For the last few posters,
Another thing that I have been firmly convicted on, and especially in these days that lead up to the great apostasy of which Jesus questioned would he find faith upon the earth, is that the believer will never be in the majority. Just as in Israel, the majority refused Jesus as their Messiah. They were wrong! Only a very, very few understood as Jesus walked among us that he was the Son of God, the promised Messiah.
So, and you are free to label this as an unwarranted presupposition if you like, anytime someone starts out with, "Well, this is what most people..." or the majority believes, my little 'check it' meter goes off. It may well be, and certianly if we look at Israel, the majority of those who claim to be the people of God have always been wrong!
Consider, my friends, that as Jesus hung bleeding and dying on those cross beams and looked down upon the crowd gathered around him, there were probably a dozen or so Roman soldiers, but by and large the crowd was made up of Jews who had followed Jesus out of Jerusalem bearing his cross to Golgotha. We know that there were pharisees standing around mocking him and getting a good laugh poking their buddies and saying aloud, "If you are the Son of God, then come down off that cross. Then we will believe."
Consider that Isaiah's opening statement was God's cry, "The ox knows it manger, but my people do not understand!"
Consider that after God perfomed great miracles leading the Hebrews out of Egypt; he had rained fire and ice from heaven, caused the Nile river to turn to blood, brought flies upon Egypt that were so thick a man could hardly breath without taking in a fly, and yet there was not a one in the land of Goshen, a suburb of that very city. In one night brought about the death of every firstborn child from Pharoah to the hired hand, and yet within no more than a few months - it has been calculated that it was 100 days from the beginning of the Exodus to the creation of the golden calf - the people were ready to turn away from God.
In reading Jesus' very letters to the churches of the 1st century and understanding his account of all the error that had already entered into the fellowship of his followers, I can't find any reason to expect that christianity is much different than judaism in the ability of its followers to understand and know God.
Then we read Jesus' explanation to his disciples of that day of God's judgment when many will stand before him crying out, "Lord, Lord, surely you know us! Did we not prophecy in your name and in your name drive out demons?" And Jesus' reply to them is that he never knew them and to depart from him. Now, friends, this account clearly explains that these people crying to Jesus believed themselves to be believers while living upon the earth. They drove out demons and performed miracles in Jesus' name, so I can't find any reason not to expect that many of them may have even been teachers and pastors within the fellowship of the church, and yet Jesus says that he never knew them. So, hopefully you will all understand that I'm a man who bases what I believe about God, not on what anyone else tells me. Not the great preachers of our day or the great teachers in our theological seminaries. Because the Scriptures clearly give me indication that they may be wrong. So, if some great teacher/pastor teaches something that I can't reconcile with the word of God, then I'm not likely to buy it. Yes, my faith is firm. I stand with God and the truth of His word.
He said that He created all things and gave a simple accounting of how long it took and then listed the geneologies of the first descendents all the way to Abraham and it can easily be calculated by most 6th grade elementary math students how long it was from the sixth day of the creation event when Adam was formed, to the day of Abraham's first son, Ishmeal and then Isaac. I can read the Scriptural accounting and tell you within a matter of maybe a few years exactly how many years there were between God's creating the first man Adam and the birth of Abraham's sons.
From Abraham, while it gets a little more difficult I can then reckon the years to the captivity in Egypt and from the captivity in Egypt to the days of the judges and kings. In all of the mathematics I am confident that I wouldn't be off by more than, at most, a couple of hundred years. It's simple math. Merely adding years to years. Once we get to the days of the judges and the kings we find all kinds of non-biblical evidence of the accounting of years. We know with fair certainty within a few dozen years, when King Nebudchudnezzer took the throne of his father and became king himself. We know when it was, within a few years, when Cyrus, king of Persia, took Babylon. So, once we get out of Egypt and into the promised land we can fairly well acccount how many years it was until Jesus came. Once Jesus came, the whole calander began to be counted in years reasonably close to his birth and so we know, also within a few years, that it has been 2012 years since Jesus' birth.
It's an easy calculation and anyone with 1 hour and a calculator can figure it out. Finally, I call upon the evidence of the Jews. God has, since he called Abram, spoken to us through the prophets of the Jews and the whole of the old covenant Scriptures were handed down to us through the Jews and the Jews account this year as being the 5,773rd year. It all fits pretty perfectly for me. It all reconciles one with the other. Might there be a 50 or 100 year error? Maybe, but most assuredly not a thousand, million or billion year error. As I have said, I'm going with God and His account as being the truth. And if you want to argue that the creation up until Adam may have been ages, fine, but there is absolutely very, very, very little wiggle room for the accounting of years from Adam to today.
God bless you all.
In Christ, Ted