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He Has Promised Us Long Life
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Some might question, “Oh, he didn’t live that long. That’s just some kind of confusion with the
numbers in the Bible.” No, it’s not. He really lived that long, nine hundred and thirty years. It
can be proven to you any number of ways, but let me continue.
Seth lived to be 912 years old. Enosh lived to be 905 years old. Kenan lived to be 910. Mahalalel
didn’t make it that far, just to 895. Jared lived 962 years. And Noah, although it doesn’t say here
because he was still living through all this, but later on it says he lived to be 950 years. And there
was a man by the name of Methuselah who lived to be 969 years old.
Now, if you told Adam (930 years), Noah (950 years), or Methuselah (969 years) that a young
fellow died over here at age 120, what would they think? “A hundred and twenty? No way. He
was just a kid.” To a 900-year-old, how old is a 100-year-old? It’s all in the perspective, isn’t it?
That would be like a 90-year-old hearing someone died at age 10. Maybe that would help us to
understand. He would think, “No way. They haven’t even started then.”
Why did it change? The Bible tells us that the whole planet had become evil, and their
imagination was only evil and violence, continually. These people were living almost 1,000
years. God said, “I’m not putting up with this.”
We have seen some people who only lived 40 or 50 years and did a lot of damage to humanity.
What about a really evil individual who lived 1,000 years? I mean, he could become more
proficient at sinning and evil century after century, and that’s what the Lord is saying. “My Spirit
is not going to strive with men like this; I’m shortening this. The days of man shall be 120
years.” He changed it then. It has never been changed since then. This is it: One hundred and
twenty years.
If you read through the next chapters, you’ll see that soon after the flood, something happened.
Something changed, it went into effect, and people were living only 400 and 500 years.
Abraham’s dad lived to be 205 years old, and Abraham only lived to be 175 years old. Can you
see what’s happening? It was going down, and it stabilized at about that 120-year mark.
In the United States back in the 1800’s, in the West, the average span of a man’s life was about
40 years. In Europe, at different times, the average lifespan of a man or woman was 35 years.
But that was men’s doing. God never changed it.
Let me include for you some interesting numbers. The United States currently has the greatest
number of people over age 100 in the world. Statistics showed in 2005 that there were 55,000 of
them over age 100, just in this country.
It is estimated that by the year 2050, the number of U.S. centenarians, people over age 100, will
exceed 830,000. There may be even a million people over age 100 by 2050. How about that?
They say that worldwide there are approximately 500,000 people over age 100 right now.
I am saying this because the devil is telling you that nobody lives that long. “Oh, there might be
one or three in the world.” How about half a million? Why couldn’t you be in that club?