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Take a drive through the Grand Canyon and stand there in absolute awe as you look at those rock formations, and know that there was a flood—a deluge, a catastrophe. As you drive through the cuts along the side of the road viewing the hills and mountains where you can look at the different strata, know that there was a flood.
Drive out of Tokyo to Word of Life’s camp. Watch those mountains and see that the same formations are seen there as in the United States of America, and know that there was a flood. Listen with Kay to the Wecholee [sp?] Indians as they tell the story of the day that a great flood came, how a man was rescued in a boat with another man and a dog. This is the way the Wecholees came back into existence after the flood subsided: The old man told the young man, “Watch for the dog. When it goes down to the water and takes off its skin, catch it quick and it will become a woman.” The young man did so. He caught it without its skin and it became a woman. That’s how the Wecholees were repopulated after the flood.
Listen to the ancient stories. Read them in books. There are stories all over the world of their version of a cataclysmic event called a flood. Come stand with Kay in Kazakhstan, Korea, in the United States of America. Stand with others around the world and look in awe, in wonder, at the rainbow and know: There was a flood. But there will not be another because God is a covenant-keeping God.
What does God say He did upon this earth over 4600 years ago regarding the Flood and the rainbow? What happened about 1500-1656 years after Adam was created in the Garden?
Genesis 6:1-12tells us flood is coming. God is going to wipe out everything on the face of the earth except for Noah, Mrs. Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth and their wives.
Genesis 6:13-22 Noah is told to make an ark.
Genesis 6:13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.
God is going to do something to the earth. He is not just going to do something to man or animals but something is going to happen to the earth itself.
Genesis 6:14-15a “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it:”
Then God tells Noah exactly how to make the ark. He tells him the dimensions in cubits. If a cubit is 17.5-18 inches then this ship would be 450 feet long by 75 feet wide. It would have three decks on it (Genesis 6:16b), rooms in it, and it would have about 95,000 square feet inside. That would be 1,396,000 cubic feet. That is a big, big boat. But it’s more of a boat than a ship; in fact, it’s more of a barge.
The navy built a flagship according to these dimensions and it was wonderful for transportation. The only problem was that it was so slow it couldn’t get out of the way of the enemy so they couldn’t use it in war.
The ark Noah built was designed for transporting things long distances but not getting there fast. It had no rudder. It was built like a box, not like these cute little arks we see and buy all over the world in tourist places. Because it was built like a barge, it could withstand waves up to 200 feet high. That is significant if you understand what happened when the Flood came. It could turn to 89 degrees without tipping over. In the navy, if you tip 20 degrees you’re in trouble. The ark could turn on its side and still right itself. Even with all 75 feet out of the water it could come back down without turning over. It had no locomotion but in high seas, because of the way it is built, it turns itself parallel to the waves, which is where a boat needs to ride. If it rides perpendicular to the waves, there is emptiness underneath so it would crack in the middle. This was an awesomely engineered barge that could withstand what God was about to do. It was designed in this way so that it would automatically maneuver in the water and because of the winds the air would flow through. That air conditioning must have been mighty nice with all those animals in it. It was optimally designed for its function. You know it was optimally designed because God designed it. God told Noah specifically how he was to make the ark.
Genesis 6:17 “And behold, I, even I…”
God wants you to understand: It’s no accident; it’s not Mother Nature—it’s Father God.
Genesis 6:17 “And behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.”
Everything on the earth. Everything all over the earth.
Genesis 6:18-20 “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind shall come to you to keep them alive.
The key repeated phrase is “After their kind.” It doesn’t say “their species” but “their kind”. There is a “kind” of animal and from that animal or bird comes all these different species. They all come from that one single kind. Not everything was put into the ark. The great living sea creatures didn’t have to be put into the ark, only the birds and the land animals and the insects. They were all put in after their kind. There are 40-100 species of a kind for animals and birds. For insects there is an average of 1000 species to a kind. The vinegar fly has 5000 species, can you imagine? And you wonder where they came from—there are just species all over the place. If you take an average of 100 species for every kind of animal and bird and add in the insects, there should be about 35000 species of animals and birds that go on the ark, and several million insects. If you average 100 species per kind,there would only be 350 kinds that go on the ark. When they get off the ark and multiply they will become different species.
It’s no problem to fit all the kinds on the ark along with all the insects. As a matter of fact, the capacity of the ark is huge.Say you’re standing on a platform waiting for a train to go by. A freight train comes by with 52 stock cars. Another comes by with 52 stock cars. When 10 of those trains pass, each with 52 stock cars, you have the capacity of the ark. That is a huge capacity. About 40% of the ark would not have been used at all.
“Where is the promise of His coming?” God is not slow in regard to His promise; He’s not willing for any to perish but that all should come to repentance. God doesn’t want to judge men. He takes no delight in seeing men go into eternal damnation. He wants men to be saved.
1 John 2:1b-2 And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation (the payment, the expiation, paid in full)? for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
This means that any man who stands at the great white throne judgment would not have to be standing there had he repented because Jesus Christ is not just the propitiation for our sins but those of everyone in the whole world. This means that His blood was shed for every single human being—but every single human being did not appropriate it. When you think of all that extra room in the ark Kay thinks, “Where sin did abound grace did much more abound. He is the God exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think.” There was room left over.
