In this study on Genesis 6, Chuck Misler discusses the events leading up to the flood. He mentions that the sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6:2 are likely referring to angels, as seen in other biblical references. These angels were present during the creation of the earth and shouted for joy. Misler argues that the Nephilim mentioned in verse 4 were not the result of a union between believers and unbelievers, but rather something abnormal. He also highlights the corruption and violence that had filled the earth, leading to God's decision to bring about the end of all flesh through the flood.

This is the eighth study in the book of Genesis conducted by Chuck Missler. The subject of this tape, Genesis chapter 6, verse 1 through 14. You're all in the right place. This is the study on Genesis. Okay. And, of course, this is Genesis 6, so maybe this is most of the people that just can't tread water. And that's, uh, um, could be. Okay, let's, uh, open with the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just praise you and thank you for this evening, this appointment with you. Father, we would just ask your Holy Spirit to attend us tonight. Help us, Father, to understand those things which you have here for us. We praise you, Father, that you have loved us so much as to deliver us from the judgments that are coming. And we thank you, Father, too, for your record and your revelation concerning the judgment of Noah. And, Father, we would ask you this evening to focus our attention on what you would have for us in our time drawn from this record of the past. And in all these things, Father, we would, above all else, behold Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. One of the things that we talked about last time, we sort of, we intentionally attempted to set the stage a little bit by talking about the antediluvian, that is the pre-flood civilization. And we talked about, well, a number of things, but I think some of this is worth recapping to set a stage for Chapter 6. We went through the genealogies, and I've discovered all kinds of additional material, incidentally, that makes that genealogy far more interesting to study. But rather than backtrack and get into what really may be an obscure detail, I am fascinated by the symmetry between the genealogies of the two lines, Cain and Seth, especially since there's an error print in the ancient record. And if you go through and pull out some other information about that, they're quite symmetrical. And I suspect that there may be far more in these genealogies than we probably have had the opportunity to unlock in our survey. But rather than back up too much, the only thing I'd like to pull out of this again in Chapter 5 to remind you of the first astronaut, the guy by the name of Enoch. Okay? And Enoch, as you may recall, is the father of Methuselah. That's always a fun thing to point out to your friends that Methuselah is the oldest man in the Bible, but he died before his father. And that's a great puzzlement until you realize that Enoch was Methuselah's father, and Enoch did not die. He was raptured, if I might use the Latin phrase. He was actually translated or caught up, and he was missed. He wasn't around. It wasn't as if his body was around. He just disappeared. And he was not, for God took him. A very interesting situation because of his role in the Scripture. It's an interesting situation, first of all, because he's one of a couple of people that didn't die, Elijah being the other example. But he's interesting also because of this fascinating child that he had that he was apparently given some substantial prophecies. He ministered to the world. In fact, his ministry to the world probably caused the postponement of God's judgment for 120 years. That's inferential, but I mention that as a possibility. Noah was also a preacher, and their preaching to the world did not avail repentance or didn't save the world from the judgment. It condemned them, and we'll get to that. But it's kind of interesting, I think, to take a quick peek at what Enoch preached to the world. And we have that recorded for us, preserved for us, in Jude. We're going to lean heavily on Jude. It's one of the most interesting Old Testament commentaries in your library. And you may overlook it because it's such a short little book, and it's tucked away right there before the book of Revelation. But if you read Jude, and it's only one chapter, Jude verses 14 and 15, it's pretty interesting to see the message that Enoch preached to this generation that preceded the flood. Enoch, also the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh. Can you imagine somebody before the flood running around saying, Maranatha? You thought that was kind of a Calvary chapelism or something, right? But Enoch was the first Maranatha minister. I think that's kind of interesting. Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. Now, you hear that expression all the time. The Lord's coming with ten thousands of his saints. Did you realize that was a quote from Enoch? That's a pretty old reference. To execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed. I get the impression that Jude has a vocabulary problem. Three times in this one verse, he uses that expression. Ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners, excuse me, four times, sinners have spoken against him, and so forth, and he goes on to make his point in his letter. But it's interesting that he makes reference to the message of Enoch. So Enoch was a preacher. He was given a revelation. He probably had more insight and more revelation than we, in our naive reading of a very condensed account, give him credit for. But we know that his revelation was clear enough that he named his son Methuselah. Which means, when he is dead, it shall be sent. And as we go through, and I'll leave that to your own mechanics, to discover when Methuselah was born, and to recognize that when Methuselah died, it was the year the flood came. It might have been that week, or the month before. We don't have, I don't think, I don't think our records are clear enough to pin it down closely. We just know that in terms of the years, if you go, you'll lay it all out, that the flood came the year Methuselah died. And that's a fascinating, I find it, I find myself thinking a lot about what it must have been like to be Enoch, and have this ministry. My son, here's what I'm naming him, and I personally visualize him doing that the same way Hosea and some of the other Old Testament prophets were given object lesson style of ministries. In terms of whether naming their children, or the way they deal with their wife, or their conduct of their life, God instruct them to do certain, in some cases, strange things, as a form of witness, as a way of getting a point across. Well, with Enoch, he had this son. And the idea was, that as long as the kid was healthy, the flood would be postponed. And I think that's awfully interesting. I can think of a lot of humorous examples we could use, but I don't want to make light of this. He's a very interesting case. But what makes Enoch interesting, let me point something else out. There are three groups of people in the pre-flood situation. Those that perished in the flood, those that didn't perish in the flood, but were preserved through the flood, and Enoch. Interesting. There were those that perished. There were those that were preserved through the problem, the trouble, and Enoch. And we're going to see, before we're through studying Noah's flood, that Paul categorizes all three, I mean all the world, into three groups of people. Gentiles, the Jews, and the Church. Right? Those of you that have studied Paul's letters know that that's, idiomatically, his partitioning of mankind. Very, very interesting. Who perishes? The Gentiles. Who's preserved through? The believing remnant. No, no. The Jews. Where's the Church? But you say, Enoch is just one person. So is the Church. That exciting? That wild? That wild? On this thing, it wasn't my intention. Let's just peek at Revelation 12. You all are familiar with the idea that the Church is to be snatched away, caught up, raptured, and you're also the victim, if Walter Martin will forgive me, of a pre-tribulationist here. And I think we should pray for Walter. Because he's a marvelous, dedicated, committed warrior of the faith. But as he pointed out to me one time, Paul promises, there must needs be heresies among you, so that that which is approved may be made manifest. And Walter is, well... In Revelation chapter 12, we have in view Israel. And we've talked about this many times. That there's a woman, she's about to give birth, she's in travail. The woman is not the Church. The Church is the virgin bride of Christ. If this is the Church, she's in serious trouble. This