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Amen. In Genesis chapter 7, we read there a familiar account of one of the famous stories in the Bible about God flooding the earth, Noah building the ark, and being saved along with his family. The title of my sermon this morning is The Global Flood. The Global Flood. Now this story is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. A lot of people already know the basics of it, but it's something that has great relevance today because it has end time significance according to the book of 2 Peter. We're going to get to that a little bit later. But there's a thought out there that I also want to deal with a little bit this morning. This idea that the flood in the Bible was actually just a local flood. And there are people who will try to claim that the Bible could be saying that it was just a local region that was flooded. And I'm going to show you the absurdity of that idea as we look at the biblical text itself. So let's back up a little bit to Genesis chapter 6. Look at Genesis chapter 6 verse 6. The Bible reads in Genesis 6, 6, 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. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And so the first thing I want to point out here about the flood is that the purpose of the flood is to wipe out all of humanity. There's no bones about it. And right away we start reading the Bible, this big long book, 1189 chapters, and we're only six chapters in. And God is ready to wipe out all of humanity because of all of the violence. That's the thing that keeps being brought up earlier. Violence and wickedness of man is great. The thoughts of his heart are only evil continually. And this should right away tell us something about the holiness and the judgment and the wrath of Almighty God. A lot of people have this idea, well, I don't believe in a God that would bring judgment or that would send people to hell or that would punish sin. Well, you don't believe in the God of the Bible because right away we're being introduced to that side of God's character here in Genesis chapter 6 because the flood is not just about drowning animals or something. It's not just about giving the earth a geographical or geological makeover. The point is, he says, I'm going to destroy man whom I've created from the face of the earth. That's the purpose here. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now before we go any further, let's go to the New Testament and look at some interpretations of the flood from the New Testament. We'll be back in Genesis, but go to Hebrews chapter number 11. Remember, the best commentary on the Old Testament is always going to be the New Testament, right? We need to always use the New Testament as the lens through which to view the Old Testament because when the New Testament is interpreting things from the Old Testament, it's authoritative. It's God's word. And so we know that those interpretations are right. So if we go to Hebrews chapter 11, we have a reference to this event. And it says in verse 7, by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. So of course, this is the great faith chapter, sometimes called the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. And it's going through all of the Old Testament characters that did great things by faith or were saved by faith and so forth. And here it says that Noah was warned by God of things not seen as yet. And based on hearing the word of God, based on fear of that wrath and punishment that he knows is coming of a destructive worldwide flood, he makes the ark. He does what God tells him to do because he believes that it's really coming. And so by doing that, it says that he saved his house, but in the process of saving his family by putting them aboard the ark, the Bible says he condemned the world. Now how did Noah condemn the world? Because make no mistake, the subject of he condemned the world, that's not God. Because it says he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. That's talking about Noah. Now how did Noah condemn the world? By building the ark. Well here's the thing. If God would have just wiped out the entire planet and not saved anyone alive, then God would have been breaking his promise that he made in Genesis chapter 3 when he makes the promise to Adam and Eve that someday the seed of the woman is going to bruise the serpent's head. So in Genesis 3.15, we have that prediction that Jesus Christ is going to come someday and that he's going to come of the seed of the woman, that he's going to come and be born of humanity. And so if you wipe out all of humanity, then how can Jesus ever be born? Therefore the whole world can't be wiped out. But by Noah actually making the ark, that basically allowed God now to wipe out the rest of the world because he could still keep his promise through Noah and his family. And so therefore, Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world. And he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. And here's one thing I always think of whenever I read this verse. I think of when you go to a class and things are graded on a curve. And then there's that one egghead who gets a hundred on the test. And then it's like, oh man, you know, there goes the curve, right? Well Noah got a hundred. And so everybody else fails. You know, he set the curve as it were. And so the point here is that God wiped out all of humanity except Noah and his family. That is crystal clear from the text. Flip just a few pages in the right, in your Bible, to 1 Peter chapter 3, Hebrews, James, 1, 2 Peter. Go to 1 Peter chapter 3. We'll find another verse that indicates this. It says in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 20, which sometimes were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water. And so eight people are saved, right? Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives. And when we say saved, we're not talking about spiritually saved as in going to heaven. We're talking saved from drowning, right? They were saved from the flood, eight people only, everyone else dies. The Bible's very clear about that, okay? And notice it says while the ark was a preparing. Building the ark was a very long process. The Bible says in Genesis 6, man's days shall be 120 years, which seems to indicate that the warning was given to Noah 120 years before the flood began. And so there's a long period of time while the ark was a preparing, and that's what this is referring to, and then the fact that some were disobedient during that time makes it seem to indicate that they're being warned to change their ways, that there's a chance for repentance that isn't taken. And so the flood comes and destroys them all. Look if you would at 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5, just a couple pages to the right, 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5. And the thing I'm emphasizing here is that Noah alone and his family survived the flood. Everyone else is wiped out because we're talking about this in a context of global flood or regional flood, as some people would try to put forth, local flood, regional flood. We'll talk more about that later, but look at 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, meaning there's eight people on that ark and he's the eighth one. A preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. Again, why is the world being destroyed? Because of extreme violence, wickedness, and ungodliness of the inhabitants thereof. That's the point of the flood. So go back with all that in mind to Genesis chapter 6, and we'll get back into the original narrative in the book of Genesis. So it says in verse number 11, the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto 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, make thee an ark of gopher wood, room shalt thou make in the ark, and shall pitch it with wind and without pitch. And he goes and describes all of the details about how the ark is to be constructed. Now the people who come along and want to tell you that this is a local flood or regional flood, what they'll really home in on are these phrases like the earth, upon the earth, the whole earth, all the earth, those type of things. And what they'll say is, well, you know, if you go back to the Hebrew, then, you know, the word for earth there can also just mean the land, like the vicinity, the region. So it's like, hey, I'm going to destroy this whole region. The whole region is filled with violence, okay? And I'm going to show you how this doesn't work at all. And here's what is so bad about this, and here's why it's so important to understand that the King James Bible needs to be the final authority in your life, and you need to just trust the King James Bible that it has been faithfully translated from the original Greek and Hebrews, that you have a bunch of bozos coming along that are going to claim to go back to the Hebrew, go back to the Greek. Most of the time, I would say 99% of pastors who get up and say, well, if you go back to the Hebrew, it says this, go back to the Greek, it says this, do not understand Greek or Hebrew. They're literally using computer software, they're using a concordance, they're using a lexicon, and they just know how to play with these tools and come up with these exotic, wild new interpretations to wow the audience with their knowledge, and it's garbage, okay? And even the ones who do understand Greek and Hebrew, these guys, which are very few and far between, first of all, but even them, okay, when they go back to the Greek or the Hebrew, you don't know that they're telling you the truth. Many times, they could just be putting their own slant or bias on the text for whatever other reason, and you have no way of checking it out, because you don't know Greek or Hebrew, and so you're just kind of at their mercy, and there's this impression that you can't understand the Bible. And that is wrong, my friend. If you are saved, and you have the Holy Spirit inside you, and you have a King James Bible in your lap, you should be able to see the truth right in front of you. And if you can't see it, it's because it isn't there. So don't let somebody tell you that it's in another language or whatever. And here's another clue, by the way. There is no mainstream English Bible version, even all the other wrong versions out there, that we would not approve of, even liberal versions that we would not condone, even they are going to say that it's the whole earth being flooded, right? So it's almost like you have three different tiers. Tier one is like, hey, King James, just trust the traditional text, the traditional translation, what Christians have always believed and preached, what we've always known to be true from the traditional text, right? Then there's like another level where we get into some corruption of saying, oh, it's the ESV, it's the NIV, but let me tell you something. Then you get to an even worse corruption where it's just some guy telling you what the Hebrew says, even though nobody translates it that way. Do you see what I'm saying? So it's like here you have the King James, which is correct, and then you sink down deeper when you go to these wrong versions, but you want to go to the lowest of the low? It's some guy telling you, oh, every version is wrong. Here's what the Hebrew really says, it's just the region that got flooded. It's just that area. Funny how nobody translates it that way. Why? Because serious scholars know that that's stupid and that that doesn't fit what's being said in the text, but you're always going to find somebody with some wild exotic way to translate it because he knows how to read the Hebrew alphabet sort of barely. So they would read this as like, verse 11, they'd read this as like, oh, you know, the region was also ... But here's the thing about that. It's translated as earth because it means earth here. And the people who translated it, they know that words mean different things in different contexts and