Genesis 8

All right, so we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter 8. Genesis 8, and then we're going to have another shorter video in between the lesson. So we're going to talk a little bit about the ice age or the so-called ice age.

When was that? Was there an ice age? Where does it fit into the Bible? So we'll read through chapter 8 and then talk about it.

Then God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark.

And God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped. And the rain from heaven was restrained and the waters receded continually from the earth.

At the end of the 150 days, the waters decreased. Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the 17th day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the 10th month.

In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

So it came to pass at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. Then he sent out a raven which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out from himself a dove to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground.

But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot and she returned into the ark to him. For the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and drew her into the ark to himself.

And he waited yet another seven days and again he sent the dove out from the ark. Then the dove came to him in the evening and behold a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth. And Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove which did not return again to him anymore. And it came to pass in the 601st year in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth.

And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked. And indeed the surface of the ground was dry.

And in the second month on the 27th day of the month, then God spoke to Noah. Go out of the ark you and your wife and your sons and your son's wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so that they may abound on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

So Noah went out and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him.

Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. And the Lord said in his heart,.

I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.

So we're continuing the account of Noah in the flood here in Genesis chapter 8. The floodwaters are starting to recede. Noah and his family exit the ark. But first, the chapter begins with this statement in verse 1.

It says, and then God remembered Noah. And of course that, I shouldn't say of course, because not everyone would know that, I guess. But it doesn't mean that God forgot Noah, right? That's the way it sounds.

And God remembered Noah. That would maybe imply that God had forgotten. But people call this, it's one of those words, an anthropomorphism, right? We've heard this term before, anthropomorphic language, where we take human attributes and ascribe them to God just to help us better understand the story.

So God obviously knows everything. He didn't forget and then have to remember. That's not what it's saying. So other anthropomorphisms in the Bible, when it talks about the arm of the Lord, like the arm of the Lord has not grown short.

Well, God is a spirit. He doesn't actually have an arm. I think we understand that. Or that no man can see God's face and live. God isn't human to where he would have, or God the Father doesn't actually have a face.

So it's not saying that God forgot Noah. And then he's like, oh yeah, I left him on the ark. I need to go and help him out. No, that's not what's happening. It's just a way of saying that God is now intervening on Noah's behalf.

Okay, so the statement that God remembered Noah, this reminds us of God's care and his concern for his servant. We see along these same lines, we see a few other statements like that. Another one in Genesis 19, 29, this time about Abraham.

It says, and it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham and sent out Lot in the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

So it's because of Abraham's intercession that Lot was spared from judgment. Also, we read in Genesis 30, 22 and 23, that God remembered Rachel. And it says, God listened to her and opened her womb. And she conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my approach, reproach.

So in the Bible, when it says God remembered so-and-so, this is just a way of saying God is now intervening on their behalf. So we understand this statement, God remembered Noah. Okay, so God told him to build the ark.

Noah has been faithful in all things, everything. Remember last week, everything that God told him to do, it says he did it. So there was no way that God was going to leave Noah stranded on the ark. He was not going to abandon him.

So in verse one again, then God remembered Noah in every living thing, in all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided. Verse two, the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained.

And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the 150 days, the waters decreased. So he's still in the middle of it as of now. But who knows how long was Noah on the ark, like altogether from the day he went in to the day he came out.

Who knows the length of time or about who wants to guess? Longer. Yeah, for not quite 400, but close. So yeah, just over a year, like a year and 17 days a year and 18 days, something like that. So that's a long time to be on the ark, but the waters are now receding.

And we see in verse four that in the seventh month, in the 17th day of the month, the ark touched down and rested on the mountains of Ararat. So now the ark has touched down on the mountains of Ararat.

Now, if you look at a map today in the Middle East, that area, you will find the mountain range of the mountains of Ararat, or at least the mountain of Ararat. So who knows where Mount Ararat is today?

Yeah, it's in Turkey. It's on the border, I think, but it's in Turkey. Now, obviously, we can't know for certain that Mount Ararat of today is the same exact location, but it's generally accepted that it is.

