The Flood Continued

We will finish Genesis chapter 7 tonight, I promise you.

! I've provided this little handout for you. We're not going to go through that. Those are not notes! of what I'm going to be reading. Those are not notes of what I'm going to be reading. I'm going to be doing tonight, in case you were wondering. You thought, my goodness, how long we're going to be here. 114 Reasons to Believe in the Universal Blood. That's for your information.

Those are not mine. You see the website where you can find not only these, but other resources. I'm not vouching for Lawrence D. Smart. I don't know all about him and what his theological background is, but he is a scientist and or teaches science and has been over the years very much involved in the, you know, the issues related to evolution. And so there's his website there. But anyway, that's just for you to take with you and do what you want with him. I will tell you that you might, when you're reading, if you read it, you'll find some words that are spelled kind of funny. And words that he uses that you know what he's talking about, but it's not the kind of word we would use. And the reason is, is because he's from England. And they have different words. In fact, I think there's some reference here about a train. Instead of a train car, it's a carriage. You know, so things like that.

And there were some spellings of some words that were way off, but they're English spellings. I changed most of those just so that you would be wondering. But anyway. All right. Genesis chapter 7. That's where we're going to be, starting really with verse 17. And I'm not going to read the whole text here in the front. We'll take it a verse at a time as we go down through here. But just to bring us up to speed to where we are now, really not where we are, but where Noah is. And all the animals are on board the ark now. And Noah and his family, they're on board the ark. Last time we saw them get on there. At least we saw them in our minds as we read the scriptures. Now they're all on board and bedded down, I guess. I don't know.

Put in their cages. Put in their stalls. Maybe given some food. They're all ready. And God shuts the door. That's where we ended last time. That's verse 16. God shuts the door, shuts them in. It doesn't say door, but obviously there had to be a door involved. But it's really more than just God simply reach up there and close the door. The idea is that God shut them in there safe and sound. And they're going to be in there safe and sound all throughout this ordeal of the destruction of the earth through the flood. So they're all safe and sound.

And the flood begins. Now, from verse 12 to 16, we kind of backtrack and have information about God bringing the animals and so forth. But in verse 11, we have this statement about the exact time when the flood begins or the rain and floods and all those things working in concert. Verse 11 is an exact, very exact statement about that. Gives us the exact time or date, though we cannot take the description here and get out our calendars and figure out, oh, here's when it happened. We can't do that. There are some speculations about that.

And so you might want to ask, and I mentioned this I think last time, you might want to ask, well, why all this detailed information about exactly when the flood began? And I really believe it's because this is to tell us that this is not just a story, not some fictional story with maybe a spiritual lesson to be taught. This is bonafide history and historical account of when God sent the flood upon this planet. So all this stuff that's happening, the animals coming and Noah and his family building the ark and getting on board the ark and all this and then the rains and all the flood and how it describes that flood. And that's what we're going to be looking at tonight. That's all history, detailed history. And so then that's why verse 11 reads this way in the 600th year of Noah's life, on that very, very year of his life in the second month, the 17th day of the month. And then just to make sure we understand the point, he says on that day, that day, that very day. So it's not, you know, just a generalization about an event that may have taken place sometime. I'm going to give you the exact time. Now those dates may have meant something to maybe the first readers of the account.

And if Noah, or Moses rather, who wrote Genesis, if he is putting into the account the Jewish calendar that he used and the Jews have used, then people, the Jews would understand the day. But that's not the important point. The point is this is history. And what two things happened on that day, according to verse 11, and this is kind of review, two things happened. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up. We talked about that. This is a major event. All the waters that were under the earth, and there was a lot of it literally burst through the crust of the earth. And then the second thing happened, the windows of heaven were opened. All right. So water coming up from under the earth, water coming down in torrents from above the earth. And this is the beginning of the flood.

All right. So tonight, what we're going to do in these verses that went from 16 on to the end of the chapter, we're going to look at three things, really consider three things, really just two.

