JavaScript

Transcript

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to begin as I start off this message to think about a picture. As I started to think about the title and the topic that I was going to speak on specifically, maybe a day or two later after I started to just think about the topic I received, you heard about WhatsApp. I think it was Mr. Rivard or somebody that mentioned WhatsApp, but my family and I, my parents in South Africa and other brethren, we tend to communicate through the social media application WhatsApp.

So, I received a picture from my mom that was beautifully painting what I want to begin to describe to you and what we’re going to talk about this morning. I’m going to take some time to describe a very, very simple picture. It is most likely you cannot see in the picture; you cannot see if it’s in a park, but it’s most likely in a park, a paved road where you see an elderly gentleman walking. Now as you see with many elderly people, and we heard now thinking about the baptism, not everyone when we get older can walk that well anymore.

So, we might need some aid as we get older. So, this is an elderly man walking with a walker, and you can see he’s walking with effort because he needs his walker, but he’s likely also using the walker because he’s in a park and he knows he’s going to need that support from the walker. But he’s looking to his left and he’s looking down and imagine what he’s looking at. Somebody else is walking the completely opposite direction and looking up at him and who is looking up at him? It’s a little maybe eighteen-month-old or younger young boy, a toddler.

He’s also walking with a walker, but that is those little baby walkers, trainer walkers from Fisher-Price. I can remember our children started to walk with them. They have these little buttons and things on the side and then if the child turns around, it has almost like a little lawnmower. It has a handlebar, it has four wheels, and they learn to stand up and as they start to stand up, they can support themselves and they can begin to walk. So, you see this elderly gentleman walking in one direction and this young boy walking in the completely different direction and their eyes meet.

The young boy is looking up and the older man is looking down at him. So, let’s turn to with that picture in mind, you’re not fully convinced or receive the topic what we’re going to speak about, but you have this very endearing picture in your mind from an older man looking down at a young boy and a young boy looking up at an elderly man. Let’s go to Zechariah. Everyone, please turn with me to Zechariah chapter eight. Let’s begin with a couple of verses and paint a very similar picture in your mind.

We are here, brethren, at the feast as you turn to chapter eight of Zechariah and we are thinking about kingdom-like setting, a kingdom-like setting, something that’s going to be in the future. We are here at the feast, we see the beautiful nature around us, we see the activities, we appreciate what God has set for us, but we also think about what it will be like in the near future. So, let’s begin in Zechariah eight and we begin to read from verse one.

You’re going to see a very similar picture of what I just described. Verse one, “Again the word of the Lord of hosts speaking about the Father came to me saying...” To Zechariah, thus says the Lord of hosts. “...I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury. Thus says the Lord, I am returned to Zion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth. Today, we know Jerusalem is definitely not the city of truth.

As you know, a lot of false religion going on there, a lot of conflict. So, this is something, a picture that God is beginning to paint in our minds of the future, of the kingdom where Jerusalem, the city of peace, will be also called the city of truth. And the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. So, God’s Mountain will come down and God’s headquarters will be situated, and He will rule with Christ, with the saints from Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, again the Father, and brethren, let’s read as we paint this picture, “There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.”

He says yet, meaning that there was a point that this wasn’t the case anymore, that you couldn’t see older men and older ladies, specifically referencing women, men and women walking the streets there and it says with his staff, with his support. The staff either a cane, back then when God gave Zechariah this instruction, obviously, in Israel, they did not have walkers like we have, built out of aluminum with wheels and these days you get a little bit of a brake system where people, you see them walking in the grocery stores, elderly people, and they have a little basket in front and they can take their bread and they can take their favorite item from the shelf and they can walk on and if they want to stop they just press the brake.

But here we see a very similar picture where God says men and women walking the streets of Jerusalem with their staff, with their cane, with support. Let’s read verse five. “And the streets of the city shall be full of boys.” It’s not speaking about one boy or two boys, it says full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.

Now I would like to ask you the question, when was the last time that you saw that happening, where you are living, where the elderly were in the streets and the boys and girls playing either cricket, if you’re playing cricket here and I think about back in the days when I grew up, cricket or rugby or just throwing the ball or kicking a soccer ball or playing marbles in the street or whatever, a yo-yo or just what we called callies and crooks, just meaning the boys ran around chasing the girls with guns and then they were the crooks, some were the crooks and the other were the cowboys, cowboys and crooks.

You don’t see that that much anymore. The elderly sitting on their porch and just enjoying the scenery because they might not be able to walk that well anymore, so they sit down and they enjoy seeing the children, the laughter in the streets. So, God, why is God giving, when He’s speaking about Jerusalem, speaking about the future, He’s bringing to bear for our mind the same picture that I painted from the little picture that I received from my mom.

This is important to God when He speaks about this, it’s almost as if He’s taking a detour, thinking about He’s the Lord of hosts, he’s the God of war and then He goes to speak about little children and elderly people. Let’s go on to verse six. “Thus says the Lord of hosts...” Again, God the Father, think about what is this in his mind. We want to paint the picture what is in his mind. We want to bring out in every message his mind in Scripture. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, if it be marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of the people in these days...” The picture that was painted, marvelous in people’s eyes, hear what it says here. “...should it also be marvelous in my eyes, says the Lord of hosts.”

Now marvelous there we will look at and can maybe give you a little bit of indication. Marvelous means wonderful. It means to be great or be surpassing or extraordinary. To God, that picture that we painted is extraordinary, extra special. The relationship between the younger generation, skipping one generation to the older generations, you could say the grandchildren and the grandparents, skipping the parents, so to speak, that relationship between young people and all the people is very important in God’s eyes.

Very, very important to him. It describes, brethren, this picture describes a special relationship and that’s what we’re going to look at this morning. What lessons can you and I learn because it’s not just for the older and the younger people, this message is for everyone. There are lessons for you and me that we can learn from this picture. Lessons that we can learn from this special relationship between the young and the old, because we saw it’s important, it’s important to God. What are the lessons that we can learn? It says that it is marvelous to God. We think about him, and when we pray about him, we say He’s the Almighty.

