In this message, Scott Brown provides four things that fathers can do to help their sons not waste the days of their youth. Each son will face many battles as he grows older -- is he prepared to face those challenges?
God placed fathers in a unique position to instruct and be able to walk alongside their sons. Fathers ought to embrace this responsibility and opportunity to impart to their sons godly wisdom and teaching.
Every son needs a father, but a particular kind of father who will come alongside of him and say, son don't waste your youth, but not just to use words only, but to also come alongside Him and help Him not to waste it. I'd like to give you four things that fathers can do to help their sons not waste their youth. And to get there I want to begin with an illustration of a battle. It was an unmatched battle. It was the battle for Iwo Jima.
It's appropriate for Christian men to speak about battles because the Bible is full of battle imagery. Let me just give you one example from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 32 to 34. The writer says, And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. It is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that would make a boy turn into a man who could face battles like this.
Now growing up and hearing about the battle for Iwo Jima for my father. I never realized the significance of that little Pacific island until much later in life. You know, when I was a boy, it was all about knives and foxholes and jeeps and P-51 Mustangs, flak explosions, Japanese night attacks. It was that kind of an exciting world but what I did not realize when I was a boy is that Iwo Jima was one of the most unusual battlefields in all of history. Never will the battle for Iwo Jima be repeated again.
Washington didn't see anything like this. Neither did Napoleon in Waterloo or Teddy Roosevelt when he was storming San Juan Hill. There will never be another battle like Iwo Jima. So the question keeps ringing in my ears. How do you prepare sons for a battle like this?
How do you prepare a son to face impregnable fortifications like we saw on the battle for Iwo Jima. Lieutenant General Holland Smith, the commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force in the Pacific, he said this about that battle, quote, it was the most heavily fortified island in the world. The tactical challenges of this battle were unmatched. There was absolutely no hope for surprise on the battle for Iwo Jima. The enemy had all the high ground exposing our troops for every kind of firepower that they had to give.
Every square yard of dirt was under Japanese crosshairs and so there was no hope of surprise Because Iwo Jima was the battlefield of my father's youth, it was also the vortex where everything in his family background was severely tested and it was revealed. Now my dad was just a small-town boy he was 20 years old when he enlisted to fight for his country and he never in his wildest dreams could ever have imagined the ferocity of the battles that he would face there off of Iwo Jima. He could not have planned for those battles. He could not have planned that those battles would have a lasting impression on his life. And even his unborn children would be impressed by the things that he saw and that he learned there.
My father had no idea he would turn up in such a place and yet there were preparations that helped him when he got there. So for many years I've thought about this island and what happened there and it was the place of flamethrowers and artillery blasts and thousands of Marines were ushered into eternity while doing their duty. Many of my father's fellow pilots were lost until one day my dad found himself as the only one alive in his tent. In 2005 three generations of Browns returned to Iwo Jima and we stood on the ground where the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi and it was thrilling for me to be there with my father and my son and my daughter and to look over that battlefield and to see with my own eyes all the things my father told me about and while I was standing there I closed my eyes and I pictured the stories of the wreckage and the craters and the floating bodies and the smoke and the fire and the stench and the mangled metal on the beach. And in my own mind's eye, I could see him coming back from Japan, coming back in from a raid, coming in on a wing and a prayer.
And I pictured him flying over, I pictured him flying over mainland Japan in aerial combat in his P-51 Mustang. And looking over that battlefield, I was reminded of that great poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson when he wrote, storm that was shot and shell, Bravely they rode and well into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell. You know my dad was just a boy back then and they were all boys. It's amazing to me that it was 19 and 20 year old boys who flew P-51 Mustangs and B-29s and they stormed the beach. It was the youth of this nation that fired howitzers and flame throwers and dove on grenades to save their buddies.
It was young people. It was young people who saved the world from Hitler and Hirohito. On this island, it was nothing but high octane danger and courage. Manhood was forged there and it was tested there and it is here that we're confronted with many biblical principles for manhood. So how do you prepare sons for a battle that's fought only on the enemy's terms?
