Isaiah 46:4
“And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
Those will be peculiar circumstances under which I shall stand up to address
the people next Tuesday; circumstances which perhaps seldom occur,-possibly
may never have occurred before. It might have been more in order that the
aged minister should himself address the people; but nevertheless, as it is
his own choice, so it must be; and I shall draw my consolation from the third
verse, where it is declared, that though God be the God of the close of our
life, yet he is also the God of its beginning. He carries us from the very
womb; therefore the child may trust in God, as well as the grey head; and he
who giveth special blessings to the hoary hairs does also crown the head of
the young with his perpetual favor, if they be his children.
"Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you."
Will you allow me to expound the doctrine of this text, and then to show you
how it is carried out, especially in the time of old age?
I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TEXT I hold to be, the constancy of God's love, its
perpetuity, and its unchangeable nature. God declares that he is not simply
the God of the young saint; that he is not simply the God of the middle-aged
saint: but that he is the God of the saints in all their ages from the cradle
to the tomb. "Even to old age I am he;" or, as Lowth beautifully and more
properly translates it: "Even to old age I am the same, and even to hoary
hairs will I carry you."
The doctrine, then is twofold: that God himself is the same, whatever may be
our age; and that God's dealings towards us, both in providence and in grace,
his carryings and his deliverings, are alike unchanged.
As to the first part of the doctrine, that God himself is unchanged when we
come to old age, surely I have no need to prove that. Abundant testimonies of
Scripture declare God to be an immutable being, upon whose brow there is no
furrow of old age, and whose strength is not enfeebled by the lapse of ages;
but if we need proofs, we might look even abroad on nature, and we should
from nature guess that God would not change during the short period of our
mortal life. Seemeth it unto me a hard thing, that God should be the same for
seventy years, when I find things in nature that have retained the same
impress and image for many more years? Behold the sun! The sun that led our
fathers to their daily labour, lighteth us still; and the moon by night is
unchanged,-the self-same satellite, glittering with the light of her master,
the sun. Are not the rocks the same? And are there not many ancient trees,
which remain well night the same for multitudes of years, and outlive
centuries? Is not the earth, for the most part, the same? Have the stars lost
their light? Do not the clouds still pour their rain upon the earth? Does not
the ocean still beat with its one great pulse of ebb and flow? Do not the
winds still howl, or breathe in gentle gales upon the earth? Doth not the sun
still shine? Do not plants grow as heretofore? Hath the harvest changed? Hath
God forgotten his covenant of day and night? Hath he yet brought another
flood upon the earth? Doth it not still stand in the water and out of the
water? Surely, then, if changing nature, made to pass away in a few more
years, and to be "dissolved with fervent heat," remains the same through the
cycles of seventy years, may we not believe that God, who is greater than
nature, the creator of all worlds, would still remain the same God, through
so brief a period? Does not that suffice? Then, we have another proof. Had we
a new God, we should not have the Scriptures: had God changed, then we should
need a new Bible. But the Bible which the infant readeth is the Bible of the
grey head; the Bible which I carried with me to my Sunday School, I shall sit
in my bed to read, when, hoary-headed, all strength shall fail save that
which is divine. The promise which cheered me in the young morning of life,
when first I consecrated myself to God, shall cheer me when my eyes are dim
with age, and when the sunlight of heaven lights them up, and I see bright
visions of far-off worlds, where I hope to dwell for ever. The word of God is
still the same; there is not one promise removed. The doctrines are the same;
the truths are the same; all God's declarations remain unchanged for ever;
and I argue, from the very fact that his years do not change him. Look at our
worship-is not that the same? Oh! hoary heads! well can ye remember how ye
were carried to God's house in your childhood; and ye heard the self-same
hymns that now ye hear. Have they lost their savour? Have they lost their
music? At times, when prayer is offered, ye remember that your ancient pastor
prayed the same petition fifty years ago; but the petition is as good as
ever. It is still unchanged; it is the same praise, the same prayer, the same
expounding, the same preaching. All our worship is the same. And with many it
is the same house of God, where first they were dedicated to God in baptism.
