Destruction and Renewal

A very special welcome to you that are joining us from across the country and around the world live on the internet this morning streaming, on tv, through the radio, through whatever media you're watching us, welcome. We're going to start our song service this morning with hymn number 191, "love divine all love excelling." And this is a request from Paul and shoosheila Johnacooty from beltsville, Massachusetts, from byron and evelyn baxter from redding, California and from lichelle brewer from new south wales. Thank you for this request. Hymn 191... If you have a special request that you would like to sing with us on a coming Sabbath, just go to our website at www.

saccentral.org and click on the music link. And there you can request any one of your favorite hymns in our hymnal. And we would love to sing that with you on a coming Sabbath. Our next song is going to be hymn number 462, "blessed assurance Jesus is mine." And this is a request from josania Johnson from roatan, honduras, and bob brewer from new south wales. So we will sing hymn 462 and we'll sing all three verses.

.. Our Father in Heaven, what a blessing it is to have you as our song every day. And I ask you to please touch our hearts, Lord, as we listen to Your Words today, that our hearts are filled with joy and happiness because you are our Savior. And that we are willing and anxious to take Your Word out to a cold, dark world and that we are anxious to tell them about you. I ask you to please bless Pastor Doug this morning as he brings us words of life.

Help them to be Your Words and not his and help as we listen. And the people that are listening around the world are touched and that we can bring forth your coming very soon. Lord, we know you're coming. Please help us to be ready. We pray these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Our lesson study will be brought to us this morning by Pastor Doug Batchelor, senior pastor here at sac central. Morning. Happy Sabbath. Good to see each of you.

And thank you for the music this morning for our singers. Want to welcome our visitors here at Sacramento central. We always have some new faces. And again, we know there are always new faces that are watching with our friends on television. You know I just wanted to say something I say periodically.

We look at some of the e-mails that come in from around the country, around the world, and a lot of people say, "we don't have a church because we're isolated." They're living in some remote area. And if it wasn't for satellite and for these networks--we'd like to thank 3abn, safetv and hope channel and others for carrying this around the world. They say, "central church is our church." And there are some people who because of their health, they can't get to church. Maybe they're shut-ins or cut off that way. They can't commute.

And they said, "this is our church." And we just wanted to say, "we're glad." And we hope you'll adopt us. You can actually go to the Sacramento central website. You can watch these services when they're recorded live. It's live streaming right now as I speak. And plus you can see it recorded three weeks later, so it's broadcasting at the same time the world studies the quarterly.

You can join the central family. We get letters from people who are out in the australian outback. And they say, "we don't have a church. We're out in the middle of nowhere. We've accepted the message.

" Adopt us. Go to Sacramentocentral.org. And we'll begin to communicate with you and support you every way we can short of a hug. You know you can't hug through the internet I suppose. But everything else we'll try and do.

We'll show you where you can study the Bible. And you can watch, hear, read. There's a lot of things you can do through the internet. Our lesson is continuing in just, we're on holy ground when we deal with the subject of Genesis, "beginnings and belongings." Today we're in chapter 5. And I'm thankful that I have the opportunity, the privilege to teach this section today, because it is a very pivotal section in the history of the world.

And the lesson is chapter 5. And it's talking about "destruction and renewal." I don't know that I'll get all the way through these chapters going from Genesis 6, mostly it's from Genesis 6 through 9, talking about the flood and Noah coming forth from the ark. But memory verse is Genesis :16, Genesis 9:16, and why don't you say that with me. You ready? "The bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." This of course is the covenant of the rainbow that God makes here in the beginning. One of the first covenants that you find in the Bible, not just made with the jews, but made with mankind, not just with mankind, but with all flesh, even the creatures.

Now to get into our study today, it's important that we do a little bit of review. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 5. And well you know I'm going to do it a little different here. Genesis 6:1-2. Let's read that first.

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." This is a very, deeply misunderstood verse. And if you get this wrong, you get a lot of things wrong in the Bible. Just to give you an idea of some of theories that are out there about what this means. "The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and took them wives of all they chose." One hypothesis is that aliens came to earth and had intimate relations with humans and that's why people became so wicked. Another theory is that's similar to that.

This is where man's evolution began. Up until this time, men were really primitive, apelike creatures. But when these sons of God, these aliens had intimate relations with humans, that's when our advancement in evolution began. Then there is the theory that angels, fallen angels most say, had intimate relations with humans. And that's why it says that, "these mighty men were born unto them.

