The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 92:14
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.
The fruitfulness of aged Christians considered and urged
I. The duty of the righteous.
1. The fruits which may be expected of them. Knowledge, holiness, patience, meekness, quietness of spirit, renunciation of the world, preparedness for death, a heavenly conversation, also a deep concern for the honour of God, the support of religion, and the good of mankind.
2. How reasonable it is, that such fruits should be found in them.
(1) From the nature of religion, as a vital principle, or the Divine life in the soul. True grace is growing. “A well of water springing up unto everlasting life.”
(2) Through the natural force of habit and custom. Having been so long in Christ’s school, we reasonably expect that they should have made a great progress in knowledge and religious skill: that they will be expert in the exercises of devotion; have a greater command of their passions and tongues, than younger persons; and not be, like them, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, or the sport of vanity and temptation.
(3) They have more advantages and fewer temptations than others.
(4) They may expect peculiar assistances from the Spirit of God, in proportion to their many prayers and improvements.
II. The privilege and happiness of the righteous. “They shall flourish,” etc. Time, which impairs their strength and everything else in the natural world, shall improve their graces, meliorate or refine their fruit. And this they are to expect from Divine influences attending the means of grace. The faithfulness of God is engaged to do this. Therefore the psalmist adds, “to show that the Lord is upright,” or faithful to His promises. He then subjoins his own testimony to the truth of this: “He is my rock;” I have found Him kind, powerful and faithful in supporting the religious life in my soul, under all my difficulties and trials; and you will also find that “there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
III. Application.
1. Let aged Christians labour after greater fruitfulness.
(1) For your own peace and comfort.
(2) For the honour of God and your profession.
(3) For an example and encouragement to others.
2. They who would bring forth fruit in old age must begin betimes to do so.
3. Learn the great usefulness of public ordinances. (Job Orton, D.D.)
Old age
I. Let us look at some of these inevitable experiences of advancing years, which evince the need of some principle of greenness and vitality beyond the power of time or of earthly change. In the first place, if we live long, we must outlive the keen enjoyment of mere pleasure,--of the lighter and gayer portions of life. The feeling rapidly grows upon one, that the game of life is too doubtful, and its stakes too desperate, for trifling; and many of the voices, much of the laughter, which used to make him glad, and on which in early life his free soul could float forth in entire sympathy, have become as vapid as the crackling of thorns. With regard to the more serious pursuits of life, a man very early ascertains and exhausts the capacities of his condition, knows all that he is likely to be and do, and sees but little unattained for which he can reasonably hope. Golden visions have grown dim, wide and far-reaching prospects have been narrowed, and the horizon is fast shutting in on every side. The foremost places in society, the commanding posts in public life, are constantly usurped by younger and still younger claimants, so that instead of the fathers are the children and the children’s children. Then, again, though the domestic life of the aged is often serene and happy, it is made so only by the hallowing power of a higher world; for, in an early point of view, it is but little that we can promise ourselves in declining years as to our social and domestic relations.
II. Let us look at some of those things which we shall need for our happiness, under the full consciousness of declining years. In the first place, we must feel that we have lived for some worthy purpose, accomplished some satisfying and permanent results, laid up some treasure that cannot be taken from us. Let us walk with God now,--and then, should the days come when we can no longer walk with men, we shall still retain our hidden life with Him; and in hoary winter, when the harvest of our earthly life has passed, and its sheaves are all gathered in, the fruits of piety shall still be ripening for a better harvest in heaven. Again, would we enjoy a happy old age, let us make kindness and love the law of our lips and our lives. Let us bind ourselves by ties of mutual benefit with as many of our fellow-beings as we may. Again, would we pass a happy old age, let us not forsake the communion of our departed friends. Let us learn of the spirit of Jesus to regard those who have gone as still near and with us, as separated from us but by a thin veil, which faith may make transparent, and as forming a goodly company to welcome us to our final rest, and to shed over the majestic courts of heaven a familiar, homelike aspect. (A. P. Peabody.)
