You have probably never heard a sermon on this subject

Barry Dudding, a not-so-retired Anglican minister, gives a Sermon on Old Age

Billy Graham, the American evangelist, once made the comment that he had heard many sermons on death, but he had never heard a sermon on old age. What does the Bible say? Certainly, we have a wonderful assurance that when a person dies believing in Jesus as Saviour and Lord we are going to be with Him in Heaven. We have this wonderful promise in John 11: 25 “Jesus said to Martha, the sister of Lazarus who died and had been in the grave four days, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’ He then challenged Martha and all of us ‘Do you believe this.’” Jesus then proved His claim by restoring Lazarus from the dead. He told the onlookers to remove the gravestone, and He called, “Lazarus come out,” and He did, bound in the grave clothes.  Jesus died on the cross of Calvary to pay for the sins of the world, and on the third day, He came back to life. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the pivotal doctrine of Christianity. It happened. We can be sure. There were many witnesses and they recorded the wonderful truth in the four gospels.

We know this is true, but what does the Scripture say about the interim period following retirement as we experience the gradual inroads of decay in the body and mind? How can we make this time of decline a positive contribution to our loved ones and the Christian fellowship? As we study the Scriptures, we become aware that some of the characters finished well, like Davi,d despite his failure,s especially his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah the Hittite. He repented, and God forgave him. He died in weakness, but his relationship with God was strong to the end. Others, like Solomon, were led astray by his many wives and concubines.  We also have the sad example of Eli the high priest, who was condemned by a prophet because he failed to discipline his immoral sons, who were also priests in the temple of God.  We want to finish well, even though weakened by old age. We don’t want to become lukewarm in our faith. What does the Bible Say to encourage us?

First of all, we need to face the reality of growing weakness in our body and mind. I want to emphasise  The Reality of Old Age.

It says in Ecclesiastes 12:1, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’ – before the  sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return after the rain.”

This is his poetic way of referring to visual decline: “when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop,” that’s bodily weakness, “when the grinders cease because they are few,” that’s your teeth falling out and “those looking through the windows grow dim, when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs are faint;  our sensitive reaction to noise and fear of heights and of dangers in the street;  when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the street.”
The writer is talking about the growing weakness of our faculties because of old age. He is exhorting the reader to get into a right relationship with God before this happens. It is a big mistake to decide to leave the important matter of your relationship with God til you are on your deathbed.  Get right with God now when you are young. Do it now, whatever age you are. Don’t put it off.  Old age will come.

 I became a believer when I was at school, but now the negative changes that the writer of Ecclesiastes talks about are taking place. I am conscious of getting weaker. A member of St James Croydon’s congregation once said to me. “Barry, whatever plans you have in retirement, do in your seventies because when you get to 80 the rot sets in.” She is right. There is a saying that 60 is the new 50 and 70 is the new 60, but 80 never changes. 

Despite this, what positive things does the Bible say to encourage us? We can still be spiritually fruitful in old age. It says in Psalm 92:12-14, “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.”
I find that very encouraging. We can still have a growing intimacy with God in our senior years. We can still be useful in old age. I don’t know how many years I have left, but it is my constant prayer that I will finish well.
There are many believers who are frail in body but spiritually alive. There is an elderly lady that Jo and I visit in a nursing home, who says many encouraging things about my sermons. I always send her a copy when I prepare a new one. She has a tube in her nose so she can breathe more easily, but she is spiritually alive and interested in revival.

I don’t give this example to bolster my ego but as an illustration of someone who is physically weak but spiritually keen. She wants me to take her funeral, but I might go before her. Being physically weak does not mean we must be spiritually weak. We have this possibility of bearing fruit in old age. We can still be fresh and green. In old age, we can still enjoy a vital relationship with God.

