Genesis Apologetics K8 Student Zone-Understanding the Global Flood (6-8 grade)

Well, hello and welcome to The Zone. I'm your host, Big Wave Dave. So this is the first in our two -part series on the global flood.

Are you ready? Let's get started. Sadly, some people believe that the flood was just a fairy tale.

And when you say Noah's flood, they think of cute little cartoons like this one here. But this cartoon has nothing to do with the real flood, so let's get rid of it.

Okay, that works. During this session, we are going to focus on answering these key questions.

Let's start with this one. Why did God flood the earth? You know, that is a great question.

And to find the answer, we need to go back to the very beginning. In the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth. Now, God created all of the living things according to their kinds and told them to be fruitful and multiply.

At first, everything was perfect. The animals lived in harmony with one another and ate green plants for food.

God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden. Now, God gave them just one rule.

You may not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or you will die. Sadly, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God and everything changed.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they brought death, pain and suffering into the world. To make matters even worse, all of humanity was now destined to spend eternity apart from God.

Over time, evil spread rapidly. The earth was filled with violence.

The thoughts of men were continually evil.

Things became so bad that God had to do something or all would be lost.

So, God launched his plane. The Bible says that the earth was filled with violence and that the thoughts of men were continuously evil.

Can you imagine how awful that must have been? It was so bad that God had to basically wipe almost everything out and start all over again.

How do you think that made God feel? On Genesis 6, it said that this grieved his heart.

In other words, it made him really, really sad. In the book of Ezekiel, we learn that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

He wants everyone to turn to him to be saved. God had to flood the earth because evil was out of control.

Okay, let's move on to the next question. How did Noah fit all of those animals on the ark?

So, what animals did Noah need to bring? Here's what God said. You are to take two of every kind of bird, two of every kind of animal and two of every kind of creature that moves along the ground.

Okay, but what's a kind? A kind is a group of related animals.

For example, there are over 300 breeds of dogs, but one dog kind.

There are over 300 different types of horses, but just one kind. And the same is true for lions and tigers and bears and horses and cows and you name it.

They are all according to their kinds. So, how many animals would that be?

Well, based upon the latest estimates, it's about 7 ,000 animals. Now, you may be thinking, whoa, that's a lot of animals.

Was there room on the ark for them? Actually, it wasn't a problem because the real ark was huge.

It was 510 feet long. Now, that's as long as one and a half football fields. It was 84 feet wide and as tall as a four -story building.

Now, the ark could carry the same as a train with 522 boxcars.

Wow, that's big. There's no problem fitting all the animals on the ark. Were dinosaurs on the ark?

Let's remember what God said. You're to take two of every kind of creature that moves along the ground.

Did dinosaurs move along the ground? Yes, they did. So, according to the Bible, yes, dinosaurs were on the ark.

Now, if you want to learn more about how dinosaurs fit into the Bible, check out our video. Okay, so we've talked about why

God flooded the earth, and we've looked at how all the animals fit. Let's talk about the flood.

When I was a child, we used to sing songs about Noah's ark. It rained, it poured for 40 days, and stuff like that.

And that's fine, except for this. The real flood was so much more than just a rainstorm.

It was a cataclysmic event that wiped out the face of the earth. Now, the flood lasted for 370 days, and can be broken into three major stages.

Let's take a closer look. The first 150 days of the flood were incredibly violent.

The fountains of the great deep burst forth. The earth's crust split, and there were massive earthquakes all over the world.

The oceanic plates rose, and what they did is they forced water onto the dry lands, and created massive tsunamis.

By the end of this phase, the entire surface of the earth was covered with water. Billions of creatures perished, and were buried in sediment.

During the second phase of the flood, the waters began to drain back into the basins of the ocean.

And when they did that, they carved out a lot of the features that we see today. The ark came to rest somewhere in the mountains of Ararat, and the plants began to grow.

According to the Bible, this stage of the flood lasted for 150 days. During the last stage of the flood, no one and the animals were on the ark waiting for the land to dry out.

Altogether, the flood lasted for 370 days. A group of scientists have studied the geology of the earth, and have created a computer model called catastrophic plate tectonics.

I know that sounds like a mouthful, but here is a glimpse of what the flood may have looked like.

The global flood was not a fairy tale. It was a major worldwide event that helps explain a lot of what we see around us today.

Wow, we have covered a lot of material. Let's finish up with this. Why is this topic so important?

So here's the deal. If Satan can convince people that the flood was not real, it's much easier for him to cast doubt on other things, like heaven and hell and the resurrection of Jesus, and so forth.

And that's a problem, because Jesus warned us that another judgment is coming.

You see, someday Jesus is coming back, and he's going to take all the people that love him to a very special place called heaven.

Those who have not accepted Jesus as Savior are going to be left behind and will have to face judgment.

It is my hope and prayer that if you have never accepted Jesus, that you will do that today.

Well, that's all the time we have together today. I'm Big Wave Dave, and I hope to see you soon here on the zone.