is Israel. But in the sense that she started with Eve, being the mechanism for the seed of the woman to be brought forth. And it's identified by none other than Jacob for us, because the idioms here in Revelation 12 are explained for us by none other than Jacob himself, and we'll get to that later as we study the book of Genesis. But we have a very interesting thing in here. We have the woman, and we have she in verse 2 as being with child, traveling and birth to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven horns upon his head. And that's very familiar to us, especially if we've read ahead to the next chapter, chapter 13, which talks about this beast out of the sea in much more detail. And his tale, it is Satan's tale. Oh, by the way, we have no concern about who the dragon is, because he's explained down in verse 9. There's no ambiguity. The book of Revelation in general explains itself. In some other cases, it relies on somewhere else in the scripture. In fact, it's one of the most fascinating studies of the integrity of the scripture as a package, because every code, every encryption, every little idiom in the book of Revelation is explained elsewhere in the scripture. And what makes the book of Revelation such a rewarding study is it causes you to traffic into every other nook and cranny from Genesis 1 on. And if you haven't ever done that, I commend that. Even if you're a new believer and all of this idiomatic use of our jargonese here throws you, don't get nervous. Get into a study of the book of Revelation. Most people think, well, gee, after the graduate school, after I've learned all these other things, I'll study that. I think it's the other way around. And I commend to you to get from the lending library or the firefighters or wherever, get a set of the tapes and take the summer, some time, free time, go through the book of Revelation. It'll be the most rewarding thing that you've ever done in your life. In fact, the book of Genesis is being presented, in a sense, in our study here, will be increasingly more so presented as a sequel to a study of the book of Revelation. But going back to this anyway, his tale is Satan's tale, drew a third of the stars of heaven, did cast them to the earth, and so forth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered to devour her child as soon as it was born. And that's not just Jesus Christ in the literal sense. It's to break the Messianic line. And we've talked about that many times, how all the way through, when Eve got her promise, it was Cain who was the firstborn. He took a shot there. And we're going to find all the way through as Abraham is called. We're going to see that he gets distracted to Egypt and what have you. And the whole business in Egypt with the Pharaoh and the murdering of the male children is Satan's attempt to break the line. And we can chronicle the entire biblical narrative as a plot of Satan attempting to break God's word. And that's a whole study. I don't want to be repetitious and go through that again. But I want you to know something else here. She brought forth, verse 5, a male child, man-child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Who's that? So we don't have any problem identifying who the male child is. And her child was caught up unto God and to His throne. Then there is a break, in my mind, in the chronology, and we suddenly are plunged into the tribulation period. That same gap, if you will, occurs in Daniel chapter 9, between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel. It also occurs in three other places in the scripture, more obscurely perhaps. But it fascinates me in prophecy where it deals with Israel and their chronical line. Where you get to the so-called church period, there is a gap in the record. It's in the Old Testament in Daniel 9, and interestingly enough it's here in Revelation. And we deal with that in the Revelation study on chapter 12. But I want to call your attention to something else. It says that she gave forth to the man child, right? And he was caught up to God and His throne. And most of us assume that that's a prophecy of the Ascension, right? I don't think so. I think that's the catching up of Christ's body. The body of Christ. When you recognize in God's eyes we are at one with Him. We are one in Christ. That it could very well be that in the idiom of the prophecy here we have the one caught up to God. This is a distraction in a sense. But the interesting thing, the place where I first ran into that was from G. H. Pember. The classic writer on the gap theory on the book of Genesis. So it's interesting how a book of Genesis will affect your perspective on the book of prophecy. And to prove that to you tonight we are going to do that a little bit about the flood. And we are not going to talk much about fossils and ice ages and all of that stuff. I hope that may disappoint many of you. We'll touch on it lightly. Those of you that are really interested in strata and fossils and all of that. I will be a big disappointment to you because that happens to be something that's not my thing. And that should relieve you because if it was I'd probably get it all garbled anyway. Those of you that are really into all of that will find in the bibliography we passed out a neat little paperback. It's an updated very modern piece by John Whitcomb called The World That Perished. And it's biblical and scientific evidence for the Genesis flood as a global catastrophe. Scientific records are deep in evidencing that the catastrophe that occurred clearly way back then. How many of you have visited the Petrified Forest? Do you ever wonder where the trees came from? Do you know those trees came from a long, long way away? They had to be floated there? Do you know why they were trees in the first place? I mean, how they got petrified? And so forth. There's a whole bunch of things. The one thing in here I find the most amusing. I will share one thing in here that's fun because it gets to this whole uniformitarianism thing. And this one is one of my favorites. I discovered it in this book. I didn't see it before then. It turns out, you all know what stalactites and stalagmites are. Right? And there's some pictures here of some stalactites and stalagmites that are about five feet long. Their deposition of calcium carbonate, CaCO3, range about five feet in length. Right? And I think by conventional reckoning they're supposed to be, you know, you know how long five feet stalagmites are. Millions of years. Right? These happen to be at part of the Lincoln Memorial. Underneath the Lincoln Memorial they have formed some stalagmites in the basement. And it just happens to be. And this was built in 1923. Okay? And the photograph here is in February 12th of 1968. And it goes on to point out the problems in terms of variations of water drip, concentration of salts, types of salts, solubility, the rate of evaporation, a whole bunch of variables, all of which are changing. And it destroys. It's just tangible, humorous evidence of the fallacies of uniformitarianism applied inappropriately. And the book is full of examples. And we could spend our hour talking about rather the amusing thing about higher criticism. One of the authors speaks of higher critics because they're in the dark and they make a lot of noise. But the whole idea that the so-called field of apologetics deals with that. I think we've spent so much time on that sort of thing I'm sort of interested in getting into something different tonight. And that is to get into what the Lord has to say about it. In fact, before we get into the actual chapter six, let's remind ourselves again what 2 Peter does for us in 2 Peter chapter three. 