Genesis 7_11-16 - The Day the Rain Began in Noah's Flood
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Summary
Pastor Ken continues his series on Noah's Ark, and the story of the great flood of Genesis, and how God's mercy and patience allowed Noah to weather the worst of the catastrophes that the earth had ever seen.
Transcript
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Amen. Well, it's good to be back in Genesis. We're back in the first book of the Bible.
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My plan is to teach through the remaining of the flood narrative, really through Genesis chapter
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9, 17. And from there, I'm going to take a break for four weeks, and I'm going to do a sacrament
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series where we're going to talk about four sermons, the Lord's Supper, Paedo Communion,
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Baptism, and then Liturgy, and then we're going to return back to Genesis again. So
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we've got some great sermons coming forth, and then that series, and then we'll get back into
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Genesis. Now, if you remember, since we've, it's been a few weeks, we had the Easter weeks and
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the Holy Week and all the things that were going on there. If you remember where we left off in
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Genesis chapter 7, we left off with a variety of contexts, right? The corruption on the earth
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had increased to such an extent that there was only evil continuously. It says that in Genesis
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6-5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of
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the thought of his heart was only evil continuously. And Noah was found as the only righteous man
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alive at that particular time. A man who was not righteous because he was perfectly obeying, but a
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man because he was righteous because he believed in God. He believed and trusted the word of the
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Lord. Now when Noah was 480 years old, the Lord revealed to Noah that judgment and wrath were
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going to be coming upon the earth for the corruption and violence that had filled the earth at that
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time. He said, quote, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His day shall be
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120 years. Now that particular verse meant that in 120 years, God is not going to be patient any
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longer, but that his judgment would come upon the earth. In other words, Noah had 120 years to build
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the ark. And as you are going to see in this passage of scripture, Noah was 600 years old
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when he began the ark, or sorry, when he entered in the ark. Now, what makes this whole narrative
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about Noah's life so remarkable is his faith. He's an extremely faithful man, not just faithful once,
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not just a period of his life for maybe 20, you know, you know, 20 days or a few months or a few
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years. No, he is faithful for a century. He is consistently faithful doing what God has commanded.
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He built the ark without any prior knowledge or experience with rain or floods. So to build
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something so extreme without having anything visibly to reconcile that degree of belief
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is truly remarkable. It says in Hebrews 11 7, by faith Noah, being warned by God concerning
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events as yet unseen, constructed an ark, end quote. And so again, he trusted God's word when
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it contradicted his own experience. He had no reason to believe that there could be such a
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degree of catastrophic flooding as a person who has never seen such reality. And so we know that
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he gathered also the animals two by two into the ark according to God's command. We saw last sermon
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in chapter 7 verses 1 through 10 that God gave a final warning, seven-day warning, a one-week
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warning that the waters were about to come and bring judgment upon the earth. Now today, we get
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into verse 11 through 16, and it's the judgment of God actually comes to bear. The waiting is over,
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the warning was given, the time for preparation has ended, and the time for judgment has arrived,
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and that is where we are at in this text. So it says in verse 11, it says, in the 600th year of
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Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the
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great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. Now, this text has long been
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a stumbling block for those critics who think that the narrative around the flood is some sort
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of allegorical or non-historical reality. The reason for its precision, the reason they struggle
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with it is because the language here is super precise. It's not the kind of language that
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matches an allegorical narrative. It matches a biographical, a historical narrative, giving very
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detailed dating. Now, the flood represents the most detailed account of any single event in the Bible.
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Did you know that? The flood gives the most detailed account of any single event in the entire Bible.
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And what makes that also fascinating is that the prophets affirmed it, we know that the
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fathers affirmed it, we know that the apostles affirmed it, and we know that Jesus affirmed
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Now the focus of this passage is this, God is patient, God is merciful and patient, but
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his patience does come to an end, because God is also just.
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And I think that verse finds its substance in Acts 17, verse 30 to 31.
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The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
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because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed,
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and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. So I want you to see
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the parallels. You have a parallel between the judgment of the old world calling for righteousness.