" Boy, I'll tell you there's some kooky things out there. And every time I hear pastors say this on television or radio I just, I want to take 'em by their tie and pull 'em right through the speaker. Because it's just, it's not only error, it's dangerous error. It's bad theology. Now, and by the way, if you want to understand how prevalent this is, it even says this in some translations.

For instance, new living translation, Genesis 6:4, "in those days, even afterward, giants lived on the earth, for whenever The Sons of God had intercourse with human women." Now when it calls the women "human," what does it implying The Sons of God are? Non-human. Isn't that the implication there? All right, how 'bout the good news Bible, "some of the heavenly beings saw these young women were beautiful so they took the ones they liked." Doesn't that imply in that translation that these are non-humans? Heavenly beings. It doesn't say that in the original text. That is a great liberty they are taking. And it twists the truth.

It says, "sons of God." That's what it says. Now I'd like to tell you who they are. And I think that will help us understand who they are not. First you got to get the background. In the beginning, adam and eve originally had two sons.

From those two sons, two modes of worship grew. You had cain and abel. Cain killed his brother and went out from the presence of the Lord. He was not going to serve God God's way. God would not accept his sacrifice.

He was called "The Son of man," en0s, mortal. He was going to die. He did not have eternal life. And it tells us then that "he went out from the presence of the Lord." The first genealogy that you see listed is not the genealogy of adam's righteous seed which came through seth, it's cain. And you read here for instance, verse 16, Genesis chapter 4, "cain goes out from the presence of the Lord.

" He builds a city. Most of the major cities of the world are in the plains by rivers. Sacramento is an example of that. They call this "river city." Babylon was a river city. Jerusalem is an exception.

It was a mountain city. It's a type of the city of God. Most of the cities of the world, beijing, and a lot of other major, london, cairo, Egypt, they're all by plains where you could farm and feed vast multitudes. Cain built a city. What did cain do? Abel was a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground, built a big city.

They rebelled. They turned from God. On the other hand, abel, and later seth, they were keepers of sheep. Why were God's people so often keepers of sheep? Because part of their life involved the sacrificial system. And in order to have sacrifices, you got to have goats and sheep.

And so they kept these to sacrifice to the Lord for their sin. And so that's one reason they were nomadic in this way. They often lived in the hills. Abraham, he lived up in the mountains of hebron. Lot cast his tent down towards sodom and pretty soon he's in the city.

So you see a distinction between the mountain people and the city people. And I'm not trying to condemn those that live in Sacramento. I art one of them right now. But I'm just telling you back in Bible times. Then adam and eve had another son.

And you read here in Genesis chapter 5, "and adam," verse 3, "lived 130 years, he begot a son in his own likeness, after his own image." Now adam was called, "The Son of God," Luke chapter 3, when it goes through the genealogy of Jesus, adam's called, "The Son of God." Now adam has a son "in his own image," a chip off the old block, to replace abel who he had lost. And it says, "and sons and daughters were begot to him." "Seth lived," verse 7, "807 years, and he begot sons and daughters." And it goes on and says that he had enosh. And at that time, men began to call upon the name of the Lord. All right, so you find there's a distinction between the children of cain, who are completely separate and distinct from the children of seth and adam. The children of seth and adam were called, "The Sons of God," because they believed in the sacrificial system.

They believed that they could be saved. Now let me give you some Scriptures to read that bear this out. All right, who will read for me, Matthew 5:9? Somebody else please find for me, Romans 8:14. Someone else find for me, Galatians 3:26. Then again, one more, John 3:1.

All right, we're going to start with Matthew 5:9. Got several hands here. Go ahead. Why don't you start with birdie there? Yeah. And then we'll give mike, I want you to find Romans 8:14.

You can do that next. Go ahead, birdie. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called The Sons of God." All right, the children of God that help people make peace with their Heavenly Father, the peacemakers. They're called what? What are they called? They're not aliens? Fallen angels? They're The Sons of God. Okay, what's the next one, mike? "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are The Sons of God.

" "Whoever is led by the Spirit of God, they are The Sons of God." I said now Galatians 3:26. Maybe someone over here want to do that, a volunteer who was ready? Got a hand back there. Hold your hand up so he can see ya. Microphone's gotta find ya. Galatians 3:26.

And I gave out another one. John 3:1. Why don't you hand the mic to jolene? Hold your hand up there. And she'll do that next. Okay, you ready? Galatians.

