Life's Middle Time

"The destruction that wasteth at noonday" (Psalm 91:6).

Many sermons are preached to young people on the opportunities and the privileges and the perils that attend youth - Likewise sermons are often preached to the aged, respecting the consolations and compensations that come with the right kind of old age.  To be sure, youth is attended by many and constant perils. Youth is the habit forming time of life.  Youth may be easily swayed by good or bad influences. Youth is elastic and responsive and impressionable, and all right thinking men and women need to be alert and watchful, to under gird youth and to help youth.

Youth is assailed by fiery temptations; so Paul on writing to young Timothy said: "Flee from danger." Get away from danger.  Do not go into danger.  Stay utterly away from it.  I heard one of the greatest educators our country has had in the generation just passed, say that a group of older men carried him one night into a den of iniquity, that he might just see and hear what was going on, and I heard him say, that forty years after that night, the curse of that night was on him yet.  "Enter not into the way of temptation.  Avoid it; pass not by it; turn from it, flee youthful lusts," Paul cries unto young people. Great temptations come to young people.

Old age likewise has its perils.  There is the peril of looking backward all the time.  It is interesting to hear an old man talk about "the good old days," but you would like for him sometimes to change the subject and talk about the good new days.  Old age has its peril.  Oh, how sweet and how beautiful when one comes to a serene old age, trustful, poised, victorious, triumphant.

We buried in this city, the past week, a country school teacher about eighty-nine years of age.  He came down to the sunset hour calm and unafraid.  He taught in the country schools some forty-two years, and then met the last great call unafraid, poised, triumphant.  How beautiful!  How glorious!  This city has had the exhibition of one of her great citizens receiving the acclaim of city, state and nation at the advanced age of nearly four score and ten.  The whole land to which he had been bound, in noteworthy and appropriate fashion gave recognition to this aged man who was radiant, courageous, and forward looking to the last.

Youth has its perils and old age has its perils, but the gist of what the Preacher will say today is that middle age, life's middle time, has its perils as well, and they are great, menacing and terrible.  I should say that the most perilous period of one's life is life's middle time.  One thinks of the expression, used by the Psalmist in the Ninety-first Psalm: "The destruction that wasteth at noonday."

I recall that years ago I talked on this same vivid expression in this place, but a number of experiences coming to me in recent weeks and months remind me how deadly are the perils that come to men and women in life's middle time.  Let us go over the matter again today. The pages of history are replete with instances of men who reached their greatest triumph and who suffered their greatest defeats in life's middle time.

One thinks of Moses dominated by his decision to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage in life's middle time.  One thinks of his successor Joshua, in life's middle time behaving courageously and grandly as he took the mantle from Moses and carried on.  All through the centuries, in all realms, men in life's middle time have behaved at the highest and their triumphs have been the most momentous during those middle years of life.

One thinks of John Wesley in life's middle time, at the very acme of his power, and of John Knox and of Martin Luther.  One thinks of Victor Hugo and of Oliver Wendell Holmes in life's middle time, moving the world with their pens.  One thinks of Gladstone beginning in life's middle time and of John Bunyan writing his book, Pilgrim's Progress, which is next to the Word of God in influence over mankind. One thinks of our great statesmen who in life's middle time were accorded their great victories, Webster made his immortal reply to Hayne when Webster was in the middle time of life.  Henry Clay made his great utterances on the Missouri Compromise in life's middle time. Patrick Henry gave his immortal speech in a critical hour of our country's life, which speech will echo around the world through all the ages: "I know not what course others may take but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" In life's middle time, that great utterance came.

Wellington came to his great victory at Waterloo in life's middle time.  And Caesar crossed the Rubicon in the middle time of his great soldier life.  In the realm of business, the fact remains the same, that in life's middle time, men reach the acme of their power.  A great Hebrew died awhile ago, Jacob Rosenwall, a great and eminent and noble Hebrew and he did what many men fail to do.  While he lived he scattered his benefactions for the benefit of the underprivileged, the poor and the needy, in overflowingly generous ways, so that America will ever be a grateful debtor to that great Hebrew.  And there are many others whose names could be called who reached the acme of their power in the world of business and put into motion influences great and most significant in life's middle time.

