Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 3* PART 4* BOOK 2

Noah: The Ark of Security

Genesis 6:1 – 7:7

Again, lets pick up where we left off in Genesis chapter 6. I know it seems like we are making precious little headway. I had one person who has retired complain that he would be dead and gone before we got half way through. But, nevertheless, always remember that once we get through Genesis and Exodus, then we zip along. We will be up in the New Testament before you know it.

I have always felt that Genesis and Exodus are so foundational to everything else. It bears taking the time necessary to get a good understanding of it. From then on we will be able to see history unfold rather rapidly and like I said, we will soon be to the New Testament.

Remember we were talking about the pitch. That Noah was to build this Ark of wood but he was to pitch it with the bitumen, or the tar, that was so prevalent in that area of the world.

I have had the question come up, so I will anticipate it for you since we are limited in our time factor here in the taping studio. The question came up that if there was such amazing technology equal to what we have today, there must have shipyards. Why didn’t Noah just go to a shipyard? Well, I will tell you why Noah couldn’t go to a shipyard. Because that isn’t the way God wanted it done! God wanted this Ark to be built clear out on dry land, somewhere far removed from water so that it would seem all the more absurd to the unbelieving masses.

Again, I would just like you to picture this, if you will. I am sure others have brought this to your mind, your preachers or teachers. Can you imagine the response of the people of Noah’s day when this old gentleman is out there and no doubt he had to hire a lot of people. There were big timbers to be handled.

But, don’t you suppose that the people of that day just ridiculed this crazy old man, building something that he says is going to float in water, when there isn’t water for miles and miles. And, he talks about a flood when it hasn’t even rained an inch or two let alone enough to cover everything.

So, God had His purpose. On top of that, I think God wanted this to carry on for 120 years so that generation would have ample time to wake up and realize that judgment was coming. So there were a lot of reasons.

The technology? Yes, I think Noah could have gone to a shipyard and I think he could have made it from steel or whatever he wanted to but that wasn’t the way God intended it to be done. So He said, make it of gopher wood.

Secondly, remember God is going to have Noah build this thing so that it can withstand tremendous forces. Sitting out there with no destination. All it is going to have to do is survive. Just so it doesn’t sink. And, it will be there for over a year in the water. Let’s go on. Genesis chapter 6 verse 15:

Genesis 6:15

“And this is the fashion (or the pattern) which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits,…”

Now from what reading I have been able to do, there are two lengths to a cubit. The short cubit was what we would call 18 inches. But they also had the long cubit which could be as much as 24 or 25 inches. I usually stick with the short cubit so we don’t look like we are being extravagant or exaggerating.

So if we use the short cubit and it was to be 300 cubits long, then our rectangle would be 450 feet long by 75 feet wide. And, it was to be 45 feet high from top to bottom. Three stories. That would be 15 foot ceilings. That’s a pretty good size room.

In order to bring this into perspective, we have to understand that not until the great battleships of World War II, in fact they used them again in the Persian Gulf the last couple of weeks, the battleships, Wisconsin and the Iowa and one or two others, maybe the New Jersey are 45,000 ton displacement. I will never forget that figure! But you see those ships weren’t quite even 450 feet long. And yet, up until that point in human history that had been the biggest vessel men had constructed.

Now, of course, our great oil super tankers are something a little bit longer than this. I think, about 600 feet. But they are huge! Other than that, the Ark is by far the largest floating vessel that mankind has ever had any reason to construct. Four hundred and fifty feet long. Again to help you picture that, a football field is 300 feet from goal to goal. Here we go another 150 feet beyond that. That’s a pretty long box!

Like I said it must have implied the use of tremendous timbers. Huge timbers. So, Noah and his three sons, even it they were obedient enough to help old Dad, couldn’t have done it alone.

In fact I was reading another book titled THE FLOOD by DR. REHWINKEL. He was a professor of theology at Concordia University in St. Louis. He makes the same statement that evidently Noah had to hire many, many outside people. But he made a tremendous illustration that I had never thought of myself and I was impressed with it.

