A YOUNG EARTH
How long has man lived upon the earth?
Is it true that man has existed for millions of years?
Man’s existence is frequently discussed in the news.
From time to time someone asks me how long I believe man has been on the earth.
Children around the world are told that man is millions of years old.
1) IN THE BOOK OF JUDE WE HAVE INFORMATION WHICH HELPS US UNDERSTAND HOW OLD THE HUMAN RACE IS.
2) Before I show how Jude deals with this subject I want to lay some groundwork.
3) If you are taking notes you might want to write down three periods of time:
A) The first period is from the present moment to the time of Christ.
B) The second period is from the time of Christ to the time of Abraham.
C) The third time period is from Abraham to the beginning.
D) Again, these periods are: From now to Christ, from Christ to Abraham, Abraham to beginning.
4) My first reference is Lk. 11:50.
5) In this text Jesus spoke of the foundation of the world. He went all the way back to the beginning.
6) The Lord affirmed that in the beginning man existed. Quote Lk. 11:50.
7) Notice that the foundation of the world and the existence of human beings go together.
8) Jesus denied that our world existed and millions of years later man came along.
9) Man was at the beginning of time.
10) This is consistent with a literal 6 day creation period that is described in Genesis.
11) Genesis pictures God as using six 24 hour days to make man and his world.
12) If you will, mentally hold on to (or write down) this fact.
A) Man and his world existed within a week of each other.
B) Man existed right after the world was founded.
C) If you are taking notes, return to where you wrote down the three time periods.
D) The first period you wrote down consists of the present time to the time of Jesus.
E) When did Jesus come into our world? About 2000 years ago.
F) By the first time period you wrote down please jot down the number 2000.
G) The second period of time is from Jesus to Abraham.
H) How many years did this period of time involve?
I) The answer is again 2,000. This figure is one that is well documented, and is easy to prove.
a) Not too long after Abraham lived the Hebrew people became involvement with Egypt.
b) Members of Abraham’s family were enslaved by the Egyptians.
c) Archaeology allows us to determine when many of the Egyptian rulers lived.
d) By comparing Biblical & secular date, we know that Abrah. lived about 2000 before Christ
e) We know from the present time to the time of Abraham about 4,000 years have passed.
f) If we can find out the right figure for the third period of time (Abraham to Adam),
g) We will know how long the human race has been on the earth.
h) As we attempt to uncover this third piece of information…
i) Remember that man was “at the foundation of the world”, Lk. 11:50.
j) Man and the earth were all created during a seven day period.
k) If we can figure out how long man has been on the earth,
l) We will also know how old the earth is.
13) Let’s now go back to the book of Jude and again see what this writer had to say in the 14th verse.
14) Enoch issued a prophecy. This prophecy had application to those in the first century.
15) Instead of looking at the prophecy we need to look at the one who made it.
16) Enoch, the 7th from Adam, spoke these words.
17) If you are taking notes you will want to write down a couple of additional references.
18) Who is the Adam described in Jude 14?
19) Paul tells us who Adam was.
A) Paul describes this Adam in 1 Cor. 15.
B) Here is what he said – 1 Cor. 15:45
C) Adam was the first man.
D) Remember Lk. 11:50? Man was at the foundation of the world.
E) If we add to this fact 1 Cor. 15:45, the first man in the world was Adam.
F) According to Jude, Enoch was the “7th” from Adam.
G) What does this mean?
H) Let’s take a look at the book of Luke; Lk. 3 is the chapter I am turning to.
I) Both Luke and Matthew recorded a genealogy for Jesus.
J) Luke begins his genealogy with Jesus and goes all the way back to Adam.
K) If you will find Lk. 3:38 you will see the name Adam.
L) Let’s start with Adam and count back seven names – READ/COUNT.
M) Jude was right. Jude and Luke agree. Enoch was the 7th from Adam.
N) Seven generations are described by these seven names.
20) SOMEONE
MAY BE THINKING, “HOW DOES THAT HELP US?”
a) If you have taken notes look at the second time period you wrote down.
b) How many years were in the period between Jesus and Abraham? 2000.
c) How many Generations were in this 2,000 period?
d) If you count from Jesus (Lk. 3:23) to Abraham (Lk. 3:34) you will find 55 generations.
e) A generation is defined by dictionaries as a period of 30-40 years.
f) If we use a period of 35 years, and take that times 55 generations, we come up with 1925.
g) Thus, there were about 2,000 years between Abraham and Jesus.
h) In this 2,000 year period there were 55 different generations.