In the Gospel of Luke, when the baby Jesus was circumcised by Simeon in the temple’ we are told of someone else who was in attendance. Her name was Anna. We read in chapter two, verse 36, “There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow until she was eighty four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day,fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking  forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”

I love that description, “She was very old,” but she was spiritually alive. God spoke to her, and she spoke to the people. We can have a vital ministry even in our old age. In Psalm 71: 18 we read “Even when I am old and grey do not forsake me O God, til I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.”
When we are young It is a natural development that we adopt the values and lifestyles of those of our own age because we share the same culture. But I also think that we need to facilitate relationships with those who are older and more experienced; what has God taught them, what mistakes have they made, what recommendations do they have? There needs to be cross-generational sharing so that we can be a church for all ages.

Lessons from Mrs Davies

I know in my own spiritual development, older Christians have made a wonderful contribution. I became a Christian in Sunday school. It was run by an elderly Methodist lady called Mrs Davies. She opened her house because she wanted to reach the kids in the district. The little kids were seated in the dining room. The senior kids sat in the lounge room, and Mrs Davies stood in the doorway and led the singing. Then we would break up into classes. It was at Mrs Davies’ Sunday school that I learned what a Christian was and how to become one. I was a sinner and Jesus had died on the cross to pay the punishment for my sin. He rose from the dead on the third day to show that His sacrifice  was effective. I needed to accept what Jesus had done for me.

So one day I knelt down in the garage out the back and confessed my sin. I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life and He did. It was so simple, and yet the effect was so profound. Mrs Davies was so keen to reach the kids in the area that she decided to start an open-air Sunday school in Merrylands Park. I helped out in that as well. After that we would come back and she would make a cup of tea and talk about her family and her Christian experience.

I think I imbibed a lot of useful knowledge about the church and Christian things. Another person who had a profound influence on me was the new minister in the Church. Mrs Davies wanted to explain to him that having a Sunday school in her home did not mean that she was competing with the church. She just wanted to reach the kids in the area. I went with her, and as soon as he saw me, he had the conviction that God wanted me in the Christian ministry. He had never seen me before, but he told me that was his conviction. It was the first time I was the object of a word of prophecy. But it confirmed my own thinking and he did everything to prepare m,e and by the time I was 18, I was a Methodist local. Preacher. This minister was not an old man but he was much older than me and had a profound influence on my life.

Mr Moody

The most vivid example of an old and weak person who had an amazing influence on the Christian church comes from the ministry of D.L Moody, the 19^th century evangelist. Moody was the pastor of the biggest church in Chicago. His church was burned down in the great Chicago fire and while it was being rebuilt, he decided to go to England and learn what he could by listening to the great preachers there. He listened to C.H. Spurgeon and other well-known expositors of the word. He did not intend to do any preaching himself, just to listen and learn from others.

But one day, he went to a meeting on The Strand, which at one point in the service was thrown open for anyone who wanted to contribute. Moody felt moved to say a few words, and among those who greeted him after the service was a pastor who invited him to come and speak at his church the next day, morning and evening. Moody accepted the invitation, but he found the congregation completely unresponsive to what he had to say.  He felt as if his words were bouncing off the congregation and hitting him in the face. He was sorry he had promised to return, but he did in order to keep his commitment once more.
It was the same experience as in the morning. The church was full, and the people outwardly respectful, but no spiritual response until halfway through the service. Suddenly, he sensed a change. The people’s faces became more animated. It was as though a wind had blown in and livened the place up. There was greater liberty in preaching. So impressed was Moody by this sudden change of atmosphere that he decided to give an invitation to anyone who might want to become a Christian. He thought there might be a few. He gave an appeal. If anyone wanted to accept Christ, would they stand up. Whole pewfuls of people stood to their feet.

He turned to the pastor and asked him what that meant, but the pastor was at a loss to explain it. Moody concluded that they had obviously misunderstood him, and he asked them all to be seated. Then he told the congregation that there would be a meeting in the church hall after the service, but this was only for those who wanted to become Christians. They were not Christian,s but they wanted to become Christians. He knew he had made it clear this tim,e but the aisles were jammed with people trying to get to the church hall.