But the opposite is also true.  Men often meet defeat, most sadly of all, in life's middle time.  When we turn to the Bible there are vivid examples of men who went down to defeat in middle life.  There was Samson, strongest man of all the ages and yet, under the arts and wiles and sinister atmosphere into which he should not have gone, he went down and his power was gone.  "He wist not that the Lord was departed from him," until he tried to use his strength as before, and found himself a weakling, a defeated man.  The  Psalmist David went down in life's middle time, and if one wants to know how penitent he was, go read the fifty-first Psalm and keep reading it as he voices his cry because of his going down in life's middle time.  Solomon failed tragically in life's middle time and so did King Saul.  In the Scriptures the evidences stand out as to how perilous is life's middle time.  Men and women all too frequently go down then to an awful degree.

I say advisedly, as a Preacher for forty and two years in this place, if the moral tragedies of this city, and of our land beyond the city were all fully uncovered, we would find that the great defalcations and downfalls have come in life's middle time.  When we look across the pages of history in all realms, that fact confronts us.  Machiavelli, the sinister diplomat, went down with his maculation's in life's middle time.  Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in life's middle time. Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver in life's middle time.  What a trade!  What a bargain!  Later, goaded by his own conscience, he went out and hanged himself.  If people could be made aware that down the road conscience, though seemingly callous and stupefied and deadened, will come out of the ashes and make its cry.

Charles the Ninth of France, if you will recall, while he was a youth, seemed tender and sympathetic and responsive but when he came into power in life's middle time, he was one of the most cruel despots that ever dragged the car of trouble across the earth.  If you will read of the dying hour of Charles the Ninth, you will have brought to you afresh the emphasis that conscience stupefied and desensitized and seemingly dead will in the last hour make its cry.  Charles the Ninth's physician tells us that he was with him as he lay on his dying bed and he told his doctor: "Whether asleep or awake, I see all the Hugenots that I have killed marching before me, showing their gaping wounds; and Oh, I hear the cries of the little babies that I have murdered."

Men must reckon with conscience.  You may play fast and loose with life today, but before long retribution will surely follow.  "Be sure your sin will find you out." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." If we sow to the flesh, we shall certainly of the flesh reap corruption.  But if we sow to the Spirit, thank God, we shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  Men go down in life's middle time, the instances are everywhere in evidence.

Now the question emerges.  Why is life's middle time so perilous? I think there are some answers right at hand.  For one thing, life's middle time is perilous because it is the time of preoccupation and satisfaction. We are in a groove when we are in life's middle time.  We are in a groove and we are likely to stay in that groove.  We are not likely to be jarred out of that groove of preoccupation and satisfaction which completely enthralls us.

That story of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke about the rich farmer comes to mind:

The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?  Arid he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

Does that sound fine?  Not at all, for a man who has to die, for a man who must give account to God, for a man who has to face Judgment. Look at the next sentence of that story which I have just quoted. "But God" - there is the unseen factor, with whom we have to deal, every one of us. "But God said unto him, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee."' With all of his great barns stored with fruit enough to last him against a long drought, tonight he is going to die and leave it all, and "then whose shall whose things be which thou hast provided?  So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God!"

One peril of life's middle time, is the peril of preoccupation and of satisfaction, keeping right on in the groove.  The word "groove" and "grave" are from the same root - keeping right on in the groove, in the grave.  In life's middle time, we are prone to forget the dreams, the ideals and visions of youth as we become absorbed in the routines of materialism and secularism.  Well does the Bible say: "Where there is no vision the people perish." If secularism and materialism be given the right of way the people will perish.  Men find women must have vision and ideals and standards, high, holy, worthy, God honoring, humanity helping vision.

