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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective. Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. On today's program I want to do a follow up on what we did on yesterday's program. On yesterday's program we talked about Noah's Ark.
Well actually what I did was I played a portion of a sermon that I preached last Sunday at Sovereign Grace Family Church where I discussed where all the water came from that produced the flood that the Bible tells us about in Genesis chapters 7, 8 and 9, the story of Noah and the Ark.
I've been preaching on this for the last couple of weeks and what I want to do today is I want to do a resource recommendation and review because when we talk about something as important as Noah's Ark it's essential that we realize that this is one of the places where the world often has questions and in fact it's one of the places where those who do not believe the Bible's testimony come in and attack what the Bible has to say.
I mean honestly how many of us have been in situations where we have been asked the question you don't really believe in Noah's Ark do you? You don't really believe in that fanciful story of a man who built a boat so big that he could take two of every animal in the world and you don't really believe that there was a time when the earth was totally covered with water do you?
And that question is often asked not really in the sense of a legitimate question but rather it's asked more of an inquisition. It's asked sort of in a way to deride the person who is going to say yes.
In fact I've noted in several situations where atheists have been in conversations with believers and even in my own situations of talking with unbelievers often the questions come up well you don't really believe those fairy tale stories in the Bible stories like Noah's Ark.
And so for the last few weeks I've been preaching I've been making my way through Genesis preaching verse by verse through the text and as I got into Genesis chapter 6 I knew I was going to be preaching on Noah's Ark and I was really looking forward to it because back in my seminary days I spent a lot of time looking at the apologetics which surround Genesis chapters 1 through 11 because Genesis 1 through 11 sits as sort of a subset of Genesis overall.
Genesis is about the beginnings not only of the world but of the beginnings of the Hebrew people and really if you look at Genesis you can break it into two parts. Genesis 1 through 11 is the world and the creation of the world and Genesis 12 and beyond is about the founding of the Hebrew people particularly Abraham and his descendants and so we see that's the breakdown of Genesis.
Genesis 1 through 11 is you know pre-Abrahamic history and then of course Genesis 12 to 50 is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then his sons. So we look at Genesis and we look at these narratives and this becomes an essential part of our faith.
The New Testament makes so many references to Adam to the situation with creation and to Noah and the situation that happened during the flood and the New Testament does not allow for us to simply consider these as mythological or as things that didn't actually happen.
The New Testament affirms these things are not only true but actually these things are necessary to believe if we are going to believe what the New Testament says about Jesus and about what he did on the cross.
In fact it wasn't too long ago that a very famous pastor in Georgia made the statement that his goal was for his people to unhitch the Old Testament from their faith because there were so many things in the Old Testament that were hard to believe and therefore they needed to focus just on Jesus, just on the resurrection.
It was the resurrection that was really the most important thing and while I would agree that the resurrection is the linchpin, the resurrection is the point that Paul said if this isn't true then our faith is in vain so obviously the resurrection is important but we can't simply deny or go against our belief in these Old Testament narratives because these Old Testament narratives pave the way for our faith that comes in the New Testament.
In fact I don't really think we can understand everything that's happening in the New Testament without understanding the groundwork which is paved for us in the Old Testament. So getting back to the subject of Noah and the flood I want to recommend a resource.
I talked about this in my sermon last week but on today's program I'm going to just talk about what the resource is, how you can get a copy of it for free and what you can use it for in your own personal study and as possibly a way for you to reach out to your unbelieving family and friends.
The title of the resource is Noah's Ark, A Biblical and Scientific Look at the Genesis Account, and it's actually called A Pocket Guide to Noah's Ark, I'm sorry, A Pocket Guide to Noah's Ark, A Biblical and Scientific Look at the Genesis Account.
Now this is made available from Answers in Genesis. Now for a moment, let me just say this, I really appreciate the ministry of Answers in Genesis, I've met Ken Ham a few years ago, I've heard him speak on several occasions, I've had the opportunity to be influenced by his ministry and some of what they teach at Answers in Genesis, but right away I want to say this, as much as I appreciate what they do there, I don't agree with every single conclusion that they come to, I don't agree with everything, and I don't think that there is always unanimous conclusions because there's different scientists that work for Answers in Genesis, there's different groups that work together with them, and we've had at our church, we've had people from Answers in Genesis come and speak, and we've also had people from other creation groups come and speak, we've had Dr. Jonathan Sarfati come and speak, and we've had a few other folks over the years come and speak, and we appreciate those who try to take the Bible and understand it from a scientific perspective and understand the literal nature of the text from a scientific perspective, not to try to force the Bible into modern scientific research, but rather to try to understand the Bible in a way that would comport with what we understand about the world around us.
