Older people become a treasure, a tremendous blessing. They bring spiritual experience, spiritual strength, spiritual endurance, spiritual wisdom to all of us, but only if they walk in the way of righteousness. And that's why the instruction of Titus verses 2 and 3 in chapter 2 is so very, very important. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. No doubt you're familiar with uprisings that occurred in the Middle East and Africa and other areas, with people there challenging those who are in power. Yet as significant as those protests may be, they aren't as world-changing as the revolution John MacArthur looks at today. A revolution that's not about politics, but it's about the lifestyle God calls us to live as Christians. The lesson you're about to hear is part of John's study from Titus 2 called, Revolutionary Living in a Dark Culture. And to show you why following the Bible's standards for women and men makes you, well, revolutionary, here's John.
Titus chapter 2, and let me just read verses 2 and 3. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. Now obviously the message this morning is going to be addressed to older men and older women.
And I think that's a very fitting subject, particularly for our time and place in history. Material comfort, medical care, and a low birth rate have led America to what is called the graying of America and an old population. They tell us in 25 years, one out of every five people will be over 65 and one out of every ten will be over 80. The graying of America. We know it's here.
We see it all around us. I suppose in some ways we laugh at it. Bob Hope said, do you know you're old when the candles cost more than the cake?
And Agatha Christie wrote on one occasion that she married an archaeologist and someone asked, why would you marry an archaeologist? To which she replied, because the older I get, the more he'll appreciate me. And we want to have a humorous approach to that. You know, they say there are only three stages in life, youth, adulthood, and my you're looking well.
And when they start saying that to you, you know where you are. But there is some reality to this getting old that is perhaps not quite as humorous. There's a certain sadness in it. We're glad we know what we know as we get older, but we wish we had youth to express it. As someone said, it's a shame that youth was wasted on people so young. There are negative aspects to getting old, that's true. We become creatures of somewhat formidable and unbreakable habits. And the longer we do them, the harder they are to deal with.
Sometimes even our besetting sins become so much a part of the fabric of our lives that even recognition of them becomes difficult. Sometimes we get a little bit obstinate and a little bit stubborn, and sometimes we think we know more than we do know, and sometimes we think age equals wisdom and it doesn't. It should bring wisdom, but it may not be the same thing. No, there are definitely some negative aspects to getting old. In fact, if you want to see a little bit of a prosaic look at what aging is like, you need only to turn to the last chapter of Ecclesiastes.
I would draw you there for just a moment. Ecclesiastes follows the book of Proverbs, and the final chapter is chapter 12, and it gives an insight, I think, into sort of the downside of aging. The writer says in verse 1, remember also your Creator in the days of your youth. Enjoy God while you're young. Know God while you're young. Let God be the central figure in your life while you're young before the evil days come. Well the implication there is that the older you get, the more evil life becomes, the more unfulfilling, the more dissatisfying, the more disillusioning. He calls them the years when you will say, I have no delight in them.
Commit your life to God and enjoy God and make God the center of everything while you're young before you'll not be able to experience all the rich delights of His creation. Part of getting old. Before the sun, the light, the moon, the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain. The cloudy times in life, the more barren and bleak times in life when you're old. And then he gets very prosaic as he writes, the day that the watchmen of the house tremble and the mighty men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few and those who look through windows grow dim and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low and one will arise at the sound of the bird and all the daughters of song will sing softly.
What is he talking about? Well the picture is of a house but it's symbolic of a human body. The watchmen of the house some commentators feel are the arms and the hands, those are the guards, the protectors, the defenders and they start to shake as you get old and the mighty men would be the legs and they begin to stoop and bend. The grinding ones, the teeth stand idle because they are few. This is the day before false teeth and bridges and whatever. Teeth don't work anymore and those who look through windows grow dim. You don't see like you once could see.
The doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low. It could be the slowing down of some kind of internal processes. One arises at the sound of the bird. You don't need an alarm clock anymore. You wake up if there's a bird 50 yards away tweeting in a tree because you sleep so lightly.
You don't sleep as well as you did. All the daughters of song will sing softly. If you bring the whole woman's glee club together and all their shrill soprano voices in full glory, you have to go like this because you can't hear them.