The second one pertains to that sheet I gave you, and I'm going to let you just do that on your own. Here are the three things. The power of the flood, that'll be the first thing we want to consider.

The raw power of the flood. And then the second thing will be the scope of the flood. And that's what that handout is all about. The scope, meaning just how far reaching was it? Well, it was universal. It was all around the planet. And then the third thing will be the results.

The results of the flood. And we could guess what those are. All right. First, the power of the flood. Almost immediately, when God shut them in, massive amounts of water began to flood this earth.

And again, the fountains of the great deep were broken up, burst forth. The windows of heaven were open. And the Bible describes the rise of the floodwaters in stages over the next several verses here from 16 or 17 on.

It's kind of stages of it. And that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, water doesn't just suddenly it's all there. It starts gradual, and then it gets deeper, and then it gets deeper, and deeper, until we finally reach the climax of the flood.

And there's a description here of just how deep it was. All right. So it kind of comes in stages. So that's how we'll follow along in the text.

The first stage, we could describe this way. The ark began to float. That's pretty logical. The flood's going to start collecting. Water is going to start collecting.

And the ark's going to start to float. But that's what verse 17 says. Now, the flood was on the earth 40 days. And so first, here's the first stage, the waters increased and lifted up.

Lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. Not the ark. Well, the ark did. But this is just a statement ultimately that it's going to rise high above the earth.

But here at this point, it's just coming up off the ground. All right. Not really going anywhere yet, because there's not enough water there yet. But very soon there will be. And again, I think the description suggests that this began to happen almost immediately.

Probably the first day. And because massive amounts of water are now flooding the earth. Second stage, the ark began to move around.

This all sounds so elementary, doesn't it? But this is how it's described. Verse 18, the waters prevailed and greatly increased. Those are two words or descriptions that we'll come back to here in just a minute.

Prevailed and greatly increased on the earth. And the ark did what? It moved. It moved about. Depending on your version, translation of the Bible, New King James says it moved about on the surface of the waters.

All right. So now it's moving. Now, there's no suggestion here that it was moving in any particular direction. Though we do know that ultimately God's going to place it in just the place he wants it.

Because when the waters recede, it's going to rest on the top of Mount Ararat. And so how did it get there? Well, God moved it there. That was his purpose.

So I don't think we necessarily have to just think that this is just kind of, you know, floating here and there and wherever the wind might blow it.

And there was a lot of wind, by the way, because this was a major event that really brought into play all aspects of weather and other kinds of events.

All right. So it's moving about. But the really important thing you need to see in verse 18, because, again, what I am trying to have us consider is the power of the flood.

What you need to consider are two important words in the verse. And these two words help to magnify this raw power or tell us the magnitude, the raw power of the flood.

And the words are, at least in the New King James, the word prevailed and greatly. I know it says that it prevailed and greatly increased.

But the key word there is greatly. Prevailed and greatly. Those two words are very important for us to see. Now, let's begin with the second word, because it's subordinate to the first, grammatically speaking, at least in the Hebrew text it is.

The word, the Hebrew word for greatly is a particular word that means exceedingly with great force. Now, that's a little bit more than the English suggests to us.

It's a very strong word. In fact, it could be translated. In fact, it is translated exceedingly, I think, in the very next verse. But here's the meaning of the word.

Exceedingly with great force. All right. So that's subordinate to the first or the other word. The word prevailed is the first word.

And the word prevailed is a word that is even stronger. It means to be strong, to be mighty.

And as a matter of fact, this is the first time that this particular Hebrew word is used in the Bible in reference to water. It's used in reference to God and some other things.

But here's the first time in reference to water. And to add to the strength of the word, it doesn't appear this way in English, but in the Hebrew text, it is the first word in the sentence.

This word prevailed. Now, Hebrews, as well as Greeks, in their writing, if they wanted to emphasize a word, they would put it at the front.

