Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 1 * PART 3 * BOOK 3

NOAH: SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER

Genesis 7 & 8

Now let’s pick up where we thought we were going be to two weeks ago, go back with me to Genesis chapter 7 and we’re ready to take a good look at Noah’s Flood. And I’m going to explode a lot of myths. There’s a common picture I think that comes into our mind and I may have mentioned it several weeks ago, we talk about Noah’s Ark, we all immediately get that picture of a little rowboat type thing with a little shed in the middle and the giraffe standing looking over the edge. You’ve all seen them. It all goes back to our Sunday School material when we were little kids. That just goes to show you how impressionistic young minds are. And I’ve almost had 100% of people that I’ve ever said that to nod their head, yeah, they know what I’m talking about.

Well, listen the Ark was not just a little rowboat. It did not just have a little shed stuck in the middle and there were no animals with their heads sticking over the edge. As we pointed out a few weeks ago, the Ark was an enclosed rectangular box. It was built not to sail across the sea; it wasn’t going anywhere. But it was built to withstand the awful, and I can’t emphasize this enough, the awful riggers of the flood.

Now the secret of this whole thing is in verse 11 because the only thing I think 99 out of 100 people who have ever considered Noah’s Flood think about is the forty days of rain. I’ll never forget years ago as I was teaching this, I had several pastors in my class and when I got through one came up and he said, “Les you have just simply shot out of the saddle one of my best sermons!” And I said, “I bet I know how you preached it.” I said, “You said it rained and the water got ankle deep and somebody said, hey old Noah was right. And so they go knocking on the door. And when it got knee deep a few more woke up. When it got up to their waist a few more.” “Yep,” he said, “That’s exactly how I’ve always preached it.” And he said, “It makes a fantastic sermon.” But I said, “It’s not Biblical! They didn’t have time. It was instantaneous, absolute mayhem. It was cataclysmic destruction.”

Genesis 7:10

“And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.” That seven days of grace that we mentioned where the door was open and the gangplank was down and anyone could have come in. No one did so God shut the door. Genesis 7:11

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, (now the months in Scripture – April is the first month, so this would have been the month of May) the seventeenth day of the month, the same day, (now here’s the secret) were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.” It didn’t just begin to rain and the water rose. No doubt, the rain began to fall.

If you’ll go back with me you remember to chapter 1, those of you who have been with me now ever since we started in Genesis 1 verse 1, we pointed out that back there in verse 7, when that present earth had been flooded from a previous judgment, not on man, but on what we think is an angelic kingdom. But nevertheless, the earth was covered with water and God is now getting it ready for the human inhabitation. And so it says in verse 6:

Genesis 1:6-7

” And God said let there be a firmament (or an atmosphere, what we call the air around it) in the midst (or between) the waters, and let it divide waters from waters. 7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And I’m of the impression, and there are a lot who would agree with this line of thinking, there are some that don’t, that at that point in restoration, God raised half of that water that was now flooding the planet and put it into a huge vapor belt someplace out in space and that laid the foundation then for the amazing spring-like weather that enveloped the planet from one end to the other. It was a constant spring-like climate. And since it was constant, there was no weather. There were no storm clouds. And the Bible can accurately say that it never rained that God watered the things that needed water from beneath.

And so even as Noah was building the Ark, and now you can be flipping back to chapter 7, as Noah was building the Ark and he started talking of a great rain, they probably didn’t know what he was talking about. And even though, as I’ve pointed out, the technology of that day was fantastic, probably as far along as we are or more, yet they couldn’t comprehend water just coming down from above, they’d never had it rain.

And so I would just like to project, and that’s all we can do, that all of a sudden it began to rain all over the planet. And that was the first sign to these people that, hey that old boy that’s been building that old box out there must have been right. This is what he was talking about. But before they even had time to react to that thought, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up.

Now just analyze that for a moment. What do we normally think of when the deep explodes out above the surface? What do we call it? Volcano. And so if you can picture in your mind and I’m going to get you to expand your imagination here as far as I can, that all around this planet there were volcanic eruptions everywhere and along with the volcanic eruptions, tremendous earthquakes. This whole planet went into convulsions. There was no time to go knock on Noah’s door. There was no time to find a high place and crawl up in a tree. It was instantaneous judgment. But it didn’t just last for an hour or two, this continues on for months and the whole planet is completely turned inside out by these tremendous acts of God.

