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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Somebody wrote this as a supposed scenario for Noah. And the Lord said unto Noah, Where's the ark that I have commanded thee to build? And Noah said unto the Lord, Verily, I have had three carpenters off ill. The gopher wood supplier hath let me down.
Yea, even though the gopher wood hath been on order for nigh upon twelve months, what can I do, O Lord? And the Lord said unto Noah, I want that ark finished even after seven days and seven nights. And Noah said, It will be so.
And it was not so. And the Lord said unto Noah, What seemeth to be the trouble this time? And Noah said unto the Lord, Mine subcontractor hath gone bankrupt. The pitch without which thou commandest me to put on the outside and on the inside of the ark hath not arrived.
The plumber hath gone on strike. Shem, my son, who helped me on the ark side of the business, hath formed a pop group with his brothers Ham and Japheth. Lord, I am undone. And the Lord grew angry and said, And what about the animals? The male and the female of every sort that I ordered to come unto thee to keep their seat alive upon the face of the earth? And Noah said, They have been delivered unto the wrong address, but should arriveth on Friday. And the Lord said, How about the unicorns and the fowls of the air by sevens? And Noah wrung his hands and wept, saying, Lord, unicorns are a discontinued line.
Thou canst not get them for love nor money. And fowls of the air are sold only in half dozens. Lord, Lord, thou knowest how it is. And the Lord in his wisdom said, Noah, my son, I knowest. Why else dost thou think that I caused a flood to descend upon the earth?
Now, that brings up an issue because of the fanciful nature of that cute little story, as it is told, unicorns and et cetera, some little mythological story. How are we to understand scripture when we read it? The answer can only be there's only one way to understand scripture, and that is in a literal, grammatical, historical approach. That's how we approach the Bible, literal, grammatical, historical. We approach it literally.
It's straightforward. It's plain common language. We read it for what it says and what it is. We take it literally unless otherwise demanded by a clear representation that it is figurative language. And it's easy to see if it's metaphor or simile, metonymy, et cetera. Those devices are clear and easy to see, but we take it literally. We also take it grammatically. That is, the grammar functions in the sentence, like grammar functions in every other piece of communication in our language.
We take into account the grammar and how the noun corresponds to the verb and the subject to the object, et cetera. And we take it historically. It's not myth. It's not legend. It's not a fanciful tale. It is what it says it is.
Now, here's what's interesting. That's how we interpret Matthew. That's how we interpret Romans. That's how we interpret Psalms and Proverbs, unless, again, there are those devices that demand a different interpretation if they're figurative. But that's how we interpret other books in the Bible, whether it's Isaiah or Jeremiah or whatever. But for some strange reason, though people love to do that, they say in the Bible and they'll do it elsewhere, when it comes to the first 11 chapters of Genesis, they get it all twisted and saying, well, it can't possibly mean exactly what it says.
It either has to be a twisted tale based upon a Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, or it's mythological and must be applied as some sort of a story, a legend that is passed down, and they get it all messed up. There are some theologians and commentators that even want to make the flood, though they'll say there was a flood, they want to make it a local flood. Well, they say there was a flood, but it only filled the Mesopotamian Valley where Noah was. And this local flood flooded that region, and that's all it was. It was not universal. It never covered the entire earth. It was just localized to one large valley in the ancient Near East.
Well, let me tell you why that cannot possibly be the way to interpret this. It has to be literal, grammatical, and historical. Number one, because of the extensive language that is used to describe the flood. So if you're taking notes, number one, extensive language.
You can't miss it. For example, in chapter 6, in verse 17, "'And behold, I myself am bringing flood waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh, in which is the breath of life, everything that is on the earth shall die.'" Now, that sounds to me pretty extensive.
Either that happened or God is lying here. Extensive language. You could also look at chapter 7 and look at verse 18, though we're skipping a bit ahead. "'The waters prevailed and increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters, and the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.'" So, extensive language.
It's described as something that covered everything, and every living thing that needed air died. Number two, not just extensive language, but massive boat would be reason number two. Massive boat. You don't build a boat that's 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, and spend 120 years doing it if it's just a local flood.
That would be idiotic. If you have 120 years, warning, why didn't God just say, move to higher ground? You can do that in 120 years.
You can go anywhere you want in 120 years. Why spend all of that time, that effort, building that kind of a boat to float that many animals? Reason number three, comprehensive promise. Comprehensive promise. Look at the end of chapter eight.
