Not to Old
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the LORD and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. – Psalm 1:1-6.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. – 1 John 1:8.
In Rome, an elderly 76-year-old Dutch man was just minding his own business on a little trip to Italy. He did have a suitcase full of oranges, but as he told the custom officers he needed to keep his vitamin C level up. Strange, but true, these oranges had a little extra bite to them. Officers discovered that the oranges were filled with 13 pounds (six kilograms) of cocaine and the cocaine would have had a street value of about 6.6 million dollars. Now this nice little old man has been charged with international drug trafficking charges. Of course, now he does not have to worry about how he will make it through his retirement years since Italy will be providing for his room, board, and medical care for probably the rest of his life.
They are not just picking on little old men, in Pennsylvania two sisters (one is 65-years-old and the other 70-years-old) have been charged with selling heroin. Of course, they were just trying to supplement their social security, and you know that extra $10,000 dollars a week really helped out.
A 2008 report from Japan revealed that more of the elderly there are involved in crime. No mention of drug activity but they are picking pockets, shoplifting, and one 79-year-old woman was arrested for slashing with a knife two women near a Tokyo railway station. She stated that she had left a homeless shelter and wanted the police to take care of her. It is a sad situation there, and I suspect across the world in these difficult economic times. Criminal activity in Japan has doubled in the last five years for those 65-years-old and older. I would not be surprised to find a similar doubling of older criminal activity across the world.
Do you think that if you were a hundred years old that you would no longer have a problem with sin? I read a news report recently from Africa of a 107-year-old man arrested for illegal drug activity. It appears that you cannot become so old that you cannot be tempted by sin, whether it is selling drugs, shoplifting, picking pockets, telling lies, or you can fill in the blank ________.
It is to some extent frightening to think that in our older years, we might be tempted to succumb to some temptation that ruins our witness and harms the ones that we love. What can we do to guard against that happening? The Psalmist has the prescription. The Psalmist tells us not to hang around with the ungodly, and instead delight ourselves in the law of the LORD meditating in it day and night. The result will be a godly life with roots growing down deep which sustain us when we grow older and will help to keep us from succumbing to those temptations.