On those Sundays when churches observe “Senior Adult Sunday” and invite me to speak, I address the younger adults in the congregation.

Don’t you wish you were a senior adult! You don’t have to go to work in the morning. You can sleep as late as you like. (Well, you ‘can’t,’ but if you could you could!) You get to see your children grow up and to know your grandchildren. You have finally become the person you’ve been working at becoming all those years. You have attained a degree of maturity. And (don’t miss this!) every month the federal government sends money into your bank account. It’s a great life.

My sermon has four points:

1) Don’t you wish you were (a senior adult).

2) Don’t assume you will be. Not everyone is blessed to live so long.

3) Don’t put off doing things for the latter years of your life. You may not live long enough to get to them.

4) Determine to finish strong, no matter how much longer you live.

The Lord’s Word gives us a wonderful picture of God’s “senior saints”–three promises, if you will.

The righteous will flourish like the palm tree…. They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green, To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. (Ps 92:12-15)

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I’ve put it off as long as I can. Writing this one.

Duane McDaniel, executive director of the New Orleans Baptist Association, went to Heaven over this last weekend. Far too soon, if I had any say in it. He was only 54 years old. His funeral is next Sunday, June 5 at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans.

Rachel Lively was ten years younger than Duane. The mother of a 17 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. Her funeral is tomorrow morning, June 3, at First Baptist Church of Brandon, Mississippi.

They both died of strokes.

I was Rachel’s pastor during her childhood. When she married and moved away, I saw her rarely, but her parents, Roy and Penny Lively of Brandon, have remained our close and dear friends all these years. As you can expect, they were shocked and are broken-hearted by the death of their daughter. I’ll be driving up for the visitation at the funeral home this (Thursday) evening.

Duane McDaniel’s photo and obituary are in this morning’s Times-Picayune. I cannot look at that smiling, happy, beaming face without the tears flowing. We were nowhere near ready to hand this dear brother back to Heaven.

Death, we hate you with a passion. What heart-break you bring. What sorrow you spread. What dreams you stab through the heart. What loneliness you produce. Tears.

It helps some to remember that the Lord Jesus hated death too. We sometimes gloss it over a little by calling death a friend because it sends us to Heaven. But make no mistake; it’s an enemy. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.I Corinthians 15:26.

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I noticed the old man just now as I drove down the street to my office in the church library. He was ambling along, clearly having difficulty walking. My heart went out to him. As I drove past, I tried to estimate his age. “80-something,” I said to myself. Maybe 10 years my senior.

It’s no fun getting old. My dad, who lived into his 96th year, had cut out of a magazine and posted on a door facing his philosophy on the subject: “Growing Old is Not For Sissies.” Art Linkletter wrote a best-selling book by that title.

Growing old is not for everyone either. In fact, it’s a privilege denied to many who were far better people and more deserving than any of us.

We would do well to focus on the privilege of aging instead of the burdens. In fact, here is my list of the top ten reasons I love being a senior adult and cannot wait to delve deeper into seniorhood!

There’s no order, just as they occurred to me.

1. You get to see your kids grow up and raise families and begin to mature.

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First, a warning: this is not an article about the “gifts” of the Spirit.

Further, this is definitely not an article about the “fruit” of the Spirit.

However, it might be fairly close to “the evidence” of the Spirit. That is, how one can know that the living God is actually indwelling his life and the body of believers with whom he/she associates.

We can sit here all day and talk about gifts of the Spirit such as healings and prophecies and tongues, and for the most part we will be spinning our wheels. We’ll probably agree on little and disagree on much.

But there are three evidences of the indwelling Holy Spirit, around which I’m thinking all God’s children can come together. Surely none will find reason to opt out of these.

When the Lord is in your life and when He daily “lords it over” you, and when you are actively serving Him in a body of believers of the same sort as yourself (so to speak), then you should expect to see these three incredible gifts from the Holy Spirit making their presence known….

1. Joy in your heart.

2. Sweetness in your fellowship.

3. Passion in your service.

Call these fruits or gifts of the Spirit, whatever. But they are most definitely evidence that the Lord is in this place and flying His flag high.

