Now, if you will return in your
Bibles to Psalm 71. Last night I got an email from
a man who is an old friend of Gerald and Elaine Grimsley. In times past they worshipped
together. This was when Gerald and Elaine had come
to an understanding of God's grace as it truly is and were
no longer, really no longer welcome at the church that they had been
attending. and they met in this man's house. His name is Thomas Witte. He watches our live stream, as
do some of his children. But last night I got an email,
and in it was this text of scripture, verse 18. Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next
generation, your might to all who are to come." Now, he's somewhat older than
me, though I don't know the exact amount. But I'm gray. And I'm a lot older
than when I came here. Old enough to know some of what
happens after you've reached your peak at about 30 to 35,
and then start that downhill process that lasts about that
much longer on average. Old age. There's only one way
to escape old age, and that's to die young. Most people don't
want that alternative. As a country song put it, and
I was surprised at the amount of wisdom to be found in somebody
who wrote a country song, said, everybody wants to go to heaven,
but nobody wants to go now. And that's pretty much true.
We all desire long life. One time an older gentleman was
grousing a little bit about the aches and pains and troubles
that go with being old. And I said, well, the only way
God can give you long life is to let you get old. There is
no adding youth, much as we might like it. Be nice if we were just,
you know, as we were, say, at 25, full of strength and vigor,
and just stayed that way until we just fell over and it was
all over. But that's not the way it works. Unfortunately, older people are
often cast aside by society. Fellow reaches a certain age,
woman reaches a certain age, may be at the peak of their career,
have more understanding of what they do than they've ever had
before, but they are compelled to retire. And all that gathered up wisdom
is no longer desired because they want younger blood, as they
say. Young people rarely appreciate
the wisdom of the elderly until they are elderly. Mark Twain
is reported to have said, I left home at 16 years old and my father
was the dumbest man I'd ever met. I came home eight years
later and it was absolutely amazing how much that man had learned
since I left. But the wisdom of age is generally
speaking despised by the young, ignored. In fact, my father told
me, he said, really, the best you can hope for in raising kids
is that once they reach adulthood, they'll make the mistakes only
once. And then they'll go, oh, that's what mom and dad meant.
Because all of us who were free And, you know, we think that
the restrictions and the disciplines that were laid on us were not
valuable, were not for a reason, and we go outside those bounds
and then we learn why mom and dad said don't go that route. But the elderly, Well, they don't, uh, they don't
matter a whole lot in advertising. I noticed that, that, uh, they're
always looking at the, um, Oh, I think it's 24 to 49 demographic. That's who nearly all advertising
is aimed at. And that's because they've got
money. They like to spend it. But once you've passed that up
and Bonnie and I noticed it, we're watching TV. And the shows
we like to watch had different commercials than we were accustomed
to. We started seeing commercials
about Medicare, Medicare supplements, various health products. And
I said, Bonnie, they think we're old. And so we don't get advertisements
for new sporty cars. We get advertisements for wheelchairs
and walkers. But old age is not something
to be treated with contempt. We ought to have a different
attitude towards it than do non-believers. Think of it, brethren. The older
you get, the closer you are to home. When I was away here a few weeks ago.
And I woke up Monday morning with 700 miles ahead of me. And
I know you truckers are going to say, Al, that's no big deal.
But for me, that's a big deal. But Bonnie was at home. And so
I got up early and I drove. And you know, I never felt upset
by every mile that went by. I made that car go as fast as
I thought I could get away with. and drove the whole way home.
Why? Homes where I wanted to be. Homes where the person I
loved was residing. And so I didn't look at the miles clipping by and say, oh, no,
there's another mile gone. There's another mile gone. There's
another. No, it's, ooh, there's another mile gone. Got to this
city. And I'm one of these guys that's
always calculating in my head, you know, and, okay, this is
about one-fourth of the way home and it's taking me so long. So,
you know, I'm doing all that kind of stuff. Why? I want to
be home. Oh, that we had such an attitude about our true home. The Apostle Paul says, our citizenship
is in heaven. When I traveled abroad just a
couple of times, to Indian Africa, I was so glad to come home. So glad to come home. We were
born into this world, and it seemed like our native world
to us. And indeed, we were of the very
same nature as those who have no other home but this world.