He said to just think of all the men that helped Noah in the building of that Ark. Day in and day out, they labored with the sweat of their brow to help build that Ark. But, when the flood came, they were not inside and they were lost. And then he made this allusion: Today, how many church members are working in the church. They are busy doing what they think is their duty, but they have never entered into salvation and when judgement comes they are not going to be IN the Ark. They are going to be OUT.

I had never really thought of it that way. Here are these men and these people who had helped Noah build the Ark. They could have enjoyed the safety of it, but instead they mocked this crazy old man building a boat and it has never rained.

He goes on with his instructions in verse 16 and not only was it to be a big rectangular box, remember there were no open decks. There are not great openings or windows or anything like that. There is one window and it’s going to be in the center of the top. I think the top was flat.

Up in the top he was to make a window. It was to be a cubit. In other words, 18 inches by18 inches. Then there is to be one door in the side of it. And only one door. Then there were to be first, second and third stories.

I am sure you have all read descriptions of how much space was in this vessel. All you have to do is just read some good articles on Noah’s Ark, and I am sure you can find them in any good library. But, I read one illustration that certainly made an impression on me because I can remember when I was young, I used to ship cattle from Montana to Iowa in box cars. A box car is pretty good sized vehicle. This Ark, one person alluded to it, would have had as much room as a thousand cattle cars! Now, we can’t imagine that. A one hundred car train is pretty big. In fact, the other night I happened to see a coal train go by and it had 100 box cars of coal. That was a long, long train. But, imagine 1,000 of them! And, that is how much room was in this Ark. It’s just beyond our comprehension.

For this reason, God wasn’t limited by the space in the Ark. Secondly, I like to remind people, no where in Scripture does it say that all the animals were mature. In other words, when Noah brought in a pair of elephants, there is nothing to say that they couldn’t have been a couple of baby elephants.

Because God wasn’t in any hurry to have them reproduce within the next year after they were off the Ark as long as there was a pair coming up. So, I think we can also take this into account, that no doubt a lot of these pairs of the larger animals probably came in real young. And, they wouldn’t demand much space nor did they demand a lot of feed.

So there are a lot of ways to analyze this thing without doing any violence to Scripture or taking away any of the miraculousness of it. And, yet I want people to BELIEVE that it happened just the way the Book says it did! Going on to verse 17.

Genesis 6:17-18a

“And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth (God says) shall die. 18. But with thee (with Noah) will I establish my covenant;…”

Now, I haven’t said too much about covenants in these first six chapters. But, when we get to chapter 12, I am going to use the word until it almost drives you crazy. Because, the covenant that we run across in Genesis chapter 12 is again so basic to understanding all the rest of Scripture. I will just be harping on it.

But before we get there, get this understanding: A covenant is something that God makes with man and it is not man making it with God. So, a covenant is without rescinding. It can never be changed or rescinded. Once God makes a covenant, it is secure. And, there are many covenants throughout Scripture. One of them is the one that He is going to give to Noah and we call it the Noahic Covenant. That is that God will never again destroy the earth with a flood. And He used the rainbow as the sign of that covenant.

Remember, God made the covenant not Noah. So we can rest assured that this earth will never be destroyed by a flood. It will be destroyed by fire but not by a flood. Let’s go on. Verse 18 again.

Genesis 6:18b-19a

“… and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. 19. And of every living thing of all flesh…”

That doesn’t mean every species or every sub-species. But it means ONE of the major components of a species. We know there are all kinds of horses for example. You have the Shetland Pony and you have the big draft horse and the race horse, the pleasure horse, the quarter horse. Those are all within the species of the horse. Now, he didn’t have to have every one of those represented. But, there has to be one pair of horses.

From that pair then everything came from it after the flood. The same way with all the other major species, there came a pair of each one. Everything into the Ark. Always, remember, look at the cat family. How many cats are there, all the way from the huge lion down to your little house cat. But they are still all cats. Same way with many of the other things. So, just remember that all of these various sub-species were not necessarily represented. But the major only. Now verse 20:

Genesis 6:20

“Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle (domestic animals) after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, (within that species) two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.”

