The Autumn of Life IV: Duties Incumbent to the Aged

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and today we pick back up again with letters from Archibald Alexander to elderly Christians. Alexander was a pastor during the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

He was also the systematic theology professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as the president of the seminary. Alexander, in this book, Thoughts on Religious Experience, that is published by Banner of Truth.

It happens to be out of print right now, so if you want to read these letters, I think you can still get it on Kindle. But also, we're doing a giveaway. I think we're going to give away five copies of just the letters to the aging Christian.

Someone has published them in kind of a pamphlet format, and so we're going to make some of those available. You can see in the show notes how to sign up for that. So, we want to look at this third letter where Alexander is talking about the unique opportunities of the elderly Christian and the unique temptations.

Last week, we talked a lot about the unique temptations or what he called the failings of old age that we have to guard against. It will take a real effort for our hearts to grow in happy, peaceful, trusting reliance upon Christ, a universally cheerful life, while at the same time, there are many circumstances that we're enduring that are very difficult.

The failings of our body, the failings of our mind, not being able to recall things that we read or that we studied when we were younger Christians. That can be very unnerving to us. We feel as if the tools that God has given us, the means of grace in our hands, it's as if they're slipping through our fingers because our memory is slipping.

But Alexander talks about, well, what can you do to be guarding against any loss of opportunity with the loss of physical ability? How can we make the most of these elderly years? In this third letter, he talks mainly about the duties that are particularly suited to the elderly stage of the Christian life.

The Blindness of Old Age to Spiritual Realities

Now, he opens with an observation and the observation is this. Old age doesn't necessarily make eternity and spiritual realities more real to most people. He mentions the fact that though everything around you is rapidly changing and you know, as you grow older, time does seem to pass more quickly.

So, it just looks like the world is changing at such a blistering pace. But he points out that strangely, we tend to think that we are the one thing that doesn't change. We might see the changes in the mirror, but we still kind of feel the same on the inside, which is an evidence that we're not just animal.

We have a soul that God has placed within us, that un-aging soul. So, when we think about ourselves, if we're not careful, we might think, well, I'm not changing. And so, we're deluded into thinking that we are stationary or we're permanent and we lose so many opportunities.

Now, he's talking at the beginning of the letter, not primarily about a Christian, but just about humanity. How we deceive ourselves into thinking we always have plenty of time and we're not changing.

He writes this, none appear to be more blind and stupid in regard to religious matters than many who are tottering on the brink of the grave. And the evidence he gives, he says, simply look around and when you see elderly people who have not embraced Christ, who have not surrendered themselves to him, turned to him in faith and repentance, walked with him.

If they've heard the truths of Christ through most of their life and rejected them, and you meet them as older people or elderly, he says, is it not uniform that we generally don't expect them to ever be converted?

We feel that an elderly unbeliever is much more difficult to bring to Christ than a young unbeliever, if we can use that kind of terminology. He mentions that only the Spirit of Christ can open the eyes of an elderly unbeliever to see the urgency, the rapid rate at which life is flying from them and that they are not stationary.

They too are fleeing from the scene of this earthly life and about to be face to face with their creator. Now he says, even though only the Holy Spirit can open a person's eyes to show them this, that is not a reason to despair and not a reason to be silent.

He says, counsels and exhortations to the elderly are not to be neglected as God is pleased to work by means. In other words, God uses the lives and the prayers and the witness and the kindnesses that we can do for an elderly unbelieving person.

He uses those as the means by which he might open their eyes and bring them to himself. Well, that's his opening observation. Growing old does not necessarily mean you grow more aware of eternal and spiritual realities.

It might in fact be the opposite. Then he gives a list of duties and he says, we are not privileged to fold our hands and sit in idleness as if our work were ended. So if we're still on the earth, even though our bodies have begun to fail, maybe our minds have begun to fail and so we don't have the energy or the clarity or the abilities we once had, we still have a work to do in the everlasting kingdom and this is work that is extraordinarily important.

So we must labor depending on the aid of God. We labor as long as we are in this life. Well, what duties is he speaking of? Well, he gives a few that are peculiarly duties that are suited to the elderly.

Speaking to the Young and Filling the Heart with Christ

The first is speaking. He says you can speak to younger people about the praiseworthiness of God because you have lived under his care. And though you might be very disappointed in yourself, if you're a true Christian, you are not disappointed in God.