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We know that Noah is a preacher of righteousness. He is preaching to this lost and perverse
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generation and that there is a time in which God said he will be patient but eventually he will
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come in judgment and wrath, and all those who did not repent would burn and turn and flood or be
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drowned by the floodwaters and put into hell. We also have this parallel with today, that now that
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Christ has come, there is another man who is warning, and that there is another timeline.
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There's a second judgment to come, and so there's a parallel between this old world and this new
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world and the final judgment to come. So the same principles of Noah's time essentially apply today
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and God patiently overlooked the former times but now now he commands all people everywhere to
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repent because there is a day of judgment in a similar way of the Noah's judgment there's a day
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of judgment coming ahead. Now when Genesis says this verse this is where we're going to spend most
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of our time today when genesis says all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the
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windows of the heavens were opened it's it's describing something far more extraordinary than
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rain okay this is i spent a pretty significant amount of time this week studying i wish i could
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have slides up here so that i could show you all of the graphics the details the scientific
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geological realities of this particular text. But this is a global catastrophic release of water
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from both below and from above. The fountains of the great deep burst forth. Now that word
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burst forth in the Hebrew means something exploding because of tension. That's what the
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Hebrew meaning of that word means. And this is pointing to what scientists would call today
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an explosion of subterranean water. So you have water that's below the earth, and it's an explosion
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of subterranean water. Now what's fascinating is that even secular scientists are coming to find
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out that what the scriptures say in this text are actually true. And recent studies have shown that
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there is actually three times as much water under the earth than there is in all of the oceans.
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three times as much water under the earth than there is in all of the oceans on the face of the earth.
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And this actually aligns with what is called the primary water theory.
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And primary water is what's called earth-generated water.
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It's the process of where water is actually made.
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And it's a process that's separate from the hydrological process that we all know
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on how water comes through absorption and evaporation and rain and all of that process.
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Now, most atheist scientists, I found this out this week,
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they believe that the majority of water that we have on Earth is here
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because frozen ice comets hit the Earth and essentially melted here.
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And that is how we have our water sources today.
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um but again in genesis 7 it's talking about a completely different structure of where water is
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made held and where it came from and so as it says here all the fountains of the great deep burst
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forth now i want you to hold on for a minute we're going to move on to the rain that is coming down
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so we talked just briefly about the water that's from below and i want to talk about the rain that's
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coming down and we'll go back to it. And so you have this other phrase that the windows of heaven
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were opened up. And this is often connected to what is called in the science world, the canopy
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theory. And the pre-flood world had constant waters in the sky. And it was kind of, they called
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it a firmament. They had a constant waters in the sky and it created a very stable, lush, vegetated
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environment, and it's kind of a greenhouse world. That is what the world was like prior to the
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flood. It was a giant greenhouse, and it actually helps us understand how you had these long
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lifespans, how you had a complete vegetarian diet, you had a uniform climate. All of these
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fundamental facts of science make sense when you start thinking about the reality of the
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scriptures. Now, here's a key point. The text is actually describing, and this is maybe one of the
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most important points of the sermon, so pay attention. The text is essentially describing
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a reversal of the creation narrative. And you won't catch this if you're not paying attention.
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But theologians call this decreation language. Now, if you remember in Genesis chapter 1,
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it says that God looked at the waters and he split the waters. He split the waters in the
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firmament. So the waters from above and the waters from below. And so what you're seeing here in
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Genesis chapter 7 is actually a reversal of that. It's actually having the waters come back together.
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It's clashing in a catastrophic way that the waters are collapsing back in to one another.
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And so where they were separated in order in Genesis chapter 1, now they're collapsing back together in a form of chaos.
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Now, my position is that the world prior to the flood looks radically different than the world today.
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The world prior to the flood looks very different than the world we have today.
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Now, my position, which I think is, I would say is held by a fairly large group of theologians,
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is that there was significantly less oceans, significantly less oceans,
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and far more land and lush forests before the flood.