Surely, my brethren, if God had changed, we should have been obliged to make
a new form of worship; if God had not been immutable, we should have needed
to have sacrificed our sacred service to some new method; but since we find
ourselves bowing like our fathers, with the same prayers, and canting the
same psalms, we rightly believe that God himself must be immutable.
But we have better proofs than this that God is still unchanged. We learn
this from the sweet experience of all the saints. They testify that the God
of their youth is the God of their later years. They own that Christ "hath
the dew of his youth." When they saw him first, as the bright and glorious
Immanuel, they thought him "altogether lovely;" and when they see him now,
they see not one beauty faded, and not one glory departed: he is the self-
same Jesus. When they first rested themselves on him, they thought his
shoulders strong enough to carry them; and they find those shoulders still as
mighty as ever. They thought at first his bowels did melt with love, and that
his heart was beating high with mercy; and they find it is still the same.
God is unchanged; and therefore they "are not consumed." They put their trust
in him, because they have not yet marked a single alteration in him. His
character, his essence, his being, and his deeds are all the same; and,
moreover, to crown all, we cannot suppose a God, if we cannot suppose a God
immutable. A God who changed would be no God. We could not grasp the idea of
Deity if we once allowed our minds to take in the thought of mutability. From
all these things, then, we conclude that "even from old age he is the same,
and that even to hoary hairs he will carry us."
2. The other side of the doctrine is this, not only that God is the same in
his nature, but that he is the same in his dealings; that he will carry us
the same, that he will deliver us the same, that he will bear us the same as
he used to do. And here, also, we need scarcely to prove to you that God's
dealings towards his children are the same, especially when I remind you that
God's promises are made not to age, but to people, to persons, and to men. It
has been recently declared by some ministers, that certain ages are more
likely to be converted than other ages. We have heard persons state, that
should a man outlive thirty years of life, if he has heard the Gospel, he is
not at all likely to be saved; but we believe a more palpable, bare-faced lie
was never uttered in the pulpit, for we have, ourselves, known multitudes who
have been saved at forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, and even bordering on the
grave at eighty. We find some promises in the Bible made to some particular
conditions; but the main, the great, the grand promises, are made to sinners
as sinners; they are made to the elect, to the chosen ones, irrespective of
their age or condition. We hold, that the man who is old, can be justified in
the same way as the way who is young; that the robe of Christ is broad enough
to cover the strong full-grown man as well as the little child. We believe
the blood of Christ avails to wash out seventy years, as well as seventy days
of sin; that "with God there is no respect of persons," that all ages are
alike to him, and that "whosoever cometh unto Christ, he will in no wise case
out," and sure we are, that all the good things of the Bible are as good at
one time as at another. The perfect robe of righteousness that I wear, will
that change by years? The sanctification of the Spirit, will that be
destroyed by years? The promises, will they shake? The covenant, will that be
dissolved? I can suppose that the everlasting hills shall melt; I can dream
that the eternal mountains shall be dissolved, like the snow upon their
peaks; I can conceive that the ocean may be licked up with tongues of forked
flame; I can suppose the sun stopped in his career; I can imagine the moon
turned into blood; I can conceive the stars falling from the vault of night;
I can imagine "the wreck of nature and the crash of worlds;" but I cannot
conceive the change of a single mercy, a single covenant blessing, a single
promise, or a single grace, which God bestows upon his people, for I find
every one of them in itself stamped with immutability, and I have no reason
to put this merely upon guess-work. I find, when I turn over the whole Bible
that the experience of the saints, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand
years ago, was just the same as the experience of the saints now; and if I
find God's mercy is unchanged from David's time till mine, can I conceive
that God, who lasts the same for thousands, would change during the brief
period of seventy? Nay, still we hold that he will carry us, and he will bear
us in old age as well as in our youth. But, besides that, we have living
witnesses, living testimonies. I could fetch up from the ground floor of this
place, and from the galleries, not one or two, but twenty, yea a hundred
living witnesses, who, rising up, would tell you that God doth carry them
now, as he did of old, and that he still doth bear them. I need not appeal to
my friends, or they would stand up in their pews, and with tears trickling
down their cheeks, they would say, "Young men, young women, trust your God!
he hath not forsaken me!" I find that-
"Even down to old age, all his people do prove,
His sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs do their temples adorn,
Like lambs they now still in his bosom are borne."