But God had chosen us. Christ had redeemed us out of
this world. The Holy Spirit had called us
out of this world. And now, we're no longer citizens here.
We're aliens. Someone once said, we're not
citizens of earth trying to make our way to heaven. We're citizens
of heaven trying to make our way through this world. Twice he mentions his age. Verse nine, do not cast me away
when I am old. Do not forsake me when my strength
is gone. And then verse 18, even when
I am old and gray, do not forsake me. Now, on the one hand, he speaks
of being cast away. On the other, forsaken. Now,
the result is the same as you are separated from God, but one
looks at it from the viewpoint of an active thing by God, he
tells us to leave his presence. You're cast out. And the other one, it's as though
God simply left them. And it's good to look at both
of these things because they might affect us differently as
we think about them. At first, he says, do not cast
me away when I am old. Now, why would the psalmist,
which we presume is David in this case, why would he be concerned
about God casting him away when he is old? Well, we don't know exactly how
old David was when he wrote this. He writes as though old age is
yet to come. But old age doesn't come on you
all at once. And maybe David's glory days
are already over. In his youth, he slew a giant. He led his men into battles,
vastly outnumbered, but he won. He was a remarkable warrior king. He subdued lands. He expanded
the boundaries of peaceful Israel. But as time goes on, going out
to battle, well, it's not what it used to be. And therefore, those whose concern
is the preservation of the country might look to him and say, David's
getting too old to run this. We need a man full of the vigor
of youth. And so there may have been some
who were trying to find a way to overthrow him and replace
him with a younger, more virile king. And so he says to God, don't
cast me away when I am old. Don't do with me. what some men
seem intent to do. Do not forsake me when my strength
is gone. And then over here in verse 18, even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, O God. We sing that hymn, how firm a
foundation some of the stanzas are left out. And I'm gonna try
to remember one on the fly here that'll fit, hope I get it. Even
down to old age, all my people shall prove my sovereign, my
gracious, omnipotent love. And though hoary hairs shall
their temple adorn, like lambs in my bosom, they all shall be
born." Isn't that good to know? You see, God didn't choose you
because you were young and strong and could do something for Him.
He didn't say, I want that one. because he has so many years
left that he could really be a help to me during those years.
Nobody is a help to God. Now you think about that. Nobody
is a help to God. There's nothing that we do for
God that God couldn't do better himself. Now we should serve
him with all our heart and with all our strength all our days.
We should do that. But we must realize that no matter
how experienced, how wise, how improved in his service we
may become, we are still like little children whom mom and
dad allows to help. You ever been doing a job and
one of your children come up, let me help with that. in particular
if you're in a kind of a hurry to get it done, you really don't
want their help because it's going to take a lot longer if they
help. My dad was a plumber in his last
career, and he used to have a sign up that said hourly rate, you
know, $15 if you watch, $20 if you help, $25 an hour. But with young'uns, that's the
way it is. teaching my boys some about mowing grass and I'd be
standing on the walk behind mower and they were small enough they'd
get in front of me and they could catch that brace bar down lower. So we're walking along but we're
not walking along as fast as I can. We're walking at the speed
they can. Now this is what it's like when
we help God. He could do it more easily alone but he is pleased to use us.
And he glorifies himself as he blesses us with allowing us to
work in his fields, but he glorifies himself that with such inadequate
laborers, he gains such a harvest. He gets work done that cannot
be imagined. So whether you are young or whether
you are old, it is irrelevant to God. He will not cast you away if
he ever received you to himself. He will not cast you away. If
you have come to him, the promise is, he that comes to me, I will
under no circumstances cast out. And John makes it clear to us
in his epistle, That the Lord said, I will never leave you
nor forsake you. And in the Greek language, they
do something we're not allowed to do in English. And that is double up and triple
up on negatives. One of the early things we learned
in grammar is, you know, well, if you say, if you have a double
negative, you've got a positive, you know, I'll never not go there
again. Well, that means you're always
going to go there. But in Greek, if they wanted
to intensify the negativity of something, they just added more
negatives. And it never switched to a positive.
