“I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:14, 1514I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:14‑15)).
THE young men hold a middle place in the family of God, the fathers are above them, and the babes below. These distinctions, of course, relate to growth, not to the soul’s acceptance with God, nor to its standing or relationship. In these great privileges all are equal and there is no difference. Whether babes, young men, or fathers, all are forgiven (verse 12), all are God’s children (chapter 3:2), all have received the gift of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13)), and all have eternal life (chapter 5:11). Here there is no above nor below. We cannot be too clear as to that. The babe in the family of God holds as near and dear a place as a father, though the latter be richer in experience and in the knowledge of Christ.
The three classes have their distinguishing marks. The babes know the Father. Not only are they assured of the forgiveness of sins, but they know Him whose grace has made them His children. This does not necessarily suppose that the babes are able to talk about these things intelligently. A little child knows his parents, long before its infant lips can plainly speak. What the soul of a babe in the family of God may be conscious of and deeply enjoy he may be unable to express in words. The talking time will come by and by.
Of the fathers it is said that they “have known Him that is from the beginning.” Twice over the same witness is borne, and nothing more can be added. To know Him whom no one knows but the Father (Matt. 11:2727All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. (Matthew 11:27)), to be daily growing in the knowledge of Him, this marks a point beyond which none can go. Here our ship is sailing on a boundless sea, whose uttermost shores no eye shall ever behold; they stretch away into the vast infinitude, unreached and unreachable. This knowledge is not like the babbling brooks or shallow mountain streams which laugh and sing and clap their hands as little children do. It is deep and tranquil like the waters of a great lake.
The young men are said to be strong, the Word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one. Precious testimony! They are not novices, though they be not fathers. They are strong through divinely-given strength, the Word of God is cherished and understood, and they have not fallen before the seducing words of the wicked one, the great antagonist of Christ, and the defamer of the glory of His Person, against whose emissaries the babes are warned and put upon their guard in verse 18 and onward.
But the danger of the young men is the world. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” For what the heart loves it will go after, and love is the most powerful of all forces, and will sweep aside, if it can, every impediment that stands in the way of its desires. Let the young men then be wary of the world. It is their great foe. It will mar their Christian life and make their arms as weak as Samson’s after he had laid his head in the lap of Delilah. Poor Samson! once strong when “the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times,” strong enough to rend the lion, to carry away the gates of Gaza, and to smite the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, but afterward bound, blinded, and brought forth to make sport for the enemies of the Lord when their hearts were merry. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” is written in blazing letters all across the history of that young man.
Strong in another sense are the young men. They are strong in physical strength. And this must have play, and so the football club, the tennis court, the cricket field, the running match suggest themselves as innocent outlets. Is there any evil, then, in following the ball over the field, in standing at the wicket, or engaging in other forms of athletics? Am not these harmless and healthful pursuits? Perhaps so, though harm often comes of them. Into what associations do they sometimes lead, into what friendships, into what entanglements! We knew a young man some years ago, an earnest Christian, an open-air preacher, and a diligent laborer among the young; seldom was he away from the meeting for prayer, and often was his voice heard, leading us to the throne of grace. Full of promise was that young man’s life, like a tree in an orchard covered with the beautiful blossoms of spring. But in an evil hour he entered the tennis court, fell gradually into worldly associations, and little by little gave up everything of a Christian character, till he became a hopeless wreck—ruined, utterly ruined, through love of the world and the things that are of it. Young men, bare of the first step in that direction. It is a road that leads away from Christ. Think of Samson, think of his end, and take warning.
Not in one heart, at one and the same time, can the love of the world and the love of the Father dwell. There is not room for both. No man can serve two masters. If he honors one he will despise the other. God and Mammon cannot sit on the same throne, And the world passes away with its pride and pomp and glory, and the soul that has loved it is left like a man, who, having flung away fortune and friends, finds himself at last a homeless wanderer in the city streets. Such was Lot, whose possessions perished in the overthrow of Sodom, and whose sun went down in the evening of his life in dark and gloomy clouds—himself saved, yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:1515If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. (1 Corinthians 3:15)). And Lot, being dead, yet speaketh. Across the intervening centuries he cries in loud and stirring tones, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” “The fashion of this world passeth away.”
The babes, as we have already said, are warned against the many antichrists. Their danger lay there. Simple and unsuspecting, they might lend their ears too readily to doctrines that dishonor Christ. And all the more so since Satan assumes the character of an angel of light, and his servants press to be the servants of righteousness, and talk as if they were (2 Cor. 11:1414And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)). Specious indeed would the words of such be, and the babes in the family of God, who are ignorant of Satan’s devices, might be easily deceived. These many antichrists were once in the Christian assembly, bearing Christ’s name. But they went out from us, says the Apostle, because they were not of us. And they went out speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them (Acts 20:3030Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:30)). Their teaching was antichristian, a denial of the true deity and of the proper relationship of the Son to the Father. “He that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” It is a liar and an antichrist. And these words of warning are needed now. Never in the lifetime of the reader has the truth as to the Person of Christ been so bitterly assailed even by men who pose as Christian teachers. Let us turn away from every voice that does not uphold the true deity of Christ, His perfect manhood, and the necessity and all-sufficiency of His atonement. Not for nothing were these warnings given to the young men and babes in the heavenly family.
May we heed them well. W. B.