Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Leviticus 19:32

Today is Leviticus 19:32. Leviticus 19:32 is our concluding sermon on the fifth word or the fifth commandment. Word is more accurate to the text both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. Leviticus 19:32. This is the last text in Leviticus 19 summary of the ten commandments that deals with the fifth word. And so I wanted to treat with it separately. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Leviticus 19:32.

You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man. And you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Let’s pray. Father, we acknowledge you as our Lord. And we thank you that you are there and you are not silent. You have communicated to us in this word who you are, who we are, and what is the way for us to walk in that would be good for us. Bless us, Lord God, as we attempt to understand this word.

May your Holy Spirit who indwells us through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ transform our lives and help us to understand this word that we may obey it and bless you for it. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

Who wants to live a good life? You want to be blessed. You want to have a good life. You want things to go well with you in your lives. Right? You all want that. Well, here’s the text. This is what God says is the key to doing that. The fifth word is the, as Paul called it, the first commandment with promise. And the promise changes a little bit as we go from the 10 words in Exodus 20 to the 10 words in Deuteronomy 5. Look on your handouts.

In Exodus 20, we’ll start with that: “Honor your father and your mother. Your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you.” Long days. Deuteronomy 5 changes that a bit and it says, “Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you that your days may be long and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Now, that promise was there inherent in Exodus 20, but it’s made explicit. So, as we move along contrasting and comparing Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, we see the importance. God wants us to recognize in Deuteronomy 5 that this is the answer to all of our problems. This is the commandment that obeying of it. God says it’ll go well with us where God has caused us to live.

Now, you know, that’s not me speaking. That’s God speaking. He is there. He is here. He created this world. We all know that. And if there’s a God, clearly he would communicate to his people and to a people that communicate with language. He would use language to do that. In fact, he’s created us with the gift of language as his image bearers. And in this word, he reveals to us how to have it so that our lives may go well wherever God has placed us.

The key to a good life as well as a long life is observance of the fifth commandment. It’s that simple, folks. That’s what the word of God says.

It’s interesting that if you look at the ten commandments, from now on, we’re going to have nothing but negatives. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. The last five words are all negatives. The first three words: don’t, don’t, don’t. Right? No other gods. Don’t make a false image and bow down to it. Don’t take God’s name in vain. The fourth commandment is a positive. Remember the Sabbath day. The fifth commandment is a positive. Honor your parents.

So, in Leviticus 19, which we’ve talked about several times in this series, that’s what it starts with, the two positives, what we’re supposed to be doing. I’m convinced that if we did those two things well, most of the rest of this thing would just clear itself up. And that’s why it’s placed at the head of the list, I believe, in Leviticus 19.

And even if we look at the fourth word or the fifth word, of course, these are the ones under attack in our day and age, right? We’ve gone from reverence for old people and reverence for parents to now making fun of them and mocking them and get out of the way, dude. President of the United States called dude. That’s a symbol of the culture. You see, that’s where we’re at. These two things are very critical to living a good life in the context of for going well with us. This is the answer.

Now the fourth word, it has a lot of things not to do too in it. There’s nothing like that in the fifth word. It’s pure positive. Honor your father and mother. Have a long life and have a life in which it will go well with you where I’ve placed you. That’s what God says. You see the significance of it.

I believe this commandment properly understood would really transform churches and it would transform this church. We got a way to go in obeying the fifth commandment. And the better we do on the fifth word, the better it will be for us. That will be well for this church as we move into the future as well.

Leviticus 19:32 is another place where in the 70 commandments of Leviticus 19, we have this fifth word, fifth commandment referenced. And it’s referenced in a particular way and it helps us to branch out not just in terms of parents but in terms of old people. Now the fifth commandment talks in terms of mother and dad, mom and dad, and Moses’ sermon in Deuteronomy that we looked at applied that fifth commandment to civil rulers and ecclesiastical rulers. Those are the other major authorities in our lives.

And then Leviticus 19 talks about parents and their responsibilities and the reverence there to be due. And then it finally concludes down toward the bottom of Leviticus 19 by referencing old people in general, okay? And the need to apply the fifth word to honor the elderly in particular.

So this is kind of a comprehensive view. We look at these things, we get a comprehensive view of how we’re to apply the fifth word in our day and age.

