Barzillai knew that David's court was no place for him; he had been bred on the mountains of Gilead, and his habits suited only a simple country life. The court might be better, but he could not fit into it. But there was his boy Chimham; take him, he was young enough to bend and mould.
Now this is true in a far loftier way. I need not dwell on the universality of this law, how it applies to all manner of men, but I use it now in reference only to the gospel and your relation to it. You will never again be so likely to become a Christian, if you let these early days pass.
You say, I will have my fling, sow my wild oats, will wait a little longer, and then'--and then what? You will find that it is infinitely harder to close with Christ than it would have been before.
While you delay, you are stiffening into the habit of rejection. Custom is one of our mightiest friends or foes.
While you delay, you are doing violence to conscience, and so weakening that to which the gospel appeals.
While you delay, you are becoming more familiar with the unreceived message and so weakening the power of the gospel.
While you delay, you are adding to the long list of your sins.
While you delay, youth is slipping from you.
Make a mark with a straw on the clay and it abides; hammer on the brick with iron and it only breaks. Youth is a brief season. It is the season for forming habit, for receiving impressions, for building up character. The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.' Your present time is seed time. God forbid that I should say that it is impossible, but I do say that it is hard, for a man to be born again when he is old.'
If you do become Christ's servant later in life, your whole condition will be different from what it would have been if you had begun when young to trust and love Him. Think of the difficulty of rooting out habits and memories. Think of the horrid familiarity with evil. Think of the painful contrition for wasted years, which must be theirs who are hired at the eleventh hour, after standing all the day idle.
Contrast the experience of him who can say, I Thy servant fear God from my youth,' who has been led by God's mercy from childhood in the narrow way, who by early faith in Christ has been kept in the slippery ways of youth.
Of the one we can but say, Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?' The other is innocent of much transgression.'
I have small hope of changing middle-aged and old men. To you I turn, you young men and women, you children, and to each of you I say, Wilt thou not from this time say, My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth?'