We already read about the fact that He’s called the Lord of hosts. We would think, why would He be interested in when we are getting older? Why would He be interested in the young people? The church for God’s people, it’s important to look after the young people, and it’s just as important to God to look after the older people. But there is a special relationship, you see that, and I enjoyed seeing that picture, and immediately knew this is what I can use to paint a picture in your mind about a young boy looking up.

Maybe it wasn’t even his grandfather. Maybe it was a man that he didn’t know, but he looked up to this older man. And that’s what young people do. It’s not just physically the reason because they are shorter. Ultimately, as young boys and young girls grow up, they look up to older people. Think about when you were younger, the people that you looked up to. Your parents, yes. Maybe your grandparents. There were men and women, and teachers, people in your community, grandparents. In college, think about those that you looked up to, and maybe even look up to today.

We tend to look up to the ministry to teach us, for giving us direction. We look up to God, the Father, for everything that we need. So, all human beings look up to somebody for instruction, for guidance, for help, for support. Let’s go and look a little bit at a different angle. Let’s go to Ezra. Ezra chapter three. God said, then I emphasized when we read it, yet, that they will yet again see that picture of the young people because I grew up in the eighties in South Africa, and already at that point, I should turn to Ezra three, already at that point, that was something that was disappearing.

We would be able to play, you would be able to go to the grocery store, or I remember being interested in knives. I would go to the corner shop there. They had different Swiss knives, and I would save up money, and go and buy a pocketknife. And then we would see the video games, then you would take a few coins, and you would go and play video games. And then you would see the bubble gum, and you buy a piece of bubble gum. You just left your bicycle there on the street, and you would go in, stay in the shop for half an hour, go out.

Your bicycle will be there, and you would be able to play at night. You could see the elderly people coming out and enjoying the young people playing in the streets. But as I grew older, that picture completely disappeared. And again, asking, ask yourself, when was the last time that you saw, if ever seeing that, how the young people and the old played. The young played, and the old enjoyed it. Now that you are in Ezra chapter three, let’s read verse eight.

Ezra chapter three and verse eight, it says, “Now, in the second year of the coming out of the House of God at Jerusalem, the second month began Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and the remnant of the brethren, the priests, and the Levites, and all that they will come out of captivity into Jerusalem.” So, Israel was taken into captivity. And this is specifically describing them coming out of Babylon, out of captivity, and they came back to Jerusalem. Just that city that we talked about in Zechariah.

“...out of captivity and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upwards.” So, you can see the younger generation being described in this verse, if you just have a quick read, you can easily glance over that, but it mentions those that are twenty years and upward. “...to set forward the work of the House of the Lord. Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren...” Kadmiel is speaking about men there and the sons. “...the sons of Judah together to set forward the workmen of the House of God, the sons of Henadad with their sons and the brethren of the Levites. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord after the ordinance of King David of Israel.”

So, they started to do certain things. Again, starting to lay the foundation, and began to do things that will last for a period of time, while they were in captivity. They did not do these things as they began to set in order again the worship of God, and the building of the temple. “And they sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because He is good, for His mercy endures forever, toward Israel, and to all the people who shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the House of the Lord was laid.”

That was the reason why they shouted. It created a tremendous amount of joy. Think about the joy that we have here at God’s feast, if we do little things, just having the family day, or going out for a meal, or having the bonfire. So, we can relate to this speech, but let’s read on a little bit. “But many of the priests...” It says but, so let’s read what it says here, but a little bit of a change of thought, “...and the Levites and chief of the priests, who were ancient men.” Ancient men, that means the older generation.

So, we started to read about the younger priests, the younger men, twenty years old, they could not understand or remember what happened in Israel or Jerusalem when the temple were initially still standing, when they were still in Jerusalem, still in their country, they did not remember that. But the ancients, the older generation remember that. “...that had seen the first house.” Suddenly, when they saw what is happening right in front of them, it created a different experience for the older men.

It says, “...that had seen the first house, when the foundation of the House of the Lord was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted for joy.” So, there was a mixture in the older generation, a mixture of rejoicing. Maybe the younger generation just rejoicing. They heard about the temple in the past, and they can see the joy around them, and that made them joyful as well. But the older men, the ancient men, they started to cry of joy.

“...so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of the joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.” So why did the elderly men started to cry? Why did they cry about what they just saw? They remember what they lost. They remember what they had, and what they regained again. Brethren, let’s go back to the picture that we had in our mind, where God said, “Yet again in Israel, we see that picture disappearing of the young people playing in the streets, and the elderly enjoying that.”

That relationship between young and old, we don’t just see that, but we also see that in other parts of society. With that relationship, that reliance upon the young, and the old upon the young, that is disappearing. Children are busy with other things, and elderly can feel like that they are forgotten, they are pushed aside. But God, specifically in his mind, wants us to remember this day because it’s a kingdom-like picture where He said, “That will be back again.” That should make us rejoicing about the fact that it’s so important to God that He’s focusing on that relationship in a kingdom-like setting. And that’s important for us as well here at the feast.

As we think about that relationship between young and old, it’s not existing anymore. At one point, it will be completely gone to a point where God will have to restore that again, and that will bring shouting. Just as the foundation has been laid off the temple and brought shout and joy with people and the older generation rejoiced, I’m sure that for many of you that are the hoary heads among us, that same picture, if you think about your grandchildren, that you might not see that often or that you would like to see that same picture, brings an endearing emotion to you because you think about how special they are.

Your children were very special to you, but the younger generation has an extra special place in the heart of grandparents. And again, for little children, if I think about back to my grandparents on both my mom and dad’s side, I have wonderful memories that I had with my grandfather on my mother’s side, grandmother on my mother’s side, and also how we visited my father’s parents. There’s something special and unique to that, and it’s also, as we already saw, important to God.

