If you have your Bibles with you, please open up to Genesis chapter six. We'll be looking at chapter seven, but we're gonna begin in verse 13 of Genesis chapter six. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits, and its height, 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark and finish it to a cubit above and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, your sons' wives, with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them." Noah did this, he did all that God commanded him. Then the Lord said to Noah, go into the ark, you and all your household, for I've seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate. And seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth 40 days and 40 nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground. And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. of clean animals and of animals that are not clean and of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days, the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep births forth and the windows of heaven were opened. and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. On the very same day, Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark. They and every beast according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every weaned creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh, in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in. The flood continued 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep, and all flesh that died moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left and those who were with him on the ark. and the waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days. Now this morning, we are going to talk about the biblical description of the flood and its implications. As is true of the first chapter of Genesis and indeed this whole first section up through chapter 12, the story before us is categorically rejected as mythology by the intelligent people of the Western world. It reeks of ancient myth. It reeks of supernatural impossibility. And based on the naturalistic standard interpretation of earth's history, there's simply no geological evidence for it. It just seems to be one example of a universal myth from the ancient world about a great flood. But as Christians, we always have to ask ourselves, if God's Word says something happened, did it? If God's Word says that something happened in a certain way, did it? Thank you. But this is a real and present challenge for Christians because we want to be seen as intelligent people, not, you know, superstitious weirdos. We want to be seen as people who take science seriously and don't just reject it out of hand. But at the end of the day, you have to understand when it comes to a Christian perspective on these Old Testament stories and on science, we have to ask ourselves whether we read the scriptures through the physical world or whether we read the physical world through the scriptures. It's all about our starting point, our frame of reference. Now, as with the days of creation, there's also more room for interpretation in this story of the flood than some creationists would have you believe. I'm a creationist. But I need to tell you that while I don't hold the regional flood interpretation, I hold the universal flood interpretation, many faithful men throughout history have believed that this refers to a regional localized flood. Your view of whether the flood was all around the world or in one location, it does not determine your orthodoxy. It doesn't determine whether you believe the Bible or not. Rather, it's a test of the consistency of your worldview. I'll say that again. It's a test of the consistency of your worldview. And those are different things. For Bible-believing Christians, we believe that God really said, but sometimes we struggle to ask, did God really mean? Did God really mean that the whole earth, the entire globe was submerged in the flood? That all mankind and all animals today are descended from those in the ark? That all those animals were able to survive on that boat for a year? We don't discount Noah's existence per se, but we do have some difficulty really embracing the story as it comes to us. And that's okay. That's why we learn together. That's why we study the scripture together. So let's work through the story of the flood now. We'll look at the text under the following points. The historicity of the flood, the cause of the flood, and the scope of the flood. First, the historicity of the flood. As I have already alluded, the reason people have difficulty with the story of the flood is the same as the reason that they have difficulty with the story of creation. It doesn't fit their paradigm. A paradigm is an intellectual framework or a scientific model. The majority of the Western world has embraced a paradigm that is fundamentally naturalistic. What that means is that naturalism is the belief that everything in the universe can be explained by uniformity of cause and effect, relying solely on natural forces and laws of nature. Naturalism is inherently anti-supernatural. An essential component of this naturalistic paradigm is the belief that things have always happened throughout history at the rate we currently see them happening today. So evolution, happened in the past at the rate that we see adaptation happening today. Continental drift happened in the past at the same rate that we see it happening today. Sedimentation and fossilization happened at the same rate we see it happening today. And so the naturalistic model of the earth demands uniform processes that are uniformly gradual. You might have in the prevailing model of science, local regional disasters and regional catastrophes, but the naturalistic model has no room for global catastrophes, for disasters of biblical proportions. Now near the root of this naturalistic paradigm is an opinion of history that