It's all soft sound to you. And verse 5 says, men who aren't afraid of anything become afraid of a high place. Why? Because they're worried about their instability. They're worried they might fall and break some brittle bones. And they're worried about the terrors on the road. As they walk along, they might stumble over a stone and fall and be severely injured.
The almond tree blossoms that probably referring to the white blossoms on an almond tree means the hair grows white. The grasshopper drags himself along. The walk changes. The pace changes.
You used to kind of move along a little bit sprightly and now all of a sudden you're dragging and shuffling. And eventually the man goes to his eternal home and there's a funeral and some people are mourning. And in verse 6 he says, the silver cord is broken. Maybe the spinal cord is referred to there, the golden bull. Maybe that means the brain, the pitcher by the well is shattered.
Maybe that means the heart, the wheel at the cistern is crushed, the veins, the arteries. I'm not sure of all the specific imagery here, but I see it as sort of the demise of a man in his old age and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit goes back to God. Kind of a bleak way to look at old age, but it's reality.
All of us feel it coming. And just because you're growing old, life doesn't have to be bleak. I mean, it's certainly for a Christian to be rewarded as a crowning time of life with a level of spiritual maturity you can't have in your youth. All those who know Christ, all those who have walked with Him for any length of time should look forward to old age because it takes us nearer to heaven, doesn't it? It puts us in a situation where we have accumulated spiritual experience which makes us truly rich. It enables us to be the leaders and the mentors and the models and the examples for the young.
It allows us to filter out life and keep what we think is really valuable. It should be a good time. And you know, in the life of the church, it's really very important to have people who are godly seniors. And that's what Paul is saying to Titus.
Let's go back to Titus. He's saying, you know, as you look at your congregation, Titus, you need to start your instruction with the older people because they're so crucial. So the aging of Christians is a blessing. I think churches today don't understand that. I have heard a couple of comments from people who've gone over to Russia and the Ukraine and come back and said, well, we really can't work through the church over there, they're just a bunch of old people.
That's a terrible, terrible insight into the shallowness of some people's thinking. It's the aged people in the congregation that provide its strength, its stability, and its wisdom. Older believers, should they be in great numbers in the future in the church, are going to make the church a better place, a richer place. The maturity of godliness will be a benediction to the body of Christ. The aging of America means the aging of the church.
The aging of the church could be a great, great blessing. Certainly God has told us to revere those who are older than we are, those who are the aged who have walked with Him. Leviticus 19, 32 says, you shall rise up before the gray-headed and honor the aged. Job 12, 12, wisdom is with the aged, with long life is understanding.
The gray head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. Somebody old who's walked a long time in the path of righteousness is a treasure, a treasure of wisdom and a treasure of experience and a treasure of understanding. A triumphant Christian who has fought the battle over and over and over and been victorious, who has experienced everything that the young are waiting to experience, become a great treasure to the church. In Psalm 71 verse 17, the psalmist says, O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth and I still declare Thy wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me until I declare Thy strength to this generation and Thy power to all who are to come. Give me a ministry in my old age because I can talk about Your strength and I can talk about Your power because I've seen it for so many years.
I've lived it. In Psalm 92, a very similar prayer rises from the heart of the psalmist starting there in verse 12. The righteous man will flourish like a palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still yield fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and very green to declare that the Lord is upright. Those who can best declare the character of God are those who have walked with Him longest. Older people then in a fellowship do become a treasure, a tremendous blessing.
They bring spiritual experience, spiritual strength, spiritual endurance, spiritual wisdom to all of us. And if in the years ahead the church has an abundance of such people, what a source of blessing, but only if they walk in the way of righteousness. And that's why the instruction of Titus verses 2 and 3 in chapter 2 is so very, very important. There's no value in being old if you're not godly. There's no value in being old if you're not a model or an example. And so the Apostle Paul lays down some very specific characteristics that are to be manifest in the older people in the congregation.
Let's look at the men. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Now older men is an interesting word, presbutes. It's a word that means just that, older men. Paul uses it in Philemon, verse 9, when he refers to himself as Paul the aged.