Improvement
The Bible is always telling Christian people to go forwards--to grow--to become wiser and stronger, better and better day by day; that they ought to become better and better, because they can, if they choose, improve. This text tells us so; it says that we shall bring forth more fruit in our old age. Now, what does all this mean? It means that the life of our souls is in some respects like the life of a plant; and therefore, that as plants grow, so our souls are to grow. Why do you plant anything, but in order that it may grow, and become larger, strong, bear flower and fruit? Be sure God has planted us in His garden, Christ’s Church, for no other reason. Why has God given us senses, eyes, and ears, and understanding? That by them we may feed our souls with things which we see and hear--things which are going on in the world round us. But is this enough? Consider, again, God’s example which He has given us--a tree. If you keep stripping all the leaves off a tree as fast as they grow, what becomes of it? It dies, because without leaves it cannot get nourishment from the air, and the rain, and the sunlight. Again, if you shut up a tree, where it can get neither rain, air, not light, what happens? The tree certainly dies, though it may be planted in the very richest soil, and have the very strongest roots: and why?--because it can get no food from the sky above. So with our souls. We must be fed, and strengthened, and satisfied, with the grace of God from above--with the Spirit of God. Consider how the Bible speaks of God’s Spirit as the breath of God; showing us that as without the airs of heaven the tree would become stunted and cankered, so our souls will without the fresh purifying breath of God’s Spirit. Again, God’s Spirit is often spoken of in Scripture as dew and rain. His grace, or favour, we read, is as dew on the grass; and again, that God shall come unto us as the rain, as the former and latter rain upon the earth; and again, speaking of the outpourings of God’s Spirit on His Church, the psalmist says (Psalms 72:6); and to show us that as the tree puts forth buds and leaves, and tender wood, when it drinks in the dew and rains, so our hearts will become tender, and bud out into good thoughts and wise resolves, when God’s Spirit fills them with His grace. (C. Kingsley, M.A.)
Fruit in old age
A cynical statesman said, with more, perhaps, than a grain of truth, “youth is an illusion; manhood a blunder; old age a regret.” So it may be; so it is--in a life of godlessness. But in such a life only. “The righteous shall flourish,” etc.
I. The fruits of testimony to God--the witness which a matured Christian bears to Him as the God of our salvation.
1. There is testimony to His faithfulness, to the sure foundation of His Word, especially the Word of His Promise. We are the children of promise, and have to live by it. Is the promise true? Can it be trusted? Will God never fail? The aged among us know that He and His word abide for ever.
2. Testimony to the righteousness of God’s government. He is equitable and just, without respect of persons, showing displeasure to the wicked and favour to the righteous.
3. Testimony to the joy of the Christian life, to the blessedness of fellowship with Christ. Like other men they have been tried and tempted; but how readily will they testify that these experiences could not separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord.
II. Fruitfulness is also seen in the inwrought graces of the soul, in the virtues and excellences to which the righteous attain. The life of a Christian man is a growth. He gradually leaves behind him the weaknesses and imperfections of youth.
1. You will generally see in old age a nobler and more perfect patience, not a dull acquiescence in a fate that cannot be averted, but an intelligent, glad submission to the will of a Father who is loved.
2. We often see a generous, unselfish interest in those who shall come after them, interest in work which cannot benefit themselves; the promotion of Christian aims and industries the fruit of which they cannot live to see.
3. The power of Christian hope.
4. The grace of spiritual preparedness, of meetness for the heavenly inheritance, readiness to depart and be with Christ. This God gives before the summons is delivered, so that His people shall not be taken unawares. (J. Stuart.)
Triumphs of old men
Lord Palmerston the famous statesman, when he was sixty-eight, began to feel that he was old, and said: “I am getting old; I will be laid aside. There will be no further use for me.” But Lord Palmerston went to a library in order to find some particular subject, and while looking for it, he took down the life of Wesley, and found that Wesley preached and taught with unabated strength when he was eighty-six years old. Palmerston’s hopes began to rise, and then he happened to hit on the life of Care, and found that Care influenced the world more after he was eighty years of age than during all his previous life. Then Lord Palmerston found in the same library on the same day the life of Julius Caesar, and he read that Julius Caesar had never been a soldier and had never visited a military camp until forty-nine years of age. According to Lord Palmerston, he learned that there had been wrought out in human life the greatest things man has ever done between fifty and sixty years of age. Then he declared: “I did not get what I went to the library to secure, but I secured what was far better--hope.”