What about the dinosaurs? Was there room for a dinosaur? Yes. Kay believes that the ark included dinosaurs. Ellen G. White counters that Satan designed dinosaurs to deceive man, but that’s not true. Dinosaurs did exist because their fossils have been found. They’re part of God’s creation, well designed organisms. They are land creatures. Job 40:15-24 contains the description of the behemoth. This describes a sauropod dinosaur. They no longer exist but it describes that. In the fossil record dinosaurs were found so well preserved that it indicates that the fossils were created by a cataclysmic event—an instant thing. When they find dinosaur bones in the fossil record they are mingled with a different kind of plant that is extinct today. So what happened to the dinosaurs? As Kurt Wise says, after the Flood people might not have wanted the dinosaurs so close. Scientists believe from the plants that dinosaurs ate, that they were isolated from other animals. They were plant-eating land creatures but the plants that they ate no longer existed so their food supply disappeared.
It could be that Nimrod and other mighty hunters didn’t want dinosaurs in their garden or around their kids. It could be that dinosaurs became extinct after the Flood just like the duckbilled platypus and other things like that—they were killed off. There are no fossils of dinosaurs after the Flood. You say, “Well, then they didn’t get off the ark.” No, you get on the ark, you get off the ark. What you can probably assume is that you don’t find many fossils today because when an animal dies, God has designed His little cleanup army to come in and eat the tissue and consume everything so you just find the bones lying around in different places if they didn’t eat the bones. You just don’t see a lot of fossils unless you go down to that fossil layer that we believe is from the Flood. All these animals enter and live in the ark after their kind and:
Genesis 6:21 “As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.”
You say, “What about all that food? What about all those days? That was a long time—almost a year to take care of all those animals.”By watching the patterns of animals whenever there is a cataclysmic event, scientists believe behavior changes help keep the animals alive. For instance,at Mount St. Helens the elk took off before it ever erupted—they were smarter than the people. Many times when there’s a cataclysmic event animals huddle together. It’s like a truce is declared. They don’t eat each otherbecause they are all huddled together. Many times they go into estivation (hibernation or sleep). If they are in a state of sleep they aren’t going to eat as much, you aren’t going to shovel as much waste. How God did this we don’t know.
Genesis 6:22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.
For 120 years Noah worked on that ark. How long it took him we don’t know, but for 120 years he knew a flood was coming. He was about 480 years old when he found this out. He moved in faith and obedience and didn’t cut any corners. He never said, “Oh this is too long, I’ll make it shorter. This is too narrow, I’ll make it wider.” He did according to all that God commanded. He is a role model for Kay. She wants to do according to all that God commands her to do. The Bible is a big book. In order to do that she needs to know the Book.
Genesis 7
Genesis 7:1 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.
Remember what Ezekiel said: that if Noah, Daniel and Job were in a cityof a country that was going to be judged by God they could only deliver themselves because only the righteous will survive. You say, “I’m unrighteous. How do I get to be righteous?” You get to be righteous by believing God and coming to Him saying, “God, I am a sinner; I have transgressed. I have broken Your commandments; I have walked in my own way and leaned on my own understanding. God I am a sinner. I have messed up my life because I haven’t believed You. I haven’t been like Noah; I haven’t done according to all You have commanded me. In fact I haven’t even paid attention to this Book because it’s been boring to me. I’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy in a lot of churches I’ve gone to and the others I have seen I can’t even measure up to. God, I have messed up.” That’s all God needs to know—that you know you are not righteous. The Bible is the standard of God and you have fallen short. To the degree you fall short, you have sinned.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;
You say, “How do I get righteous?” The same way Noah did—by faith.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
God wants to save you. There’s room at the cross for you, as there was room in the ark for others who could have been rescued if only they had listened to Noah, that preacher of righteousness. It’s the same way for you. God desires to draw you, to bring you into His family. There was a real flood. There’s a real judgment coming. There was a real ark, and there was a real cross. There was safety in the ark for Noah and his family; there is safety at the cross for you. There is room at the cross for you. All you have to do is what God commands: Believe, repent, have a change of mind, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ then He will give you the gift of His Son and the gift of eternal life. As we study something that happened over 4000 years ago, know that it has relevance for you today.
In Genesis 6, God told Noah to build an ark because He was going to flood the earth and destroy every living thing off the face of the earth.
Genesis 6:18a “But I will establish My covenant with you;
Mark the word “covenant.” Kay colors it red then boxes it in yellow. Red because to enter into a covenant usually involves a cutting—a shedding of blood—in the cutting of a covenant. Yellow because God is the sovereign administrator of every covenant.
In other words, if a covenant is made in marriage between two people when a solemn binding agreement is made between them—and that’s what a covenant is—then God’s going to administer over that covenant. That’s why God says:
Hebrews 13:4(NKJV) Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled:but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Why will He judge them? Because marriage, according to Malachi, is a covenant:
Malachi 2:13b You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
You are then judged by God because you have broken a covenant.
The first time the word “covenant” is ever mentioned in the Word of God is right here: Genesis 6:18! This is the very first mention of the word. The word “covenant” enters into the atmosphere, the context, the setting, of God planning to judge mankind. He is going to spare one man and his family. Judgment is coming but He makes a covenant with Noah and his family that protects them from that judgment.
Kay knows the Scriptures so she knows this. She has written a book called Our Covenant God: Learning to Trust Him. If you get it, study it all the way through, then you will see that everything that God does is based on covenant—on that solemn binding agreement. The Bible is divided into two parts: an Old Covenant and a New Covenant. The Old Covenant, or the Old Testament (which is the Greek word for “Covenant”), is the Law, which came by Moses. But:
John 1:17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized in Jesus Christ.
The first time that “covenant” is ever mentioned, it’s in connection with both judgment and salvation. That points to a covenant God made in Jesus Christ. He is the mediator of the covenant. He is the Covenant. It is the Covenant into His blood. When you enter into that solemn binding agreement with God then you pass from death—from the judgment of God—into life.