“THEY LIVED HOW LONG?”
1. Matthew opens his gospel with a record of the Lord’s ancestors
2. Luke has a genealogy for the Lord
3. In the Old Testament, there are several lists of names.
4. Names are on several pages of the Bible.
5. With these names, sometimes come ages.
I. PEOPLE ARE DESCRIBED, AND THE NUMBER OF YEARS THAT THESE PEOPLE LIVED IS GIVEN IN MANY PLACES.
A. Some of the ages given in scripture have puzzled people.
B. Other people have been skeptical, because of ages that are given.
C. Let’s look at some examples from the book of Genesis.
D. Gen. 5:5, 8, 11, 20, 27.
E. A member of my family has repeatedly asked me,
F. “Do you really believe that people lived this long?”
G. “If you do believe this, how do you explain it?”
H. Within the church, people wonder and ask how ancient people lived so long.
I. This lesson is designed to answer this question.
J. To begin, I want to state how long lives are not to be explained.
K. Some have suggested that though the Bible says,
L. These people lived close to a thousand years,
M. This is not what the verses mean.
N. This idea says that even though the statements are clear, The meaning is not clear.
O. This idea is perhaps proposed because people do not know what to do.
P. Some have thought that these long ages are a “problem”.
Q. And therefore scripture needs to be fixed.
R. It has been concluded that the Bible must be treated in a way which agrees with modern science.
S. Modern science says that humans cannot live for 900 years.
T. Therefore, in the Bible, a 900 year life is false,
U. And there must be another explanation (meaning).
V. The idea that ages in the Bible are not literal comes from outside the church.
W. We expect that.
X. We might not expect to find this idea inside the church.
Y. Brother John Clayton is a member of the church who speaks extensively.
Z. He has written, “The ages of men in the past cannot be answered with great accuracy.”
A. Brother Clayton affirms that we cannot believe the ages as given.
B. He is another person who tries to make the Bible fit know science.
C. Brother Clayton also wrote,
D. “There are many possible ways in which the extreme age of Methuselah might be explained.”
E. This is absolutely false.
F. There is a cardinal rule in interpretation – Bible or otherwise.
G. We take information to be literally true, unless there is a compelling reason not to.
H. Men, like John Clayton, really have little respect for God’s Word.
I. Men like this ask, “Can science confirm the Bible?”, instead of, “Does the Bible affirm science?”
J. Scripture claims that men lived to be close to 1,000 years old.
K. There is no reason to believe that this claim is anything but literally true.
L.
It is as literal as the virgin birth; parting of the
M.
The destruction of
II. ALTHOUGH SCRIPTURE ACTUALLY CLAIMS THAT MEN LIVED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, PLENTY OF THEORIES HAVE BEEN SET FORTH IN AN ATTEMPT TO AVOID THE LITERALNESS OF GOD’S WORD.
A. I will list some of these theories.
B. One idea is, “The years are not really years.”
C. This takes us back to John Clayton.
D. This brother has written that,
E. “Methods of measuring age are not the same today as they were when men lived so long.
F. For example, their “year” might equal our “month”.
G. Let’s test this view and see how it holds up.
1. Gen. 5:6 – READ.
2. Seth had a child when he was “105” years old.
3. When you get home, use your calculator.
4. Check my math on this verse.
5. If a “year equals a month”,
6. Seth was only about 9 years old at this time.
7. A 9 year old boy is a bit young, don’t you think?
8. By the way, you might look at some other passages with ages.
9. Turn the “years” into months and see what you get.
10. You will find one example where a father would have been 5.4 years old.
H. In the Old Testament, there is never an example where “year” means a much shorter period like month.
I. Let’s look at another flawed explanation.
J. This is the “clan” explanation.
K. When it is said that Adam lived for 930 years, this viewpoint says it was not literally Adam;
L. It was “Adam’s clan”.
M. Adam may have lived for 100 years.
N. For the next 830 years, other people ruled in the clan.
O. This view would then say that there was a “Seth clan”, etc.
P. There is an obvious problem with this view.
Q. Father’s ages are given when children are born.
R. The given ages are far beyond what we have ever seen.
III. THERE IS ONLY ONE OF TWO THINGS WHICH CAN BE DONE WITH THE AGES IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS: (1) THEY MUST BE REJECTED AS ERRONIOUS BITS OF INFORMATION – FALSE FACTS, OR (2) THEY MUST BE LOOKED UPON AS REAL, HISTORICAL, AND LITERAL STATEMENTS OF FACT.
