The Real "Waterworld"

Hey, did you ever sing that little Sunday school song where the Lord said to Noah to build him an archaearchy? It so trivializes the actual events of Noah, what he saw. But when you read it, the magnitude of it is just staggering. It's stunning. We're going to read about that today and what the Lord said and what actually happened.

Today. On Brother Link.

Well, I've got my tea at the dining room table. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're joining with us as we're reading through the book of Genesis. We're reading about Noah.

Yeah, we're reading Noah. And again, we said this last time, or maybe the time before, I can't remember, but everyone presumes that they know the flood story. Noah, yeah, it's very popular. If you went to Sunday school, you had those little toys that had the little animals in the boat and stuff. But the popular idea of Genesis, not just Genesis, but even just the flood story and Noah is kind of twisted.

So we come here to read it so we can find out what's going on for real.

Okay, well, a general idea. I mean, there are a lot of ancient mythologies about there are a lot of flood stories in ancient mythology.

So sometimes our ideas come from those. Sure. And sometimes they come from the movies, and sometimes they come from songs we learned as a kid.

Somebody just quoted me that little built the ark out of gopher wood or barky barky song this week.

So, you know, we need to pay careful attention. What the scripture actually says in any conclusions we would draw about Noah, and look for ways that it's validated throughout the rest of scripture. Because Jesus talked about Noah, and so did Peter.

So did Peter.

So it's important that we keep those things in view when we get there. Yeah, they saw it as history, saw it as real. Right. Not just some quaint myth you teach in Sunday school, it has real impact. Yeah, in fact, I went on a, I'll just do this before we get too engaged here, but I went on a tear to find out how many cultures worldwide have flood stories.

And the Bible commentator James Montgomery Boyce, he has a really good commentary on this. But he says by his count, more than 200 cultures. That's pretty interesting. 200 cultures. And he listed the cultures.

And what's amazing about the cultures is they don't come from the same place. It goes all the way from Brazilian tribes to the Persians to the Greeks to a tribe in New Guinea. That's pretty interesting. And that would be an argument that the flood actually was worldwide. Yeah, and it's been handed down in his kind of oral history in these cultures for so long a time.

And then he went through and he categorized different aspects of it.

So it turns out, you know, our story in the Bible, which is the true one, has a favored family at the center of the story, as do 88% of the 200 stories. Oh, that's physical. Is that interesting? And another one I found. Fascinating was that in the Bible story, survival of the flood is attributed to a peculiar boat.

That's in 70% of the stories. Isn't that interesting?

So, I mean, you can go through all of it, the animals being saved, the fact that the flood was because of the curse of man, because of his wickedness. And so, there is so much that is just, and even the simple fact that the survivors at the end of the story end up on the top of a mountain. You know, that's fascinating to me because that tells us there are echoes of truth. Right. All over, even in pagan or godless cultures.

Right. My alarm just went off. We can just keep going. Yeah, I think that's fascinating. I think it's fascinating.

So, and of course, you know, critics will say, well, the Bible story was just a repackaged version of one of these other older stories. And yet, when you look at the documentary evidence, the oldest surviving with the earliest writing is the Bible one.

So, you know, there you go.

Well, interestingly enough, we have dates. Ages, numbers of days. I mean, there's very specific detail in here.

So we better read it.

Well, let's read it.

So we're looking at chapter 7 today, and we're going to do the entirety of all of chapter 7.

So let's just get to it.

Okay. What do you say? Here we go, the flood today. All right. Chapter 7, verse 1.

Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens, also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth, forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made, I will blot out from the face of the ground. And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Ooh, we got to stop there.

Well, there's a preview for Noah about what's going to happen. I got some questions.

Well, what do you make of the clean animals, the seven pairs of clean animals? You know, that was my first question, too, because the law, which spelled out specifically clean and unclean for the Jews, was hundreds of years in the future at this point. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, that. What can we deduce that there needed to be animals available for sacrifice? There already was sacrifice going on. There already was an understanding that God needed to be appeased or that a life needed to be given.