On Iwo Jima we had no advantages at any point in the battle from the time we landed till the time we left. There simply was nowhere to hide because the turf had been carefully prepared by the owners of that turf. Here's what one observer said about this island. They would have caught us between the high ground in the north and Suribachi in the south. They could plaster us from both flanks with mortars, artillery, and rocket launchers hidden in caves and pillboxes in the volcano and in the northern ridges.
They might even be able to keep us from reinforcing our own first waves and then annihilate our forces already ashore. Well we know that that's exactly what they did. But how do you prepare sons for unmatched battlefield challenges like this. Never was there a battle with one side fighting on the surface of the ground and the other fighting below the ground. Imagine two great armies.
The American forces were maneuvering on the top side, and the Japanese were below. At any given time in the battle for Iwo Jima, there were 60, 000 to 80, 000 U.S. Troops on the surface. And underground, in a vast matrix of caves were 23, 000 Japanese soldiers and they were traveling back and forth crisscrossing the lines through this very complex matrix of tunnels and cave openings. There were 16 miles of tunnels with three levels and the construction of these tunnels was done very carefully.
The construction specifications for these tunnels required that they be built 35 feet below the surface. Why? To keep them from being affected by bombing and shelling. They were a minimum of 33 feet long. They were 5 feet wide and 5 feet high.
And they contained ammo dumps, field hospitals, running water, command posts and 75 feet down. In the lower layer of the tunnels were the quarters of General Kurobayashi. They called him the Lord of the Underworld. Well the tunnels were designed with frequent 90 degree turns to keep from the effect of flame throwers and other incursions into the tunnels and connecting these tunnels were no less than 1, 500 rooms hewn out of the rock. How did they do this?
Well they brought over Korean slaves who built them and then just before the battle they were executed. Everything was sunk in the ground so the enemy could not be seen. The enemy was firing from these cracks and small holes and rock camouflage basements and thick block houses sunk into the earth. All over the island if you go there today, you'll see these three to ten foot thick concrete block walls that form the entrances to these tunnels. You know the terrain did not allow any clear battle lines.
How do you prepare Suns for a battle like this? How do you prepare Suns for battles where all of your expectations are unrealized? Even though we conducted the largest pre-invasion bombardment of this island in the history of the Pacific War, The enemy was largely unaffected. We attempted to bomb this island into oblivion for 72 days, from December 8th until D-Day on February 19th. On the beginning of that attack, we realized that our bombings did very little.
Those who are responsible for leading the charge on Iwo Jima wanted six months of pre-invasion bombardment, but Admiral Nimitz and President Roosevelt would only approve two months, And this refusal to give a long pre-invasion bombardment embittered Holland Smith and the others who would lead the charge on D-Day. The disagreement was bitter and This is what Holland Smith had to say about it. Quote, this will be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history, Smith said to Admiral Nimitz. We'll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches, and that will just be the beginning." Well, he was right. Unfortunately, though, the bombing did a little practical good, but it did make lots of craters for our troops to jump in and out of when they came ashore.
How do you train sons for a battle that is so fierce?" This unrelenting bombardment did not subdue the enemy. It was a dog that refused to die. It was a wolf that refused to quit biting. The New York Times dispatch came out just after our troops landed and it read like this, Ewo, a small island, had stood up under bombings and shellings as though it were 50 times its size. Time after time after smashing attacks on Iwo American planes would come back the next day only to be greeted by more anti-aircraft and fighter planes in the air." How do you prepare your sons for unrivaled violence?
It's clear from all the observers of this battle that the violence was matchless among World War II battles. Time correspondent Robert Sherrod reported that the dead on Iwo Jima, both Japanese and American, had one thing in common. Here's what he said, quote, they all died with the greatest possible violence. Nowhere in the Pacific War had I seen such badly mangled bodies. Many were cut squarely in half." Second Lieutenant Pete Zerlinden of Dayton, Ohio wrote this, at Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian, I saw Marines killed and wounded in a shocking manner, but I saw nothing like the ghastliness that hung over the Iwo Beachhead.