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and way more land with extremely lush vast forests prior to the flood now why do i hold this position
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because the scripture all throughout the scriptures it repeatedly connects the original
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created order with the final redeemed and glorified order of the world and the world
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before the flood reflects something of the world after redemption. So it's the idea that we're
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going back to Eden, right? It's the idea that the world was Edenic and then the flood occurred
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and that in redemption we will be going back to an Edenic-like world. That is a tension that you
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see in scripture. You want it to be restored to what is called an antediluvian, an anti-deluge,
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an anti-flood world. And so in Revelation 21, verse 1, we read, quote,
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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
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and the seas were no more. So there was no more oceans. There was no more seas anymore. And now,
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I don't think that this is describing a completely different creation, meaning in the same way that
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God resurrected the body of Christ, it's still his body, it's just made new. In the same way that God
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is going to resurrect the earth, it's still this earth, it's just made new. So it's not replacing
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it in the sense that it's an all-new creation, it's this creation restored. Now, if the new world
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has no seas or no oceans, then it's possible that the old world had only, you know, large bodies of
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water, maybe not considered oceans. It certainly, we know, had rivers. It certainly had some degree
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of lakes. There was water sources available in the old world, but it likely had no massive oceans
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the way that we have them today, and I'll explain why in a second. It also likely didn't have
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massive mountain ranges at peaks that are ranging up to 25,000, 30,000 feet. It also definitely had
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broad, fertile, huge plains, vast forests, rolling hills, dense global vegetation.
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Now, how do we know that? How can you say that with such confidence? Well, this also aligns with
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a really incredible amount of data around coal, the way coal is made. And so there are massive
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coal deposits in the world, especially in the United States and especially under the oceans.
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I'm not talking like 200, 300 square mile situations. I'm talking about tens of thousands
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of square mile sections of coal. Now, coal is formed by plant matter being rapidly buried
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under layers of sediment. That's how coal is formed. Coal is formed by plant matter being
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rapidly buried under layers of sediment. So the sheer volume of coal across the earth that's
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everywhere is essentially leading to some sort of catastrophic event where a huge amount of
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vegetation that was covering the earth was now underwater and under layers of sediment through
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the flood. And this is why most scholars suggest, even Christian scholars suggest, that the pre-flood
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earth resembled more of a unified landmass. They often call it Pangaea. You might have heard of
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Pangaea, where it's all the land is kind of put together in one, the continents are put together
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and one giant landmass. And that the flood essentially divided the continents through
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tectonic shifts, through sediment replacements, and it was essentially the water started covering
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any sort of land bridge, and it created the world that we have today. And so the oceans we have
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today, this is very key, the oceans we have today are basically remaining pools of the floodwaters
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from the flood. You have to think of the oceans as like they're kind of the remaining
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remnant of the floodwaters of the pools that were left from that particular time.
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The continents that we have today, North America and Europe and Asia, you know, Australia, all of
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these continents we have today, they're actually simply the portions of the land that were elevated
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up during the tectonic shifts. They may have actually been historically not as elevated as
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they were. Could they have been underwater in different portions? Potentially yes. And so in
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that sense, the pre-flood world was likely submerged in some sort of valley, which helps explain why
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scientists, again, are discovering so much coal under the ocean. There are parts of the ocean
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that used to be above water and there are parts of that are above water that may have been
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under water and that huge amount of shift is very agreed upon in fact most of the scientific
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community would agree with that and so the flood was not just rising over existing land
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this was the earth itself being kind of torn open and restructured and so when you think about the
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flood it's not just oh there was a bunch of rain and it covered the existing land that we have now
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no that's it's not like that it was it was absolutely completely different a rupture a
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reshaping a tectonic shifting mountains being made valleys being sunk oceans being created
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it is a massive catastrophic shift on the way that the earth looked um psalm 104 verses 6 through 9
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says, quote, you covered the earth, speaking of with water, with the deep, as with a garment.
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The waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke, they fled. At the sound of your thunder,
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they took flight. The mountains rose. The valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for
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them. You set a boundary that they may not pass so that they might not again cover the earth.
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He's talking about the waters that they might not again cover the earth. And so when Genesis says
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the waters cover the mountains, it's not necessarily referring to today's peaks. In fact,
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most scientists believe that the way that these peaks that we have today occurred as the water
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was receding and the tectonic plates were shifting and it was pushing the mountains up.