So keep your eyes out for at the end of the flood, is there a sacrifice?

Well, we don't get to that until next week. That's right. That'll be a while. But yeah, that's a good way to look at it. And of course, here, clean animals, the clean word is kind of a, it's kind of a, it's a short way of saying sacrifice animals.

But it's not defined yet here.

However, the readers of this story in chapter seven of Genesis would have been people who had already been doing sacrifices.

So they would know what that code word means.

So, yeah, that's what it is.

So sure enough, those animals are going to be sacrificed. These are not all the animals going on the ark. This is just the beginning of the animals.

Okay, but it's interesting that God says now take seven pairs of those clean animals and just one pair each of the others. Right, right, right. Yeah, it is. And that'll beg the question for us: what's the sacrifice going to look like later on when they come to dry land?

So just keep that in your hip pocket and we'll see how that plays out when we get there. Yeah.

Okay, so the other question that rose in my mind was a little farther down in the passage when God says, every living thing that I have made, I will blot out. Right. From the face of the ground.

So not fishes.

Well, except that later on it does say that everything that swam.

So we're going to talk about this. You have to be careful how you read this.

Okay. But that blotting out, I mean, that gets repeated a little later when it actually happens. That's a complete erasure of everything living that God had. It's a real redo. Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, he doesn't explain what rain is.

Well, okay. Seems like it hasn't rained yet. That's an interesting thing. And also, why put them in the ark for a week? After they get the clean animals on before the real action starts.

Well, it takes a week, probably, to get all these animals. It could be, but if you think about it, they're sitting inside the ark for a week with just the sacrifice animals.

Well, they had a lot to load. If they had to have all the animals plus everything they were going to eat, that's what makes sense to me. God said, now's the time, pack it up. Exactly.

So we're getting ready here. And so Noah has been clued in here about what's going to happen. I think this is the first time he has a very clear idea of what's going to come next and what's demanded of him. Yeah, and that there's going to be something big coming. Yeah.

Okay, as to why the question about rain, the only time that rain was mentioned earlier in Genesis was back in the creation story, right? When it says that rain had not yet fallen, that the earth was watered by a mist in the air.

So is it possible that all these generations later, after Adam, that there had been not the phenomenon of rain as we know it, perhaps wasn't known yet? Perhaps wasn't there. We don't know. There's a little speculation, right? That's right.

But we do know that things had dew before that.

So maybe that had been going on here. And the fact that in just a second, we're going to see a cataclysm of water from the heavens maybe tensors think that this cataclysm is a signal that it really hasn't done this before. Right. Not like this. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because God says, I'm going to send rain for 40 days and 40 nights.

Well, even today, if it rains continuously for 40 days, you're like sick of it. That's a big problem. Your crops are ruined. Your basement is flooded. Yeah, exactly.

Well, let's read on and see what happens next.

So no one knows what's coming.

So here we go.

Okay. Now, verse 6: Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

So uh that does seem to me like this is the time that God has alighted for the packing up. Yeah, I think so too.

So it took about a week from the first clean animals until all the animals are in. And of course, the whole task of getting the animals there is impossible on a man's scale.

Well, no, but it says they went in as God had commanded. As God had commanded.

Now, God commanded Noah.

So Noah was there shepherding or guiding or whatever, but God was the one moving the animals. Yeah, so in a sense, when I read that, it's God commanding the animals to go. Right. Yeah.

And it reminds me of back when Adam was first made and he was naming the animals. And so God prayed the animals in front of him. God's the one who kind of brought them in front of him, brought them and said, name this.

So, yeah, so God can command the animals. And the animals come in and they line them up inside the boat.

Well, it's interesting, too. And this just occurs to me that even today it's observable that some animals are aware of natural events before human beings are, right? Their earthquakes and things like that. And so perhaps there was some innate sense in these animals.

Something is coming. Could be, yeah. We need protection. They're troubled. Yeah.

