A GRAND OLD MAN
‘And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim.’
I. We have here a man who knows that he is old, but who is not distressed by the thought of it.—There are old men who do not know that they are old, or who seek to suppress their knowledge of it. Few things in the world are so pleasant as the sight of such a conscious, cheerful, hopeful old age as that of Barzillai, certain that it has not long to stay, but interested to the last in the best things of life, in the cause of God and man and country and Church. We must prepare for such an old age as this: (1) by taking God with us early in the journey of life; (2) by providing beforehand the compensations which God is willing to give for everything that may be taken away by the changes of life.
II. We have here a man who is rich, but who is satisfied with his natural position.—It is at the stage of prosperity that the dissatisfaction of many men begins. If Barzillai had been of the mind of many, he would have made his wealth buy wings for his vanity, and, old as he was, would have tried to flutter in the sunshine of the court. But he was a wiser man, and a happier, and stands in higher honour this day than if he had wronged his nature and finished his life with an act of folly.
III. We have a man of long experience, who has kept up his love of simple pleasures.—We can infer this from the tone in which he speaks. He had reached an age when the love of sensational things fails in all but the most frivolous, yet the way in which he speaks of them puts them quietly aside, as not to his taste and never likely to have been so.
It is not a dream that man can keep the love of natural things in his heart and can call them up in fancy as he reads. If a man will but read his Bible with a fresh heart, he may walk with patriarchs in the world when it was young and green, may rest with Abraham under the shade of the oak of Mamre, and see the upspringing of the well to which the princes of Israel sang. He may sit on the mountain-top with Christ, among the lilies and the birds, to understand what they say and sing, and he may listen till he hears far off the final hymn which shall be a concert of nature round regenerated man.
IV. We have a man who is attached to the past, but who does not distrust the future.—For himself he has grown up in the old way, and cannot change, but he thinks, ‘The new has its rights, and the world will be on. My son is here; the future is beaming in his face and beating in his heart; I give him into hands I can trust for leading him in the way of truth, of righteousness.’ If the old can thus pass over into the new, there is security in all changes.
Illustrations
(1) ‘It is related of the ancient Sibylline books, that the prince to whom they were offered for sale thought the price asked too high; some of them were then burned, but the same price was demanded; yet again the same act was repeated, with the same result; finally, the volumes still remaining were purchased for the price demanded for the whole at first. So is it with our days; the article rises in value as it becomes more scarce. What high significance then attaches to the question of Barzillai in the ceaseless flight of years, and how much reason have the old, especially, to think and choose like him! He who expects nothing for himself in eternity, closes his ear to the ceaseless rustle of the wings of time; and he who in old age desires his heaven on earth, dreams not, like Barzillai, of the still grave, his mother. But to the believing Christian, the older he is the nearer is he to blessed rest, and to the glorious contemplation of “the King in His beauty” in the new Jerusalem, where they reckon not by years.’
(2) ‘In this narrative we see the priceless value of a kind, thoughtful, generous deed, to a sad and weary soul.
We thank Thee, too, that Thou hast made
Joy to abound;
So many gentle thoughts and deeds
Circling us round;
That in the darkest spot on earth
Some love is found.’