So let’s look at the context. And again, I’ve given you this material before, but I’ve given you a little cut out of the context. Leviticus 19 has these 70 commandments. And basically, I believe that you can break this up into few sections. Leviticus 19 overall is about holiness, but the first half of Leviticus 19 stresses holiness and specifically it seems like it stresses personal integrity. Personal integrity. These are things that people won’t usually be able to see if you’re doing them well or not.

And the second half of Leviticus 19 begins with the statement, “You shall keep my statutes.” And the stress here is not personal integrity as much as is obedience. So holiness and obedience are the two halves of Leviticus 19 and they’re the two basic divisions of how we can think of the law and the relationship to parents is found in both sections of course but this verse 32 is found in the concluding section of obedience.

Things that people will see if you’re doing them or not are primarily in the last half of Leviticus 19. Things that people won’t see as much are in the first half. So these are things people can look at you, they can watch you in culture and they can see: did he stand up when that old man came into the room? Was he honoring that older woman in the context of that thing? Did he listen to her carefully? Did he let her speak before he spoke?

See, we can watch each other in terms of how well we do this side of these commandments in Leviticus 19. And the concluding section of Leviticus 19 begins with this verse 32. And I see these sections by analyzing the statements of “I am the Lord” and “I am the Lord your God.” So verse 32 speaks about respect of the elderly and reverence of God.

And remember that’s how all these things started and how to do the fifth commandment is you got to reverence your parents. You got to fear them up in Leviticus 19 verse 2 or 3. And here toward the end you’re going to fear God. And your fear of God is going to be shown by how well you honor and rise up before old people. How you treat old people.

The last couple of sections deal with the stranger and then deal with honest measures and then verse 37 tells us to guard all these statutes and that’s the summary of Leviticus 19. So this verse today we’re dealing with is in the last little section of things: the elderly, the stranger, economic transactions and then we’re told to carefully guard all of these statutes. So that’s the immediate context of Leviticus 19:32.

Now before we get to the specific verse I want to read some related texts in the scriptures related to Leviticus 19:32. You know, we know what it’s about generally, respecting older people and honoring them. Well, let me read some other texts.

Proverbs 16:31. Gray hair is a crown of glory. It is gained in a righteous life. Gray hair is a crown of glory. And the word glory here, I mentioned this in my sermon on beauty several months ago, but really this is not the normal word for glory. This is the word that is frequently translated beauty. So, gray hair on somebody like my gray hair. My wife’s starting to have gray hair. That’s beautiful is what God says. That’s beauty. That’s a real beautiful thing.

He says the same thing in Proverbs 20:29. The glory of young men is their strength. That’s a beautiful thing. Glory, right? But the splendor, the beauty of old men is their gray hair. And I think this, you know, man is always used covenantally to represent men and women. So old people, you get gray hair. That’s beautiful.

We together to hear the word of God, to get reoriented, to get our thinking straight because apart from God’s word, we’re all messed up in the way we think. We treat the very thing that the scriptures tell us of a truth is glorious and we think it’s bad and we dye it and we cover it all up. That’s weird. It’s not weird. It’s a result of the fall.

God says silver hair, white hair, gray hair, things moving in that direction, that’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because it reflects him.

In Daniel, he talks about he sees the ancient of days. Now, you know, good men disagree on this. I think it’s Jesus. And the ancient of days is described in Daniel chapter 7. Let me read the description here. His garments were white as snow and the hair of his head was like pure wool. His hair was like pure wool. White wool, in other words, bleached.

The same thing is true in Revelation, we read of Jesus when John sees Jesus that his head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. The ancient of days, we frequently think of the father. But Jesus has white hair, whiter than white. Okay, he’s old the way we would think of it. He’s the ancient of days, but of course, it’s not old in the sense of feeble. But he shows us that kind of spark of majesty is what Matthew Henry called it. God’s spark of majesty, the whiteness of his hair, the beauty of it is given to old people to represent a spark of the majesty of God by old people in the context of where we live and who we see.

Now, that’s a totally different way of looking at hair, isn’t it? An old age. It means that old age is supposed to be a crown of glory and beauty. It’s accomplished in righteousness. But what God wants is when people get old, they get more mature. They get more faithful to Jesus. They get more just, they get more wisdom, and they represent God more in the context of the culture.

And when we see people with old hair, that’s what we’re supposed to think of is the spark of majesty, the ancient of days, Jesus and his pure white hair in the book of Revelation chapter 1. That’s what we’re supposed to think of. God says that’s the way it is. That’s what we should see when we see old people is representations of the majesty of Christ.

