You know, we're following this almost phrase by
phrase, and we're now in chapter two.
And we have been dealing with the things
that become sound doctrine.
That is, the things that are in harmony
with sound doctrine.
And last Sunday morning, I spoke on verse
two.
And my sermon was called, The Particular Temptations
of Older Men.
It says aged here, but aged to us
means somebody in their eighties or nineties.
But actually, the word here is very closely
related to the word from which we get
our elder.
Our word elder.
The elders which are among you I exhort.
Well, this is very close to it.
Not the precise word, but related so.
It means simply an older man.
And I gave this talk on the temptations
of older men.
Now, verse three deals with older women.
And I want to speak this morning on
the peculiar temptations of older women.
I did not mean last Sunday's sermon to
be taken humorously by anybody.
Neither do I mean anybody to shrug or
smile off what I say this morning.
I'd much rather you get angry than to
take it in a jocular fashion.
The world is too far spent.
The judgment is too near.
Time is running out, and we haven't time
to be funny.
So, what I say this morning is going
to be meant most seriously.
That aged women likewise, the older women, that
they be in behavior as becometh holiness.
For holy women, not false accusers, not given
to much wine, teachers of good things.
Now, that is a very brief summary.
But it certainly doesn't exhaust instructions of the
Holy Ghost to older women.
Now, this verse, verse three, and the next
one are instructions to women.
The next Sunday morning we'll deal with younger
women.
As you will see, it occurs there.
I'm not putting it in here.
I didn't translate this Bible, nor write it.
It's just here.
We're coming to it, and when we're through
with it, we'll pass on to something else.
Later on, it talks about young men.
But here, it's to women.
Now, you must keep in mind, as I
have been trying to explain, that this was
written to the Cretan church.
And these women had been pagan women.
Not heathen women, in our use of the
word heathen, but pagan women, as you would
say that Assyrians or Greeks or Romans were
pagans.
They were pagan women, but they were now
Christian women.
And Paul wanted them to know that the
old way that they lived had to end.
That they were now Christian women, no longer
pagan women, and that the customs of Crete
no longer were to be followed by them.
They must have a complete transformation of mind
and heart.
And they must accept their elevated place in
society, in the Christian society.
And they must adopt a whole new moral
standard.
And they must practice a whole new way
of life.
Now, we must remember that what our friend
Barney said when he was here is not
in contradiction to this.
He dealt with the imposition of a Western
culture upon an Eastern culture.
A way of life is what the word
culture means and nothing else.
It had nothing to do with skim milk
or the opera.
But it means a way of life followed
by a nation or people.
And that he talked here at length three
messages about the folly of taking our Western
United States way of life and superimposing it
upon them in the Philippines or in Thailand
or somewhere else.
I agree with him as I think every
intelligent person must.
But there are practices among the heathen that
while they're part of their culture, their way
of life, still they're wrong.
And wherever they are wrong, they are to
be changed.
Christianity does not impose American civilization upon a
Thailander.
But Christianity says to the Thailander, As far
as your way of life is simply custom,
it's harmless, all right.
But when it's sinful, it must change.
Christianity goes in and boldly takes over and
transforms.
And so the Holy Ghost said to the
pagan women, Now, Christian women, you've lived your
pagan lives and we've nothing to say.
Now, you've changed.
And if you're going to enjoy the elevation
that Christianity gives you, you're going to have
to accept the responsibility that Christianity lays upon
you.
For don't forget that they were elevated by
their faith in Jesus Christ.
You women of America mustn't forget that Christianity
places you higher than any other of the
major religions of the world.
And that while it does not confuse the
offices of men and women, it certainly does
not, I do not know another religious teacher
of whom it could be said Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
In India, they are chattel and have no
souls.
And if they're real good, they may be
born a cow later on.
That sounds funny, but it's just what they
believe.
In China, they bear the burdens.
In Africa, they work the fields while the
men hunt.
Among the Indians of this country, they did
the same.
Women are second-class citizens wherever Christianity has
not gone.
Where Christianity has gone, they become first-class
citizens equal to the man.
But Christianity does not confuse the offices of
men and women.
Modern American civilization does.
But Christianity does not.
It makes them equal, but it does not
confuse the two.
So said the Holy Ghost, if you women
of Crete are going to accept your new
elevated place in the esteem of mankind, you're
going to have to accept the responsibility to
live as becometh holy women.
Now, to live as becometh holiness means they're
instantly responsible to live holy lives.
And what does behavior mean?
In behavior as becometh holiness, what does it
mean?
It means dress, general appearance, conversation, deportment, and
moral conduct.
I won't say anything about dress because you
know I have been almost careless in my
attitude toward the way women dress.
I got burnt when I was a younger
fellow with so much preaching on dress.
And I reacted from it so that I
don't pay much attention to what a woman
wears.