2 Peter chapter three is a very, very fascinating contribution to us as students of prophecy. Whole chapter three would be a worthy study against this. But I'll pick it up about verse three where he says, Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? That is, raising a doubt. Where is this business? What's all this business about the second coming of Christ? Well, that's no surprise. We're not surprised to discover there are scoffers about prophecy. That's fine. But notice what he links it to. These scoffers will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. The rebuttal of the agnostic or the pseudo-intellectual is that prophecy is unreasonable because he takes for granted uniformitarianism. That all things continue under natural laws. And he denies the notion of a God who intervenes in the affairs of men. He might intellectually even consent that there's a super designer, a master creator, but he won't cross the bridge of the idea that he will intervene with his creation. See, that's what prophecy implies. The concept that we are neither Republican nor Democrat, we're monarchists, and that our king is coming to take over is an interruption in the way of things. And that's the same kind of a contradiction in the mind of the pseudo-intellectual as the idea that God created the place in the first place. And furthermore, not just the uniformitarianism, just the rebuttal to creation, which it says here, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation, verse 5, for this they willingly are ignorant of. You know, it's interesting in the Psalms and the Proverbs and the Book of Romans and so forth, the Holy Spirit always takes the view that ignorance of this kind is an act of the will, not the mind. It's an act of the will, not reason. Reason is a tool. Reason is something that is a facility that helps us do things. It isn't the way we make decisions, it's the way we rationalize them. We make decisions from the will. Our volition. And we're willingly ignorant. The atheist says in his heart there is no God. Why? Because it would hold him accountable for sin. Your sins have separated between you and your God. Now, for this they are willingly 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 by which the world that then was was being overflowed with water, perished. It's the New Testament that commits us to a view of a cataclysm that destroyed the previous world. And it wasn't just a lot of people and animals that died, the world was changed. Mountains subsequently created, continents divided. The world as we know it now did not exist before the flood, it was a different place. There are apparently, literally, millions of animals encased in ice in certain regions of the planet earth in which they were quick frozen so fast that there's still food in their mouths. There was a catastrophe that occurred on the planet earth. It's recorded everywhere you look. Whether it's from the fossil records which record deaths and you can stratify fossils if you like through the geological column which is a form of ignorance or you can do it by sedimentation by settling out by their size and weight and other factors. And there's a lot of other ways to explain the stratification besides the fact that it took millions and millions of years and so forth. The people that like to argue that unfavorable probabilities are altered by repetition is what keeps Las Vegas rich. And the evolutionary library is full. 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 godly men. I'm always intrigued that we'll finish Noah and Genesis 8 and you'll get this big promise that never again will I destroy the world by water. And the thing I will suggest to you when you get there is to read the small print. Okay. Let's move on to Genesis. But fascinating situation. We think of the flood as sort of a reaction that gee god tried to change his mind he wants to destroy the world and by the way there's Noah I'll give him a break and I'll take care of him. Not so. God planned it a long time in advance. Okay. 969 years in advance at least because that's when Methuselah was born as a prophecy of the flood coming. So this flood thing was quite a while. In fact, the life of Methuselah becomes a model of God's mercy. And thinking about it the other night when we were talking about this I gave you a glimpse of this said it was God's grace I was technically wrong. Most of you know the difference between grace and mercy. Just slip of the tongue I really meant God's mercy not God's grace. The difference between mercy and grace. Grace is getting that which you don't deserve. Mercy is not getting that which you do. They're opposites actually. But in any case Methuselah is a model or a type if you will of God's mercy and it's interesting that the longest lifetime in the scripture is that lifetime which typologically points to God's mercy. Very interesting. Okay. I think we can recognize too we're starting a new section of the book of Genesis. Because we've been talking in broad terms we've also been talking about Adam and his fall. But now we're getting to Noah. Noah is going to not only be the mechanism by which God preserves a remnant through a judgment but one with whom he makes a new beginning and institutes a new covenant. We're not going to get into covenants in detail yet. We'll take that another time. But we'll be conscious the more we learn of Genesis and God's ways we'll be conscious that this is a very this is a major section that's starting to move for us here. I might mention a few other subtleties that Lamech who was Noah's father was a godly person. How do we know that? Because in verse 28 says Lamech lived 182 years begot a son called his name Noah which incidentally means rest. Rest. And we'll make more of that later. Called his name Noah saying this same shall comfort us concerning our work and our toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord had cursed. Lamech is aware of and relates to the fact that the ground is under the curse of the Lord. Very interesting. Methuselah of course was Noah's grandfather. And there may have been just a line of preachers. Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. And it shouldn't surprise us because of Noah's apparent heritage and depth that he would be a man of faith. Now, let's take a few verses and let's get one controversy behind us then we'll jump into the chapter. Chapter 6 of Genesis and it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them. This is a recap phrase. Obviously men didn't start to multiply in chapter 6 verse 1. They started earlier but the writer here is putting in perspective something. That as these things started to happen something else happened. Began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all whom they chose. Now you would be absolutely amazed at the libraries full of volumes of controversy about what that verse means. Okay? Now, and you will find good scholars on several defendable views of that. The comfortable, easy, soft view of this that you want to sort of skate through in good Presbyterian circles or what have you is that we have two lines. We have the line of Seth and the line of Cain chronicled earlier. And of course the line of Cain are the bad guys and the line of Seth are the good guys. Cain and his descendants had names like well, you know, as we went through back there things went from bad to worse and they were wicked and worldly and so forth. Seth, on the other hand, is the one that is associated in the end of verse four with the people who began to call upon the name of the Lord. And where the name of the Lord there is the name of God used in the covenant sense. So it's a very interesting we didn't make a lot of that Ben because I want to save that for later but the whole idea that God, not in the Elohim sense in terms of the Creator but God in the covenant personal sense is called upon from the descendants of Seth. So we have a tradition in scholarship that the descendants of Seth are the good guys and the descendants of Cain are the bad guys. And because of that and another idea that's introduced later on in the scripture not yet, but will be introduced later is the concept of separation. As Israel is called and ordained Israel is instructed to hold herself separate. The church and the believer in a sense is called upon to hold himself separate. The concept of separation is introduced later in the scripture and reflexively or recursively looking back they say that what's going on in verse two is that the sons of God that's the good guys the believers the people who are sons of God by faith because they accept the Lord start to intermarry with the daughters of men. Okay. Well, the problem is several things. First of all what do you do with the daughters of God? If the descendants of Seth are the good guys what about the girls? Okay. Or putting it the other way around what about the men of the Canaanites? You get into a problem. Later on you're going to see a few verses later that their descendants are unnatural. Now you can marry an unbeliever and have a very normal family in secular terms at least. I don't know. I personally am not acquainted with any particular case study where a believer and an unbeliever get married and have giants as offspring. My boys are getting pretty tall but both Nan and I are believers. No, I don't want to make light of a view that's held by serious scholars. They do have that view. But I personally have a great deal of trouble because of the focus on the daughters of men. So I have a different view. There's another problem with this that's often overlooked. The fact that we're dealing with sons of God and daughters of men. Males of the good guys, females of the bad guys intermarrying in that view is troublesome. The fact that the offspring are unnatural, which is suggested later, I'll come to that, is difficult with that view. But there's a third thing. Peter helps us here again. Peter's going to be a very