We Live Long Enough

Adam, don't look to us for gratitude,
Your offspring, twice-condemned when you partook;
Our flesh, born but to die, briefer ensued;
Breath sooner denied, maybe heav'n forsook!
But God was wise to shorten our lives' days
From one thousand years to three-score and ten,
For Satan tries each day to test our ways,
Heaping shame on God whene'er we offend.
Each brief fling disguises the devil's fangs,
Unless we have peace God's faith does provide;
Why lengthen our days and enlarge hell's gangs,
And make Jesus wait longer for His bride*?
Our span's ample to encounter God's grace;
There's no need to linger in earth's embrace!

*At the end, Jesus Christ takes the church for His bride

When God created the first man and woman, they would have physically lived forever in the Garden, but sin brought physical death to all men. Our first ancestors lived more than 900 years (360 normal days per year), with Methuselah living 969 (Genesis 5:27). I suppose God allowed the longer spans to hasten the growth of earth's population. Life gradually shortened in length, until at the time of David, about 1000 B.C., it was permanently set at three-score and ten (70) years.

Adam could have fathered 100 or more children; intermarrying, they could have produced thousands. This went on for about one thousand years and may have been one reason for the worldwide flood that killed them all, except for Noah's family of 8. Adam's sin brought in physical death, and it brought spiritual death; sin without being atoned for sends a person to that second death, spiritual. But God gave us Grace, by living with us as Jesus, and dying, though sinless, taking the punishment for the sins of those who accept Jesus as Lord upon Himself. You don't have to die spiritually unless you ignore what He did for you.

The longer we live, the more days Satan has to tempt people to ignore God and to commit sin, so the more people there will be who die spiritually. So we don't need a life that is as long as Methuselah; that would only aid the devil. We live long enough to make our choice.