So, brethren, let’s look at, again, some lessons that we can learn today and extract out of God’s Word. He’s speaking all over the place about this relationship. He’s speaking about the youth. He’s speaking about the elderly in his words, so He’s never going to forget you. As we are an aging church and we think about our lives as we know, we are temporary dwellings, we are here at the feast, thinking about staying in booths, that’s thinking about being in temporary dwellings. We think about our own bodies as well. We think about our lives. That is temporary as well, but we also think about the future. The fact that God is promising us eternal life and that we are going to be part of that, but let’s look at the first point that I would like to highlight a lesson that we can learn is the physical versus the spiritual.

Let’s turn to Proverbs chapter twenty. Both physical things and spiritual things are important to God, but the circle of life, brethren, as we grow from young men and young ladies to a point where you become a parent, you become older, going to college, begin to settle your house, begin to settle in your work, in your career, so to speak, that is the middle generation. And then at one point we grow older, and God says, “It’s appointed unto man once to die.” So, we are temporary people, we are physical, and we know that life is temporary as well. It’s physical as well.

You are already in Proverbs. Give me a moment to get there as well, Proverbs twenty and we will read verse twenty-nine. Brethren, this message today is to encourage both generations, the young and the old, and everyone in between as well. And we will see that that is on God’s mind to encourage you in so many ways. Proverbs chapter twenty and verse twenty-nine. “God understood and, ultimately, Solomon the wisest man who left.” He understood what he’s saying here in verse twenty-nine. “The glory.” The glory can mean there the beauty of young men is their strength.

When you’re a young man and you think about growing up, you will often hear that grandparents or your parents, your dad or a teacher at school, you’re playing a sport that’s... we heard about rugby or football, and the coach will say, “Don’t worry, your muscles will grow in.” At one point you start to grow and it’s just the bones that are growing. And the boys wonder where they look up to other men and they see the men in their teens in their early twenties, they are chiseled. Their bodies are just muscles all over because they developed their body, and they look up to that generation and the older men and they want to be that way as well.

And ultimately, they begin to be driven to bolt their own body through sport, through going to the gym, through exercising, through whatever means they do, but God knew that He says, “The glory, the beauty of young men is their strength.” That applies to girls as well. When you’re younger, you want to be strong as well in different ways, but also you want to be physically strong. It’s speaking about the physical strength that young people have and the beauty, look at what the verse says. It doesn’t say, but the beauty, it says, “And the beauty.” So it looks at young people, what is beautiful about them. And the beauty there can also mean the strength and the strength or the beauty of old men is their gray hair.

So ultimately we change our muscles over to the point where you realize at the point where you might need maybe support. Physical support, emotional support as we grow older, because we lose that physical strength. Yet, at the age of thirty, forty years old, those young men suddenly begin to realize, “It’s not just my physical strength that’s going to get me through life. Ultimately, I need more than that.” And that’s why we think about the physical versus the spiritual. Physical and spiritual. Both are very important to God, but ultimately, the physical must change for the spiritual. And that’s a lesson that the youth can learn from, the hoary head just mean, the gray head means the wisdom of those that are older.

That’s your beauty, the experience that you had through your life. All that you went through, the young people can look up to you and learn from that. And you can also rejoice in that fact that through life, through the experiences God took you through, that hoary head ultimately represents the wisdom, that character, that spiritual element that we need when our physical strength that we boasted about when we were younger.

“I can do everything. I can do this job. I can work for X amount hours a week. I can just raise my children. I can cut the grass. I can repair the house here and I repair my car and I can go out and help somebody,” but as you get older, you realize, “Oh, when I pack for the feast, I cannot do it as fast as I did before. I need a longer to-do list than I had in the past. Maybe in the past I could remember what I needed to pack for the feast, but now I have to have a to-do list.

And as we get older, you have to go through the to-do list more and more. You need support. It’s not just, “I can do it on my own” anymore. Maybe you have to ride with somebody now because you need help just to get out of the car. We realize that our bodies are not... when we grow older, the same way as they’ve been when we were younger. But again, brethren, both are important to God. It says there through Solomon, and so the young people and the old people, there’s something beautiful about growing old. There’s something that is honorable, something that we should rejoice about.

Yet at the feast, when we rejoice, there’s something that is in for us all, it’s not something that we should look at and think and dread because I’m getting older. I’m losing my strength that I had. I wish I can be as strong as I’ve been when I’ve been younger.

It helps us to remember that we are thinking about more and more when you are older. I’m there in the middle generation, so I can speak to the young and the old. You begin to experience a little and think about when you were younger and you see your parents, they are the next generation that the older generation and you begin, they’re in the middle, begin to understand certain elements of both those generations. And you realize and you begin to think a little bit forward. “What’s the next step? What is ahead of us?”

And specifically, here at the feast, we need to spend some time on thinking about that. That, “Yes, we are an older generation, we are an older church in many ways for brethren in your congregation, but you also have the younger people, and you can teach them lessons and they can teach you lessons.” And I want to emphasize that relationship between you. That shouldn’t be just with your blood family, that should also be to those in the congregation. We are a spiritual family.

Think about the youth around you, and the youth, you must think about those that are around you, that’s older people as well. Think about who are you sitting with during potluck each Sabbath or maybe here at the feast. Do you seek out those that you can learn from and do the older people seek out the young people that they can learn certain things from as well?

God wants to emphasize, brethren, the transition in life. Why did He allow us to grow older? It’s not just ultimately for us to end our life. There’s a benefit between these two generations, and God wants us to experience that. He wants us to focus on that and to learn from that, but the physical will ultimately transition to the spiritual, the physical strength that we have will ultimately wane. That’s the one point that I wanted to stress.

The other and we will more focus on this is the mutual benefits for both those generations or both of those groups. God designed it. He designed this physical life in such a way that each generation can benefit from the other. If you are just focused on yourself, if the young people are just focusing on their own physical strength, that they become self-absorbed. If we are older and we just focus on our ailments or our shortcomings or the fact that we are losing our strength, that can also be self-absorbed. If we focus on that relationship, there’s a plethora of benefits for you and for the young people, for young and old.

Let’s go to Isaiah chapter three. Isaiah chapter three, and we will read here and start in verse one, “For behold the Lord of hosts.” Again, speaking about the Father does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water, speaking about future punishment that is coming. The mighty men and the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent and the ancient, speaking about young, the mighty men. We already saw that the young men, usually the young men are those that are going to war.

