Who Should We Honor?

Webster defines honor as:“High regard or great respect given.”

I see a trend across America and that is a subtle disrespect for the older folks and replacing it with a lifting up of the youth. Yet the blessing for the youth can only come from the older generation. If we want to reach our youth let us reach our old folks by showing them honor and respect the way God has taught us in His word. The Bible says,

“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…” Jer.6

Just the fact that old folks are old-fashioned is the very thing that the youth need to learn, not the ways of the world!!! Let the older generation be heard!! Let the rest rise up and show honor and humility to those who have been in this world much longer, to those who have walked with the Lord through thick and thin, in good times and bad. This is wisdom that this generation needs to hear!

Sadly as the youth are exalted, contemporary music is filling the sanctuaries and out goes all the old hymns and the Gospel music that were sung with conviction and power. How contrary this is to scripture. May God give us eyes to see what Satan is so slyly doing to the church, how he is deceiving the hearts of the simple. May we as God’s people take a humble look at the condition we are in and realize that we lack the power that the earlier Christians had--even just 50 years ago things were so different. May we admit our failure to show honor to those who are older, to those who have wisdom that only can come with age. They just might be able to tell us what we are doing wrong and what we can do to change things around. Maybe then our unsaved neighbors and relatives would come to know this glorious salvation and the Lord would pour out His spirit on our land in a way we have not witnessed yet in our generation. If we would but humble ourselves, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble,”(James 4:6)

It is the older generation, which deserves our honor. They are the ones that the church should be seeking to reach. I have been in many churches where there are few, if any, older folks there. The leadership instead consists of the young men who have no one to answer to that is older. The young men in the Church have no one to go to for direction they need to raise their families and to rule their homes. This is also true for the women. Titus 2 teaches us of the importance of the aged being there to teach the younger. Oh, how we need our old folk!!!
This touches me in a personal way right now as I just lost both parents in less than a year’s time. What a great void I now feel and am realizing how much I took for granted. Even if our parents were not what we thought they should have been, God still worked through them to help shape and mold our lives. No one can say that he or she does not need their parents and yet I see this lack of honor growing very strong, even in the conservative circles. The Bible clearly says we are to honor our mother and father and by doing that, He will greatly bless our lives, our churches and our world.