So that you older people are not the cause of dishonoring God's Word, so that you older people are not the cause of giving the opponent something to say bad about the church, and so that you are not the cause of people who would doubt God's saving power, you need to live like this. A lot is at stake. A lot is at stake. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You can pay for products and procedures that claim to eradicate wrinkles, or cushion your joints, or boost your memory. Our world is obsessed with looking and feeling young, fighting the passage of time. Your question is, what does Scripture say about aging? As your years add up, are you supposed to resist that reality or embrace it? Well, today John MacArthur is going to show you what the Bible says about old age, what you should put your energy into when you're older, and how you can be a revolutionary influence for the kingdom, no matter your age.
The title of John's series, Revolutionary Living in a Dark Culture. And now, with a lesson, here is 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. 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.
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. Secondly, they are to be dignified, simnus, serious, worthy of respect, venerable. Doesn't mean that they're boring, gloomy people. It just means they're not frivolous.
They're not flippant. They're serious in life. I mean, they've lived long enough to see that life is a serious thing. I mean, they're over the feeling of immortality and invincibility that plagues young people. And they've seen too much and felt too much to be trivial. They've buried their parents in many cases, most cases.
They've buried their sisters and brothers. They've stood in hospital waiting rooms while those they love died. They've been waiting for the surgeon to come out and explain what happened in the cancer surgery to a life partner. They've watched a child rebel. They've watched a child born who turned away from everything they believed in. They watched a child die of leukemia.
They watched a child die of cancer. They've seen it all. They've felt it all. They have borne the burdens of their own life and family and the burdens of a myriad of other people with whom they have shared life. They've come to the disillusioning reality, in fact, that the world is not going to get any better and they couldn't make it any better and neither can anybody else. They've lived through all the anticipated utopian thoughts. They've lived through the hopeful euphorias that said, we're going to fix everything.
And they're down on the other side of it and they know with an honesty that life is the way it is because man is the way he is and he is not going to change by himself. Things aren't as funny as maybe they were when he was young because life is too serious. I don't know about you, but I don't relate that necessarily with getting old, but I look at some of these programs that are supposedly the funniest programs on television and I find myself utterly unable to laugh at any of it. And I still think I have a pretty good sense of humor. There's a certain sense of humor that we all have and after all, God must have a sense of humor.
I mean, just look around at who's sitting near you. And we can laugh and that's a gift, but at the same time, mature Christian men have reached a level of dignity where they are venerable, they see life the way it really is. And if they laugh, they laugh at what is laughable, not what is tragic. And if they smile, they smile because there's something to smile about, really smile about, a sunset, a beautiful day, a beautiful scene, a precious child, love.
They don't laugh at what is tragic. And the third thing he says about these older men is they should be characterized by what is sensible. They should be sensible. This means they have discretion and discernment.
That comes by age. They've experienced it all. They've gone through all the experiences and they have developed a strength of mind and a depth of experience and a grip on truth and a devotion to what is right and they have learned how to control their instincts and their passions. And that word sensible means they've got the loose ends of their life tied down, they're under control, they have discernment, discretion. They, to borrow the same basic concept, the same root word from Paul's statement in Romans, chapter 12, verse 3, they think so as to have sound judgment. They think soundly these qualities, being temperate, dignified, and sensible, replace the qualities of youth.
Do you know what they are? Recklessness, impetuosity, thoughtlessness, and instability. Then there are three more positive virtues that are all summed up in the final statement. Sound in faith, in love, in perseverance.
Sound means healthy, without weakness, without disease, without debilitation. They have strong, well, whole attitudes in these areas. First, in faith.
This is wonderful. They are to be healthy in faith. They have spiritual faith that's healthy, whole, well, sound, solid.
What does that mean? That means their faith in God is unwavering. They've seen enough.
They've been through enough. The 50, 60, 70, 80 years have shown them God and God is to be trusted, right? They don't doubt. They don't question God. They never lose their trust in God's good intention. They never lose their confidence in God's plan. They never lose their hope for God's sovereignty to fulfill itself. They never accuse God of disappointing them. They never doubt the truth of Scripture. They never question the power of the Holy Spirit. They never ever question whether the gospel can save. They know.