Now you see the problem with people and even we, as believers, are sometimes prone to not understand that with God nothing is impossible. That with God this old planet is like you and I handling a marble or a ball bearing. It’s that simple in His power. He can do with it whatever He wants. And He controls all the forces of nature, the forces of outer space, and this was all brought to bear in these early months of what we call the Noah Flood.

I like to picture it, those of you who remember years back, washing machines used to have that front window and as those old suds would be rolling and those clothes tumbling, that’s the way I like to picture the surface of the earth in Noah’s Flood. It was just complete turmoil. Now we have plenty of archaeological proof for all this. This isn’t just a figment of my imagination by any means. In fact, if you get into a study of the Flood, and archaeologists, most of them, not all of them, but most of them, scoff at the idea of Noah’s Flood but all around the earth, you will find a soil product called “Loess” and it comes strictly from volcanic action. Yet in everyplace on this planet there has been laid down, even on our oceans and it has settled to the bottom, everywhere on this planet there is a tremendous amount of loess.

And the only place it could have come from logically is the time of Noah’s Flood with all of this volcanic action. Along with Noah’s Flood of course, we have the disappearance of much of the land surface of that pre-Noah time. We pointed out to someone who asked a question earlier, that the land surface in that time from Adam to the Flood was far greater than it is today. See today, 75 or 76% of the planet surface is water.

Only a small portion is earth, or land, and even a small percentage of that is habitable. Most of it is inhabitable. So what we have to understand is that up to the time of Noah’s Flood it was a beautiful earth, tremendously productive. Vegetation that was just beyond our imagination. Highly populated. I had a friend who was in the space program back in the 60’s and then already he and a friend of his had projected on computer of how many people could have come on the scene in 1600 years from Adam and Eve on up to the time of Noah, which is about 1600 years. And they had an easy, easy mathematical time approaching 4 to 5 billion people in 1600 years.

Now the reason for that of course is that as we’ve witnessed in the last fifty years that once you get to a certain level and population doubles and then when it doubles it just explodes and we’re seeing it. And so I think we can readily understand that at the time of Noah’s Flood this earth was highly populated, a tremendous technology, and there was no time to escape. It was instantaneous. It was complete.

And for that reason there is not a lot of evidence of the things before Noah’s Flood except in the fossil record. Now the fossil record is – only logical way to look at it – is again the Flood. Now scientists, they’re going to scoff at this. And if there’s any that happen to be listening to me on television, they’re going to think, yep – he’s showing what he really is, if he believes that stuff. But, let me tell you something, turn back, keep your hand in Genesis and turn back with me to Timothy, I might even have to look a moment whether it’s First or Second. I Timothy chapter 6, now I know I’m just like one little small feeble voice out there in the wilderness, but I’m going to let it be heard none the less that I am an avid supporter of good science. I love science. And I love people that have got the intellectual and the physical fortitude to go into the study of it. I think it’s an exciting discipline. But we’ve got to be honest and scientists aren’t always honest.

I Timothy 6:20

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science (that isn’t where it stops. What are the next two words?)falsely so-called.” In other words, Paul says, Timothy look out for the false sciences. True science never disagrees with Scripture. True science and Scripture always fits hand in glove.But it’s these false sciences, these manmade sciences that cast all these belligerent reflections on the Word of God. They are not true sciences.

Now, like I said, they’re going to hit the ceiling if one of them happens to be listening to me and they hear me explain their discipline in this way, but you see, the reason they’re a false science and they’re not a true science is because everything is based on what man thinks. They can prove nothing in the laboratory. Now mathematics, we know, is a true science because you can never change the makeup of true mathematics. You can’t change the true workings of chemistry and physics.

