Battle For the Young by Gbile Akanni [Summary]

Main Summary: Battle For The Young by Gbile Akanni is a wake-up call to young people about the fierce contest between God and satan for their lives. It shows that youth is the prime time for making irreversible choices and laying life’s foundation, urging readers to choose Jesus now and overcome the wicked one.

Lessons You’ll Learn From This Book

• While You Are Young
• The Prime Time
• The Raging Battle!
• Peculiar Challenges
• Lamenting the Wasted Youth
• The Battle Begins
• The Enemy’s Targets
• The Choice Is Yours
• Young Men of Wrong Choices
• Response Determines the Future

Also read The Dignity of Manhood by Gbile Akanni [Summary]

So, a man can hear the word of God too late!

While You Are Young

● The author preached at a professor’s daughter’s wedding in 1985 to an audience of professors, doctors, business people, and government officials.
● After the service, an elderly man approached him in tears and said he wished he had heard this message forty-two years earlier.
● The old man confessed that he had spoilt his life and wasted his marriage, and he did not know where to begin again.
● A professor’s wife also came forward and said it was too late for her, but she would buy the tapes for her daughter so she would not go the way she went.
● The author realized that wrong choices made early in life may never be correctable later in life.
● He suddenly understood the great privilege of being young and the prime value of being a youth.
● He concluded that there are things that must happen to a person as a youth if they are to live their adult years without regret.

The time of youth is not only one of making choices; it is also the time for laying the foundation for every aspect of future life.

The Prime Time

● The time of youth is the prime time in anyone’s life and a great privilege that many old people envy.
● Being young comes only once in a lifetime, and no one can be young more than once.
● The time of youth is also the period of making choices that leave indelible marks on one’s life and destiny.
● A battle is raging in this world over young people, and it is all about influencing their choices.
● Choices that mark a life out for greatness are made in the teens and twenties, not in old age.
● Choices that predispose a person to perpetual defeat and failure are also made when young.
● Whatever wrong things we see in an old man today most likely came from choices he made when he was young.
● The unfortunate thing about these choices is that, whether made consciously or unconsciously, they are often irreversible.
● The time of youth is the time for laying the foundation for career, marriage, and destiny.
● It is a time of tremendous strength, energy, and freshness when all nerves and instincts seek the strongest expression.
● The direction you plough your energies now determines the destination you will reap in the years ahead.
● The time of youth is also the time of warfare, when you pitch your tent on whichever side you choose.
● You either choose God or Satan, and it is in this period that you make that choice.
● God is mercifully looking for you, but the devil is also fighting hard to have you on his side.
● The counsel of God’s word is to remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come.
● If you overcome in this battle now and make the Lord your choice, you will always overcome in every sphere of life.

Also read Guidepost To Revival by Gbile Akanni [Summary]

Whatever your destiny will be unveiled tomorrow cannot in any way be different from the choices you are making now that you are young.

The Raging Battle!

● A raging battle is going on between God and the devil, and it is all about you.
● Both God and the devil equally believe in the young man and the young woman.
● If you could enter the heart of the devil today, you would find his greatest mobilization is for the young person to become his own.
● If you could look into the very heart of God, you would be surprised at how tremendously He yearns for the young person.
● The Bible compares children of the youth to arrows in the hand of a mighty man and calls the man happy whose quiver is full of them.
● The real battles of this world are about capturing young people.
● Understanding this battle explains why young people face so many conflicts and challenges.
● You are at a serious junction of choice and dare not make any decision without definite divine guidance.
● As a matter of priority, you need a fresh encounter with God right away so you can hear Him speak clearly about what to do with your youth.
● What makes this urgent is that a fierce combat for your life will either make or mar you for life.
● You cannot sit on the fence, and you cannot be passive.
● A “Yes” to God is a “No” to the devil, and indecision for God is equally a welcome to the enemy.
● Whatever your destiny unveils tomorrow cannot be different from the choices you are making now that you are young.

I discovered that God recognizes three segments in every man’s life, and each of them is quite peculiar, definite, and different from the other.

