Lesson 26: Growing Old

 A Healthy Lifestyle for Your and Your Family

Lesson 26: Growing Old

1. What does the fifth commandment promise? Exodus 20:12

2. What other things does the Bible tell us will give us longer life? Proverbs 3:1, 2

“Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” Psalm 91:14-16.

Man has always sought for some way to extend his life and delay or even cheat death. There are people who have their bodies frozen when they die. Others follow strange or unusual diets or lifestyles that promise them long life. Some follow religious practices that promise them immortality. But we already know that the Bible does not teach the immortality of the soul. What the Bible does teach us is how to live in obedience to God who has promised that those who love and obey Him will someday receive new bodies and live with Him forever.

3. What advantage do the aged have over the youth? Job 12:12

“The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness” Proverbs 16:31.

4. How are we to treat the aged? 

A. Leviticus 19:32

B. 1 Peter 5:5

“Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees” Isaiah 35:3.

“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” Romans 15:1.

American culture has tended to esteem the youth but ignore and ostracize the aged and aging. Other cultures of the world look at their elders in the opposite light. They seek them out for their wisdom and experience. The Bible tells us this is the way the aged should be treated. While the body slows down as it gets older, the mind has accumulated a lifetime of hard-earned wisdom and experience that the young cannot know but can surely learn from if they will.

5. When king Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king. When the people asked him if he would impose a heavy tax burden on them as his father had, what two groups of people did the king turn to and ask counsel of? 1 Kings 12:6, 8

6. Whose counsel did he decide to follow? 1 Kings 12:13, 14

Rehoboam’s decision to follow the counsel of his young, inexperienced friends cost him most of his kingdom. In their arrogant inexperience, they gave him counsel that appealed to their pride, but not the tax-burdened people. The northern ten tribes of Israel split off and formed their own kingdom. They would never again be united as a single kingdom.

7. What was David’s plea to the Lord? Psalm 71:18

8. What wonderful promise has God made to the aged? Isaiah 46:4

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” Psalm 37:25.

9. What is the crown of old men? Proverbs 17:6

10. What is the beauty of old men? Proverbs 20:29

11. What is man’s life span? Psalm 90:10

“For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” 1 Peter 1:24, 25.

A score is twenty years.

12. Why should we “number our days”? Psalm 90:12

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27.

“Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am” Psalm 39:4.

13. What are some of the problems often connected with aging? 

A. 2 Samuel 19:35

B. Genesis 27:1

C. 1 Kings 1:1

D. Psalm 71:9

E. Genesis 18:11

F. 1 Samuel 4:18

G. 1 Kings 15:23

H. Psalm 71:18

I. Psalm 102:11

14. What should be the character of aged men? Titus 2:2

15. What should be the character of aged women? Titus 2:3

16. What are the righteous aged capable of doing for the Lord? Psalm 92:14

17. When Israel rebelled against God at the faithless report of the ten spies, God promised the two faithful spies, Caleb and Joshua that they would possess the land they had walked on (see Numbers 14 and Joshua 14:9). Many years later what did Caleb ask for in the promised land? Joshua 14:12

18. How old was Caleb when he made his request? Joshua 14:10

19. What did Caleb say about his strength? Joshua 14:11

If we begin when we are young to take care of our bodies, and if we are obedient to God’s moral and natural laws, we will have a lower incidence of illness and disease, especially those that are known to be connected to lifestyle.

20. Solomon wrote that there is a time to everything under heaven including what? Ecclesiastes 3:2

21. What similar phrasing does the Bible use when it speaks of the deaths of all the following men?

Isaac — Genesis 35:29

David — 1 Chronicles 29:28

Jehoiada — 2 Chronicles 24:15

Job— Job 42:17

Abraham — Genesis 25:8

Gideon — Judges 8:32

22. How should the aged face their mortality and approaching death and why? Psalm 23:4

23. When the aged who are righteous and God-fearing die, what can be said of them? Hebrews 11:13

24. What hope do they have for the future? 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17

25. What should you and I be able to say, not just at the end of our lives, but every day of our lives? 2 Timothy 1:12

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:1-3

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. Revelation 2:10

Next Lesson: The Battle for the Heart