Did God Actually Flood the Earth?

Did God actually flood the earth? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us at this number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2626. Our phone lines will be open for the next 25 minutes, and we'd love to hear from you. You can also email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Jared calling in from Texas. Jared, what's your question for Adriel? So my question has to do with fasting and salvation.

I've been kind of confused. I've looked in Joel and in Jonah, and in both cases, there is a judgment that is pronounced for these people, and they proclaim to fast, and it was saying, you know, the Lord may relent. For someone today, if they are unsure of their salvation, does that set a biblical precedent for fasting accompanied with just seeking the Lord and crying out for mercy?

Or would that be an attempt of trying to earn God's grace? Jared, the two examples that you bring up, and of course, there are others in any of the situation there with Jonah specifically. You also have times in Israel's history, right, where a fast would be proclaimed for different reasons.

It could have been because of some disease, some calamity. You think of David even fasting for a period of time when he was being disciplined by the Lord because of his sin. And so this is something that we see over and over again in the Bible. It's also something, I mean, Jesus talks about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount. I think James, in part, is referring to fasting in James chapter four, where he's talking about humbling ourselves and repenting.

He says in verse eight, in the morning, and your joy to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. And so this is in line with what fasting is and is meant to accomplish. Now, just like with anything, just like with any, and I would say fasting is a gift. It's a way that we're enabled to seek God. At times, I don't think it's something where we have our days of fasting like the Pharisees did.

But there are times where it can be appropriate. For us to fast and to devote ourselves to prayer for something specifically. And really, it's not in an attempt to twist God's arm or something like that. That's not what prayer is. That's not what fasting is. But it is humbling ourselves and seeking the face of the Lord without distraction. And so seeking not to be distracted. And it's not that that effort earns us salvation or anything like that.

I've mentioned before on the broadcast, Martin Luther's lectures on the book of Galatians, and early on in those lectures, he's writing about the doctrine of justification in the context of the book of Galatians, and he's interacting with the Roman Catholic Church as well. And he's saying, look, they're imposing all of these things on us, these fasts and these various things that we have to do. And I'm okay with fasting. I don't have a problem with fasting. But the moment you make that approach, the prerequisite for my justification, the moment you say, if you don't do these things, well, your eternal salvation is called into question.

Well, now I have a problem. Because that's not justification or salvation, as it's talked about in Scripture. So not viewing fasting or these acts of piety as this is how I'm going to get something from the Lord. But it is okay to examine your heart and to say, Lord, I want to devote some time seeking your face here and humbling myself before you and crying out to you.

And that's totally appropriate. That's a good thing, insofar as it brings us near to the Lord. It's a way of, like James says there in James 4, drawing near to God.

And here's the good news. When we do, whether that's through prayer, humbling ourselves in repentance, coming before the Lord's table in faith, whatever that looks like, when we draw near to God, we know that he draws near to us too. And that's precisely what James says there. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. And so, so Jared, you know, I can tell that there are some questions, some deep questions that you have, answers that you want from the Lord and peace.

And I think we do. We go to the Lord with these questions and we ask for that peace. And there's nothing wrong with fasting, but don't view it as you know, this is, you know, earning me something from God or anything like that. No, view it as a way to humble yourself for us to humble ourselves before the Lord and to approach him and to cry out to him. And that, that is a good thing.

And so may the Lord bless you and be with you. And, you know, it's something that we don't talk about a ton as, as Christians in many, especially in Protestant circles, you know, fasting. I get questions about that, you know, and there's a lot of confusion. Regarding fasting, but I think if we just understand it as, you know, there are times in life where it is, it is appropriate, whether it's because of repentance, maybe it's, it's a tragedy in your family.

Maybe it's a national tragedy, a disaster or something like that. And the people of God joined together and say, Hey, you know what we, we need to set our faces to seek the Lord and to pray about this. That's a good thing. And it's a, it's a beautiful thing when, when together as the people of God, we can do that as well. Calling upon the name of the Lord. And I think that's, that's pleasing to God.

Well said. Thanks for that, Adriel and Jared. Thanks so much for your call and for listening to Core Christianity. We appreciate you.

We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question or about the Bible or the Christian life, here is the phone number to call. It's 833-THECORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Of course, you can always post your question on one of our social media sites or email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. We'll go to David calling in from Kansas. David, what's your question for Adriel? Yes.

First time caller, long time listener. My question would be, what do you know about Reclaimed Church and their philosophy or lark cast associated with Reclaimed Church? And I've just recently been asked what my thoughts on that are. And I'm in the process of researching it. I just wonder what you have to say about it.

Okay. So David, is this, is this a church that's nearby where you're at? I've not actually heard of Reclaimed Church, but maybe if you can give me some, I mean, just sort of broad strokes of theology or what, what's being proclaimed or what's unique, I guess, about this ministry that you're curious about? Well, I have listened to a couple of podcasts. It's lark cast.