We know he was in his sixties at that time. Perhaps a good definition of it will flow out of Luke 1.18. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, had been told that he would have a son, that his wife would become pregnant and they would have a son, and of course it would be John the Baptist. But Zacharias says, how shall I know this for certain? I mean, this seems impossible.
Why? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years. And he uses the word presbutes there, which would lead us to believe that he is saying an old man is one who is unable to produce a child. So you're talking about an age where child production is no longer the norm.
That's what the word means. It's talking about a man at that point in his life, and again Paul uses it to refer to himself in his sixties. There are some ancient sources such as Philo and Hippocrates that use the term to refer to people over 50.
Somewhere in the 50 and over and 60 and over category, this term comes into play. The Apostle Paul was an old man by this term in his sixties, and somewhere beyond 50 I think we could make this term come into play. So we're talking about that generation of men in the life of the church. Now these men here are called to be spiritually responsible to demonstrate godly character.
This is very important. In fact, it's so important in the church that if they don't do it, they're to be rebuked. Back in 1 Timothy 5, it says, do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father. Now the assumption here is that in the life of the church, older men are going to sin. And that's true. It doesn't mean that because I'm older, I'm over 50, over 60, over 70, or over 80, that all of a sudden I don't sin anymore.
Not so. And it is very reasonable to assume that the very fact that Paul is telling Titus to tell these men to behave this way indicates that there's a real possibility that some of them might not. It is indicated in 1 Timothy 5, 1 that elders may need to be rebuked, older men. They may need to be confronted about their sin. And Paul says, if you do it, don't do it sharply.
That's what he's saying. Don't do it cruelly. The word here, the verb here is used only here, and it means to beat with blows, or to strike with a fist, and metaphorically to abuse verbally, to hammer with words, one lexicon says. So if you're going to rebuke an older man, you don't want to hit him, you don't want to strike him, you don't want to hammer him with words in an unkind, abusive, violent, harsh way.
The verb is related to the Greek word plectes used in chapter 3, and it means a striker or a hitter. You don't want to hit them and strike them and abuse them and be harsh with them. Confronting an older man's sin has to be done without violence and without harsh action.
It must be done graciously and kindly. And then it says right there how to do it in 1 Timothy 5, 1, appeal to him as a father, parakaleo, come alongside and admonish and encourage and appeal to one with the consideration and respect that you would give to your father. General regard for people in their senior years is of grave concern to God, believe me. Very concerned is God about it. How you treat your father is a matter for God to even discuss in the commandments, the Ten Commandments.
In fact, the death penalty was required for disrespect for hitting, striking your father or mother, or for cursing your father or mother, according to Exodus chapter 21, verses 15 and 17. Those who are older are to be treated with kindness and love and honor and respect. So when you confront an older man because of his sin, you do it graciously, you come alongside and appeal to him with the respect that you would give to a father. Now Paul is saying to Titus, you must confront the older men in your congregation and you must call them to this level of spiritual living or else the implication is they must be so talented.
The patriarchs are to be respected but they are to be holy also. And when they are, when the older men in a church are holy, godly men, they will become the mentors and models for level of godliness that will pervade the congregation, including the women and the younger men. Every older man should set as his goal to come to the latter years of his life and be able to say with Paul, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Second Timothy 4.7, every older man should be able to say, I want you to be a follower of me as I am of Christ. Every older man should be able to say to the younger man, let me show you how to live life.
As older men, we should have so much to offer. Paul suggests, first of all, three characteristics, temperate, dignified, and sensible. Let's take the first one, temperate. The word here literally means not drunken, but metaphorically it means moderate, not indulgent, not extravagant. The older man is a man who isn't into excess, who is generally a moderate person. He has learned the high cost of self-indulgent living. He has learned the high cost of filling out all his pleasures, satisfying all his whims, pursuing all his dreams.
