Let me give you some scriptural backing. God called Abraham in Genesis 12:
1. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
2. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3. I will bless those who bless you and curse t1hose who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”…
— Genesis 12: 1 – 3
In Genesis 17, God repeated 80% of the things he had told Abraham all over again.
1. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.1. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
2. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”…
— Genesis 17: 1 – 2
This continued for a long time before it came to fruition. So many things happened to Abraham before he entered into that promise. If you remember;
- He even let Sarah talk him into marrying and sleeping with Hagar
- Hagar had a child for Abraham: Ishmael
- shmael was his only child for some years
- Before Isaac was born
- When Isaac was around 13-16 years of age, God took Abraham up a mountain to
give him one more test, and when he passed that test, God now established his
covenant with him. This was a dealing with God that spanned almost 25-30 year
Moses had the same story, in fact his own took almost 40 years
Jacob had the same situation, his own took almost 25 years
It seems that the number of years for God to train a man and bring him to a place of covenant is between 25 to 40 years. Note that Jesus lived for 33 years.
Now please don’t let the number of years scare you. Don’t think that God is going to let you go through things for 10 years, 20, 30 or 40 years before He intervenes. No please don’t think that. There are three scriptures that God gave me to comfort me that we will not be needing tens of years. The first one is Genesis 6
3. So the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”
— Genesis 6 : 3
So, man’s official number of years on earth was shortened from over 900 years on the average to 120 years. If you read Genesis 4 and 5, you will notice that almost everyone from Adam lives to between 800 and 960 years of age. The only exception is Enoch, who God took at the age of about 350 because the world was full of sin. The Bible says and Enoch was not because God took him.
The second scripture is Psalm 90, where by Revelation, David perceived that God had once more shortened the years of man on earth. At what point this was done we do not know, but it is obvious that many others realized that they could not live as long as their fathers had. Moses was 40 years old when he ran from Egypt, HE was 80 years old when
he returned, and he was 120 years old when He died. Abraham was 175 years old when he died Gen 25:7. Ishmael died when he was 137: Gen 25;17, so you can see the gradual decline of the years of a man’s life. But like I was saying, it was reduced officially to 70 years and if by health reasons or some good genes, man could go beyond that to 80 years or more. Psalm 90
10. The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty if we are strong— yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
— Genesis 90 : 10