C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. The idea is that we are just so much more enlightened and scientific than the ancient peoples. They explain their world through gods of nature and spirits and mythic cycles, but we have science and we know better. We have modern technology and we can do so much more than the ancients had. Friends, even assuming evolution is true, it's only been 6 to 10,000 years since the ancients walked the earth. And based on scientific models, that's not enough time to evolve. Right? We are not more evolved than the ancients if we believe in evolution. Besides, they built the pyramids without power tools. You think the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution really make us smarter than the engineers who built the wonders of the ancient world? The Colossus of Rhodes? Hardly. All peoples of the ancient world and indigenous tribes today have a story of a flood that wiped out mankind. In general, they tell a family, the story of a family favored by the gods that survived a great flood in some sort of boat of epic proportions along with animals. For most, the flood is punishment for mankind's wickedness or noisiness. Afterwards, they land on a mountain and frequently the sending out of birds is involved. In many, a rainbow is given at the end. And the name of the main character in this story is almost always either phonetically or etymologically related to the name Noah. James Montgomery Boyce cites research listing 213 distinct flood traditions ranging from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Far East, Europe, and the Americas. simply stated the story of an ancient flood is a universal belief for all mankind, going as far back as we can. Now, the naturalistic and standard paradigm says that the flood story is an archetypal myth. It represents something core to all mankind that we're seeking to explain. perhaps to explain why floods happen or to account for the worship of some divine king, hero, or God. It represents the fears the ancient world had as it pertains to the destructive powers of nature in general and water in particular, the flooding of the rivers that ancient mankind lived beside. However, we have to ask this question, which is more likely? Did all the ancient cultures of the world come up with eerily similar flood myths on their own, independently of one another, or was there a single ancient source of the myth, a story from which all local myths evolved? We all know The simplest explanation is usually the best. That's Occam's razor. It's a law of logic and reason. Thus, it is far more likely that all these stories of an ancient great flood came from one original source. Then it is only a small leap to say that there's an actual historical event behind that original story. Then the question becomes, what is the historical basis for the universal flood myth? That brings us to the biblical text, which we believe is the actual historical reality behind the flood myths of the ancient world. Those are corrupted transmissions of the original oral history that was passed to mankind through the three sons of Noah. And it seems that Shem and his family kept the best oral tradition, most accurate. As we saw with Genesis 1 through 3, the story of Genesis 6 through 9 is within the genre of historical narrative. You have to understand all ancient myths around the world, especially the myths in the Middle East, in the ancient Near East, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Egypt, all those, their myths are recorded in poetry. The Bible stories of these things are recorded in prose. That's a big difference. As a historical narrative, Genesis simply and directly describes the process by which the ark is built, by which the flood occurs, and by which the waters recede. It's a masterfully composed story and shows no evidence of being pieced together from different mythological sources by different editors. The story shows strong evidence of one author behind it. Emphasizing the historical nature of the story, we not only have the physical dimensions and instructions for the ark itself, but the whole story is marked by a definite passage of time. Verse 11 tells us, in the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, the flood began. Now, we can safely assume that the second month is referring to the Hebrew calendar. That would be the month of Iyar, which roughly corresponds to our April and May. From this dating, we can create and establish a definite chronology for the events described in these chapters. The flood's arrival was announced to Noah seven days before it began. It began in the second month on the 17th day of the month in the 600th year of Noah's life. The waters rose for 40 days and 40 nights. That's how long the storm lasted. And then the waters were at their crest for 150 days and then they started to recede. The waters took half a year to subside. Finally, Noah disembarks from the ark a full year and 10 days after it began, on the 27th day of the second month of Noah's 601st year. Simply put, you don't put these sorts of historical dates in a myth. If it's a myth, dates are irrelevant. You do this for history and history alone. God wants you, Christian, to understand and believe that this is basically reliable history. This records what really happened. So let's talk the cause of the flood. One of the questions we always have when it comes to this story is, where did all that water come from? And where did it all go? As far as the question of where all the water came from, we see the answer in verses 11 and 12. In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. So in these verses, we see two sources of the water described for us. the fountains of the great deep, and the windows of heaven." Now, both of these terms are metaphorical and phenomenological. The windows of heaven are mentioned throughout the Old Testament as a metaphor for heavy rain. The windows of heaven being opened can