So the way that's written in Greek is, I will not, never not
leave you nor forsake you. Triple negative. That's pretty
negative. He's not going to leave us or
forsake us. Not in our youth, not in our
middle age, not in our old age. Now, I like the motive behind
David's plea. Verse 18, even when I am old
and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power
to the next generation, your might to all who are to come. David didn't say, even when I'm
old and gray, do not forsake me, because I want a long life. I've met some people and even
heard of some who aren't even believers. The time comes when
you've had about all the life you want. And you may not die. You may keep going for a lot
longer. But life, for many, and for most, I would say, loses
its appeal. as you've done virtually everything
you had any interest in doing. Solomon said, remember your creator
in the days of your youth. Before, and he gives a list,
and they're all metaphors, but likenesses to things that happened
in old age. It talks about the grinders cease,
in other words, you lose your teeth. And desire is gone. Basically, when you're no longer
able to enjoy this natural life, remember your creator before
that time comes. And here's one reason to do that
that's certainly to our benefit. Even if all of our fleshly abilities,
particularly our ability to enjoy this natural life, if it's all
gone, we can rejoice in the God of our salvation. And even if we lose all strength
to do anything profitable for the people of this world, anything
that they would count useful, even when we become what is called
a burden to the people of this world, because we need cared
for, Yet even then, we are useful in the hands of God. You know, trial, whatever form
it may take, patience under that trial, delivering oneself up
to providence and however God is pleased to let our lives play
out, that is a testimony of the grace of God. After my father
had his stroke, and could no longer be cared for at home.
This is back, well, he had the stroke in 2009, but in January
of 2010, we moved him up here and brought him in our home and
cared for him as long as we could. Now he was paralyzed on his left
side and all but paralyzed on his right. Couldn't walk. Everywhere he had to go, you
had to take him. He could sit up in a chair and
he could lay down on the bed. And this was a little different
for a man who'd always been a hardworking man, very useful man, helpful. And I imagine that he thought
during those times, I'm utterly useless. Why doesn't God just
take me? I can't help anybody. Why doesn't God just get me out
of here? What he didn't know is how much
he ministered to his son, me. To see my dad, to whom I had
looked up to all my life. You know, my dad was two inches
shorter than me, but I swear he's a foot taller. That's just
how I felt around him. But here he lays. And yet I saw such patience.
One night I was talking to him after we put him to bed. And
I can't remember what the conversation was about. But he said, oh, the tender mercies
of the Lord. And I thought, man, I complain
about a lot of things. Here he lays. He can't do anything. And he tells out God's tender
mercies. And he ministered to me. In his
old age, God did not set him aside. God did not say, Ray Terrell,
I'm done with you. I mean, you're all wore out.
There's nothing left for you to do. He gave him a one-man ministry.
Now, maybe others benefited from it too. I don't know, but I know
I did. Do not forsake me when I am old
and gray till I declare your power to the next generation."
He wanted to live, not simply so that his life would continue.
He wanted to go on living because he just wasn't ready to die.
That wasn't his request. He had a purpose in it. He said,
I want to be here long enough that I can declare your power
to the next generation, your might to all who are Why? And why is old age such
a good time to do that? Again, go back to verse 9. Do
not cast me away when I am old. Do not forsake me when my strength
is gone. What better time to be able to
tell out the power and might, the omnipotent power of God. than when you have no strength
of your own. You see, if God gives us too
much power, or in times when naturally it appears we have
a great deal of power, and we go out and we try to testify
of the power of God, quite often our power gets in the way. And
there are many in the worldly type of ministries, their natural
gifts and abilities as what is the thing that's on display. And such people can hardly talk
convincingly of the power of God, because what you're seeing
is the power of them. And as time goes by and they
wither up, they get old. and their talents begin to wane, then what they testified to begins
to dim, and there's nothing left to their testimony. There's a
story told of a lady who was on her deathbed, quite old, and
as she neared death, she was quoting, I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that
day. But as the days rolled by and
her mind grew dimmer, what she could remember got shorter and
shorter until finally all she said was
him. Him. And she just kept saying
that. Him. Why? That's where all her
power was. She didn't have the power to
remember that whole scripture, but she had power to remember
the most important word in all that text. Him. Show your power. All that we
had in our minds, the burning desire to make known the great
power of God, the power that can come to people dead in trespasses
and sins and saying to them, live, and they live. The power,
as the scriptures say, that calls things that are not as though
they are. See, how does he do that? Well,
everyone here who is a believer, God calls you righteous. Do you
really think you are? I mean, so far as your conduct
is concerned, would you ever put the word righteous on that?
