Dangers of Young Men

Before I get into the dangers young men face, let me tell you this: “IPHC Discipleship Ministries now has unlimited access to RightNow Media—the world’s largest streaming library of Bible study videos.” This is available to you for free! More on this later.

In the process of researching these resources for Boys’ Ministries, I discovered one entitled “Dangers of Young Men.” The series is about 5 thirteen-year-old young men who are invited by Cavetime founder, Jeff Voth, to go on an outdoor adventure and take on challenges where they will face these Dangers. They will face these challenges in peculiar ways and discover the devil’s schemes against young men. The Dangers of Young Men series was inspired by JC Ryle’s legendary book, Thoughts for Young Men.

In one of the opening videos, Jeff Voth asks, “Is there something we can do to help boys grow in the right direction and realize the long-term consequences of their actions or inactions?”

Jeff begins by telling the boys that Satan will tell you at the beginning of your life, “It is too soon to serve God.” Satan will then tell you at the end of your life, “It is too late!” Jeff then uses a great illustration to demonstrate that at 13 years of age, the choices made and habits formed over the next 7 years of their lives will affect the next 70 years of their lives. Some choices affect only us, some will affect others, and some will affect eternity.

In each episode, the boys are sent out to experience various challenges or activities to help them try and guess one of the five dangers that they will face as young men. At the conclusion of each episode, the boys are given a special Bible verse to memorize. These verses are called the “Swords of the Spirit” and will help them fight this danger.

Here is a brief summary of the 5 dangers, along with some quotes from the series:

1. Pride – The oldest of all the dangers, pride, makes us think that we are good enough as we are. It keeps us from hearing advice and makes us too prideful to listen.
2. Love of Pleasure – Fun and pleasure are okay unless you make them the point of your life. Some things that look fun are actually harmful – be wise. Don’t feed on pleasure because it only leads to weak self-control. J. Josh Smith said, “You will never be a man of strong character unless you are a man of self-discipline.” In Titus 2:6 Paul tells Titus to urge the young men to be self-controlled. If you don’t learn to be self-controlled when you are a young man, you develop habits that will affect you when you are an old man.
3. Thoughtlessness and Inconsideration – These dangers sneak slowly into all areas of life. It is dangerous to not think something through or not to consider other people. “Some men make mistakes about their souls in a minute, then suffer for it for years.”
4. Contempt of Religion – You can be embarrassed of your faith. This is almost blind to you and you don’t even realize you feel this way. “There are difficulties in the Bible, things hard to understand. It would not be God’s word if it were not. You don’t despise medicine because you can not explain all that the doctor does by them.” Why do you do the things you do? It has to become your decision, not just your parents’ tradition.
5. Fear of Man’s Opinion – Peer pressure is “subtle but overpowering, especially today with social media where just about everyone can comment on anything.” Don’t value man’s opinion more than God’s. “Use your ability to reason that God has given you to figure out what is true based on God’s word.”

Young men are strongly targeted in our culture to leave their faith, so here is a great tool to teach them how to fight these battles. This is an excellent series for all young men and can be used individually or as a group. There is also a Manual Guide for participants and a Parent’s Guide that can be downloaded. Go to iphc.org/discipleship and scroll down to find information on RightNow Media and a link for your free subscription.