Peculiar Challenges

● The passage in 1 John 2:12–14 baffled the author for years because of its repetition.
● He discovered that God recognizes three segments in every person’s life, each one peculiar and different from the others.
● People are often overwhelmed by challenges because they do not understand the peculiarities of these three segments.
● The first segment is “little children,” when a person is a baby, toddler, or small child carried everywhere.
● It is the time of indoctrination, when you do what you are told and ask no questions.
● It is the time of utmost dependence, when victory lies purely in being under the cloak of the parents.
● The child does not worry about provision; he only cries, and the parents run to meet his needs.
● There were not many conflicts in the heart of a little child because whatever he was told, he believed.
● When “Daddy” said a thing was so, the child believed it and told everybody, simply because Dad said so.
● Oftentimes, parents do not understand that this is only the first segment, so they enjoy it because it looks so easy.
● As good as being little children is, it is a very simple, basic, but short segment.
● After writing to the little children, God skipped the young men and went on to the fathers, which challenged the author.
● He discovered that it does not take much effort to do the correct things once you have become a father.
● Whether you repent or not, certain behaviors leave you as you grow older because your interest in them dies.
● Only the young can wear high-heeled shoes and cat-walk around; parents and grandparents can no longer do so.
● Many fathers who drank alcohol when young now refuse a drink, not because they repented, but because one cup distends their stomach.
● The enemy who won the battle over such a life when he was young has collected what he wanted and left him empty.

Also read SOS! Help My Flesh Needs Discipline by Dr. Creflo Dollar [Summary]

Dreams are from the past. Visions are from the future. Old men are dreamers of what they could have done or done better; young men are men of the future!

Lamenting the Wasted Youth

● Many abandoned people on the road today are there because the enemy has already collected what he wanted from their lives.
● The devil does not fight too hard for fathers because he has already sifted them like wheat and left them with the empty chaff.
● The author recalls his message at the professor’s daughter’s wedding, where the old audience first grumbled at him.
● The old men and women adjusted their spectacles and asked who he was and where he came from.
● They complained that he was worrying them and told him to say what he wanted and go and sit down.
● Few things excite people who are already old, especially when the message comes from a young man.
● When he ignored their faces and preached boldly from the word of God, he began to hear “hmm’s” and “ahhs” from the crowd.
● Old people respond differently because almost everything you say to them only reminds them of their past.
● Most of their years are already behind them, and they are not looking forward to much again.
● No matter how powerful the message was, the old man who wept had made irretrievable and irreversible choices that even repentance could not change.
● The woman who said “For me it is too late” showed that people can hear the word of God too late and even repent too late.
● They were not too late to be converted and go to heaven, but too late to enjoy the correct life that the word of God could have brought them into.
● When God speaks of the fathers as having “known Him who is from the beginning,” He is talking about history and what is already past.
● When the Holy Ghost comes on old men, they only dream dreams, because a dream is often a recapturing of what happened before.
● When the Holy Ghost comes on young people, they see visions, because visions are from the future.
● Old men are dreamers of what they could have done or done better, while young men are men of the future.
● It is crucial, now that you are young, for something definite to happen to you that will make you see the invisible and define your life ahead.
● The time of your youth is not a time to be cosmetic or plastic, floating through life as if in a dream, but a time to be deliberately authentic and realistic with your choices.
● The time of your youth is the most crucial part of your lifetime and the determinant matrix of your entire future.

There is a fierce battle for your mind, your focus, and your affections as a youth. It is the battle for the young!

The Battle Begins

● God next addresses the young men, and the word “men” is used generically to include both young men and young ladies.
● God says He writes to young men because they have overcome the wicked one, and the word “overcome” indicates battle.
● When God deals with young people in that Scripture, the language switches to that of battle.
● Repeating it for emphasis, God says young men are strong, the word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one.
● This shows that someone is greedily desirous of tampering with you as a youth, and that person is the wicked one, the devil.
● As soon as you step into the teenage years, the battle begins.
● Whatever little agitations you had as a child are nothing compared with what you face as a teenager or youth.
● The conflicts come fierce and incessant, with inordinate pressure from within your heart.
● This is the segment of life when things happen to you that even you are surprised by.
● One of the first surprises is how you start questioning everything your father and mother told you as a child.
● Before, when Daddy spoke, you simply said “Yes, sir,” but now you ask why and what will happen if you do it.
● As a child, you joyfully received whatever your parents bought for you, but as a youth you want to make your own choices.
● If your mother buys a dress without taking you along, your immediate response is that she should have asked you or given you the money.
● When your mother makes a long dress for you, your first inclination is to take it back to the tailor to adjust it the way you like.
● This shows you have reached the age where you want to make your choices for yourself.
● Whatever people used to choose for you before and you gladly took suddenly becomes outdated to you.
● This is why some who were very serious choir members as children suddenly fall out in their teenage years.
● It is as if something is battling for your affection, your decision, and your choice.
● This is the age of personal choices and usually the time of inner crises.
● There is a fierce battle for your mind, your focus, and your affections as a youth.
● It is the battle for the young.