Men must have visions all along or life will become drab and secular and over ruled by the materialistic atmosphere.  Secularism is a great peril among us all the time.  "What should it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" What shall it profit a city if it gain factories and sky scrapers and vast bank deposits and all kinds of material accessories, if it shall lose sight of the truth that a human life is more important than all these things put together?

Well does the poet, Edward Markham, sing for us;

A human life is an asset of measureless, incomparable value.  We are in peril in life's middle time of losing the vision of human life and all that goes with it.

Young men dream dreams like Joseph dreamed.  Little children dream dreams.  The little boy says: "Wait until I am a man and I will do so and so." But after we get to be men and women and out into the thick of the fight and the years come on with all their battles and burdens, the peril is we shall lose sight of visions and look downward and become muck rakers, with our eyes not "toward the hills from whence cometh our help." Oh the peril when idealism is lost, when a man does not dream dreams any more, when he can not behold great visions any more, when his hands and his brain and his heart are tired, when he quits dreaming, hoping, planning, building!  How perilous his plight is when his idealism is gone!  The loss of idealism will make a man say: "I have no time for dreaming.  I am a practical man; my business is to make a living." Your primary business is not to make a living.  Your primary business is to make a life.  Making a living is an incident.  Getting enough bread and meet for your household is incidental, but important I will grant you, and quite comfortable and convenient; but making a life is what you and I are in the world for. Making a living is just a passing incident, that is all.  Before we are to pray for our daily bread and meat, we are to pray that the kingdom of God may come and that the will of God may be done throughout all the earth even as it is done in Heaven above.  We are not in the world primarily to make a living.  Making a life is our real business, a compassionate life, reverent toward God and obedient to His revealed will; the right kind of life, true, fearless, humanity helping and sympathetic.

There are some sins that spoil life.  Society brands the sin of lying and the sin of theft as utterly without excuse.  But the sin most of all retroactive in the Bible is the sin of avarice, or covetousness, and this sin is often evident in life's middle time.  The Bible tells us that the "Love of money is the root of all evil." And Paul reminds us that men in their quest to get money, often forget all else and when their goal is reached, they are often pierced through with many sorrows.  This sin of covetousness is all consuming.  Men will amass their fortunes, regardless of God and their fellowmen, and after dinner will push back from the table and slump in their chair, the heart stilled forever.  Life's big things have been missed and the glorious standards that ought to be maintained by every man have not been maintained by this man who has suddenly gone hence to answer to God for the deeds done in the body.  "Then whose shall those things be that thou hast secured?"

Down the Jericho roads of life, there are many in desperate need of Christ.  There are the underprivileged women and men and little children, half fed, half starved, half clothed.  Men favored of God in the battle of life need to remember that they are partly responsible for all the under privileged, undernourished, under trained people and we are to remember all along our responsibility to them.

Great causes often lag and drag because covetousness enthralls men.  The poor and the needy are often neglected because the sin of avarice has a bigger place in a man's vision than does the need of the hungry little child.  The covetous man is blinded to his opportunity of fortifying some unfortunate man or woman beaten and broken in the battle of life.  Many great causes are often lagging and waning and suffering terrible defeat because of the sin of avarice, or covetousness.  The orphanages, the asylums for the needy, for the aged, for the unfortunate, these are passed by often, by those afflicted, enslaved, overwhelmed, dominated by the sin of covetousness.  Great causes; education, Christian training camps, evangelization, the winning of men to Christ in the home land and around the encircling globe, these great causes, missionary and educational and benevolent, often are left waiting because men and women who can help them do not help them.

Now, if we do not watch when we come to life's middle time, we will forget all about these high aims, these great goals, these transforming visions and we will go down.  It is just here in life's middle time that men will try to walk by sight and not by faith.  When men shut Christ away and say: "I will manage this," the management is likely to lead later along into disaster.  We walk by faith, not by sight.  "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

Men are all along prone to leave God out in life's middle time, because they are beginning to rest on their laurels, to feel a certain complacency with whatever success they have attained. They leave off prayer and proper adherence to and support of the chief cause in the world - Christ's precious kingdom in the world.  In life's middle time men are often tempted to walk by sight and not by faith.

