I’m Getting Too Old For This!

Today’s Passage – Genesis 7 – 9

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 5 – 6; Proverbs 3 ; Psalm 11 – 15)

“And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” – (Genesis 7:6)

“And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.” – (Genesis 9:28-29)

The thought I have this morning may seem a little strange, but bear with me. Notice that Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and he lived beyond the flood another 350 years. The lifespan of man back in these early days after creation was obviously a lot longer than it is today. Men and women would have lived forever had sin not entered into their world, but the wages of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was death; but even still, that death didn’t come for 100’s of years. The flood would cataclysmically change the earth, which would reduce lifespans; and then a strange event is mentioned but not explained in the Bible, which would further reduce the average age that men and women would live on the earth. (See Genesis 10:25; 11:10 – 19) By the time you get to Abraham, man’s years are reduced even further to 175; and eventually God limited man’s years on earth to “three score and ten (70), with possibly another ten years added for good behavior. (Psalm 90:10)

I didn’t mean for this to be an exhaustive study on the Biblical history of lifespans, but I merely wanted to point out that Noah’s life was better than half over when God called him to build the ark and deliver his family through the flood. In today’s years, Noah would have been in his fifties when called upon to do this monumental task for the Lord. Moses was two-thirds of the way done with his life (80 years old) when God called him to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt. It seems that God does not have a problem giving older folks the strength and energy to do great things for Him.

I am 48 years old, and I am way past the half way point in my life; but I can still be used of the Lord to accomplish His will. Sometimes, I start to get a little discouraged about how much I have done for the Lord thus far. I would like to have completed some more tasks, done a little more than I have; but then, when I read passages like this, I get encouraged, because it may just be that I will be used of God in greater ways in my remaining years. I bet the same is true for you as well. You are not as young as you used to be, but God still wants to use you to accomplish great things for Him.

Noah Webster completed his monumental American Dictionary of the English Language at age 66.

Benjamin Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence at age 70.

Nola Ochs became the oldest person to receive a college diploma, a degree in general studies with an emphasis on history at age 95.

Grandma Moses (yes it’s a real person) started painting at age 76, and completed over 1000 paintings by the time she died at 101.