"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." All right. All sons of God through faith, the believers are. Jolene. 1 John 3:1, "behold, what manner of love The Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did know him." All right, what translation you reading? New king James. That's okay.

And king James says "sons of God," children of God, that's okay. It works just fine. Not everybody, not all humans are sons of God. If you doubt that, then you've got a problem with what Jesus said. Jesus said in John 8:41, "'you do the deeds of your father.

' They said to him, 'we're not born of fornication; we have one father, God.' Jesus said," see the religious leaders are saying, "God is our father. We are sons of God." They even understood what The Sons of God were. Jesus said, "well, that might be true if you really were children of your father. But you're not." "Jesus said to them, 'if God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came from God; for I have come not of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my words.

You are of your father the devil,'" you are not sons of God, "'and the desires of your father you will do.'" There were two distinctions in the world back then. There were The Sons of God who lived in the mountains. And there were the daughters of men, the children of cain that lived in the valleys. As long as they maintained a distinction of identity, they were able to stay pure to the Lord. But that takes you to the verse that says, "but then The Sons of God," wait you know I left out one more here.

Isaiah 43:6-7, "I will say to the north, 'give them up!' And to the south, 'do not keep them back!' Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends,'" not just sons, sons and daughters, "'my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory.'" Those who are called by the name of the Lord, who have the Spirit of God, they are The Sons of God. Now it is true, there is a passage where it says, "there was a day when The Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord." It's using the term in a broader sense there. And it's talking about maybe the leaders of unfallen worlds. But there's plenty of Bible support that The Sons of God here were the children of seth that were still separate. They were people like Enoch, who was a preacher of righteousness.

He was a Son of God, walked with God and God took him. And I think you talked about Enoch in our last study. But after Enoch was taken to heaven, and gradually the distinction between those shepherd sons of God living in the mountains and the people in the valleys, they begin to mingle, not for witnessing purposes. But they begin to mingle in business and gradually they said, "boy, you know cain, he's a rascal, but his daughters are really good-looking." And they began to intermarry. And when they began to intermarry, what does the Bible say about believers marrying unbelievers? It is called being unequally yoked.

It's a sin. What brought about the fall of Israel at its zenith? Matter of fact, all the Kings of Judea and Israel, at what point was Israel in its greatest glory? Who was king? Solomon, correct. During the reign of Solomon, Israel, all the promises of God could be realized during the reign of Solomon. What brought about the fall? Solomon began to marry non-jews. For starters, he married the pharaoh of Egypt's daughter.

And they began for political alliances, he began to marry, he loved many women. I'm sure they were all beautiful. He saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and he began to intermarry the princesses of these other kingdoms. And gradually they turned his heart away, didn't they? This often happens. In the days of Nehemiah, when they came back from the captivity and the people began to marry pagan wives, what did Nehemiah do? He beat 'em up, pulled out their beards.

He said, "what in the world is wrong with you? Don't you know Bible history? This is where we've fallen everywhere along the way. We lose our identity. We lose our religion when we begin to intermarry with the world. Just before the world ends, you find the Kings of the earth are having fornication with the daughters of Babylon. Isn't that right? Does it say anywhere that Babylon and her daughters are ugly? Oh no.

The daughters of men are fair. You know what's happening to the church in the last days? We're looking at the daughters of Babylon, The Sons of God are looking at the daughters of men, the world, the churches of the world, and say, "boy, they sure have exciting services. They got, oh man, some of their music. Oh, their preaching, prosperity preaching." And it's attractive. And we begin to adopt.

We begin to marry the daughters of men. And what happens then? What happened after The Sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men--pardon me--back in the days of Noah? They lost their distinction. They lost their holiness. And then the thoughts of the men's hearts were only evil continually. And then the end came.

Judgment came. What's gonna happen in the end of the world? As it was in the days of Noah, God's church is going to lose its spiritual identity. I believe the church is going through. But I'm saying there's going to be great apostasy. They're going to intermarry, not only with the physical intermarriage, but spiritually.

Ecumenism. Ecumania. We all want to be one, so we're ready to sacrifice our holy distinction. We come off our mountains and we dwell in the valleys with the daughters of men. And pretty soon, the thoughts of men's hearts are, you'll find that you've got the same kind of problems in the church that you got in the world.