If anybody asks me, what did I say?
Who is that this that spoke to me?
And my wife will say, how is she
dressed?
I never can answer.
I never know.
I don't know.
We can't identify a woman by her dress.
But only one thing I'd like to say
to you older women.
And there's nobody here like that at all,
and I mean it.
But is there anything more painfully pathetic than
to see the aging Christmas tree who has
long ago lost everything except a desire and
makes up for what she hasn't got by
tinsel and shiny gift cards?
I think this is pathetic, really.
It's terrible.
It's just simply terrible.
Only one thing worse that I know of,
and that is an old, battered, worn-out,
leather-leaf, cheeked, old man with his teeth
gone trying to make passes at the girls.
That's next to this.
But this is second to it.
I mean, that's worse than this.
Well, anyway, general appearance and conversation and department
and moral conduct.
Dean Spence said this.
I thought it would be nice to quote
it to you.
He said that about these women, these older
women, about her, there should be something in
her general appearance, in her dress, in her
speech, in her everyday behavior, which the younger
and more thoughtless sisters could respect and reverence
and hope someday to equal.
Now we come to the particular temptations of
older women.
Remember, I do not say that all older
women fall into this.
Just as my talk last Sunday, I did
not say or mean to imply that all
older men did or were guilty of the
things that we named.
But just as if man, 55 to 57
years old, goes to a doctor, and if
that doctor is any more than one that
grinds the mouth, if he's the kind that
sees his patient as a human being instead
of merely a number, he sets him down
and talks with him.
Now he said, Mr. Smith, you're 55, you're
57.
You can't live the way you did when
you were 30.
There are certain things that you're likely to
get.
You've got to realize that physically you are
now mature and developed to a place where
these are your dangers, and they'll tell you
what they are.
Now it's the same thing with an older
man.
There are certain weaknesses or temptations, certain moral
bents or dispositional directions, which an older man's
life will take that isn't true of a
younger man.
But just as a man can live to
be 90 and not get any of the
diseases he's warned about, so a Christian can
happily live on and not be guilty of
any of these things.
And so the Christian women of this congregation
or any congregation can, in the grace of
God and by the transforming power of the
Spirit and by prayer and the reading of
the Word, stay clean from these things.
And if you have, you have, and I
don't in any wise mean to say otherwise,
but I want to be taken seriously.
Let me name them for you.
First one, Paul names himself here, gossip, evil
speaking.
And of course, this is an occupational hazard
for older women because they don't have the
responsibilities.
The younger women with her four children and
her husband coming home hungry as a bear
and her responsibilities doesn't have the time.
But the older woman does because she has
fewer things to occupy her and fewer things
to do.
And so naturally she begins to think about
her friends and pretty soon begins to talk
about her friends.
And then if she's human and if the
grace of God hasn't worked within her, she
begins to speak evilly of some of her
friends.
You see, certain people derive pleasure from detraction.
They love to hew other people down to
their size.
And they enjoy horrifying and shocking people.
When I was a young boy at home,
there was an old lady.
I've forgotten her name now.
She was a very vivacious, busy woman.
Now you will smile and think I'm trying
to be humorous, but honestly I'm serious when
I say that that woman talked incessantly, incessantly,
literally incessantly.
Nobody could talk when she was around, and
I remember as a boy watching her talk.
And her tongue went in and out so
fast it was worn thin.
It was like a tiny piece of soap
that has been worn thinner and thinner and
thinner and you could almost shave with it.
That was her tongue.
In and out it went.
And I was sort of horrified by that.
Now my mother never did anything but smile.
She didn't say a word about that old
lady.
But I as a young fellow, I was
horrified to see that.
Here was a woman that might have been
an example to all the neighborhood, but she
was too, but not a good example.
Now she enjoyed horrifying people or shocking them.
In and out went that little mouse, her
tongue.
Did you hear about so-and-so?
Did you hear about where he was seen,
where he was seen?
Did you hear about her coming home at
night and finding him drunk?
Did you hear about it?
And so it went.
Now that is an occupational hazard for people
who don't have anything else to do.
Chances are if you spend two or three
hours praying for missionaries, you won't have any
time left to do that.
And a lot of you do spend that
time.
A lot of you spend your time on
your Sunday school lesson and writing letters to
people in college and people on the mission
field.
And you don't have time for this.
But it is nevertheless an occupational hazard.
It is one of the particular temptations of
older women.
Now the Christian rule for this is very
simple.
When you're tempted to pass on a juicy
bit about somebody, ask yourself four questions.
Is it necessary?
Is any end going to be served by
my passing this on?
Second, is it true?
Have I checked on it?
Nobody has any right to pass on a
juicy bit of story about anybody unless he's
checked to know whether it's so.