The best time to capture a man is when he can gain permanence in his life.

The Enemy’s Targets

● The author gives three reasons why the wicked one focuses on the time of youth.
● The first reason is that the devil knows this is the time of foundation-laying.
● The devil knows the Scripture that asks what the righteous can do if the foundation is destroyed.
● He knows that even fasting and prayer cannot significantly change a foundation that has been wrongly laid.
● So he positions himself at this crucial point to destroy the correct foundation before it is laid.
● If he succeeds, the rest of a person’s life becomes a mere patchwork and a struggle.
● The second reason is that the devil knows there are certain things peculiar to young people.
● This is the period of an unprecedented outbreak of all the virtues embedded in a person.
● Whatever you were as a baby was temporary, but permanence, even of physical features, begins at youth.
● Whatever is formed within you at this stage is permanent and not likely to change again.
● Knowing this is when permanence of character and direction is established, the enemy desires to make permanent and irretrievable damage.
● Men who are disoriented and addicted to wrong things had that permanence of addiction started in this segment.
● The best time to capture a man is when he can gain permanence in his life.
● The third reason is that everything that will become your future and destiny is rooted in your youth.
● The devil looks for you at this time to affect your destiny, which is why there is a scramble for your life.
● You are strategic to the devil, who desires to use you as an instrument for evil and then dump you to face a hopeless fate.
● You are equally strategic and precious to God, especially now that you are young.
● God sees the time of youth as the best time to affect a man or woman and gain the best part of his or her life.
● Solomon started with God’s favour but began to experiment with his life, typical of the young.
● Everything his father David planted in his heart as a child was tested and pulled apart as he explored life by himself.
● Solomon experimented with pleasure and found nothing but smoke, describing the fun-filled life as insane and inane.
● He tried everything he wanted and never said no to himself, but in the end he saw nothing but smoke.
● This is the age when you feel like buying anything you see and like.
● It is the age of curiosity and inquisitiveness, when you want to try out things and experience how they feel.
● It is also the point of seeking personal expression, when you feel like doing it yourself in any direction you want.
● The author met a brilliant architecture student who planned to sleep with two hundred women before turning twenty-one.
● The young man dropped out of school because of that experiment, and his life was ruined by the time he was twenty.
● He could not repent properly and could not see girls without looking away, and he even felt compelled to climb walls to lick ladies’ underwear.
● Satan tried to destroy that young man because he saw what a great man the young person could become.
● God desires to rescue your life now because if you miss it now, the devil will make such a mess of you that even repentance may not reverse it.
● The mistakes the devil drives you into making cannot be erased, and your life cannot be re-lived.
● You must overcome the wicked one now that you are young, because even if you overcome later, the damage of youth is often irreversible.
● Old age will only bear the scars of the damage done in youth.
● The mistakes and permanent damage of youth may forever “witchcraft” a person.
● The devil keeps any ground he gains in your youth against an opportune time in the future.
● Even if you escape, he will pitch his tent on that little ground beside your destiny, and you will not be able to deny his activity in that aspect of your life.

The ball is in your court. So whom do you choose? The choice is yours!

The Choice Is Yours

● The good news is that Jesus has come to meet you right now, at this time of your youth.
● The mighty Warrior is standing against the wicked one over your life.
● Jesus Christ, in all His zeal and power, is ready to fight for you.
● He declares to the devil that this young person cannot be touched because they are a proper child born for a vision.
● Jesus says He has a glorious future for them and intends to lift them very high.
● However, satan also has a valid response while Jesus stands and declares these things.
● Satan argues that if she were still a child, Jesus could rightfully choose for her, but she has come to the stage of choice.
● Satan insists that she must make her choice by herself and tell them whom she will serve.
● Picture Jesus standing with all His power on one side and the devil on the other, with you in between.
● Jesus offers to forgive, save, keep, sustain, and direct you to make the right choices for your life.
● Jesus asks you to make the one crucial and most important choice of your life for Him so you can be free forever from the enemy’s damage.
● The enemy insists that since you have come to the age of choice, you are the one to choose whom you will follow.
● This is the true position of things with your soul and the fierce contest for your life.
● The ball is in your court, and the choice is yours.
● The unfortunate thing is that many young people quietly choose the enemy without really knowing.
● They say quietly in their hearts that they will try all the options first, go for a while, and then come back.
● Doing this gives satan a trial and a most desired opportunity to finish you, and it is a dangerous and costly trial for you.
● Even if you survive and make it back, it will not be without some form of damage.
● The ground the enemy gains today may never be recovered.
● This is the age of choice, and the choice is entirely yours.

