Love Our Elders Series

Video Ill.: “Everybody Loves Raymond: Golf for It”, Season 8, Episode 23, 11:00 - 14:11

31 Gray hair is a crown of glory;

it is gained by living a Godly life.

(Proverbs 16, NLT)

29 The glory of the young is their strength;?    the gray hair of experience is the

splendor of the old.

(Proverbs 20, NLT)

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1, NKJV)

At the end of that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray and Robert end up fighting over who gets to have their mother Marie live with them.

Sadly, though, many people are a lot more like the part of the episode that I just shared with you.

The truth is that more and more people are living longer.

The Elderly Population In Every State Will Grow ...

By Sermon Central

http://garydfoster.com

Copied from Sermon Central

USA Today - 4/21/2005

USA Today reports that The elderly population in every state is growing faster than the total population. Senior citizens will outnumber school-age children in 10 states in the next 25 years, according to the Census Bureau. It also predicts 26 states will double their populations of people older than 65 by 2030, when the oldest members of the baby boom generation hit their 80s.

Florida, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Montana, Maine, and West Virginia will have fewer children than elderly. Only in Washington DC will the population grow younger.

Nationwide, the growth in the 65-and-older population will be about 3.5 times the growth of the nation as a whole.

As the population ages, we are more likely to have aging family members in our own families that need our care.

In the early church, the aging generation became a problem. People and families were neglecting, I would even say abandoning, their parents and grandparents. It was such a problem that Paul had to give Timothy these instructions:

1 Never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father. Talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers. 2 Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.

|| 3 Take care of any widow who has no one else to care for her. 4 But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases God.

|| 5 Now a true widow, a woman who is truly alone in this world, has placed her hope in God. She prays night and day, asking God for his help. 6 But the widow who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives. 7 Give these instructions to the church so that no one will be open to criticism.

|| 8 But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers. (1 Timothy 5, NLT)

Shame on those who do not care for the widows and I would even say widowers in their own families.

Shame on those who do not take care of the elders in their own families.

Woman Lives Without Power for 15 Years

Source:

KUTV, "Woman Turns Lights on After 15 Years in the Dark," KUTV.com (2-17-07)

Copied from Preaching Today

https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2008/april/1031907.html

I read the story about an elderly woman named Norena, who lived in South Florida. When a hurricane hit South Florida, Norena's home was one of many that was severely damaged. She received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena has been living without power ever since.

The astounding part of this story is that the hurricane was not Katrina, but Andrew. Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992. Norena has been living in that dark, unfinished house for 15 years. No heat when the winter chill settled over South Florida. No air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90's and the humidity clung to 100 percent. Not one hot shower.

Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner. Her neighbors didn't seem to notice the absence of power. Acting on a tip, the mayor of Miami-Dade got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor Kent Crook to return power to the house.

CBS News reported that Norena planned to let the water get really hot, and then take her first bubble bath in a decade and a half. "It's hard to describe having [the electricity]…to switch on," she said. "It's overwhelming."