Sages for the Ages | 2 Kings 5

Happy Father's Day. This week's message is for every person who has — or has had — an old man in their life worth celebrating. And for those who are becoming that person for someone else.

We open in 1 Samuel 2:31, where God delivers a sobering warning to Eli the priest: there will no longer be an old man in your house. Eli was good in many ways, but he was passive where he needed to be decisive. His failure to correct his sons set off a chain reaction that God promised would echo for generations.

The message of today isn't condemnation — it's a celebration. A celebration of the fathers, the grandfathers, the elders, the sages who stayed. Who may not have had much to say, but when they spoke, you listened. Who handed you a silver dollar from a jar when you were a child, and you never forgot it. Who told you things you didn't understand then, but needed desperately later — because wisdom is something you deposit in you before you need it.

We trace the consequences of rejecting elder wisdom through the life of King Rehoboam, who stood at a crossroads with Solomon's own counselors on one side and his college friends on the other — and chose wrong. What followed divided a kingdom.

And we close with this: you cannot live right unless you love right. The world needs leaders who carry the wisdom of God, the love of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today's Scripture: 1 Samuel 2:31 | Deuteronomy 32:7 | 1 Kings 12:6–14 | Ecclesiastes 7:12 | Psalm 90:12