Ask yon aged friend, ask any aged Christian, whether he finds God has, in the
least forsaken him, and you will see him shake his head, and hear him say, "O
young man, if I had another seventy years to live, I would trust him still,
for I have not found him fail all the way that the Lord God hath led me. Not
one promise hath failed, but all hath come to pass;" and I think I see him
lifting up his hand in the midst of the assembly, and saying, "I have nothing
to regret but my sin. If I had to live over again, I should only want to put
myself into the hands of the same Providence, to be led and directed by the
self-same grace." Beloved, we need not prove to you farther, for living
witnesses do testify, that God carries out his promise, "I have made and will
bear; even I will carry and deliver you."
II. But now we come to our real subject, which is, to consider THE TIME OF
OLD AGE AS A SPECIAL PERIOD, and to mark, therefore, the constancy of divine
love-that God bears and succours his servants in their later years. I cannot
imagine or dream that I need offer any apology for preaching to aged people.
If I were in sundry stupid circles where people call themselves ladies and
gentlemen, and always want to conceal their ages, I might have some
hesitation; but I have nothing to do with that here. I call an old man, an
old man, and an old woman, an old woman; whether they think themselves old or
not is nothing to me. I guess they are, if they are getting anyway past
sixty, on to seventy or eighty. Old age is a time of peculiar memories, of
peculiar hopes, of peculiar solicitudes, of peculiar blessedness, and of
peculiar duties; yet in all this, God is the same, although man be peculiar.
(1.) First, old age is a time of peculiar memory; in fact, it is the age of
memory. We young men talk of remembering such-and-such things a certain time
ago; but what is our memory, compared to our father's? Our father looks back
on three or four times the length of time over which we cast our eyes. What a
peculiar memory the old man has! How many joys he can remember! How many
times has his heart beat high with rapture and blessedness! How many times
has his house been gladdened with plenty! How many harvest homes has he seen!
How many treadings of the vintage! How many times has he heard the laugh run
round the ingle fire! How many times have his children shouted in his ear,
and rejoiced around him! How many times have his own eyes sparkled with
delight! How many hill Mizars has he seen! How many times has he had sweet
banquetting with the Lord! How many periods of communion with Jesus! How many
hallowed services hath he attended! How many songs of Zion hath he sung! How
many answered prayers have gladdened his spirit! How many happy deliverances
have made him laugh for joy! When he looks back, he can string his mercies
together by the thousand! and looking upon them all, he can say, though he
will think of many troubles that he has had to pass through, "Surely,
goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." God hath been
with him to hoary hairs, and even to old age he hath carried him. His joys he
looks back upon as proof of God's constancy.
And how many griefs hath he had! How many times hath that old man been to the
chamber of sickness! How many times hath that aged sister been stretched on
the bed of affliction! How many diseases can he or she look back upon! How
many hours of bitter travail and pain! How many seasons of trouble,
infirmity, and approachings to the grave? How many times hath the old man
tottered very near that bourne from which no traveller can return? How many
times hath he had the Father's rod upon his shoulders? And yet, looking back
upon all, he can say, "Even to old age he is the same; and even to hoary
hairs he hath carried me." How frequently, took, hath that old man gone to
the grave where he hath buried many he has loved? There, perhaps, he has laid
a beloved wife, and he goes to weep there; or, the husband sleeps, while the
wife is yet alive. Sons and daughters, too, that old man can remember-
snatched away to heaven almost as soon as they were born; or, perhaps,
permitted to live until their prime, and then cut down just in their youthful
glory. How many of the old friends he hath welcomed to his fireside hath he
buried? How frequently has he been forced to exclaim, "Though friends have
departed, yet 'there is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother,' on him
I still trust, and to him I still commit my soul."
