Genesis 5 – The Ultimate Senior Citizen Chapter
We are starting a series of sermons about Senior Citizen in the Bible and in our town. Mower County has one of the highest rates of retired men and women in the state. All you have to do is go to the grocery store to see how many SrCs we have here in Austin. They provide this county with some great people and wonderful models to live by. There are many who have church homes but many still needed to have a relationship with Christ and a place to worship. Some people don’t mind being SrCs but others don’t like it. (Are you a SrC too?)
In Genesis 5 we have the listing of the line of Adam and Eve. In our day, if a person lives to be over 100, they are really old. Listen to the ages of the men when they died as listed in this chapter – Adam was 930; Seth was 912; Enosh was 905; Kenan was 910; Mahalalel was only 895; Jared was 962; Enoch was really young – only 365; Methuselah was the oldest at 969; Lamech was 777 years old. This is definitely the ultimate SrC chapter in the Bible.
Let me say a little about the ages in this chapter. Many people have questioned the numbers listed in Genesis 5. How could anyone live to be 969 years old? What would the person look like at that age if they aged the way we do? Can you imagine the wrinkles that person would have? Men’s ears get bigger as we age – they would be hanging down to our waist by that time. Can you imagine how bad our knees would hurt by the age of 900? Some have suggested that the years are really months or maybe 1/10 of what we would have. So Mahalalel was not 895 but maybe 89 when he died. But that would mean that he would have born a son at age 6.5 years old. I believe the numbers are accurate, but the atmosphere in the world before the Flood was different and plants and animals aged differently then. It might have been like a greenhouse where everything was protected from the sunlight so we aged differently.
I want to look at just 3 of these men this morning – the last three in the chapter. Methuselah is the man who lived the longest on this earth – 969 yrs old - when he died. In our day he would have been of Social Security for over 900 yrs. All we know about him was that his father was Enoch; his first son was born when he was 187, that he had other sons and daughters, and that he died. That is not much information for that many yrs. We assume he was a farmer or a herdsman, and he may have been very good at it, but we do not know. Methuselah is like a lot of people who live and die and not much is known about him. He might have accomplished many things during his life, but we don’t know. There is a poem I use at some funerals called, The Dash – it refers to the dash between the date of birth and the date of death on a tombstone. All of the person’s life is represented by that little “dash” - certainly there was more to his life.
Next let us look at Lamech. We know more about him than we do his father. The picture we have is a vicious man. In Genesis 4 we hear him bragging to his two wives: Ge 4:23 Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. Ge 4:24 If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” Lamech was probably more like the other men of his time – arrogant and violent. This is the generation and time that was so evil that God was sorry he had made men and eventually wiped them out with the flood at the time of Noah. Lamech acted like the gangsters in the movies who would kill another person without a second thought.
There is a second short passage that quotes him – found in Gen.5.29 where is says this: Ge 5:28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. Ge 5:29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed.” To Lamech God was the cause of all the problems of the earth. God cursed the ground because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but Lamech did not see that. He was a wickedness man probably for his whole life – 777 years. Are there SrCs like that?
Now we come to Enoch. The main phrase that characterizes this man is “Enoch walked with God.” Read Gen. 5.21-24. (With the death of Fern Everson last week – I said over and over – she walked with God day by day.) At first we might feel sorry for Enoch since he only lived 365 yrs. He was a young man compared with all his relatives. He had a wonderful quality of life rather than quantity. Again we do not know what Enoch did – whether he was a farmer or what. We know he lived in the midst of a wicked people - listen to what God said: Genesis 6.5 “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Ge 6:6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. Ge 6:7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” That sounds like people in our age – some people. Can you imagine living in your whole life in that kind of atmosphere? Instead of wanting to do good for others, everyone is trying to hurt you. We are used to living in a fairly Chr world – but there are places where evil is the typical. (In most places in our world you just don’t lock your doors, you have bars on the windows.)
Yet somehow Enoch was different from the rest – he walked with God. This reminds me of Adam and Eve in Gen.3 where it says God walked in the Garden in the cool of the evening, and they walked with him, talked with him and received his love directly. Enoch must have done the same. Why did he walk with God and not the rest of the people? I know that God sought people then and he does now. The big issue is our receptivity to God. It is like God is a TV station broadcasting on channel 4, but most people do not tune into that channel. God always has and does now want a personal, intimate relationship with people. I don’t know why – we seldom are very good company – we always fail him and break the bond between us. Enoch listened to God and walked with him.
Walking with God for Enoch was difficult for a number of reasons. Nobody else it seems was listening to God. In fact I am sure he was mocked and made fun of for his faith in God. No doubt the rest of the people had invented their own gods by this time, idols and images. But Enoch worshiped the one true God in spirit and in truth directly. He had purpose and fulfillment in life – Augustine said there is a God-shaped hole in our heart that only God can fill. Enoch found God and his heart was filled completely. I am sure he tried to share his faith in God with others, but they did not listen, none of them.
Remember this was centuries before the Law of Moses, before the Temple, and before the sacrificial system. Enoch had no scriptures to read – we have both the OT and NT to encourage us in our Chr life – he had none. There were probably the stories about Adam and Eve, and all the others and how this God had work with them. Maybe these sustained him some.
Mostly I believe it was God reaching out to Enoch and drawing him to his side day after day. Listen to what is written about Enoch in Hebrews 11.5 &6: “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” The passage say God rewarded him – he was no more because God took him away – directly to heaven so their fellowship could continue for eternity.
What about us today? What does it mean to walk with God? Am I doing that – are we walking daily with him? That is what Christianity is – daily walking by faith with the Almighty God, the loving God. As Chrs he takes our hand or puts his arm around us and we walk. We feel his love and forgiveness because of Jesus Christ. He comforts us and challenges us – always helping us to be obedient to him in all of our life. There is nothing that could be more wonderful in the whole world than walking with God day after day. None of us are good enough to be taken directly to heaven like Enoch, but we have the best possible life walking with God.
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