HENRY VAN DYKE, one time professor of English in Princeton University, and moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, gave to the world a clear formula for successful living.
Learn to live with confusion clearly;
To love your fellow men sincerely.
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and heaven securely.
To him God was not merely a solver of problems but a traveling companion on life's rugged way. Few men in comparatively modern times have made as great a contribution to Christian thought as this Princeton professor.
But more than three thousand years ago a greater than Van Dyke left these words on record: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. 33:25). This was part of the blessing of Moses before he ascended Mount Nebo, where he fell asleep in the arms of God. A few years earlier, this great leader of Israel had composed the 90th psalm in which occurs this familiar expression: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." But we remember that he had already reached four score years when the Lord called him to lead a people from slavery to freedom. And now after forty years of wilderness wandering we see him at the advanced age of 120 vigorous and kingly. His eye was not even dim.
Modern science has greatly aided in extending the average life span of man. During the past half century it has mounted from forty to more than seventy years. But the big question is, What are we doing with those extra years?
According to the life span of the antediluvians, Enoch had scarcely reached middle age when God took him. He was then 365!
Some years later, Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and an excellent ship builder, the first the world had ever known, was doing his noble work encouraged, of course, by his father, Lamech, and his grandfather, Methuselah. God gave Noah specific plans concerning the construction of that mighty ship, and during those long years of toil as a preacher and shipbuilder his father and grandfather were his companions and wise counselors. They both died, however, before the Flood came.
It was a noble line of patriarchs from Seth to Noah. They were "the sons of God" in a very wicked age, when the race became so degraded that every imagination of the thoughts of men was only evil continually. There was nothing else for God to do but to destroy man from the face of the earth. But in spite of the tragic picture "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6:8). What a wonderful testimony to the faithful instruction and example of his father and his grandfather. And there is no doubt that Noah knew Enoch, for the Flood did not occur until the six hundredth year of Noah's life. According to Usher's Chronology, Adam also would have known Enoch. In fact, Enoch's grandson, Lamech, would have been past fifty years when Adam died.
In that antediluvian world Enoch must have been a mighty witness for truth and righteousness. Yet we are told his "warnings were disregarded by a sinful, pleasure-loving people." But this man of God "had looked upon the celestial city. He had seen the King in His glory in the midst of Zion." The messenger of the Lord declares:
His mind, his heart, his conversation, were in heaven. The greater the existing iniquity, the more earnest was his longing for the home of God. While still on earth, he dwelt, by faith, in the realms of light. . . . For three centuries he had walked with God. Day by day he had longed for a closer union; nearer and nearer had grown the communion, until God took him to Himself. He had stood at the threshold of the eternal world only a step between him and the land of the blest; and now the portals opened, the walk with God, so long pursued on earth, continued, and he passed through the gates of the Holy City the first from among men to enter there.—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 87.
Christ's words concerning Noah's generation are both familiar and significant: "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." It was a self-sufficient generation. Men saw no need to heed the message of God; they just went on living their own lives "until the flood came, and took them all away."
Faithful in a Wicked Age
We must recognize the difficulty Noah faced when trying to impress the people around him concerning the urgency of his message, for they had never witnessed a calamity or a judgment of God. It is difficult also for us in these days to impress our generation. Even for those of us who know the prophecies it becomes increasingly easy to be completely absorbed in the interests and pleasures of this world. But the message God has committed to the Advent people is the most comprehensive of all time. However, like the people of Noah's day our generation has willfully dull ears. "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ . . . should shine unto them" (2 Cor. 4:4).
Little wonder the youth of our time are so confused. They have eyes but they see not, and they lack "the hearing of faith" (Gal. 3:5). Education which should lead them to a knowledge of themselves and of God is in all too many cases having the very opposite effect. Many in the highest educational circles are quite ready to confess they do not know who they are, from whence they have come, or where they are going. Many are not even sure that God exists. In any case, they feel no responsibility toward Him. But it is to this generation that we have been called to witness.
What are we doing with the days and years granted us for service? Youth, of course, is the most vibrant and challenging period of life. But what about those who have reached the "golden" years? Some be cause of impaired health are unable to do much more than pray. But what about those who can do something for God? Even at 120 years Moses, like his Lord, was still about his Father's business. The one absorbing passion of his life was to get a people ready to pass over into Canaan. While he himself was denied the privilege of leading them into the Promised Land yet in the sunset years of his life he was preaching his greatest sermons. The Book of Deuteronomy records some of the stirring messages of that old warrior.
