Methuselah

It's amazing how God uses people and how he loves his children. I just read something that sent chills up my spine. You can spend your whole life studying the Bible, but there are so many layers to it that it can take many lifetimes to study them all. I read something today that peeled another layer back for me.

Methuselah was the oldest man in recorded history, he lived 969 years (almost 10 centuries!). He was the grandfather of Noah and ironically, he died just DAYS before the flood started.

10 centuries of life and he happens to die just before God wipes the slate clean? A coincidence? There is no such thing in the Bible, no reason to record such a thing. Besides, that would be SOME coincidence!

Then you add to that the meaning of his name, "when he dies, it shall be sent". 10 centuries before the flood, 849 years before God came to Noah, Enoch gave Methuselah this name. Wow.

Now all that makes sense, I have heard it in bits and pieces before, but think about this (I also read this too, not my idea). Maybe that's why Methuselah lived so long. God loves his children and he did not want them to perish, he wanted them to come back to Him so he gave them more time, and more time, and more time. And, since he had already setup Methuselah to be the precursor of this event, he lengthened his life.

Methuselah's long life was not a just freak of nature, but God kept him alive because he wanted his people to come back to him and if Methuselah died he would have to do what he did not want to do.

Wow. Sometimes I just have to be hit squarely in the head with something to see it.