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He Has Promised Us Long Life
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There’s also a group they call super-centenarians. Those are people who live past age 110. They
estimate there are about 400 people alive over age 110.
The reason I’m saying this is when you read the scripture, when it says 120 years, a lot of people
say, “Ah. No. That’s just not realistic.” Not only is it realistic, it’s happening in the world today,
now.
Now the records are kind of “iffy” when you go back very far, but the Guinness World Records
have proven and demonstrated at least two people in our generation who have lived over 120
years. The oldest just died in 1997, a lady named Jeanne Louise Calment from France. She died
August 1997 at the age of 122 years. This is documented. She led an extremely active life. She
took up fencing at age 85—I guess she thought she’d try something new. She rode her bicycle
actively past age 100. At age 114, she played herself in the movie Vincent And Me, becoming
the oldest actress on record in film. It’s happening.
This is not ridiculous to think that you can live to be 120 years old. Fifty-five thousand people in
the U.S., alive right now, are over age 100.
Let’s go back to what we read in Psalm 90:4. With the Lord, a thousand years is like a day. If
that’s so, and we know it is, then how long were people living in the beginning? About a day.
Noah lived almost a day. Adam lived almost a day. Methuselah was the closest one we have a
record of at 969 years. He almost lived a whole day. Think about it. It makes sense on a lot of
levels. Different scriptures talk about a day this and a day that, and the man had his day. This is
our day.
But now our day has been reduced to two and one-half hours. If a day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, if you divide it by 24, then an hour is about 42 years. So 120 years would be less
than three hours, as the Lord sees it. We need to get our minds renewed so we see it like He does,
because the devil will tell you, “Ten years is a long time.” It’s not. We need to see it like the
Lord does. I mean, if you make it all the way to 120 years, you have less than three hours to be
here, from God’s perspective. Don’t let anyone try to talk you out of part of your time because
you’re only here a couple of hours anyway. I know it sounds strange to us, but this is not even a
joke to God. That’s the only way He sees it. We think a year is a long time.
So our life is a vapor, He said. What is your life? It’s a vapor that appears for a little while and
then vanishes away, in a couple of hours. For a lot of us who are middle aged, what do we have
left? An hour? An hour and a half? Check your watch. And then you’re out of here, if the Lord
tarries His coming that long.
People don’t want to talk about death. They are afraid to talk about death. But Christians are not
supposed to be afraid to talk about death, or look at death, or discuss death. Why? “Jesus, took
part of flesh and blood,” the Bible says, “and destroyed him that had the power of death so that
He might deliver those who all their lifetime were subject to bondage through the fear of death.”
(Hebrews 2:15) That’s why it says in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?” The grave and death have been de-stung, declawed. The stinger has been
removed. Why? Because to us, death holds no fear.