handy commentator to have at our fingertips. Let's take a picture at 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 5 Peter tells us something about the flood. He says, And God spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. Right? And turning the city and so forth. If these believers, if what we're talking about is believers marrying unbelievers, there were a lot of believers that perished in the flood. And that's not what the scripture tells us. They were the ungodly that perished in the flood. Noah was all there was. Okay? In fact, it's even more complicated than that, but I'll come to that. Let's re-examine this phrase, sons of God, the Bar Elohim phrase of the Old Testament. It turns out that occurs four times in the Old Testament. And each time it refers to angels. There is a concept of son of God that occurs twice else. Luke, in chapter 3, speaks of it as Adam. He takes his genealogy of Jesus Christ, starts with Adam, and he takes it backwards, you know, so and so was the son of so and so. And Adam, when he gets to Adam, the last one is genealogy, he says, who was the son of God? He uses the equivalent of the Bar Elohim of Adam, because Adam was a direct creation of God. Who else is called the son of God? Jesus Christ. Because he's a direct creation of God. Okay? And John tells us that one of the exciting things is that to them that believe on him, he gives power to become, what? Sons of God. In what sense? To be a direct creation. To be a direct creation, a new creation. That's what we're talking about by being born again. Isn't that exciting? Now, in fact, you can get into the whole thing about the resurrection being, your resurrection body is called a building of God in 2 Corinthians 5. But anyway, getting back to the Old Testament use of this phrase, the Bar Elohim is also used of a direct creation of God, which we call an angel. And I'll use that category broadly, not denotatively, to include the cherubim. Because they're direct creations of God. The book of Job, chapter 1, verse 6, chapter 2, verse 1, they're mustered. There's a roll call. They're brought forward to an assembly. And guess who's lined up with them? Satan. And there's a dialogue that takes place that becomes the background for the book of Job. Also, in chapter 38, verse 7, something we mentioned before, with the morning stars, the sons of God shouted for joy at the creation of the earth. So they were there. They were created. But when the planet earth was created, they shouted for joy. So what the time lapse was, we don't know. They're certainly included in Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. That included the angels. Broad term. What happened in verse 2 of that chapter is a whole thing we've been through. Okay. There's another place that word occurs in the Old Testament. It's in Daniel, chapter 3, out of the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar, when he sees what he thought were three guys in the fiery furnace. And he finds out there's fourth. And the likeness of the fourth was as a son of God. We know who he was. But Nebuchadnezzar didn't. He just saw that he was, you know, kind of unusual. This term, bar Elohim, meaning angels, is also exclusively used by Josephus, by Philo, Judeus, and a number of other authors. It's a classical use for angels in the Old Testament idiom. Now, if that's the case, we've got something kind of creepy going on. Why am I going to make a point of this? To make this whole study of Genesis a little spooky? You haven't seen anything yet. Jesus Christ, talking about his second coming, says something that should give you goosebumps. Because he says, as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. And you can get into a whole trip, if you're not careful, on flying saucers, and Rosemary's baby, and all these other ideas, which I'm going to spare you tonight. Because your imaginations are perfectly capable of getting into as much error as I could lead you into. Anyway. Let's look, though, this isn't the only scripture we have to give us visibility on this. The concept that is suggested here, at least in the minds of some, is that the angels, some of them, not all of them, some bad guys, renegades, if you will, some angels, saw the daughters of men, and they were pretty attractive. And they took them wives of whoever they wanted to. Now, if that's true, it should be confirmed in the mouths of two or three witnesses. Let's take a look at a couple of witnesses. Let's look at Jude 6. Love my friend Jude. We'll go back to see our primary commentator on the book of Genesis. And Jude has some strange remarks for us. In Jude verse 6, he says, And the angels who kept not their first estate. Gee, that's a strange thing. You mean there's some angels that left the place that they were supposed to be. They had a status, a position, a relationship, an involvement, and they blew it. But they left it. They abandoned it. They left their first estate, who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. What Jude is giving us a glimpse of here, and his style is in such a way as to presume you know these things, he's calling them into remembrance, so he doesn't dwell on them long. But he says, And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of that great day. They're chained. These fallen angels are not demons, because they're chained. They're reserved in darkness. Apparently some that are running around, and that's what we call demons that were the subject of the cadera, swine, and so forth. But, interesting. And that's not the only page. I said two witnesses. Let's look at 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2. And I'm looking at verse 4. Where Peter says it, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to, it isn't actually hell. It's not even Hades, by the way. It's Tartarus. It's the only place that word appears in the Bible. Tartarus. We assume, from a number of inferences, that it's a very, very special place that's reserved for this purpose. There is in Homer the word is used, and it's described as being as Hades is below the earth, so far as Tartar below Hades. So it's a heavy place. It might, most scholars, jump to the conclusion that it's synonymous with the Abuso, the bottomless pit. But that's an assumption on the position on the part of some observers. Anyway, If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them into the chains of darkness, same word Jude uses, to be reserved unto judgment. And he spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, the preacher of righteousness, bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly. And he goes on to make some other things, and so forth. How much more will he not, and so forth. That's the argument Peter's making. But in making the argument, he makes reference again to some angels who got themselves into trouble. Okay? And I'm fumbling because I'm looking also for another phrase I wanted to pull out of this. Where they went after strange flesh. That was back in Jude. Jude 7. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, Jude uses another phrase that's a little interesting. Because it's going after strange flesh, and so forth. Getting back to Genesis chapter 6. We have this view, and I personally hold the view. I personally believe. This is just Chuck Missler's view. That where it says the sons of God, the Bar Elohim, it refers to some supernatural beings. And that they somehow, in some way, not only got involved with humankind, but married them. Now, you will be immediately, if not later, if not now, occurred to you that Jesus Christ in Matthew 22 made a remark concerning if you'll excuse me, the sex life of angels. He says that angels are neither married nor given marriage. Right? Remember that. That doesn't say that angels are sexless. It says they don't marry. Furthermore, the angels he's talking about are the angels in heaven. Now, from that one phrase, many people jump to the conclusion that that would be a barrier to this view of Genesis chapter 6, verse 2. I don't think so. He's talking about a different group of angels, and he doesn't say that they're not capable of being abnormal. He's saying that isn't the normal pattern, particularly of those that are in heaven. The ones that got themselves into trouble by whatever mechanism are no longer there. They're in Tartarus or wherever. Follow what I'm saying? Now, God says in verse 3, the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is also his flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. Some people feel that this is a proclamation that the longevity will be a hundred and twenty years. Don't think so. It doesn't fit. More likely, what God is announcing is that from this point on, the world's got a hundred and twenty years. And that's one of the reasons we jump to the conclusion that it