I hope you don’t read that too casually. Two of every sort shall – what does it say? Come! They came to the Ark from every direction. Now, what should that have done to the people of Noah’s day? Well, it should have waked them up, shouldn’t it? Hey, what in the world is going on? All these creatures are finding their way to a central spot on the planet. They were coming to the Ark. It was Providential. Noah didn’t have to go out and trap them. Noah didn’t have to go out and do anything to bring them in. They came under the providential act of God. Read on, verse 21.

Genesis 6:21

“And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.”

That is perfect accord with Genesis chapter 1. Remember? What was the diet of both man and beast? Everything that grew naturally. The herbs, the fruits, the grasses. That was Adam and Eve’s diet, the humans, as well as all fowls and all animals. They all ate the things that grew naturally and so all they had to have was one class of food brought into the Ark and it would be enough for man and beast and fowl and everything else. Now verse 22:

Genesis 6:22

“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

Noah again is obedient. He does just exactly what God tell him to do. Didn’t he have every right to say, “Now, wait a minute. This is absurd! What in the world is the reason for all of this?” Noah says nothing of the sort. Noah takes God at His Word. Whatever God says to do, ridiculous as it may have seemed at the time, Noah did it!

Now, we are in the same situation, today. A lot of people look at some of the things I teach and they say “Les, that’s ridiculous!” I can’t help it. It is what the Book says!

In fact, I was in a phone conversation with a gentleman this morning from another part of the country. This happened to come up about standing on the Word of God, and I just said “Well, look, I know there are some people that won’t believe anything unless their particular denomination or their particular church says that this is it.” I have run into people like this. They tell me, “Les, my church teaches that THEY are the final authority. That the Bible is secondary. And, that I can’t comprehend it unless the church interprets it for me.”

Now you show me that in Scripture! “Well, I guess it isn’t there,” he said. And I said, “I guess it isn’t!!” Because the Bible constantly encourages us to what? Study! What does Paul write to Timothy?

II Timothy 2:15

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

That is given to every individual believer. We don’t have to wait for someone to interpret it for us. That’s why I am always telling my class people, some of you who have been with me a long time, you know I have said it. Don’t just hang on what I say. Don’t go out and say well this is what Les says. That does not hold anything. But, oh, if I can just teach you to go out and tell people: “This is what the Bible says! This is what God’s Word says.” I don’t want any credit for any of it.

That is what Noah did. He did what God said. Now I think we are ready to go into chapter 7.

Genesis 7:1

“And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; (again watch that language. Analyze it. Where is God speaking FROM? IN the Ark. He is speaking from in the Ark. Now it is finished. It is ready and from within the Ark God says, “Come, Noah.” He doesn’t say, go Noah into the Ark. He says, come! You see what a difference that makes?) for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

I like to make that emphasis that God was IN the Ark, because when the flood waters raged, I don’t think that wooden box would have survived, had not God Himself been the gyroscope that maintained that equilibrium.

Remember, when Jesus was here on earth. They were going across the Sea of Galilee and if you know the geographical setting of the Sea of Galilee, it is right at the foot of the Golan Heights. It is a relatively shallow sea. Shallow water has a tendency that when the wind comes, what happens? It gets real rough in a hurry! Now deep water isn’t that easily shook up, but shallow water immediately will have tremendous waves.

So, Jesus and His disciples are going across the Sea of Galilee in a little ship. I think it was more or less a boat. But I think it was a boat large enough that it had a deck and a lower level. But, what happened as they were about half way across the Sea of Galilee? Oh, a tremendous storm!

The disciples got all shook up and fearful. Where was the Lord? Down below, sleeping. Do you think that boat would have ever sunk? Never! Not as long as He was there. But the disciples didn’t know that. They didn’t have faith enough to realize that. But, always remember, that little boat would never have sunk.

