Heath Lambert: Our guest on the podcast this week is Dr. Wayne Mack, a member of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors—actually a charter member of ACBC. He has been a counselor at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, he was a faculty member at The Master’s College—now The Master’s University—and he is currently the director of Strategic Ministries Training Institute in South Africa. We’re glad that Dr. Mack is here, and he’s here to talk to us about a problem that everyone will experience sooner or later if the Lord gives them years—it is the problem of getting older. Dr. Mack, we’re glad you’re with us. I want to ask you what are some of the unique challenges that come into a person’s life as they begin to get older?
Wayne Mack: Well, they certainly are described to some extent in Ecclesiastes 12, where the Bible says, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come,” and in the context, the evil days it is talking about are not immoral days, sinful days (Ecclesiastes 12:1). But, the word evil is used in two senses in the Bible. One is in terms of moral evil and the other is in terms of calamity, disaster, catastrophe, or unpleasant things. That’s what this passage is talking about. When it says, “there are evil days that are coming, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no delight in them'” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). In other words, you don’t enjoy yourself. You don’t enjoy your life as nearly as much as you did previously. You lose hope, you lose your perspective. You think of yourself as being unuseful—not here for any particular purpose. It says “before the sun and the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened” (Ecclesiastes 12:2). That’s talking about the fact that you lose your eyesight. I don’t see nearly as well at 81 as I did a number of years ago, I need glasses. Whereas previously, I didn’t need them. I got cataracts and had them taken care of. So those are physical problems, and “the clouds return after the rain,” which means it seems that the problems sometimes lose distance between them (Ecclesiastes 12:2). The clouds are there, the rain is there, and before the rain goes there are other clouds that are coming.
It talks about the fact that “the watchman of the house tremble” (Ecclesiastes 12:3). That’s referring to the thighs, where you used to be able to lift things. I’m told that in movers, you shouldn’t lift with your back, you lift with your thighs. Well, your muscles in your thighs become a lot less strong, and that’s certainly true with me. I find it much more difficult to get up out of a chair than I used to be able to get up. “The mighty men stoop, the grinding ones,” talking about the teeth, “stand idle because they are few and those who look through windows grow dim” (Ecclesiastes 12:3). Again, the eyesight. “The doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low,” and it’s referring to the fact that you often become hearing impaired (Ecclesiastes 12:4). “And one will arise at the sound of a bird,” you’re more easily frightened (Ecclesiastes 12:4). “And all the daughters of the song will sing softly,” you can’t hear them (Ecclesiastes 12:4). “Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective” (Ecclesiastes 12:5). So it’s talking about some of the physical problems that we have as we grow older. There are, of course, spiritual issues as well, that for us as believers become even more important. Having had 40 years of counseling [experience], working with older people, and being an older person myself, you have them there. They lose hope, they lose perspective, and they ask, “what am I here for? Do I have any purpose, do I have any meaning?” Whereas previously, people listen to you and it seems like with some as you grow older, you’re kind of shoved off to the side. They just lose perspective. It reminds me of one of my favorite old-time songs.
A couple of years ago, I was asked by a friend of mine to visit his mother, who was then a little over 100 years of age. At that point, I was probably in my early 70s, and he wanted me to talk to her. So, I went to meet her, living in a nursing home over 100 years of age, and he was afraid that perhaps she wasn’t really a Christian and wanted me to talk to her about Christ. So I did, and I was thinking “Lord, what passage do you want me to use with her? How can I bring the Gospel to her and give her a little encouragement?” Then I was reminded of this Psalm, in Psalm 92, which talks about “the righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon” (Psalm 92:12). I’ve been in Lebanon, been up to the top of Mount Lebanon where some of the cedars there—we’re told whether it’s true or not, but this is what we were told by our guide—that they go all the way back to the time of Solomon. Many of the palm trees live a long life and the cedars also. And yet he says, the righteous man can flourish. There are very old palm trees that are producing useful foodstuffs. “He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon”, beautiful cedars. Some of the cedars that were used by Solomon in building the temple came from this particular place, they’re noted for being strong and sturdy. Well, it says, “the righteous man” and with this woman whom I was witnessing to, I then took that as an opportunity to tell her how you become righteous. It’s not just everybody, because we are sinners and we need righteousness that comes from Christ. I presented the Gospel at that particular point. He is talking about someone who is righteous in Christ, and it says that he will grow, he’s still going to grow. Then he says because he’s “planted in the house of the Lord” (Psalm 93:13). And where do they flourish? “They flourish in the courts of our God”, which can be very useful among the people of God and in the work of God (Psalm 93:13). It says, they will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap, and very green (Psalm 93:13). I still remember when I was explaining this, to this dear old—over 100-year-old—woman. All of a sudden she stopped, she said, ” I know somebody like that! He’s a guy who lives here, he’s just full of sap!”