Now, we wouldn't change the word order necessarily. We would add words or adjectives or something in order to make an emphasis of a word. But in Greek, Hebrew culture and Greek, they would put the word on the front.

They call that in the emphatic position. And so all that to say, not only the meaning of the word, but the placement of the word, all that is to say this, that the floodwaters that came upon the earth were mighty, strong.

Nothing, and here's what it's trying to convey. Nothing could stand against it. We have ways to deal with floods, don't we? You know, we put up barricades or sandbags.

And they don't always work, but, you know, sometimes they do. We put levees up to keep rivers from flooding certain areas, and sometimes they don't work either. Just ask the people in New Orleans.

And so forth. And yet, you know, sometimes they work. But nothing, not anything, could stand up against this flood.

Everything on this earth was subject to the flood's destructive power. Rock. I mean, when it says that the waters burst, burst out, it means rock and everything erupted as that water burst out from this planet.

And then, of course, as the weight of the water was upon the earth, it caused rock to go down and up.

And rock could not stand against it, certainly not earth, not trees, not buildings, not people. Nothing could slow it down. Now, I think we probably could assume that, but it's, I think, helpful for us to see that this is what the Bible is trying to convey.

That this was not just simply a lot of rain falling, you know, and falling long enough that we have a little flood, and so we've got water rising. This was a catastrophe, cataclysm.

And it was powerful, and nothing could stand against it. The third stage, the water covers the entire earth. And that's in verse 19.

And the waters prevailed. There's that word prevailed again. Prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.

All right, now in that verse, there are a couple of things to note. First, we have a testimony, again, to the magnitude of the flood.

And here it is repeated again. In fact, the same word is used. In fact, it's used in an interesting way, grammatically. Prevailed exceedingly.

You see those two words side by side in the Hebrew language. It's the same word twice. That would be redundant, wouldn't it? We wouldn't write that way. But again, when they wanted to make a strong emphasis, sometimes they put the word on the front.

Sometimes they would give us what's called a superlative. The same word side by side. Sometimes in Hebrew writing, you'll have the same word repeated three times.

The best example of that, in fact, I think maybe the only example in Scripture that I can remember, is holy, holy, holy, in reference to God.

And that is a superlative, a Hebrew superlative. This is a superlative. And the idea, again, is that the earth is absolutely subject to the power of the flood.

Now, let me stop there a minute, just in case you might think that this is just a little bit redundant. The point here is to understand that not only are we not just talking about just a little bit of water, or maybe a lot of water that's just, you know, kind of going up and flooding.

We're talking about something of a great magnitude. But not only that, but we're talking here about God's judgment. This is God's judgment.

And God's judgment cannot be stopped. There isn't anybody who can stand against His judgment. And so this is a testimony to that, because that's what the flood is all about.

God's judgment upon His creation. So we have, again, then, the testimony to the magnitude of the flood. But we have something else here.

We have this statement about the high hills being covered. The high hills are covered. Now, I didn't go back and check what other translations do with that.

I know a couple of them say hills, high hills, just like it says. And that is the meaning. However, don't get the idea that we're talking about foothills.

I know in the very next verse we have the word mountains. And really, the writer, when you consider the Hebrew text, the writer's not trying to make a distinction between the two.

He's using different words, but it's the same idea. And the reason we know that these are not just foothills, that these are actually mountains, is because of the word high. And in the Hebrew tongue, that could only describe, in relation to the word for hills, it could only describe mountains.

And so, what we have here, we have the mountains being covered by the water. All right. Now, also, and this is important for those who would argue that the flood was not universal, that it was just a localized kind of flood and so forth.

And so, those who have that view say, well, you know, yeah, the flood waters did cover over the top of these mountains, however tall they were. But it was just some mountains in that particular area.

No, no, no, because the Bible is very clear. The flood covered, what does it say there? All the high hills under the whole heaven. Being very inclusive here.

It's not vague at all. Now, a person can argue whether it's true, you know, and many do. And many make that same argument in connection with anything in God's word.