Moody had planned to go to Ireland the next day, but when he arrived there was an urgent telegram from the pastor. Come back as quickly as you can. The church is packed. Moody returned and held a series of evangelistic meetings during which hundreds were converted and all the churches roundabout felt the impact. The change was so sudden that Moody thought there must be some reason for it. There must be some secret, so with his usual thoroughness, he began to investigate the cause.

Eventually this story came to him. There was a member of that church, a Christian who became ill and was no longer able to attend service. She began to reflect on her life. ‘What have I done for God, to promote the kingdom, practically nothing? What can I do now that I am bedridden? And she answered her own question, “I can pray. I will pray, and God led her to pray for her church. Her sister was her contact with the outside world, and every Sunday she asked her, “Did anything special happen at the church today?”

But the answer was always in the negative. Every Wednesday night after the weekly prayer meeting, “Anything different tonight”? No, the same deacons prayed the same prayers. It was entirely predictable. So there was no encouragement.

But she persevered week after week and month after month. She prayed in earnest. She was determined. She prayed in expectation. Then one morning her sister announced, “Guess what, We had a visiting preacher today, an American, I think his name was Moody.” The sister’s lip trembled, and she said, “Don’t bring me any lunch, there is something special coming to the old church,” and that night, the Spirit fell with Power.
She was an old lady. She was a weak lady, but God used her to bring revival. Later, when D.L. Moody visited her in her home, she told him that she had read an article in a Christian Magazine that made her heart burn. It was by a man called Moody, and God led her to pray that he would come to her church and preach. It was a spirit-inspired prayer, and great blessing resulted.

I can still go everywhere

I find this illustration very encouraging. Last year, I did a locum at Kalbarri in Western Australia, a Bush Church Aid parish. I enjoyed preaching to the small congregation there, but I don’t expect to be asked anymore because of my age. But I can pray. Each day, I go to Afghanistan and minister to God’s people there. I do not ask permission of the Taliban, but I can pray for the isolated believers there and the small communities of believers. Many are isolated and lonely and afraid. I pray for them and the small communities of believers that meet. I often pray for Kim Jong-yun and his family.

How important is prayer. There was an amazing movement of God’s Spirit in the Hebrides in Scotland in the last century. Two old women, two sisters, one of them 84 years of age and the other 82, who was stone blind, were greatly burdened because of the appalling state of their own parish. Not a single young man or woman went to the church. A verse gripped them, “I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.” They were so burdened that both of them decided to spend so much time in prayer twice a week.
On Tuesday, they got on their knees at 10 o’clock in the evening and remained on their knees until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. One night, one of the sisters had a vision. She saw the church of her fathers crowded with young people. Packed to the doors, and a strange minister standing in the pulpit.
That vision was fulfilled when Duncan Campbell was called and preached.

What is the greatest need in the church? It is revival. Revival is a sovereign act of God, but our responsibility is prayer. I have given these accounts because they illustrate how elderly people can be instruments of the Holy Spirit to bring revival. Even though we are old and there are limits on our activities, God can still use us. But we also have the example of Anna, who spoke to all and sundry about the redemption of Israel. I particularly want to mention the power of prayer, which I have already mentioned.
In Mark chapter nine, we have the account of the transfiguration of Jesus witnessed by three of the disciples, Peter, James and John. It was an amazing experience for them that they never forgot. Meanwhile at the foot of the mountain, the other disciples were having a hard time. A father brought his son, who was demon-possessed and asked the disciples to cast the demon out, but they could not. Then Jesus returned and exorcised the demon. The disciples quite naturally asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” Jesus replied in Mark 9:29, “This kind can come out only by prayer”.

We need to be a people of prayer. I remember the Billy Graham Crusade of 1959; that’s how old I am. There was a big emphasis on prayer, and God worked powerfully, and many were converted. We need to be a people of prayer, not only old people but young ones as well. But this is an area where Seniors can make a powerful contribution to the kingdom. Demon possession is a reality today as well. We need to pray. Whatever age you are, there is a ministry for you. What is God calling you to do?

Image: Ethel May Caterham, the world’s oldest person, born in 1909. Image Credit: Hallmark Care Homes