Heaven Can't Wait, Part Two

So meanwhile you say, "Let's not worry or think about it.
Turn on the record player, and fill the room with jazz.
Live for today, do what comes naturally...
This doesn't take thought, or hard work, or being different.
"Heaven can wait."
But will young people, by postponing serious thoughts and refusing to think of spiritual things, eventually stumble upon some satisfying beliefs?
Will you one day - without thinking about it - find a satisfying experience with God?

Will you manage to find the happiness you seek by drifting along, day by day, "gathering rosebuds while you may"? Is it true that "Heaven can wait"?

Does Heaven wait?

Will Heaven wait?

Youth is the period of the most important decisions of life for which the Lord's guidance is particularly needed.
It is in youth that we form our basic ideals and philosophies...
It is in youth that we come to crossroads where decisions are made between right and wrong:
To do homework - or to sneak out the sexy magazine...
To take a low grade - or cheat...
And when caught doing something wrong to tell the truth fearlessly - or lie cravenly -
perhaps even shifting the blame to someone else.

These are the crossroads...
Here is where greatness begins its journey or weakness and evil take over.

Habits are begun in youth that solidify like concrete:
Putting off assignments until it is too late...
Telling little lies that grow into bigger lies that trap, enmesh, entwine, imprison...
Giving away a priceless treasure a little at a time until it is all gone, and you are soiled, distraught, bitter, and desperately disillusioned that love can turn so dirty...
Choosing friends that help lift your thinking, or lower it by feeding your ego, tempting you to do the things that deep inside you know are wrong.

It is in youth that we decide upon a life work.
Either we just drift into something as the only thing we could get, or we carefully prepare at home and in school for that niche in life which we feel is specifically ours.
But whether we drift or whether we steer a direct course, we achieve that place we choose in youth.

It is usually in youth that we select a life partner. And in this, the most important decision of our whole life, we need the help and guidance of a Wisdom greater than our own.

The prophet promised that it was the young who would see visions...the old who would dream their dreams.

Joan of Arc was only seventeen when she was riding at the head of the army that liberated France from the English.

John Calvin was twenty-six when he published his Institutes.
John Keats died at twenty-six...
Shelley was thirty when he was drowned, leaving English literature his undying Odes...

Sir Isaac Newton had largely discovered the workings of the law of gravitation when he was twenty-three...
Henry Clay was sent to the United States Senate at twenty-nine, and was Speaker of the House of Representatives at thirty-four...

Raphael painted his most important pictures between twenty-five and thirty - he died at thirty-seven.
Van Dyck had done his best work before he was thirty.

Jesus Christ was not quite thirty-three when He died.
For the most part, His followers were young men.

Those who gathered at Pentecost were young people...
The movement that started when the winds of the Holy Spirit blew through the streets of old Jerusalem was essentially a youth movement.

It is for all these reasons, you see, that Heaven can't wait.
The visions that are to be granted are given to youth.
But voices that are unheeded have a way of being heard no more.
And visions that shine through the fogs and above the mists have a way of fading and disappearing as time goes oozing out.

"Well," you may say, "it sounds fine. I do want to be happy with a lasting kind of happiness.
I do want to get the most out of life.
I want to be successful.
I would like to feel that there is a God who is interested in me and my life.
Of course, I don't want to make any big mistakes that will mar my life - that will mess it all up."

"I would like to believe that it is not simply a lot of sentimental pious nonsense to say that God cares whom I marry... that marriages are still made in heaven, that somewhere there is a particular person for me, that I can feel close to God in my daily life but - let's be practical."

"Suppose I am ready to call your bluff!
Suppose I am willing to give it a trial.
How does God become real to me?
What do I do?"

(Today's blog is copied in its entirety from a sermon preached by Peter J. Marshall; Heaven Can't Wait by Peter J. Marshall, 1963, p. 38. Part Three will be published soon.)