So modern day Turkey. And I don't know if any of you have heard about this. I haven't heard anything in several years. But years ago, I don't know how much of this is true, but apparently people claim there are satellite photos that supposedly show the ark's location.

I remember on the side of the mountain, it was covered by snow, but there was this thing protruding out of the side of the mountain. And based on its shape and how big it was, a lot of people speculated that, yeah, that's the ark.

I've seen a few photos, and you never really know what's real and what's doctored. But whether that's real or not, I'm not sure. But a lot of people do believe that the remains of Noah's Ark is over in Turkey.

And again, from what I understand, the Turkish government does not allow anyone to go into that area to verify that. Who's heard this story before? Yeah.

I've watched documentaries that there have been expeditions and that they thought they were directly over it. And it was covered with ice, and they drilled down. And at one point, they thought they had some sort of a pitch or gopher wood, but it wasn't.

They just so it couldn't be confirmed. And yeah, it was very dangerous and very difficult to do. It looked like an authentic documentary being filmed. I mean, we believe in it. Right.

Some people have had the idea, you know, if we can just find the remains, then it would prove that the Bible is true. So if you just find Noah's Ark, then everyone will believe the Bible, right? Yeah.

Now, if they did find it, could God use that to bring some people to? Yeah. God could use that. But you know how it is. People who don't want to believe, even if they found Noah's Ark and it was confirmed, if somebody doesn't want to believe, they're not going to believe.

Like salvation is a miraculous work of the spirit. And giving someone information doesn't necessarily mean they're going to embrace that or certainly the whole thing. So I don't even if they found it, I don't think that would actually change anything.

And as Marcus said, like as Christians, we take it on faith. Anyways, the whole point is believing what God has said. This is what Noah did. Noah had no reason to believe that there was going to be a flood.

But God spoke and Noah had faith in God. And that's the same thing with us. We shouldn't have to find Noah's Ark. We shouldn't need evidence. We should take it on faith. Yeah.

We have evidence. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord and the earth show up his handiwork. And isn't that in Romans, maybe one, I think it's verse 18, where it says, they are without excuse. Right.

You don't have to have Noah's Ark. You can look at a mountain. Right. If you look at the scenery and you see a barn way off, you say, oh, somebody built that barn. Well, what about the mountain that that barn is sitting on?

Somebody built that too.

I agree. The evidence we have for God's existence is, yeah, the starry skies above and the moral law within. But if you want physical evidence, we have the Bible. And that's really all that we should need.

But we read this in verse five and the waters decreased continually until the 10th month. In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. So then you have this account where Noah sends out the two birds.

First, he sends out a raven and then a dove. Apparently, ravens have a much, they're a lot less picky. So they'll eat whatever. Doves are more selective in their diet. So if the dove comes back, that's supposedly why he's sending out the different birds.

So when the bird, the dove comes back with the branch in its mouth, that's when he knows. Verse 11, then the dove came to him in the evening and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth and Noah knew that the waters had receded.

So anything from any questions or comments on verses one through 11? If not, we'll move on. Okay, so that happens. Verse 12, he waited yet another seven days, sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.

So the fact that it doesn't return tells you it found a place to live. So now Noah realizes it's safe to get off the ark. But before we look at that, let's turn to 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3, there's one thing we haven't talked about very much.

Obviously, the flood, the flood itself totally changed the Earth's landscape. All the continents, the way the world was totally different after the flood. Who has ever seen a localized flood maybe come through your town or you've seen a flood affected area?

And yeah, the landscape does look totally different. I remember when I was a kid, we used to swim in the river down the road and then we had, I don't know, 20 years ago, whenever it was, there was a massive flood and it flooded out the campground that was next to the river.

And then we went back and the river ran a totally different course. So it changed it very much. So obviously, a worldwide flood is just going to change everything. I can't prove this, but I suspect since scientists claim and it does make sense the way the continents are shaped that maybe they were all together at one point.