They've seen it. Those who have lived through all the years and God has shown Himself and shown Himself and shown Himself and shown Himself through all of the vicissitudes and struggles and all the difficulties of life, He has been there and He has proven Himself and He's an old man now and He says, I believe God. And His faith holds up the church.
He's strong. His faith is courageous because a life of believing has taught Him to trust God. God has proven Himself faithful over the long years. In all the hospitals, at all the funerals, in all the losses and disappointments of life, God has been faithful through all of the sins and the temptations and the trials and the repentances and the renewals, through all of the exposure to the truth and the application of the Word. It has been as God said it would be and He can be believed. And that kind of mature faith holds up the church.
It gives us a faith to emulate. Secondly, He says, He is to be healthy in love. He has a healthy spiritual love. Certainly He has this love toward God and toward others as well. He is a man who loves. He's not a bitter man.
That's the saddest thing there is in the world is to see an old man who's bitter. Here is a man who loves. Here is a man who loves by bearing one another's burdens and thus fulfilling the law of Christ.
Galatians 6, 2. Here is a man who loves sacrificially. Here is a man who loves serving. One of the tragedies of old age is when people become unloving and bitter and selfish. This older man that the church desperately needs is healthy in his love. He doesn't love out of emotion. He loves out of principle. He loves because it's right. He loves with his will, not his feelings.
Part of growing old is that you don't do everything by your feelings. And then there's a third familiar thing. He is to be sound in perseverance, endurance. He's been through enough trials. He's suffered enough.
He knows. He is to be a very model of patience. He has been through it all. He has the courage that is the result of that. He never loses heart in spite of disappointment, unfulfilled aspirations, physical weakness, growing loneliness. The godly man becomes tempered like steel. His body is weaker. His spirit is stronger.
He can endure to the very end. These make the gospel glory shine. And then, and I told you I was going to spend less time on the women, verse 3 says, Likewise, or in the same way, just the same, older women are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. Do you know that if an older woman isn't what God wants her to be, she's to be rebuked also? 1 Timothy 5, 2 says, If you have to rebuke an older woman, rebuke her as a mother. It's hard to rebuke your mother, isn't it?
Well nigh impossible, because you have so much love and so much respect because your heart gets in the way of your head. But sometimes older women need to be rebuked, but it must be done gently and lovingly and graciously and kindly, and they must be treated with the dignity and respect that a mother deserves. And again, I remind you, if one is to strike his mother or to curse his mother, in Exodus 21 it says he is to forfeit his life. The older women were handled, I think, very graciously by Paul, if you want an example of how to handle them. In Philippians 4, there were two women messing up the church. Paul says, I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. He had to rebuke them publicly in this letter.
They've got to get their act together. And then he said, indeed true comrade, and he points to someone there and says, I'm asking you to help these women. You help them solve this animosity. They've shared in my struggle and the cause of the gospel.
What a commendation. They shared together with Clement and they shared with the rest of the fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. They're believers, they're in God's book, and they've served the Lord.
Help them resolve this. That's a tender way to deal with two women having a problem sinning, gracious handling of it. Women are to be a godly resource in the church. Back in 1 Timothy chapter 5, older women who become widows are singled out.
And those women, he says in verse 9, who are 60 years and older, who have been one-man women, chaste, faithful, pure wives, who had a good reputation for good works, who brought up children, who showed hospitality to strangers and washed the saints' feet and assisted those in distress and devoted themselves to every good work. Those women, you need to take care of them. Now if they have a family, let the family take care of them. If they don't have anybody to take care of them at all, he says in that same chapter, and their only hope is in God, then you take care of them. Those kinds of women are worthy of your care. Bring them into the church. Put them on the list of cared widows. They're precious, sinning women who haven't been faithful and weren't faithful to their husbands and didn't bring up children properly and didn't show hospitality to strangers and weren't known for their good works.
And all of that, why, you don't put those on the list. No, the Scripture exalts those women who are godly women. And they should be brought into the church to be models to the younger women. Paul suggests several qualities that should mark these women.
The older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior. That's one word in the Greek, and it's used only here in the Bible. And the word means priest-like. They're to be like priests.
What does that mean? In other words, they're holy. They're the kind of women who should have access to God. They're the kind of women who could enter God's holy presence, sacred character, godly lives. Such a woman is described for us in Luke chapter 2 in that wonderful little vignette of Anna. Anna was advanced in years. She was a widow to the age of 84.