But we're told again, this is the second time we're told now that Adam had done everything that God commanded him. Noah had done it. Noah, sorry. Noah. I mentioned Adam and Noah.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Well, and that's the whole point. He's told him in the beginning of chapter seven how cataclysmic this is going to be. And he says, and I need you to do these things. And he's already made the ark.

Okay. But here's my question. At this point, it occurred to me. Why did God preserve the animals? Right?

He was going to preserve people. That's great. But why did God preserve the animals? He could have just wiped them all clean and started over. I don't have an answer for that, but it just made me curious.

Well, he could have done that with mankind as well. I know. But he's counting on Noah and his family pro-creating. And he's counting on these animals in the ark pro-creating.

Well, and he's setting up the picture of bringing chosen ones through the flood. A remnant will remain when the wrath of God comes down on creation. Yeah.

Okay. Should we go on? Verse 11.

Okay. So we're told again in the 600th year of Noah's life.

So we're pegged to a specific year. And more pegged than that. More specific. Yeah, look at it. In the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened.

Opened and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. On the very same day, Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark. They and every kind of beast according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, and every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. There's some interesting repetitions here.

And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in. Yeah.

Okay, lots and lots of sudden rain. It is fascinating, too, that God gives us the day. Yeah, exactly.

And that's it just sticks out like a sore thumb. And you know what? We haven't got a clue why. Why that's the well, except that when they land on the mountain, it's exactly to the day, to the days later. Yeah, it is.

It very much is. But you know what the dates say to me? This is a real event. Oh, me too. This is a real thing that happened in a real life, had a real time in a world.

A real calendar, a real day. You can put the sticky right on the calendar. Yeah, that's me too. It seems very historical to put it this way. And it is.

It's historical. And then there's that curious thing right after the specific day stuff. The fountains of the great deep burst forth. And that causes everyone to scratch their heads and say, the fountains of the great deep burst forth?

Well, you know, back in the creation account, there are all kinds of echoes of the creation account here. It says that God separated the waters above from the waters below. Genesis 1:7. We have that idea of there being waters above and waters below.

Now, what exactly that means, I don't know. There's a range of interpretations on that.

Well, and when we originally saw that, we said, well, there is. There's clouds in the air. That's right above. And then there's oceans and stuff. That's.

Water below, but this looks like there's water below. There's groundwater. There's groundwater. In any case, the suddenness and the hugeness of the flooding is what's being driven at here, don't you think? It's like water, water everywhere.

Absolutely. And it's not just rain. We're talking about underground water coming up and not just coming up, bursting forth. Right. It's just.

So, you know, the speculation these days is if you see a mountain range that looks like it's been uplifted, that's what geologists call it, is an uplift, a seduction zone. If it's been uplifted, it could very well be that the waters of the Great Deep were underneath those mountains, which remain today uplifted. Uplifted.

So there's great, great geological turmoil at the same time with this water suddenly just spewing up and coming out of that, as well as water coming down from the atmosphere. I mean, there's a lot of water everywhere, everywhere, from underground and also above your head. Yeah.

Crazy stuff. That's been terrifying. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And it wasn't just a short event. It went for 40 days like this.

Well, you know, okay, so we live in a state where there are flash floods pretty regularly because there's a lot of rock in the place where we live. But if you can imagine the terror, you can't, you don't know it's coming. You haven't necessarily seen the rain, but suddenly the sound of the water and it looks like it's coming out of the ground. It's just bursting upon you. And it's so much bigger than you.

Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Because you can't stand against it. Yeah.

But what I love here is the repetition of all the things that creep, that crawl, that breathe, in whom there's a breath of life, right? It really sounds like God is sucking back creation. Yeah.

Right. He's taking it back. Yeah.

And then when they all go in, and again, it says the Lord commanded them to go in, the Lord, his personal name, shut them in. Shut them in. God closed the door. Yeah, we've remarked on that door in the instructions for building the ark. The door was built on the side of the ark, which means, you know, if you don't seal this baby right, you're going to sink.

Right. You don't put doors in the side of ships, you know, under the water line. That's just like nuts.

So, so, yeah, so they make this door so they can actually come in that way. And then once you get inside, how do you close it?