be a good heavy rain as the Lord's blessing upon His people. We see this in Malachi 3.10 and in 2 Kings 7.19. Or the flood, I mean, the heavy rain, the windows of heaven being opened can be destructive as we see in Isaiah 24.18. Obviously with the flood, we have a destructive opening of the windows of heaven. Likewise, the pairing of these terms, fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven, take us back to the second day of creation in Genesis 1 when God separated the waters that are above from the waters that are below to make the atmosphere. These waters are now overtaking the earth once more, bringing the earth back to its pre-creation state. The phrase fountains of the great deep even uses the noun from Genesis 1-2, where we read that darkness was over the face of the deep. Now the deep is over the face of the dry land. So what were these fountains? Understand that the verb in verse 11, it's a violent verb. English Standard Version says that the fountains of the great deep burst forth. More literally, they were ripped open. Whatever happened here, you get the idea from verse 11 that something catastrophic happened with the earth's crust. This was a catastrophic tectonic and volcanic event. All underground reservoirs of water began releasing everything that they had in reserve. Every geyser erupted. And they began releasing the reserves of water beneath the earth's crust. And speaking of, have you heard the recent scientific development and discovery of this layer of what they call ringwoodite below the earth's crust? Ringuidite is a mineral that basically holds and absorbs water in an ionized and solid state, not ice, but under pressure. This layer of ringuidite resides between the upper and lower mantle about 250 to 400 miles down. Scientific estimates are that this layer of ringwoodite contains at least the equivalent water volume of all the world's oceans. That's an extra 350 quintillion gallons of water. 321 million cubic miles of water. That's above and beyond what is liquid on the surface of the earth. And these aren't creation scientists. They attach it to something that they call the deep water cycle that keep earth cool and its temperature regulated. Now, I am no scientist, though I wish I, you know, in another life I would have been. But if there was sufficient volcanic and cracking of the mantle in the earth's crust, a great amount of this deep water could have been released in volcanic plumes, transferred directly from its mineral state to a vaporous state, to fall down later as rain, which brings us to the windows of heaven. Now, Genesis 1, 6 through 8 depicts earth's atmosphere as protected or encapsulated by a firmament. Now, when I taught on Genesis 1, I mentioned that there may have been a thin layer of liquid on the outside of the earth's atmosphere. However, after studying for today's sermon, I think I may have been mistaken. further research, it appears that the idea of a liquid firmament around the earth, that that model has been rejected by the majority of conservative creation scientists, including the folks at Answers in Genesis. Now, I don't embrace everything that Answers in Genesis says, but if they say an idea is out there, it's probably out there. So I do believe, given the thematic statement of verse 11, I do believe that the waters above the earth from day two of creation have something to do with the waters of the flood, but it's not as simple an explanation as I used to think, and that's okay. Whatever the firmament was or is, Something happened both below the earth and above the earth that released a torrential rainfall for 40 days and 40 nights. And it didn't let up for 40 days and for 40 nights. That brings us to the scope of the damage. I want you to imagine the sheer natural destructive power of all this water. This is important to understand, my friends, whatever caused the flood, whatever the scientific explanation for what happened, it was natural elements that God used to destroy the earth. It was through natural processes. Genesis 7 depicts a global natural disaster that featured geysers erupting, volcanic activity, earthquakes, and water just coming out of every orifice in the earth's surface. Remember Mount St. Helens? Some of you were are old enough to actually have paid attention when it happened. The rest of us are amazed by video evidence of that event. But have you seen documentaries about how Mount St. Helens eruption totally changed the surrounding landscape and created caverns, ravines, and canyons in the blink of an eye? If you haven't, you need to go watch those, find them. How about the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina? How about the damage of the storm surge in Bay St. Louis? Houses wiped away. Or the flooding that happened as a result of that, the backflow in New Orleans. Or what about the damage caused here in 2016? How about the power of tsunamis, like the one that cracked open the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan? Water, when it is moving, is one of the most powerful elements known to man. One of the most destructive elements known to man. Floods create mudslides and mudslides reshape an entire landscape in an instant. Whatever you think of the most destructive volcanic event, water event in your lifetime, it's nothing compared to the flood. It's nothing compared to what God describes here. Look at how much water there was. Verses 17 through 24 depict the rising tide of the flood until they crest and stay at that level for nearly half a year. The waters increased and bore up the ark. It rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. That's just telling us that God's plan and Moses' work worked. It didn't sink, which is good. The waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep." Do you hear that? The waters increased. They prevailed, they prevailed, they prevailed. This is emphatic language. The waters proved themselves superior to