Solomon’s Repentance
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the youth against falling into the errors that had led him to squander for
nought Heaven’s choicest gifts. With sorrow and shame he confessed
that in the prime of manhood, when he should have found God his
comfort, his support, his life, he turned from the light of Heaven and
the wisdom of God, and put idolatry in the place of the worship of
Jehovah. And now, having learned through sad experience the folly of
such a life, his yearning desire was to save others from entering into
the bitter experience through which he had passed.
With touching pathos he wrote concerning the privileges and re-
sponsibilities before the youth in God’s service:
“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
behold the sun: but if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all;
yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All
that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy
heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine
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heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow
from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and
youth are vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 11:7-10
.
“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,
While the evil days come not,
Nor the years draw nigh,
When thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
“While the sun,
Or the light,
Or the moon,
Or the stars,
Be not darkened,
Nor the clouds return after the rain:
“In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
And the strong men shall bow themselves,
And the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look out of the windows be darkened,
And the doors shall be shut in the streets,