But if the continents did, if they were together and they did separate at a certain point in time, it probably was during the flood when the fountains of the deep were broken up. It makes sense that that is when God may have shifted the continents.

So obviously the Earth's climate, its topography and the climate changed drastically. And that kind of brings us to the subject of the Ice Age. So what is the Ice Age? At least what do you hear in school?

Like if you go to school, you go to college, high school, whatever, what do they say about the Ice Age? Who knows?

That's part of the billion years or million years thinking they imagine. Right.

From what I understand, the Ice Age, they say started about 2 .4 million years ago and it lasted up until about 12 ,000 years ago. I shared a couple of weeks ago, me and Tanya went to New Hampshire and we were looking at the old site of the man in the mountain and they have all these natural wonders up there.

And at one of the attractions, the Flume, they had a video screen set up and they were telling the history of the area. And they said all of this was formed, the mountains were formed during the Ice Age, about 11 ,000, 12 ,000 years ago.

That's when the glacier moved through. And I don't doubt that a glacier may have formed all that. I just question when it happened. So obviously, when scientists say that this happened millions of years ago or 12 ,000 years ago, they're clearly speculating.

Here's the difference between Ken Ham and his ministry, Answers in Genesis, and what they say, which I tend to agree with that. Here's the difference between the way they look at the world and the way the atheistic scientists look at the world.

Other than one believes the Bible, the other doesn't. But the scientists believe that everything existed as is and everything changed slowly over a long, long, long period of time. Ken Ham, young Earth creationists, you know, myself, we believe the Earth changed but it happened over a very short period of time because there was a cataclysmic event.

So the scientists reject this cataclysmic event. They think it would have to happen slowly over time if there wasn't this drastic thing called the Flood. So look at 2 Peter 3, 3 through 6. And I think the scripture sort of alludes to such a mindset.

Peter writes, knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, you know, a long, long, long time ago, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

So they just think that things the way they are now, it's always been like this. He says in verse 5, for this, they willfully forget. It's not that they don't know. They willfully forget that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the Earth standing out of water and in the water by which the world that then existed perished being flooded with water.

So they reject the Flood. If they just believe the Bible, they would have the answer for how all this stuff formed quickly, but they reject it like that's the one thing they won't accept. So that's the big difference.

And we read in verse 4, they just think things continue on as is. And that's simply not true because God has intervened once, totally changed the world with the Flood. And guess what? God is going to intervene again and totally change the world again.

The second time, the second advent of Christ, and he's going to judge the world next time with fire. Of course, they don't believe that either, right? They scoff at the idea of Jesus coming back. So let's address this topic of the Ice Age.

I'm going to play this video that I got off of the Answers in Genesis website. It's only like three minutes. So I'll play the video and then we'll come back and talk about it.

The ice on Greenland and Antarctica is in places miles deep and hundreds of miles wide. In the present, however, all but the edges of these ice sheets are cold deserts. Not enough snow and ice falls there to build up the depth of ice that we find today, even if long periods of time were available.

The Flood of the Bible may provide an answer. First of all, flood rocks contain thick piles of lava and huge volumes of volcanic ash. Meteorologist Mike Ord has suggested that this might have led to the Ice Age.

There was a lot of warm water added to the pre-flood oceans from the crust and also a lot of lava flows and volcanism that heat the waters.

Evidence in fossils suggests that the oceans were warmed up in the course of the flood.

The average temperature of the ocean is 39 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, after the flood, it could have been an average of about 86 degrees Fahrenheit and you could have taken a swim in the Arctic Ocean right after the flood.

It was so warm. But then it's going to start cooling down and that cooling is mainly by evaporation. So the key here is that for that warm water, you evaporate so much more water vapor in the air.

As the oceans cooled after the flood, heavy snow began to fall. Computer simulations that begin with warm oceans show snow falling far inland over cool continents. Ice sheets build up thousands of feet thick, where we see evidence for such ice today.

