Zacharias and Elizabeth: Never too old

I'd like to read with you in Luke's Gospel, chapter 1. I'd like to read in verse 5. Luke's Gospel, chapter 1 and verse 5. There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zechariah of the course of Abiah, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. And they had no child because that Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.

It came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense, and there appeared in him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zechariah saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him, and the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zechariah, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

Thou shalt have joy, gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.

And so on. That's as much as I want to read. Now from time to time we are urged, and rightly so, to encourage those that are young.

And that's a good thing to encourage young Christians. But what I have upon my mind this morning is not necessarily the young, but I'm sure that these portions of Scriptures would do the young good as well as us that are older. So I have upon my mind those of us, I'm including myself, that are older.

And there are some things here I think that we could consider in relation to Zechariah and Elizabeth. That would be an encouragement to you and me that are older in this room. I'm not saying old, I'm just saying older.

I have a twin sister and she's the same age I am. She's 77. And on her 77th birthday I sent her a text.

I don't call her because if I do then I got to listen to her talk for about two hours. She likes to talk a lot. So I just text her from time to time.

So that was a time to text her and I said to her, Judy, we're getting older. You know how she responded? She says, no, we're not getting older, we're old. So there you go.

According to her, when you're 77 you're old. That's what I have upon my mind. Zechariah and Elizabeth are an example of those who Luke describes in a real tender way as being well stricken in years.

And some of us in the room today are well stricken in years. As what is affectionately referred to as a senior. And I believe one can find some encouragement in what is recorded about Zechariah and Elizabeth.

And one of those things is that we are never too old for God to use. You're never too old and I'm never too old for God to use. God can use you, God can use me.

Amazing isn't it? We're never too old to pray and see the results of our prayers. And we're never too old to fail. Sometimes old folks fail.

Sometimes young folks fail too. So we're never too old to fail. And we're never too old to do something new.

Some change. Not the kind of change we hear about these days, but a good change. And we're never too old to sing.

So those are the things I want to kind of touch on this morning. We're never too old for God to use. God enabled this couple along with Abraham and Sarah to have children in their old age.

God made that happen. And when God seeks to do something wonderful, at times He does it through something that seems absolutely impossible for you and me. So things that seem so impossible for you and me are possibilities for God.

It says in Genesis 18 and verse 14, is anything too hard for the Lord? Can you think of anything that's too hard for the Lord? I can't think of anything too hard for the Lord. And the Word of God makes it crystal clear that there isn't anything too hard for the Lord. Might be hard for you, might be hard for me, but it's not too hard for Him.

And you know there might be giants in the land, there might be giants in your life, you and I that are getting older. I used to work for a man that, put it this way, he says you're getting a little long at the tooth. So, I'm a little long at the tooth.

But, there's nothing too hard for the Lord. And Luke chapter 1 verse 37, For with God nothing shall be impossible. He does the things others cannot do.

He does the things you can't do and the things I can't do. But He expects you and I to do what we can do, and He'll pick it up from there, I take it. John 21 verse 16 to 17.

The Lord commissioned His disciples to care for the sheep as well for the lambs. So we kind of want to remember in our minds that the older saints have stood the heat of the day. And they have what younger saints don't have.

You say, what would that be? What could an older saint have that a younger saint doesn't have? Well, I can tell you what it is, is experience. They haven't lived long enough to just experience life itself. I'm going to tell you a little story.

I'm not much of a storyteller, but I've got a little story in the back of my mind I want to mention. We're never too old for God to use. And the younger saints, I take it, would do well to show respect for their age, for their wisdom, and for their experience.

That would be a good thing. Let me tell you something about gray hair. I could talk about gray hair this morning.

I could also talk about baldness. But you see, it wasn't always that way. But it is that way now.

It's not a mark of senility, but it's a great source of spiritual power and experience. My friend George Patterson, I used to preach with him quite a bit. He told me a story one time about a man by the name of Mr. McIlwain.

And he said that he was at a conference up in Canada somewhere. I'm not sure where. It doesn't matter.

And it was a Sunday afternoon, George said. And it was probably the last hour of the Sunday afternoon session. And this man, Mr. McIlwain, got up.

And I guess I didn't know him, of course. Some of you might have. But I didn't know him.

But anyway, I guess he was not a real elegant speaker. He just kind of got up and visited. But the Lord used him in a great way.

And George told me the assemblies he saw planted are strong assemblies even to this day. That's a good commendation for the man, McIlwain. Anyways, he got up and he said there was a bit of a sigh that went through the whole congregation that happened to be there that day.

And he got up on the platform and he said, now our younger brethren have waxed eloquent. You know how younger brethren do? They wax eloquent. And then he went on to say, but he says, I have something they don't have.

And everybody scratching their head, George says, wondering what he would have that those young brethren who had just waxed eloquent didn't have. And he says, I have experience. And he said he started telling some of his experiences working in the field preaching the gospel.

And he says he won the hearts of the people. So there's a lot to be said about experience. We're never too old to pray.

And it's interesting to me when God answers prayer, it's above and beyond anything that you and I ask or think. Did you ever experience that? This couple prayed for a child. God gave them a son who would be the herald of the Messiah, Luke chapter 1 verse 17, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

So God bless the older saints who pray for the younger saints seeking to serve the Lord in the energy of their youth. We have that privilege to pray for those younger saints that have that energy in them, those good legs yet. Appreciate your good legs, young brethren.

Don't count on them. They might give out on you somewhere down the line like mine have. These things I got are metal.