You can be disappointed in churches and in preachers and in elderly or older Christians and younger Christians, but you cannot be disappointed with Christ. So tell people about him. Speak to the younger Christians.

Give them guidance from years of walking with the Lord yourself. Use the scriptures, but you also have experience with the scriptures. Sometimes, he says, we waste our opportunities to speak to the younger people of the eternally important matters.

And we might excuse ourselves by saying, well, you know, I'm not really that educated. Or I, you know, sometimes I can't—I find it hard to carry on a discussion. You know, we call them senior moments nowadays.

I get to talking about these things and then I forget. I can't call the word to mind. And, you know, those limitations, mental as well as physical, we feel like excuse keeping our mouth shut. But Alexander asks, isn't the problem more often that our own hearts are so little affected with the realities of God as we're focused on all the troubles of old age that we have nothing from the heart to say about God?

The Bible tells us out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so he cautions the elderly Christian to be filling their hearts frequently with the great truths of God. Call to mind as much as you can his faithfulness.

And so then when you're around younger people, your heart will be full of Christ and you'll be ready to speak. Older Christians, he says, are peculiarly suited to this task because an older believer, an elderly believer, can often say very direct things to a younger Christian without offending the younger Christian.

While if one of their peers said it, it might offend them. Because of the respect for old age, because that still is there, the older Christian can say things from a wealth of wisdom and experience, even if they are a bit of a rebuke.

Obedience, Prayer, and Intercession in Old Age

The next thing he mentions is that obedience in our elderly years is just as pleasing to the Lord as any obedience we did in our early years, even though it may not seem so on the exterior. Because the heart of obedience is the heart.

It is a heart that trusts God. It is a heart that loves God. And even though your obedience may be more of the kind of quietly holding yourself before the Lord and considering him and loving him and meditating on him and speaking to him.

That while this is a more quiet form, maybe less outwardly noticeable than the things you did to be obedient when you were young and chasing kids to the kitchen or heading off to work every morning. He says, if the heart is engaged and it's following Scripture, then it is just as pleasing to God as any big outward thing you did when you were younger.

We can think of examples in Scripture. You can think of the Apostle Paul, who in some of his letters that we read, he's traveling the world and risking his life to tell people about Christ. And in other letters, he's imprisoned and not able to speak to anyone.

Is Paul less pleasing to the Lord? Is his obedience less pleasing to the Lord when he's imprisoned in Rome? No, because obedience is a heart issue. To do what the master gives you to do today, regardless of the limitations, and he understands our physical limitations.

But to do that with a whole heart is just as pleasing as when you were very active and busy doing things that looked perhaps more important. Well, he says, you can glorify God in your mind. And in this, you resemble more the saints and angels in heaven than when you were very busy running around doing a lot of good things when you were young.

He says, set your heart on God. Set your thoughts on God. Exercise love toward God. Express it to God. Express your trust toward Him. Quiet your soul and be satisfied in the focus of all that you are upon all that He is.

And that, he says, is something that an elderly Christian can do in a way that a young Christian perhaps cannot, because they are necessarily focused on many legitimate tasks that, you know, form that part of their life.

Also, he says, you can pray. Nothing you do in the service of Christ is more valuable than having an audience with the king and laying before that king with care and love and trust and biblical clarity to lay before the king arguments on behalf of his people, on behalf of the lost, on behalf of the kingdom.

Nothing, he says, is more effective or more important in the kingdom work than that. So, if all you can do as an older person is pray, that is extraordinarily important. It is not any less significant than all the preaching or all the serving you did when you were young.

So, he says, remember Aaron and Hur in the Old Testament who held up Moses' arms with the staff that God gave him. And Moses is holding the staff up and Joshua is on the field of battle with the armies of Israel and they're fighting against their enemies.

And as long as you know the account, as long as Moses' arms are extended up with the staff, it's a symbol of God's activity. And God himself is giving Israel victory. But then if Moses gets tired and his arms drop, you know, it's a great object lesson for Israel and for us.

Then God withdraws that extraordinary aid and Israel then, you know, finds that in their own strength they can't win this war. So, Aaron, Moses' brother, and Hur come and hold his arms up hour after hour as Israel battles on the field beneath them.

