141. The Prayer Of The Young Ruler.

The Prayer Of The Young Ruler. The Prayer as recorded.—Luke 18:18-21. The Lord’s Answer.—Luke 18:22-24.

It is with feelings of peculiar interest we read the prayer of this young man, for we regard him as strikingly representing in his outward circumstances, as well as in the state of his heart, a large class of the young and attractive about us. Loved and courted, occupying a high station, and surrounded by all the luxuries wealth could procure; trained religiously—for he seems to have an acquaintance with the law of God, a theoretical knowledge of his duty—his outward observances were, no doubt, strictly gone through with, and yet when he comes to Jesus, he seems surprised that his heart was not right, that that eye whose power extended into the hidden recesses and windings of his soul, saw the dark plague-spot blackening the otherwise attractive character. The young ruler’s wealth had made him covetous;

“The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, The last corruption of degenerate man,” had made him forgetful that God had given these riches merely as a loan to be paid back with interest in the prayers of the poor man, in the grateful acknowledgment of the sick and suffering he should have relieved, in the rays of light shining out from the darkened soul he had been the instrument of opening to God’s truth, in the smile of the oppressed he had unburdened, and in the clear laugh of the freed prisoner to sin, whose chain he had unloosened.

Young man, these were works you might have done, and deep and heavy the weight of your sins of omission following on in the train of the one thing thou lackest. And the world is full of the young who are walking in your footsteps, who know not their own hearts, who are living on and dreaming on, burying in this or that cherished sin, all that is good and lovely, useful or attractive about them. Are you covetous, you are not a Christian; else, why all over the sacred page, do we see such bitter denunciations against this sin? Are you forgetful of the poor, you cannot be accepted; it was the sin that sent the young man away sorrowing. If there is in thy heart one shadow of this soul-ruining sin, oh, fall at the mercy-seat! oh, see what good thing thou lackest to make thee acceptable! Oh, give your early years to God! There is a glorious promise for all that do this—“Those that seek me early shall find me.”

Life is fleeting fast away; one year follows quickly upon another, and it is soon, soon over, with its toils, its cares, its joys, and sorrows. A hope, a smile, a tear, these are all; and then, oh God! thou knowest, “Every muffled drum is beating funeral marches to the grave;” we see the young and loved falling around us, many as attractive to the world as this young ruler, but in whose hearts we fear one thing is lacking; it is not enough that you should be steady and regular in the performance of stated religious duties, your heart must be right in the sight of God, you must often enter the closet for self-examination and prayer; without this no one can be in the world and not of it, with it he can mix with men and breathe the atmosphere of heaven, can walk in the dust and mire and never be soiled or polluted, for his spirit is soaring in a purer, holier air, where prayer bears up his wings, and will bear them upward, till they soar unfettered in worlds where sin is forever banished, and all is purity and joy.