Some would throw the entire Bible out because it's just, you know, it's just Christian literature. So, you can deny its truthfulness, but you cannot deny what it means to say.

And it means to say that all the mountains over the entire earth, under the whole heaven, but that's all the earth were covered by the flood waters.

And then the final stage is the climax of the flood on the earth. And look how it's described in verse 20. The waters prevailed 15 cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.

Now, how high would that be? We, I don't remember when it was. I guess it was back when we were studying the construction of the ark and the dimensions that God gave.

And, of course, it was all in cubits. And there is, obviously, some question about just how long is a cubit. But most scholars really agree that it's about 18 inches.

That's the average. And my mom's giving the, yeah, thanks. It's from the elbow to the tip of the finger. Now, that may be how they measured a cubit in Noah's day.

It's very clear that they did in Moses' day, and Moses wrote this. So, it's very likely that that's what it was. Now, I measure mine. Mine's exactly 18 inches. Now, it would vary, of course.

But a cubit, then, on the average, if it's 18 inches, that would make the flood, mean that the waters of the flood rose 23 feet above the highest mountain.

Now, how high would that be? Well, to give us a sense of that, Mount Ararat, where after the floods receded where the ark rested, Mount Ararat is 17,000 feet high.

It's a pretty tall mountain. And the floodwaters were above it. They were more than 23 feet above it because Mount McKinley in Alaska is 20,000 feet.

And Mount Everest in the Himalayans, 29,000 feet high. 29,000 feet high. Now, some will argue and say, but there weren't mountains like that before the flood.

Well, the waters were above Mount Ararat when the flood went down. So, the flood either compensated for the creation of some mountains, which I don't think you could prove from Scripture, or there were mountains that tall before the flood.

Either way you want to cut it, the water was deep, deep, deep, deep. And imagine the volume of water it would take if that's all around the planet.

And 23 feet above the highest mountain. Tremendous amount of water. God, you see, determined to destroy all life on this planet by His righteousness and holiness.

He determined to destroy all life. And to do that, He covered the highest peaks to such a depth that no one could possibly survive. Except those who were safe in the ark.

Safe in God's grace. And His salvation. Alright, so that's the power of the flood. And so, we... You know, kind of a digression, but so that you can now see this in the bigger picture, or kind of the broad scope of it, the power of the flood is punctuated by the word prevailed.

Prevailed. Did you know, in the chapter, it appears four times. We've already looked at three of them. The waters prevailed. That very phrase, the waters prevailed, verse 18, and the ark moved above the surface of the waters.

The waters prevailed, verse 19, and all the high hills under the heaven were covered. The waters prevailed, verse 20, and reached its climax of 15 cubits, or 23 feet above the highest mountains that were all covered.

And then as a summary statement, verse 24, and verse 24 is a summary statement, the waters prevailed. There it is again, four times. The waters prevailed 150 days.

We'll get to the 150 days here in just a minute. Alright, so the earth gave way to the power of the flood. The earth and all her inhabitants gave way to the power of God's judgment.

There was no escape. No escape. Nothing, nothing could stand against it. And for 150 days, the powerful floodwaters that completely covered this planet, they also absolutely altered every square inch of the surface of this planet.

The geographical and geological features that we see today testify to the power of the flood. And so for these 150 days, I believe massive storms of gigantic proportions erupted, occurred on this earth.

Tidal waves like, you know, we can't even imagine. Earthquakes because of the weight of that water and the upheaval that's taking place inside our planet and that would affect it all the way to its core.

And so volcanic eruptions surely took place. Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, all these things were taking place and for what purpose?

To destroy this earth. Destroy it. Alright, so that's the power of the flood. The scope of the flood, the second thing, I'm not going to spend any time on at all. I'm just going to let you read that if you want to.

And by the way, if you haven't looked at it, it really approaches not just from the biblical record but also from the standpoint of science and so forth.

