The Yoke of Youth (1)

There has never been an age in which youth has been confronted by so many counselors and self-appointed mentors as the present, where a bewildering contradiction of philosophies of conduct clamor for recognition.

Magazines and newspapers have become open forums, in which the problems of youth are aired, analyzed, and “solved” after the preconceived notions of professional and highly-paid writers. As for the flood of books that are dedicated to the question of young people in this age of youth, it may be said that Solomon’s pronouncement on the endless making of books finds its full application even when restricted to the growing libraries of subjects that deal with youth issues.

When we pause to picture the eagerness and avidity with which these conflicting theorizings are stated and accepted, it comes as a definite shock to realize that the counsel and direction of the divine Scripture are often totally neglected. The statements in the Holy Word of Cod about the life of our youth may run counter to the accepted axioms and the applauded attitude of the day; they may be disregarded by self-enlightened minds as the products of ancient and outmoded opinions; yet, as long as the world stands, there will never be a compendium of the spiritual, moral and practical principles of life that can even approach the written Word of God in points of definiteness and absolute infallibility.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in chapter 3 verse 27 of his Lamentations: “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” This is the utterance of Jeremiah, who, from the occurrence of his own remarkable career, understood in a very personal way just what this yoke of youth means. As a young man he was summoned to the prophetic office by a vision. But misdirected by a youth complex, he had insisted that he was immature and asserted to Cod, “I cannot speak for I am a child” (Jer. 1:6). But Jehovah answered: “Say not I am a child” (Jer. 1:7), and had Himself stretched forth His hand to Jeremiah’s mouth to put into it the words that he should speak against nations and against kingdoms. And from that time on the yoke of adversity was imposed upon his neck. The citizens of Anathoth, his birthplace, were among the first to withstand him, threatening to murder him as he persisted in his prophetic office.

There is a similar yoke for young people in our days. Even though we may not be distinguished by being chosen as a mouthpiece of God, even though the outward hostility against the Christian faith has lost in many nations the violence and brutality that the pagan world rained upon the Christian martyrs in the blood-stained arenas, there is still an unmistakable yoke, a restraining check, a burden, as it were, imposed upon our modern generation. If Cod gives grace to follow Christ, then you find yourself at war with the world and in open hostility with the dictates of sinful flesh.

There is more: to add to the weight of your yoke, there are the adversities and afflictions of life. To lead by grace a real Christian life is often a hard, rugged, uphill path, beset by disheartening obstacles. Even today there is no crown without a cross and God’s children have to learn: “We must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

There is a yoke that has been placed upon you, my young friends, particularly in consequence of all that surrounds us, especially of the glittering and godless entertainment of this world. And as though these dangers and sorrows are not enough, there are those who in their youth have had to bear double yokes. Think for example of the young men or young women who have been afflicted with the ravages of long and wasting diseases, who have been crippled, or due to terrible accidents, have to bear heavy yokes. Think of the young women who have experienced some of the most harrowing catastrophes of a girl’s life: misplaced affection, broken promises of love. Try to picture the retarding influences of poverty, bodily infirmities, and pain; the hindrances and obstacles in unhappy homes, in short, all of the vexations and disappointments that crowd into life that young people live in today, and you are faced with the depressing sum total of human sorrow — sorrow as the consequence of sin!

But why is it good for youth to bear a yoke? Jeremiah tells us so clearly, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” He uttered these words as the city of Jerusalem lay in smouldering ruins and when the hordes of Nebuchadnezzar murdered so many of Judah’s people. He speaks now as an old man, after more than forty years of prophetic activity, and voices the sentiments of one who has felt the hand of God and recognized the superior wisdom in all His dealings. Had Jeremiah not felt the yoke in his youth; had he surrendered in self-abandonment to the reign of lust and luxury that characterized the declining days of the Hebrew capital; had he preferred a life of ease to the exacting, challenging services of God and refused to bear the yoke that prophetic service demanded, his name would have been written in sand, and the waves of history would have lapped over it as it washed away in oblivion; his bones might have been bleached on the blood-drenched hills of Jerusalem’s ruins or his feet blistered as he marched with the brigades of his enslaved fellow-countrymen into the deadening dreariness of the exile. But as his voice is raised in the lamentation over the collapse of the proud and sinful city and the apostate nation, he feels the grace of God toward him, the love that shone through his adversities, and he declares with light from heaven: “It is good for a man that he bear his yoke in his youth.”

Rev. A.W. Verhoef is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Chilliwack, British Columbia.

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