Psalm 92:13-15
Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; to shew that the LORD is upright.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Those who are full of years should be full of grace and goodness, the inner man renewing more and more as the outer decays.
RICHARD STEELE (1629-1692): The first grace most proper for old age is knowledge. They have, or might have, a great measure of all kinds of knowledge―there is no truth, duty, case, sin, or temptation, but they have either heard, or read something concerning it―but there is a nobler object of their knowledge, which is God Himself, His Word and His Ways: herein the aged person hath been versed for a long time.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Experience is very different from theory; and when we are taught of God, we have other views of those very things of which we have read and heard before.
RICHARD STEELE: And therefore older people must be supposed to have a more clear and distinct knowledge in all these things, than younger people. Young people think that they know much, but old people cannot but sigh and smile at their ignorance. They find that the more knowledge they have, the more ignorance they discover in themselves.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): An humble frame of mind is the strength and ornament of every other grace, and the proper soil wherein they grow.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Oh, how little we know when we know most―the man who knows everything is the man who knows nothing. The man who cannot learn any more is the man who has never learned anything aright. The best instructed of our elder brethren are those who most earnestly cry, “What I know not, teach me,” and “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” Psalm 119:18―The oldest saint still goes to school to the Lord Jesus.
RICHARD STEELE: The second grace most proper for old age is faith, whereby the soul doth embrace Jesus Christ as Mediator, and also rely upon the promises of God for all good things needful. Now, although this grace be needful for every Christian, insomuch as he is said “to live by faith,” yet it is, or should be, the particular jewel of old age―they themselves have been in outward straits and dangers, and then wonderfully preserved and provided for, and doth not this strengthen their faith?
JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): There is as much difference betwixt believing before, and after experience, as there is betwixt swimming with bladders, and our first venture into the deep waters without them.
RICHARD STEELE: In the case of spiritual wants and troubles, when their Spirit is overwhelmed, old men can say with Asaph, Psalm 77:5, “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times,” and so prop up their Spirits in their greatest dejections. If you that are old want faith, it is an arrant shame for you. For you have been so often told and assured of the veracity, the power, and the goodness of God; and then you have so often seen these properties of His exemplified in so many wonders of providence done in your remembrance, that ye yourselves must be the greatest wonder, if you do not believe and trust Him.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Truly this is the property of faith, to take encouragement for the future from the experience of past favour.
RICHARD STEELE: The third grace most proper for old age is wisdom―the crown of youth is their strength, but the glory of old age is their wisdom. “And wisdom is better than strength,” Ecclesiastes 9:16―and this is the crown of old age: every aged person is, or should be truly wise; “multitude of years should teach wisdom,” Job 32:7.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Those old men who have not gotten wisdom by long experience are not worthy of their years―What more ridiculous than a child of fourscore or a hundred years old? An ‘A-B-C’ old man is a shameful sight.
RICHARD STEELE: Certainly an ignorant old person is the shame of Christianity, yea, of humanity itself.
C. H. SPURGEON: As men grow in years, they ought to think more deeply, to understand more clearly, and to speak with greater confidence.
RICHARD STEELE: The fourth grace that old age doth, or should excel in, is patience; which is a quiet and cheerful undergoing whatever difficulties, or troubles, are incident to us in this world―herein old age doth, or should excel. They have met with many troubles in their pilgrimage; and the scripture tells us that “tribulation worketh patience,” Romans 5:3…Time and trials have taught the old man to digest hard words, and hard things―David could better bear Shimei’s curse when he was grown into years, than Nabal’s uncharitableness when he was younger: then, it was nothing but kill and slay at least every male in Nabal’s house; but afterwards, “so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David,” 2 Samuel 16:10…Such is the effect of years and experience by the blessing of God. And you that are in years must be inexcusable, if you be defective in this grace, because you have been for a long time scholars under a patient Master, who hath left us an example, that we “should follow His steps; who when He was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, He threatened not,” 1 Peter 2:21, 23―that patience which is directed by the example of Christ, and strengthened by the grace and Spirit of Christ, keepeth the soul from secret repining, or open murmuring.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Often there is more grumbling and complaining among the aged pilgrims than the younger ones.
RICHARD STEELE: No, they should be patterns of patience to others.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “The beauty of old men is the gray head,” Proverbs 20:29―an index of wisdom and prudence.
RICHARD STEELE: The fifth excellency that doth, or should adorn old age, is steadfastness…In respect of God and the things of religion, a person in years is, or should be, like a rock―unmoveable, and not like the ship that is tossed to and fro. The sixth grace wherein old age doth, or should excel is temperance and sobriety. That’s the injunction of the Apostle, Titus 2:2, “that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate.” By this temperance, I understand that fruit of the Spirit which bridleth our inordinate affections in all outward mercies; or more strictly, which observes a right mean in desiring, and using the pleasures of the senses.
JOHN TRAPP: Gray hairs should be a strong argument to move men to live blamelessly, because old age “is a crown of glory, when found in the way of righteousness,” Proverbs 16:31―of Abraham, it is reported that he went to his grave in a good old age, or, as the Hebrew hath it, with “a good gray head.” Pluck out the gray hairs of virtue, and the gray head cannot shine with any great glory.
RICHARD STEELE: The seventh grace proper for old age is charity, or love―that grace which disposeth the heart to think the best, the tongue to speak the best, and the whole man to promote the welfare of others―they are ready to esteem every one better than themselves; and so they are far from that uncharitable censoriousness, which tears mens’ names in pieces. This was the eminent grace of the evangelist John in his old age, for he lived longer than any of the apostles; and his swan-like song still was love, as is evident in all his epistles.