They’re full of sap and very green, in what way? “To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Psalm 92:15). You know, being eighty-one years of age, when people come to me for counseling, sometimes groaning and moaning about various things, and I can look back—I became a Christian when I was sixteen, which means it’s a little over sixty years now that I’ve been a child of God, and I’ve been in the ministry since 1957, which is a long time too. So during my lifetime, I can look back and see various things that have happened to me and so there’s hardly any time when somebody comes to me with something to complain about, something they’re discouraged about, that I cannot look back and say to some extent that I was in a situation similar to that. I want you to know that God brought me through.
Heath Lambert: Yeah.
Wayne Mack: And I can declare that the Lord is upright, He’s faithful to his Word in a way that I couldn’t have [been] when I could preach it when I was, 16 17, 20 years of age. But now I can say it not only because it’s found in the Word of God but because I proved it to be true in my own personal experience.
Heath Lambert: So how do you take that confidence that the Lord is upright and apply it in a few examples to some of these specific problems were talking about with people who are growing older? What are some examples of specific applications that we could say to a person who’s struggling with discouragement because of the problems you just outlined?
Wayne Mack: Well in just a few hours, I’m going to be teaching on the character of God and the wisdom of God, His all-together wisdom. Meaning that if I believe the Scriptures and know the Scriptures, I can be assured that God knows all about the situation in which I am involved. And if it had been His will, He would have kept me out of that situation. And in that situation, He’s wise enough to direct me in terms of what I should do. He’s upright, He’s faithful, He’ll keep his word. He’s promised He would never leave us, He would never forsake us, and says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5 KJV). So at that particular point, I have to recall what the Bible says about the character of God, and what the promises of the Word of God are and preach to myself about those things and in the midst of it all not allow myself to think, “well, life is going by, I’ve got nothing to live for. I’ve got no future.” Because, you know, in the Scriptures, one of the things you’ll find in the book of Deuteronomy, you find it in the book of Lamentations, you’ll find it also in the book of Isaiah, where there was a time when they were disrespecting the old older people. And God brought that as a tremendous indictment against the people that they were not concerned about older people, which means as far as God is concerned, older people are important and they are valuable.
Heath Lambert: That’s right.
Wayne Mack: Proverbs 4:18 is one of my favorite verses in reference to this matter of growing older and that is that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (KJV). And so you know the Lord has wonderful things for us to do if we just open our eyes and look around us and are willing to become involved in the things we have in our lives.
Heath Lambert: Praise the Lord!
Wayne Mack: And we say, God, has been faithful. I can guarantee He has been. There have been times where I’ve been [in] conflicts—He was faithful—there have been times perhaps even in ministry where I thought it’s all over, going to fall apart—but it didn’t, and the Lord was upright and the Lord brought me through. And I can say, just recently, in the last six years, six years ago at 75, one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced in all my life took place. And at that point, I never had a serious problem in ministry until I was 75. And things were said that had no basis in truth. They were not true, but they were said. And here you are, you know, I had somebody tell me, they were in actually Russia and they were there they got opposition. They told me at that point after the opposition, they then actually went back to the United States where they got a good position of ministry when which they’re even involved to this day. And as he was telling me this, by way of encouragement, if something happens the Lord will have something else for you to do. And I knew that is true, intellectually, that nothing would ever happen. He works all things according to the counsel of His will, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he takes the light in his way. So we had that confidence, but here you are at 75, and what are you going to do? And then he comes along and he says, “well, you know, it’s happened to me, and it opened the door of ministry bigger than I’d ever had before.” And my thought was, he is a man of 40 years of age. I’m a man of 75, that comparison. Of course, if I were at 40 starting all over again—no big deal. Usually, there’d be a long distance before me. But in terms of me at 75, that’s a little different. But the Lord was faithful, and he opened us doors of ministry and a lot of good things that will never happen have happened. And we’ve had the opportunity of writing twenty-five books now and had time to work on some things like that.
Heath Lambert: That’s great.
Wayne Mack: So, it’s just that as an older person, you, you can’t… I wrote a book called Down But Not Out. And at that point, we have, to be honest, we were down, but we weren’t out.