Now, what are we to do about it?  How are we to overcome?  How shall we avoid any such defeat, such breaking down in life's middle time?  I venture two or three simple answers.  One is: every one of us should take a faithful inventory of his own life. Where am I now?  What about my case?  Am I behaving as one ought to behave?  The Bible has a great word about self examination.  It warns against self deception.

The Bible says: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death."

Then that word of Jesus - I hear it with a tremor - "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but be that doeth the will of my father which is in Heaven." Many here in this great audience within these walls or out in radio land will say in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name?" Some of those will be Preachers, Preachers of perdition.  There will be Preachers in the realm of wrong.  Not true Preachers.  "Many will say unto me, in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?" And then the Lord will say unto them: "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.  I never knew you." You were never mine at all, when you stood in the pulpit. You were never mine when you were a Deacon.  You were never mine when you were a Sunday School teacher, or a leader in this realm or that or the other.  You were never mine.  I tell you men and women, such a warning as that from the Son of God about self examination, needs to be heeded by every one of us.

The counsel in the Bible is as plain as the fingers on a man's hand that we are to hedge against the defeats that come with life's middle time.  The counsels of God are very plain.  We are to watch against temptation.  "Enter not into the way of it." Avoid it! Pass by it!

Atmosphere is one of the great things in a man's life.  When Jesus was here in the flesh He did not equip His followers with swords of steel and hurl them against the forces of entrenched evils.  But He did equip them with an atmosphere of love, sincerity, and faith.  Some times men make strong attacks on certain great evils and go away and the evil conditions are there still.  You recall the story of the great Titanic steamer as it plowed the sea years ago, yonder in the north Atlantic, as it struck a great iceberg and the big ship with hundreds and hundreds of lives went down to death.  That same iceberg went on down into the Gulf Stream and without any sort of bombardment the Gulf Stream subdued it, conquered it, melted it by its atmosphere. That is Christ's method.

We are to seek the right atmosphere in which to live.  Therein lies the advantage of the Christian college, the incomparable advantage of the Christian college. A great price must be paid if it shall be a Christian college.  Sometimes I have the awful fear that we are following in the steps of the secular colleges to a degree utterly indefensible. Atmosphere is the greatest thing about a Church.  Atmosphere is the greatest thing about a man.  We are to stay out of the wrong atmosphere for every good reason.  There is a deal of homely philosophy in the old adage: "Life is what we make it." A man's surroundings will play an important part in the kind of life he makes. Let us therefore seek the right atmosphere.

We are to watch against the spirit of cynicism, as we find ourselves in life's middle time.  Oh, how destructive is the spirit of cynicism! "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." The greatest cynic of all is Satan.

We are to stand up for Jesus everywhere.  I have told you before of an infidel in a college group who delighted in deriding God and all Christian people.  He would talk his infidelity in any group. One night he was feeling more haughty than usual.  He derided the Churches, Christianity, and everything pertaining to Christ and His work, and when he had exhausted himself, he said: "Is there anybody here big enough or brave enough to answer me?" Everybody was quiet, but there was one young man who loved Christ and had faith in Him.  He quietly stood up and sang:

And the crowd stood and applauded to the echo and the infidel was subdued and softened, all because one Christian dared to stand up for Jesus.

Oh, men and women!  These are dark days of unrest throughout the world.  These are days when we should dare to be Christians; these are days when we ought to tread the path of prayers - these are the days when our benevolence ought to be so generous and glorious that even Satan would be discouraged by the sight of our sacrificial devotion to Christ.  "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross."

Are there those here today who say: "I am ready to stand up now for Him; ready to take my place in the Church, on my profession of faith, or by letter or by statement"?  Come out for Him.  Surrender to Him. Come and welcome, everybody tarrying a few minutes while we sing these stanzas and extend the blessed gospel invitation.  Come now as we sing - "Stand up, stand up for Jesus."