they don't mean all of the above in every context. Does everybody see what I'm saying? I mean, we could give all kinds of examples in English. If I said, hey, he was buttering, he was buttering, he was buttering him up. Is there any actual butter involved there? But if you go back to the Greek, there's butter there. That's the kind of stupidity of just not understanding that different words are used in different ways. I mean, it sounds like he's a cannibal or something, you know? But there's different words used different ways in different contexts. And that's why you have to actually know the language and read the language, not just look up a word and say, oh, there's five definitions, let me just pick the one I like. Oh, it doesn't always mean the whole world, sometimes it's just the region. Well, let's see if that can stand up to scrutiny and let's see why every version translates it as the whole earth in these passages. But again, we need to stick with King James because the NIV, the ESV have other problems, amen? So let's stick with what we got here in the traditional Bible here, the King James. And so in verse number 17, he says, I, behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven. And everything that is in the earth shall die. Now look, you can't get much clearer than this folks. We've seen over and over again, the whole world's going to be flooded. Everybody's going to die. Everything that breatheth, everything wherein is the breath of life, all flesh under heaven, everything that's in the earth, like any questions? It's pretty clear, isn't it? Look at verse 19 and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female. The whole point of bringing two of each animal on the ark is to keep them alive because everything outside the ark's getting destroyed. So all of your land animals are going to drown along with the humans. It says in verse number four of chapter seven, if you flip over to chapter seven, verse four, for yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights and every living substance that I've made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. Now again, what is being destroyed? Every living substance that I have made. So if God created it and it's alive and it lives on the dry land, it's going to die. Bible's very clear about this. Jump down if you would to verse 17 and the flood was 40 days upon the earth and the waters increased and bare up the ark and it was lift up above the earth and the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And just in case there are any children or anybody who's just totally unfamiliar with the story here, the ark is a giant boat. You know, in case you didn't grasp that, basically God's going to flood the world. He's going to save Noah and his family alive. So he instructs Noah to build this specific giant type of a boat that's going to be able to float upon the waters of the flood and this vessel is known as the ark, right? And so when the waters prevail upon the earth, the ark is borne up upon the face of the waters. It's floating on the top of the waters as the earth is flooded. The Bible says in verse 19, the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, watch this, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. So even if someone wanted to make this wrong argument that, well, sometimes the earth is just like the land, like the land of Israel or something, you know, what about the whole heaven? Because it's not like the heaven is divided up into countries or something. No, it says in so many different ways, it's almost like God is anticipating that people would read this text and try to downplay this event. So he almost just repeats it redundantly just to make the point. We're talking all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Now here's the thing about water. If the hills are covered, you can't have a certain region that's flooded because what would be holding the water in that region? The only thing that would contain this flood would be mountains or hills, right? Like if you could say, well, this valley got flooded, this lowland got flooded, well then that would mean around the edge of the valley would be higher ground mountains, hills that would be holding back. But if the hills are covered, guess what, then the water's going gushing over the side. I mean, it's kind of common sense, but like, you know, if the walls of your bathtub are covered with water, you know, you're going to need to mop the floor because it's not like there's just going to be water inside the tub and it's just going to cover the walls and no, it just doesn't work that way, does it? And so it says all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Verse 20, 15 cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered. So the way, what this is saying is that the mountains are covered and then you have 15 minutes of water above the mountain. So the mountains are covered to a depth of 15 cubits. Now a cubit is the distance between the middle finger and the elbow of an average man. So it's like, and I'm a pretty average man, so it's like 18 inches or something, right? So it's like a foot and a half. So if it's 15 cubits, we're basically saying it's like 22 and a half feet approximately above the mountains. Mountains are covered and then there's just another like 22 feet of water. And the point being made here is just that there's no dry land, nobody's like standing on top of some mountain up to their waist in water, okay, because it's 20 feet deep even on the top of the mountain. Does everybody see that? Look at verse 21, just in case you didn't grasp it yet, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth. I mean look at these qualifiers, like everything that moves, everything that breathes, everything that's under heaven, everything that's living on the earth, on the dry land, it's all dead. And it says all in whose, or let me finish that, verse 21, all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle and of beasts