This ice built up in only a few centuries of time. The whole process was sped up by volcanic ash cooling the earth after the flood.

Because of the instability of the earth after the flood, there'd be a lot of volcanism. Aerosols are tiny particles about a micron in diameter and they'll float up there in the stratosphere for several years and they reflect sunlight back to space.

So you have a cooling mechanism. The ice is going to build up and then finally it's going to come to a point where it's going to peak. That's glacial maximum.

Once the oceans cooled enough, the evaporation slowed, the snows stopped, and the ice began to melt. Calculations suggest that the buildup, movement, and melting of ice did not require many thousands of years as is traditionally taught.

From a warm world at the end of the flood to the melting of the ice took only centuries of time.

And then I see evidence of the one ice age and the short rapid ice age that melts catastrophically. This is what I see based on science.

Present climate is not the key to understanding what produced thick piles of ice in Greenland and Antarctica. It looks like the Bible had the key all along. The great flood in the days of Noah.

Any questions or comments on that? I mean, obviously this is a competing theory, but it's a theory that they're just not going to even entertain this as a possibility because part of it is that the flood is real.

As soon as the scientists say, yeah, the flood was a possibility, that's it. They're out of a job. They don't get tenure. All the rest, they're shunned. They're blacklisted. And there was that film, uh, who was it?

Ben Stein expelled. Remember that like 20 years ago, he interviewed all these people that were open to maybe young earth or, uh, not even let's see intelligent design. I think they were just open to that.

They weren't even Bible believers just being open to intelligent design. It's like, no, we, we are going to shun you. Obviously there were no human beings around. So all of it, all of these are theories.

No one, no human knows for certain, but I believe God knows and God has given us this information in Genesis. And this is what I believe. So whatever is going to more line up with that is what I'm going to be more likely to accept.

So according to answers in Genesis, their website, they say that the ice age was a period of several hundred years as compared to 2 .4 million, but they say it was a period of several hundred years that began within a short time following the global flood of Noah's day.

During this time, global temperatures cooled and glaciers covered one third of the earth's surface. The flood after effects, uh, such as warmer oceans and cooler air temperatures created the necessary conditions.

They say when, or here's the question, what started the ice age, uh, two particular aspects of the flood were instrumental in causing the ice age. Number one, extensive volcanic activity during and after the flood.

And number two, the warm oceans following the flood. They say, we know the extent of the ice age because the glaciers left features on the landscape, similar to features we observe around glaciers today.

So any, any other comments on this? Uh, this I thought was interesting. They asked, you know, what about the, the woolly mammoths? So they say with the woolly mammoth mystery, uh, woolly mammoths probably died after the flood because there are thousands of carcasses scattered across Alaska and Siberia resting above flood deposits.

There must have been sufficient time for the mammoths to have repopulated these regions after the flood. Therefore, the post flood ice age provides an explanation for the mystery of the woolly mammoths.

And really from what I understand, the theory is like, how did all the dinosaurs, how were they fossilized? Well, it was because of the conditions of the, of the flood. That's, that's the theory. One other theory they have, uh, a gene study suggests that native Americans came from Siberia.

So this would be based on DNA evidence as people groups spread out across Asia and into Africa and Europe, a population traversed a land bridge connecting Siberia to North America. Who knows what that land bridge is called or that area.

Right. Yeah. The Bering Strait. From there, the group populated the continent and diversified both genetically and culturally. So who knows of the Bering Strait, right? So Alaska, like there's this land bridge, you can see it where it would have been between Alaska and Russia, but then there's a part where there's no land.

And, uh, you know, if you remember years ago, Sarah Palin made a comment where she said, you know, from Alaska, you can almost see Russia from my, you know, from Alaska, you can look out, you know, my front door and almost see Russia and they mocked her like severely.

But there is a one spot where Russia is only 55 miles away from, from Alaska. So, so it's, it's actually pretty close. So most scientists do accept that there was a land bridge. So I don't know about you, but I think it's helpful to hear these different theories that there are actual answers to all of this.

The dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, ice age. It's not like Christians deny all this. It's just, we believe it happened just not millions of years ago. Marcus.

This is taught in fourth grade at Providence Christian Academy. Yeah. While I was there.

Yeah, good, good. Yeah. And the fact that in high school, kids wouldn't even, you know, this, this, these theories wouldn't even be brought up. I mean, they're trying to hide this information. So if there's really nothing to be afraid of, if they're confident in their positions, they should not be so afraid to talk about this stuff.

All right, let's go back to Genesis chapter eight and we'll finish up. Genesis chapter eight, verses 14 through 16. It says, and in the second month on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dried. Then God spoke to Noah saying, go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your son's wives with you.

So Noah exits the ark. He's told to take the animals off of the ark so that they can reproduce. You know, he tells the animals so that they can be fruitful and multiply. Then starting in verse 20, this section is titled God's covenant with creation.

It says, then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. Remember last week we talked about how, yeah, a lot of the animals are brought on two by two, but the clean animals, how many were brought on of the clean animals?

Seven. And he said the purpose was so that Noah could sacrifice when he got off the ark. Now, what's the purpose of sacrifice or what is sacrifice? It's another word for it's another, he's doing something that we do today.

It's just, it just looks different and how it plays out. Yeah. He's worshiping. This was an early, you know, a primitive form of, of worship or the original form of worship. Really?

Marcus was foreshadowing of the perfect plan that would be sacrifice, which is God's own son. Yeah.

We don't offer sacrifices today. They did it right up until the death of Christ on the cross. So today we don't need to sacrifice because that, that true sacrifice has already been made. But before Christ died on the cross, they were worshiping, offering sacrifices.

Yes. Pointing ahead. We look back, they, they looked ahead. So it says here that God smelled a soothing aroma and he was pleased. That's just a way of saying that God accepted the sacrifice. He accepted the worship.

So why is Noah worshiping God out of thanks for what God has just done for him? Does that make sense? So I think this is the application of the chapter. So last week we looked at the ark as being a type of Christ, right?

The ark represents being in, in Christ. You're in the ark. You're delivered from the flood. Just like today you're in Christ. You're delivered. You're saved from, you know, God's, God's wrath. Noah was delivered from God's wrath.

We're delivered from God's wrath. The ark represents Christ. But in this chapter, we see the proper response to salvation. So he was saved. And because he was saved, because he was delivered, he does the, the, the right.

This is the right response to thank God and praise God for what, for what he has done. So he worships. So today when a person is saved, when a person first comes to faith in Christ, you should be thankful for what he did for saving you.

So the first thing you would, you would expect a person to do once they become a believer. Yeah. You, you know, you get baptized and become part of the church and you worship because of what God has done for you.

So, so worship is the natural result of being thankful for God saving us. And that's what's going on with Noah. And then the next part, verse 21 says, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake.

Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. And this is another one of those verses that really back up the biblical teaching of the depravity of man. Like the problem of evil has not really been dealt with fully.

I mean, God did destroy the earth because wickedness was great. But once, once mankind starts to repopulate the earth, does the wickedness come back? Yes. But God is gracious and he makes a promise that he will never again destroy the earth, at least not with, with water.

But here he's giving a promise that he's not going to destroy the earth again. So remember everything's totally changed. He gives this promise in verse 22, that the, to paraphrase that the current earth will continue on as is there's going to be seasons hot and cold, which probably is a brand new thing.

I don't think that happened before, before the flood. I don't think there, there were winters. It was a tropical climate. So all of a sudden, if there's these violent thunderstorms and, you know, rain, torrential rain, and, you know, winter and Noah, or someone could think, oh no, it's happening again.

God's he's angry. He's destroying the earth again. God is promising him. No, that's not what's going to happen. I will not do that again. So we'll close with verse 22. God's promising him that the earth will continue on, but there will be changes in seasons.

Verse 22. While the earth remains seed time and harvest cold and heat winter and summer and day and night shall not cease.