Same amount of divorce and abuse and all the problems that you find in the world, you find in the church. And then God is grieved in his heart that he brought us out of Babylon. And then judgment comes. History is gonna repeat itself. The same history that happened with cain and abel, two brothers, both claiming to worship the same God, one worships the way he feels like it.

The other one does it the way the word says. And the one whose sacrifice is rejected kills the one who worships the way God tells him to worship. You get to Revelation, you get the same issue. Same thing about the time of Noah, sons of God, daughters of men. That history's repeating itself.

And I touched on it, but I don't know that I drove the nail all the way in. Nail just doesn't look right unless you hammer it flush. Christians should not be marrying non-Christians. Say "amen." "Oh, but pastor, I'm studying with them. And I think he's coming around.

" Now you know there are times where God is merciful and he will save us from our bad decisions. He overrules our ignorance. And there are times when a believer marries a non-believer and the non-believer is converted. But usually what happens is the non-believer lowers the standard of the believer. There's that siphon effect where when instead of one bringing this one up, they both go down to the lowest level.

Gravity will bring you down. God said, "don't do it." "Now pastor, I would never dream of marrying a non-Christian. But I am thinking about marrying a Christian girl. She's not a member of our church, but she is a Christian. So that's as long as she's a Christian.

" Or he's a Christian. Don't do it. And I'm not being exclusive. In case you don't know it, this is the teaching of, used to be the teaching of, baptist, methodist, catholics. A good catholic priest will not marry a catholic to a non-catholic.

Isn't that right? How many catholics, former catholics know that here? Used to be that was the case. Matter of fact, you couldn't even get married without some special absolution if you've been divorced. Good methodist pastor would never marry a methodist to a baptist. That's being unequally yoked as far they were concerned. Their teachings were incompatible.

Same thing in our church. "Oh, but pastor, I married someone in the church and it was a bad experience. And this person is a better Christian." That doesn't matter. The truth is still the truth. You just had a bad experience.

You made a bad choice the first time. We know there's unconverted people in the church. You know I've got a four-wheel drive car. And a big mistake that people have made before is if you don't put the same size tires on the front that you've got on the back, you'll destroy the engine. They need to turn at the same speed.

How many of you men know that? Sometimes you get a four-wheel drive truck. And you say, "well, for some reason the ones on the front, I got a good deal on some tires. But I only got two and I'll put new tires on the front." And you got old tires on the back. What happens is the gears are not turning at the same speed and they create pressure and it smokes and wears out the teeth, and you can destroy your transmission that way. And you get people, even if they're Christians.

And they're not of the same brand. There's gonna be tension. And it can destroy the children. They grow up confused. You're theology's very important, 'cause that all revolves around what is truth.

And if you think it doesn't matter as long as we're Christians. And yeah, one goes Saturday. One goes Sunday. And one eats pork for breakfast. The other one eats tofu.

And you don't think it's going to make problems in the home. Oh, yes it does. All right, did I say enough about that? But you know, that's what happened then. If you read the next verses here, God says in verse 3, "my spirit will not strive with man forever. For he is indeed flesh.

" God is pronouncing a judgment now when they began to intermarry. Does it matter to God? They lost their distinction, their identity. Why did sin come into the world? Because adam put his love for eve ahead of his love for God. Adam chose to listen to satisfying his wife rather than satisfying his Lord. And when you put the horizontal relationships ahead of the vertical relationship, you're in trouble.

Great commandment: "love the Lord and love your neighbor as yourself." But this has to come first. And they began to say, "well, I know what God says, but the daughters of men are fair." And they compromise. God said, "my spirit will not always strive with man. For his days will be 120 years." Now it's from this point God then calls Noah. That's why we know that 120 years exists until the flood comes.

And there were giants on the earth in those days. "Oh, Pastor Doug, what are you going to do with this? That proves The Sons of God could not have been normal humans, because the offspring from The Sons of God were the daughters of men, well they were big. They were mighty men." You notice it doesn't say "mighty angels" or "mighty aliens." They're man. They're humans. They're just big ones.

Now some of you remember, I think some of you maybe watched the series we just did at andrew's university. And you heard me share an amazing fact about hybrid vitality, genetic vitality. Have you heard about that before? It is a fact--well, first of all did you know, mongrels are often brighter than purebreds. That's just a test. Those of you who are involved in breeding know that.

There are more propensities for disease among purebreds than when you interbreed with genetic vitality. You know that you can get a donkey and a zebra, you cross them. You can cross a donkey and a zebra because they're both from the same kind. And you get something called a zonkey. How many of you knew that? It is true.