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And this also explains why we find here in Arizona, if you go up to the Grand Canyon,
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why you're finding fossils of sea life at 10,000 feet. It's because that 10,000 feet at one point
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was actually lower, much lower, potentially underwater, and that was now shifted up to that
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elevation. It's not that all of the shells and all of the fish necessarily made it all the way
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up to the top of 10,000 feet. There are lots of theories on this, but it's fascinating to think
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about. And so when we're seeing in Genesis 7, it's not just judgment. It is actually a reforming
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of the world. And so water erupts from beneath. Water pours down from above. Continents are
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shifting mountains are rising valleys are sinking forests are being buried fossil records are being
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created it is a massive catastrophic shift in creation and so it goes on here in verse 12 it
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says and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights and on the very same day Noah and his sons
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Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons, with them entered the ark.
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They and every beast according to its kind, and all of the livestock according to their kinds,
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and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird
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according to its kind, and every winged creature. Okay, I want you to notice something.
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we spent several sermons preparing for this flood narrative and what i noticed about this text is
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that essentially this what god said would happen happened what god said would happen actually
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happened every word he spoke came to pass and i'm highlighting that because much of the root
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of your worry, of your sin, of your anxiety, of your frustration, of your pain is a failure to
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trust what God has said. If you just look at your own life and you figure, why am I struggling right
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now? Why am I having pain? It's just because you don't believe what God has said. Because if you
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believed it you would follow it if you believed it you would obey it but over and over again
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our sin comes because we don't believe it we don't believe that it's right to follow
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god's word we don't believe that it's actually the pain is lesser when we obey
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ask yourself what promise of god do you not trust
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now you might say at a macro level i trust them all but i'm talking about the day-to-day life
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what promise of god are you struggling with to believe what promise what what what phrase what
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sentence what statement has god made that you don't actually believe and it's why you fall short
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are you afraid of what comes after death do you not believe what God has said about eternity
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do you not believe that God will provide for your every need do you worry about your children's
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faith what what is it I want you to consider some of those areas of weakness where you struggle to
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believe what God has actually said. Part of obedience is trusting the word of God. That's
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a big part of obedience, is to trust the word of God. And what we learn here is that God promises,
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or that God's promises are reliable. They're reliable. Throughout the Bible, you see prophecy
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and fulfillment. You see God's word and you see fulfillment. And what that should do to you is
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produce a level of reliability on god's word so eight people board of the ark alexander mclaren
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said of this scene he said quote for 120 years the wits laughed and the common sense people wondered
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and the patient saint noah went on hammering and pitching at his ark but one morning it began to
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ring. And by degrees, somehow, Noah did not seem quite such a fool. The mockers would look rather
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different when the water was up to their knees, and their sarcasms would stick in their throats
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as they drowned. So it is always. So it will be at the last great day. The men who lived for the
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future by faith in Christ will be found out to have been the wise men when the future has become
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the present. Many in that day will awake too late to the conviction of Christ that they are outside
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of the ark of safety of Jesus and that their truest epitaph on their gravestone will read
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thou was a fool, end quote. Verse 15 says, they went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all
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flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female, of all the
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flesh, went in as God had commanded, and the Lord shut them in. Now what I find interesting is that
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Noah and his family did not know how long they would be in the ark. God never told Noah how long
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you're going to be in here. Now, it ended up being 371 days, 371 days inside this ark. But at the time,
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they had no timeline. All they had was faith. They had faith in God's word. And again, I think
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this shows us that one act of faith, believing that there would be a flood, really leads to and
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allows for future acts of faith, walking into the ark without really worrying about it.
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Obedience builds confidence in God's word. I think it's true, is that the more you obey,
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the more you realize that obedience is good. The more you obey God's word, the more you're
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likely to obey in the future. You begin to have a pattern in your life where you go, I've trusted
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the Lord long enough that I know that when I can't see, just trust the Lord and everything will be
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okay. But that is a consistent reputation of righteousness that you must earn through
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faithfulness. And Noah had that. And I think that life is full of moments like this, by the way.