Think about the First World War, moms specifically and fathers gave up their young sons, sometimes sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. World War II, they send off the young. Why? Because they are the strong, but they are not the wise yet, and they are willing to go off to war, to give their lives for whatever cause they are fighting for. God mentions here, the mighty men and the ancients, the captain of fifty, and the honorable man and the counselor, and the cunning, the artificer and the eloquent orator, almost every aspect of life.

Those that are good with their hands, those that are good with specific skills of speaking, able to inspire people and able to teach people. “And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” We already started to see a little bit of this but think about young people ruling the older generation. That will not go well because we know that the young do not have the wisdom, the experience that you need in life. Yet God says almost that that’s going to be a punishment in a way for those that are not wise, they might have physical strength, and they will rule. I will let them rule over you, “and the people shall be oppressed, everyone by another.”

There’s the fabric when that proper relationship between young and old is not the way God has set it and He turned it upside down, ultimately, the fabric of society begins to tore apart. Think about just the fact that you don’t see the young and old, the young playing in the streets anymore, and the old enjoying that. That’s part of the society’s fabric that’s being torn in our society, but this is speaking about the future. “Everyone by his neighbor, the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient and the base against the honorable.”

Again, hearkening back to Proverbs where God said that the older generation, the hoary heads, they are the wise. Now, those that are young come in and they receive power, and what does it bring? It brings pride. It’s easy for them to be proud, full of pride. That’s one of the reasons why you as the older generation can teach the young, is through the fact maybe that you are not physical able that much anymore, but through the fact of your experience, the skill, the experience, the wisdom that you can bring to the young people that in a sense keep their pride at bay, so to speak. Keep them in check. God knew that and you can play a role to help them to be humble, to help them to grow the character that you already developed through your life that they do not miss out on that, that they will get hoary heads.

But the fact that you have a hoary head doesn’t mean that you have wisdom. You have to develop it. That’s one of the important things that we want to bring out. It’s not automatic that you have wisdom when you’re having a hoary head. You have to develop it, and that is important for the youth as well. There’s a mutual benefit that you bring. It doesn’t just mean when you’re older, even it means for parents as well, the relationship between parents and their children. God knew that. He knew that the young need guidance and you can play a wonderful role as the older generation to help the young.

They will be easily full of pride with their own accomplishments. Again, it’s easy to do it. Sometimes it’s easy just to put information. You see the young people on their phones watching a video, they just immediately take in knowledge. It’s almost like a sponge. When we are getting older, it’s a little bit more difficult to do that. And you wish, “Wow, can I also retain information as quickly as the young can do it?” They do it so easily.

I have to remind myself of things over and over, but think about God’s spiritual knowledge as well. Mr. Armstrong taught and we saw through the length of the previous era and through every era that you can throw in spiritual knowledge in the one ear and after a while it just flows out of you. You have to come and relearn and remember things again and again. The older generation help the young in that way.

You bring the wisdom and experience to the table that young people simply do not have. And I want to encourage the young people as we go through the message and hit at certain points, that simple picture that you have, that you look up, make sure that you look up. It doesn’t mean when you are in your twenties or in your thirties that you should stop doing that. You should continue to look up at those in your congregation to learn from each other. It can be something as simple as just how to look somebody in the eyes, how to greet somebody just with confidence. We heard a message about confidence before.

You might have strength as a young person, physical strength, you might be able to go on Google and you can research something or you can write a test, but they will never teach you about in that test the simple understanding of just looking somebody in the eyes, and with confidence, being able to greet them to say, hello, my name is so and so, or being able to introduce yourself and your friend or introduce yourself and an older person to your friend saying, “Mr. so-and-so or Mr. so-and-so, my name is Peter Schmidt and this is my friend Joanne,” whatever the last name might come up in your mind. That is something that you can teach, showing that importance of something as simple as that.

Let’s turn to First Peter. First Peter, and we will go to chapter five, picking up here in verse one. First Peter five and we will read from verse one. It says, “The elders which are among you I exhort...” Peter being an apostle. It could be that he’s speaking about the ministry as being the elders, but also about the elders in the congregation, those that are just the hoary heads among them. “...I exhort, I who am also an elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.”

Feed the flock of God, there we see he’s speaking directly to the ministry to feed the flock of God as we are doing here at the feast and during the feast. I remember during my first feast I heard that you get about twenty-five percent or a quarter of all the spiritual food that you will receive during the whole year at the feast. So, take a note of that and also remember to have your notes in one place and to go through them again to be able to retain, to be able to apply once as we heard.

We’re looking forward to the messages coming ahead, but if it comes to a point that we will need to live and go back to the world as we heard yesterday, brethren, that we will be able to apply. But you can also begin to apply what you are learning right here, right now at the feast. “Taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly.” God’s ministers are willing to teach you. They are willing to help and guide you.

“Not for filthy lucre.” They are not in it for the money. They are in it to see you grow. Seeing the youth grow, seeing any age group grow, but also as we look at the older generation for us to grow as well. “But of a ready mind, neither being the Lord’s over God’s heritage, but being in samples to the flock.” We can also be, as we will see now, not just the ministry being examples to you of God’s government, of God’s standards and traditions, but you can do the same to each other. We will see right now.

“And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive the crown of glory that fades not away.” Again, that hoary head is a crown. It’s a beauty. It’s something that should bring honor. But ultimately, we are all striving if we have a hoary head or not. If we are young in God’s way or many years in His way, that’s our ultimate goal is to receive the end glory, rulership, membership in God’s family.

We are His children. Now we are growing, developing. As a child develops in his mother’s womb, we are developing in God’s church as we know we are the church in embryo. We are growing and you can continue to grow even if you are older of physical age, and we should continue to grow. Looking to that crown, that ultimate hoary head that we will receive, so to speak, the crown of glory, the crown of life, of eternal life in God’s kingdom, that fades not away.

