This, indeed, is what every young man ought to do before going out to battle or labor. It would appear, from instances which have come under our view, that God condescends to receive from men promises of religious life on certain providential conditions. We can not understand this now, but it is perfectly clear, from such instances as Jacob and Jabez, that God was willing to respond to propositions of obedience founded upon the realization of specified blessings.
The prayer of Jabez must be judged to be good, for the sufficient reason that it was answered—“and God granted him that which he requested.”
Is the conduct of life, then, open to regulation upon such high and sacred lines? May a young man come before the Almighty, speak out all his heart and receive promises of continual guidance and defense from the Living One?
If we could realize the certainty of this holy commerce as between Earth and Heaven, our whole life would be lifted to a noble level, our spirit would be released from the dominion of fear, and instead of laboring in toilsome prayer, we should be filled with the spirit of triumphant thankfulness and praise.
What privileges are open to the young! It lies within their power to give a whole life-time to God. Those who have advanced considerably in life can now but give a fraction of their days, but the young soul can give God the brightness of the morning, the glory of noonday and the tranquility of evening.
Let the young think of this, and give themselves diligently to the study of such instances as that of Jabez, knowing that if they remember their Creator in the days of their youth increasing age will mean increasing joy.
JEHORAM.
Jehoram undertakes an expedition against King Mesha, but in doing so he pays a tribute to the power of the king of Moab by allying with himself Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and also the king of Edom. A remarkable character is given of Jehoram. He was not an imitator of the evil of his father as to its precise form, but he had his own method of serving the devil.
We should have thought that Ahab and Jezebel had exhausted all the arts of wickedness, but it turns out that Jehoram had found a way of his own of living an evil life.
Warned by the untimely fate of his brother, which had fallen upon him expressly on account of his Baal worship, Jehoram began his reign by an ostentatious abolition of the Phenician state religion, which his father had introduced.