Nothing any of us had ever known could compare with such utter anguish, frustration, and constant inner battle to maintain some semblance of sanity, clarity of mind, and power of speech. As long as you could speak you believed you had a slim chance to live. None of us would concede that death would have been a merciful coup de grace. Everybody was seized with an insensate lust to live." Well, how do you prepare sons for battles like this? How do you prepare sons for high concentrations of casualties like we saw on Iwo Jima?
You know on D-Day there was a casualty every 45 seconds with almost 9, 000 Marines on the beach within 45 minutes. So throughout this battle we would sustain 24, 053 casualties and of course these were the highest single action losses in Marine Corps history. And of those total of 6, 140 who died, almost one Marine or corpsman was a casualty for every three who landed on Iwo Jima. I went to the website of the Iwo Jima Survivors Association and I read this stunning statistic. They said almost one-third of all Marines killed in World War II were lost on Iwo Jima alone.
Well when I reflect upon the situation on Iwo Jima and the presence of so many young people there I automatically think how do you prepare Suns for situations like this where there might be an extremely high concentration of casualties You know the outfit that raised the flag was finally wiped out because of the high casualties. When Easy Company cut across the 750 yard neck of the island and then started up Mount Suribachi, Who would have thought that their entire company would cease to exist after the battle? Captain Dave Severance of Easy Company 28th Marines tells it this way quote, Easy Company started with 310 men. We suffered 75% casualties. Only 50 men boarded the ship after the battle.
Seven officers went into the battle with me. Only one, me, walked off Iwo." Unquote. Iwo Jima was an island of magnificent significance, and it was an island of magnificent sacrifice. It was a battle without rest. It was the place where hundreds of men jumped on grenades to protect their friends.
It was where loyalty unto death was demonstrated over and over again. It was here where the youth of the nation rose up and defended a homeland. Patrick Clancy in his book writes of the battle for Iwo Jima in this way. It's difficult to imagine any battlefield more closely resembling the biblical vision of hell than the eight square miles of volcanic ash, pumice, and sand that even tanks, let alone Marines, could easily move across. Reeking of sulfur and brimstone, swept by bombs, bullets, and shell fire, and soaked in the blood of more than 26, 000 dead.
Truly the Prince of Darkness must have felt right at home. Standing there on top of Mount Suribachi with my father and my children, I kept thinking, how do you train boys to meet challenges like this? What does a father have to do to make sure his son is prepared for battles of such great proportions? You know, Fathers can never anticipate what kinds of battles will be in the future, but they must prepare their sons for fierce battles. And I think that means that it's a father's duty to train his sons for everything.
How do you do this? Well generally I would just like to propose the idea that boys need deep within their hearts the principles, all the principles that they will need to put into practice at a moment's notice in whatever situation they find themselves. They need the whole counsel of God planted within their hearts so that they'll know what to do no matter what they face. A father cannot afford to waste the youth of his son on the things that don't fortify his mind and his heart for the difficult day. So a father should consider a lifestyle that allows him to say the same thing that Paul said to the elders of the church in Ephesus.
On that beach in Miletus in Acts chapter 20 verse 27, he said, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God." That's the job of a shepherd of a church and I believe that fathers do well to learn from this exemplary mark of manhood. I'd like to give you four critical things that a father can do to help his son not waste his youth. For every son does need a father who will come alongside him to explain to him in detail how he would not waste his youth. Okay, four critical things a father can do. First of all, A father must have a biblical understanding of time, and he must communicate that understanding of time to his son.
Now to do this, he needs to open his Bible, And he needs to have a sense of time from God's perspective and a sense of wasting it that's consistent with the admonition in Psalm 90, which says, Teach us to number our days, that we may present a heart of wisdom. This has to do with carefully marking time and moving ahead in it, knowing the days in which we live. God is pleased to find us redeeming the time for the days are evil. Ephesians 5 16. This is so critical that we do redeem the time that It is a precious commodity.
We should do it for many reasons. Here's one. Paul communicated one of these thoughts in 1 Corinthians 3, 13, when he said, Every man's work will be made manifest, For the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work. What sort it is! Every boy has work, and it is a certain kind of work, a particular sort of work.