Elihu in Job 32, he says, “I’m young and you are aged.” Speaking of the men advising Job, therefore I—therefore Elihu says, “I was timid and afraid to declare my opinion to you. Would to God that our young people would be like Elihu who recognizes the wisdom of old age and waits for the older people to speak first and is timid about expressing his opinion.”

Now Elihu does that and again good men disagree on the character Elihu, but I think he’s got some pretty good things to say. Young people have good things to say, but that goodness is placed in the context of understanding the importance of the elderly and the wisdom that they will normally have that God gives to them.

Leviticus 19:14 says, “Don’t curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.” Another one of these statements about fearing God, just like the one here we have in Leviticus 19:32. Fear God by showing proper deference to the old.

And you know, this isn’t the first translation of the text. But what else happens when you get old? You get blind. You can’t hear. You tend toward blindness. You tend toward not being able to hear as well. This is just a common state of fallen man as he gets older. And God warns us, you know, to not despise people who are totally blind or deaf, of course, even though they’re young. But I think it’s also a warning to us that if you’re going to fear and reverence God, don’t despise them because they can’t hear you well anymore.

Don’t make fun of them. Don’t get exasperated. Don’t, you know, curse them under your breath. Don’t be impatient. Respect it. It’s part of the aging process that God has placed upon us.

The New Testament, same stuff. 1 Timothy 5:1, don’t rebuke an older man, but encourage him and treat him as you would a father. Younger men as brothers. Well, that assumes you’re treating your father and your brothers with respect and honor, but the point is that obvious one, older men. The fifth word is applied both in terms of actual fathers and mothers, but it’s also applied to older people. And we’re supposed to entreat an older man, not rebuke him.

Older women, Timothy says, or Paul says to Timothy, as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. Romans 13:7, pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. And the fifth word makes it quite clear. Honor is owed to your parents and honor is owed to the elderly in the context of the culture. Pay it. You owe it. Do it. Things will go well with you in the land.

Things aren’t going so well with you. Think about how well you’re doing the fifth commandment. Not just in terms of your parents, terms of the church, terms of the state, in terms of the elderly people that you know in your community. How well do you treat them?

And then tell me, you know, you want a better life. Well, you want a better life, get better at doing the one thing in the Bible and the ten commandments it says God says it’ll go well with you.

What we’re doing today this afternoon is a way of doing the same thing. It’s an honoring of the past. It’s a recognition of the great men that have gone, men and women that have gone before us and showing our debt that we owe to them, our forebears in the reformed faith. And we honor them today. It’s a good day for Leviticus 19:32.

You know, we stand as in a way we honor today Martin Luther, the great man of the Protestant Reformation and beyond that on All Saints Day, all kinds of saints across the last several thousand years who have been consistently faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and had good lives, exemplary lives, we’re supposed to honor them. We honor God by honoring people and we honor the past even as we respect old age in our present. We acknowledge their past. So, we lean toward the past in reverence and honor what God has done in the past so that we might live well in the context of our age in the present and Reformation Day, All Saints Day is a good day to remind us of this.

So is the elections. We’re electing officers. We’re electing, you know, elected officials. And while we can be quite combative in our political dialogue, we’re supposed to show respect for the officers, the people that God has placed in office, representing his office in the context of the civil arena. So it’s a good day to stress this fifth word and specifically to take it broader than parents, elderly people, our forebears as well.

Part of the interesting dynamic of our election cycle today is people acknowledging the forebears of the country, right? The Constitution, the original patriots of our country, and everybody wants to pooh pooh them, people that talk that way, and you can sinfully think that America or Constitution is divine or something. That’s not true. But it is a good and proper thing in the context of an election cycle to recognize and honor the past, the forebears of our country and of our church and this country particularly being based on Christian principles.

So, you know, we’re supposed to do that.

1 Peter 2:17 says, “Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.” So, we’re to honor civil magistrates, but we’re also to honor everybody. And so, while I’m going to talk about what we’re talking today about elderly people, this fifth commandment is so central because it’s a key to societal foundations because it calls on us to honor each other to give each other weight respect just as elderly people and I didn’t do anything to earn the gray hair God just makes it happen but it represents his glory in the same way everybody every person is an image bearer of God no matter how poorly they may be carrying that image.