We are looking for something that will not fade away. Hoary heads ultimately will fade away. The wisdom that we have will not. That is character that you and I build. Likewise... As we continue and get to the point here, brethren, “likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.” Younger people, God’s giving everyone instruction. All of us are younger than somebody else.

There’s always going to be somebody older than you as we heard with the meals during the Holy Days, that there are some of us that are all the activities. Also, that there are some over the age of a hundred and two. I still need to meet that individual. But I recall in South Africa, there was a man that we knew. He actually lived in Lesotho, a member of God’s church that died this year and he was, I think, a hundred and one, a hundred and two years old. So, God’s people get to that age.

We have many people in God’s way that are in their nineties. I know somebody recently, a member, here in Canada, also in her nineties. So, God blesses us with age. There’s always going to be somebody that you need to submit to. Submit yourself unto the elder. You, yes. Is that a Canadian term that God is using the yay. I don’t know. You walk in the stores and then at the end of, I think the cleaning, my wife mentioned to me this morning, the cleaning ladies came to our room yesterday and we had a chat with them and then after each sentence, they will say yay.

So maybe that is why we are in Canada. We act like the Canadians. What did they say? If you’re in Rome, you act like a Roman. When you’re in Canada, act like a Canadian. Yay. All of you be subject one to another. In that relationship, there’s something to learn. There’s something to learn from each other. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but be subject one to another and be clothed with humility.

There we see already what we saw that the youth can easily fall through their experience of what they’ve done as we get accomplishments in our lives through what we’ve done, the things that we’ve been able to do, God allowed us to do through the talents that He has given us, the skill that we could build, but it’s important to have that character of humility. “For God resists the proud and He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. Casting all your cares upon Him for He cares for you.”

Thinking about a little bit of encouragement and comfort to the older generation among us that we can come to God and all the troubles that we have, the concerns that we have, the cares that you have. When we grow older, the cares become just more and more. That pain that I have when I get out of the car or out of bed that wasn’t there this morning. So where did it come from? It’s just the fact that our bodies tend to break down.

It’s not as strong anymore and you can come to God relying on Him for your cares. But it says there again, brethren, submitting one to the other. One generation, the young to the old, how often do you and I think about that we know that we should submit to God? We know that wives are instructed to submit to their husbands. We know that we should submit to the instruction and the guidance and the counsel of the ministry.

But how often do you think about the fact that you as the older generation and the young generation among us can teach each other, can help each other to grow that character that’s so much needed from both ways, going both ways, thinking about that young boy walking in one direction with his little walker, Fisher-Price walker, and he’s amazed by the elderly man. The elderly man is amazed to see that young boy and you can just see that smile on the young... or the older man’s face just because he saw a young boy and that boy didn’t ignore him. He naturally look up to the one that’s older.

Let’s go to Job. Job chapter twelve. Sometimes when thinking about myself, everyone’s speaking a little bit more heart-to-heart, and you can often regret the opportunities that you have missed as a young boy to spend more time with our grandparents.

I didn’t grow up in God’s way. I didn’t have the opportunity and the privilege to be each Sabbath with the ministry or each Sabbath with older people in my congregation. I had my grandparents. But you think about, back, maybe your parents or teachers that you sometimes did not spend enough time to learn from the older generation. You tend to think, “Wow, I’ll be able to do that. I will learn that from a book.”

Today, they think about Google or the YouTube channel or somebody that they follow that’s the same age. We think we can learn from that, but there’s so much more. And I regret not sitting enough and spending enough time with my grandparents as I grew up. That’s something that the young people should take to heart. God has given you a blessing of being able each and every week to be together and share that common understanding of God’s way, common goals, but also to learn from each other.

You are here in Job chapter twelve, and we will pick up in verse nine. “Who knows not all these, that the hand of the Lord has wrought this, and whose hand is the soul, the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.” We know and think about the beginning of Job as Satan came to God and speaking that exchange between God and Satan. Ultimately, God had the power to allow Satan to go as far as he was allowed to go. He could not go a hair breath further. God ultimately has your and my life in His hands. If we get older, that’s something that begins to... we wander in our mind.

We might tend to think a little bit more. I know if grandparents, our children’s grandparents are far away, what do they think about? They think about their grandchildren. And often that can become almost to the point of an obsession with grandparents of just, “How is my grandchildren?” And they begin to think about the past more than the present. Just thinking about, “What’s going to happen when I die?” And you begin to worry and you begin to think about the end of your life and you worry about those things.

God says, “No, I’m in control. I’m in control. When you were born, when I gave you... when you became a living soul, I was that one that gave you breath.” Yes. The doctors help to delivered you and bring you to life and suck all the slime and things out of your mouth, and suddenly the baby started... the nurse gave you a pat on the back and on the feet and rubbed you and then you started to cry, and you became hungry. That first breath that you breathed, that’s ultimately God that made us a living soul, a living, breathing creature.

He says, “Yes.” Job is speaking with his friends, that ultimately life and death is in God’s hands, and you and I, we are His children and He will give you the comfort as you grow older as well, but we will get to the point now. “Does not the ear try words and the mouth tastes this or his meat with the ancient his wisdom and in length of days understanding.” Ancient again there means the old, the older people. But God described Himself here in verse thirteen, “With Him is wisdom and strength. He has counsel and understanding with Him.” In the margin, it says, “With God.”

They’re in the exchange between Job and his friends. They are actually saying, “Who is the true ancient? Who is the true one that has wisdom?” And that is God. But He described Himself as ancient. He described Himself as an older generation, so to speak, that you and I can understand. And in that conversation, as they thought about and debated about, “What’s going on with Job? Why is he going through this test or this trial that it says with the ancient is wisdom, with the ancient is ultimately understanding, with him his wisdom and strength.” And strength.

So He’s the one giving the strength to the young man, the young lady, and He’s giving the strength to the older person, the strength of wisdom, the strength of experience that you have. God bolded. He designed it in that way to reflect Himself. Brethren, God has all those characteristics. His power. We said and saw in the beginning that He’s the Lord of hosts. He has strength in Himself, but He gave strength specifically to the youth, to the young man. And He wants the older generation to bold wisdom. But again, that doesn’t come by fear, it doesn’t come by itself.

