Bruce Forsyth, the British entertainer, has celebrated his eighty seventh birthday and is still making the occasional appearance on television. It seems amazing that anyone that age could summon the strength and capacity to perform in that profession at that age. But, Dr. Robert Schuller Snr was still preaching at eighty in the Glass Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
Winston Churchill, Britain’s greatest person by popular vote, was not really a success until his seventies. Age only serves to heighten some people’s fame, although in America it is easier to achieve greatness with age, for they have a more open stance on maturity.
Joshua and Caleb, the two positive spies of the twelve, sent to search the Promised Land were still serving God well into their eighties and their leader, Moses, was not called until he reached eighty. I say all this to illustrate that with God age is no barrier to fulfilling the divine will. They say that Politicians and ministers grow better with age, and that is sometimes correct, but it cannot be applied indiscriminately.
My old pastor retired at sixty and went to live in Otterley St. Mary in Devon. He continued to preach until he was ninety two, still driving himself around the country lanes, and died at ninety three. He came to HICC when he was eighty-four, and after his sermon there was hardly a dry eye in the place. The question on everyone’s lips was “where did this guy come from?”
He was originally a youth leader in the local Baptist Church but got baptised in the Holy Spirit, and so did some of the other young people. The church elders complained about the praise noise they made, and so they were forced to leave, and almost unwittingly started a new church – The Full Gospel Tabernacle. I started attending in 1949 as a young lad of 15. He was then in his zenith and was preaching like a man possessed and so he was – with the Holy Spirit.
Whenever we went to Devon for a holiday we called in to see him and always waited until the tea and cakes were over to hear him pray a blessing on us as we left. Heaven came down in response to his fervent prayer; it was like liquid gold raining down. It lifted our spirit, energized our soul and challenged us to live better. Age was forgotten – he touched heaven. All those years combined in one paean of praise and thankfulness to his Saviour.
He probably didn’t realise it but he was a great man. His name didn’t ring through the churches, he didn’t appear on television, he never wrote a book, but the lives he changed were numberless. He just preached the Word with passion and humour. That was sufficient, we didn’t expect anything else and we didn’t need anything else. God’s anointed word dealt with our needs and aspirations. He kick started us into life.
Preaching is different today, and there is something missing. He was not topical neither did he play to the crowd, he just simply explained what God meant by what he inspired and wrote through men of God. His life was peerless, and separate. He walked and talked like a man of God, and so he was. Age simply refined him to greater heights and depths. I suppose I try to unconsciously model myself on him, but fall far short.
Jesus said: “…Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45). Greatness, leadership, and influence at any age comes from learning to serve people, to meet their legitimate needs. Jesus shows us His downward mobility from heaven to earth, to the cross to the grave, and to the skies. Charles Wesley wrote in a hymn explaining as only he could about Jesus’ self-emptying. “Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race!” After the resurrection Jesus stood on the lake shore and made breakfast for the toiling disciples. I have always said if you want to be a great leader, learn to cook breakfast.
Cavett Robert wrote, “If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the River of Greatness is always the Stream of Adversity.” If we run from trial we run from greatness. Life in all its vicissitudes makes us what we are.