and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man. Did I mention that every man and every animal died? All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was in the dry land died and every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive and they that were with them in the ark and the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days. So just in case you think, well it was short enough to where somebody could tread water, somebody's good at back float, they could build a little raft or something, it's 150 days that the waters are prevailing upon the earth. So unless you have the ark like Noah, you're not going to make it because in the ark he's not only storing up food and he's sheltered and he's got the animals and he's got everything that he needs, he's got everything that the animal needs, nobody outside this ark that's a land dwelling creature whether man or beast is alive. Nothing could be clearer from this text. It says in verse number 24 that the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days, let's go to the next chapter, Genesis chapter 8 verse 4. Genesis chapter 8 verse 4 says and the ark rested in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month upon the mountains of Ararat. Now it doesn't say necessarily specifically upon Mount Ararat so it's not resting on top of a mountain necessarily or even on the side of the biggest peak, Mount Ararat, but the mountains of Ararat does tell us that that's the region that we're talking about, Ararat, and so it came to rest somewhere in the mountains of Ararat which means that just let's just entertain this absurd idea for a moment of a local or regional flood, okay? Well then what's the region? I mean we kind of know what region we're talking about, am I right? The region would have to be a region that would include Mount Ararat because if it says all the high hills are covered, all the mountains are covered, well we're definitely including Mount Ararat in that because Mount Ararat's right there and wherever he landed he should be able to look out the window at some point and see Mount Ararat because he's in the mountains of Ararat so he can see that peak somewhere in the distance, it better be covered in water by at least 22 feet. And again, I speak as a fool, I'm entertaining this idea of the local thing because obviously I don't believe that for one second, I'm just saying that even if you went local you have to agree that Mount Ararat is covered. Well here's the thing about Mount Ararat, Mount Ararat is 16,854 feet high. Now obviously mountains can slowly change in elevation over time, they're always changing a little bit, but hey we're in the ballpark, we're talking ballpark, 16, 17,000 feet. Now just to put that in perspective, there is no mountain in the lower 48 states of the U.S. that is 16,000 feet. The tallest mountain in Arizona is 12,633 feet. How many of you have been to the top of it, Mount Humphreys? How many of you went to the top of it with me? Then the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states is Mount Whitney, which is approximately 14,400 feet. To get taller than that in the United States you have to go up to Alaska, then you have mountains that are 20-some thousand feet tall, of course you have Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, which is some, I don't really know exactly off the top of my head, somewhere around 25,000 feet, 28,000 feet, does somebody have that number handy? 29, 32, man we're all over the place here, 29,000, okay. So yeah, it doesn't really matter, but 29,000 feet or whatever. But here's the relevant thing that I want to point out, if Mount Ararat is almost 17,000 feet tall, so back then it would have been similar to that, obviously it changes a little bit over time, but it would have been similar to that even back then because there's erosion and uplift and different things going on. But the point is that the highest permanent settlement in the world on this planet, the entire planet, I just want to make this point, people don't live on top of Mount Everest or on top of Mount McKinley, like you can't live in those places, okay. The highest permanent settlement in the world is called La Rinconada, it's in the Andes Mountains of Peru and it sits at about 16,732 feet, okay. So the point is that even if you have a flood that covers Mount Ararat by 20 feet and floods everything even in that region, it would flood every single person in the entire planet, every person would be dead, okay. So at the end of the day it becomes kind of irrelevant, it becomes, and again I don't buy, I'm saying global flood, in fact let me just write you the title of the sermon, global flood, I don't want you to think that I'm somehow buying into this regional flood thing, I'm just showing you how it is silly, okay. So I went online and I wanted to see, because I've heard about this local flood from a lot of people and it seems like when the average person brings this local flood to you, they're implying that everybody didn't die, that only the wicked people in Noah's region, it was just like God's really mad at the people who lived in that region and he wipes out those people and they always, every single person I've ever heard talk about this regional flood, local flood, it was always like everybody only dies in that region and other people are alive somewhere else and that's garbage because the Bible is crystal clear on that. But then what's funny is when I googled local flood, like to try to see who's teaching this, the name that just kept coming up as who's teaching the local flood was this guy by the name of Hugh Ross, who's a Christian apologist or something and here's what's funny is that Hugh Ross acknowledged every single person died, but you know there was just, there was some stuff that wasn't covered in water really far away. Just stop and think about how silly this is, like hold on a second, so you're telling me God killed every human and he killed every animal but you know, thousands some odd miles