So it's very interesting. I think you'll find it interesting. So read those. There's 114 reasons to believe in the universal flood. And that's the scope of the flood. Not localized, but universal.

Global flood. Alright, the results of the flood. That's the last thing we're going to look at tonight. And that being said, what time is it? I better hurry.

The results of the flood. It's pretty clear. And there is this all-inclusive statement in verse 21.

And all flesh died that moved on the earth. Not one escaped. Not one. Again, except Noah. We'll get to Noah and his family a little later here.

That's inclusive. All flesh died that moved on the earth. That means fish were excluded, by the way. Though I'm sure many fish died in the upheaval that took place.

But there's no mention there here of fish dying being destroyed. We can speculate about that if we want to. But it says all flesh died that moved on the earth.

And it's going to give us some other descriptions that really help define that a little bit more. So there's that all-inclusive statement. But there is also a progressive element in these verses.

Verses 21, 22, and 23. It's progressive. It's getting more intense. And it's kind of interesting when you recognize that.

There's a reason for it. Because when you start reading 21, 22, 23, it seems repetitious. It's kind of redundant. You know? It's just like it's describing it again and again.

But you will notice that each time it says something a little bit different, something a little bit more. And there's a reason for this kind of progression in the intensity.

Because it is intended to highlight God's grace. Which is what it's going to end with. We're moving toward God's grace toward Noah and his family.

And to put that in boldness. You know? sharp relief. Then we're moving in intensity in the judgment part and then we have Noah.

And it just highlights God's grace. Let me show you what I mean. Verses 21, 22. And all flesh died that moved on the earth. See the word died?

They all died. Birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and every man every man all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life all that was on the dry land died.

Alright, again fisher excluded here. I don't have an answer for why that is. Alright, so twice the word died in those two verses. Describes the victims of the flood.

It's going to describe it again here in a minute. But it describes it here in verses 21, 22. And all flesh died and and then all that was on the dry land died.

Now that's bad enough, isn't it? They all died. Isn't that bad? That's pretty bad, I think. But it gets worse. Yeah.

It gets worse. Verse 23. So he that is God then what's that word? Destroyed. All living things that were on the face of the ground.

Both man and cattle creeping thing and bird of the air. And we have another little description of who died. But the word died is not there.

It's destroyed. They were and it ends with they were destroyed from the earth. And we're not done with verse 23. We're done with that part of it.

So in verses 21, 22 all flesh died. All that was on the dry land died. And that's bad. They all died. Verse 23. And he that is God destroyed.

Now the result was the same. They all died. But there's a difference between the two. See, not just died but destroyed.

Alright, so not just happened. because people do die because things happen. And the people died verse 21, 22 and the animals and so forth died because something happened.

The flood happened. And so you would expect them to die and there's no reason to say there that well this is God doing it.

They just died because something happened. Alright, that's intense but it's going to get more intense because then verse 23 says he destroyed them. So not just died but destroyed.

Not just happened but made to happen. Made to happen. And this is the judgment of God. And so it could not be made stronger than that and you know from our human perspective based upon our own human feelings that makes us uncomfortable to say that or to believe that or to dwell upon that that God destroyed them.

You mean every man and woman? Yes. Every child every baby. That's intense.

See there's a progression here. They all died in the flood. God destroyed them in the flood. And it's made intense in this way so that we see the seriousness of the judgment so that we can see the greatness of his grace.

Because in verse 23 the latter part of it this is a testimony to the grace of God. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.

And actually the word alive is not in the text. It's in italics in the New King James. It's added by the translators. It just ends with remained. They remained.

And obviously the idea is they remained alive. But they're saved. Under God's grace. And so they were not just the only ones still living.

That's why the word remained is so strong. They're not just the only ones still living. They were the only ones who remained period because God wiped out all the rest because of sin.

The seriousness of sin. That's the result of the flood. And then there are today numerous evidences of a catastrophic result.

