This devotional message was preached on Aug. 3 at the McMillan family reunion celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Rev. John M. and Marion E. McMillan.

W e are all here this morning because a long time has passed. There is no other way to have three generations gather to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary. The occasion says, in Pete Seeger’s words, “Long time passing…”

That song was about young men dying in the Vietnam War. “Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?” The answers came as a sad litany of wasted lives: Young girls pick the flowers, they marry husbands, these become soldiers, are killed and buried; their graves produce flowers, and a new set of young girls pick the flowers. So the cycle continues. It was and remains an anti-war song, but back of that it is essentially a Buddhist hymn chanting out the hopeless and endless rhythm of human folly.

Not so with the 71st Psalm. An old man is singing about the burdens of his long time passing. But unlike our moderns, who can only protest and wish upon a star that things were better, he sees blessings and bright hope in the saving grace of his God and Savior. He ends, not with the graveyard, the flowers and the future war widows of America, but with the Lord of glory. “My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, and my soul, which You have redeemed ” (v. 71:23).

‘Long Time Passing’ Brings Burdens

One thing the psalmist does not mention about the passing of time is that it brings physical changes to all of us. Moses lays it out in Ps. 90:10. “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” This is the assumption of Ps. 71. It hardly needs mentioning. Long time passing brings its challenges.

What the psalmist does emphasize is a sense of loneliness. You see this in verses 9, 10, 12 and 18 especially. As time passes there is often a growing sense of isolation. The friends of youth disperse, contact is lost, loved ones become aged and die. For so many, this long time passing means being alone. One thinks of Ps. 88:18, “Loved one and friend you have put far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness.” This is, alas, a very common burden of later life in this world of ours.

The psalmist, however, sees an even deeper problem. It is not just friends that we can lose. It is the fear that God will cast him off. This is the fear of an ultimate loneliness. He lays it out in verses 9-13:

“Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails. For my enemies speak against me; and those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together, Saying, “God has forsaken him; pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.” O God, do not be far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! Let them be confounded and consumed who are adversaries of my life; let them be covered with reproach and dishonor who seek my hurt.”

Old age brings new vulnerabilities. Strength fails. Enemies become bolder and more threatening. Will you be there for me, O my God and Savior, when all my earthly contacts and supports are gone and when my declining faculties increasingly render me helpless? The thought is this: When everything else is melting away from me, will God perhaps also leave me to myself?

Of course, life without the Lord is bound to end in an awful darkness. James W. Alexander (Consolation, p. 183) observes that “an old age without Christ involves the loss of two worlds.” On the one hand, the world of earthly pleasures fades away to misery and death, while, on the other, the world of heavenly joys is already denied in rejecting Christ. This is why God calls us when we are still young. “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them” (Eccl. 12:1). A godless life, and a long time passing outside of a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, can only be burden added to burden — perhaps all the way to the gates of hell.

What of the believer in old age? The psalmist is a believer, but he knows the fear of God may be forsaking him. Is there relief for those who do belong to the Lord?

‘Long Time Passing’ Brings Blessings

No sooner has he brought his anguished prayers to the Lord, than the psalmist begins to anticipate God’s good answers. He had begun with his commitment to the Lord back in verse 1. “In You, O Lord, I put my trust.” Now he returns to that faith and finds the Lord pouring blessings past, present and future into his soul.

14 But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. 15 My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. 16 I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. 17 O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. 18 Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. 19 Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You? 20 You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, shall revive me again, and bring me up again from the depths of the earth. 21 You shall increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side (Ps. 71:14-21).

The psalmist is blessed with a rising hope (v. 14a), increasing praise (v. 14b), invigorated personal testimony (v. 15), determined discipleship (v. 16), reaffirmation of God’s will for his life (v. 17), recommitment to his calling to bear witness to the Lord (v. 18), and expectation of ever-greater blessing in days to come (vv. 19-21). To be sure, long time passing brought all sorts of troubles and fears, but it was also the arena of his growth in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord!

The scope and sweep of the psalmist’s words are that the net effect of God’s blessing is to make up for what is lost with the passage of time with ever greater benefits and consolations. Is there not a reference to the resurrection and eternal life in verses 20-21? Other Scriptures hold out that wonderful promise. Ps. 27:10 speaks of the Lord making up for lost and, in this case, neglectful parents; “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.” Ps. 37:25 testifies to the Lord taking up the slack caused by poverty and the loss of faculties; “I have been young and now am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.”

Implicit in all of this is the covenant faithfulness of God in the line of the generations of his believing people. He is the “Holy One of Israel” (v. 22). “Israel” is the church, which is a people, corporately and covenantally, spanning the beginning and the end of human history. It is in God’s righteousness, and not our own, that we can have confidence (v. 2). He is the God of His people from the womb and from birth (v. 6). One thinks here of the promise of Ps. 128:6 to believers, “Yes, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel.”

‘Long Time Passing’ Is Answered by the Gospel of Jesus Christ

The passage of time and the ravages that it can bring, and, not least, the reckoning that awaits every one of us when our time is done, can only be answered by the grace of gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He has therefore a glorious promise for all who come to Him and love Him, even to their old age. “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb: even to your old age I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made and I will bear: even I will carry you and I will deliver you.” (Isa. 46:3-4). Believers young and old have glorious reason to love Jesus, our Savior and Lord – and to rejoice in our “long time passing” as a time to be redeemed?

One of the most solemn experiences I had as a new Christian, age 17, was on a tour of the medical facilities attached to the Medical School of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. I was a “fresher” about to embark on a degree in zoology. We were shown the post-mortem room. Two bodies were laid out on slabs: one was an old drunkard fished out of the harbor, the other was a baby that died at birth.

Our time may be long or short. The bottom line is that it passes (Heb. 9:27). But God has wonderful promises and glorious blessings for us, when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and continue looking to Him as the author and finisher of our faith. And these are both now and not yet. Both in this world and in the world to come, we have in Christ the path of life, in His glorious presence and with fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).

—Gordon J. Keddie

Gordon Keddie is the pastor of Southside Indianapolis, Ind., RPC and is the author of many books and commentaries.