That’s something that you as young people need to pray about, asking God for wisdom. Wisdom simply means to know in each and every moment where you are in your life, what to do, and when to do it. That’s probably the most difficult thing in life. That’s the thing that most people need the most is character. That character to do the right thing at the right time. You think about leaders today and you just hear on the social media when they’ve said something or they’ve done something, then people will go out and say, “Why didn’t he do that way?” Or “Why didn’t he or she say that thing?”

People say the wrong things at the wrong time and it has repercussions. People do the wrong thing at the wrong time and that has repercussions. God says, “No, for you and me in His church, we can ask for wisdom.” And that’s something that we should pray about each and every day. For the youth, specifically, that’s not going to come by itself. Look at verse twenty. “He removes away the speech of the trusty and takes away the understanding of the aged.”

Ultimately, brethren, God knows what you are going through. He knows when you are forgetting as the older generation begin to forget. He knows when we are frail. He knows when our strength is winning. He understand that ultimately. He engineered it in a way that we can grow, but He’s in control, brethren, He understands. If He can take away understanding as that verse says. In the previous verses, it says He can give understanding as well. He can give you and continue to help you to retain understanding, even as you grow older or when you are old already.

God wants us to understand that He is the giver, the giver of wisdom and understanding, and He knows exactly what you are going through each and every moment through your physical trials, through your shortcomings as we grow older. He understands that. Let’s go to Job thirty-two. There’s no reason to fear, there’s no reason to worry, or be anxious about it. Job chapter thirty-two and verse four. Thinking about a young man in the conversation with Job, his friends that came to ultimately support him, but ultimately, over time, it didn’t go that well and things got out of hand, so to speak, and there was things said from job’s end and from their end.

And here it says, “Now, Elihu had waited till Job had spoken because they were elder than he.” So this young man gave Job the respect that he needed to receive. Do you do that as a young person? Who is teaching you that respect? The older generation, you are going to be able to help the young to learn that respect. Elihu knew that somehow somebody had to teach him to have respect for the older generation. You don’t see that in the grocery store anymore, where young people maybe open a door for elderly person, or, “Can I carry this bag for you?” Or you are carrying too many bags out of the grocery store or after a potluck, you have your crockpot in your hand and you have your bag with your juice and all of the things in your hand, and you try to balance this whole tower of things that you’re carrying to your car.

The young people are jumping and using your strength ultimately to support those that are older. Elihu, even a man that made mistakes here throughout his conversation with Job, he had that understanding that you have to have respect. That’s another point to highlight, young people to have respect. If you have respect onto older people, ultimately, you are showing respect to God. You are showing as we learn to fear God.

The teens might ask, “How do I learn to fear God? I haven’t been baptized yet. I don’t have God’s Spirit. How can I learn to fear God?” On the one hand, we rejoice He had the feast, but we also need to walk away, go home and look back and say, “I’m fearing God more than I did yesterday or on day one or on the opening night.” And this is one way that you can learn to fear God, for anyone that’s younger.

It’s not just the young and the old generation. It is anyone in between those that are older than us that we can show respect. Let’s go and read verse seven. It says, “I said they should speak and the multitude of years should teach wisdom.” He understood that, that if he had respect to the older generation, ultimately, they will open up. Maybe it will take a little bit slower. Maybe the thoughts are not as fast as they were when you were young, or your ability to articulate yourself in the same way as when you were a young person. Ultimately, young people wait for that wisdom, tap that wisdom. Go and search for that wisdom.

I remember going back a few years, our children at one point in Chicago, we... I can tell on my children as I standing here in front, but we had the night to be much observed in Chicago and had the room, a little bit smaller room than here, the one that they still use today. I think last year we had the joy of being with the Chicago congregation again for atonement as we drove to Salt Lake City for the feast.

And there we congregated at the same location as we did years ago. And I was reminded, just as I’m reminded about that now, we had the round tables out and it was the night to be. And our family ended up alone and around the table. The numbers just worked out. We are four in the family. It was small tables and nobody were able to sit with us. And our son said, no, he doesn’t want to sit with us. He wants to go and sit there at the other table with a couple of widows because he want to go and talk to them. And he want to learn from them. Obviously, that’s maybe what went on in his mind or not. He maybe just wanted to have more food to eat, but he said that he wants to spend time with them. That’s just a simple example, something that you can do as the youth as well.

Simple things that you can apply to show that respect, to learn that wisdom. Brethren, this is not a complicated message with hundreds of different elements of things that we can learn. This is a basic message for us to appreciate that relationship between young and old that God has given us, to spend time, to see how we can foster those relationships between us, making them stronger, and ultimately building the fiber of society that is tearing apart, that something as simple as that relationship can strengthen that.

God’s wisdom, brethren, reflects a different type of strength. Let’s go to James chapter three. “Yes, the youth can boast...” You should turn to James chapter three, “Yes, the youth can boast about their strength.” That’s good. God wanted that to be. He gave the young man the ability to build their body, ultimately to serve other people, ultimately to be able to support a family one day, to go into the trade that they need to go, where they need to have that muscle to lift up a tire or change the wheel or change the engine or be an engineer, whatever they need to do, mow the lawn.

The men are the stronger generation. God bolded into the youth to be stronger. He wanted them to be that, but that’s not where it should end. Let’s go and look at God’s wisdom, brethren. It reflects a completely different type of strength. That’s not just a physical strength. James chapter three and verse thirteen. Here in my Bible, it has in header, and it says, “True wisdom comes from God.”

We’ll pick up here in verse thirteen, and it says, “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?” Who have you through your years of learning, studying, reading books, and today, using the internet, He says, gained wisdom, human wisdom, “Let him show out of a good conversation, out of good conduct, his works with meekness of wisdom.” So there is meekness in wisdom, and meekness means to be subject to God.

