Old Age and Its Blessings

Old Age and Its Blessings.   Kelly Durant  4-18-04 Re: 9-12-10 Re 9-8-19

Lev 19:32

32 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.

2.There is a quote in English that says: No wise man ever wished to be any younger! There are a lot of benefits to growing old, but I am referring to growing mature in the Lord! But Like they say, wrinkles should be on the face, not on the heart!

Let’s look up Titus 2:2,3

2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

That scripture tells the elderly to be serious, temperate, strong in faith, love and patience. The youth can learn a lot from the more mature.

What is old really? (In different countries people die at different ages).

3. It is the job of the young to learn from the aged and experienced and the older ones should be teachers! That is if they are close to the Lord! You lived all those years and all you know can benefit many people, so all the elder here need to consider they have a job in our Corps church, they should be mentors to the younger.

That is what the Word commands us to do and we need to retain the old mentality of respect for our elders! It is Biblical.

Today we have a generation of kids that disrespect the elderly and their parents, and according to the 10 commandments to honor your father and your mother, if a child insulted his parents breaking this commandment, he was to be stoned to death! God is serious about us respecting those that are older, especially parents!

Deuteronomy 21: 18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

4. There are many articles about how we age and most of them state how people often get more mellow, more friendly, more happy, and even more productive. KFC was started after Col Sanders retired from the military. Many people go on to accomplish great things in business, in writing, in service to the community. Old age is a blessing! It can be the most productive years.

And let’s look at the way God has acted throughout the Bible history. He called Abraham and Sarah when they were old to raise their son. He called Moses when he was 40 but he was still too young and impulsive. Then God  didn’t call him again until he had watched sheep for another 40 years, and he then was ripe enough to go on to free the children of Israel at age 80!

Many of God’s prophets were not used by God until they had become aged men. I think some people at age 40 are still not yet mature. It is not the age of the body that matters as much as the age of the spirit and how much you have learned.

5. It is God’s plan that we grow more mature in Him. There are some people that get older and still make the same mistakes over and over though, and that is because they are not seeking God every day. Some people just get older but not wiser.  Let’s look up..Prov 16:31

31 The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.

In other words, if you are old with grey hair, and you are close to the Lord, living in righteousness, you are wearing a crown of glory! But the older ones must live in the path of righteousness, and that is a purity that comes after years of practicing righteousness.

Here, and in other cultures, grey haired people are usually taken to be wise, but wisdom does not always come with grey hair. So why is it that some people hide their age? My mother wore a wig that is the color of her hair when she was 40, so even though when she was 80, she appeared about 65. That is what she chose, but natural is fine too. The heart is what matters!

6. Sometimes, some people may equate old with slow and useless. In my time here with the Salvation Army I have met many older and retired Officers and what I have seen is amazing. They are a sharp productive group of people! I have seen some retire at 65 and keep working another 20 years! And just like some of you here, your memory of Bible stories and of life experiences remains lucid.

I’d say the average life span of a Salvationist Officer right now must be at least 85-90. Even though we live a busy stressful life for the Lord, it is as though the Lord blesses us with length of days for serving Him. Look up

Ps 92:13‑15

13 Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.

14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;

15 To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

I want to tell you, in my 14 years of ministry in Atlanta I got to know hundreds of people. There are people right now that I know that have lived for the Lord, come to church, and lived holy lives and prospered in usefulness. On the other hand, some people I have known that have been slow to get close to the Lord, I have seen over time remain weak or in worse condition than what they use to be! Age will regenerate you and you will feel young when you live for the Lord, or age will kill you, when you are not on the right path spiritually!

7. The U.S. is made up of a majority of people of all races that are getting older! It is our job to bring them into fellowship and love! Many of them have solitary lives and they pray every day to keep their health so they can get around to walk to buy food. And we always need to thank our church drivers who pick up these weaker ones here who do not drive due to their age or heath.

We need to thank those who visit the elder in the Community Care ministries too. Remember, the people out in the world, those that have not known righteousness and our loving, life filling renovating Christian way of life, are not anywhere near as happy as we are in our Christian life in the Corps. We can see the effects of time on earth without God in the people that in the rest homes being not so old, and yet they can be amongst the vulgar grouchy ones.

One time when Regina was in a hospital, there was an elderly lady beside her that had had an operation to cut out a cancer and she was going to die within a few weeks. Despite that she cussed like a sailor and had no reverence to God; she was old but not pure or righteous in any form or fashion. It was not pretty. Sad, right? Righteousness in old age is everything according to scripture! Righteousness is within the same as category as holiness, which we preach, and it induces respect.

8. Will you be energetic, in love with the Lord, and with life, and blessed because you planted in His house and won souls to Jesus? We have all met many older people in my time and isn’t it true that we see amazing things happen in the Salvation Army?

Most teachings of service, generosity, and encouragement, all come from the older faithful ones! My question to you who are younger is, how is it going to be for you when you are older with grey hair?

Will you be old and bitter about how you don’t have what you wanted out of life? Will you complain how others treated you unfairly, how you should have been richer, or blame how your family held you back!? Age & time is a collection of what was lived day to day and only you answer to God for all things! Daily living in God’s word and in His praises will always be renovating your Spirit even though the outward body is wasting away.  But we as humans with our mistakes and sins and with our own carnal minds, tend to degenerate and discourage, so counter it and live in God from day to day!

9. Here is some reality news…each of you (and me) are dying! So if we are dying no matter what we do to be healthy, and some of us will pass on to glory before others do, why not live out our glory in Jesus Christ already? Paul said he died daily, and that implied that he, and we, must kill the bad in ourselves that is preventing us from being holy and right with God.

2 Corinthians 4:16

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  Our internal spirit can be renovated! Each one of us is responsible for the effect of what we are feeding into our minds and spirits.

With age we get better or bitter. Like wine that gets more fine, or like vinegar that gets more tart!  Let’s respect and pray for those that are elderly here today and let us make plans to grow old gracefully, full of His grace, and His love, and His righteousness, and His wisdom, and His patience, and His faithfulness! Pray for those you know who are elderly today!