Who has the most significant task? Is it Moses? Well, that's a pretty significant task. Is it Joshua, the general on the field of battle? Is it the individual soldiers who are with all their might swinging weapons and risking lives and suffering many blows and giving many blows?

Well, that certainly is an essential part of the victory. But then there's Aaron and there's Hur who all they can do is hold the arms up of Moses. And it's a wonderful picture of intercessory prayer. So, let's close down this letter with this question.

Elderly Christian, where are you working now in the kingdom? Are you working in the home, maybe with your grown children or grandchildren or grown grandchildren? Are you working? Are you busy working up at the church?

Are you busy working in town, in significant areas in the world? I don't mean are you traveling there or are you physically there? But in prayer, are you by your audience with the king? Are you pleading on behalf of others like an Aaron or a Hur?

You are holding up the arms of those who their job right now is to hold the staff up. Or are you praying for those who like Joshua, their job is to lead others or like the common soldiers, their job is to fight and risk their lives.

You can't do those things anymore, but you can still be laboring alongside them. You can labor in the churches. You can labor in the families in your church. You can labor in your cities, in the major cities of your nation or the world by prayer.

Remember the picture of the four friends that bring the lame man to Christ. They can't get in through the front door, so of course, you know, they cut a hole in the roof. They remove the tiles and they lower the man on his stretcher down through and Christ heals them.

So, which one of them was non-essential? Well, all of them were essential. The young man couldn't bring himself to Christ, but they could bring their friend to Christ. Now, of course, God could just declare that all the lame people on the earth would be healed in a moment, but that's not how God works.

He does use us and it's a real joy to know that even in our elderly years, with an audience at the throne of the eternally young and yet the ancient of days, that he whose body does not fail, so to speak, he whose mind doesn't get confused, he who is as powerful now as he has ever been will listen to you because you come in the name of his son, and he will not forget your prayers.

Do you remember the picture in the book of Revelation where the angel comes and he comes before the king, before God and the father and the lamb on the throne and he pours out the prayers of the saints and onto the earth and great things happen, cataclysmic things.

It's just a picture, but it's a wonderful reality. The reality is greater than the picture. God remembers the prayers of his people and they will be poured out on earth through the ages and they will accomplish extraordinary things because God will respond to us.

Obviously, we don't twist God's arm and just because we're old doesn't mean if we ask God to do something, he jumps up and becomes our servant, but it does mean that with the time that you have on your hands, you can devote the heart to loving him.

You can speak on his behalf in a way that the younger believer may not be able to be heard. You'll be heard and you can pray. Alexander says you cannot offend God by too much earnestness, too much importunity, too strong of a biblical argument, so seek him.

Gratitude for Providence and Salvation

The last thing he mentions as a duty for the Christian at this age is he said, the elderly have time and reason for gratitude in a way that the younger Christian may not. Time we understand, but also reason.

It isn't that the Lord has been kind to you for five years or for 20 years, but maybe you can look back on 50 years of the kindness of the Lord. It is a neglected duty, Alexander says, in his day and certainly we would say in our day.

We think of conquering the world for Jesus. We think of witnessing to our neighbor. We think of preparing a sermon or a Sunday school lesson or taking Mrs. So-and-so soup because she's under the weather and those are all really valuable things.

It's not an either or, but he says, don't forget that giving thanks to God for his kindness, it is as precious as witnessing to the next door neighbor. It is an expression of love to God. It is the presenting of our sacrifices of gratitude for him.

He lists a few things that we can be grateful for in this third letter and as it comes to an end. So let me read from this last paragraph. He writes, when you consider the dispensations of God's providence toward you in the time and place and circumstances of your birth, in giving you godly and intelligent parents who took care of your health and education and in following you with goodness and mercy all the days of your life, giving you kind friends or faithful teachers, health and reason, together with abundant religious privileges, how thankful ought you to be!

But that which, above all other things, enhances your obligations to gratitude is that in his own good time he effectually called you from the devious paths of iniquity and adopted you as a child into his own household and perhaps has made you the instrument of much good to others, if not on a large scale, yet in your own family and in your church of which you are a member.

So, many reasons that we can give thanks. Third letter, Archibald Alexander, the peculiar duties that seem wonderfully suited, especially to the elderly. We'll see you next week as we pick up with the fourth letter.