mankind, superior to the dry land. They swept over the earth like an unstoppable army. They increase so greatly that at the final measure, they cover the highest mountains 15 cubits deep. That's 20 to 25 feet. Now, here we need to think carefully. If we take the flood account seriously, then the mountains we have today are not identical with the mountains before the flood. Even the tallest of peaks today show evidence that they were submersed underwater with high pressure. They show signs that while the strata of geology were still somewhat fluid, that these mountains moved while things were still a little wet. As we'll discuss next week, in all likelihood, the mountains reached their present altitudes following the flood. And it was the raising of the mountain ranges that helped the flood waters drain. But of all the mountains that existed at that time, whatever their heights were, the tallest were submerged to a depth of 20 to 25 feet. Now commentators are keen to point out that this depth is likely related to the draft depth of the ark. The ark was 30 cubits tall, and the depth of 15 cubits would prevent the ark from ever running aground on even the tallest mountain peak. But most importantly, friends, this is not the language of a regional flood. How can God say that even the tallest mountains were 20 feet underwater if it was contained in one limited area. How can it take 150, no, a full year for the waters to subside from the surface of the ground if it's limited to a limited area? You remember how quickly the waters came and went in 2016. They showed up like that, did their damage and left like that. Verse 19 says, and the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. That's not local limited language. If Moses wanted to describe a global flood, he couldn't have been more obvious. Thus, the natural reading of the text says that, yes, this was a global flood event. It was not local. It was not regional. And I could marshal way more evidence for this than I have time to go in today. And so if you have objections, see me after class. But last, we need to see the emphasis of verses 21 and 24. And all flesh died that moved on the earth. birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth and all mankind. Everything on the dry land and whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left and those with him on the ark." Did you hear the repetition? These verses present a final confirmation of the refrain that is echoed since chapter six, verse seven, where God said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. Here at the end of chapter seven, we see that God's threat, his word has been fulfilled. Everything that breathes air has died. Every person, every bird, every animal, every beast, every reptile, every instinct, except for those that are on the ark with Noah. Everything outside of the ark has been eradicated and buried under layers of mud and silt and sediment and water. Galistans then repeated, everything from people to birds to animals to creeping things, everything and everyone has died except for Noah. This is the point of the story, my friends, at least this part of the story. When God threatens destruction, destruction is coming. Unrepentant sin corrupts the earth and God will destroy everything that is so corrupted. When God said that he was going to blot out all life from the face of the earth, he meant it. Seven days after God told Noah to board the ark, the rains came and everybody died. Mark and learn. 2 Peter 3, 4-7 says, They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire. being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly." Hear what Peter says, for they deliberately overlooked this fact. Hear what Paul says in the book of Romans, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. People do not want to believe in a global flood. Why? Because of science? Either there's no evidence for a global flood or the evidence is everywhere. That's too much for the natural man to take. And so we stretch out Earth's history to millions of years, because if everything testifies to the flood of God's wrath, if every fossil testifies to the flood of God's wrath, then that means mankind is in deep trouble. Because we have been warned of another day of wrath, a day of judgment, not by water, but a judgment by fire. So that brings us to the point of the sermon. We cannot take the Bible seriously if we discount or mythologize the flood story. It's no longer basically reliable history at that point. But if we take it seriously, then this story has major consequences for every area of natural history, of geology, of archeology, of science. If the flood really occurred on the scale that the Bible describes, then everything in our geological record testifies as evidence to the flood. The entire natural history of the earth, the entire fossil record, all our coal seams and oil fields, they are all evidence of the wrath of God. And they were laid down in an instant, in the course of one year. devastating flooding, high-pressure submersion underwater, and catastrophic water drainage. Likewise, if the flood is genuine history, then that also means that Christ's second coming is genuine history. It's a genuine certainty. Jesus says, "'For as were the days of Noah, "'so will be the coming of the Son of Man. "'For as in those days before the flood, "'they were eating and drinking, "'marrying and giving in marriage, "'until the day when Noah entered the ark. "'And they were unaware until the flood came "'and swept them all away. "'So will be the coming of the Son of Man.'" I ask you, friend, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's pray. Thank you for listening to this sermon from River Community Church in Prairieville, Louisiana, where you will always find biblical preaching, meaningful worship, and the equipping of disciples. For more information on River Community Church and its ministries, please visit rivercommunity.org.