If you think about an animal, a strong horse, a wild stallion, and those mustangs in the US that they had to tame other. I know in South Africa, or in Africa, they’ve tried to tame the zebra. Zebra is a horse, is a kind of horse, so to speak, but you cannot tame them. But people found out that you can tame horses, but it takes... that that animal ultimately should submit. You can even tame elephants, and at one point they can submit to human beings. That is what meekness means.

It’s to submit your will to God’s will, to bend your own mind, your own will that’s so strong, especially that hardheadedness of our minds as Israelites and those that grew up in Israel, hardheadedness as God says, “But that is with meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth.” This wisdom... So it’s speaking about a wisdom, but it’s a different kind of wisdom, “This wisdom descends not from above, but it’s earthly sensual, and devilish.” So there is a worldly kind of wisdom compared to God’s wisdom. Let’s look at God’s wisdom that you want to cultivate young people and we that are growing older as well.

“For where envy and strife is, is confusion and every evil work.” Again, confusion breaks up relationships. Evil works breaks up families, it breaks up the structure of the family, it breaks up that special relationship between young and old. But the wisdom that is from above, God’s type of wisdom, that’s what you and I should strive for. That’s why we have seven days to learn to shut out the world out of our minds, that we can just sit still, enjoy many things, but also have time to meditate on God’s way, on His wisdom.

Above all, it is, first, pure and then it’s peaceable. As you grow older, maybe you think, “I don’t have anything to offer to the youth anymore. I don’t have anything to offer to the congregation anymore. I can’t lift up that heavy lectern that they have there at the headquarters.”

Sometimes two or three young men, they have to bend and they have to almost break their backs just to lift up those heavy lecterns with the cylinders that can go up and down. I don’t think this one is one of those. If I try to lift it up, I will probably easily lift this one up, but you need strength to do that. This is something different. As the older generation, do you have... over the years of obedience to God, you are more pure. You should reflect more purity, more wisdom. And in wisdom, there’s purity, meaning God’s way of life through obedience to Him that you became more pure.

And then peaceable, can you bring peace when there isn’t peace? For young people, it’s easy to strive. Think about children back in a car when they drive, coming to the feast or going on holiday. When we were young, I remember I would sit on the one side, my sister on the other side, and my brother. We were three right in the back. Back then you didn’t have SUVs and all of these bigger vehicles. And easily they just, “Are we going to enjoy the ride?” And a few kilometers down the road, it’s, “No, this is mine.” And that is, “Give me this and you are lying on my shoulder.” I know that... you know, strife easily happens between young people.

But as a older person, are you able to bring peace when there isn’t peace in a congregation? It’s not just the responsibility of the minister. You through your experience in life, you can bring peace quickly in a congregation because you have that experience. You have gained and developed the strength that the youth do not have. And that is being peaceable or gentle. Gentle with the youth, gentle with older people, gentle with people that are new in a congregation. Think about when the minister invites somebody and he cannot be at the congregation that Sabbath.

Are you gentle with the new person coming in? Let them feel at home, feel welcome, feel that they do not want to leave ever again. That they want to stay at this congregation from day one for the next Sabbath and the next one coming to the feast and ultimately to receive their crown of glory as well. Are you able to bring that? That’s strength. A strength that the youth do not have yet, but they can look to you. And if they see that just by observation, they are able to develop that. So that’s something that you have that they don’t. “And easy to be entreated.”

What does that mean, easily to be entreated? You have your own rule. You want to do a certain thing this way. And when the minister, or even somebody, the head of stage or the usher said, “No, do this this way.” And you easily agree wisdom, God’s wisdom can easily see the point that my way is not the best way. That maybe there’s a better way to do something than I thought I did. I have all the experience in life, but wisdom means even if you are older, that you are easily to be entreated. Meaning you can easily discern when something is better to do in a certain way and you just agree and say, “Okay, let’s do it. Do it this way.”

That’s what easily entreated means. Full of mercy through your life you needed, how many Passovers did you go through? How many times that you had to bow down before God and asking Him for forgiveness? You begin to become merciful as well. You are not as quickly to give a judgment when somebody makes a mistake. Your child or your grandchild or somebody in the congregation. You are gentle and full of mercy. Good fruits. Through your life you develop good fruits and continue to develop it without partiality. You look at everyone in the congregation, excuse me, almost grabbed the microphone out of its place, getting so excited.

But you can look over the congregation and everyone is the same, old and young, from a new person to an old person that’s been in God’s way. Maybe somebody coming from a worldwide background or somebody coming from the world. It doesn’t matter what race, what age, what ethnic group they are. You can see that without partiality, meaning you do not have sides when you think about people. You are not putting one person above another, more important than other. You can understand what God’s way is about and without hypocrisy.

And the fruit of righteousness is shown in peace of them that make peace. So this is the list of so many characteristics that the youth can develop, but also we that are older must show that different strength than the physical strength. And the youth, when you see these things you must almost covet it what the older generation can bring to you. Because if you learn that quicker, you might not want to make the same mistake as others thinking coming to mind now, where I work as a medical practitioner in the area where I work during winter, we don’t have that many cold winters.

But people would live in a corrugated iron house and the house might be even smaller than the surface area of this stage. And there would be a family of X amount of people living there, and they would often be small children. So they don’t have heaters or central heating as we have here, or central cooling. They would sometimes leave the stove on, the stove plate, the two-plate stove to just create heat in the house. And what happens, often, the little ones put their hands on it, or the hot water falls on them, and you get a lot of burn wounds from little children when they are younger.

You as the youth want to avoid those mistakes. When your parents say, don’t put your hand on the stove, you don’t want to do that. You can learn quicker through observing what the brethren with wisdom in the congregation here at the feast can bring. You don’t have to make the same mistakes as they did. You can learn from those. Let’s go to Psalm... first Isaiah before we go to Psalm. Let’s go to Isaiah. Isaiah forty-six. Brethren, the glory of the hoary head is tied to being found in God’s righteousness.

It’s not automatic that you’re going to develop wisdom, going to develop character. It’s tied to obedience to God, a lifelong process of, for the youth it starts for those that will be baptized today, you will receive a down payment of God’s Spirit. That’s when your journey in effect start as a begotten child of God. But you have to continue to do that for the rest of your life. Let’s go to Isaiah forty-six and read in verse three. God says, “Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are born by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. And even to your old age, I am He.

