Wild Oats | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 5, 1866

Wild Oats.

THERE is an ancient story of a man who owned a beautiful field which a wily stranger vainly sought to purchase.

The young man was firm in his refusal to sell the inheritance of his fathers. When every effort failed, the stranger at last offered to hire what he could not buy; and proposed to rent the land long enough to raise one crop to maturity, and get it off, and then the lease was to expire, the property revert to the owner, and all the stranger's right in the field was to cease.

The bargain was concluded, and the cunning scamp sowed the soil with acorns, from end to end. The first year they sprouted like leaves, the next year they grew like scions, five years after they were slender rods, ten years after they were thrifty saplings, twenty years and they were young trees, and so the crop grew on, until the young man became old and poor, and weary with waiting, and when at last, grizzled and gray, broken with many years, he sank into his grave, his once verdant field was a forest of lusty oaks, which lifted their giant arms heavenward to the sunshine, defied the summer drought and the wintry hurricane, and bade fair to survive the storms and changes of many centuries.

And yet the lease was unexpired. The one crop had not become mature, nor been gathered to the garner; but the thoughtless young man had lost his heritage; the land was his no more.

Just so in the fair, generous soil of youth, with its bounding pulses and its exuberant life, Satan says, "Let me sow just one crop, and gather it in, and then, in a little while, when it is removed, I will ask no more. Pluck up the good seed sown at a mother's knee, buried by a mother's prayers, and watered by a mother's tears, clear off the rubbish that has grown up from the sweet influences of home, amid the gentle loves of sisterhood, and the kindly powers of piety and grace; away with all religious mopings and godly nonsense, clear the field for a new crop, just one; young men, you know, 'must sow their wild oats.' When this crop is off, then there will be time for other grains. Then, in mature life, plant the seeds of goodness, greatness, nobility, purity, and godliness; all these may grow," Satan says, "only let me first have one crop of wild oats."

And multitudes give heed to his wiles and consent to his proposals. But of all the mad delusions of mortals, theirs is the worst. Nothing grows longer, or roots stronger than wild oats. And may God pity the man who has leased his soul to Satan for one such crop. I have seen wild oats sown and grown. I have seen the harvest. I have seen the fatal brand of lust upon the beastly countenance. I have seen the blear of drunkenness in the reddened eye. I have seen the restless twitching of the shattered nerves, I have seen the stiffened gait of the ruined debauchee, and the sneaking glance which told that nothing but brass could make him hold up his head before the world. I have seen the wasted form, the sunken cheeks, the hectic flush; I have heard the shattered voice, the hollow cough, the sad confession, the vain regrets! Aye, I have preached Christ through grated windows, and in gloomy cells, and through the long, stony corridors, whence bars and bolts shut out the freedom and the joy of life; and I have looked on fetters, and knelt by the side of the young man guilty of his brother's blood, and amid it all I have said, "This is the harvest that comes of sowing wild oats."

Yes, and there are dark, dishonored graves where lie the buried hopes of fathers, the joys of mothers' hearts, the pride of brothers, and the love of sisters fair, and in the rank and tangled weeds that sprout and flourish, feeding on the corruptions of the dead, we see the result of "sowing wild oats."

Young man, possessed of all the grand opportunities of youthful life in this swift speeding age, can you, will you, lend your soul to Satan for him to raise one crop of "wild oats?" Will you sell your birthright for a summer's purchase? Will you, in the beastliness of lust, in the vortex of pleasure, in the red gleaming of the wine-cup, in the deadly hallucinations of narcotic drugs, in the poison of tobacco, in the pleasures of riot, in the foul pestilences of disease, in the madness of the gaming table, in the painted harlot's vile embrace, will you, can you, drown all there is about you of purity, and nobleness, and principle, and manliness, and become a poor, degraded, wretched thing?

Would you find your youth a fond delusion, your manhood a fruitless struggle, and your old age a vain regret? Would you spend a weary, worthless life, and see your sun go down at noon? Would you feel that existence has been a mournful failure, never to be retrieved? Would you come before the Giver of your powers, to receive his condemnation and his curse? Would you miss that glad and glorious immortality which is the heritage of all the sons of God? Would you come forth in the last harvest day, to shame and everlasting contempt? Then sow "wild oats."

You cannot eradicate the crop. The adamantine chains that bind together cause and effect will link you to the results of your actions here. Some things are already done beyond recall. In God alone is there pardon for the past! In Christ alone is there salvation from the guilt already incurred. In the blood of sprinkling alone, is there cleansing from the deep stains that now pollute your soul. In the Holy Spirit alone, is there a renovating power that shall revive and renew the wasting vigor of your moral life. In God's word alone, is there a lamp to guide your feet in your perplexed and dangerous path. In God's love and grace alone, is there deliverance from all your iniquities. Rejecting these, you will bind the millstone of sin about your neck as with the chains of fate, and plunge hopeless in the fiery billows of despair. Beware what you sow. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." Gal. vi, 7-9.—The Christian.