As a teenager with Christian parents you stand at a crossroads. The time of subjection to you parent’s will is drawing to a close. Soon you will be independent. You will, more or less, be able to do what you like. The proverbial apron–strings will have been cut.
Now is the time to think––and think about God. For let me assure you that what you put off now you will probably never return to. You may never have a better season of spiritual opportunity than the present. As someone once said in another context, “You’ve never had it so good”. Turn your back on Christ and His claims now, and it’s unlikely that you will ever have it so good again.
Young people without saved parents do not have the opportunities you have. They haven’t from childhood “known the sacred letters, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which [is] in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3: 15). You have. Your parents read the Scriptures to you. You had your own Bible. You went to Sunday-school. Your mother and father took you to church where the Word of God was read and preached. Children from non–Christian families may never have heard the preaching of God’s marvellous glad tidings telling of salvation to ‘whosoever will’. You have––hundreds of times. Indeed you know the terms so well that you would have no difficulty telling the ‘old, old story’. Possibly, on no occasion have such children of the world been inside a chapel or meeting–room where Christ’s name is loved and honoured. Again, you have––all your life. And when you stand before that great, white throne, unsaved and without hope, you will not be able to complain about your lack of opportunity. Your own life will testify against you!
Yes, NOW is the time to think. It may seem tedious to ‘waste’ an hour sitting in the preaching when you could be doing something else, but let me tell you with absolute certainty that there is a day coming when you will look back on that and other like events, and will no longer regard them as tiresome. That will either be because you have come to know the Lord and to value His Word, or because you have passed into eternity without Christ. How pathetic then will seem your ‘wasted’ leisure time when compared to a wasted eternity! How foolish will seem your value of God’s glad tidings!
Sooner or later every bird must leave the nest, and soon you will make that bid for independence. Your life stretches out before you––a life that can be wasted on this world’s transient pleasures or blest in the service of Christ. Many decisions crowd in upon you––there is none more important than ‘What will you do with Jesus?’ (see Matt. 27: 22).