away, thousands of miles away, you know Mount Everest just kind of poking out the top with nothing alive on it. So what? What are we even, at some point it just becomes vain jangling, like what are we even talking about? Is that really even relevant to the story? But here's the thing, this is what he said though, he said well yeah but when you say it's a local flood, and what he means by local is it still kills everyone, but he's like yeah but when you say local flood then you know, atheists are more open to your message. Why? You know why? Because they're imagining something else in your mind. When you say local flood, here's what they're thinking, Chinese people are fine, India's fine, Africa's fine, you know what I mean, it's just a local flood. So it just seems misleading if anything what he's teaching and just seems kind of silly. So here's a quote from his article that I read. He said this, from what we see in the first 11 chapters in Genesis, by the time of Noah, human beings had yet to build cities in Antarctica and Greenland. And therefore there would be no need for God to flood Antarctica and Greenland, Ross explained. Well the highest point on Antarctica is like 8,000 feet, 8,200 feet. So if he flooded Mount Ararat, Greenland and Antarctica got flooded. Does everybody see what I'm saying, like this doesn't even make sense. You can't just flood over here a mountain that is 16, 17,000 feet high and then over here in Antarctica you got an 8,000 foot elevation poking out for no reason. You got a little 12,000 foot deal in Greenland poking out for no reason except just to make atheists feel good. Nuts to the atheists, nuts to them. God doesn't spend a lot of time in the Bible trying to prove to atheists that he's real. You know why? Because the Bible says without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and that's why the Bible says he that is unjust let him be unjust still and he that is filthy let him be filthy still. He that is righteous let him be righteous still and he that is holy let him be holy still and behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be, hey whatever man do what you want but in the beginning God created heaven and the earth, deal with it. Oh don't worry it was a regional flood. Oh what must I do to be saved? Like that's really just going to fix everything with atheists. The problem with the atheists is that the fool has said in his heart there is no God. The problem with the atheists is that he is willfully ignorant of these things. That's what the Bible says and so this idea of saying well let's just call it a regional flood here's the region 99% of the planet. Gotcha sucka! Because if it's a regional flood, just think for a minute, if it's a regional flood it's 16,000 feet deep and if it's probably more like 17,000 feet deep and I mean this is if it's regional. How much of the planet is that going to cover? The whole United States is covered. You'd have some things poking out in Alaska. You got Mount Everest poking out over here. You know Kilimanjaro's poking out. How is that a regional flood? How is that localized? Local and it's 99% of the planet 99.9% of the planet you see what I mean and so this thing of a local flood what it is is that it's kind of a slippery slope because when you start saying well you know you didn't have to flood the whole world then all of a sudden you're opening the door for a bunch of Chinese and Japanese people to escape the flood. A bunch of Japanese people hanging out in Mount Fuji or something and it's garbage. So like to me sitting and arguing about whether Mount Everest is poking out or not I don't think it's poking out. I think everything's covered but even if it were poking out if it doesn't have any people or animals on it it isn't really relevant. It doesn't really affect the price of tea in China so why are we even talking about it? I just thought that was kind of silly it's kind of you know insisting that God didn't flood these uninhabited places it's kind of just meaningless and it seems to be so that we can mislead atheists I guess so we can just kind of sneak up on them and get them saved or something before they know what hit them. You know why not just be honest about it and say hey God wiped out humanity. What's the takeaway from the story? Is this a geology book or something? No the takeaway from the story is that God's angry with the wicked every day and that God wiped out humanity. That's what you ought to be focused on okay and you know you're a little too into the geology because it's kind of irrelevant to the story at that point. All right let's get back to the story here it says in Genesis chapter 8 verse 4 the ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month upon the mountains of Ararat and the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month on the first day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen. Obviously if he's seeing them yeah that's probably the local mountain that's probably you know Mount Ararat 16,800 feet or whatever but what you have to understand is that it says here, let me back up and read it again, the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. Now remember let's just do a little math here okay. The waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days. So 150 days in let's say you're at max depth right. So how many months is 150 days? So you're five months in is when you're at max depth. Then the waters decreasing, decreasing, decreasing, decreasing continually and it takes all the way until the tenth month on the first day. So five more months go by right or I guess sorry four more months go by because you know five months would include like let's include all of May or whatever. So June, July, August, September, four months go by waters decreasing continually every day they're getting lower and it takes four months until the tops of the mountains are seen. Why? Because the water was all the way up over Everest which he doesn't know about so it's going