And so because of that the Bible says we’re supposed to honor all men we’re supposed to have manners that’s what this is all about God’s word. The fifth word says have good manners as it relates to elderly people. And then first Peter says to have good manners as it relates to everybody else. And that’s an important thing in the context of our culture.

The opposite is what precedes or is evidenced in societal decline. In Isaiah 3:5 it says, “The people will oppress one another. Everyone is fellow and everyone is neighbor. The youth will be insolent to the elder and the despised to the honorable.” So when things are going bad, the youth are insolent to elderly people.

Lamentations 5:12, when God brings in conquerors, he says princes will be hung up by their hands. No respect is shown to the elders. So that’s what happens. That’s what’s gone on in our country, right?

These verses from Proverbs 30:11 to 14, it speaks of parents, but parents is representing all authority. And just listen to what it says. There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes, but are not washed of their filth. There are those, how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift. There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.

That’s our day and age. That’s what’s going on since the youth rebellion of the 60s. That’s the youth culture that we put in place that despise old people, despise their forebears, despise the history and tradition that God has established, and despise elderly people. And why do they do it? Because they’re so pure in their own eyes.

Youth should recognize its shortcomings. God says there’s some physical stuff to do. Stand up when an old person enters the room. Pay honor to them. Do that and you’ll begin to remember that you’re not so smart as you think you are. People that are puffed up, they think they’re clean and they’re not washed in their filthiness.

I’ve mentioned this before, but in the youth rebellion and the radical revolution of the 60s, this was literally true because people, you know, didn’t want to use toilet paper. That’s the tradition. That’s the past. They’d end up stinking. They’d be physically stinking. And yet, they were so high-minded in their thoughts and going to tell everybody else what to do and the end result is destruction of a country and particularly destroys poor people.

And so that’s what we’ve seen in this country, a violation of the fifth word. That’s why we’re where we’re at. And if we’re going to be reformers in our day and age, it’s got to start right here, right now, today. You’re going to walk around today. And you’re going to recognize older people here. And you should honor those old people explicitly today. This is a verse you can apply today immediately.

And understand that when you do that, you’re creating reformation again in our country by doing by obeying that fifth word. And you’re creating a reality in your life that will mean it will go well for you in the land. You’ll have a better life if you honor old people. That’s what this text tells us.

Rushdoony says it’s a mark of the end of a culture and it’s coming judgment when young people disrespect elderly people. I was listening to Allen Toussaint. He’s a great New Orleans songwriter, piano player. He wrote “Mother-in-law,” all kinds of cool old songs. But he plays a lot of interesting piano. I saw him on Austin City Limits. And he’s just playing, you know, he wrote a song called “Southern Nights.” And most people don’t know it’s Allen Toussaint. They know the Glen Campbell version.

But he’s playing around and he’s telling the story when he was a little child growing up in New Orleans. They’d go out to the countryside and they’d visit all the relatives and all the old people. And grandma would be sitting and they’re on a rocker. And he said they had these porches, right? Just short porches, two steps up and you’re there. But he said, you know, those were the days when we honored old people before youth ruled the world.

And the kids when they’d come, he was a little kid, they’d sit on the bottom step. They’d leave the top steps for the older people. And that’s just the way it was 40, 50 years ago. All that now has been turned on its head. And we’re in we’re in the throes of a death cycle here if we can’t turn that around.

Insolence of youth toward the elderly is the beginning marks of a culture in decline. God will judge such a culture. He finds it abhorrent because in reality people are abhorring him in not respecting the aged.

All right, let’s look at the verse proper real quickly. It’s pretty straightforward, but a point on your outline shows a chiastic structure. And I didn’t—you won’t see this if you just read it in the English translation, but I wanted to look at the idea of the face of the older person. I wanted to look at all the translations, see how it translated it. And lo and behold, I looked at Young’s Literal Translation, and that’s what I’ve given for you here.

At the presence of gray hairs, thou dost rise up. Thou hast honored the presence of an old man, and hast been afraid of thy God. I am Jehovah.

And I had Flynn A. check it out. I don’t know Hebrew. Flynn knows Hebrew. Checked it out. Is this the right word order? Yeah, it is. And it’s a little unusual, he says, to do it this way, but this is the way it is. And you don’t get this in your English translation and you sort of miss the point.

The word presence is used twice. The first presence is with the preposition at the presence or in the presence. So that lines up, right? Presence and presence. Gray hair, old man. Gray hair, you know, and old man line up. It’s a synonym for one another. Elderly people is what’s being talked about. And what the action is being required is in their presence.