Because the man who makes the story up
or the woman who makes the story up
is a liar.
If it isn't true, it's a lie.
And the person who passes it on without
checking is half a liar.
Because they have passed on a lie without
checking to find that it was.
And then is it kind?
And by kind I mean are you speaking
kindly?
It isn't a question of whether if a
thing is true and you have to tell
it and it's proper and necessary that you
do tell it.
It doesn't mean that you have to be
soft and paw over people I've been pawed
over and then stabbed.
I don't mean that.
I mean are you speaking kindly?
A surgeon sometime has to cut deep into
flesh.
A surgeon of my acquaintance told me this.
I think I used this illustration two of
the years ago.
It was fresh in my mind then.
He told me that a woman came to
him.
Her husband brought her.
She had something wrong with one of her
legs.
And upon examination he said, This is cancer
and there's only one thing to do, and
that's to amputate.
And they flew up and left him in
a huff.
They said, We'll go to Mayo's.
They went to Mayo's.
And a few days later they were back
very humble and chastened into his office and
said, Doctor, we're sorry that we blew up
on you.
We should have known better.
Mayo's confirmed what you've said and we want
to know now when can you operate?
And this man said to me, Brother Tozer,
he was a Christian doctor, he said, I
spent a long time in prayer for here
was a fine woman, good, well-built woman.
And he said, then we got her ready
and he said when she lay there and
I had to take my instruments and cut
into that beautiful body, he said, I cried
like a child.
There was a surgeon who had to cut,
but he was kind.
It's necessary sometimes that we have to amputate.
But the man that can enjoy doing it
is a cynical and cruel man.
We only ought to amputate when we're able
to weep.
So I ask you now, Sister, when you
were tempted to tell that on the other
sister, are you doing this kindly?
Is there a kind reason back of it?
And fourthly, will it help anyone?
Will it help the one spoken of or
will it help the one spoken to?
If it doesn't help the one spoken of,
let us have an illustration.
Let's have an illustration.
Suppose that I had a daughter 18 or
19 years old and she suddenly fell into
company with a young woman whose background I
knew.
And I knew that this young woman whom
she had suddenly fallen into fellowship with was
a wicked, sinister, evil woman and that she
had been in the habit of taking young
Christian girls and gaining their confidence and leading
them away.
I would have to tell that daughter and
tell her the whole thing, but it would
be for her good.
And the answer to the question, is it
necessary and does it do any good?
Yes, it was necessary to save a young
life.
I don't anticipate anything like that, but I'm
using an illustration merely.
So there are times when it's necessary for
you, an older woman, to say, watch so
-and-so.
Pray and look out.
There's danger there.
And if you're doing it for somebody's good,
then you can do it and it's not
gossip and it's not evil speaking.
But the temptation is to rattle on half
-true stories or stories with no meaning behind
them and enjoy it.
Second is intolerance.
Intolerance is the incapacity to understand anything with
which we don't agree.
It's the incapacity to sympathize with or even
endure anything with which we don't agree.
Now I have that in me.
My grandmother on the farm used to say,
big as a sheep.
It's in me as huge as a sheep,
and I have to fight that all the
time.
I don't know I succeed in licking it
wholly, but at least God knows I've got
my dukes up.
I'm not going to take this thing lying
down.
But intolerance is the incapacity to understand or
sympathize with anything with which you don't agree.
So watch that, Mama, because that's the temptation
of an older woman as well as an
older man.
Then censoriousness, fault-finding, carping attitude, the weakness
of advancing years.
Can't forgive a young woman for being young.
Can't forgive a pretty woman for being pretty.
Can't forgive an attractive woman for being attractive.
And that seems to tend conveniently to forget
the foibles of their own youth.
Fourth is suspicion.
And as I mulled over this word suspicion
last week, I said to myself, what creates
suspicion?
Why do I suspect a young fellow, and
why does the old woman suspect a young
woman?
Could it be the ghost of our own
past?
Could it be the ghost of our own
yesterdays rising to remind us that that's the
way young people do and we'd better watch
out and pretty soon we're suspicious of our
kids instead of trusting them?
And fifth I don't have to mention to
this congregation that is wine.
To you that has no significance because in
your level of American society people don't drink,
or at least as soon as they're converted
they don't.
But in Crete, Bacchus was worshipped and Bacchus
was the god of wine.
And there are great camp meetings in those
days, there are great Bacchus conferences and camp
meetings where one of the practices was to
everybody get roaring drunk in the name of
Bacchus.
And so of course when Paul wrote to
these women here, these women who lived a
lifetime nearly now in Crete, and he knew
there, he knew how they lived, he knew
they'd worshipped the god Bacchus and he knew
that they had commonly when they met in
their religious feasts they drank and enjoyed themselves.
Well he said you've got to stop that.
He said as Christians, we Christians don't do
that.