I'm not teasing you. You can cross a horse and a donkey and you get a mule. How many knew that? If you grew up on a farm, you knew that. Did you know you can cross a dolphin and a whale, they're same family, and you can get a whalphin? They have one in Hawaii. Only one, but it worked.

They're from the same family. You cannot cross a trout and a dolphin. They're not from the same kind. But humans are all from the same kind, which means we originate from the original's pattern. Do you know you can cross a lion and a tiger, are you aware of that? And you get what they call a liger.

They are the biggest cats in the world. They're giants. A liger, and they're pretty gentle too actually. They're very intelligent. They are over 1,000 pounds.

That's about twice the weight of an african lion. There's a picture of a liger up there on the screen. And they can stand up to 12 feet tall. That's called genetic--they're not aliens or angels that are breeding with those tigers. It is hybrid vitality.

It is a fact. I used to tease my friend John lomacang. Most of you know John, he's about 6"4'. He's exhibit-a of hybrid vitality. He has an african American father and a filipino mother.

He's taller than both of them. His mom is about 4 feet tall, little bitty thing. And just the genetic vitality of those two races and John's big and talented and he's got the benefit of that. It can be seen all the world. It is not aliens and angels.

It's just a fact of science. So, that's why it said, "when The Sons of God came to the daughters of men," they had been separate for several generations. The genes began to cross again and they had mighty men. But it wasn't saying they were holy men. Oh, by the way, some of you maybe have seen it.

It just was released in the news this week. I think there were swedish archeologists digging in syria discovered bones of camels they had never seen before. It's called the giant syrian camel. And they are twice as tall as the camels today. That gives you some scope there.

They're as big as elephants, camels that existed. And they existed contemporaneously with man, because human bones and tools and things were found at the same spring where they found the camel bones. Isn't that amazing? Can you imagine how much you could haul on a camel like that? Anyway, so everything used to be bigger back then. Moving right along. So, God said, "wickedness was great in the earth.

My spirit will not always strive with man." There were giants we read about there, men of old, men of renown. Do we see some of that genetic vitality? Did it happen again even after the flood? What about Goliath? Yeah. It's not uncommon. Today they're called nba. "Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent," every thought, "of his heart was only evil continually.

" Matter of fact, someone read this for me. Who will read verses 6 and 7 of Genesis chapter 6? Got a couple hands. Pick someone back there. Genesis chapter 6 and 7, of chapter 6 of Genesis. "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.'" Oh, I read that verse, can you imagine the Lord shaking his head and saying, "it grieved God at his heart." He made man good, good, very good, put 'em in a paradise. Everything was good. There was no flaw. Man was perfect. Man had every opportunity to succeed in paradise through eternity.

And now he looks at the world and all the thoughts of man's heart are only evil, selfish continually. And God says, "you know, I just can't even bear it. It's offensive. It's a stench in my nostrils. It aches my heart.

I must wash the world from this evil in the universe." But, God said, verse 8 someone read for me, verse 8 of Genesis chapter 6. Got a hand right here, curtis. And we'll talk about our hero here. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." This is the first time you find the word "grace" in the Bible. "Noah found grace.

" God is going to wipe the world clean. But he said, "you know, there is somebody who has redeemable qualities. There's somebody in the world that's worth saving, that wants to be saved, there's someone that still acknowledges me, that longs for holiness and purity." The rest of the world, they were just given to living for the world's sake. And because of that, Noah found grace. Does God just arbitrarily decide who to show grace to? Or are there characteristics in people's lives that attract the grace of God? There's some churches that--this is an important question--some churches will teach that God is just up there saying, "well, I think I'm gonna show grace to somebody.

Eenie meanie minie moe. Who shall I show grace to?" Or does the Bible tell us there are things in Noah's life that attracted the grace of God? It's still the grace of God. Noah was a sinner. We've all sinned. But Noah was yearning for God.

There were redeemable qualities. And you read in the next verse what it was that God found attractive about Noah that made him want to bestow grace on Noah. Who will read verse 9 for me? Genesis 6:9. Got a hand right here, curtis. Hold your hand up, roy.

"These are the generations of Noah. And Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations. And Noah walked with God." Thank you. Not only do we find that Enoch walked with God. It tells us Noah walked with God.

You know I had another amazing fact here. I did this in a study a while ago. Do you know you take about 8,000 steps a day? That's 2 1/2 million steps a year in your walking. That means in the average lifetime, you'll walk approximately 115,000 miles. Now granted some of us walk more than others.