There is fresh ground before you right now as a young person, which is being contested. If you give the devil that ground, you may never get it again.

Young Men of Wrong Choices

● The author shares the story of a friend from his Nigerian Youth Service Corps days who came to camp as a Christian.
● The friend was even the Christian Corps’ Fellowship Zonal Representative.
● At their place of primary assignment, they met people who welcomed new Corps members with a party.
● The author declared his stand as a Christian and refused to partner with unbelievers.
● The friend stood in between and urged them not to refuse, careful not to clash with the people.
● The welcomers took the friend to a beer parlor with other corps members.
● He ordered soft drinks, but the young men mocked him for drinking what women drink at his age.
● A young lady stood up and said she could finish a bottle of beer at once, how much more a man like him.
● Ashamed, the friend asked for just a cup, and that single cup opened the door to many things that took him away from Christ.
● Nothing could bring him back, and he became haggard in life for many years until he died.
● Before he died, the author visited him, and he said, “Brother Gbile, I envy you.”
● He lamented that what the author is today is what he could have become, but he was finished.
● He tried to repent again but had lost the ground.
● There is fresh ground before every young person right now that is being contested.
● If you give the devil that ground, you may never get it again.
● Jesus stands at the door of your heart with all His power, ready to save and rescue you.
● The devil contends that you are not a robot and must be given a chance to make your choice.
● Before you make your choice, the devil flashes pleasure before you, carefully veiling the reality and repercussions that will damage your destiny.
● He flashes money, pretty ladies, alcohol, ecstatic substances, and fame, all so you will pursue shadows and ignore God’s glorious plans.
● The Bible commands us not to worry about what to eat, drink, or wear, because the heavenly Father knows we need all these things.
● We are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to us.
● Several of the author’s colleagues chose wrongly; they have not died, but they are in real trouble.
● The author then shares the story of his campus roommate in his first year at the university.
● Four students were officially accommodated in the room, with two squatting, making six in all.
● Each morning, when the author knelt to pray or read his Bible, the roommate deliberately hit him on the buttocks with his knee.
● The roommate shouted that this was not Church and warned him not to show a holier-than-thou attitude.
● He would hit him again and again and put on disco music at the highest volume to disturb his concentration.
● When the author asked why, the roommate shouted at him and swore to get him out of the room.
● Many years later, the author went with his wife to preach somewhere and found the old roommate sitting in the congregation.
● The roommate had seen a television advert that Gbile Akanni would preach and came out of curiosity to see if it was his old roommate.
● When their eyes met, the author was so startled that he almost called out from the pulpit.
● After the meeting, the author rushed down the pulpit to find him before the organizers could take him away.
● The roommate walked towards him with a sorry face and said, “So this is what you were planning to become.”
● He asked for time to talk the following day, and the author agreed.
● Over a meal, the roommate wept and said he wished he had listened when they shared the same room at the university.
● He said he thought he was wise and enjoying life, but he was finished.
● The girl he was running after had left him, and though he had two wives, he had no home anywhere.
● With a broken voice, he asked, “What will you do now to help me?”
● The author offered him Jesus Christ and salvation, and he received Him.
● The man then asked how to handle the mess he had put himself in, since he could not be young again.
● The author painfully agreed that he could not be young again, for you can only be young once in your lifetime.

You are the primary character in this epic battle for the prime period of your youth.