So don't be given over as the pagan
women are to much wine.
Paul made his admonition very sharp.
He said you older women, you've had a
lifetime to get used to drinking but he
said now you've got to break that.
As a Christian, no more of it.
Now I'm almost finished.
But he said teachers of good things.
That is by worthy example and by personal
contact with your children and grandchildren and neighbors
and friends.
You can be an outstanding example.
Just to think of somebody that's not here
anymore.
I wonder how many of you women have
been definitely influenced, strongly influenced in the right
direction by Mrs. Gillespie who used to be
in our congregation.
Now she didn't dress in the latest sack
outfit.
I don't recall too well but it occurs
to me just trying to visualize it that
usually she was a little bit behind in
her style but oh the example of godliness
there.
The example of godliness and living for the
whole world and I'm preaching to some people
right now whose lives have been stamped by
that one.
Teaching, teachers of good things, setting a worthy
example.
Now after hearing what the men heard last
Sunday morning and the women heard, older women
heard this Sunday morning and what the younger
women will hear next Sunday morning.
There are two ways we can react to
it.
Remember when our Lord Jesus Christ said these
words, one of you shall betray me.
Do you remember what his disciples said?
Do you remember what they could have said?
Said Lord it's he, Lord it's he, no
Lord it's he, it's he but they didn't.
They said Lord is it I?
And do you know something?
That saved those disciples.
That saved them.
They scattered and fled but if they had
not said Lord is it I they never
would have returned.
But they saved themselves by an attitude of
quick humility and saying oh God am I
the one.
With this story I'm finished.
About six weeks ago I think it would
be we ran in the Alliance Witness an
article written by Furman Miller of Tocco Falls,
Georgia.
A very brilliant and godly young man.
It was just a little imaginative deal working
with Nicodemus and was called what would you
have said at the funeral of Nicodemus?
The way he worked it out was this.
He said Nicodemus was a shadowy character.
Came by night.
Hardly knew whose side he was on.
He wasn't bad, he wasn't good.
He was in a twilight zone and when
he came to die what would you have
said at his funeral?
Could you have preached him into heaven joyously
or would you have had to circuitously wind
around and hope for the best?
And he said some people are an embarrassment
to the man who preaches their funeral sermon.
You don't know what to say.
Well, of course, we get letters.
We get letters about almost everything.
And usually they don't mean too much.
They're just comments.
Very often they're saying, Oh, praise the Lord.
I'm glad for that.
And that's all right too.
But we got two letters from two older
men.
Octogenarians.
One of them said that article about Nicodemus
is an atrocity.
Nicodemus was a better man than you made
him out to be.
Why, Dr. So-and-so in his book
Thus and Thus said that Nicodemus was a
better man, was a good man.
And he spent a couple of pages putting
us in our places and quoting from the
authorities to show that all this was wrong.
Got a letter from another old man and
I don't mind telling you who the other
old man was.
David Fand of Georgia.
He wrote him.
Great big scrawl.
Hardly make it out.
And he said, Brother, I've been reading that.
You know how he talks.
He said, he's in Atlanta.
I've been reading that article.
He said, when I read that article, what
would you say at the funeral of Nicodemus?
I fell down on my knees and I
said, oh, God help me to live so
that when I die I won't embarrass the
preacher.
There's two ways to react to the same
thing.
One wrote to fight for two pages on
the interpretation.
Another man wrote to scrawl over two pages,
83 years old he is, to scrawl over
two pages penitence and sorrow of heart and
humility and the longing to be Christlike.
That's the two ways you can take sermons
such as I'm giving you now.
You can fight me and say, who does
that whippersnapper imagine he is that he sets
us older women in a place and talks
us down.
Or you can say, oh, God, I heard
thy voice through it all and I want
thee to save me from falling into these
snares that nature has set for older people.
Now take your choice.
Go out mad or go out deeply humbled.
A woman last week after I'd preached to
men, I don't know who the woman was,
I just heard her quoted.
A woman last week after I'd preached to
men said, well, the pastor preached to men
this morning but he certainly talked to my
heart.
I want God to help me or words
to that effect.
So shall we take it that way?
When Paul, our teacher in the Holy Ghost
turns to us and says, now you older
men, live like Christians, watch out, there are
temptations you can fall into.
You older women, watch it, there are temptations
you can fall into.
Shall we fight him?
Or shall we say, oh Lord, is it
I?
You do the latter.
You will grow in grace and in the
knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord and you'll
be worthy of the communion service that follows
and the communion service does follow and it's
for all of the Lord's children.
Anybody visiting us this morning may consider yourself
welcome to share with us in the body
and blood of the Lord.
Brethren will gather please and we will have
our monthly communion service.
It's not for our members, it's for the
members of the body of Christ.
Wherever they may be.