And mark, moreover, how many times temptation hath shattered that venerable
saint! how many conflicts hath he had with doubts and fears! how many
wrestlings with the enemy! how often he hath been tempted to forsake his
faith! how frequently he hath had to stand in the thickest part of the
battle; but yet he has been preserved by mercy, and not quite cut down. He
has been enabled to persevere in the heavenly road. How travel-sore are his
feet! how blistered by the roughness of the way, but he can tell you, that
notwithstanding all these things, Christ hath "kept him till this day, and
will not let him go;" and his conclusion is, "even to old age God hath been
the same, and even to hoary hairs he hath carried him."
There is one said reflection which we are obliged to mention when we look
upon the bald head of the aged saint, and that is, how many sins he hath
committed! Ah! my beloved, however pure may have been your lives, you will be
obliged to say, "Oh! how have I sinned, in youth, in middle age, and even
when infirmities have gathered around me! Would to God I had been holy! How
often have I forsaken God! how frequently have I wandered from him! alas! how
often have I provoked him! How frequently have I doubted his promises, when I
had no cause whatever to distrust him! how frequently has my tongue sinned
against my heart! how constantly have I violated all I knew to be good and
excellent! I am forced to say now, in my grey old age,-
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling."
I am still-
"A monument of grace,
A sinner saved by blood"
I have no hope now, save in the blood of Christ, and can only wonder how it
is that Christ could have preserved me so long. Truly, I can say, "Even to
old age he is the same, and even to hoary hairs he hath carried me."
(2.) The aged man, too, hath peculiar hopes. He hath no such hopes as I or my
young friends here. He hath few hopes of the future in this world; they are
gathered up into a small space, and he can tell you, in a few words, what
constitutes all his expectation and desire. But he has one hope, and that is
the very same which he had when he first trusted in Christ; it is a hope
"undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them that are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation." Let me talk a little of
that hope, and you will see from it that the Christian is the same as ever he
was; and even down to hoary hairs God deals the same with him. My venerable
brother, what is the ground of thy hope? Is it not the same as that which
animated thee when thou wast first united with the Christian Church? Thou
saidst then, "My hope is in the blood of Jesus Christ." I ask thee, brother,
what is thy hope now, and I am sure thou wilt answer, "I do not hope to be
saved because of my long service, nor because of my devotedness to God's
cause."
"All my hope on Christ is staid,
All my help from him I bring:
He covers my defenceless head
With the shadow of his wing."
And, my brother, what is the reason of thy hope? If thou art asked what
reason thou hast to believe thou art a Christian, thou wilt say, "The self-
same reason I gave at the Church-meeting." When I came before it, I said,
then "I believe myself to be a child of God, because I feel myself to be a
sinner, and God has given me grace to put my trust in Jesus." I think that is
all the reason you have to believe yourself a child of God now. At times you
have some evidence, as you call it; but there are hours when your graces and
virtues are obscured, and you cannot see them, for gloomy doubts prevail, and
you will confess, I am sure, that the only way to get rid of your doubts will
be, to come and say, again-
"A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Christ's kind arms I fall;
He's still my strength and righteousness,
My Saviour and my all."
And the object or end of hope, is not that the same? What was your hope when
you first went to the wicket gate? Why, your hope was that you might arrive
at the land of the blessed. And is it not the same now? Is your hope of
heaven changed? Do you wish for anything else, or for anything better? "No,"
you will say, "I thought when I started I should one day be with Jesus; that
is what I expect now. I feel that my hope is precisely the same. I want to be
with Jesus, to be like him, and to see him as he is." And is not the joy of
that hope just the same? How glad you used to be when your minister preached
about heaven, and told you of its pearly gates and streets of shining gold!
and has it lost any of its beauty in your eyes now? Do you not remember, that
in your father's house, at family prayer, one night, they sang,-
"Jerusalem, my happy home,
Name, ever dear to me!
When shall my labors have an end.
In joy, and peace, and thee"?