So really this translation difference that we read in our King James or New King James isn’t that good. Young’s preserves the same word for the same word. Same English word for the same Hebrew word. And so the bookends are a description of what you’re supposed to do in the presence of an older person. Well, that’s pretty straightforward. If you’re around somebody that’s older, this is what you’re supposed to do.

And it brings the two actions together at the center and makes them synonymous as well. It puts it in the past tense because Hebrew really is about the past tense, right? Or but in any event the idea is that the action of rising up and honoring are placed in parallel. So what it means is when you’re in the presence of an older person, pay him honor and specifically the honor that’s specifically mentioned is rising up. So rising up is a form of honor.

Now there’s other forms of honor as well, but rising up is the one here. And you know in Christian cultures, this is the way it always is in solidly Christian cultures that understand manners. This is not uncommon. It’s completely uncommon for us, but it’s not uncommon in Christian cultures and it should be no longer uncommon to us.

It means real simply honor older people. Stand up when they walk into the room. Give them honor and deference. Now, you got a whole room full of old guys today downstairs at the meal. So, you probably don’t want to stand up every time one of us comes in. But the idea is in small groups of people. If an old person comes in and you’re sitting down, stand up, give them your seat on the bus. I used to ride the Cami bus.

So disgusting, you know, old people get on that bus, old women, and there’d be these young teens, you know, f this and f that. Horrible language, you know. And I asked him, can you just not do that? These older women are feeling embarrassed and they don’t let them sit down, right? Kids don’t give them their seat. It used to be that old people would be given the seat on the bus. And it used to be that women would be given a seat on the bus.

No more. No, we’re into equality now. And everybody can just grab the seat first and that’s the way it is. This scripture tells us that God demands of us a certain kind of manners that is God inspired here and sets up a whole system of honoring all men in particular ways.

Matthew Henry put it this way about this verse. The elderly’s credit, comfort and counsel must be carefully consulted. Their experience and observations improved and their councils asked and hearkened to.

Now listen, this is important and I think it’s important for us here at RCC. You know, we’re a good church, great church. Love you all. I think we could do better at this. You know, young people, I know you’re sometimes you’re in a bit of a daze on Sunday, but if an older woman addresses you, say something. Something back. I’ve seen over and over again, old women, old men, those of us who are older say hello to young people and they just look past us like we weren’t there.

Happened to me the other night in a at a church event. Now, I you know I you probably don’t mean anything by it. You’re probably not full of pride, but I’m telling you, young people, work hard at honoring the elderly in this church. It will be well with you. I’m not saying this to come down on you. I’m saying this to give you a wonderful life, a blessed life. Do that.

I think the same thing’s true of honoring each other as well. You know, one of the things that people talked about at this church was community. Great community. That’s why people want to come here. Great community. Well, you know what? That isn’t really the case for an awful lot of our young people anymore. The community life they experience is they go downstairs and after the meal, they kind of walk around. They don’t know who to talk to and there’s little groups and they sort of feel at odds and ends.

And you may have two or three people talking together here and somebody will come up and all of a sudden it’s a one-on-one conversation and the other person or other two or three people are completely ignored even if they try to enter into conversation. Now probably some of that is homeschooling I mean and it’s okay homeschooling is great but I think it hasn’t really helped us to understand the sort of interactions we have in group settings like that now at some home schools you work hard at it and you got a number of kids and you can do that I don’t know what it is doesn’t what it is.

But here’s the deal. Today, if somebody comes up to you and you got a group of people, take an interest in one another. Don’t make it just you and the other person yakking the whole time and ignoring everybody else or you’re having a conversation here, somebody else comes up and all of a sudden you cut the third person out of the conversation. Don’t do that. Honor men. Exercise manners here. Take a real interest in each other.

Honoring and love are put together in Romans. You’re to honor people. And the continuing debt Romans 13 says you have is to love one another. Love and honor are together. And if you love everybody here, be man have proper manners toward them. Give them respect and honor and particularly you know focus on the relationship you have to old people.

Matthew Henry said, “Religion teaches good manners and obliges us to give honor to those whom honor is due.” So that’s basically what the text means and it’s quite straightforward and simple.