Well, God closes it. God shuts them in. Yeah, it's fascinating. God shuts them in. So seals it.

The flood continued. Verse 17, 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. That's good.

And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep. That's specific again. And all flesh died that moved on the earth. Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures, all that swarm on the earth and all mankind.

Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

Okay, so there it is on the dry land. Yeah, it's everything that walks on the land. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground. Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark, and the waters prevailed on the earth a hundred and fifty days.

Oh, my gosh. Ooh, ooh. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, 150 days is a long time. Right. That's long enough to make sure everything had drowned. Yeah.

There was nothing living. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and there's some interesting stuff here, too. You know, you made mention of the fact that it was covering the mountains by 15 cubits.

So I went back to the design instructions for the ark. Oh, yeah. All right, okay. And the ark itself is 30 cubits high.

So the ark is twice as high. As it clearance it had over the tips of the mountains, which is good because a boat this size, you want to have it, you want its draft to be 50%. Right. So it's going to, it's a way of saying actually it would clear the mountains even though it had a deep draft. It's going to be fine.

It's about it's half, it's half the height of the boat.

So that's good. That's good. They're going to clear. And so, you know, the waters, it says, rose high above the earth in 2017. And you're thinking, well, you know, how is that possible?

Because we've got some pretty high mountains today. And if it covered, then where'd all the water go if it covered the mountains? But you've got to remember, too, this the fountains of the deep bursting forth tell us that the geography, the geology was in transition. Things were poking up and poking down.

So it could very well mean that at the beginning, the water covered everything. They've always said that if the earth was completely flat, had no mountains like a billiard ball, there's enough water on the earth to bury the land by about three or four miles. That's the geometrical kind of definition. But then through all of this, mountains are peaking up and things are going on.

So it did cover everything. But eventually, after the movement of the mountains was done, some of them might have poked up. We're not sure. But it's still, it's a lot of water. It's a lot of water that covered everything.

Well, the tectonic plates are still moving today. Right, right, right. The fact that the earth is moving, though. The land masses are rearranging themselves is not new news. Exactly.

It was new news, you know, like 150 years ago before tectonics were, you know. Before they figured it out. Yeah, but now, but they found out, oh, gosh, no, there's plates and they are moving. They're just moving very slow right now, but they do move. But they moved much faster in the early years of the earth.

Right, right, right. So this big flood happens, and he underscores for us the devastation that happens in 21. You know, everything that moves on the earth, everything that moves on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts. And there's an amazing repeated word. I counted one, I'm looking at it now, one, two, three, four, five, six times in the section from 21 to the end, the word all, which in which in Hebrew is coal.

It's like, you know, like coleslaw, coal. It's coal.

So verse 21, all flesh died, all swarming creatures, all mankind, except for, of course, Um Everything on the dry land, 22, all things on the dry land.

So it's really making a strong point for the fact that this was not a local flood effect. This was global. This is global, all things. And so a lot of people today who have scientific skepticism about the flood story, about it being like a worldwide cataclysmic flood, they'll say, well, you know, it could be kind of hyperbole. It could have just been a local flood that looked really big.

But this section from 21 to 24 uses that word all, which means everything. It means everything over and over and over again. If you just go by literally what it says here, it means everything. It's not a local event. It's a big, everything.

Well, and there are evidences of massive, massive flooding in various places all over the earth.

So, you know, I I None of us were there. We can't speak to that. And there are other places in scripture where, like, all the world came to Joseph to be fed, right?

Well, that clearly wasn't every inhabitant of the earth, but it was every known, every inhabitant of the known area at the time.

So I don't know. It seems plausible to me that if God created the earth. He could certainly wipe it clean from the beginning and start over. Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is. Seems to be what's being indicated here. Right. But you know what? We need to talk about because we're going to run out of time.

Yeah.

Is what's the point of the story? Right. Take the big view now. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's not just, oh, well, you can be saved from the flood if you get in the boat, right? Because they didn't apparently mob Noah to get in the boat. We don't have any reference to that at all. Right, right. But when Jesus talked about this event in Matthew 24 and also Luke 17, he said, you know, when the Son of Man comes, it's going to be just like the days of Noah.