Cannot you sing that now? Do you want any other city besides Jerusalem? Do
you remember how they used to rise up sometimes in the house of God, when you
were children, and sing,-
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye!"
Will not that hymn do for you now even better than it did for you then? You
can now sing it, as your old father used to sing it, with a firm heart, and
yet with a quivering lip. The hope that ravished you then ravishes you now.
You start at the same watchword. Heaven is your home still.
"There your best friends, your kindred dwell,
There, God your Saviour reigns."
Does not all this prove, again, that though our hopes are somewhat more
contracted than they were, yet "God is still the same, and even to hoary
hairs he will carry us."
(3.) Again, old age is a time of peculiar solicitude. An old man is not
anxious about self. He hath not the cares of starting in business, as he once
had. He hath no children to launch out in business. He hat not to cast his
anxious eyes on his little family. But his solicitude hath somewhat increased
in another direction. He hath more solicitude about his bodily frame than he
once had. He cannot now run as he used to do; but he must walk with more
sober gait. He fears every now and then that the pitcher will be "broken at
the cistern;" for "the noise of the grinders is low." He hath no longer that
strength of desire he once possessed; his body begins to totter, to shake,
and to quiver. The old tenement has stood these fifty years; and who expects
a house to last for ever? A bit of mortar has gone off from one place, and a
lath out of another; and when a little wind comes to shake it about, he is
ready to cry out, "The earthly house of my tabernacle is about to be
dissolved." But I told you before, this peculiar solicitude is but another
proof of divine faithfulness; for now that you have little pleasure in the
flesh, do you not find that God is just the same? and that, though the days
are come when you can say, "I have no pleasure in them," yet the days are not
come when you can say, "I have no pleasure in him;" but, on the contrary,
"Though all created streams are dry,
His goodness is the same:
With this you still are satisfied,
And glory in his name."
If he had only been your God when you were a strong young man, you might have
thought that he loved you for what you could do for him; but, now you have
become a poor worn-out pensioner, have you any better proof that he is an
unchanging God, because he loves you when you can do so little for him? I
tell you, even your bodily pains are but proofs of his love; for he is taking
down your old tenement stick by stick, and is building it up again in
brighter worlds, never to be taken down any more.
And remember, too, there is another solicitude-a failure of mind, as well as
of body. There are many remarkable instances of old men, who have been as
gifted in their old age as in their youth; but with the majority the mind
becomes somewhat impaired, especially the memory. They cannot remember what
was done yesterday, although it is a singular fact that they can remember
what was done fifty, sixty, or seventy years ago. They forget much which they
would wish to remember; but still they find that their God is just the same;
they find that his goodness does not depend on their memory; that the
sweetness of his grace does not depend upon their palate. When they can
remember but little of the sermon, they still feel that it leaves as good an
impression on their heart as when they were strong in their memories; and
thus they have another proof that God, even when their mind faileth a little,
carries them down to their hoar hairs, their old age, and that to them he is
ever the same.
But the chief solicitude of old age is death. Young men may die soon. Old men
must die. Young men, if they sleep, sleep in a siege; old men, if they sleep,
sleep in an attack, when the enemy has already made a breach, and is storming
the castle. A greyheaded old sinner is a greyheaded old fool; but an aged
Christian is an aged wise man. But even the Christian hath peculiar
solicitudes about death. He knows he cannot be a long way from his end. He
feels that, even in the course of nature, apart from what is called
accidental death, there is no doubt but in a few more years he must stand
before his God. He thinks he may be in heaven in ten or twenty years; but how
short do those ten or twenty years appear! He does not act like a man who
thinks a coach is a long way off, and he may take his time; but he is like
one who is about to go a journey, and hears the post-horn blowing down the
street, and is getting ready. His one solicitude now is, to examine himself
whether he is in the faith. He fears that if he is wrong now, it will be
terrible to have spent all his life dabbling in profession, and to find at
last that he hath got nothing for his pains, except a mere empty name, which
must be swept away by death. He feels now how solemn a thing the Gospel is;
he feels the world to be as nothing; he feels that he is near the bar of
doom. But still, beloved, mark, God's faithfulness is the same; for if he be
nearer death, he has the sweet satisfaction that he is nearer heaven; and if
he has more need to examine himself than ever, he has also more evidence
whereby to examine himself, for he can say, "Well, I know that on such-and-
such an occasion the Lord heard my prayer; at such-and-such a time he
manifested himself to me, as he did not unto the world," and, though
examination presses more upon the old, still they have greater materials for
it. And here, again, is another proof of this grand truth. "Even unto old age
I am the same," says God; "and even to hoar hairs will I carry you."