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The Harold Camping episode of this past weekend–he predicted the world would come to an end on Saturday and bet millions of dollars he knew what he was talking about–demonstrates two disturbing facts of the church in these latter days: The overwhelming pride of many who call themselves leaders of the church and the mind-numbing gullibility of millions who call themselves disciples of Jesus.

Lord, help your church please.

Help us to know a Godly leader when we see one and to learn how to tell when he’s not one.

Help us to check the teachings of our leaders by the Word and to have the courage to say “Not so fast.”

It’s easy for the fellow in the pew to blame this kind of fiasco on false leaders. And that’s what Camping is, let me hasten to say. The Bible clearly says that if a man makes a prophecy that does not come to pass, he is a false prophet. That’s Deuteronomy 18:22, and it’s still in God’s Word.

But if people like Camping found no one to follow them, they would get tired of hearing themselves speak and shut up.

After his prophecy about May 21 failed, I said to some friends, “Okay, watch now. He’ll come back and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I misfigured,’ and give out a new date. That’s what false prophets do.”

According to the daily papers (I live in New Orleans, so it’s The Times-Picayune), that is precisely what he did. Well, he did two things actually. He did say that the real date is something like October 21. And he said, “Well, the Lord did actually come back on May 21 in a spiritual way. The processes have been set in place beginning on that day.”

Uh huh. And I’ve got some Louisiana swamp land to sell you.

People who study these things will recall that the Jehovah’s Witnesses did this very thing nearly a hundred years ago.

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Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I will say, rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

I believe in rejoicing.

I believe in rejoicing when things are going great and when they are falling apart.

I believe in rejoicing when you feel like shouting “God is good!” and when you wonder whether He knows you are still in this mess and still needing His help.

I believe in rejoicing in worship services and in private.

My favorite–and most often preached lately–sermon I call “Rejoice Regardless,” based on three texts which loom larger and larger in my mind as the days and years go by.

The basic “regardless” text: Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines. Though the yield of the olive should fail and the field produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet, I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

The Lord Jesus emphasized the same point: Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20) You won’t always have great results and big numbers to report and rejoice over, but if we are rejoicing in our salvation, we will never be without joy.

The third text shows how it’s done. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. (Acts 16:25) In the Philippian jail, locked into stocks and with their bloody backs beaten and left untreated, these two disciples of Jesus broke into prayer and praise. As a result, wonderful things happened.

It occurs to me, that the missing note in almost every sermon I’ve ever preached or heard on rejoicing is the practical aspect. There are good reasons for the Lord wanting His people to rejoice at all times.

Here are three of the most important.

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I’m not anyone big or famous. I’m not an over-achiever. Not a Phi Beta Kappa, never voted “most likely to succeed,” and not even close to being a Fortune 500 CEO. No one is ever going to look my way and be impressed that they are in the presence of a mover and shaker.

Maybe so. Maybe not.

But if you are a serious follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can literally change the world and do it in a significant way. This is not unrealistic, not a dreamy preacher-type overstatement, and not out of the realm of possibilities.

Now, there are a few presuppositions we need to lay out before we name the three actions which you can do to change your world.

1) We’re talking about people who have genuinely received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

2) Okay, you’re a Christian in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Next, we’re talking about you taking seriously Christ’s mandate to be salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13) and light of the world (Matthew 5:14).

3) And, finally, we’re talking about you being willing to obey the Lord in whatever He assigns to you. That is, you read something in the Word and sense in your heart a tugging (pushing?) from the indwelling Holy Spirit that this one has your name all over it, and you get up and obey.

If that’s you–if you have received Christ and you are serious about making a difference for His sake and you are willing to obey Him–then, here are three actions for you to take which will be used of God to change your world.

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If you’re like me, you’re glad to have the prayers of anyone and everyone. And yet, when we have an urgent need, the kind we want kept in confidence, and for which we need immediate emergency prayer, the people we first think of calling are extremely few in number.

We were facing a family crisis, but the kind you don’t want to write about on your blog or announce in facebook or proclaim from the pulpit. It was more the type every family deals with sooner or later and wishes would go away.

We needed to pray and we needed prayer.

Margaret thought of one person to call and I thought of one. We made those two phone calls and enlisted those special friends to intercede for the situation. We have every confidence in them and in their prayers.