The reality is that nobody knows how much time they have left on this earth, But we do know how we ought to use the time that is left, and that's where a father's instruction needs to be focused. That he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God, as it says in 1 Peter 4 verse 2. How critical it is that a boy not be slothful with those minutes and hours that God has given him. For the truth of the matter about these minutes and hours is communicated by Solomon in Proverbs 18 verse 9 when he said he also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. Some of the translations say, brother to him who destroys.
It makes a difference how a boy uses his youth and performs His work. These admonitions are not just for adults. They are for all people, for, quote, even a child is known by his doings, whether his work is pure and whether it be right, Proverbs 20, verse 1. So the first thing that a father must do is to ensure that his son does not waste the hours and the days and the months of his youth and he should be alongside his son numbering his days that he might present a heart of wisdom. Fathers need to stand beside their sons and help them plot out the hours and the days and the months ahead with specific accomplishments that have meaning and value in life.
Jonathan Edwards is a tremendous example to us in this. As a teenage boy, Edwards developed 70 resolutions to guide him in the use of his time. Here's resolution number five. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. A father must have this same kind of vision and understanding of time and see to it that his son does not waste the hours of his youth on trivialities.
He must have the same consciousness of time that is presented by David when he said, as for man his days are like grass as a flower of the field so he flourishes. And in Psalm 144 verse 4 he said, Man is like a breath, His days are a passing shadow. All these things imply that time is precious and it goes by so quickly and so it must be used well. Or how about the consciousness that's presented by Solomon when he said in Ecclesiastes 12 1 through 7 speaking about youth he said remember now your Creator in the days of your youth before the silver cord is loosed or the golden bowl is broken or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the well then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the Spirit will return to God who gave it. Fathers and sons have a limited time on earth and they have a limited time together So they ought to redeem the time and realize that they only have a finite number of days before the opportunity for personal training ceases.
This thought has been in the hearts of many of the best leaders of all time. Robert E. Lee understood this. He wrote a letter back to his wife from the battlefield saying in effect, do not let my son waste his mind on frivolous reading and he was encouraging his wife to engage his beloved son in meaningful reading and not fantasy reading. So the first thing that a father can do to help his son not waste his youth is he must have a biblical understanding of time and teach his son not to waste it.
The second thing that a father can do to keep his son from wasting his youth, he must communicate the nature of the battles ahead. Fathers must have it in their minds that they're preparing their sons for specific battles that they will face. What kinds of battles will they face? And it's here where the work begins because a father needs to do the homework to think through the different kinds of challenges his son might face. And he does this based on his knowledge of Scripture and the kinds of battles that are faced by men in Scripture.
He needs to look back in his own experience and call up in detail the kinds of battles that he has faced as a man, and then he needs to enumerate them to his son. He should think about his culture and identify the battles that are unique to the days in which he lives. Because every boy will grow up and he will face battles. It would be presumptuous, it would be silly for us to expect our sons to experience a trouble-free life. There's never a son been born that had a battle-free life, and that's why it's critical that fathers prepare their sons for conflict.
Even though we know that the world is full of trouble, here's what we do. We secretly wish for a trouble-free life for our children. And it's a pipe dream. And we know full well that every boy and every man and every family and every company and every nation will face battles over the course of their lives. So youth ought to be a time of preparing for specific battles.
The Book of Acts presents a picture of the types of conflicts that always go with the communication of the Gospel, and it's important for us to understand those. There are, in the book of Acts we see conflicts with pagan philosophers that's one kind of battle that your sons and your daughters will face. There are battles with religious authorities, religion gone bad, Whitewashed tombs presents particular battles in a boy's life as it did with the boy, even the boy Jesus, and the men that we see in the New Testament and all throughout the book of Acts. There are battles with the government As you look into Acts chapter 17 and other places, there are difficulties that faith presents to those who live under the authority of civil government. But the pattern in the book of Acts is seen over and over again.