down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down for four months and then it's like there's the top of Mount Ararat. If it was only 20 feet above Mount Ararat, is everybody following me? If we're only 20 feet above Mount Ararat it's not going to take four months of continually decreasing to see the top of Mount Ararat it's going to take like a few days. But if we're all the way over the top of Mount Everest well then yeah that might take four months as we decrease continually and so to me I think this is a very strong just debunking of that idea anyway of the so-called local flood of Hugh Ross. You know the biblical text just cannot sustain that kind of abuse I should say. I was going to say reading but it's more of like an abuse of the text. It's more like going to the text and saying well here's what I wanted to say let me see if I can make it do that. Let me see if I could fit my idea into what the Bible says. You know if you want to believe something else then just go believe something else but let's not change what the Bible says. Right I mean the Bible says what it says let's stick with the traditional text, the traditional reading and not these exotic wild new readings by people that often are not even fluent in the language virtually always I should say. So it says here that the tops of the mountains are seen in the tenth month, first day of the month. Let's jump down to verse 14. In the second month on the seventh and the seventh and 20th day of the month was the earth dried and God spake unto Noah, so this is the next year of course, and God spake unto Noah saying go forth of the ark thou and thy wife and thy sons and thy sons wives with thee and bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all the flesh both of fowl and of cattle and of creeping thing and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth that they may breed abundantly in the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth and Noah went forth and his sons and his wife and his sons wives with them every beast every creeping thing and every fowl and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after their kinds went forth out of the ark. And so we see here that everybody comes out of the ark and they're told to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth because they're replacing that which is gone. Chapter 9 verse 1 says God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Verse 7 you be fruitful and multiply bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein and the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth. Verse 18 Ham is the father of Canaan. Verse 19 these are the three sons of Noah and watch this and of them was the whole earth overspread. So the Bible is saying the entire earth is populated from the descendants of these three men Shem Ham and Japheth the three sons of Noah. And let me just say this jumped out we'll jump down to verse 11 or chapter 11 I'm sorry chapter 11 verse 1 I want to show you just a couple more things here. It says the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. Again if we're talking about a certain region this wouldn't really be anything to write home about. A certain region being of the same language and of the same speech isn't really worth talking about right? But if the whole world is of the same language and of the same speech then that is actually significant because that's very different than the world that we live in with thousands of different languages being spoken. And so because everybody had just gotten off the ark and they've been off the ark for less than a hundred years they're all still speaking the same language. They're all of one language and of one speech and then of course the Tower of Babel story happens and then in verse 9 it says therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. And so from there they got scattered into the whole rest of the world. It's pretty crystal clear that we're talking about a global flood. All right so that's it for the story from Genesis. Let's go to the New Testament and get some applications. Go to 2 Peter chapter number 2. This is something that of course you know Peter refers to a lot in his writing because he talks about the flood quite a bit in 1 Peter. He talks about it multiple times in 2 Peter. So it's definitely a theme with Peter in his epistles. All right so 2 Peter chapter number 2 and by the way a little bit earlier my calculation was a little bit off. I wasn't thinking for a second. I was calculating it as if he got in on the first day of the first month because it was five months. So it was probably more like two and a half or three months from the time that the water started to abate to the time that Ararat is seen. And so my point still stands though that if it takes two and a half, three months to go continually decreasing to get from there to there you obviously have to go much higher than Mount Ararat and so you flooded the whole globe at that point. Anyway just wanted to say that. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 4 says this, for of God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment and spared not the old world but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, and then here's the key phrase, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. And so the thing I want to point out here is that the story of the flood is all about the judgment and wrath of God upon sin because notice how it's sandwiched between these two things. Verse 4, the angels that sinned were cast down to hell, delivered into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment and then in verse 6 we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. So one is about sending fallen angels to hell, one is about pouring out a living hell upon Sodom and Gomorrah and then sandwiched in between is the bringing in of the flood upon the world of the ungodly. And so one of the great morals of the story is that God will judge sin, God will pour out his wrath upon wickedness just