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God brings you into like a season. Maybe it's bringing you into a particular season of
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frustration or suffering or worry or difficulty or pain. And he's bringing you into the season
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like Noah's going into the ark, and you don't know how long
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you're going to be there. You don't know how long
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walking through a cancer diagnosis, you don't know how long you're going
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You know what a blessing it is to grow up being a Christian
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you have example after example after example of god's faithfulness coming through you may have
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heard about these people that do prayer closets right they have they have answered prayers all
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over their closet or i have friends that have a journal that have answered prayers they have a
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long history of seeing prayer god's faithfulness and trusting upon that god will do what he says
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he will do. And when you have that long record, and then you bump into a difficult season,
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it's not that complicated. You go, you know what? I've been here before. I've seen the Lord work
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through hard and more difficult seasons where I don't know what to expect. And it is a great
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blessing. And so where does this leave us? In Noah's day, there came a moment when the warning
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ended. The rain began, the floods came out from below, and the door was shut. And notice that
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Noah didn't shut the door. God shut the door. That means that salvation is God's work and judgment
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is God's work. I was thinking about the sovereignty of God over salvation and all these people that
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talk about free will. Do you think Noah had a choice to do this? Like, was there another option
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for God? No. No, Noah chose God. Noah saved God. And it is evident that God is sovereign over
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salvation. Now, what we see here is that there was a period of patience. Again, that 120-year
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warning. But then there was a day when the opportunity to enter the ark was gone.
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And the door was shut. And I think it confronts our tendency to assume that tomorrow will be
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there. It's just a, you just believe that tomorrow will be there. But statistically, we know that's
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not true. Tomorrow might not be there. Tonight might not be there. Time is not in our hands.
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We don't get to control. It wasn't Noah who said, you know, I'll tell you when the flood's going to
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come. No. Noah was faithfully, patiently waiting, doing his work, and God said, now's the time.
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And every one of us is going to have that moment.
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The Lord's going to, one day, it's going to be a Wednesday, or Tuesday, or a Saturday afternoon.
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God's going to say, now's the time. You're coming home. You're coming home. And
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time is not in our hands. Scripture says that God has appointed a day for every man to die,
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and after that comes the judgment. Now, the ark, as I've said before in previous sermons,
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is a picture of Christ. If you're in Christ, you're going to escape the judgment.
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If you're outside of Christ, you will not. You will drown like the mockers and the fools.
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Now, the souls of those who perished in the flood thousands of years ago, they're not gone.
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They're still in hell under judgment right now.
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They were there in the days of Christ in the Roman Empire.
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They were there through the rise of Europe and the voyage of the Mayflower.
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The souls of those people in the flood are sitting in eternal judgment today.
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I think it's just a very weighty reality that a single decision in time carries consequences that never end.
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A single decision in time carries consequences that never end.
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we should be like Noah preachers of righteousness that we stand out to an onlooking world and we
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say come to Christ get in the ark repent of your sin don't and by the way this message isn't just
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for this like lost world it's for the church again we live in a generation who has made it so easy to
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come into the church that you can't trust that anybody is in this crowd is actually saved the
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only way you can tell is that you have fruit in your life. But just because you came into church
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doesn't mean you came to Christ. There are millions of people all across the world who think they're
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saved and they're not. Jesus says, many will come to me in that day. Lord, Lord, I did so many
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miracles in your name. I did so many wonders in your name. And he'll say, away from me. I do not
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know you. Essentially, spiritual activity doesn't mean spiritual security. There are people that
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pray the prayers and do the things, and they don't actually love Christ. They've never been
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born again. They've never understood the gospel. And so this message isn't just for the pagan
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people that are out in the world. It's for your father who calls himself a Christian, but never
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really goes to church and never really reads his Bible, the guy's going to hell. There's
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no fruit. When you look at someone and you go, oh, you're a Christian. So many times
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people at funerals, well, yeah, you know, he said he was a Christian, but you know,
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what that means is no, no. You either love Christ or you don't. What does Jesus
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say about lukewarmness. He doesn't want lukewarmness. He wouldn't just be cold or just be
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hot. If you're lukewarm, I'm going to spit you out. No, the reality is, is that we need to
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call the current church to Christ. There are so many people in the congregations that think
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they're saved and have never really encountered their sin, never really encountered grace,