t. 'What am I going to make of myself?' 'What
ideal have I before me, towards which I constantly press?' is a question
that I would fain lay upon the hearts of all that now hear me. For the
misery and the reason of the failure of so many lives is simply that
people have never fairly looked that question in the face and tried to
answer it, but drift and drift, and let circumstances determine them.
And, of course, in a world like this, such people are sure to turn out
what such an immense number of people do turn out, failures as far as
all God's purposes with humanity are concerned. The absence of a clear
ideal is the misery and the loss of all young people who do not possess
it.

So here in my text is an old man's notion of what young men ought to be
and may be. 'Ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye
have overcome the wicked one.'

So said the aged John to some amongst his hearers in these corrupt
Asiatic cities. It was not merely a fair ideal painted upon vacancy, but
it was a portrait of actual young Christians in these little Asiatic
churches. And I would fain have some of you take this realised ideal for
yours and see to it that your lives be conformed to it.

There are three points here. The Apostle, first of all, lays his finger
upon the strength, which is something more than mere physical strength,
proper to youth. Then he lets us see the secret source of that strength:
'Ye have the word of God abiding in you.' And then he shows the field on
which it should be exercised, and the victory which it secures: 'And ye
have overcome the wicked one.' Now let me touch upon these three points
briefly in succession.

I. First, then, note here the strength which you young people ought to
covet and to aim at.

It is not merely the physical strength proper to their age, nor the mere
unworn buoyancy and vigour which sorrows and care and responsibilities
have not thinned and weakened. These are great and precious gifts. We
never know how precious they are until they have slipped away from us.
These are great and precious gifts, to be preserved as long as may be,
by purity and by moderation, and to be used for high and great purposes.
But the strength that is in thews and muscles is not the strength that
the Apostle is speaking about here, nor anything that belongs simply to
the natural stage of your development, whether it be purely physical or
purely mental. Samson was a far weaker man than the poor lit