Fruitful Old Trees

Here are some trees that promise exceedingly well for fruit, but the blossoms did not knit, hence they fail to yield fruit in due season. But those whom God plants, and whom He makes to flourish, bring forth fruit, and continue to bring it forth till old age. During all their youth and all their manhood they keep fruitful, and then they bring forth fruit when their years decline and their days are numbered. When others are in the sear and yellow leaf, then are their fruits ripe and mellow. When others are decaying they are ripening. They are growing sweeter, better, holier, when others are not growing at all. “They shall bring forth fruit in old age” — that time when one does not expect much fruit bearing — when the strength faileth, when the capacity for projecting seems to have gone, and the power for carrying out what is projected has become very little. “They shall bring forth fruit in old age.” This is not merely a cheering promise, but it is a very gratifying fact that God’s people do bring forth fruit in old age. Very luscious fruit some of them produce. Yea, we look for the best fruit in the oldest saints. “What fruit then,” you will ask, “do they bring forth?” Well, there is the fruit of ¢estimony. I distinctly recollect hearing a blind old minister talk of the

lovingkindness of the Lord when I was sixteen or

seventeen, and the encouragement that he gave me has never departed from me. A young man could not have done that, because he had not attained so much experience; but the weight of years, and even of infirmities, made that venerable blind man’s testimony very, very weighty to my soul. “They shall bring forth fruit in old age.”

Saints bring forth fruit in the way of savour when they grow old. Many young ministers can rattle out some of the truths of the Gospel very readily; but if you want to taste the sweetness, to feel the unction, to enjoy the savour, you must hear one who has had long and deep experience. It must be so. There is an inimitable mellowness about the Christian who has grown old in his Master’s service. If you want to hear about the sea, talk to an “old salt.” If you want to hear about war, talk to an old soldier who has been in the battle and smelt gunpowder, and knows what it is to have lost a leg. He is the man to tell you. And so, if you want to know about the real deeps, the truth, the vitality, the power of religion, you must not go to boys: you must go to those who bring forth fruit in old age, because they can. speak out of the fulness of their soul.

The aged Christian ought to have, and I hope he often has, the fruit of patzence. After having suffered so long and enjoyed the mercies of God so long, he ought to learn to be patient. I once heard a good Christian man say that he was confessing a fault. He said, “I am afraid that the fruit of my old age is peevishness.” “No,” I said, “that is not a fruit of your old age; it is a fruit of your old nature.” But the fruit of old age, where there is grace in old age, should be patience.

One of the most delicious fruits that Christians produce in their old age is calm, quzet confidence im God. John Bunyan has described this in his Pilgrim’s Progress, in the beautiful picture of the land Beulah. I shall not at all object to have a grey head, and eyes like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, weak shoulders and tottering knees, if I may get to Beulah. You know that he describes it as a land that was just on the verge of the river, and so near to the celestial country that the shining ones did often cross the river, and there was a pervading smell of sweet spices all over the land, because it lay so near to the city of the blessed that when the wind blew that way it wafted the spices across, and they could, in quiet places of the land, often hear the songs of the shining ones who wandered there. The inhabitants were at perfect rest. The land was called Beulah, for God’s delight was in her. They that dwelt in her were called Heph-zibah, for they were married unto the Lord; and they were sitting there, many of them, close by the brink of the river, waiting till a message should come from the King, for the King’s messengers every now and then came into the country, and they said, “The pitcher is broken at the cistern. Rise up, my love, and come away.” And so,one by one, the Beulahites crossed that river. On bright sunny mornings they were known to cross it singing, “O grave, where is thy victory?” Well, it is that patient abiding, that quiet waiting, that holy confidence, that divine anticipation.

“They shall be fat and flourishing,’ which means. that Christians, in their advanced years, shall have a fulness of savour and life in them. I have known some Christians, both old and young, who have been fruitful Old Trees. OI

very dry sticks, not fat and flourishing certainly; they had very little savour, very little unction, though they had very sharp teeth to bite the young people with; they were very critical, very ready to look harshly at them, and ask them hard questions; and if they could not spell the biggest word in the whole confession of faith, they have said, “Ah, the young people nowaday are not what they used to be in my time.” We have known some of that sort. But when they are planted in the house of God, and God makes them to flourish, they are full of the juice of love; they are full of Christian kindness and gentleness; they are full of life; they are full of real vigour — not the vigour of the flesh, but the vigour of the Spirit; and they love the Lord and delight in Him, and delight to help the young people, and to encourage them in the ways of the Lord. Oh, I like to see an old man thus fat and flourishing!

And it is added, in addition to their being fat, that they shall be flourishing. It means that the aged believer shall have a special verdure. This flourishing means his profession; and how delightful is the profession of Christianity in advanced age. I do not mean that some people get exceedingly attached to the pastor whom they have heard for many, many years. One old woman used to say that she liked to hear the old minister better than anybody else. “Well, but,” they said, “he is getting very feeble.” “Oh,” said she, “but then I recollect what he used to be, and I would sooner see him shake his head than I would hear anybody else preach.” And I have no doubt that, though that grows to be an infirmity and folly, there is something praiseworthy in it, because you recollect the times and seasons when the Lord refreshed your soul by him: and there is a moral glory about a man as you look at him who has been, say for fifty years, living and labouring as a public professing Christian, without a stain upon his reputation, not a spot on his character. Why, the young people say, “Bless God! if He has kept him, why should He not keep me; and if the Lord has sustained him under many trials, why should He not sustain me?” It is not what the man says; it is the man who says it that gives force to all he says. It is what you know is behind the voice; it is the experience of the Lord’s goodness; it is the long-continued honourable conduct which God has enabled him to evince, and to show to others, by the abounding grace that was within him, which preaches in accents louder than the finest voice can articulate.

Nor is it only that He keeps His promises, but the Lord is kind and generous towards His servants. I always think it a shameful, heartless thing to turn adrift, when he gets old, a man who has been in your service from his youth. It is one of the things that have become more common in present than in former times, to turn out old servants. Since you have had the pith of their life — the marrow out of their bones — do keep a roof over their heads; grant them a pension or at least a pittance; supply them with a bit of bread and cheese till they die. I think it is only right that an old servant, a faithful servant, should be so treated. You know how David puts it. “O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forsake me not,”

It is not likely that He would, is it? Such a God as He turn His old servants off! You remember the Amalekite who had a master that was an Egyptian, and the master left him to perish, and David found him, Ah, well, that is how the Egyptian masters do, but that is not how our Master does, Thou wilt not leave or desert me when my age and my infirmities multiply upon me. When these eyes grow dim Thou wilt look upon me; when another shall guard me, and lead me whither I would not, Thou still wilt be my Friend and Helper, and lay Thy finger on my eyelids as I close them in the hour of death. It is a faithful God we serve, and He keeps His people alive in their old age, that they may show that He is a faithful and upright God.