took Noah a hundred and twenty years to have this thing sitting in his driveway, waiting for the event. Verse 4, There were Nephilim in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Now from this verse, I argue that it's nonsense to somehow infer that these peculiar beings that were offspring were the result of a union between a believer and an unbeliever. I regard that as nonsense. Something was going on that's abnormal. Now what was going on abnormal? Your translation probably says giants, and the reason it does, it comes from, in the Septuagint, and I'm not sure I can pronounce it properly, there's a word that is the root word from which we can get the word gigantic. But, it is translated, that same root is more properly translated, earth-born. Earth-born. In the Greek. Which is a little weird, isn't it? The word Nephilim comes from a Hebrew word, Nephal, which means to fall. And Nephilim means the fallen ones. The fallen ones. And what the root words in the Hebrew and the Greek both suggest is an event in the history of mankind that is recorded in the memory of man by some other myths and legends. Some of you here, if you've had the benefit, I'll put that in quotes, of a classical education have been exposed to the ancient Greek mythologies. You could add Egyptian, Roman, lots of others, but I'll use the Greeks as perhaps the highest form of that art form. And you recall the rather bizarre beliefs they had about what some people call demigods. Half-men, half-gods. And they have a whole thing about their family relationships and who's with who, who did what to whom, and they have this whole thing out of which comes much of our literature in the Greek culture. Most of you probably assumed that that just had its roots in the fertile imagination of man. There's the possibility suggested by not only scripture, most of all, highest of all scripture, but also the prevalence of those same ideas in other cultures that suggest they had their original roots, in fact. In the sense that there was a period before the flood and after that in which there was some ungodly, unholy interaction between the spirit world, the world of the angels, and the world of man that was probably organized by Satan in an attempt to contaminate man's line and to prevent the availability of a kinsman redeemer. A kinsman redeemer. And if you've studied the book of Ruth and that, you know what I'm getting at. You might turn to Numbers 13. With me. It says that this happened then and also after that. After that meaning the flood. After the flood there was some more of this. Now, in Numbers 13 we have the situation where Moses sends out the twelve spies. You all know the story. How the twelve spies came back. Ten of them come back terrified. Say, we can't make it. Two of them say, hey, nonsense. Let's go. The Lord has delivered their hand. And, of course, because the crowd believes the ten God condemns them to a wandering of another forty years so that all of them die off and the children will inherit the land. Except for only two of that generation will stay under the land. Namely, the two spies that brought back the good report, Joshua and Caleb. Even Moses himself was not allowed to enter the promised land. Because of this incident. But the reason I'm turning to it here, I'd like to remind you of the report that the other ten, not Joshua and Caleb, the good guys, the two guys that are now immortalized on the symbol for tourism, Ministry of Tourism of Israel. You know, carrying the grapes of Eshkel. Verse 31, but the men that went up with him said, We were not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it is as a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that we saw in it are what? Men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come of the giants, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, so we were in their sight. Now you and I often read this, assume that that's just the frightened exaggeration of these guys, except we forget the history of Goliath, the Philistine, and others. There's also archaeological evidence that talks of, you know, there's some evidence that there were some very, very large inhabitants in this area. Now, and by the way, I can't touch upon Goliath without asking you, why did David take five stones? Is it Goliath had four brothers? Right on. Right on. Right on. He did, by the way, you have to dig for that, but he did, and in fact, all of them were killed by either David or his associates. But it's interesting, as a kid, he picked up five stones. And that's an insight to that kid, as he goes up there, you don't realize, you figure one's enough, right? And he was ready for all five. I think that's great. But they were giants. I think they were giants. I think that's neat. Now, that gives you an insight why Israel is instructed to wipe out every man, woman, and child when they take the land. That a harsh, un- god-like command? You not only go in and subdue the land, you wipe out every man, woman, and child of the Amalekites, and others. Saul fell from grace, right? He blew it, right? What did he do wrong? Only one thing. He didn't follow that kind of a command. Interesting, isn't it? God is very, very strict in His commands in these cases. And it's interesting, as we go through the Old Testament, we'll be troubled by this insistence that they wipe out everyone. Not in general, in certain groups. God instructs them to do that, and when they don't do it, they are in trouble with the Lord. And we have trouble with that, because we're products of a Christian ethic, which says, gee, you know, too much is excess. I mean, so you gain your military objective, fine, but then you're merciful, right? Except that isn't God's instruction in certain cases, and we have trouble relating to that. Without the background that says something else was going on here that God was attempting to protect man from. The contamination of the human strain. Isn't that a strange idea? I don't know about you, but when I first ran into this sort of thing, it really gave me the creeps. And yet, that's what God is dealing with, and in fact, there's some linguistic suggestion that Noah and his sons may have been all that was left that was uncontaminated. That's a heavy trip, isn't it? Okay, let's keep moving here. There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, verse 4, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, that they bore children unto them, and the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown, men of fame. And by that I suggest what that may mean is the widespread legends that surrounded this period that is still captured in our mythology and legends today in many cultures. Verse 5, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his hearts was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made men on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Does that mean he changed his mind? No. We often misunderstand the idiom to assume that this is a surprise. God is really sorry. Gee, I didn't expect it to turn out this way. I better redo it. That isn't what that language intends, and it's certainly inconsistent with what we know of the Lord, because he laid the plans and made provision for our redemption before the foundation of the earth was laid. But it's a way of communicating how grieved God was at being confronted with the evil that was rampant. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing that follows the earth, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's interesting, especially when you discover that's the first place in the Bible the word grace appears. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Was Noah a good guy? No. He found grace. Grace means it was unmerited favor. The same basis you and I have before the throne. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. Noah was a just man. That means he never made a mistake, right? Wrong. If so, throw away the book of Romans. If we understand Romans 5 verse 9 correctly, we know how Noah was justified. How was Noah justified? By faith. We assume that Noah was righteous because he was good. That's backwards. Noah was good because he was righteous. God wants you to be righteous so that you can be good. We get it backwards. How do we become righteous? By having God ascribe to us the righteousness which is in Jesus Christ, and appropriate that to us by our faith. That's the pattern that was with Abel, therefore Cain slew him. That was the pattern with Noah. And that's the pattern for you and I standing here tonight. It's no different. Sometimes as we structure the Bible, we understand how God sets up his covenants, we speak of dispensations. And I do believe in dispensations in a sense of speaking. But one of the unfortunate things, this happens the period we're living in often gets called the age of grace. A reasonable term linguistically, an unfortunate term theologically because grace was the basis all the way through the scripture. That never changes. God doesn't change the way he deals with us as individuals in that sense. We may have the benefit of different revelations, true, but we it's by grace. He was a just man and perfect in his generations. Now what a strange strange word. What does that mean? The word tamim means it's used 54 times in the scripture it means without blemish. Without blemish. It's the word from the root of which we get the word contaminated. You could treat perfect, most of us probably read that perfect in his generations as being a synonymous concept with the previous thing. He was just man and perfect in his generations. And it's often in the Hebrew. Hebrew poetry consists of the juxtaposition of ideas as opposed to the metric construction of sound as our poetry does. Hebrew poetry puts in juxtaposition contrasting or comparative ideas. And it's that, it could be that kind of a thing or it could be something quite different. He was perfect in his generations. Earlier we found out that all flesh was corrupted right? But Noah was perfect in his generations. What does it mean when you've got a perfect family tree? If you've got a dog and he's in AKC registered is he perfect in his generations? Meaning is he what? A thoroughbred? Purebred or whatever, right? The concept of purity or perfection in terms of generations or a family tree carries the idea of the purity or cleanliness of the strain that you're interested in, right? Maybe, possibly, that's what he's saying here. Noah was perfect in his generations. Perfect, I mean uncontaminated, without blemish in terms of his genealogy. And that's one of the reasons maybe not the only one, but that's the proof that God selected him to be the mechanism of scrubbing the rest of the world clean to prevent or to set at naught the stratagem of Satan on the presumption of these the real motive of Satan of having these angels contaminate the family of man so as to invalidate the possibility of a kinsman redeemer. So when Revelation chapter 5 comes and we look upon the throne of him who sat upon the throne, and in the right hand of it there was a scroll sealed with seven seals, written within and on the back side. And the word goes out as, who is worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof? And it has to be a kinsman redeemer of Adam who forfeited it. It's a titlity to the earth. And John says, I sobbed convulsively, because no man was found worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof. And the elder says, weep not. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book and loose the seals thereof. I turned and saw the lamb as he had been slain before the foundation of the world. All that anticipated here by the Lord to make sure that it's possible for the seed of the woman to be indeed the seed of the woman and not some illegitimate offspring. Possibility. Don't want to insist on it, because there are good scholars who would be very upset with this view. But it's a view I hold. It's a view I think is supported in Scripture, so I share it with you. But I don't want to oversell it, because I'm sure that there may be obviously justifiable alternatives. And Noah, to finish verse 9, walked with God. What a fabulous phrase. It's also as used in Enoch. Very unique phrase. Walked with God. Too bad we don't pray that way. We always say, God, will you walk with us? I'm heading over this way, God. Be sure to come with me and make my way successful, right? Enoch and Noah seem to have a different idea. They walked with God. Our prayer ought to be, hey God, let me be sensitive to where you're going, so I'll be in step. We don't tend to do that. We tend to want to run things. Give God the benefit of our insight. Noah walked with God. We could get into a whole side thing here and talk about Noah's faith. Noah's faith had to be grounded in the Word, God's Word. Get into Luke 5 and do a whole trip on that if you like. The sphere, let's see, what we really should do, let's stop here before we get into this too much further. Let's turn to Hebrews 11.7. What I'm trying to do is to draw as heavily as we can without too much distraction on the Word of God as our commentary. We're going to try and do that more and more, especially as we reach into the prophecy sides of things. But turn to Hebrews chapter 11. We've drawn on Hebrews 11 several times already for Abel and for Enoch. Let's turn to verse 7 here where the writer to the Hebrews includes in his chronicle, his list of the great men of faith. He includes Noah and he says, verse 7, By faith, Noah. By faith, Noah. By the way, how did Noah get his faith? By grace. Ephesians 2.8 and 9 obtained here. For by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves is a gift of God. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet. Rain had not fallen. The rainbow was something new that was ordained after the flood. Rain had never, it wasn't a question of a lot of rain. Hey, 40 days and 40 nights and all of that. The concept of rain, you've got to be kidding. Many scientists believe, it's called the canopy theory, that the planet Earth was encased in a capsule of moisture. Incidentally, it doesn't necessarily have to be visible. Air vapor, water vapor can be invisible. Pilots know that. It doesn't necessarily be visible. That takes special conditions. The point is that an excessive amount, as we would think of it, of moisture encasing the Earth providing a uniform form climate, providing an insulation to the cosmic rays which cause aging. I was at Dana Point yesterday giving a presentation on this and I had a distinguished scientist in the audience and I happened to mention this and I point out that the whole thing was on this question of aging. We speak loosely in biology, we learn that our cells replace themselves and different cells of different kinds of tissue at different rates but in general it can be said that your body replaces itself every 7 years because the cells reproduce themselves. Well, if that's true, then why do we get old? If the cells faithfully reproduce themselves we're renewed. We're sort of like the farmer that had the axe and says, how long have you had that axe? Well, I've had that axe for 30 years. Except for 3 new heads and 2 new handles. Well, so the whole idea of being renewed raises a question of aging. If that's true, why do we age? And there's a big study going on among scientists about how we age. As Dr. Metherill, who was with us there at Dana Point, he said what I should have said, the study of aging is in its infancy. But one of the theories that we're learning is that the key, of course, to life is amino acid, the protein molecules that are essentially DNA chains and they carry the genetic codes. And one of the concepts that seems to be getting some repute is that the codes that they carry get noise, false signals, by being contaminated by cosmic rays or radiation. And it's the cumulative error that occurs in that coding schema that causes aging. And that seems to fit a lot of conditions. But it also suggests that if, in fact, the planet Earth had been shielded from radiation, it might account for the extended longevities of the pre-flood inhabitants. It's just an idea. It does have some merit, and at the same time, it's just an idea. The point is, though, that the concept of rain as a form of a water cycle, is what we're used to, was unknown at the time of Noah. Can you imagine a predicamentous guy trying to tell his neighbors, by the way, it's going to rain. 