Sin the Reproach and Shame of Youth
John Guyse, D. D. Jeremiah 31:18-21 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke… I. SIN IS OF A REPROACHFUL NATURE. 1. It flings an unrighteous reproach on God and others. (1) Let us begin with others. Friends and families are often disgraced by the sinners that belong to their houses: They are frequently ashamed of them, and reproached for them; they are ashamed to think, speak, or hear of them, to see or own them; and many are apt to reflect, sometimes indeed with too much reason, but at others without cause, as if their parents, their masters, or their other relations and friends, who have been most conversant with them, and might have had the greatest influence over them, have not taken proper care to counsel, caution, and restrain them. (2) But what is still infinitely worse, is that their iniquities throw the most vile and unrighteous reproach upon the holy and blessed God Himself, as if He were not what He is, and were not to be treated with the reverence and honour that are His due. Sin reproaches God's perfections, His name and His image, as if they were not worthy to be maintained with honour; it reproaches His workmanship in man, as if a creature had come out of His hand unworthy of Himself to be the author of; and it furnishes occasions to other sinners to reproach and blaspheme His blessed majesty. 2. It is a just reproach upon sinners themselves. It is the disgrace of their nature, it disrobes it of all its glory, defaces the beauteous image of God in which it was at first created, and debases it into the odious likeness and deformity of the devil, and of the brute. II. THE SINS OF YOUNG PERSONS MUST NEEDS BE THE REPROACH OF THEIR YOUTH. Youth is indeed the most amiable age of life. It is the time for beauty and ornament, for activity and vigour, for gathering and improving in all that is excellent and desirable, and for pursuing after everything that is honourable and glorious. It is the time of expectation and hope, and the time of their own chief delight, and of others delighting in them. But sin stains all this glory of their youth, it sweeps away their lovely bloom, it depraves and perverts their vigorous powers, and makes them only so much the more capable of becoming despicable and vile; they are thereby daily heaping to themselves infamous and destructive things; they glory in their own shame; sport themselves in their own vain and foolish deceivings; and give melancholy prospects of growing up, the shame and torment of their friends, and the pests, instead of the blessings, of the rising generation; and they arc in the direct way of entailing all misery, for this world and the next, upon themselves. III. A TIME IS COMING, WHEN, ONE WAY OR OTHER, THEY WILL BEAR THIS REPROACH. 1. There is a bearing it, in the fruits and effects of their sins. They are the source of many sorrows; they often bring great and numerous distresses upon sinners in the way of God's righteous judgment, and by the natural operation of their iniquities themselves. 2. There is a bearing the reproach of youth, in being reproached by others for their sins. Some sins bring such a reproach upon young men and women, as they can never get rid of all their days (2 Samuel 13:12, 13; Proverbs 6:32, 33). 3. There is a bearing the reproach of youth, in the reflections of their own consciences upon their sins. IV. WHEN THEY COME TO BEAR THE REPROACH OF THEIR YOUTH, THEY WILL BE ASHAMED, YEA, EVEN CONFOUNDED AT IT. 1. Young people will be ashamed, yea, even confounded at the reproach of their youth, when they come to bear it in the way of God's mercy to them. 2. Young people will be ashamed, and even confounded at the reproach of their youth, when they come to bear it in the way of God's wrath against them.Reflections — 1. Let young and old think seriously with themselves, which of these is, or is like to be their condition. 2. How should Christ and His Gospel be prized and improved, to take away the reproach of your youth! (John Guyse, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. WEB: I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus], You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed [to the yoke]: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.