It is. The podcast of Reclaimed Church. And at least from my initial understanding is that their, their belief is that there's no longer a need and we're missing the mark for the church gathering in a building. And they're saying that it's more biblical to meet in homes. That is my basic understanding. Okay. Well, I definitely have some thoughts about that.

So thank you for sharing a little bit more. A lot of times with some of these things that churches do is they're trying to, they're trying to respond to a real problem. So maybe the problem here is, is, boy, we see a lack of evangelism. We see a lack of engaging the lost in our churches. And I think that that is a real problem. I think that this is an area where all of us individually in our own lives can grow. But where the local church can grow as well in terms of engaging the community. And being a light, like Jesus says in Matthew 5 verses 13 through 16. You're the light of the world.

We don't put that light under a basket. And so evangelism is a really important thing. But do you need to sacrifice the gathered assembly, the coming together of the church on the Lord's day to hear the preached word and to receive the sacraments of grace? Do you need sacrifice that in order to evangelize?

The answer is absolutely not. And the evidence for that, the proof for that, is what we see in the Bible itself, what we see in the book of Acts. You think about how the early church was effectively evangelizing and proclaiming the gospel and how God was blessing the early church, it was growing.

But what were they committed to? We read in Acts chapter two, verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. They were selling their possessions and belongings, distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, and day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people.

And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. Now, when Acts chapter two says that they were devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, the breaking of bread there is probably a reference to the Lord's Supper, the breaking of the bread. Apostles' teaching, right, this is the preaching ministry of the apostles praying together.

They were in the temple even day by day in this period of transition. And so the early church didn't sacrifice the local church gathering on the Lord's day, on the first day of the week in order to reach the lost. I would say we can't effectively reach the lost if we're getting rid of Sunday worship, because Sunday is where we as the church under the ministry of the word are being built up, encouraged in our walk with Christ.

We ought to go eager to hear from the Lord, eager to be nourished by the means of grace that God gives to us there, and commissions sent out into the world from the Lord's day to engage our neighbors through evangelism, through acts of charity and love, so that as Jesus said, again in Matthew chapter five, verses 13 through 16, so that the world would see our good works and glorify the Father, our Father who is in heaven. I'm very concerned, brothers and sisters, about a trend that I've seen over the last several years of minimizing the corporate gathering, you know, worship together with other believers on Sunday morning. You hear people say things like, you know, well, you don't go to church, you are the church. And I understand what people are attempting to say there, right, it's not just, you know, sitting in a pew on Sunday and then living however you want the rest of the week that pleases God, I get that, but at the same time, there is something unique about when we come together around the Lord's table, under the ministry of the word, together with other believers, something that's unique and also something that's vital for healthy spirituality. You cannot have a healthy walk with Jesus Christ following him if you neglect the local church. You know, it's not just me by myself with my Bible. No, if you're united to Jesus by faith, you're united to his body as well. And so David, my brother, I know, again, not knowing anything about this particular church, I've seen this kind of movement in a number of churches and I think it should be rejected. It's not what you see in the early church and ultimately it's not what people need. Yes, we do need to do evangelism and God help us to do evangelism.

We don't need to do it at the expense of the gathered assembly. Thanks. Good word. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open.

If you have a question about the Bible, Christian life, theology, doctrine, we'd love to hear from you. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can call us for the next 10 minutes or so, so now is the time to jump on the phone. I wanna mention we have a great resource available to you and it ties in with the discussion that our culture is having right now about abortion. Yeah, the resource is called Fearfully Made and with all of the, Bill, you mentioned it, all the discussions and the debates that are happening around us, it's so important for us to be equipped biblically and to understand why we believe the things that we believe even about life and the dignity of life, why we believe those things as Christians. And so get ahold of this resource. It's free over at corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Just one of our many great free resources you can find on our website. We'd encourage you to go there and maybe browse around a little bit, look at some of our core questions, our core guides, our great Bible studies.

You can go to corechristianity.com, corechristianity.com to check all those things out. And we do receive voicemails here at the core and if you can't call during our live program, by the way, the live program airs from 1130 to 12 noon Pacific time every day. So if you're hearing this program at a later time, that means it's what we call tape delayed. So if you wanna call in with your question, call in between 1130 and noon or leave us a voicemail at this number, 833-THE-CORE, 1-833-843-2673.

Here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Terry. My question is this, I got an email from Quora that was asking about the flood and Noah. If this was a created story or was it a true story because other civilizations had existed during that time. For example, the Chinese civilization and they never mention a flood nor did any other Mesopotopic civilization ever mention a flood. So how could the flood story be an actual story? Would you be able to help me with this? Thank you.

Thank you for that question. Okay, so what was the flood? Well, it's described in Genesis chapter six and I guess the big question here, there are three really big questions here. One, was the flood a real event? Two, was it a global flood or was it localized? In other words, was this a flood that just was experienced in the ancient Near East?