And he's now filtered through all of that and he's left a lot of stuff along the path discarded. When he was young, it was a matter of accumulation and as he accumulated, he began to find out what really had value. As a young man, he poured energy into a lot of things. As an older man, he can look back and see where that energy was wasted in so many cases. As a young man, he dreamed a thousand dreams and wanted to accomplish a thousand things and looks back only to a handful of things that had eternal value. As an older man, he has had a myriad of experiences, one after another, day after day, month after month, year after year, and life has been moderated by those experiences. He has found that what he thought he wanted that would give him satisfaction never did and all the possessions and all the accumulation and all the reputation and all the achievement and all the accolades have been somehow set aside on the path of life and discarded because they had no real value. He has come to a right value system.
He has come to be, as a related word puts it, sober-minded, used in 1 Corinthians 15, 34, or as another related word used in 1 Peter, sober in spirit. In other words, he's got his priorities down now. He knows what experiences were valuable and in many cases they were the ones he feared the most and now knows they rendered him the best fruit. They made him the man he is. In many cases, what he didn't want was what was most valuable and what he pursued with all his might was least valuable.
He knows that now. He's filtered life out. And very often when men come to this age in life, although there are certain physical things they need perhaps to increase their comfort level, they have, if they're godly and have walked the path of righteousness, they've really filtered through almost everything. And they should find themselves being reduced to a simpler and simpler and simpler life because they now know what things have real value. They now know what people have real value, what relationships have real value, what efforts have real value. That is absolutely crucial for them to dispense to a younger generation.
Where there is a moderate, nonindulgent, non-extravagant, sober-minded, sober-spirited knowledge of priorities through years and years of experience, you have the wisdom that needs to be passed down. It's like the father who sits with his little children and says, I know you don't understand why. You'll have to trust me for this. You can't do this.
I know why you can't do it. You don't understand why. I've been there.
I'll tell you why. And so these men are to be men who are temperate. Their lives have been reduced to the irreducible minimums of what really matters. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John's lesson today is from his series called Revolutionary Living in a Dark Culture. John, you looked today at a truth that runs counter to so much of what our culture believes. The fact that each one of us, older men, older women, younger men, and younger women, each of us has a specific God-given role in the family and in the church. And in today's culture, that is a revolutionary thing to say.
In fact, it makes people angry. It was just so obviously a given in culture in the past that husbands had to function, wives had to function, men had to function, women had to function, children had to function, older people had to function, younger people. And now the whole idea—and this is satanic at the very core—is to destroy all the structure that God has designed, to destroy the role of men, destroy the role of women, destroy the role and the relationship between parents and children, children and parents. This is an all-out assault on God and His design in the world. God has designed men to be men, women to be women, husbands to be husbands, wives to be wives, children to fulfill a role.
Those are clear, clear things. And even older women, younger women, older men, younger women, all in God's design for the passing on of righteousness from one generation to the next and the raising of children who can make a contribution to society, all of that is just being massively assaulted and attacked. And we're beginning now to see the beginning of the end of manhood as it existed for centuries in our culture. Yeah, it subverts the family and it subverts the church. I want to just mention that some years ago I wrote a book on this on men and women called Divine Design. This is approaching the delicate issue of women, women in the home, women in the work, male leadership. That's hot stuff, I get it, but the Bible hasn't changed. The book Divine Design, it is a full-size book, it has chapter-to-chapter questions to help you kind of use it as a study guide.
Reasonably priced, get a copy of Divine Design. We need to go back to the basics that God has ordained. That's critical to the culture. Thanks, Jon. And friend, the title of the book Jon is talking about again, Divine Design. It's a practical resource that can help you live out the unique roles God gives to women and men. To order your copy of Divine Design, get in touch today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE, weekdays from 730 a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific Time, or you can shop online at GTY.org.
Divine Design costs $10.50 and shipping is free. Again to order, call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website GTY.org. And if you're benefitting from broadcasts like today's, if you're tuning in and growing spiritually because of them, or if one of Jon's books has helped you better understand the implications of biblical truth in your life, we'd love to hear about it. Email is great for sharing your story. You can reach us at letters at GTY.org.
That's letters at GTY.org. Or drop a note in the mail addressed to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Now for Jon McArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or watch anytime when you visit GTY.org. And join us again tomorrow when Jon looks at more practical ways you can live a God-pleasing life, one that is counter-cultural in a dark world. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
