We Need To Respect Older People

The Book of 1 Timothy Chapter 5 and verse 1:
“Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father,...”
I think the biggest challenge we have, not just in South Africa, but right around the world, is a fatherless generation.
We need to respect and look up to our fathers.
The North American Red Indians have a saying. They say when an old man dies it is like a library full of books that burns down.
I remember hearing a story many years ago of what took place in the Pilansburg Game Reserve in the northern part of our country.
The young bull elephants were running wild.
They were terrorising the tourists and causing trouble with the rhinoceroses.
They called in the experts and the experts sat and they watched what was happening in the game farm and after a few days, they said, “Where are all the old tuskers, the old bull elephants - the elephants who when they walk along, leave a trail in the sand with their tusks?
And the game warden said, “We took them out of the park. We didn’t think they were of any need because they just stood under the trees all day.”
The experts said, “Bring them back.”
And they brought them back and within three weeks the whole game reserve came back to normality.
What happened?
Well, the young bull elephants had no mentors.
They had no examples to follow and they didn’t know how to be bull elephants.
My dear friend, we need to respect older people.
We need to respect them because God said so and not even for the sake of the old people but for the sake of ourselves, so that we too can grow into men and women of God that can lead young people into these last days.