I know I'm skipping ahead. Verse 21, the Lord smelled a soothing aroma, and the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease. If it was a local flood only, then God just lied, because several other local floods have certainly occurred. We've seen them in our lifetime around the world. If it was just local, for God to make that kind of a promise saying, what I just did will never happen again, he lied.
There's another reason that I just thought of. Almost every single New Testament book, not all, there are exceptions, but almost all New Testament books give a reference to the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. And the authors that make a reference to Genesis 1 through 11 in their writings refer to the events as literal historical events.
So then they are wrong as well. And if there was just a local flood, not only that, Jesus is wrong as well. He referred to it as a literal historical event. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man, for as two were out in the field, or shall be out working in the field, or at the mill, one will be taken, the other left. He made a reference to that, as well as to the creation that came before that, and all of those things as literal historical events. So that's how we read the Bible.
So these chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9, and tonight chapters 7 and 8, are pretty easy to interpret, pretty straightforward. There was a big flood. It covered the entire globe. Every single human being, and a couple of scientists believe up to a billion perhaps, as well as all of the animals, and all of the plant life, all of it, died. Only eight were preserved, Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives. A total of eight were preserved. Those eight, along with the species of animals kept in that huge boat, were enough to repopulate a reconstructed earth, reconstructed because of the flood that changed the anatomy of the earth, and the earth that we now live in is the same earth that Noah stepped out of the ark in chapter 8.
So that's pretty straightforward as we go through it tonight. Now chapter 7, beginning in verse 1. Then the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, in that beautiful an invitation, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, understanding Genesis is critical to understanding the rest of scripture, and in his book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, Skip Heitzig helps you discover the meaning and message of this foundational book. Embark on an epic journey to where it all began, so you can understand the amazing story of God's love and our redemption in Christ. You Can Understand the Book of Genesis is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now, I don't know how much time you've spent out on the water, on the ocean. The ocean is fun. I have such a love for ocean activities and being around the ocean. My dad used to take us deep sea fishing, but what is required to be out on the ocean, out on the sea successfully, is what sailors or fishermen called getting your sea legs, something I didn't have when I first went out on the ocean, deep sea fishing with my father from Davy Jones Locker in Newport Beach, California. Oh, it was so fun to get on that boat and go out in the middle of the night and we were going to spend the night out in the deep and early in the morning catch barracuda.
Couldn't wait, I thought. Shouldn't have had a meal. It was the most nauseating experience that I had as a child, being out on the sea without my sea legs. I fed the fish, if you know what I mean.
It's horrible. On another occasion, I had the opportunity of going across the English Channel with a boatload of prim and proper Englishmen and women. And one vivid memory for me is going across the English Channel during a storm, seeing these prim and proper Englishmen, one lady dressed in her mink stole, sicker than a dog, head hanging over the side, spilling her whatever she had for her meal.
Quite interesting. Noah, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives, would be on that boat for a total of 371 days, a little over a year if you do the math. Well, by that time, they got their sea legs.
They were ready for it, but I'm sure it was quite a breaking in period of time. Now notice, it's an invitation. The Lord says, come into the ark. This is the first time you will find the word come appearing in the Bible. The first time come, it's an invitation by God saying come.
Now this isn't the only time. You will read several invitations that are like that throughout Scripture. One that comes to mind is Isaiah Chapter 1, come now, the Lord says, let us reason together, though your sins are as scarred, it will make them pure, white as snow, white as wool. The great promise of Jesus, which is still in effect today, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. That invitation of God to human beings is found throughout the Bible until the last invitation in Revelation Chapter 22 verse 17. The Spirit and the bride say come and whoever is thirsty, let him freely drink of the water of life. So God inviting mankind and here inviting Noah to come onto the ark.
Beautiful word of invitation. Now in going into the ark, it would save his life, but he was going to experience, though be preserved, the greatest cataclysm besides creation that so far has ever happened to the earth, the flood. He would be preserved, but boy would it be a storm. But I'd rather be with God in the storm than anywhere else without God. He's going to be in the storm, but he's going to be with the Lord in the storm. Better to be in the storm with God than anywhere else without him. Do you remember that promise or do you know it in Isaiah 43? It says that when you go through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they will not overflow you.