(4.) And now, once more, old age hath its peculiar blessedness. Some time ago
I stepped up to an old man whom I saw when preaching at an anniversary, and I
said to him, "Brother, do you know there is no man in the whole chapel I envy
so much as you!" "Envy me," he said-"why, I am eighty-seven." I said, "I do,
indeed; because you are so near your home, and because I believe that in old
age there is a peculiar joy, which we young people do not taste at present.
You have got to the bottom of the cup, and it is not with God's wine as it is
with man's. Man's wine becomes dregs at the last, but God's wine is sweeter
the deeper you drink of it." He said, "That's very true, young man," and
shook me by the hand. I believe there is a blessedness about old age that we
young men know nothing of. I will tell you how that is. In the first place,
the old man has a good experience to talk about. The young men are only just
trying some of the promises; but the old man can turn them over one by one,
and say, "There, I have tried that, and that, and that." We read them over
and say, "I hope they are true;" but the old man says, "I know they are
true." And then he begins to tell you why. He has got a history for everyone,
like a soldier for his medals; and he takes them out, and says, "I will tell
you when the Lord revealed that to me; just when I lost my wife: just when I
buried my son; just when I was turned out of my cottage, and did not get work
for six weeks; or, at another time, when I broke my leg." He begins telling
you the history of the promises, and says, "There, now. I know they are all
true." What blessed thing, to look upon them as paid notes; to bring out the
old cheques that have been cashed and say, "I know they are genuine, or else
they would not have been paid." Old people have not the doubts young people
have about the doctrine. Young people are apt to doubt; but when they get
old, they begin to get solid and firm in the faith. I love to get some of my
old brethren, to talk with me concerning the good things of the kingdom. They
do not hold the truth with their two fingers, as some of the young men do;
but they get right hold of it, and nobody can take it from their grasp.
Rowland Hill once somewhat lost his way in a sermon, and he turned to this
text-"Oh, Lord, my heart is fixed." "Young men," he said, "there is nothing
like having your hearts fixed. I have been all these years seeking the Lord;
now my heart is fixed. I never have any doubts now about election, or any
other doctrine. If man brings me a new theory, I say, 'Away with it!' I stand
hard and fast by the truth alone." An old gentleman wrote me a little time
ago, and said I was a little too high. He said he believed the same doctrine
as I do, but he did not think so when he was as old as I am. I told him it
was just as well to begin right as to end right, and it was better to be
right at the beginning than to have to rub off so many errors afterwards. An
old countryman once came to me, and said, "Ah! young man, you have had too
deep a text; you handled it well enough, but it is an old man's text, and I
felt afraid to hear you announce it." I said, "Is God's truth dependant on
age? If the thing is true, it is just as well to hear it from me as from any
one else; and if you can hear it better anywhere else, you have got the
opportunity." Still, he did not think that God's precious truths were
suitable to young people; but I hold they are suitable to all God's children;
therefore I love to preach them. But how blessed it is to come to a position
in life where you have good anchorage for your faith,-where you can say,
"Should all the forms that hell devise,
Assail my faith with treacherous art."
I shall not be very polite to them-
"I'll call them vanity of lies,
And bind the Gospel to my heart."
And I think there are peculiar joys which the old Christian has, of another
sort; and that is, he has peculiar fellowship with Christ, more than we have.