I know I wouldn't. And yet, that's what God calls
me. And He calls things that are not as though they are, and
here's the miracle of His power, even though at the present time
He calls me righteous when I know I'm not, in due time His calling
me righteous is going to take effect, and I will be." Now that's
power. That's more power than all these
hucksters. who touch people and bump them
on the head and they fall backwards and people got to catch them.
You know, they're praying, oh, I got Holy Spirit power. Saw
one guy, one of the more famous ones. And there's this group of people,
and I don't know how they get people to do this. I honestly
don't. I don't know if they have a mesmerizing power about them,
a hypnotic spell they can cast over the people or whatever.
But he was strutting around that platform doing this and that,
and then he took his coat off and he went like that at the
people, and they just all fell back. And I thought, that's Holy
Spirit power. Sport jacket can make you fall
down. Oh my, the power that takes people
like you and me and makes us sons of the living God. There
is no other power that can match that. Oh, to live long enough
to be without strength, that in the time of no strength, I
can tell them about the power of God. Pass it on to the next
generation. It is written that when David
served his generation well, he fell on asleep. And you and I,
this is the only generation we got to work in, our generation.
It's the only generation we're responsible to. Now, we're not
responsible for the generation, but we're responsible to them,
to tell them, to let them know about God. Remember the fellow that our
Lord healed and he wanted to follow the Lord Jesus. And the
Lord Jesus said to him, no, you go and you tell your neighbors
what great things the Lord has done for you. But we don't have to wait until
we're old to be without strength. We can understand that at the
fittest times in our lives, We are concerning spiritual things
without strength. It's written, God commended his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. It goes on to say when we were
yet without strength. Yet without strength. When did
God save us? When we got strong. when we had stretched ourselves
as far as we could, reached up to heaven as far as we could?
No, when we'd done absolutely nothing at all, had no power,
zero zip, not a power to save ourselves, help ourselves, advance
our cause, we didn't even have the desire and many didn't even
have the knowledge that it was necessary to be done. And at
that very time, Christ died for us. At that very time, in spiritual
death, the Spirit called us. And throughout all the times
of our lives, our God undertakes to carry us. We feel like we're
walking. I'm brought back to that example
with my father, when he did need to go somewhere, often it was
the case, Bonnie would get on one side, I'd get on the other,
we'd hold him up. And his legs would kind of move,
but he wasn't walking. He wasn't bearing his own weight. And when it looks like we're
walking, friends, we're not. We're being carried. I understand what's meant by
that footprints in the sand. The fellow said that, you know,
he was walking along and there were two sets of footprints.
He and God walking along and there's two sets of footprints.
And all at once it just became one. And he asked the Lord about it
when he got to heaven. How come you left me? There's
only one set of footprints. How come you left me then? And
God's answer to him, he says, Son, that's not when I left you.
That's when I picked you up and carried you. Those are my footprints. And the only thing that's wrong
with that story, there never was two sets of footprints. It's
always been one. It's always been his. In declaring these wonderful
things of God, he's mentioned how his enemies have accused him
of being forsaken by God. And you can see how these things
apply to Christ here. The only thing is Christ never
did get old. But he says, as for me, verse 14, I will always
have hope. I will praise you more and more. The weaker I get, the more I'll
praise you. Every year that goes by shall
find more praise from my mouth. As I see more days of your gracious
providence toward me click by. My mouth will tell of your righteousness. of your salvation all day long. I like this, though I know not
its measure. Soon as we begin talking about
the grace of God towards His people, we're way out of our
depth. We don't know the power of God. We don't know the grace
of God in the measure necessary to save people like you and me. But we tell it the best we can.