But you see, a geologist can come along and he can say, well we think that such and such. And then the next generation comes along and then they teach that guys thinking as what? Absolute fact. And it’s only a theory. Now I’ve got no argument with theories. If somebody wants to come up with some bizarre reason and he will tell his kids in the classroom, now this is strictly theory, we can’t prove it. I’ve never had any opposition to that, I’ve even told kids in my high school classes, if your teacher makes it plain that what he’s teaching is simply some manmade idea and that it is only theory, I’m not going to go complain. But when these same people come in and say this is the way it was – and of course that’s the way it all is anymore. You watch public television and what is it –Nova? Oh they’re interesting. I mean it’s interesting, but you see the gullible just simply eats that stuff up as though that’s the way it was. They don’t know. There’s no way for them to know.

Now we’ve got the fossil record of course, but again, how much can you determine from the fossil record? Only just so much and the rest, what do they have to do? They have to interpolate and they have to assume and so they – let me give you one good example. Anybody and I wish I had Leycel here, he’s a geologist. I wish we had a geologist here, but you could go into any basic geology course in any university and this is the first thing they throw at our kids. They call it a geologic column. Or an evolutionary geological column. And what they’ve done, they’ve teamed up with the evolutionary biologists and they have divided, now this isn’t all of them, I think there are nine of them if I can remember correctly. But they have divided the structure of the surface of the earth into various strata that they associate time with and the associated time is dependent on the fossils found…is that one ‘l’ or 2?Anyway, on whatever fossils are found in any particular layer of rock.

Now if down here they found the very simplest of life forms in this particular layer of rock, then they maintain that this is the oldest rock on the earth. It’s the furtherest down from the top and consequently the very earliest of life forms are found in this layer. Then as the little one-celled creatures and so forth came on up and became, let’s say reptiles, then you’ll naturally find that throughout all the earth’s structure, in this level now you find the next higher form of life because they’ve evolved from the simplest now to the reptile.

Then the next one from reptiles, I think you go to birds, and so on and so forth on up through that geologic column. And oh that sounds so believable. Yeah, that must be the way it is, because as wind and erosion and so forth pile this material up, moving it, then the oldest fossils are down here and then finally when you get to the top one they come to the fossils of man. Now here’s 18-19 year old kids, fresh into university and some professor throws this at you, what are you going to say? Well man that’s logical. But you see, what they won’t tell our kids is they have never any place on this planet found any of these in this order. Never. They’re all mixed up. Granted there may be levels of sandstone or rock of some kind with only primordial forms but it’s not on the bottom, it might be way up on top. Study the Geological Time Scale below.

And so it’s a lie and our kids fall for it and then they’ll come home and tell Dad and Mom, you know I can’t believe the Bible because after all my geology professor has proved, see, evolution is the only thing that makes any sense. But what they don’t tell our kids is, this is simply an idea. It’s a theory.

But the evolutionist just puts everything on it. Now, the other verse I want to show you, you’re still in the New Testament aren’t you? I Timothy? Turn on further to the right and you’ll come back to II Peter, chapter 3. We looked at this verse several weeks ago, but I think it behooves us to look at it again. Let’s drop down to verse 4, well I guess we should read all three of them, start at verse 1,

II Peter 3:1-5a

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2. That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, (in other words the Old Testament.) and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior; 3. Knowing this first. (now we’re to know this. We’re expected) that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts., (and these scoffers are going to say) 4. Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (nothing has changed.) 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of,…” Now you remember when I explained this verse a few weeks ago? Now when it says they’re willingly ignorant, what does it tell you? They don’t want to know any different. They will not listen to anything different.

You talk to a geology professor and you tell him now wait a minute, all of this isn’t this way on the surface of the earth, because after all, it’s all mixed up. Something has happened somewhere along the line, we think it was Noah’s Flood, and he’ll scoff at you. He’ll laugh you out of his room, why? Because he doesn’t want to believe that there was ever a Flood.

They will not accept it because you see; we know from the chronological record that Noah’s Flood in no way shape or form could have taken place more than 5000-6000 years ago. Now what does that do with all their millions and millions of year? Well, blows it out of the water. And so they just totally reject Noah’s Flood. I mentioned a few weeks ago and I’ll mention it again, never I don’t think ever, will you find a college textbook on any of these sciences ever make any reference to Noah’s Flood. They totally reject it and ignore it. Of course, that’s their problem.

