Why The Young Need Conversion

Why the Young Need Conversion

I want to say something to you who are unconverted. Our great anxiety is that you should know the Lord at once; and our reason is, that it will prepare you for the world to come. Whatever that world may be, full of vast mysteries, yet no man is so prepared to launch upon the unknown sea as the one who is reconciled to God. who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, who trusts Him, and rejoices in the pardon of his sin through the great atoning sacrifice, and experiences in his own heart the marvellous change which has made him a new creature in Christ Jesus

I think that is a very good reason for seeking the Lord, that you may be prepared for eternity. I saw an aged friend, who was eighty-six, and her faculties failing; she said, "I have no fear, I have no fear of death; I am on the Rock, I am on the Rock Christ Jesus. I know whom I have believed, and I know where I am going." It was delightful to hear the aged saint speak like that; and we are always hearing such talk from our dear friends when they are going home, they never seem to have any doubts. I have known some who, while they were well, had many doubts; but when they came to die, they seemed to have none at all, but were joyously confident in Christ. But there is another reason why we want our friends converted, and that is, that they may be prepared for this life. I do not know what kind of life you have set before yourself. Perhaps some young men hope to have lives consecrated to learning, and crowned with honour. Possibly, some have no prospect but that of working hard to earn their bread with the sweat of their brow; some have begun to lay bricks, or to drive the plane, or to wield the pen. There are all sorts of ways of mortal life; but there is no better provision and preparation for any kind of life on earth than to know the Lord, and to have a new heart and a right spirit. He that rules millions of men will do it better with the grace of God in his heart; and he that had to be a slave would be the happier in his lot for having the grace of God in his heart You that are young, you that are masters and you that are servants, true religion cannot disqualify you for playing your part here in the great drama of life; but the best preparation for that part, if it is a part that ought to be played, is to know the Lord, and feel the power of Divine grace upon your soul.

Let me just show you how this is the case. The man who lives before God, who calls God his Father, and feels the Spirit of God working within him a hatred of sin and a love of righteousness, he is the man who will be conscientious in the discharge of his duties; and, you know, that is the kind of man, and the kind of woman, too, that we want nowadays. We have so many people who want looking after; if you give them anything to do, they will do it quickly enough if you stand and look on; but the moment you turn your back, they will do it as slovenly or as slowly, and as badly as can be. They are eye-servants only. If you were to advertise for an eye-servant, I do not suppose anybody would come to you; yet they might come in shoals, for there are plenty of them about. Well now, a truly Christian man, a man who is really converted, sees that he serves God in doing his duty to his fellow-men. "Thou God seest me," is the power that ever influences him; and he desires to be conscientious in the discharge of his duties, whatever those duties may be. I once told the story of the servant girl who said that she hoped she was converted. Her minister asked her this question, "What evidence can you give of your conversion?' She gave this among a great many other proofs, but it was not a bad one; she said, "Now, sir, I always sweep under the mats." It was a small matter, but if you carry out in daily life that principle of sweeping under the mats, that is the kind of thing we want. Many people have a little corner where they stow away all the fluff and the dust, and the room looks as if it was nicely swept, but it is not. There is a way of doing everything so that nothing is really done, but that is not the case where there is grace in the heart. Grace in the heart makes a man feel that he would wish to live wholly to God, and serve God in serving man. If you get that grace, you will have a grand preparation for life as well as for death. The next thing is, that a man who has a new heart has imparted to him a purity which preserves him in the midst of temptation. Oh, this dreadful city of London! I wonder that God endures the filth of it. I frequently converse with good young men, who come up from the country to their first situation in London, and the first week they live in London is a revelation to them which makes their hair almost stand on end. They see what they never dreamt of. Well now, you young fellows who have just come to London, give yourselves to the Lord at once, I pray you. Yield yourselves to Jesus Christ, for another week in London may be your damnation. Only a week in London may have led you into acts of impurity that shall ruin you for ever. Before you have gone into those things, devote yourselves to God, and to His Christ, that with pure hearts and with right spirits you may be preserved from "the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday," in this terribly wicked city. There is no hope for you young men and young women in this great world of wickedness unless your hearts are right towards God. If you go in thoroughly to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, He will keep and preserve you even to the end; but if you do not give yourselves to the Lord, whatever good resolutions you may have formed, you are doomed—I am sure you are—to be carried away with the torrents of iniquity that run down our streets today. Purity of heart, then, which comes from faith in Christ, is a splendid preparation for life. So also is truthfulness of speech. Oh, what a wretched thing it is when people will tell lies! Now, the heart that is purified by the grace of God, hates the thought of a lie. The man speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and he is the man who shall pass through life unscathed, and shall be honoured, and in the long run successful. He may have to suffer for a time through his truthfulness; but, in the end, nothing shall clear a way for him so well as being true in thought and word and deed.

If you love the Lord with all your heart, you will also learn honesty in dealing; and that is a grand help in life. I know that the trickster does sometimes seem to succeed for a time; but what is his success? It is a success which is only another name for ruin. Oh, if all men could be made honest, how much more of happiness there would be in the world! And the way to be upright among men is to be sincere towards God, and to have the Spirit of God dwelling within you.

Again, true religion is of this value, that it comforts a man under great troubles. You do not expect many troubles, my young friend, but you will have them. You expect that you will be married, and then your troubles will be over; some say that then they begin. I do not endorse that statement; but I am sure that they are not over, for there is another set of trials that begin then. But you are going to get out of your apprenticeship, and then it will be all right; will it? Journeymen do not always find it so. But you do not mean always to be a journeyman; you are going to be a little master. Ask the masters whether everything is pleasant with them in these times. If you want to escape trouble altogether, you had better go up in a balloon; and then I am sure that you would be in trouble for fear of going up too high or coming down too fast. But troubles will come; and what is there that can preserve a man in the midst of trouble like feeling that things are safe in his Father's hands? If you can say, "I am His child, and all things are working together for my good. I have committed myself entirely into the hands of Him who cannot err, and will never do me an unkindness," why, you have on a breastplate which the darts of care cannot pierce, you are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and you may tread on the briars of the wilderness with an unwounded foot.

True religion will also build up in you firmness of character, and that is another quality that I want to see in our young people nowadays. We have some splendid men, and some splendid women, too. I should not be afraid, if the devil himself were to preach, that he would pervert them from the faith; and if all the new heresies that can rise were to be proclaimed in their presence, they know too well what the truth is ever to be led astray. But, on the other hand, we have a number of people who are led by their ears. If I pull their ear one way, they come after me; if they happen to go somewhere else, and somebody pulls their ear the other way, they go after him. There are lots of people who never do their own thinking, but put it out, as they put out their washing; they do not think of doing it at home. Well now, these people are just like the chaff on the threshing-floor, and when the wind begins to blow, away they go. Do not be like that. Dear young sons and daughters of church-members, know the Lord. May He reveal Himself to you at once; and when you do know Him, and get a grip of the gospel, bind it to your heart, and tie it about your neck, and say, "Yes, I am going to follow in the footsteps of those I love, and especially in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"'Through floods and flame, if Jesus lead, I'll follow where He goes.'"

God help you to do it! But first believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; trust yourselves wholly to Him, and He will give you grace to stand fast even to the end.