Now along with—and I’ve talked about this in terms of the fifth commandment and parents—there’s a responsibility to the aged as well, right? So if you’re supposed to honor old people, old people we’re supposed to be doing certain things too. Titus 2 says as for you teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober minded dignified self-controlled sound in faith in love and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and train the young women to love their husbands.

There’s responsibilities. I got the gray hair. I didn’t earn it. God just does it. But he reminds me every time I see it to be more like him and his glory, his restraint, his self-control, his wisdom, right? His moderation.

And one of the problems with trying to reverence older people in our culture is old people want to be young people now. We want to act silly. I’m I fall into this sin all the time. Act silly and goofy so we can relate to the young people. I don’t mean to say young people are silly and goofy but it looks like that when we do it.

So you know there’s a responsibility upon the elderly here to act in a way that befits the stage of life that God has given you. To act in a way that has a steadfast character, you know, to you, a demeanor that people would then be prompted to reverence you more in the context of. If you want people to rise up, don’t act like an idiot when you come in the door. Act like the senior citizen that you are, and that’s a good thing.

Okay. Matthew Henry said that many old men indeed, either by their levity or lewdness or sloth, subvert their own dignity. Yet, although gray hairs may not always be accompanied by courteous wisdom. Still in itself, age is venerable according to God’s command.

So even if old people act stupid, you should still reverence them and maybe that’ll help them to remember that as well.

Rushdoony put it this way. The biblical goal for us is age with wisdom and justice. The goal is age with wisdom and justice. And this is what God calls beautiful in Proverbs 16:31 and 20:29. The goal is age with wisdom and righteousness. Whereas the modern goal is perpetual youth. Our goal is differently from that.

Psalm 71:18. So even to old age and gray hairs, oh God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those who come. Older folks, this is our responsibility to declare the might of God to the next generation to our children and to our grandchildren and even if God may so see fit great grandchildren in our day and age you don’t retire from the Christian faith when you get old age and just demand respect you want to you know ask God to give you strength to declare to the generation to come this is an old person’s verse about usefulness for the kingdom in old age.

Psalm 92 is likewise. The righteous flourish like the palm tree grow like a cedar in Lebanon there are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green. To declare that the Lord is upright, he is my rock and there’s no unrighteousness in him.

Bearing fruit in old age is part of the requirement that God gives us as well. And when we do that, what does it say? We still got sap and green leaves and green boughs to us. The way for perpetual youthfulness is youthfulness and energy in serving the Lord Jesus Christ even in our old age.

And God makes a promise to us too. He promises elderly people in Isaiah 46:4. He says, “Even to your old age, I am he. And to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear. I will carry and will save.” God promises that he will be with us in our old age. So that we might indeed fulfill this requirement to proclaim to the generations to come the blessings of God.

May the Lord God grant to us as a church that we would reverence older people in a proper way that we would honor them and by so doing honor God and think of his image as shining forth in that gray older whitening hair. And may us old heads be those who understand that we now bear more of the marks of the spark of the sparks of majesty as Matthew Henry called it so that we can be obvious communicators of his faithfulness in our old age.

May our congregation do a turnabout today. May we improve in good matters. May we honor the aged, honor all men, and may this day be a day of true love and true honor together.

Now, I want to conclude by talking about Belshazar in the book of Daniel. I made the false promise at the beginning of this series on the 10 words that I’d be referring to the book of Daniel throughout and I kind of fell off that path. But you know, Daniel is like a new Moses. He’s taken into the wilderness or maybe he’s taken out of the wilderness because Israel has become corrupt. He’s taken into exile. Daniel’s kind of a guy for us because, you know, many of us see our state in America these days more like being in exile than being a Christian nation anymore.

So, he’s a good role model for us. And Daniel, like Moses in the wilderness, he produces he writes a series of statements And I believe the book of Daniel it does indeed reflect one of the major themes of it is that it’s structured according to the ten commandments. And so as Daniel is writing back to the people in the land as he’s preparing the people to return to the land and be faithful to God, he’s doing it in a way that stresses the importance of obeying the ten commandments in captivity in exile like we are now.

And so it’s a very important book for us.

The first chapter, you know, you got the house of God and the instruments of the house of God taken into the house of Nebuchadnezzar. God’s the master. Nebuchadnezzar is the master. And masters are really the focal point. There’s a war going on between who is God, Yahweh, or Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel’s in the midst of this. And Nebuchadnezzar wants him to Daniel to serve him. And Daniel and his friends are ready to serve.