There will be pagan philosophers, there will be religious authorities, and there will be government authorities that will bring particular kinds of battle lines to boys. These are the same general categories that a boy who is faithful to the to the gospel will face. Here are a few questions a father might ask himself in order to get answers to prepare his son. What are the theological issues that my son will have to face? What are the false worldviews that he will have to dismantle?
What are the defining issues of his day? How is he going to defend creationism? How is he going to defend biblical gender roles? How will he handle things when relationships are in crisis? What will he do with his emotions?
What will he do with his words? What will he do with the things that he writes when relationships are in tension? Or how will he handle marriage problems and family problems, extended family problems? How will he handle the pressures of the workplace? How will he handle bosses who have no integrity?
How will he handle poor leaders under which he serves? How will he handle the sins in his life? The battle for Iwo Jima was such a fierce battle, and none of the boys who fought there ever could have dreamed they would face the kinds of pressures and terrors that they faced there. And so to adequately prepare a son, a father must see to it that his son does not waste his youth. And he does this by preparing his son for the battles he'll face in the future, for every boy will face his own battles.
And he needs to recognize that it is the Lord who desires that sons are trained for battle. That's why David said in Psalm 144, Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle, my loving kindness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer, my shield and the one in whom I take refuge. So the second thing that a father must do to prepare his son not to waste his youth is that he must communicate the nature of the battles ahead. Well, the third thing a father must do to help his son not waste his youth is that he must give his son meaningful work to do and work alongside him. He does this by making sure that his son has meaningful work to do.
And what kind of work should that be? It should be real work. It should be stretching work. It should be work that increases his skills and the capacities of his spirit. It should be work that fits him for for every boy is different.
The days of youth ought to be a time of work experiences that prepare him for battle. And when the going gets tough and your son cries out in desperation, a father comes alongside him and replies with confidence in his heart and vision in his eyes and he says to his son, my son, I'm discipling you because I'm preparing you to fight the battles that you will fight someday and son do not despise the training and the admonition of the Lord for whom the Lord loves he disciplines one of the mistakes that fathers one of the mistakes of fathers is to send their sons off to be trained by someone else. This can be particularly harmful in their early teen years when they're most needy of their father's instruction. Now I believe that there's a place for apprenticeship kinds of situations, but I also believe that one of the biggest mistakes that fathers make is when they send their boys off to be trained by others out from under their supervision and their care and their counsel. So the third thing that a father must do to help his son not waste his youth is he must give his son meaningful work and then to work alongside of him.
A fourth thing a father must do to help his son not waste his youth is that he must illustrate from Scripture how important it is to use the years of youth for the glory of God. Well this is where the Bible is a rich treasure trove. Holy Scripture is full of examples of boys who did not waste their youth and they did great things in their youth, and they had been prepared. How about Josiah, the boy king, who ushered in revival into the land? How did he do it?
He did it simply the way that any boy would ever usher revival into any church or home or business. He opened up the lost book of the law. He read Holy Scripture. He believed it with all of his heart And he turned and helped the people to obey it, not being hearers of the word only, but doers also. Josiah was a boy king who did not waste his youth.
Or how about Joshua, that young man who assisted Moses, and he grew up not only to be a mighty warrior but he grew up to be a mighty effective father and he stood up in courage as head of the children of Israel, and he said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Or how about Joseph, the boy who proved faithful in the midst of the most amazing adversity? He was hated by his brothers, and yet, all of the travail that God dealt him, he prevailed with faith in his heart and joy in his mind as he moved forward to serve God, even in the midst of his afflictions. From age 17 until his early 30s, this boy was tested and tried, and some people might look at his youth and say, those people stole his youth from him, but his youth was not stolen at all. God was giving him mighty trials to make him into a mighty man, and his youth, instead of being wasted and thrown away was used for God's glory.
Or you might think of Solomon, the boy who prioritized righteousness. God came to him and said to him, Young man, whatever you desire I will give you. And Solomon, instead of asking for riches and kingdoms, Solomon prioritized quickly in his mind. And he said, Lord, give me wisdom. And God did give him wisdom.