The catastrophic results of the flood. The Bible doesn't go into details about it but I could mention a few. Some of the results are geographical. obviously like the Grand Canyon.

Carlsbad Cavern. That's a result of the flood. Mammoth cave. Massive ravines carved on this earth. Gullies.

Huge gullies and canyons. Even under the seas. Caused by the recession of the flood waters. And caves caused by that remnants of where the water was stored underground.

So the flood is the only thing that could really explain all those. Take the Grand Canyon for an example. Four to 18 miles wide. 280 miles long.

Some places a mile deep. The usual explanation of course is that it was carved out by the Colorado River over millions of years. But guess what?

the walls of the canyon are primarily marine limestone and shale and sandstone and even unbelieving scientists say that it appears it clearly must be the result of a quote and here's a quote from a scientist a limey ooze mud and sand laid down in water.

How to get there? How to get carved out like that? How did it get there first? It all settled there because of the flood and the upheaval and all settled and then as the water receded it carved out places.

Have you ever after rain say in your yard or maybe a dirt place where you don't have grass growing and you see erosion and you look at it from up high it looks like Grand Canyon doesn't it?

And if you were getting into a plane and maybe you had flown over the Grand Canyon or canyons like and you looked at it it looks just the same doesn't it? Well how did that happen? The receding of the water have water volumes and volumes of it rushing down and carving that out of the ground.

Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico extends more than a mile deep into the earth's crust. The main cavern is more than 23 miles long. Carlsbad.

The ceiling of what they call the big room I've never been to Carlsbad. 185 feet above the floor. Huge.

Cavernous. Literally. Clearly the product of something like massive amounts of water. The results of the flood.

Some are geographical. Some are geological. Like coal for example that we have today. Fossil fuels.

Why do they call it fossil fuels? Because it's made out of plant material and grasses and trees and yeah human material. And they were instantaneously buried under tons and tons and tons of earth and rock.

And how did that happen? Waters came bursting, breaking through the crust. Really the crust of this planet just exploded. And massive amounts of vegetation and animal and human life were suddenly buried.

Not just buried but under tons and tons of heavy rock and sediment. And that causes heat and pressure in turning those deposits into coal that we burn today.

And the supply is abundant. a testimony of just how much there was that was buried here. One deposit of coal discovered in South Wales about the turn of 1900s.

I don't know how much of it's still there now but this is South Wales was estimated to be 12,000 feet thick and covered an area of 1,000 square miles.

Now how did all that get there? Incredible. And then there's petroleum another fossil fuel and a credible scientist he said in the light of the fact that millions of fish and animals of all species and human beings were killed by the flood it would account for both the raw material to make the petroleum and the ideal entrapment of the animals and their burial deep in the earth's crust.

Results of the flood geographical geological and then one last one will be meteorological things work differently now than they did prior to the flood meteorologically speaking.

The amount and this ties in with the coal and petroleum the amount of coal and petroleum deposits that we have on this planet and still have an abundance of contrary to what some would tell us the abundance of those deposits attest to the fact that the vegetation and animal life and I think even human life was more abundant prior to the flood than it ever has been since even though we talk about world population and population explosions and we're overpopulated I don't think it was anything like it was prior to the flood and especially we know of vegetation and the explanation is number one the canopy that enveloped this entire planet that was burst and let out all this water this planet was like one big greenhouse and the inhabitants were not only protected but by the harmful ultraviolet rays and such from the sun but it provided an ideal environment for growth growth of plant life especially and they were watered of course from underneath their roots were watered the most ideal way to water plants and so

I don't think we could even begin to imagine the density of the vegetation on this planet prior to the flood and all that after the flood or as a result of the flood became the coal deposits that we used today and then too there is also I think proven by science obviously there's a tilt the planet is tilted 23 and one half degree tilt from vertical from vertical plane and I think the flood explains that I'm not the only one many who do the sheer weight of the catastrophe that actually tilted our planet so that meteorologically things have changed since the flood Thank you.