It is the same way here with the Ark and it was God the Son, who was implied in God back here as being part and parcel of anything to do with mankind. Remember, I showed you that back in Genesis chapter 4. So, God the Son, invites Noah now to come in to the Ark. He becomes the gyroscope. He’s the stabilizing power that going to hold this little old box throughout all the terrible days of that flood. Now verse 2, He said:

Genesis 7:2a

“Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by (not twos but by what?) sevens,…”

It is kind of interesting that way back here in Genesis, we are made aware of clean beasts but we don’t know what they are until we get to the law of Moses. There it is stipulated that a clean beast is something that has the split hoof, has the two stomachs and so on. Anything that did not have those qualifications could not be used sacrificially.

Now the clean beasts back here, were the same kind of beasts. I think there were only supposed to be ten of those types of beasts, if I remember correctly. And, they were to bring seven of them. Yes, Exodus lists ten of those clean beasts and they were to bring seven each. So seventy animals were brought on board the Ark to be used later for what? Sacrifice.

There had to be more than two, otherwise, if they sacrificed one, they would have stopped the genealogy of that species. So now they bring seven of the sacrificial species, so that they will have plenty to sacrifice and still leave the pairs to perpetuate that particular species. Reading on in verse 2:

Genesis 7:2b-4a

“… the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, (because they are going to also use these for sacrifice) the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For yet seven days,…”

Remember, everything is all ready. Everything is in the Ark. The animals are in, the birds are in, the provender is in, Noah is in and the LORD is there. But he says, what? I am going to wait seven days.

What is this seven days? Seven days of Grace!

What is God giving the human race an opportunity to do? Oh, they can still come into the Ark. Everything is ready now for the cataclysmic judgment to fall. But, God says I am going to give them seven more days.

You know, too many people think of God as somebody up there who is just some kind of an ogre who is just waiting to zap people. Even a lot of well meaning religious people are scared to death that if they don’t do everything exactly perfectly, that God is just waiting for a chance to zap them!

That’s not God at all. God is the God of Mercy and of Grace. And, even in this horrible society of Noah’s day, what does God want? Oh, He wants people to still come into the Ark. There would have been room. There would have been food enough. But how many came? Not a one. But the door stood open with the gangplank down if you want to picture it that way, for seven days. Then God says:

Genesis 7:4b-5

“… and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. 5. And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.”

In verse 6 we come to some chronology.

Genesis 7:6

“And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.”

Just use a little simple arithmetic. Adam lived 930 years. The Flood came at about 1600 after Adam was created. But now Noah comes on the scene, goes into the Ark and he is already 600 years old. So how far removed from Adam is Noah? Hardly any at all.

All the way up through this period of time there has always been a godly testimony. They were never without a testimony of who God really was. Then, the amazing thing is when we come out of the Ark after the Flood, Noah lives within just a few years of Abraham.

Probably not quite up until but awfully close. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the three sons of Noah who were much, much younger. So always remember that as you come up through the Old Testament.

There are a lot of good chronological maps available. Just go to a good Christian Book Store. I have had people give me a couple over the years and I have them hanging on my office door. You can just follow the genealogy down and see all these people overlap. And so on down the line, so that there were always godly men on the scene. They were never left without a testimony. So Noah was 600 years old when he goes into the Ark.

Genesis 7:7

“And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.”

I have a question that I haven’t been able to answer myself, and I don’t think anyone else is able to. No doubt, we have to feel that Noah’s three sons and their wives must have been believers. And yet, when you see what happens to them after the Flood, what are we prone to wonder? Were they? I don’t know.

On the basis of their going into the Ark, we have to believe that they were. But, oh my, they were mighty poor testimonies on the other side. Because just as soon as civilization takes off again from six young people, from those three sons and their wives, what direction do they go spiritually? Down!

I can’t give you the answer to it. All I know is that Noah was a righteous man. His sons and their wives went into the Ark with him. Their spiritual condition I am in no position to guarantee one way or the other.

So then, we are coming up to the time that the Flood is going to break loose. I am going to show you was something totally, totally different than most people think. It was not just a rain. It was a cataclysmic event. So ferocious that most people can’t comprehend it.

Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 3* PART 3 *BOOK 2

Noah: The Ark of Security

Genesis 6:1 – 7:7

The Bible says lets “buy up the time”, so we want to use every minute we possibly can. Turn to Genesis chapter 6. Come back to verse 13 just to recap a little bit.