She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. An 84-year-old godly woman who was priest-like in her behavior, reverent in her behavior. That kind of behavior is called for by Paul in writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, 9. These are women who adorn themselves with the proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly ornaments. They're humble, they're meek, they're properly dressed to call attention to the Lord and not themselves.
They haven't piled a fortune in their hair to call attention to themselves. These are women who choose good works as befits women making a claim to godliness, 1 Timothy 2, 10. They are women who quietly receive instruction with submission and do not exercise authority in the church or teach men. They are women who through the bearing of children have removed the stigma of their sin and have continued in faith and love and purity with self-restraint. That's the kind of behavior God wants. The outward action of holiness is dependent on an inward condition of holiness. And so Paul says to Titus, you must tell the older women to be holy, to be like priests who enter the very presence of God. And then he adds secondly, not malicious gossips.
Boy, what an immediate contrast that is. You know what the word is for malicious gossips? It's the Greek word diabolos. Thirty-four times in the New Testament it appears as a name for Satan. Nothing is more Satan-like than slander. And whereas men tend to sin and violently react physically, men prove to be rough or violent in their action. Women have a tendency to be rough or violent in their words. Satan is a malicious slanderer, slandering night and day. Don't be Satan-like. Older women may have in the island of Crete as elsewhere found themselves with a lot of time on their hands and because they had less to occupy their time, they were given over to talk. That talk became gossip, criticism, fault-finding, slander. Paul says that's the devil's work. Older women should not vent their depravity through their speech.
They should be anything but a malicious gossip. And then thirdly, he says, not enslaved or nor enslaved to much wine. This term refers to a drunkard, it's a strong term.
Apparently in Crete as elsewhere, older people sometimes turn to stimulants to refresh their weary bodies, tired minds. And he says, your women are not to do that. Your women don't need to become slaves to that.
It must have been a common thing as it even is today. These older believers are not to become drunkards. They're not to give themselves to wine.
They're to maintain their senses. Now we understand from our past studies of this matter of wine that God knew people in that culture would have to drink fermented drinks and wine was generally then mingled with water or reduced to a paste and without fermentation, then water was introduced into it again and it could be drunk. The implication here is not that they were drinking normal wine which would be mixed with water so you couldn't get drunk from it, but the idea of someone who was a drunkard, perhaps in the pain of their old age and maybe even in the loneliness of their old age, they wanted to dull their senses a bit and so they gave themselves over to these things and he says that's not fitting. They need to be in full use of their senses for God's holy purposes. They are to be like priests who draw into the presence of God. Their tongue is to speak nothing but that which is edifying and seasoned with grace.
Never are they to talk like the devil does, slandering or gossiping, and never are they to become slaves of anything that inebriates them or takes away their senses. They also have a positive duty at the end of verse 3, they are to be teaching what is good. They are to be teaching what is good. Younger women you need to be teaching. Teaching whom?
Verse 4, teaching the young women to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their husbands that the Word of God may not be dishonored. You teach the younger women. You've already taught your children, they're come and gone. Now it's your time to teach the younger generations.
That's so important. That's why you have to have those godly older women in the congregation to teach the younger ones, to teach them how to raise their children, how to love their husband, and how to be godly. The teaching place of the older woman is not in the church.
He permits not a woman to teach, 1 Timothy says in chapter 2. The teaching place of an older woman is the home, informal teaching by word, by example, in a group of women here and there and wherever to bring along a generation of godly women. I fear what's going to happen in the church in the future if our godly women today don't teach the next generation because they don't have normal families to bring them up with any kind of sense about what a family is.
She is to teach what is good, kalo didaskalos, one word, teach good. What is right and what is good is to encourage young women to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, etc., etc. That's their primary role, to raise a godly generation of young women.
I challenge the older women in our church to do that. The young women in your life are crucial, crucial. And you have them. They may be your daughters. They may be your daughters-in-law. They may be your granddaughters. They may be your daughters' friends. They may be your nieces. They're around. They may be those you know because of friendships, the daughters of your friends. They may be people in the church family. I don't think they're asking here for some kind of formal seminar.