Verse 16, I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O sovereign
Lord. I used to hear testimonies. In
fact, at our church, we'd have watch night service on New Year's
Eve. And part of it was, you know,
they'd open up. And understand, I grew up in a church, on Sunday
mornings, they had 1,000 people. Now, watch night service didn't
have that many, but there are several hundred there. And they'd
open it up to anybody that wanted to give a testimony. And the interesting thing to
note was, I cannot recall one person proclaiming
God's mighty acts and God's righteousness. Their testimony was about all
the things they'd been able to do for God over the last year.
How many people they'd led to Christ. And they knew carefully
to put these phrases in that made it look like they were,
you know, not taking credit for it, but what do they call that,
humble bragging? You say, how do you know they
were doing it? Because I did it. Boy, here's my chance to tell them
what a good Christian I've been over the last year. Here's what
David wanted to tell. I want to talk about your mighty
acts, oh Lord. I want to proclaim your righteousness,
yours alone. I like it that he put that last
line on there. God's righteousness is not just a part of what we
declare, not even the major part. It's the only righteousness we
declare. It's the only righteousness in
which we have any hope at all. Our righteousness is filthy rags
and is not fit to be taken note of. Oh, but His righteousness, His
righteousness spelled out in clear terms in the life of our
Lord Jesus Christ. God's righteousness displayed
in crystal clarity in the salvation of everyone for whom Christ died. You know, when people set forth
the idea that Jesus Christ died equally for everybody, they don't realize what an insult
they're bringing against God. God's righteous. And if someone
pays your debt, God will never require you to pay it. Justice payment cannot twice
demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand and then again at mine. Those who preach up a what they
call a general redemption that Jesus Christ died and paid the
penalty for all the sins of all people but sooner or later many
maybe even most are going to appear in the presence of God
and God's going to consign them to hell. What's that mean? It
means that God accepted full payment from Jesus Christ But
then he demands these people pay for it too. What kind of
salvation is that? Oh my. His righteousness. Perfect. God's righteousness in accepting
the sacrifice Christ offered. and his righteousness in bringing
to full salvation everyone for whom Christ's blood was shed. That's the righteousness of God. Verse 23, my lips will shout
for joy when I sing praise to you, I whom you have redeemed. My tongue will tell of your righteous
acts all day long for those who wanted to harm me, my sins. Oh, what an army that is. Awful in size. Awful in their disgustingness. And they stand there arrayed
against me. every one of them an accusation and a just accusation
against me. The accuser, the brethren, brings
them all into my mind and brings them all unto the throne of God
to destroy me. All those who wanted to harm
me have been put to shame. In the book of Revelation, it
says that the dragon, representing the devil, And the beast, representing
the powers of earth and the powers of false religion. And the great
prostitute, representing the world and all
of its seductive powers as it tries to draw people away from
Christ. These three, what happened to
them? They were all cast into the lake of fire. And for all
their rage against the people of God, they were never able
to deprive our Lord Jesus of one of his sheep. You say, I'm not old yet. Old relative. I remember when I first got a
set of glasses, doctor told me, you've got presbyopia. Well,
I knew from Greek what presbyteros means. It means elder. And so
presbyopia strictly means old eyes. He said, the thing is that
was considered to be 35 to 40 years old then. When do we get
old? Pretty fast. And it's good to
recognize that in our natural state we are as the old from
the very beginning. We are without strength, without
power. But you whose hope is in the
Lord, he's not gonna cast you away, he's not gonna forsake
you. You are much more likely to forsake him than he is ever
to forsake you. And when you forsake him, he's
got a long arm. You hear about the long arm of
the law, this is the long arm of grace. Wherever you roam,
it reaches and pulls you back. He will not let you go. He will
not let you die. As Job said, I know that my Redeemer lives.
In the latter day, he shall stand upon the earth. And though with
regard to my body, worms shall eat my flesh, yet In my flesh,
I shall see God. Not with another's eyes, but
with my own. Why is that? We get old. God never does. God bless it
be his name. Eric.