It depends on what you do. If you work at a warehouse you probably walk a lot every day. If you work in a cubicle, you may not walk as much as some people. In 1970, a young man named David kunst got the idea to walk around the world. So the 30-year-old David with his brother, John, decided to walk around the world.

They were accompanied by a pack mule that they named "willie-make-it." And they traveled as volunteer ambassadors for unicef. David and John, they left from waseca, Minnesota on June 20th. They walked to New York, flew to portugal, walked all the way to iran with this mule pulling their cart. I think they went through a few mules. They had one, they died or wore out and they got other ones along the way.

Tragically, two years into their epic journey, halfway around the world, John was killed, David's brother, when they were robbed in afghanistan, of all places. And David was badly wounded. He recuperated, went back to the very place where his brother was killed with another brother, and they continued their journey. Peter eventually had to abandon his brother 'cause he had to get on with his life. And he gets to australia, walks across australia, mule dies, meets a young school teacher who helps to pull his wagon across australia.

They naturally fell in love and he married her. In 1974, he walked back into waseca, Minnesota and became the first person verified to have circled the landmass of the earth on foot. Fifteen-thousand-mile odyssey required four-and-a-half years, twenty-two pairs of shoes, and three mules. Can you imagine that? Walking around the world. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him.

And he walked with God 300 years. If you knew you had one month left to live, could you walk with God for a month? If you knew you had one month left to live, would you walk differently in the next month? Matter of fact, I'm going to ask for a show of hands. Be honest. If you knew you had one month left, would your walk be different? Okay. Most of us here say, "yes.

" Enoch thought, "I've got 300 years." And he still wanted to walk with God. We think, well when we get near the end, we want to make sure we're walking with God. He didn't care how close to the end he was. He lived in a day where he could have lived 500 more years and he still wanted to walk with God. It's better to walk with God whether you live 1,000 years or whether you're going to live one more month or one more week.

You should start walking with God right now. It's better. All right, back to Noah. Noah like Enoch walked with God and he found grace. And it was the Noah had a just heart and he walked with God.

And that's one reason he found grace. He had three sons, shem, ham, and japheth. And they had wives. Who do you think shem, ham, and japheth married? Do you think they married the daughters of men? Or did they marry daughters of seth? I think they married mountain girls not valley girls. What are you? I'm talking about sons of God, daughters of men.

You understand, right? "So then God looked on the earth and it was corrupt; and all flesh had corrupted its way before the Lord. And God said to Noah, 'the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'" Then he gives them the instructions on making the ark. Now, phew, there's so much here and I've got 15 minutes to talk about all these things. He tells them of course to make the ark, 300 cubits, by 50 cubits, by 30 cubits. Make a window one cubit.

And we understand that window was a window a cubit that ran the whole circumference for ventilation around the entire ark. And also it was evidently the bottom of the ark had something that's called like a tidal chamber, so that as the waves came up and down it forced air in and out of those windows creating natural ventilation. So that some of you have maybe been on a catamaran before, you know what I'm talking about. The waves going up and down the middle actually whooshes air in and out. And with the window that went all around the top it would create this ventilation.

And also lighting could reach all three decks if it had sort of an atrium going down through the middle. And you could also toss the food from the top decks down to the, like they do with barns, the troughs where the animals were. And so I've seen very interesting designs that architects have developed. It's interesting the dimensions of the ark to this very day are the same dimensions that are used by oil tankers and most ships. The ratio is the most stable ratio for oceangoing vessels that they've ever developed.

It's never been improved on. And so they build this ark and God tells them he's gonna destroy everything. God makes a distinction between the animals that are going to come on the ark. What is that distinction? He says there's clean and there's unclean. Now are there still distinctions between clean and unclean today in the world? Why does God make that distinction? Was that a Jewish law? Does the Lord reiterate the difference between clean and unclean for the jews? Was Noah Jewish? How many here are related to Noah? Everybody right? Everybody here's related to adam.

Everybody here's related to Noah. If God made a distinction between the clean and the unclean animals for Noah, then does that still apply today? Another reason that there was a distinction between clean and unclean animals, it doesn't mean that they were eating a lot of animals in Noah's day. But that's what they used for sacrifice. And you could never offer an unclean animal to God. It was the greatest insult.

