; and you have a greater zeal than many. You are now doing your first works for God, and burning with your first love; nothing is too hot for you or too hard for you. To go to a sermon now—no matter what weather it may be—seems to you to be an imperative necessity; you would go over hedge and ditch to hear the Word. But some who are of older growth want soft cushions to sit upon; they cannot stand in the aisle now as they used to do; everybody must be particularly polite when they come in, or they care not to worship at all. At one time they were so hungry that if you had thrown them a piece of meat on a skewer they would have eaten it; but now it must be delicately cooked, and all sorts of sauce served up with it, and it must be well garnished, or they cannot eat it. They hear this minister, and they are tired of the other. They are in the state of the fools in the Psalm, who abhorred all manner of meat, and I fear their souls draw nigh unto death; but at first there is such a good appetite, such zeal, such hunger, that I am sure you will look back in years to come to your springing, and say, "Ah, God did bless the springing thereof!" Go on, dear friends, to something higher; press forward to something more full and complete, but bless God for what you have.