And of course this is where we also come into the controversy in teaching our kids, you know there are some states that have tried to pass a law that if they’re going to teach evolution, they have to teach creationism, and they won’t have it because it just makes a fallacy of everything they’re trying to tell our kids. But all I can say is now what takes more faith, to believe something like this that is a figment of somebody’s imagination or to believe the true record. Well, I think it takes a lot more faith to believe that stuff than it does this one.

Now if there was an oil man here in the room, I know if he was a true geologist, he’d say, well now wait a minute, you know in the oil business we rest on geology. You know what my answer would be to him? Now you tell me something, would it put oil in any different area of strata if it was laid down by Noah’s Flood or if it was laid down by evolution? Would it change anything? No. Wouldn’t change anything.

That oil would still be in the same place. And so I’ve had a few geologists come into my class and they have been able to reconcile this and they’ll say, “If I want to believe the Word of God, then I have to believe all of it.” I can reconcile the fact that there is oil and gas in certain places. There’s coal in certain places because of the Scriptural records. And I don’t have to go back and say, well the geologist said, such and such. And so here’s where we have to be so careful and try to get our young people aware that science isn’t always honest.

I always have to remember back when we were making our moonwalk, again this same friend who did the computer work, was in the moon program, whatever they called it. And if you’ll remember before they went up there, they had one big fear of landing on the moon. And you remember what it was? That they would literally just sink in that dust. And low and behold they got up there and it was only about what 12 inches deep? Well, this so shocked the scientific community that immediately they went to work building an instrument that they could put up the next time they went up there and set it out and measure how much and how fast this solar dust was collecting on the moon, because they couldn’t believe that there was only those few inches if the moon was billions and billions and billions of years old.

So the only thing they could put together was if this is the case then that dust must be falling on the moon at such a minimal amount that we have to have a special instrument to measure it. So they did. They took one back up and they set it out and when they went up the third time, they measured it and they were aghast that instead of some infinitesimal un-measurable amount there was a fraction of an inch, which measured and calibrated meant the moon couldn’t be over about 10,000 years at the most.

All right, you know what this guy told me? He said, they buried that information and they didn’t want the public to know it. And you never did until just a few years ago I saw it in the Tulsa World on the back page, a little article about that long, of that very same thing. That they were amazed that there was so little dust on the moon, but that it was accumulating as that rate. But see, they wouldn’t want the public to know that. That just simply blows their whole idea of millions upon millions of years.

And so you come back to the sciences falsely so-called. Take it with a grain of salt. I remember a few years ago a fellow was taking one of the archaeology magazines, one of the prestigious ones, and he showed me an article where they were refuting a little town listen in the Old Testament, in Genesis I think. He said, “Well now Les, how about this?” I said, “You just wait, one thing about archaeologists, they are honest to the place that when they find something that is in line with the Scripture, they at least will announce it.” And sure enough, it wasn’t even a year and that same magazine had to admit that this particular little town that they had said never existed; they found it, just according to the Biblical record.

And so every time they scoff at the Old Testament record, all you have to do is just sit back and say, but this One is the true one. This is the Word of God and God does not lie, He will not lie. And so, the whole scientific community tonight will not recognize Noah’s Flood because it totally changed everything and so that the history of this planet instead of going back millions and millions of years in actuality goes back to Noah’s Flood.

Even Carbon 14 data, everybody says, well what do you do with Carbon 14 dating? Well, hey Carbon 14 cannot be accurate either until only the Flood, because Carbon 14 dating is based on a continuous degeneration under continuous circumstances. But those continuous circumstances were interrupted at Noah’s Flood. The whole planet was involved in volcanic ash, volcanic smoke, probably meteorites from outer space, along with the deluge of the water and so if you’ve ever seen pictures now on television of what a rampaging river flood can do, why it can carry huge boulders. It can just make mayhem of railroad tracks and trains, there’s nothing that water won’t destroy.

Now keep all that in mind whenever you see the next newscast of some roaring flood like the one they had in Pennsylvania a few years ago. That just literally took everything in its path. Well, this is just a glimpse of what was taking place, not on some lone river, but on the whole planet. It was total destruction from pole to pole from one end to the other and no one knew what hit them.

And in our next half-hour I’ll just give you a few glimpses of what archaeologists have to admit; they don’t know where these things came from but if they would just give the Flood the credit for it, it would answer all their questions. It’d be so simple.