[AI translation] Our church has a happy family celebration today: we bring our ascended sons and daughters before the Lord of the Church, so that they themselves may now solemnly tell Him that they believe in Him and want to faithfully follow Him all their lives! They are now the focus of our interest, our love, our prayer, - let this sermon today be addressed primarily to them. It is interesting that this man, when he is almost saying goodbye to his life on earth, turns his last look to the young, to those who most need a good word of guidance, the word of God, because, according to human calculations, they still have a long way to go before they reach the end.- So let us see what God is now saying through the old man at the end of his journey to the youth at the beginning of his journey.
1) First of all, here is this: "Rejoice in your youth!"
How wonderful that an old man, who has seen and experienced so much in his long life, when he addresses his exhortations to youth, should touch with his first word the string that is most sensitive in the spring of life, the string of joy of life! How untrue it is, as many imagine, that religion robs youth, robs it of the joy of life, makes men joyless, world-weary, and old-fashioned!
- No! On the contrary! You see, here too, the Word directly encourages you to rejoice. Rejoice, young man, in your youth! It is as if God were smiling on you. For He created human life in such a way that youth and rejoicing go together. It is a time of blossoming in the spring of life, full of the encouraging promise of fruit ripening in summer and autumn. It is a time of hope, of expectation, of swelling life. Of course there is reason to rejoice! For the soul is not yet acquainted with the hard, distressing struggles of life, - the dark shadows of troubles and disappointments do not yet fall upon the path, the bodily and spiritual powers are not yet diminished, but are more and more encouragingly unfolding, - as when the swelling bud is blossoming into a flower, - "Rejoice in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth." God is not the enemy of the natural joy of life, but the giver of it. There is nothing more unnatural than a sad child, than a blushing young soul, bored with life. It is not good to be pessimistic in youth, or cynical, or pompously serious, or to hang one's head in sadness, - it is free to be young, it is free to rejoice, it is free to laugh and sing merrily, it is free to enjoy the beauties of earthly life, it is free to enjoy the healthy joy of the beautiful spring of life! I always rejoice when, on Sunday afternoons, joyful singing and healthy laughter ring upstairs from the basement where the youth Bible study is held, and I think with gratitude that young people are rejoicing in life. Well done! They are right! Yes: "Rejoice in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth."
2) But - the Word goes on to admonish, "Know that for all these things God will judge you! Put away wrath from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn are vanity." There is a great, fearful warning in this! It says: and rejoice, but be ever so careful to keep your joy ever pure. For so many temptations of false pleasures call to young life, so many pleasures of every kind, or passions, or frivolities, so soon defile the joy of youth, wither its flowers, dim its brightness, and make it hateful to God! But the old, experienced Solomon is very right when he exhorts, "Put away wrath from thine heart, and ... evil from thy flesh." That is, take care of the purity of your pleasures! Never seek a pleasure that you will later regret, that you will be ashamed of, that will not bear the presence of your mother, the gaze of the living God. "For all these things God will judge you," says the Word. It is not only that we will answer before the judgment seat of God in eternity for all that we have done in this body, good or bad, the judgment is worthy of every man in this life on earth. For the moral laws of God, as described by Moses in the Ten Commandments and detailed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, are built into the fabric of this universe and into the very constitution of our moral and spiritual being. These moral laws are true even if one denies them. Whoever runs into the moral laws does not break them, but breaks them himself. He who seeks the pleasures of life in rebellion against God, that is, he who indulges in sinful pleasures, will sooner or later inevitably lose his way, become disgusted with them, become spiritually or physically crippled or even sick with them...
Do you know, brothers and sisters, that in the Scandinavian countries, where the overflowing prosperity of youth has led to the indulgence of every imaginable frivolous, idle pleasure in life, the greatest youth problem today is what? Suicide! The soul that has been crammed into vain pleasures no longer finds pleasure in anything, it throws life away like a tired toy. Dear young brethren, beware of your pleasures, know that for all these things God will judge you! And no one can escape this judgment!
3) How then can we keep the pleasures of our life pure? Here's how, as the Word continues here. "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." What this means is that we should never leave God out of our joys, the serene, joyful part of our lives! For true joy is always that in which God finds joy. Many people think that God is only needed in times of trouble and sadness, when people need God to help and comfort them, but it is possible to live joyfully and without trouble without God. Well, that is why the Word says: "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth... until the days of perdition come, and until the years come, of which thou shalt say, I love them not."
For those days, those years of not loving will come soon enough! The young years will pass quickly. The dawn - oh, how short! The day comes quickly after, and you don't even notice it, it's already getting dark.
In the following poem Solomon gives a beautiful poetic description of the slow ebbing of the spiritual and physical life forces, when the flame of reason is losing its light, the energy of will is diminishing, spiritual activity is growing weary, the clouds above us are darkening the sky, returning more and more often, the physical structure is also deteriorating, decaying more and more, the once glorious and beautiful figure, in which it was so good to feel the elastic strength once, is slowly being overcome by transience. The sight of the eyes will be dim, the hearing dull, the gait will be slow, and the body will be dust, as it was before, and the soul will turn to God who gave it. "There are weepers in the streets," says Solomon, as a sign that someone has died, perhaps a tired, sickly old man who was once young, who once sat, as a young confirmand, with a heart full of the joy of life, on a chair in the Reformed Church of Pasaréti... Who - was you! Yes, youth and dawn are vanity! - That's why it's so important to remember your Creator in the time of your youth! Remember that it is from Him that you have everything now, - you are not your own maker, it is from Him that you have your hands to work with, your head to think with, your heart to beat within, your blood to circulate in your veins, your mouth to speak with, your youth to feel the power of, - all of this is His gift to you! He is your Creator!
He has a right to you, to your life, to your youth, to your joy, to every beat of your heart. "Remember your Creator", - that is, remember God while you are still young. Remember the God whom you have known in Jesus, - remember how much you are already God's own, - remember that the holy blood which flowed from the cross on Calvary, in the symbol of the water of the cross, has betrothed you to God's eternal possession, - think that you bear the seal of belonging to God, you are not your own, you cannot dispose of yourself as you please, - God is your Lord, God is your Father, God is your Saviour, God is your Master... Remember your Creator in the days of your youth!
How good that we have come to know God through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus was young too. He lived through the age that you are now. He also knows - from his own experience - all the problems, difficulties and weaknesses of your young life - and he is happy to help you in them. He is happy to stand by your side and hold your hand and walk with you all the way... He who walks with Jesus is always young in spirit, and his joy never turns to sorrow. Jesus himself never grew old. He gave the fullness of His young life as a sacrifice so that through Him all who believe in Him might be renewed to a happy, eternal youth. - I wish we could all experience, whatever our age, how true it is that the prophet Isaiah said, also from his own experience, "Those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wing like vultures, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Life calls us to the struggle, Let us follow you in it."
Amen
Date: 14 May 1961 Confirmation
Lesson
Kol 2,3-7