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 which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness, which is by faith. Now, the time is late, so I will just let you do your own study of this verse, when you get home tonight or tomorrow morning, and study seven things about Noah's faith. The ground of his faith is God's word. Right? The sphere of his faith is things not seen yet. He's just like Thomas. Or I should say the contrast to Thomas. When Jesus said to Thomas, you have seen and believed, blessed are they that have not seen and believed. So you have the opportunity that Noah had. The sphere of your faith is things not seen as yet. The character of his faith, he moved with fear, with respect, with reverence. The evidence of his faith, he built an ark. It's what James talks about. You know, show me faith, I'll show you, show me works by your faith. You don't get faith by your works, but you show me your faith by your works. Big difference. Evidence of his faith, he prepared an ark. The issue of his faith was the saving of his house. What did Noah get out of this deal? His house was saved. Think of the Philippian jailer. Not trying to imply that because you believe your children necessarily are, but deriving from your faith is benefits to your family, to those to your own. I won't get into that whole thing. But we'll see, you know, the issue of Abraham was the land. Rahab, salvation of her family. You can go through the scripture and see things that issue from faith. What was the witness of his faith? Here's a strange one. It's a result of witness you normally don't think of. You think when God says, He didn't tell you to go out and witness. He says be a witness, right? Big difference. Doesn't tell you to go out and be obnoxious, you know, and talk to the guy next to you and bang on him and hit, you know, keep putting tracks in his lunchbox and stuff. He says be a witness, right? You assume that that's to get him saved. If that's the case, Noah was a pretty poor witness. Right? Somewhat in contrast to Jonah. Jonah, after the whole whale bit, finally went and preached to Nineveh. And what do you think happened? Nineveh repented. Was Jonah high on that one? He says, I knew it, I knew it. I went there and told them you were going to judge them, and you didn't. I knew they'd repent. And he pouted under the gourd, right? Why did Noah accomplish his witness? He condemned the world, it says here. Track Romans 14, verse 23, if you like. But what was his reward? Became the air of righteousness. Wow! Wouldn't you like to have that on your report card? Wouldn't you? In fact, Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2 promises more than that. We will become air of all things. That's a bunch. Air of all things. That's a bunch. Okay. Let's get back to Genesis 6. Genesis 6. Noah begot three sons. Verse 10 says, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We're going to talk a lot about those three sons later. Because we're all descendants of one of those three. Do you know that? We all think of ourselves as descendants of Adam. Hey, it's closer than that. We're all descendants of Noah. And these three guys. You didn't know that you were all descendants out of Turkey, did you? Yeah, you all came from Ararat. Did you know that? So, if you have any Turkish friends, you know, treat them as brothers. Well, we'll get into more of that later. Verse 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. All flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth. I have a feeling that we can't begin to understand what that really means. We tend to believe that, gee, there's probably a pretty widespread crime wave or something. I mean, these guys were sort of bad news. That may mean far more than we recognize, but I probably hit that long enough. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. By the way, before we get into the ark thing, I'd like to point out some of the things that is pretty interesting to get in perspective here, because we're about to enter into this contrast between Noah and the ark and the people. Let's just recap for our own interest, the predicament that, let's just take a recap. If we were there, and Noah's down the street building his ark, and we're the world sitting here, the kinds of information we had. We had the light of nature itself, the creation and design of nature that Romans chapter 1, verse 19 and 20 holds us accountable for as just people. We had the witness of our own conscience that's enough to condemn us, which Romans chapter 2, verse 14 and 15. But in addition to that, there are nine other things. We had the promise of a redeemer. Our great-great grandfather Adam and his wife had a promise that there would be a redeemer. We had the institution of expiatory sacrifices. Adam and Eve with the coats of skins, Cain and Abel with their offering, the result of which was the killing of Cain, of Abel, I mean. And Noah himself is aware of this because the first thing he does when he leaves the ark later is to what? Build an altar and have a sacrifice. So we are in, if you'll excuse the expression, a Levitical context. We also incidentally, as you list these, one of the other things, witnesses, is we had the mark on Cain. There was this guy running around that had God's protection on him that we weren't supposed to, whatever it was, we weren't supposed to touch. Hey, that's an interesting witness. That says there's a God that cares and is watching him. Don't lay a hand on him or you're going to have seven times trouble. Right? We probably had the Sabbath, right? That was ordained. Exodus makes a big thing to it that ties it to the creation. The Sabbath was there. Certainly there was an appointed time for worship. That's what led to the whole Cain and Abel problem. Don't overlook the longevity. There's one generation involved. Adam and Methuselah overlapped. So we were, if you believe in a verbal tradition, I don't. I think there was writing in the time of Adam. In fact, I think Adam may have written part of this. But if you don't buy that, fine. You like a verbal tradition, you got one cycle here. Adam and Methuselah overlapped. Figure it out. Lay it out. It's a very interesting exercise. Do it yourself. Lay out the genealogy on a timeline. Who was born when and who overlapped. It's interesting. They had Enoch's preaching. Jude 14, 15, we looked at. Enoch was preaching what? That the Lord was going to come with 10,000 saints. And if that didn't impress them, guess what happened? Enoch split. Right? Man, if you want to see a worried group of people, visit Calvary Chapel when Chuck Smith and half a dozen others are gone. That will really cause panic. If Chuck takes an unannounced vacation and the elders don't get the word out or something, we're going to have some worried people around here. Enoch split. They had the preaching of Noah, which 2 Peter talked about. And, of course, the sounds of his hammer and saw down the street. And not the least of which, but making this kind of a chronicle, I couldn't resist, obviously, the Holy Spirit, as Genesis 6, 3 and 1 Peter 3, 19 mention. Okay. And we could also, one of the interesting things you might do yourself as you study this, knowing that the days of Noah were a social coming of the Son of Man be, notice the multiplication of mankind. You've got a population explosion threat. Hmm, that's interesting. You have God's long suffering with the wicked world. You have messages sent to warn. You have the Spirit striving with man, but not always. The hinderer will be taken out of the way, 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us. God's overtures will be despised and rejected. No surprise. What is the world going to do with the two witnesses? The only rejoicing on the planet Earth in the book of Revelation is when the world sends gifts to one another because these two witnesses finally got killed off and are watching their bodies laying in the street on television. Three and a half days, and then some interesting things start to happen. Small remnants saved. Sobering observation. Eight people were saved out of the entire known world, which probably had several billion people by then. Could easily have. You go through that. There are books written on trying to guess how many people on the Earth at the time of Noah's flood, and there were a bunch. You can take a whole envelope. That's a whole trip. I don't think it's fruitful for us, but there was a lot. And eight people God decided to select. His choice. I'll have mercy upon whom I'll have mercy. A remnant. Are you part of God's remnant tonight? It's free. It's open. By the way, anybody could have gotten on the Ark. You want to come on the Ark? And of course we have the descent of the fallen ones. The union with men. That's spooky. You don't believe in flying saucers? Out of the Project Blue Book, there were 20,000 cases. Unresolved. Unresolved. I mean, not provably nuts or crackpots or weirdos or whatever. 