God's promise to reassure the nation of Israel that it won't be so overwhelming because God's presence will be with them in the storm. We'll get to it who knows when in the New Testament when Jesus is on the Sea of Galilee in a storm with his disciples and the disciples flip out because they think they're going to drown. Now Jesus is in the boat asleep.
Now if they were logical and you're not always logical in situations that demand your emotional engagement, but they thought they were going to drown. Now how could that be possible if Jesus is in the boat? Your boat can't drown if Jesus is asleep in it.
He's rested. You might feel like it's going to drown, but it's not going to drown if Jesus is there with you. So the Lord invites him in.
He goes in. You shall take with you. Notice this.
I forgot the last part. Because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Noah was different. Noah walked with God, worked for God.
That was a step of faith to build the ark and later will worship God. But he was singular. In a world that was unrighteous, not walking with God, walking in their own lusts, in their own desires, in their own designs, this guy was a break.
He was refreshing. He walked with God. And God notices that.
I have seen that you are righteous in this generation. It was hard for Noah. I don't have to say I bet it was hard for Noah. I know it was hard for Noah to worship, to walk with God and to work for God when the whole world didn't want anything to do with God. Don't you think that building a boat year after year when there hadn't even been rain yet on the earth? Because the Bible says the earth was watered from subterranean streams and mist that came up out of the ground and watered this lush earth with a canopy around it. And so for Noah to say, God said it's going to rain. Well, what's rain, Noah? Well, you know, I don't know.
He hasn't explained that to me yet, but something's going to happen. Now, the whole world would have mocked him or whoever saw him would have mocked him. But Noah was a true nonconformist. Can I just encourage you to be a nonconformist? I've always been accused of that and I wear the title proudly. Don't go with the crowd. Don't go along with what everybody's into. Peer pressure is a real pressure. Toddlers get it. Teens get it. Adults get it. Housewives, politicians, preachers and college students get it. The pressure to conform to the standard of whatever's cool, whatever's in. Somebody once said that college is the place where nonconformists conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. I read that. I said, I like that.
That's true. Whatever is the standard of coolness, whether it's political or moral, and that's the standard. Go along with us, conform, and then we'll call you a nonconformist.
You want to really be a nonconformist? Love Jesus. Walk with God.
Don't go the way of the world. God said, Noah, I notice that in you. So verse two, you shall take with you seven. Each of every clean animal, a male and his female. Two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female. Also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of the earth. For after seven more days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made. God had given him one hundred and twenty year warning. Now he has the final seven day warning. You got seven days, Noah.
Get on the boat. Now, I don't know if Noah got on the boat immediately. Because the animals that said would come to him and maybe they came on. I don't know if he got on on the seventh day. He might have just sort of gotten on there early and just sat there. He had plenty of time to prepare for this.
Now he has one final week. I know when I travel, I like to get to the airport a bit early. Because if you get there early, you can get more overhead space and that's limited these days. So I like to get there early. That really wasn't an issue, I suppose, with Noah.
But if Noah did get in the boat early, that means for seven days he was sitting inside this huge cavernous vessel. And people stop by and go, you dumb old man. You are so idiotic. First of all, you think God speaks to you and that he told you to do this and you've been doing it a long time.
Yeah. And so Monday came and then Tuesday and then Wednesday and then Thursday and then Friday. And the mocking continued on Saturday and then finally the last day. And bam, the door closed.
The Bible says God shut him in. And those people looked around and said, it's looking like rain. Of course, it has never rained yet, but it's looking like what that guy said would happen. And the storm came. Now it says, verse five, Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him.
Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters were on the earth. Water is destructive. I've had a little bit of experience just from surfing in the ocean. I've been out on certain days when I was younger where I saw my friends who were out with me and the waves broke their surfboards like toothpicks, just snap them in half.
I've seen people paralyzed from the neck down because of waves too large and they couldn't handle them. Or ask the people in New Orleans, Louisiana, about the force of water, especially those who had lived down in the Lower Ninth Ward when Katrina hit. And the levees broke in 05 and the walls of water 17 feet moved houses from their location down the street to another location or moved cars several blocks away. Or the people who lived through the Asian tsunami recently where walls of water 35 feet tall just leveled everything.
And hundreds of thousands of people perished because of that. In verse seven, so Noah with his sons, his wife, his son's wives went into the ark because of the waters of the flood of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, of everything that creeps on the earth. Two by two, they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will take you back to where it all began so you can understand all of God's word more clearly.
Pastor Skip's book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