We’re ready to serve. We want to be part of the Obama administration. We really do. We want to be servants in the empire. But Daniel wanted to make clear from the get-go the first commandment that yeah there are other powers there are other gods there are other strong ones that we should acknowledge Nebuchadnezzar’s Obama’s Kenowski whoever it might be there powers in the land but the ultimate power we can have no greater power Elohim than God the God the Lord God of Israel and of his people the Lord of creation so the first commandment is about honoring God as the ultimate ruler and that’s precisely what Daniel 1 is all about.

Daniel will serve lesser rulers, but he’ll only do it if he’s made clear to Nebuchadnezzar that the one who’s really in charge is Yahweh. And so that battle happens. The battle is over food. Daniel is blessed by God and he then becomes even more productive in the work of the empire.

The first commandment is the beginning of it. The second commandment, of course, is about not worshiping God through images. And what happens in Daniel chapter 2? Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and the dream is an image but this is an image set up by God and it’s like a man and it’s describing the empires that will come to pass in which God’s people will be kept safe from attack.

So but it’s an image and it relates to the idea of not having vain images but God sets up an image that’s proper and ultimately the image becomes the rock cut without hands which is the Lord Jesus Christ the altar stone and So really the image the man image in Daniel 2 really is a picture of the coming man God man the Lord Jesus Christ. So proper mediation is the subject of the second commandment and the proper mediator is given to Nebuchadnezzar through this vision the coming one the Lord Jesus Christ and all the histories of empires will lead up to him.

Second commandment. Third chapter what happens well you know they get thrown in that fiery furnace you know what’s the third chapter about being faithful to God, having a full Christian witness no matter what it might cost you. And that’s what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do. They’re not going to worship the image that no, Nebuchadnezzar says, “Oh, images. That’s kind of cool. I’ll set one up. I’ll make it like a temple. We’ll be blowing music like the musical instruments in the temple. We’ll be having a real hot fire, too, like God’s God has an altar fire. And to anybody who doesn’t obey or worship me and worship this image, I’m going to throw them in the fire.”

So, that’s what happens. They have a full witness. They obey the third commandment. They didn’t have an empty witness. And if need be, they were willing to die because of their witness of Yahweh in the context of empire. We got to be like that. Yeah, we’ll serve, but only if people recognize that our ultimate authority is the God of the scriptures. And we’re not going to our proper mediator will be Jesus Christ. And we’ll have a full witness.

And if need be, our witness of Christ may lead to our deaths. And so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into the fiery furnace. But lo, God saves them out of that. Third commandment stuff. Right.

Fourth commandment. What’s the fourth commandment about? Sabbath. What happens on the Sabbath? Man is enthroned. Fourth chapter of Daniel. God is enthroned. Right? He does six days worth of labor. And he sits down enthroned over the world that he’s made. And we go through six days. And God brings us to the Lord’s day, the eighth day, the seventh day, whatever you want to call it. And we become enthroned with Jesus in the context of this kingly meal. And we’re set at set on thrones as well. So that’s what it’s about.

And what’s the fourth chapter of Daniel? Well, it’s Nebuchadnezzar looking back at everything he’s done and saying, “This is really great. He’s kind of enthroned at the beginning.” But God want the seventh day is also the Sabbath day is also a day of judgment. The word of God comes and chops us up and then reconstructs us. And that’s just what happens to Nebuchadnezzar. God chops him up and he throws him into the wilderness for a period of seven times, right? He makes him insane. He makes him like a beast. He goes nuts for seven periods of time. It says in the fourth chapter of Daniel.

It’s a week. And at the end of that, his senses return and the only sensical thing to say about the world is Yahweh is the one who appoints all rulers. He’s the great king of kings. Blessed be his name. And that’s what Nebuchadnezzar comes to at the end of the fourth chapter. At the end of his week, at the end of the trials and tribulations, he joins in that Sabbath day worship and acknowledgement of the greatness of the enthroned God in heaven.

That takes us to the fifth chapter. And that’s why we’ve got this what I think is a wonderful picture on today’s—you like that picture. I really like that picture you know it’s it’s Belshazar in the fifth chapter right I hope you knew that a lot of people don’t as it turns out we don’t know our Bibles very well again so what’s happened well Daniel’s sort of like Joseph right and like the descendants of Joseph along comes another pharaoh that knows not Joseph and now we have another ruler in Babylon who unlike Nebuchadnezzar He doesn’t pay any attention to Yahweh.