Response Determines the Future

● In this battle for the young, the battle is between God and satan, but it is over your life.
● You are the one who determines who takes the victory as a young person.
● That is why the Bible says you have to overcome the wicked one.
● You are the primary character in this epic battle for the prime period of your youth.
● You have the choice to say “NO” to the devil, to sin, and to the things satan displays around you.
● You also have the choice to say a big “YES” to Jesus, and that is what determines your future.
● Perhaps the battle has been so strong that you say “yes” to Jesus one moment and change your mind the next.
● You need to determine that such instability must stop right away before the enemy gets an upper hand over your life.
● The devil does not allow the youth to look ahead, blinding them to think life ends at the time of youth.
● So when you should decide with the future in mind, you are deceived into concentrating on the present.
● This is the critical moment for you as a young person; if you get it right now, it will be well with you in the years ahead.
● You will have no cause to regret or bite your fingers.
● The author wishes you had elders around who would sincerely volunteer to tell you the stories of the wrong choices they made and how they still suffer the consequences.
● Your life is fresh ground ahead of you that is not yet spoilt, but it is being fiercely contested.
● Between Jesus and the devil, you must choose whom you want to follow.
● The friends you have today will not always be with you all your years.
● The friend who leads you into trouble will desert you as soon as you sink into that trouble.
● He may even return to be part of the team that ridicules you and exposes your sad predicament.
● The Almighty God is beckoning to you, waiting with His mighty power to save, forgive, and reset your direction.
● But He will not do anything until you say a definite “YES” to Him and a big “NO” to satan.
● This is how to lay the foundation of your life and win the battle now that you are young.
● The mistakes you have made do not constitute the real problem; the problem will be to continue in them.
● The years you have spent are very few compared with those that lie ahead of you.
● You still have enough years to build the right future.
● It does not make sense to destroy five million because of the five hundred that have been spoilt.
● Do not sit and weep over spilt milk or an egg that has been broken.
● Say, like the author sang many years ago, that the time spent for the old man (the flesh) is enough.
● Decide now, while you can, that it is enough, and do not worry about whether you will have enough power to overcome.
● All you need to do first is to choose Jesus.
● Take a stand with the Overcomer, the mighty Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
● He could have overridden your will and stopped the destroyer, but His just and loving nature will not allow Him to force you.
● Jesus is not a thief who jumps in through the window; He stands at the door and knocks, waiting for you to willingly open the door.
● He will not make you do what you do not want to do.
● You need to make a choice; that is all He has been waiting for.
● The effectual working of the power of God to save and keep you saved is available, and the author is a living testimony.
● Jesus Christ died for you on the cross of Calvary to save you from your sins.
● It was not His sin that He died for, for He had no sin; it was the punishment for your sin that He took.
● He defeated the devil on the cross for you to give you the victory if you decide for Him.
● He rose again from the dead to give you a completely new life, not an improvement of the old.
● God promises a new heart, a new spirit, and His Spirit within you to cause you to walk in His statutes.
● It is not angels He came to help but weak men and women like you and me.
● If you were an angel who had never sinned, His death would have been needless.
● It is for such a sinner like you that He laid down His life and shed His precious blood.
● His hands are stretched out to you in mercy to forgive you and cleanse you from every mess and stain.
● Pray to the Lord now to forgive you and call upon Him to save you.
● Open your heart and ask Him to come in, and you will become a child of God with God on your side.
● Only then can you be sure of victory both now and tomorrow.
● The challenge is yours today, and the choice is yours; decide what you will do with Jesus.
● Pray to God right away and commit your life and future to Him.
● If you have already made Him Lord over your life, praise the Lord, but there is still something more to pray about.
● It is time to add permanence to your “NO” to satan and your “YES” to Jesus, the lover of your soul.
● It is time to make your choice of Jesus an everlasting decision.
● Decide today that His choices will be your choice and that His plan for every stage of your life will be acceptable to you.
● Determine in your heart that His counsel at every bend, turn, or junction of life will be sweet to your soul.
__

You have read the truth about the battle for your youth. Now make your choice. Say a definite “YES” to Jesus and a big “NO” to satan today. Open your heart to Him, commit your future into His hands, and win the battle while you are still young.

Finally, here is a question we’d love you to answer.

What foundation are you laying today that your future self will either thank you or blame you for?

We would love to hear from you. Please leave your answer and comment in the comment box below.

This book is available to buy or read in various online bookstores or from your local bookshop.

If you have yet to SUBSCRIBE to our blog, please do that NOW. So you don’t miss any inspirational book summaries coming next.

Also, do well by liking and sharing this post with your friends and loved ones. Let’s spread the word together.

God bless you