At least, if I understand John Bunyan rightly, I think he tells us that when
we get very near to heaven there is a very glorious land. "They came into the
country of Beulah, whose air was very sweet and pleasant; the way lying
directly through it, they solaced themselves there for a season. Yes, here
they heard continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the flowers
appear on the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the land. In this
country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the valley
of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach of Giant Despair; neither
could they from this place so much as see Doubting-castle. Here they were
within sight of the City they were going to: also here met them some of the
inhabitants thereof: for in this land the shining ones commonly walked,
because it was upon the borders of heaven. In this land also the contract
between the Bride and the Bridegroom was renewed; yea, here, 'as the
bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so doth their God rejoice over them.'
Here they had not want of corn and wine; for in this place they met with
abundance of what they had sought for in all their pilgrimages. Here they
heard voices from out of the City, loud voices, saying, 'Say ye to the
daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh! Behold, His reward is with
him!' Here all the inhabitants of the country called them, 'the holy people,
the redeemed of the Lord.'" There are peculiar communings, peculiar openings
of the gates of paradise, peculiar visions of glory, just as you come near to
it. It stands to reason that the nearer you get to the bright light of the
celestial city, the clearer shall be the air. And therefore there are
peculiar blessednesses belonging to the old, for they have more of this
peculiar fellowship with Christ. But all this only proves that Christ is the
same; because, when there are fewer earthly joys, he gives more spiritual
ones. Therefore, again, it becomes the fact-"Even to old age I am he; and
even to hoar hairs will I carry you."
(5.) And now, lastly, the aged saint has peculiar duties. There are certain
things which a good man can do, which nobody else ought to do, or can do
well. And that is one proof of divine faithfulness; for he says of his aged
ones, "They shall bring forth fruit in old age;" and so they do. I will just
tell you some of them.
Testimony is one of the peculiar duties of old men. Now, suppose I should get
up, and say, "I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging
bread," some one would reply, "Why, you are not twenty-two yet; what do you
know about it?" But if an old man gets up, and says, "I have been young, and
now am I old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread," with what power that testimony comes! Suppose I say to you,
"Trust in God, with all thy troubles and trials; I can bear witness that he
will not forsake you;" you will reply, "Oh! yes, young man, but you have not
had many troubles; you have not been a child of God above these six years;
how should you know?" But up gets an old Christian-and well do I remember an
ancient Christian rising up at the sacramental table, and saying, "Dear
brethren, we are met again around this table, and I think all an old man can
do is to bear testimony to his master. These five-and-forty years, I have
walked in his truth. Young people, hear what I have to say. He has been my
God these five-and-forty years, and I have no fault to find with him; I have
found religion's ways to be ways of pleasantness, and her paths to be paths
of peace." You know, if you hear an old man talk, you pay greater attention
to what he says, from the fact that he is old. I remember hearing the late
Mr. Jay. I fancy that if I had heard the same sermon preached by a young man,
I should not have thought so much of it; but there appeared such a depth in
it because is came from an old man, standing on the borders of the grave; it
was like an echo of the past, coming to me, to let me hear my God's
faithfulness, that I might trust for the future. Testimony is the duty of old
men and women; they should labour whenever they can to bear testimony to
God's faithfulness, and to declare that now also, when they are old and grey-
headed, their God forsakes them not.
There is another duty which is peculiarly the work of the aged, and that is,
the work of comforting the young believer. There is no one more qualified
that I know of than a kindhearted old men to convert the young. I know that
down in some parts of the country there is a peculiar breed of old man, who
for the good of the Church I heartily hope will soon become extinct. As soon
as they see a young believer, they look at him with suspicion, expecting him
to be a hypocrite; they go off to his house, and find everything
satisfactory; but they say, "I was not so confident as that when I was young;
young man, you must be kept back a bit." Then there are some hard questions
put, and the poor young child of God gets hardly pressed, and is looked upon
with suspicion, because he does not come up to their standard. But the men I
allude to are such as some I have here, with whom I delight to speak, who
tell you not hard things, but utter gentle words: who say, "I was imprudent
when I was a young man. I know that when I was a little child I could not
have answered these questions; I do not expect so much from you as from one
who is a little older." And when the young Christian comes to them they say,
"Do not fear; I have gone through the waters, and they have not overflown me;
and through the fire, and have not been burned. Trust in God; 'for down to
old age he is the same, and to hoar hairs he will carry you.'"