And they let me know it when it gets cold. And now it's at the point even when it gets hot, they let me know that they're metal and they really don't belong to me, but they're better than nothing. They're kind of like false teeth, you know, they'll fail you when you need them the most.

So we're never too old to pray and we're never too old to fail. Sometimes old saints fail as young saints fail. We're never too old to fail and many times in the Word of God, God has made it well known to us and we have looked to ourselves instead of looking to Him.

Have you ever done that? I've done that many a time. I should be looking to the Lord and I'm looking to myself and when I do that I'm failing. Abraham was a man that was marked by faith.

And when he faced famine, he fled to Egypt for help. Genesis chapter 12. And Moses, I take it, was a man that was marked by humility when he lost his temper.

How's your temper? Did you say, how's yours preacher? I got a healthy one, but I've lived long enough now that I've learned how to get a hold of it. So we probably, if we're all honest in the room, this brother's grinning at me, so he must know what I'm talking about. I'm not a betting man, but I bet we all got healthy tempers.

We need to learn how to control that temper. Moses is a man that was marked by humility. He's a man that lost his temper.

Numbers chapter 12. Then he lost his privilege to enter the promised land. Numbers chapter 20.

And then there is David. And then there is Peter. And then there is some of you and me in the room today.

So might we all pray as William Culbertson did in his day. He said, Lord, help me to end well. And I remember years ago that a man from Texas came to La Crosse to a prayer meeting on a Wednesday night.

And he got up on his feet and he prayed, and I can remember what he prayed, and that was in about 1974. And he prayed, Lord, spare me from being a crabby old man. And I wondered what kind of a prayer that was when I heard him pray that, because I was just a young fellow, about 35, 36 years old.

Now I'm an old fella, and now I understand better why he prayed the way he did. You know, youthful sins are sad. Sin of experienced saints is more than sad.

It's tragic. It's a tragedy. But whether that individual is in his or her youth, or whether that individual is long at the tooth, failure doesn't need to be final.

I hope that's an encouragement to someone in the room today, because years back when I heard that, it was an encouragement to me. Failure doesn't need to be final. And you see that in the life of Peter, a man who was recovered to the Lord.

He was recovered to the Lord's people, and he was recovered to the Lord's service in that order. So he was a man that failed. He denied his relationship with the Lord, but he was a man that was recovered.

So that failure didn't have to be final in the life of Peter. We're never too old to do something new. How about those good old days? You remember those good old days? Someone has said that they are a combination of bad memory and good imagination.

We need something called balance. We need something called discernment. I'm thinking of a man by the name of George Mueller.

He did something new. He left the orphanage work in the able hands of someone else and began to travel and minister the Word of God. And he was in his seventies when he did this.

And he ministered the Word of God to the good of the people of God. And when he was doing all of this, he was no spring chicken. He was doing a lot of traveling.

He was never too old to sing. We'll never get too old to sing. You know, if we had been mute for nine months like Zacharias, and suddenly our speech returned, what would you say? And what would I say? Well, Zacharias spake, and he praised God.

That's what he did. And he praised God about redemption, and he praised Him about victory, and he praised Him about forgiveness. In verse 69, he spake more about God's Son than he did his own son.

That's what Zacharias did. And he saw Israel at the dawning of a new day in verse 78, verse 79. And you and I, even though we're getting older, we can retain our spiritual vision for the present and for the future, because we've got a bright and a glorious future before us.

I have an old friend dying in the hospital today. His name is Cecil Hancock. He's an exclusive brother.

He's a man who made a difference in my life. You know, sometimes you meet someone that actually makes a difference in your life. And to my shame, I was away from the Lord, and I was walking down the street one day, and Mr. Cecil Hancock was coming up the street.

And when he got up to where I was at, he said something to me, because he'd known me from before. He says, are you doing all right? I said, no, I'm not. And you know, he never preached to me, and he never hammered me over the head, and he never ever scolded me.

He said to me, come out to my house and drink coffee with me and have some rippin' good cookies. So I went to his house, and I drank coffee with him and some rippin' good cookies. And I can tell you today, if it hadn't have been for Cecil Hancock, I wouldn't be standing here today.

I have no clue where I would be at. But I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't be standing on this platform today if it hadn't been for that man and his kindness and his care and his tenderness to me. And that man never one time hit me over the head with his scriptures, and he never one time scolded me.

He was just careful and kind and considerate. And today he's trying to go to glory, and he's having a bit of a time of it. So if you think about it, pray that he has a peaceful exit out of this world into glory.

You know, in their long years, Zachariah and Elizabeth enjoyed the favor and the blessing of God because of His grace and because of their faithfulness. And you and I, as the people of God, can enjoy the same thing for the same reason. We're never too old, not any one of us in this room, never too old for God to use for His glory.

That old man dying in that hospital, God's using that man for His glory in relation to His family. Yeah, pretty amazing. I watched and witnessed that yesterday.

So keep on keeping on. Till earthly history ends, we leave this poor groaning world behind, and all the burdens of earth are going to fall away, brothers and sisters, and the tears will dry up, and the trials will be over, and there will be no more terrorism in the world. It's going to be a bright, it's going to be a very glorious time, and all of that is going to be behind us, and we're going to be caught away.

We're looking for that. We're not looking for a coffin by any stretch of the imagination. We're looking for, not the undertaker, but the upper taker, and soon He'll come and shout His waiting people home.

Trust that's an encouragement to you.