You have to come alongside and teach them how to live life, nurture them to godliness so that you older people are not the cause of dishonoring God's Word, so that you older people are not the cause of giving the opponent something to say bad about the church and so that you are not the cause of people who would doubt God's saving power. You need to live like this. A lot is at stake. A lot is at stake. And you have so much to offer.
We need you. Moses was 80 when God called him to lead Israel, 80. And he gave many excuses, but age wasn't one of them.
Don't underestimate your capability. John Wesley traveled 250,000 miles by horseback or on foot to preach. He preached 40,000 sermons, produced 400 books in New 10 languages. At 83, he was annoyed that he couldn't write for more than 15 hours a day without hurting his eyes. Get this, at 86, he was ashamed that he couldn't preach more than twice a day.
And he said since his 86th birthday, he had to admit there was an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 530 A.M. What a terrible decline in character that is. You have so much to offer, godly older generation, crucial to the life of the church. Let's pray. Preserve your church, Lord, as the older generation who walked with you for so many years pass on the great life-changing truths and their practical implications. Bless this congregation, bless its seniors, and make them all that you want them to be.
We'll give you praise in Christ's name, amen. You've been listening to John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of his current study here on Grace to You, Revolutionary Living in a Dark Culture.
Well, John, let me ask a question that I would guess many of our listeners have wondered about. When you were a young believer, before you became a pastor yourself, what older men did you learn from? Who were the dignified, sensible, doctrinally sound men that you wanted to be like and maybe tried to emulate? When I go back, I think of, first of all, my father, a faithful preacher of the word of God, a faithful shepherd of God's flock, a faithful pastor, a faithful Christian he was, everything at home that he was in the pulpit. I never, ever heard him say anything or I saw him do anything that was inconsistent with his Christian testimony and convictions, neither did I see my mother ever do anything like that.
Yeah, your dad was amazing. He preached right up until the year he died, in his 90s. He died at the age of 91, and he was still teaching a Bible class.
So he taught me what real Christianity looked like. My grandfather, his father, a faithful pastor on his deathbed, I was nine years old when he died, and he felt bad as he was dying because he had prepared a sermon that he hadn't preached. And it was like fire in his bones, and he had wished that he had been able to preach the sermon he prepared. He knew he was going to die because he had cancer, and he prepared a sermon called Heavenly Records. He wanted to preach on heaven. He never preached it, so my dad took his notes and printed them up and passed them out at his funeral. So everybody who went to the funeral heard that sermon or read it anyway, so he preached on heaven from heaven.
So that's the legacy. I remember very vividly a Sunday school teacher, a man—I can picture him just so clearly. When I was a fifth grade, sixth grade kid, he was my Sunday school teacher. I looked up to him. I admired him. He was generous. He was thoughtful. He loved the Lord, and he conveyed that to me. There were a couple of guys in seminary on the faculty that had a high impact on me.
You would know this. I remember Ralph Kuiper. Ralph Kuiper, a lot of people wouldn't know him. He was Donald Gray Barnhouse's secretary and research assistant, Dr. Charles Feinberg, the guy that I leaned most on in my seminary days. And then if you go beyond that to those that I read, it's been the men of the past whose lives impacted me. And I go all the way back to my ultimate hero, the apostle Paul, and then many others through church history that either reading biographically about their lives or reading the things they wrote had an influence on me.
Thanks, John. And friend, with benefiting from the ministries of others in mind, if Grace To You has helped you to grow spiritually, maybe from a booklet you received in the mail or a blog article you read online, would you let us know? When you have a moment, send us a quick note. You can mail your letter to Grace To You, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Or you can send an email to letters at gty.org.
That's our email address. One more time, letters at gty.org. Also I encourage you to visit our website at gty.org and read the Grace To You blog. It's updated regularly with articles by John and the staff to help you discern truth from error. In the church today, I'd also encourage you to pick up our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. Its unique feature, of course, is the 25,000 footnotes that give the background on nearly every passage, so grammar, history, cultural details, and more explained in those notes. It's available in hardcover, leather, and premium goatskin.
You can choose from the new American Standard, New King James, English Standard Version, and the new Legacy Standard Version. Our website again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast part of your day and be back tomorrow to learn why women's movements really have not been friends of women at all. John is continuing his study called Revolutionary Living in a Dark Culture with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on the next Grace To You.