We mentioned in the last lesson that the standard of living, the technology just before the Flood was probably equal to or even surpassing where we are today. And, I know this is something hard to swallow for a lot of people. But, as an example, the legend of the sunken city, or the sunken continent of Atlantis. I don’t think that is all just fabrication. I think there was a civilization of Atlantis and God saw fit to totally remove it from the scene.

Along with their tremendous standard of living and their technology; morally and spiritually as the Bible said, they became so corrupt. They became so wicked. They became so violent. Murder was just running rampant and God said, I am going to have to bring it to an end. So, let’s pick that up in verse 13.

Genesis 6:13

“And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

Now, watch that last prepositional phrase! He’s not just going to destroy man. In other words, it isn’t just a matter of killing the life, but He’s going to destroy the planet! The whole surface of the earth is going to be totally; I like to use the expression, turned inside out. It’s going to be totally destroyed. We will see that in just a little bit. Now verse 14. The instruction to Noah is:

Genesis 6:14

“Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”

I never like to just hurry through these verses in the Old Testament because Paul says in Romans 15 that “all these things were written for our learning.” I always maintain that you do not get doctrine back here but we get the learning. We get the foundation. I like to make the analogy between Bible Study or becoming a Bible student and our secular education. How many computer scientists would ever become a computer scientist without third and fourth grade arithmetic? Impossible! So no matter what professional discipline someone ends up in, he had to get his basics of education back there in grade school.

It is the same way in the Scripture. In fact, it is rather interesting. For years I had a good missionary friend. They go to these tribal people, the uncivilized people. And, they would immediately approach them with the Gospel of Mark. For a long time when he would come home on furlough, I would question that and say “How can you approach these totally ignorant people, immediately with the Gospel and have them comprehend?” Well, he said, it seems to work. But it must not because here a few years ago, and I like to think I may have had a part in it, that Mission Board went to what they call the chronological teaching of the Bible.

In other words, they take these uncivilized people that they have brought out of the jungle and they begin to reduce the language to writing. It is a long process, but they are finding that it works. They start back in Genesis and they take these ignorant, uncivilized types and they teach them the whole chronological unfolding of the Old Testament. Bring them into the New and then they present the Gospel.

And I agree with that whole heartedly because I have had people who have come into my classes who knew nothing of the Word of God. Well, the first thing that I do not do is try to twist their arm to be saved. Because I just don’t think that this is the way to do it. There has to be a time of preparation. The Holy Spirit has to do His work. So, I don’t get into a hurry. I have had some instances where people came to my class for a year, a year and a half or two years, before they actually got to the place they were ready to make that step of faith.

Noah, now, is being approached by God to do something that has never been done before. And, that is to make an Ark or a boat that would survive a flood. You want to remember, it has never rained before! But, what made Noah do it? Let’s go back again to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. We call it the great Faith chapter. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. We allude to it quite often.

Hebrews 11:6a

“But without faith it is impossible to please him:…”(God)

No matter how good we are, mo matter how schooled we are or anything else, if there is no faith in it, God will have nothing to do with it. He demands faith!

Hebrews 11:6b-7a

“…for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Now verse 7, we have an example.) By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,…”

What’s he talking about? It had never rained! How can you have a flood if it has never rained? Remember back in Genesis 1 told you that the earth was watered from beneath and there was no weather. It was a perfect environment. A perfect climate. It was constant from pole to pole. Remember all that as we studied it back in chapter 1. Now all of this fits that perfectly. How can there be a flood if it has never rained? But, God said there would be, so now come back to the verse. God warned of things not seen as yet:

Hebrews 11:7

“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

To answer my own question, what prompted Noah to build the Ark? Faith in what God had said! God said “Noah build an Ark”. What did Noah do? He built the Ark!

This is the perfect lesson of the obedience of faith throughout all of Scripture. When God told Cain and Abel to bring a blood sacrifice. What did Abel do? He brought a blood sacrifice. Cain, disobedient, destitute of faith, said, I’ll take something else.

