A. Definition.
1. Old is a term of time. It connotes having existed a long time and having lost the vigor of youth. At fifty years of age, a piece of furniture becomes an antique, but age with humans is a more touchy subject.
2. Some people are old at twenty, and some are young at sixty, but old age does exist whether people recognize it or not. We have to accept 1 Tim 5:9 for the actual declaration as to the difference between old and young.
3. Sixty years of age is the line of demarcation as a general principle. Some people at sixty are young and vigorous, while others are old, worn out, and shot down.
B. Old people are to be respected, Lev 19:32.
1. Children often turn away from their parents. If you are ashamed of your parents, there is something wrong with you, not with them, Prov 23:22.
2. 1 Tim 5:1-2 demands respect for older people.
3. Deut 28:50 says that invading armies will never respect older people.
4. 2 Chron 36:17 says that a healthy nation respects its old people, but an invading nation destroys them.
C. The Problems of Old Age.
1. Old age is a time of being unteachable, Eccl 4:13.
2. Old people are helpless, Jn 21:18.
3. Old people are more vulnerable to disease, 1 Kg 15:23.
4. Old people become security conscious, Ps 71:9.
D. Divine discipline makes people old before their time, Ps 6:7. Often divine discipline is of such a nature that it makes people old overnight, regardless of their physical age, Ps 32:3.
E. Doctrine learned in youth is profitable in old age, Ps 22:6.
1. The child may not be straight as a child and may fall apart as a young man, but if doctrine is retained, when he is old he will not depart from it.
2. Ps 71:17-18, “O God, You have taught me from my youth, and I still declare Your wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.”
3. Often it is the dynamics of doctrine in the soul of the older generation that does the most for the next generation.
F. The blessings of old age are primarily to the mature believer.
1. Not only does the mature believer have dying grace, but he has a marvelous and wonderful old age. Therefore, he enjoys many blessings.
2. Old people join with all categories of mature believers in praising the Lord and being occupied with Christ. Mature believers in old age have a fantastic capacity to enjoy the Lord. 3. In Ps 148:12-14, old men with maximum doctrine have great capacity for worship and praise.
4. In Ps 37:25, old people in maturity have great security and blessing.
5. In Prov 17:6, old people in maturity have honor.
6. In Prov 20:29, the fact that they are old and grey is their honor.
7. In Job 42:17, old men in maturity have blessing in dying. “Full of days” means full of blessing.
8. 1 Chron 29:28 says that David died in a “good old age, full of days, riches and honor...”
9. In Isa 46:4, old age is used as an analogy for blessing. God promises blessing to the mature believer in old age.
G. Old age is blessed in the Millennium, Isa 65:20; Joel 2:28; Zech 8:4.
H. Those in authority have been ruined by ignoring the advice of older men, 1 Kg 12:6-8, 13. The result of not taking the good advice of older men resulted in a revolution, the kingdom was split, and Rehoboam was left with only the Southern Kingdom. Here is an historical case recorded in the Word which teaches that ignoring the advice of older people caused a life of disaster, not only to the individual but also to the people whom he ruled.
I. The Standards for Old People, Tit 2:2-3. “Older men are to be temperate, poised, sensible, sound in doctrine, in love, in stability. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their demeanor, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved too much by wine, teaching good teachers, [i.e., being able to communicate doctrine correctly].”
J. There are seven problems you can anticipate in old age if you fail to take in doctrine.
1. No capacity for life. When you arrive in old age with no capacity for life, no vigor, and lack of mental sharpness, you are in real trouble. Old people minus doctrine lose the power of thinking and concentration. They have a tendency to doze and dream and become vegetables. 2. Disorientation to life. They have no capacity for love, blessing, happiness, or grace. They seem to have passed all these things by and have become indifferent to them.
3. Intensification of mental attitude sins with emphasis on vindictiveness and implacability.
4. A lack of sense of security, instability, and poor motivation.
5. Thoughtlessness, selfishness and demanding attention.
6. Old age is a time of being critical and unteachable.
7. Becoming defeated by time, becoming bored and even troublemakers.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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