20,000 cases. Does that mean they're really flying saucers? I don't think so. It means the phenomenology's real. Is it demonic? Look at the doctrine that emerges out of it. Universal humanism and so forth. Satanic. Is that going to increase? Could. Kind of interesting. Revelation talks about men's hearts failing themselves for fear of the things that shall come upon the earth. Is that a figure of speech? And onward. Okay. We're right up to the Ark, aren't we? Um... God says to Noah, Make thee an Ark of gopher wood. Rooms shalt thou make it in the Ark. Actually nests, by the way. And thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. Very, very strange word. Pitch. Very strange word. Pitch. Every place else in the scripture where you're talking about pitch, they use a different Hebrew word called Zadath. This particular chapter, the word for pitch is kopher, which means to cover. It's a strange use of the Hebrew word here. Only in this chapter does the word pitch is the word kopher used for pitch. Over 70 times elsewhere in the Old Testament, that word is translated atonement. Atonement. Is that interesting? And you shall pitch it within and without with pitch. How many of you ever built a boat? Have you ever pitched it inside and out? That's a little strange, isn't it? We're going to make a big thing of that later. Or maybe I should just mention it now. I hate to do that to you because then I forget later and then, you know, people come ask. The whole idea of Noah and his Ark is that God is providing for Noah, right? Setting aside the other issues in terms of, gee, was there really a flood? We're beyond that. The concept is that God provided an Ark for Noah and to accomplish his purpose. And the Ark preserved Noah through the flood. A year later, they land on the Mount Ararat, right? Now, could God have placed that Ark wherever he wanted to? Right. Now, if you were a providing God, why wouldn't you have that Ark drop nicely into a valley somewhere where they could, you know, make a transition, right? Leave the Ark, start a village. You know, wouldn't that be a neater way to do it? You cannibalize the Ark for furniture or shelter or what? God did not do that. He placed the Ark at 14,000 feet where the altitude is so rarefied they've got to leave the Ark to really survive reasonably, right? It's in one of the most geodetically unstable places on the planet Earth, under ice most of the time. And it's there today. There are expeditions, there are people that have seen it. There's parts of it they've brought back. It's a fascinating study. It goes beyond our interest here tonight to go into all of that. The book publishers are having a ball because it's, you know, you can buy dozens of books on the subject. The Ark is there. Interesting. Why was the Ark pitched within and without? To preserve it. And if that's true, I believe it's evidence that God has a purpose for that Ark yet. That that Ark will serve again as a testimony to an unbelieving world that there's a living God who will not always strive but will bring an end to all flesh. Not with water next time, but with fire. Will the world pay any attention? No. But that Ark will be again a prophecy. It will surface. It's been preserved. It's been almost immune to surveillance until God's point in time. And when He does, I think again, it will serve as a prophecy, as a testimony. We're running short of our time. I'm going to suggest to you a couple of things that we will develop next time, but you can be thinking about it this coming week. I think we will go obviously further into the Ark and talk about it. But Noah, I'd like you to take a look at Noah as you read chapters 6 and 7, maybe 8, in preparation for next Monday. You might take a sheet of paper, and this is always fun to do. Jesus Christ said, the volume of the book is written to me. Everything in this scripture reports to Jesus Christ. Does Noah point to Jesus Christ? He might. Let's list a few things. What's his name mean? Rest. Do we have rest in Him? Is He comfort? Isaiah 11.10, Matthew 11.28. The word grace first appears with Him. He found grace. Favor in the Lord. Matthew 3.17. He was a just man. That's what the centurion said at the foot of the cross. He was perfect in his generations. And of none other is this said in the scripture. Is that true of Jesus Christ? He walked with God. Take a look at Luke chapter 2, verse 42, Luke 4.4. He was given onerous work to do. Building this ark out of His own pocket was a chore. That was a big barge. He did it by Himself. Alone. And that was ordained in Leviticus chapter 16, verse 17. The high priest did His atoning work by Himself. Nobody went in the Holy of Holies but once. And He alone. That's what Noah did, in effect. And that's what Jesus Christ did as 1 Peter 2.24. He who bore His own self bore His body on the tree. There's some other things. The saving of His house. The saving of every living thing. All the living things were saved by Noah. Same with Jesus Christ. Romans 8.21 and so forth. The animals were subject to Him. As a result of all this, He was given all things. God is going to ordain the use of all animals to Noah. Left when they leave. Different set of ecological conditions than before. Food was provided. Just as Christ is our show bread. Leviticus 24 and so on. Noah was obedient. Certainly Jesus Christ was. He lost none of them. Lost none of them. When Noah left the ark, every living thing was still there. We're going to see that point when we get there. He lost none of them. And Jesus Christ could pray in Father John 18, None of them that Thou gavest Me are lost. Right? And of course, there's an altar. His sons were blessed. And there's an everlasting covenant given. Not just covenant, an everlasting covenant given to Noah and of course in Jesus Christ. Just as a beginning. We'll develop next time, but so you can get ahead as you read the ark, I want you to think about the ark as a type of Jesus Christ. It's divinely provided. Its design was revealed in advance. It was done of coffer wood, the atoning wood, and the wood was used in the tabernacle to refer to humanity. It involved the death of a tree. It was a root out of a dry ground. Isaiah 53 says. It was the only refuge from judgment. Visualize the theologians arguing. Well, I'm a universalist. I think a lot of paths to God. I don't know about that, but I got one right here. Only one. Man was invited. The first come in the book of the Bible in the book of Genesis is in chapter 7 verse 1. Come. If you have a revised standard version, it's tragedy. They said go. It's wrong. It's come. God is in the ark. Come. I think the RSV or some of the modern translations say go for no justifiable reason. The word is clearly come. God is in there. Come unto me, and I will give you what? Noah. Rest. I believe the security in the ark was absolute. I believe the security in the ark was absolute. I don't stir up some controversy. I believe your life is hid in Jesus Christ. One year later in Genesis chapter 8 verse 18 and 19, every living thing that went in got out. Didn't lose any. I think God's pretty effective. I don't think he's going to drop any off. Furthermore, Jesus Christ says, I have lost none that you have given me. All that you have given me, Father, I have lost none of them. Remember he says that in John 18.9. Noah did not close the door. Who closed the door? God. Do you think Noah could have got out of there if he wanted to? I don't believe so. There was only one door. Only one door into that ark. There was only one entrance into the tabernacle to the east. East of Eden, right? Incidentally, it was in the side of the ark. In the side of the ark. By analogy, where Eve was taken from Adam. Or where the water and blood flowed from his side. Under his heart, maybe. No, it's interesting to study the ark and to study what God is doing here. And we'll get into that some more next time. I ran a little off time. But we'll study for next time. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. I believe the flood is universal. We'll talk some about that next time. Chapter 8. We'll be... I suggest you get into Chapter 8. And I also suggest you take note of the precision in which God accounts certain chronological details. We're going to have some fun with the fact that the ark rested on Mount Ararat on the 7th month of the 17th day of the month. Don't waste a lot of time tracking that down because it probably involves some things you don't know. We'll cover that, too, to show you some things that are kind of interesting. Let's close with a quick word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just praise you for our ark. We thank you, Father, that you've opened the single door, but you've opened it to us. And we thank you, Father, that you say to us, Come. And we thank you, Father, that in that ark we have security and we have rest and we have comfort. And we have rooms or nests or places that are prepared for us. And we thank you, Father, that you have loved us so much that by your grace we have this unmerited favor to be the beneficiary of your protection, your refuge. And, Father, as we drift at sea in a restless world, in an unbelieving, wicked, and adulterous world, we just praise you that you have loved us so much as to provide so great a salvation for each and every one of us. And we just pray, Father, that as we dwell upon Genesis 6-7 and the account that you have given here of Noah and his faithfulness to you and the work that you've done, that you had him do, that we won't be the result of his witness in the sense of being condemned in the world, but rather that through his witness we might live. And we just praise you, Father, for the joy, the privilege of being in the ark that we call Jesus Christ, in whose authority and to whose glory we pray. Amen. This concludes the eighth study in the book of Genesis conducted by Chuck Missler.