A. If we choose option number two, what can we say to people when they ask,
B. “How could people have lived for 900 years?”
C. Let’s go back to the book of Genesis for an answer.
D. Gen. 1:31 says,
1. When the Earth was created, it was “very good.”
2. There was no flaw, impurity, defect, mar, imperfection.
3. This is beyond our comprehension.
4. We have never seen a perfect, new place.
E. How many diseases are in the world we live in?
F. How many pollutants has our world been exposed to?
G. What things have damaged our world?
H. Some of the ones I know about are:
1. DDT, Agent Orange, Chernoybal, Asbestos, Acid Rain,
2. Raw sewage dumped into rivers, bacteria,
3. Burned garbage, electrical power plants, factories,
4. Motorized transportation (automobiles, airplanes,
5. Trains, boats). Oil refineries have given off hydrocarbons.
I. Do you know that by early 1970’s:
1. Exhaust from engines poured over 100 million tons of pollutants into the air every year?
2. Factories
were releasing 28 million tons of pollutants into the air every year in the
J. Someone says, “Is all this stuff really that bad?”
K. “Can things like pollutants really cut down our life span?”
L. Imagine an object with a steel surface.
M. This object will wear away as much as 30x faster in a city
N. Than if it were in a rural area with little pollution.
O. Conditions in the world affect health.
P. Now a long life is about 100 years of age.
Q. It is not surprising that this is a long life.
R. A reflective person might respond,
S. “We do have many pollutants. How do we account for the 800 year
T. Difference in longevity between us and people like Adam?
U. Remember the type of environment Adam went into.
V. Think about what the environment that other ancient men lived in was like.
W. When Adam left the garden of Eden, his environment was perfect.
X. Shortly after his eviction from the garden, there were some problems.
Y. The Earth was very, very favorable to human life.
Z. Let me show you something. PROJECTOR ON.
1. From Adam to Lamech, the world had a limited population.
2. Conditions were not flawless, but they are still favorable.
3. Until the time of Lamech, people lived close to 1,000 years.
A. Then we come to Noah.
B. Noah lived for 950 years.
C. Following Noah and his son Shem, there is a sudden shift in age.
D. Instead of an age of 900, we drop down to 400, a huge decrease.
E. Why? Look at Gen. 6:13 – READ.
F. The Earth was not “annihilated.”
G. It was seriously damaged; changes occurred.
H. These changes were so substantial that people’s life expectancy diminished.
I. As time has continued to march on, the Earth has continued to weaken.
J. In fact, Heb. 1:11 says, concerning the Earth and heavens,
K. “They all shall wax old as doth a garment.”
L. The Earth has gotten older and older.”
M. It has gotten further and further away from perfection.
N. As conditions on the Earth have worsened,
O. Man’s longevity has dropped, as the Bible indicates.
P. By the time Abraham’s father died, people were living about 200 years.
Q. What scripture presents concerning age does not need to be “explained” away.
R. The long ages make sense.
S. Do you know that we now have over 1,300 genetic mutations?
T. We know of over 1,300 genetic mutations that have occurred.
U. What if we could go back to a time before the first genetic problem?
V. What would we expect to find?
W. People who were healthy, and people who could live a very long time.
X. As time has progressed, genetic problems have increased.
Y. With the increase in problems, life expectancy has decreased.
CONCLUSION:
1. A study of what things were like in the beginning actually argues for long and extended lives.
2. If people back then had only lived 70 years in a near perfect environment,
3. Wouldn’t you wonder about that?
4. Wouldn’t it seem strange that we can live for 80 years in a problem-ridden and polluted world,
5. And people early in the Earth’s history lived for the same amount of time that?
6. That would be hard to explain.
7. God, the Bible, and Christianity all make sense.
8. Christianity is a reasonable and justifiable faith.
9. Are you a Christian?