And he understood right priorities in life. Or what about the boy David, that courageous boy who feared God more than man, who when all the men of Israel were running scared, David was not running scared. He feared only God alone. David is most famous for his killing that vile Philistine Goliath, but we need to remember that when he put that stone between the eyes of that giant, this boy was already an expert in music. This boy was already an expert in poetry And he was also competent in the family business.
And one of his skills gained along the way as a boy was the art of slinging stones, which he did quite well at. But here was his most important quality that he learned in his youth. He was a supremely courageous lad who feared God more than man, while the other men cowered he rose up fearing God alone. And whether he was under the stars as a shepherd or as a warrior in battle, he was about his father's business. David did not waste his youth, for he was always involved in his father's business from a boy up.
Well, these boys presented in Scripture did not waste their youth, but you know what they did? They rose up and they served God in their generations. What a contrast this is to the youth in our culture today, where it's normal, it's accepted, it's actually praised that boys would spend thousands and thousands of hours of their youth in games and entertainments and fantasy stories, sitting there watching glassy-eyed movies over and over again, days, months of time logged in their youth. This kind of youthful diversion, this kind of youthful waste does not promote the glory of God and it does not prepare boys to be true men. In contrast to this youthful waste, There are so many inspiring examples even from history that this does not have to be the way.
Some of the most significant exploits have been accomplished by young men. How about Charles Spurgeon who is preaching at age 16 or Richard Baxter at age 23. Think of John Calvin who was a chaplain at age 11 and he began preaching at age 22. Or we could talk about the writers Shelley, Byron, Keats. We could talk about the musicians Chopin and Mozart all of them composed some of their masterpieces when they were only in their teens In the ancient world we saw how the youthful Alexander the Great rose up and he took thousands of young men with him and they conquered the ancient world by the time he was 30.
Youth holds within it tremendous power. This is what Hitler understood and he mobilized young people and created the Hitler Youth. This is what the communists understand and they direct their marketing dollars to tap into the passion and the energy that God puts into youth. They know that youth have tremendous potential for strength and for accomplishment. Well, the testimony and the patterns of the best boys in scripture and thousands of other exemplary youth in history show that youth should not be thrown away on games and irrelevancies and so a Christian father is wise to help his son understand in every possible way how important it is to use the years of his youth for preparation for great things and even for great adversity.
The adversity that we saw in the battle for Iwo Jima was faced by boys. And it should just remind us how important it is for fathers to train their sons how to be men in the time of trial. So the four things that a father must do to help his son not waste his youth. Number one, he must have a biblical understanding of time and teach it to his son. Number two, he must communicate the nature of the battles ahead and enumerate them one by one.
Number three, he must give his son meaningful work to do and work alongside of him. And number four, he must illustrate from scripture how important it is to use the years of youth for the glory of God. So to do this a father needs to give his son great things to do and when he engages his son in great things, in meaningful things, he will face what every man faces, roadblocks, problems, tests, trials, things that toughen him. And it's through these difficulties, through the trials, that he will be prepared for even greater exploits later on. And who knows, your son may end up in a battle that far exceeds the requirements of heart and soul and tenacity and patience and strength than a battle like Iwo Jima.
This World War II generation of warriors spent their youth laboring to eke out a living after the Depression. They forged their character on hard work and their farms and their businesses and they were not raised with silver spoons and almost none of them had very much leisure time. And this is why every son needs to hear his father say, son don't waste your youth. And then he needs to come alongside that son and help him use his time for significant exploits. Well here are some questions that you might discuss among yourselves.
Who are some of the useful youth of the Bible? Why should fathers help their sons not waste their youth? What are the battles that a father should anticipate his son might fight later on? Are there any ways that your son is wasting his youth? Is there anything that you're doing to help him waste his youth?
What can fathers do to help their sons have a productive youth? What about Jonathan Edwards Resolution Number Five? How does that apply to you and your son? Read Hebrews 12 together and list the important principles of the discipline of the Lord. Rise up, O men of God.
Have done with lesser things. Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of Kings, and in doing So you will not waste your youth.