Paul's remark in his letter to Timothy is apropos. He speaks of some who were "living it up," as the youth of today would say. But, the apostle adds that they are dead while they are living. A recent remark by one of our workers set me thinking. He said: "I am looking forward to retirement, for then I will be able to do the things I have always wanted to do." I began to wonder what he could possibly want to do more than winning souls to Christ. That surely is the most thrilling experience in all the world. Even if one's background has not been that of a minister, yet to take some active part in God's work is a privilege as well as a responsibility. To me it seems tragic that after spending thirty-five, forty, forty-five years in the service of God we lose the incentive and the enthusiasm of earlier days and just settle down to a life of ease. No matter what one's chronological age may be, the best way to preserve our health and to save our family from having to meet our funeral expenses is to keep clear the vision of our earlier days, to keep busy, and to continue to participate in some active program that will aid in the preparation of a people to meet our soon-coming Lord.
One of our hardest-working ministers, who has sixty-four years of tireless ministry to his credit, is still active in the service of God. True, he is on sustentation and has been for many years, but he continues to teach a large Sabbath school class and very frequently preaches the Sabbath morning sermon. He carries very heavy burdens as an officer in the church to which he belongs. And even more important, he is right now doing some of the finest writing of his whole career. And he is past eighty-two!
Ordained for Life
In the earlier days of this movement no worker really thought of retiring. When health conditions indicated that it was wise to lay off heavy responsibilities ministers and other types of workers were happy to take a lighter load, but they continued to do something. They did not lay down their tools. But like Methuselah they still took part in the building of the ship.
When one is ordained to the ministry it is for life. Under normal conditions one would not dare to fritter away his time doing petty things that make no contribution to the work of God. In order to be happy, determine to be a running brook rather than a stagnant pool. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; . . . pressed down, . . . and running over," said our Lord. While the years have taught us some things, yet all we have ever known or ever can know in this life is but a handful of pebbles compared to the great ocean of knowledge that lies before us unexplored. And the little any of us knows should work in us a true sense of humility. Someone has well observed that the peacock of today may be the feather duster of tomorrow. Remember, no mind stops growing until the head swells.
The measure of a true leader is the amount of light he casts upon the path of those he serves. It is not how old one is, but how he is old that really counts. So even during those "golden" years let us keep growing, not only in grace but also in knowledge.
There are noble examples of many men and women who seem to ignore the sixty-five deadline. Gladstone, one of England's greatest prime ministers, learned Hebrew after he turned eighty! At ninety years of age Edith Hamilton, the famous classicist, completed her outstanding book The Echo of Greece, and because of her outstanding contribution attended the Delphic festival at Athens as the guest of the Greek Government. Austin Blake, at Waunakee, Wisconsin, is still practicing medicine at ninety-three. Better-known people such as Sir Winston Churchill or Eleanor Roosevelt never seemed to be troubled with age. Clara Barton did her most lasting work— the organization of the International Red Cross—when she was past eighty. And it is now claimed that Ann McCarthy of Boston, Massachusetts, is still considered one of the finest seamstresses in all New England. And she is 101! And if you go to one of the TV stations in Tacoma, Washington, you may meet a young-appearing gentleman who manages the station at the age of 114! Theodore F. Green, the 90-year-old former Senator of Rhode Island, says: "Most people say as you get old you have to give up things. I think you get old be cause you give up things," Browning's well-known verse is full of meaning:
"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made."
The Scriptures say: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. . . . They shall still bring forth fruit in old age." The "golden years" provide golden opportunities for achieving certain things that were difficult in the silver years. The messenger of the Lord gives some excellent counsel to senior workers of the Advent Movement: "The true minister of Christ should make continual improvement. The afternoon sun of his life may be more mellow and productive of fruit than the morning sun. It may continue to increase in size and brightness until it drops behind the western hills."—Selected Messages, book 2, p. 221. The poetic beauty of those words is matched only by the trenchant truth they contain. In the consciousness of our high calling let us all, young and aged alike, determine that every day we shall do some thing to hasten the coming of the King, appropriating the promise "as thy days, so shall thy strength be."