Do I think God hears one person’s prayers above all others? Do I think some people pray better than other people? Would a loving Father choose to answer one child’s requests and ignore the pleas from another?

I have no answer to these questions.

God is sovereign and can answer any request He pleases (Psalm 115:3). If there is a pattern to the way He grants one request and denies another, I haven’t found it yet.

It’s tempting to say it’s all a matter of faith, but we know better than that. People of great faith go through times when Heaven seems far off, when their prayers seem to rise no higher than the ceiling, when God seems deaf or preoccupied, the same as everyone else.

Even so, you and I have a few people whom we think of calling for prayer before everyone else.

Here are the four qualities of the person I call for prayer first.

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Some guy in Alabama ticked me off the other day.

I was driving back to New Orleans from two weeks of ministry in Tennessee and Kentucky when I bought a Birmingham (AL) News in Tuscaloosa. At a rest stop in Mississippi, I scanned it and was snagged by a letter to the editor written by an outspoken agnostic.

After reading it and steaming a little, I tossed the paper in the trash. Later, wished I’d kept it just for reference here. So I’m going by memory.

The writer wanted the world to know that the recent tornadoes in Alabama proves beyond doubt either that there is no God or if there is, He is a tyrant who delights in doing cruel things.

He was clearly proud of his great letter. Betcha he clipped it and is displaying it somewhere prominent in his house.

I’m wondering now if anyone responded to the editor and answered the letter. Probably not. The Bible cautions against answering fools, and this guy surely fits in that category.

Now, I am not saying all atheists or all agnostics are shallow, non-thinking, or even fools. When Scripture says the fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ (Psalm 14:1), it’s not saying everyone who says that is a fool. Only that fools do this. There is a difference.

Many an agnostic or atheist is an honest seeker, and if he/she perseveres will emerge into the light. They are not fools.

But this guy was. I feel safe in saying that.

Think of it. This fellow’s reasoning process goes like this: If there were a good God, He would only do those things that please us. Since there is much in this world that displeases us, there must not be a loving God.

(Hey, I took a course in logic in college. I don’t claim to remember everything about it, but I do know the syllogism.)

Imagine someone looking you in the eye and saying this: “There cannot possibly be a loving God because there are things that take place in the world we don’t like.”

That’s what that bird is saying.

But he’s not alone. He has his friends–birds of the same feather–in churches all across the land, and ensconced in seats of criticism where they sound forth on their ridiculous philosophy.

Remember the J. B. Phillips book from a generation ago? Your God is Too Small answered this foolishness back then. Trouble is, it keeps popping up with each new crop of critics, people too lazy to think matters through, people who want their theology to be easy and go down smooth, otherwise they reject all notions of God.

So, what is the correct answer? Why the tornadoes across the Deep South two weeks ago? Why the flooding in the Mississippi River Valley right now? Why do good people go through suffering while Heaven seems deaf to their pleas?

No one has all the answers. Here are some.

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The best-selling religious books today are about heaven.

Write one about how you died for a few minutes and experienced a momentary jolt of nirvana beyond anything you ever imagined and publishers will line up outside your door ready to print it. They know the book-buying public is eager to get a glimpse through that scary curtain called death…so long as what’s on the other side meets with their preconceptions.

Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times. In a recent column titled “Hell’s grip on religious imagination weakens,” he writes, Even in our supposedly disenchanted age, large majorities of Americans believe in God and heaven, miracles and prayer. But belief in hell lags well behind, and the fear of damnation seems to have evaporated.

He says near-death stores are quick to sell. “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” tells of a child’s return from paradise. However, “you’ll search in vain for ‘The Investment Banker Who Came Back From Hell.”

Douthat blames this disenchantment, this unbelief, regarding hell on “growing pluralism,” among other things.

What does that mean? Simply that people of all religion live on our block, go to our schools, shop in our stores, and are no longer abstractions to us. So, when we consider the question whether those-who-do-not-believe-in-Jesus go to hell, we are asking about some very real people we know personally and not the impersonal heathen of some dark continent.

I’m grateful for Rob Bell raising the question of hell for our generation. It’s an issue Bible-believers need to come to grips with, even though there is precious little about the subject that makes it fun to study or debate. No one wants there to be a hell.

Well, no one did until this week.

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