The Sins of Youth Productive of the Sorrows of Age
Helps for the Pulpit
Job 13:26
For you write bitter things against me, and make me to possess the iniquities of my youth.


I. THE SINS OF YOUTH. Disregard of parental authority, forgetfulness of God, refusal of instruction, evil company, sensuality, intemperance, vain amusements, etc.

II. THE SINS OF YOUTH ARE HIGHLY PROVOKING TO GOD.

1. They are committed against His tender care and love towards them when they are least able to help themselves.

2. They are an abuse of the most vigorous part of life. Then the body is most active, healthy, and strong; then the mind is clear, and gradually strengthening, and very susceptible; then the talents can be better consecrated to the service of God. But all those rich advantages are prostituted to the service of sin and Satan.

3. It is an awful waste of precious time — that time which should be employed in gaining knowledge, purity, joy, and Christian experience.

4. They are contaminating in their influence. "One sinner destroyeth much good."

5. The sins of youth, if persisted in, will tend to confirm the person in the commission of crime. The tenderness of human passions gradually decreases; warnings, etc., lose their influence; afflictions, judgments, death itself, at length affect not.

III. THE SINS OF YOUTH LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR BITTER REMORSE, AND SOMETIMES FOR SEVERE PUNISHMENT. They often subject the sinner to judicial punishment in this life. The sins of youth affect —

1. The body. It is often wasted by disease which sin has produced.

2. The mind. This frequently suffers more than the body. "The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear?"(1) A painful retrospect. Scenes of wickedness; language of profanity; actions of impurity; a wicked life, and its influence upon others.

(2) Painful and harassing conviction; of infinite love abused, rejected; done despite to the Spirit of grace — trodden under foot the Son of God.

(3) Great loss; of holy pleasures; solid joy; loss of salvation to the present time. Eternal life neglected for mere phantoms.

(4) Embarrassment, in order to gain happiness when the principal seed time, and the richest facilities for obtaining spiritual life are gone. How seldom is an aged man brought to repentance!

3. The future. Frequently the prospect is dark and dreadful; a "fearful looking for of judgment," etc. Application —

1. Let the young be convinced that they need saving and renewing grace.

2. Let those who now bear the iniquities of their youth apply to the Almighty Saviour.

(Helps for the Pulpit.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.

WEB: For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth:




The Sins of Youth Possessed in Afterlife
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