Eating and drinking and marrying, giving you married. In other words, they weren't paying any attention to the promise of a coming cataclysm, right? You're going to be wiped out if you're not in the boat. Right, right. But they just carried on like normal life.

Right. Right. Even beyond the warning.

So, you know, there is a cataclysm coming, a day when all mankind will endure. Mm. A judgment. A worldwide judgment. A worldwide judgment.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And Peter talks about that, how he kind of unpacks the symbolism of that, that the only people who came through that judgment were the ones in the boat with Noah. Right. And they were only in there because they believed what God had said. Yeah.

Yeah.

It was their belief. Yeah.

That's how they participated in the salvation of God, their belief.

Well, and that's what the writer of Hebrews picks up on, too. And I had that open and I just turned it off. And while you're getting there, I'll just reference, if you want to look it up, when we talk about Peter saying it, it's in 2 Peter 3.

So go take a look at it because he's answering the question, you know, where's the promise of Jesus coming from? 2 Peter 2. Oh, 2.

Well, it's actually 2 Peter. 1 Peter 3, 2 Peter 2. There we go. 1 Peter 2, 2 Peter 3. Yeah, 2 Peter 3 is the answer to why is Jesus taking so long coming back to judge the earth?

And he says, do I need to remind you? Judgment's coming. Remember the flood? Right. So he uses that example.

Yeah.

But 2 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2, yeah. 2 Peter 2, 5 is where he says, you know, if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, or verse 5, and didn't spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly, right? He says, God knows how to save the righteous. God knows how to save the righteousness. And he knows who they are.

He knows who they are. But let's go back to what Jesus said, right? He said that the Son of Man is coming. You're going to wish you had a day of the Son of Man, because the Son of Man is coming. And when it comes, the only people who survive are going to be the ones who have believed him.

Right? Because he says in John 5:24, if you believe me, You've passed out of death into life. Right, right. If you believe the Son of Man and what he said.

So, you know, the main point is. And of course, Jesus makes belief the central is a way to be saved from what will come to destroy all mankind.

So, you know, the story of Noah was a real event at a real time and place, but it also is a type of God's coming judgment. And we only come through the judgment of the flood by being safely carried in Christ. By the provision that he makes. The provision that he makes. Yeah, right.

But even in the time of Noah, you still had to get into the boat.

Well, you had to believe that God said the flood is coming. Right, right. Right. And that still is the issue today. But when we are placed into Christ by faith in what he has done, we are carried through the judgment, right?

Jesus said, if you believe me and my words, you have passed out of death into life. That's John 5:24. Right, right. We're made new creations. We're brought through the judgment and made completely new in Christ.

Jesus said, You got to be born again, right? Once again, we have that picture of we got to enter through the water into a whole new way of life.

So, this story points to all of those pictures. Pictures of reality of a coming judgment, but there is a way through by belief in what God has said. Yep. There is a path that God himself has provided. Right.

In the person of Christ. In the person of Christ, and your choice is to believe or not to believe. And there is coming a judgment that is so total and so overwhelming that, like the flood, there's no way you can actually swim your way through it. None will survive. And none will survive.

It's only through what God has done for us through Christ. And then we can be brought through the wrath of God at judgment.

So that's what the whole flood's all about. It's to prefigure what's coming again at the end of the world. It's an early, early. Picture. Yeah, yeah.

I might just reference for you before we leave, take a read through Psalm 104 because he reiterates the whole phrase. Flood story again for us in 104. It's a fascinating way how he does it.

So, anyway, I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we have gone through the flood. I hope you come out on the other side next time and find out with us here on More Than Inc. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org.

And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Wow, you know the destruction of a flood. We saw the effects of a flood in North Carolina last year. Yeah, and that was just on a very small scale compared to a worldwide flood that wreaked havoc on all mankind. We'll see how it turns out next week when they come out of the boat here on More Than Inc.

Bye. Bye. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.