Psalm 45:16 Instead of your fathers shall be your children, whom you may make princes in all the earth. The strength of a chain is the strength of each link, and the character of society is taken from the character of the individuals that compose it; therefore, on you, as constituent elements of the Church and the nation of the future, there does lie a solemn responsibility. I. If you would properly prepare yourselves for your future position, you must GIVE YOURSELVES NOW TO THE CULTIVATION OF PERSONAL PIETY. I place this at the foundation, because it is of supreme and permanent importance. II. You MUST CULTIVATE INTELLIGENCE. Even now there are symptoms of the most unmistakable kind that a crisis in the history of divine truth is approaching, and we would have our young men gird themselves to meet it. We find them for the most part trifling their time away in pursuits which, at the best, are but an excuse for idleness; and among too many, everything that would lead to reflection, and stimulate to thought, is accounted dull and stupid. I want you to be thinkers as well as readers; nay, thinkers rather than readers; for the mental disease of the age is just literary indigestion. Thus conducting your studies, you will thoroughly furnish yourselves as men of God, and will be enabled to stand undaunted before all comers. III. A third thing indispensably required, if you would meet the claims of the future on you, is COURAGE. By this I mean moral courage; the heroism, not of the warrior, but of the man who has learned to run the gauntlet of ridicule and scorn, and to follow the leadings of duty in the face of every obstacle. The large proportion of the rising race are growing up in moral weakness. How few of them can meet temptation with a direct negative! Be strong then, and quit you like men. Never mind though you may seem to stand alone; he who has God on his side is always in a majority; and he is never alone who can say, the Father is with me. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.WEB: Your sons will take the place of your fathers. You shall make them princes in all the earth. |
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