And since our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, it was naturally understood that you're not to bring into your body temple any unclean animal. Not only is it an insult as a sacrifice to God, but it's an insult for your health. It's bad for your health to bring those in. If Noah had eaten any of the unclean animals during that year approximately they were on the ark, that species would have been rendered extinct. So that's further evidence you only needed two, 'cause they weren't going to touch them.

They weren't gonna eat them; they weren't gonna molest them. And that's how they brought the unclean animals in. Now was this flood a local flood? I saw something on history channel. Every now and then history channel, discovery channel will talk about something biblical and they'll think they're being spiritual. And they usually destroy it.

And so they talked about Noah. And they said, "you know there seems to be some legend there may have been a day when Euphrates overran its banks and there was a terrible flood in that region." A localized flood. How many of you have heard this before? If you believe the Bible, you can't say that. If you believe the fossil record you cannot say that. There is evidence all over the planet for catastrophic waters.

I'll never forget when I was living in New Mexico there on the navajo reservation, my uncle took me to a place where you could collect all of these sea fossils. And this is 7,000 feet above sea level in nageezi, New Mexico. And I couldn't believe it. Hillsides just covered with sea life and fossils. And just anybody could dig 'em out of the hills.

There were just mountains and mountains of shells and horseshoe crabs and fossilized things, squigglies. And I don't know what they all were. But sea life obviously. Clams. And I thought to myself, and this is back when I was still somewhat an atheist, "how could the ocean be this high in the middle of a continent?" That's when I began to question my beliefs.

And everywhere I've been around the world, and I've been around the world, I've seen evidence everywhere for massive waters. I remember when I lived up in the canyon where I was reading the Bible. I began to think, I used to believe in evolution, and I began to look at the waterworn hills of those mountains. And that's an 11,000-foot mountain, mount san jacinto. And I thought, "how did the water get up that high? It never rains hard enough to smooth out those hills like that.

" And the only thing I can conclude--you drive across the great deserts and you can see the vast, copious amounts of water created these layers. But if you don't believe the fossil record, then you should believe the Bible. Someone read for me, Genesis :19-21. Andrew, Genesis 7:19-21, you got that? And let's see if it was just a localized flood. "And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.

The waters prevailed 15 cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man." Read verse 22 as well. "All in whose nostrils was the breath of the Spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died." Read verse 23. "So he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. And they were destroyed from the earth.

Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark reMained alive." All right. If you believe the Bible, and it says, "all flesh died." All breathing creatures, it's explaining that the sea creatures may have survived the flood. He destroyed all living things. It prevailed above the highest mountains. Does that sound like a localized flood? If you read the text honestly, this was a catastrophic, global flood.

And if it was just a localized flood, why would Noah need to go to all the trouble of collecting two of every species of creature to save it. You just say, "you're on your own. Just head for higher ground somewhere." You know what else is interesting when I study the flood and something that convinced me too? I began to read in history as I traveled. And it became sort of a special interest of mine. I'd go among the people in india, where I'm going in another two weeks, and in Hawaii, Greek mythology.

They all have a legend of a great flood with variations. They have, and the interesting thing is in Hawaii they say the reason that people came to Hawaii is there was a great flood. And these are what stories are, this is what's similar in almost all the stories. Because of wickedness, almost universal wickedness, God destroyed the people of the world with a flood. But there was one man or one family or one tribe, sometimes they say, that God saved.

In Hawaii the guys name was noie, which is a Hawaiian name anyway. Isn't that interesting? He came in a canoe with his dogs and pigs. And the whole world was flooded except, because that's all they ended up, you know they didn't have too many domestic animals on Hawaii. The Greeks, this man got in a box with his family and all the world was flooded. Some of you have heard of the story called "the epic of gilgamesh," a very similar story to Noah.

And because "the epic of gilgamesh" may have been written before the days of Moses, they say Moses copied his story from "the epic of gilgamesh." No. It's just the legend, the truth that they had written down in ancient Babylon there was the same story that Moses knew. But Moses got it right when he recorded it, 'cause he was given it by divine inspiration, the accurate version of the story. But the similarities are amazing. How many of you know the story of atlantis? Atlantis, everyone's looking for atlantis.

Homer's got this story about atlantis. Of course, this really it is a corruption of the story of the flood. There was this great race of people, brilliant minds, lived a long time in atlantis, wonderful city. Didn't it say that cain built a city? And it describes this incredible city. And because of their wickedness the Gods were angry and it was swallowed up in the ocean.