There is Moses' writing and describing the flood in Genesis chapter six. Or was this just a sort of a story to teach us some sort of moral lesson, you know, one of Aesop's fables, that kind of a thing. This isn't something that really actually happened. This isn't history. When you read Genesis, the book of Genesis, I mean, what we're getting there is history, the history of the heavens and the earth, God's creating all things.

And here, we're getting a history of the world that was. This is what Peter refers to it as in second Peter prior to this judgment that God brought about. And when you read Genesis chapter six, there's no reason to take it as not historical. There's no, you know, it's not that Noah fell asleep and he had a dream. There are guys who have dreams in the Bible and that's made explicit. Here, we're not talking about a dream or a vision that he had or just some story that he wrote down.

This is something that really happened. This is a judgment that really came upon, I believe, the whole earth. Now, I know that there are some Christians who take a more localized view of the flood. In other words, this wasn't, you know, waters covering the whole earth. But the land, that area, that region of the earth.

But I just think that the language in Genesis six is pretty strong in terms of, you know, this isn't just a local thing. This is a global thing. This happened throughout the whole world. And then when you look at how Peter describes the flood in second Peter, chapter three, you know, he's talking about the judgment that's coming. So that's a judgment that came upon the world that was. And he uses that as an analogy for a type of the judgment that's coming on the world that is.

And that's not just a local judgment. That's the entire world. So he's writing in second Peter, chapter three about people who are questioning the coming of the Lord. And he says in verse four, they will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlooked this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. And so you see the parallel there between the judgment that came on the world that then was. I mean, there was a whole world, if you will, leading up to the days of Noah.

We might refer to that as a different age. Now, this is the world that, I mean, this present evil age that we're in looking forward to the world to come, the new creation. That's what we're looking forward to. But the judgment then was a picture of the judgment that's to come. Of course, the judgment that's to come isn't going to be a flood because God promised never to flood the world again. But it is going to be a kind of baptism by fire. That's what Peter seems to indicate there in 2 Peter 3, a great judgment that is indeed coming.

And so this is a real thing that happened. And in light of it, we are called to live a certain way. When Peter brings up the example of the flood, for example, it's a call to repentance. It's a call to trust in the Lord. It's a call to flee from the judgment, the wrath to come upon sin and wickedness. It's a reminder of the fact that God does judge evil and injustice. And so, yes, it's a real historical event that took place, but it also has these deep spiritual implications that we should learn from, that we should say, okay, God, lead us in repentance, help us to follow you and to be vigilant. Jesus used the example of the flood as well. He says, you know, as were the days of Noah, and people are eating and drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage and so forth.

And then the flood came and swept people away. That's how the judgment's going to be. And so it's a call to vigilance. It's a call to be watchful and to seek the Lord.

Thanks for that question. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

We still have time for a few more calls. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, or maybe some doubts about the Christian faith, here's the number to call. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Well, let's go to an email that came in from one of our listeners named Vincent. Vincent says, my wife and I have been married for 17 years. We have four kids, and she is a Watchtower believer and follower. She has gotten our kids involved, and they are happy being with all the other families with kids of similar ages. I'm a Christian and listen daily to the Bible while getting ready for the day in the morning. I blame myself for allowing and not getting them involved with my own Christian church. My 14-year-old son is really involved in their meetings and wants to get baptized in July. He asked me to attend that ceremony, but I'm reluctant to attend another one of their services. I know I need to get more involved with the correct interpretation of the Bible, but should I attend in order to show my son that I care about his growth?

Vincent, thank you for this question. Brother, let me just say, this is a situation where you as a father and as a man need to, you know, grab the bull by the horns, as they say, and work with your family lovingly to guide and lead into the truth of God's word. The Watchtower organization, Jehovah's Witnesses, I mean, this is not a true Christian church. They twist the scriptures.

They have an improper understanding of who Jesus is, of what he came to do. And you are called to know those things so that you might be able to lead your family in the truth. And you said, I blame myself for allowing and not getting them involved with my own Christian church. So you see the disconnect there, the problem there, and you see what that's led to. And so I would just say, first and foremost, I mean, there needs to be a huge shift in your own thinking and any resources we can help you with.

I mean, I hope that you'll reach out again. Definitely get a copy of the book, Core Christianity, which we're often, you know, pushing on the broadcast because it talks about the basics of the Christian faith, gets into doctrines like, you know, the deity of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of scripture. These are all things that the Watchtower organization misses. And so I just want to exhort you lovingly as a brother and say, man, do everything that you can with the time that God has given you, with your family still, you know, your son is 14 years old. Do everything that you can to know the truth and to humbly lead your family in that truth, to have conversations about these things where you're able to talk about what God's word actually says and you're having conversations with your wife. Now, with regard to going to this baptism, this ceremony, this is a difficult one because I would say that's not actually a baptism. Now, I recognize he's going to be going through this ceremony, but it's not a baptism according to scripture. And so I would say pray for wisdom in all that you do. Make sure that you're exhibiting a deep love for your family. So you want to communicate that while also not making it sound like this is OK and this is right or this is just another sect of Christianity.

No. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.