He’s not concerned about him. Time has passed. The memories of Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion in his seven period of time thing. That’s gone. Daniel, he’s been forgotten and time has moved ahead. And Belshazar, he thinks it’d be really cool to get those things of the Lord out—the golden articles of the Lord’s temple and they’re going to drink wine in them. They’re going to have party and they’re going to make fun of Yahweh by worshiping all these other foreign gods.

And what happened? Well, he becomes shocked. It doesn’t go so well with Belshazar. No, because why? Because he’s forgotten his father. Nebuchadnezzar is spoken of as Belshazar’s father in the fifth chapter, even though he’s not. Probably his grandfather. We don’t know. But the text wants us to associate Nebuchadnezzar as Belshazar’s father. And Belshazar did not honor his father because he did not honor the man who was still living, Daniel, in the context of his rule and authority.

And Because of that, whoo. All of a sudden, the judgment of God comes. Belshazar sees this Hebrew writing on the wall. He sees this writing. He sees actually a visible hand. God sends a hand from heaven to write on this wall. And he’s like freaked out. It is not well with Belshazar. He is troubled. And he’s troubled because he broke the fifth word.

But that’s not the end of the story. What happens to Belshazar then is in comes the queen mother. Now, this is a mother. He’s got a second chance of obeying the fifth commandment. He can honor his mother. His mother says, and again, probably wasn’t his literal mother. Probably was his grandmother or somebody. We’re not sure. It’s the queen, though. That’s what it says. And the queen at this time was not his wife. It was his mother or grandmother.

So, his mom or grandmom comes in, an old person. And she says, “Well, there’s this guy that can interpret this. His name was Daniel. And your father, he knew Daniel and he respected Daniel.” Well, so Belshazar says, “Bring him out. Daniel comes out, interprets the message, and the message is, “You’re toast. It’s over.”

So, Belshazar is a picture of a guy that finally obeyed the fifth word, but too late. Too late in his life. He was killed that very night. However, interestingly enough, Belshazar does indeed give—he honors Daniel. By honoring Daniel, he honors his mother, right? First, just by hearing him out and then he gives him what he had promised to whoever could interpret the dream, the third rule in the whole kingdom.

So I don’t know Belshazar’s eternal state. But I do know that Belshazar is a picture on the one hand of violating the fifth word and the horrendous judgment. He killed that very night. Kingdom is gone. Everything that he was in control of all swept away. And here come the Persians to to wipe him out. He’s a reminder of that.

And that fifth message from Daniel is about the fifth word and the importance even in exile of honoring your parents and other authorities in the land and Belshazar is also a picture of somebody who finally wises up listens to his mother and I don’t know it was too late for his life was it too late for him eternally I don’t know I won’t be a bit surprised to see Belshazar in heaven I won’t be a bit surprised I don’t know it but I know that the way the story is written it wants you to have hope at the end.

No matter how badly you might have messed your life up by being disobedient to the fifth word, irreverent to your parents, disrespectful of old people, no matter how much of that spirit of our age you’ve drunk in, it may be too late for you in some things to get back what you’ve lost. But it’s not too late to turn that around, to listen to God, to respect the presence of God through your parents, your authorities in church and state, and in the vision and image that he has given to older people who represent that spark of his majesty, the whiteness of the Lord Jesus Christ’s white hair that represents purity and power and glory.

God says at the end of this section, Leviticus 19, therefore, you shall observe all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them. I am the Lord. Conclusion, Leviticus 19.

So simple to perform this one we’ve talked about today. Commit to it. Commit to it. Come forward. If you don’t come forward, pray in your chair that the Lord God would grant you the grace to commit to this particular command that you might indeed not just have heard this and be like the foolish man who ends up house dashed away and destroyed, but rather the man who builds his house on the rock which is Jesus and his word.

We all want a good life. God tells us today how to get it. Will you obey or not?

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for giving us an instruction manual for our lives, for reality, telling us who you are, how we’re to respond to you. Lord God, we thank you for this. We thank you for the clarity of the command today to honor the elderly. We thank you, Father, for the broader implications for honoring all men and having proper manners. Help us now to repent, Lord God, of irreverence, either acted out on the part of some of us older folks or shown toward those who are older.

Help us to repent of those things to turn to you and to recommit ourselves to build Christian culture by building in a respect and honor of the elderly. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.