So I appreciate these men, I appreciate what they do, and even though a lot of people would disagree with some of their conclusions, I want to say from the outset, I'm very thankful for what they're doing, and one day, as much as I know my wife wants to, and I do too, one day I hope to go look at that ark that they have built up in Kentucky, but thus far we have been unable to make that trip.
So getting back to the pocket guide, again, you can look this up, simply go to the website Answers in Genesis, you can go to Google, and you can look it up, A Pocket Guide to Noah's Ark, A Biblical and Scientific Look at the Genesis Account.
And again, I'm recommending this for a couple of different reasons, one, I'm preaching through this right now, and while I'm preaching through the text, I'm not going to have the opportunity to stop at every turn and answer every single question about the ark and every single question that might come up about the way it was designed or how it was able to survive the flood waters or how the animals were able to survive within the ark and how Noah took care of these animals and things like that.
That's what this pocket guide kind of goes into, in fact I want to read to you real quick, this is the table of contents. After the introduction, it has the question, was there really a Noah's Ark? Then the second part is Flood Legends, a world of stories based on truth.
The next part is Thinking Outside the Box, these are all miniature essays written by different people, the first one was written by Ken Ham and Tim Lovett, the second one by Monty White, the third was by Tim Lovett, and then the fourth one is Mything the Boat by Dan Lietha.
The next one is How Could Eight People Care for the Animals on the Ark? This is by Mike Belknap and Tim Chafee. Has Noah's Ark Been Found by Tim Chafee, Noah the Evangelist by Paul Taylor and Gary Valterlas, and then Taking Back the Rainbow by Ken Ham.
Now these are all subjects regarding the ark that I think people would be very interested in, they would be something that many of you who are listening might be interested in. And again, I want to point out, this resource is available in electronic format absolutely free.
I am looking right now at the PDF copy which I downloaded at no charge. I was able to go straight to the AIG website, download this PDF, and I've used this particular resource in my sermon preparation because it's been helpful in answering some of the questions that I know people have about the ark.
So my recommendation to you, if you have questions about the ark, to go and look at this. But I also want to point out one other thing. The final chapter of the book, and again it's a pocket guide, so it's a small, when I call it a book, it's really a booklet.
But the last part of it, on page 93 of this booklet, is the Ark and the Gospel. The Ark and the Gospel. And it tells essentially about how mankind was in rebellion, that he had fallen under the judgment of God, and that's why God sent the flood, and that when the flood came, God saved a group of people through the ark, Noah and his family, and it talks about how that is a picture of what Jesus came to do.
You see, that is the most important thing that we should never miss about the ark, and I talked about this in my sermon last Sunday. We should never miss that the ark is a picture of Jesus Christ himself, because the ark is a picture of salvation.
When Noah was outside of the ark, building the ark, and preparing the ark, judgment was coming. And when he went into the ark, the Bible says God closed the door behind him, sealed him in, and when the judgment was crashing around him, all around the outside, Noah and his family were safe in the ark.
This same picture can be applied to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our salvation, and the Bible says in him there is no condemnation. In him alone there is salvation. In the same way that there was no salvation outside of the ark, there is also now no salvation for those who are outside of Jesus Christ.
And so this booklet works as a gospel tract. And you could take this booklet, this free PDF, and you could share this with your family. You could share this with maybe an unbelieving neighbor, or a friend on Facebook, or someone that you have an electronic communication with through email.
You could send this out and say, here is the Noah's Ark pocket guide. This is something to help you understand the truth of what the Bible says, and to tell you how the ark pictures Jesus Christ and his finished work upon the cross.
Now I want to make one last reference to the pocket guide. You not only have the option of getting a free copy through the digital PDF that you can download from the website, but you can also purchase this in a printed form, and they sell them in sets where you can take this as it were like a gospel tract and hand it out to people.
If you know people in your family, if you know people in your community, maybe a next door neighbor who you have been wanting to talk about the Bible with, or maybe somebody who has asked you Bible questions, this little booklet could function as a gospel tract.
And again, what better way to share the Bible with somebody than to start immediately by answering questions that almost everybody has about the Bible and about the ark. So again, today was a review and recommendation of a pocket guide to Noah's Ark, a biblical and scientific look at the Genesis account.
And if you're interested in this particular subject, I want to also recommend my sermon series to you. If you have not been listening, you can go to our website, sgfcjacks .org, again that Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.
You can look at the last few weeks of sermons, and I have been preaching on this subject, and I would encourage you, if you have time, to go and listen to those messages as well. Well that is our program for today.
Thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist. May God bless you.
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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
May God be with you.