God says, “And even through old age will I carry you. I will have made and I will have bear. Even I will carry and I will deliver you.” Can you say those things? I’m sure, brethren, that you can. Thinking about through your life, even just getting here to the feast or getting through this year, how you can attest to the fact that God says to the old age, those that are of old age, that He has carried us. Even the young can say that, that how He carried us through our experience, through the tests and the trials, He promises that He will carry us.

But this versus specifically, giving comfort to those that are older because you continue to obey Him. You continue to follow in His righteousness. “To whom will you liken me?” God says in verse five. “....and make me equal and compare me that we may be like?” There’s nothing like God. There’s nobody liking nobody that has that character that He can give you if you continue to walk in His ways. Continue in His way of life. Let’s go to Psalm seventy-one. Again, that glory that you receive, brethren, and I receive young and old, the glory, the real glory that we are after is tied to God’s righteousness.

Today you are much faster at getting to the scripture than I am. Can hear the pages stop at one point and then I’m still turning to the page. So that’s good. Verse nine in chapter Psalm seventy-one. You can go, we have a hymn, I think we sang it yesterday. If I remember correctly. One of the hymns, I cannot remember the number of the hymn, but it’s about Psalm seventy-one. It’s a beautiful hymn thinking about when we grow older.

But here we written nine. It says, “Cast me not off in the time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength fails.” David understood that he was a young man. He had the mighty men around him. He was a soldier. He was a warrior. What did the ladies sing to him that Solomon killed his... I cannot remember the number, but David killed his ten-thousand, something along those lines. That he was much better, stronger warrior. God didn’t allow him to build the temple because of all the blood that he shed. He knew physical strength. He probably had a lot of that when he protected his father’s sheep. He had to chase away, kill a lion and a bear and a wolf if I remember correctly.

But he wasn’t the choice to become king. God decided to make him king, and throughout those years, he learned this important lesson. As he also grew physical hoary head and became old, and ultimately had to pray to God, “Cast me not off in the time of old age.” Remember what I’ve done in my youth, that I have obeyed you, God, that I’ve continued in your way of life. In verse five, it says, “For you are my hope, O Lord God. You are my trust from my youth.”

We started with reading in Proverbs. Now Proverbs written by Solomon was the son of David. So David taught as an older man, and as a father, taught Solomon a lot of things that he knew. A lot of the wisdom that Solomon had, ultimately, he could lie in his bed, “Oh, my dad said that. Oh, that’s the saying that my father said.” He could most likely remember those things.

But David says here, from his youth when he was young and strong, like Solomon said in the Proverbs, “My beauty is from my strength, and when I’m older, the hoary head will be the honor.” David understood that same principle, but he had to learn it as well as he grew older, but he continued to trust God from his youth up to the point we started to read in verse nine, and I purposely jumped to verse five to show that he trusted God from his youth.

Let’s turn to Psalm ninety-two. It says here, verse four, “For you, Lord, has made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands. Oh Lord, how great are your works and your thoughts are very deep.” Verse thirteen, it says, “Those that he planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of God.” Do you and I continue to flourish? Do we continue to grow? Do we continue to overcome as God’s people? You do not have to stop growing as a Christian. You do not have to stop overcoming as you are growing older. The fact that you continue to trust in God, found in His way, looking for that glory, you will continue to grow and overcome and be that example to the youth.

I want to turn here to Titus two. Let’s turn to Titus chapter two. Things that you can teach the youth. Think about all the things that people could teach throughout the ages. Here I have a list of the ages of some of the people that lived and described in the Bible. Adam, he lived nine hundred and thirty years. How much wisdom could he build if he repented and changed? Ultimately, what did he learn in nine hundred and thirty years?

Methuselah, nine hundred and sixty-nine years that God gave him. Noah, nine hundred and fifty years. Abraham, a hundred and seventy-five years. Sarah, for the ladies, one hundred and twenty-seven years that she continued to grow and to build character, to overcome. Isaac, one hundred and eighty years. Jacob, hundred and forty-seven. Moses, one hundred and twenty years. How much character could they build in those many years?

And as you are here, in Titus chapter two, and I will read from verse two. “That the age may be sober.” These are a list, and you can go home everyone thinking about the men, specifically for the men, the aged men, these are the things that you can teach to the young people, “To be sober, to be grave, to be temperate, having self-control, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. And the aged women, likewise that they be in behavior, it’s becoming holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things.”

You are there to teach the younger generation and everyone around you that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands and to love their children, to be discreet, to be chaste, meaning moderate, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed. Meaning God’s way might be glorified through your actions just the fact that you teach the younger generation.

Let’s turn to a final verse here, brethren, back to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter eleven and verse six. Pick up here in verse six. Thinking back where we started with a millennial, or a kingdom-like picture, the first year of God’s plan, the seven years going into the millennium, God’s Kingdom, the whole three measures of meals, so to speak, that we think and feast on this Feast of Tabernacles, it says, “And the righteous shall be girdle of the loins...” In verse five. “...and faithfulness, girdle of the reins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb...” And the leopard think about what is ahead of us. “...shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”

They’ve been learning through that relationship between young and old. “The cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp.” Coming back to that picture, what they will be playing with, the older people, enjoying what they are seeing and rejoicing. “The asp and the weaned child shall put the hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

Brethren, that relationship between young and old that we started with will never be destroyed. There’s going to be a point we see that it is disappearing. But God prophesies says in the future when we celebrate and think about those things, that relationship between the young and the old will be restored. You as the youth, you bring curiosity, you bring energy, you bring your youthful strength and excitement, a beginning of family, a beginning of a job. Those are the things that you bring to the table.

For the older people, for the older generation among us, you bring wisdom, you bring reflection, and the opportunity to savor and teach those fruits to the youth, that wisdom. Brethren, let’s continue as we go through the rest of this feast to savor and think about this special relationship between the young and old and the lessons we learned today from it.