It's the story of the flood. All these nations have different variations of that story. American indians had it. Central Americans indians had it. South American indians had it.

The people of india had it. I mean everywhere in the world you go they've got this story of the flood. And I think you're reading the accurate account of what happened here in the story of Noah. Now after Noah, how long is he on the ship? Well I think it's interesting someone brought to my attention, "when does the flood begin?" The 600th year of Noah's life. These Numbers all mean something.

And I don't have time to go into it. But all the times, the 40 days of the rain, the time they spent on the ark, all those Numbers have, I think, real meaning. The fact that it says, "Enoch was the 7th from adam and he's translated." After the 6th generation, the th goes up. Isn't that interesting? And here it tells us after 600 years, a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, maybe a century is like a day too. In the 600th year of Noah, the flood comes.

It's going to be the 6,000th year of our world, or whenever we get done, whatever God sees as the 6th millennium, I think the 7th millennium begins. And between the 6th millennium and the 7th millennium is the nd coming of Jesus and a resurrection and a great judgment of fire upon the earth. Isn't that what it tells us? "The wicked are destroyed by the brightness of his coming." I think it's, there's something there in telling us what year that happened. And so they're on the ship. And everybody likes to make jokes about what it must have been like to be on the ark during that time.

And there's a good video I've seen. It's probably 20 years old now put out by moody institute, moody films, I believe, talking about the ark. And they answer the most common objections where people say, "how could this myth be true." You know people say, "in order to get two of every species in the world today, I mean how are you going to fit a brontosaurus and all an indian elephant, an asian elephant, an african elephant, all these big pachyderms and brontosauruses. How are you going to get all?" And they went through all the myths about how it couldn't happen. And they showed, "oh, it could have happened.

" For instance, a lot of the creatures in the world today don't even need to be on the ark, 'cause they swim. That eliminates a big category right there. A lot of the creatures that you see in the world today, are actually, they're all related. So you don't need a zonkey and a mule and a horse. Whatever those original horselike creatures were, they just needed two of them.

Just two, 'cause they're unclean by the way. How many dogs? Did they need poodles and dachshunds and chow chows and pow pows and great danes and did they need all those different breeds of dogs or just two dogs? And from those two dogs all dogs have come from those original two. Look at all the variety of people in the world today and the different races and cultures. All came from adam and eve. All that diversity you see was in the original genes.

So there's this myth that they needed two of all these different variations. No, they needed two of the primary categories. And if they did bring, and God said, "bring two of every creature," doesn't say they had to be full grown. They could have been baby brontosauruses, right? Baby rhinos. The average animal in the world is about the size of a sheep.

How could they have taken care of them for a year? Well you know it's interesting, any of you ever notice how your dog acts when you put him on an airplane or in a car? They often get same thing--we had one kid that just, she wouldn't sleep unless we drove her around the block. Any of you notice kids, you put 'em in a car. I know one family every night when they wanted to get their daughter to sleep, they'd put her in the car, they drive around the block, they'd tip-toe, bring her in. She wouldn't go to sleep otherwise. The motion put them to sleep.

And animals eat less, they're a lot more docile, they're a lot more quiet when there's, something about their equilibrium when there's motion. And a lot of them may have gone into something like a sleeplike state. We know animals some can hibernate. We already know that. And so I think there's a lot that happened we don't understand.

But we shouldn't doubt God's Word. If God said, "this is what happened." I believe it. Same way I believe he could have created the world in six days, I believe that they really were on that ship for almost a year. When he came forth from the flood, the world had radically changed. It was so beautiful.

Even the world under the sin of, under the curse of sin was still beautiful back in the days of Enoch. But after the flood, well, you can look out your window and see what happened. And it's not as pretty now as it was even in Noah's day. But what's the first thing Noah did when he came forth from the ark? He offered sacrifice. Talk about what a sacrifice meant back then.

If you've only got one ram and six ewes and you offer one of those lambs, that's a big sacrifice, especially if they're the only seven in the world. The sacrifices that he made were real sacrifices of faith in God's future blessing. And when we give, we need to have that kind of faith as well. Amen? I want to remind our friends, oh, I never did tell you. We have a free offer.

Free offer for today is 109. And it's called, "rescue from above." And just call 866-788-3966. And that's also for our friends who are listening on the radio so they'll know and ask for offer 109. So we pray that you'll study and believe the Word of God. God bless you and thank you for participating.

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