Then there is another work that is the work of the old, and that is, the work
of warning. If an old man were to go out in the middle of the road, and shout
out to you to stop, you would stop sooner than you would if a boy were to do
it; for then you might say, "Out of the way, you young rascal," and go on
still. The warnings of the old have great effect; and it is their peculiar
work to guide the imprudent, and warn the unwary.
Now I have done, except the application. And I want to speak to three classes
of persons.
What a precious thought, young men and women, is contained in this text-"That
even to old age God will be the same to you; and even down to you hoar hairs
he will not forsake you!" You want a safe investment; well, here is an
investment safe enough. A bank may break; but heaven cannot. A rock may be
dissolved, and if I build a house on that it may be destroyed; but if I build
on Christ, my happiness is secure for ever. Young man! God's religion will
last as long as you will; his comforts you will never be able to exhaust in
all your life; but you will find that the bottle of your joys will be as full
when you have been drinking seventy years, as it was when you first began.
Oh! do not buy a thing that will not last you: "eat ye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Oh! how pleasant it is to be a
young Christian! How blessed it is to begin in the early morning to love and
serve God! The best old Christians are those who were once young Christians.
Some aged Christians have but little grace, for this reason-that they were
not young Christians. Oh! I have sometimes thought, that if there is any man
who will have an abundant entrance into heaven, it is the man who in early
life was brought to know the Lord. You know, going into heaven will be like
the ships going into harbour. There will be some tugged in almost by miracle,
"saved so as by fire;" others will be going in just with a sheet or two of
canvas-they will "scarcely be saved!" but there will be some who will go in
with all their canvas up, and unto these "an abundant entrance shall be
ministered into the kingdom of their God and Saviour." Young people! it is
the ship that is launched early in the morning that will get an abundant
entrance, and come into God's haven in full sail.
Now, you middle aged men, you are plunged in the midst of business, and are
sometimes supposing what will become of you in your old age. But is there any
promise of God to you when you suppose about to-morrows? You say, "Suppose I
should live to be as old as so-and-so, and be a burden upon people, I should
not like that." Don't get meddling with God's business; leave his decrees to
him. There is many a person who thought he would die in a workhouse, that has
died in a mansion; and many a woman that thought she would die in the
streets, has died in her bed, happy and comfortable, singing of providential
grace and everlasting mercy. Middle aged man! listen to what David says,
again, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Go on, then, unsheath thy sword once
more. "The battle is the Lord's;" leave thy declining years to him, and give
thy present years to him. Live to him now, and he will never cast you away
when you are old. Do not lay up for old age and keep back from the cause of
God; but rather trust God for the future. Be "diligent in business;" but take
care you do not hurt your spirit, by being too diligent, by being grasping
and selfish. Remember you will
"Want but little here below,
Nor want that little long."
And lastly, my dear venerable fathers in the faith, and mothers in Israel,
take these words for your joy. Do not let the young people catch you
indulging in melancholy, sitting in your chimney corner, grumbling and
growling, but go about cheerful and happy, and they will think how blessed it
is to be a Christian. If you are surly and fretful, they will think the Lord
has forsaken you; but keep a smiling countenance, and they will think the
promise is fulfilled. "And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar
hairs will I carry you; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and
will deliver you." Do, I beseech you, my venerable friends, try to be of a
happy temperament and cheerful spirit, for a child will run away from a surly
old man; but there is not a child in the world but loves his grand-papa if he
is cheerful and happy. You can lead us to heaven if you have got heaven's
sunlight on your face; but you will not lead us at all if you are cross and
ill-tempered, for then we shall not care about your company. Make yourselves
merry with the people of God, and try to live happily before men; for so will
you prove to us-to a demonstration, that even to old age God is with you, and
that when your strength faileth, he is still your preservation. May God
Almighty bless you, for the Saviour's sake! Amen.https://www.biblebb.com/
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