Audio Recording Sermon manuscript: Generally speaking, old people receive comfort from things being predictable. They like to know what to expect. They are not bothered by one day plodding into the next where everything happens just the same. Perhaps this is related to something else that I’ve noticed for myself as I’ve gotten older—the days go by so quickly. One after another the days fly by. Soon a whole year has passed. Where did all the days go? This is not how it is for young people. Young people do not like it when one day is just like the day before it. They want new experiences, new challenges, new surroundings. If they do not have this, then the days drag on forever. One hour can seem like an eternity. And why? Because they are looking for the next new thing that is different from what they have been doing. They are hopeful. Perhaps this explains old people’s contentment with everything staying the same. They have lost their hopefulness. From long and bitter experience they have learned that life isn’t as thrilling as young people believe it to be. They become tamed and domesticated. They are easier to handle. There’s no sense in trying to fight against this. It’s just how life is. We see this not only with human beings but with all kinds of other forms of life. The puppy is different from the old dog. The young tree is flexible, full of sap. The old tree is hard and brittle. Those old people who pretend that they are still teenagers look terribly foolish. Just as we can’t escape the wrinkles and the gray hair, we can’t escape the aging of our minds and souls. But this serves its purpose too. There’s a good reason why older people are chosen to be leaders. They aren’t as impetuous. They don’t love or hate as much as young people. They are more even keel. Unpredictability is not a good trait in plumbers or electricians or bakers or nurses. Maturity and stability can be very helpful. How would a lot of our work get done if everybody were bored out of their minds all the time, like young people are prone to be? With all this being said, though, I think you might agree that something is lost when youth goes away. It is the progressive onset of death. The energy, the health, the strength gets less and less. Speaking of aging as the progressive onset of death is not very common, and there’s a good reason for that. It is believed that there is nothing that can be done about it. There’s no way to roll back the clock. There’s no way to be young again. It’s strange how much faith people put into innovations that might make their bodies last a little longer or work a little better, but nobody talks about the aging of the mind and soul. But isn’t it precisely this youthfulness of spirit that we miss the most from our childhood? Who cares if our body lives on for decades, but we have no get up and go? There is nothing that can be done about this humanly speaking. But the Scriptures give us a different possibility. In fact it is not a matter of possibilities but a matter of two eventualities. The Scriptures speak of a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. That’s one eventuality. The other eventuality is an immense increase in the progression of death—a further increase in embitterment, sluggishness, anxiety, and pain. What we are speaking of here is heaven and hell—the vast change that must happen to every individual. There are no other possibilities. So we must do away with what is undoubtedly the most common view of the afterlife, which is that things are going to go on pretty much the same but only a little better: Donna, the card shark, is going to be playing bridge endlessly. Sally, the jokester, will be making people laugh eternally. Bob, the farmer, is going to be farming eternally. Barf. These are old people’s dreams about heaven. Old people want everything to stay the same. Old people want everything to be predictable—including what happens to them after death. It is very comforting to them, theref