as he judged the angels that sinned, he spared them not it says in verse 4. Verse 5, he spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, he condemned them with an overthrow. Why would we think that in 2024 God is just going to turn a blind eye to sin? Why would we think that he's not going to punish? Why would we think he wouldn't send people to hell? And the Bible tells us this from the beginning. Why would we think that America is not going to be punished if we spit in the face of God and live in all kinds of unrighteousness and sin and iniquity we should understand that these examples are in the Bible to show us the nature of God. God is a God of wrath and judgment. Yes God is a loving God. Yes God is a compassionate God but he's also a God of wrath and judgment. His compassion is shown that he saved Noah and his family alive. His compassion is shown that even when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah he pulled out Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah. So there are people that can be saved of course and it's easy to be saved because the Bible asked the question what must I do to be saved and they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Anybody can easily be saved just by believing in Jesus but if you're not going to believe in Jesus then you have no covering for your sin, you have no atonement for your sin, you're going to face the wrath of Almighty God and you will go to hell when you die and that's what the Bible clearly teaches. Look if you would to 2 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter chapter number 3 we have another mention of the flood, 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 5 it says for this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished but the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men. So lest someone should think that maybe God's character has changed and that God back then in the Old Testament was a God of wrath but in the New Testament it's all love. Now this is an idea that a lot of people have out there. Some people even say like well he kind of believes in an Old Testament God and it's just absurd because there's only one God and he's the God of the Old and the New Testament and the Old Testament does not portray God differently as the New Testament. I could sit here for the next hour reading you Bible verses from the Old Testament about the love of God, about the mercy of God, about the compassion of God, about the grace of God. We could literally fill a whole hour just reading verses about God's love, mercy, and compassion. Even the text that we already read about the flood said Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But all of these sayings of Christ that people bring up to say that somehow New Testament God is different than Old Testament God are typically quotes from the Old Testament. Like when Jesus said, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, that's a quote from Leviticus chapter 19. So it's not that Old Testament God is different than New Testament God because the New Testament is literally pointing us back to the Old Testament and saying hey look at the flood, look at Sodom and Gomorrah, that should be an example unto you today. But not only that, the Bible is saying that there is a flood-like event coming in the future. Now God has promised that he would never flood the earth again so that we don't have to get nervous when it starts raining and flooding thinking this is it, this is the end. It isn't. There will never be another global flood, that's over. But what does the Bible say in verse 6, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished, verse 7, but the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. So therefore in the past God flooded the world to destroy it. God will destroy the world again in the future but he will do it with fire and not water. And that is what the Bible, it's not that God has softened up, he has just changed implements with which to destroy the world. The same God who destroyed it in Genesis 6 destroys it in 2 Peter chapter 3. The same God in Genesis who flooded and wiped out humanity is the same God pouring out his wrath in the book of Revelation. Now if God were going to soften up in the Bible, the book of Revelation is literally his last chance to do so. You know what I mean? It's like we read 65 books, we get to the last book, Revelation, if it's time for God to soften up, he better do it fast because we only have a few pages left in the Bible. And what do we see? We see Revelation being worse than what we see in Genesis. More wrath, more destruction, more torment, more people are dying in Revelation than in Genesis. It's just a fact. So don't kid yourself into thinking that Genesis is some kind of an archaic view of God or something. Is Revelation archaic because it's the last book in the Bible and it still portrays God as bringing forth great wrath and judgment. The Bible says that the first world was destroyed by water but that the heaven and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved under fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Look at verse 10, it says, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. That's what's coming in the future, my friend. And so we don't want to get an idea that God has changed. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And so we need to, yes, preach the love of God, the compassion of God, the mercy of God, and thank God for his unspeakable gift, the free gift of salvation, but we need to remember that God is not going to turn a blind eye to the sins of the ungodly. Okay, whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. And those who do not have Jesus Christ as their savior, they're going to have to face God for the sins that they've done and that is a scary thought, it should be a scary thought. That's why Noah was moved with fear when he prepared an ark to the saving of his house. So again, just to back up and quickly review, God, his purpose for the flood was to destroy humanity. It's very clear the problem was violence, wickedness, he was trying to wipe out the human race, but he also with it wiped out the entire land dwelling animal population. Very clear about that, right? But just as he saved Noah and his family alive, he also saved two of each of the unclean beasts, seven of each of the clean beasts in order to repopulate the earth after the flood is over. There can be a reset button, a new beginning when they get off the ark, we can keep those species alive and have humans once again populating the earth. Was the flood a regional or local flood? First of all, the term regional or local flood is totally misleading because the biggest proponents of it are having to admit that the Bible is crystal clear, right? I mean the biggest name I could find was Hugh Ross, so this isn't a straw man, he was the big one that kept coming up and what did he say? He said every human was wiped out. Well then, that's not really regional or local. That wouldn't be a regional flood, that'd be like a regional dryness, that'd be like a local dry spot, that wouldn't be a local flood. Because when I hear the word local flood, I'm thinking just Mesopotamia flooded, right? I mean isn't that what it sounds like? And in fact, if you look up local flood, that's what people were saying, just Mesopotamia was flooded. Well, so you're going to spend 120 years building a boat because Mesopotamia is flooded? Here's an idea, Noah, how about just go somewhere else? I mean think about it, like why would you spend 120 years building a boat so you don't drown in a local flood? It's kind of silly, isn't it, when you think about it. So what we have is a bait and switch. We have Hugh Ross coming along and having to acknowledge what the Bible says is true by saying, hey, everybody died, but that doesn't mean some distant corner couldn't have been sticking out. Well, again, that's kind of meaningless at that point, right? But then you have people taking his idea or other people's idea of a local flood and taking it further and saying people in China are fine, people in Africa are fine, people in Japan. Folks, the Bible cannot withstand that because the Bible clearly says that the tops of the mountains are covered by 20 feet, you have to at least include Mount Ararat in that, which is almost 17,000 feet, and so therefore you would have to flood literally 99% of the earth. You might as well just, why don't you just go to 100 at that point? If you're at 99, just go to 100. And then again, I made the point that, and I apologize for having a little bit of a brain fog there with the math, but just to do it right. You have, what, second month, 17th day of the month, Noah getting on the ark, five months go by, so you could say you're in July or something, right? And then, starting then, you have a continual decrease in water and it's not until the first day of the 10th month that Noah is able to see a local Mount Ararat in his region. That tells me that if it's taking multiple months to go from top depth to Mount Ararat being seen, we're not 20 feet above Mount Ararat. But even if we were 20 feet above Mount Ararat, you still have killed every person on the planet and put 99 plus percent of the world underwater. You're going to call that a local flood, that's absurd. And at the end of the day, even Hugh Ross, you know, Hugh Ross is wrong, but there's no theological problem with his view because of the fact that everybody's dead anyway. But the problem is, you got a bunch of people running around thinking that there's other people living and stuff, and again, they're missing the whole point of the whole story. And so, all that to say this, we need to fear God. Now, thankfully, we're saved, so we don't need to fear hell because we're going to heaven no matter what. We've already believed on Jesus Christ, we've been passed from death into life. But knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we should persuade men. We should want to get other people saved because of the fear of God so that they don't face the unparalleled wrath of God that's coming in the end times in Revelation or even just to face the fires of hell. Not only that, but we need to also understand that God doesn't turn a blind eye to sin even in a society. And you know what? If you're saved, of course you're never going to go to hell, you're saved, you're going to heaven, you have eternal life. The Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. There are punishments in this lifetime for those who disobey God. So like, I'm saved, I'm going to heaven no matter what, but if I were to go out and commit some wicked sin, if I were to go out and get drunk or commit adultery or murder someone, you know, God would punish me severely in this lifetime. And God has a lot of other ways of hurting you than just sending you to hell because it's a long life down here on this earth as well. And so I don't know about you, I want God to bless me. First of all, I love God and so I want to do what's right just for the love of Christ, the love of God. But man, I also don't want God whooping up on me and disciplining me and chastising me. I don't want him scourging me. I want to be on God's good side and I want to tell as many people about Jesus as I can because I don't want to see them perish. I want to be like Noah where I'm a preacher of righteousness and I want to preach most of all the righteousness which comes by faith in Christ. Believing in Jesus is what saves. And so, you know, Jesus is the ark and unsaved people need to get on the boat, the Jesus boat so that they don't perish in the fires of hell. Just as once the world was flooded by water, in the future it will be baptized in fire. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you so much for salvation through Jesus. And Lord, we're thankful that we have eternal life. But Lord, help us to share that gift with as many other people as possible. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.