and seek those pleasures that would not give offense. But where could I find them except in You, Lord, except in You?

…Anyway, that is where I stood in the sixteenth year of my life, exiled from the delights of Your house, and sold out to the wild sexuality that held sway over me. It was a wildness that indulged disgraceful conduct, though it received no indulgence from your law. (He means that he did not escape the misery of guilt that accompanied his actions)

Augustine stubbornly continued in this state for a further 15 years. Finally, when he was 31 years old, he yielded to God’s grace. Immediately his life took an upward turn. He became one of the greatest Christian leaders the world has known, and his writings are still read today. Throughout the centuries his Confessions have brought countless people to know the love of their heavenly Father, and so avoid the unnecessary waste of their lives. Augustine has the great and eternal of joy of bearing the fruit that lasts in other people’s lives.

What do people gain who ‘remember their Creator in the days of their youth'?

  • They gain the opportunity to build a solid house from the ground up.
  • Their character is formed right in the first place and they do not need to unlearn parts of their personality.
  • They avoid the many pitfalls and snares that the devil lays in the path of the unsuspecting.
  • They have the joy of using their youthful strength to serve God and bear the fruit that lasts.
    See John 15:16 and 1 Corinthians 3:10-15

About 300 years ago Matthew Henry wrote in relation to Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

It is the greatest absurdity and ingratitude imaginable to give the cream and flower of our days to the devil, and reserve the bran, and refuse, and dregs of them for God.

You that are young flatter yourselves with expectations of great things from the world, but it yields no solid satisfaction to a soul; therefore remember your Creator, and so guard yourselves against the mischiefs that arise from the vanity of the creature.

Guard thus against the temptations of youth, and thus improve the advantage of it.

Running away from our heavenly Father

When we offer our youth to the devil it is really our heavenly Father we are running away from. We think that He will steal our youth and lock it up in a grim prison of boring duties. We reassure ourselves, ‘I will come back to Him when I have had my fling and enjoyed the pleasure of my youth.’

But when we run away, because of His love for us, God pursues us with the spoiling misery of guilt, which turns our wild life into a painful and meaningless waste of time. He hems us in with unfulfilled desires and allows no real joy unless it is found in Him. The whole exercise has to do with our problem with our heavenly Father. The more guilty we become the more we hate Him and rail against Him, determining never to turn and meet Him head on.

But He is the One who, with unspeakable love, has predestined us to share His eternal glory and has created us for this very purpose. At great cost to His dear heart He has sent His beloved Son to stand in our miserable place, and has given him up to the mockers and crucifiers so that he might be our salvation. The whole thing has to do with us being reconciled to our Father who loves us more than any other and more than we can ever know.

Coming back to our heavenly Father

All of this would be logical and clear to us, except that there is such a weight of hardness in our guilty hearts it would seem that we would rather die than return to Him. We, in ourselves are a divided soul, one part crying to return to our heavenly Father and the other part stubbornly refusing. Paralysed by internal conflict we defeat ourselves with no useful outcome either way.

It is then that a move of grace, not of our making, but coming as it were from some hidden and eternal destiny, lifts us and carries us along—back into the arms of the Father. And then we know, as we have never known before, that the Father is love—love that creates and suffers and saves, love that loves as though we were the only child of His love. Then we know: there can never be life and love and joy away from Him. We are born again to love—loving Him with all our heart, mind and strength, and loving our neighbour, as ourself.

A great battle took place in Augustine before he became a Christian. He honestly shares what it was like.

A first-class uproar now broke out in the house of my inner self,
as I began brawling with my soul in our common meeting place—my heart.

This was a terrible time for the proud Augustine. But after it was over and God had won he knew a wonderful peace and love.

In due time we were baptized, and all anxiety over the past life fled from us. I never tired in those days of thinking about the wonders of Your love and the profundity of Your plan of salvation for the human race. When I listened to Your hymns and songs it made me weep, for I was cut to the quick by the melodies of the singing church. As its voices flowed into my ear, and the truth was distilled into my heart, my feelings of devotion bubbled over and the tears ran down. I was happy.

What happens if you give your life to God?

If you give your life to God He takes and it makes a new creation. Then He gives it back to you as a better life.

And when He gives it back to you, if you give itto Him again He will take it and make it better still and then give it back to you again

This lovely exchange repeats itself, time and again, for the rest of a Christian’s life. The more of your days you have left the richer is the outcome. And afterwards eternal life! No wonder Augustine was happy. I pray that you may be as happy as he.

O dear child of His love, remember your Creator in the days of your youth!
Turn, and be reconciled to the One who knew you before you were born, who brought you here that you might know His love and live in it forever.

Rod James

June 2002. Permission is given to copy in this form.

Quotations are from The Confessions of Augustine in Modern English,

by Sherwood Eliot Wirt.

Remember your Creator

in the days of your youth!

King Solomon’s advice as an old man was:

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.”

From bitter experience this ancient king of Israel cries out to us from the past. He had walked the way we have to walk, and earnestly desired to spare us unnecessary pain and possible destruction as he had experienced it. In Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 he gives a memorable description of what it’s like to grow old, and he encourages us not to wait until we are old to come to God, lest our life without Him be wasted and meaningless.

What do people gain who refuse to come to God in their youth?

  • They planned to gain freedom, fun and fulfillment.
  • But instead they gain suffering, sickness and sadness.
  • And they lose the opportunity to use their best years to bear the fruit that lasts into eternity.

Augustine was a young man with a zest for life and an enormous sexual appetite. He lived in Northern Africa from 354-430AD. Augustine’s mother was a devout Christian who prayed continually and passionately for his conversion. She was always asking the bishop to speak to Augustine. But, believing that he had too much to lose by yielding to God, Augustine prayed:

“Lord, make me a Christian, but not yet”

But all the pleasure he pursued became like sawdust in his mouth. I will let Augustine speak for himself by quoting from his famous Confessions. He wrote as one speaking to God.

As I grew into adolescence I took my fill of hell. I ran wild in a rank forest of shady amorous adventures, and my beauty was consumed away like a moth. As I tried to create an attractive image in my own eyes and in the eyes of men, I turned into something rotten in Your eyes.

You were always there, angry but merciful, adding a bitter and offensive flavor to all my illicit pleasures, so that I might turn