21) We are trying to figure out the number of years between Abraham and Adam (first man).
a) If we can count the generations between Abraham and Jesus in Lk. 3 (& we can—55),
b) Why can’t we count the generations between Abraham and Adam (1st man) in Lk. 3?
c) We can do this.
d) If we begin with Abraham in Lk. 3:34, and count all the way to Adam (3:38), we have 20 gen.
e) This fact is significant for several reasons.
f) If there were 55 generations from Jesus to Abraham,
g) And these 55 generations only come up to 2,000 years,
h) A mere 20 generations from Adam to Abrah. cannot add up to millions and millions of years.
22) Luke 3 lists only 20 generations from Abraham to Adam.
23) If we bear in mind that those who lived during this time had longer lives,
24) And we therefore expand a generation to 100 years instead of 35, what do we get?
25) 20 (the number of generations) times 100 years per generation is 2,000.
26) About 2000 years have passed from now back to Jesus.
27) From Jesus to Abraham about 2000 yeas passed, and from Jesus to the 1st man (creation) – 2000
28) If we have 3 periods and there is about 2,000 years in each period,
29) Man has been on the earth about 6,000 years.
30) The earth (since it was created within a week of man) is also about 6,000 years old.
31) SOME HAVE BEEN PRESENTED WITH THIS MATERIAL BUT THEY ARE UNCONVINCED.
32) Some have wanted to object that Lk. 3 doesn’t list all of generations.
33) Though 20 generations from Adam to Abraham are given, some think this list is incomplete.
34) It is argued that this list was somehow condensed by Luke.
35) If we had all of the generations from Adam to Abraham we would have millions & millions of yrs.
36) Let’s consider this objection.
37) Did Luke leave out any generations in his genealogy?
38) We know that Luke was 100% accurate with the first seven generations.
39) Jude says that there were seven generations from Adam to Enoch.
40) This is exactly what Luke records. There are no gaps in the first seven generations
41) If Luke did leave out any generations, it had to be between gen. 8-20 (Methuselah-Abraham).
42) It is a difficult for me to accept that Luke used the greatest precision for 7 generations,
43) And then he became careless as he dealt with the last 13.
44) Without any evidence to say or show that Luke started out with precision…
45) And then became inexact and imprecise is a charge that has no foundation to it.
46) Furthermore, consider this.
47) Evolutionists put man’s beginning at about 3.6 million years ago.
A) From us to Christ is 2000 years.
B) From Christ to Abraham was 2000 years.
C) Evolutionists must get their more than 3 million years from Abraham to the beginning.
D) This 3 million year period must be squeezed into the 20 generations of Lk. 3.
E) We
know that from the 20 generations in Lk. 3, seven of them are literal.
Jude
says that Enoch was the 7th from Adam.
F) From Adam to Enoch God said that there were only 7 generations.
G) If we take the 13 remaining generations (Methuselah to Abraham)
H) To get to the 3.6 million figure used by the evolutionist,
I) There must be 291,125 years between each generation that is listed.
J) If this seems complicated I want to make it very plain.
K) If evolution is true, this how Lk. 3 reads:
L) READ verses 36-37 and insert “291,125 years passed” between the names.
M) This makes no sense whatsoever.
N) Just as we can take the first seven generations literally, so we can take the remaining 13 gen.
O) In more than one way the Bible affirms that the human race is only about 6,000 years old.
48) CONCLUSION:
49) This conclusion is not very popular with many.
50) Saying this will cause Christians to be ridiculed by those in the scientific community.
51) Quite often someone will respond to this with something like,
52) “We know that light travels at 186,000 miles a second.”
53) Since light travels at this speed light from the stars has taken billions of years to reach the earth.
54) How, therefore, can the earth be a mere 6,000 years old?
55) When God created the earth scripture indicates that creation was mature.
A) Trees were created that bore fruit (Gen. 1:11, 29).
B) Adam and Eve seem to have been full grown adults.
C) God created light in the heavens (Gen. 1:14-15).
D) There was creation in the fullest sense of the word.
E) Part of this creation included light from the stars.
56) Creation is the one thing that the evolutionist will not accept.
57) Yet, in the small book of Jude, we are given information that helps show the earth is about 6,000 yrs
58) How much longer will God allow the earth to survive? We don’t know.
59) We do know that God has created an even better place for His people.
60) We trust that because you are here you want to go to that place.