So you see, all the way through Scripture we have these examples and chapter 11 covers most of them. We have these examples of God telling someone something and that person believes it and God counts that believing for that man’s righteousness.

This flies in the face of a lot of people’s thinking, I know it does. But this is what the Book says. This same chapter 11 of Hebrews says by faith Abraham when he was told to leave Ur and to leave his family, what did he do? He left! And by his faith, God called him a righteous man.

It doesn’t say anything about Abraham offering sacrifices or Abraham entering in to the covenant of circumcision. It all came later. But Abraham BELIEVED what God said to him.

We discovered that in our class in Wilburton just last night, so it is fresh on my mind. So, what is the obedience of faith for us today? Now, we are told to BELIEVE that Christ died and rose from the dead and thou shalt be saved. And, what are we to do? We are to BELIEVE IT! And when we believe it, what does God do? He calls us righteous!

That is the whole concept of Faith.

Back to Genesis chapter 6 verse 14. God gives him the instructions for the building of this Ark. Might as well call it a boat, but on the other hand, remember, it’s not a boat that is going to travel someplace. It doesn’t have to have the pointed bow. It doesn’t have to have anything to propel it. All it is going to have to do is survive.

So, I like to think of the Ark, not as most people think of the Ark. Everyone that I have ever had in my classes immediately, I can tell by the smile on their faces, when you mention the Ark, visions come into their mind of those little pictures they saw back in Sunday School as a Kindergartener. You saw that little old round tub with a little box shed in the middle. Out in the front was a giraffe with his big head sticking up. Isn’t that your picture of the Ark? Sure it is!

Everybody has that same immediate mental picture of the Ark as this little boat like thing with a shed in the middle and some animals on it. Listen, that was not the Ark! The Ark was a rectangular box for all practical purposes. But, God was going to make sure that it would be built in such a way that it would survive the awful events of this coming flood. I will tell you before we get any further. The Flood was not just forty days of rain. It was far, far more than that.

So, this Ark is going to have to be built with real stability. It is going to have to be built to not only survive for a few days, but it is going to be in the water for almost a year. So, consequently, Noah must have been very meticulous in building this box or this Ark.

If fact, this just comes to my mind. The Hebrew word translated Ark is also translated in several other places in Genesis as coffin. Did you know that? A coffin. Well, what’s a coffin? It’s a box!

You take the Ark of the Covenant set back there in the tabernacle. Same word. What was the Ark of the Covenant? It was a box. Wood overlaid with gold and had tremendous significance but nevertheless it was a box.

Alright, that’s what Noah’s Ark was. It was one huge box! Let’s go on.

Genesis 6:14a

“Make thee an ark of gopher wood: (that was something, I think, akin to our cypress. It would stand water and it would not waterlog. It would just survive however long it needed to survive. Then) rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it…”

Here’s another interesting analogy. The Hebrew word pitch is also the same word translated atonement. Pitch and atonement. Now, what was the significant part on that day of atonement? What did the priest take in behind the veil? The blood! See?

So the pitch then of Noah’s Ark is a significant “type” or picture of the blood of Christ. Because pitch was tar. It was something that would seal out the water. You have to put this whole picture together.

The waters of the Flood were to be judgmental, not on the righteous family of Noah but on the unbelieving multitudes. So, the flood waters become the waters of judgement. But for those within the Ark, it was a place of safety. Wasn’t it?

Now, how safe would that Ark have been for the next year had the cracks leaked? Oh, it would have sunk! But you see, with the pitch it sealed out the waters of judgement and it kept the family within in perfect safety.

Let’s bring in ourselves. When we enter into Salvation, we enter into God’s ark of safety. And the water of judgment, the fires of judgment, will never touch the believer.Why? Because the pitch is going to keep it out. Remember, what is the pitch? The blood of Christ! Judgment will never touch the believer because of the blood of Christ!

Let’s take the time to turn to John chapter 20. This also is fresh in my mind, because it came up in my class last night. Since we are talking about the blood of Christ and it’s power to seal out the forces of judgement. John’s Gospel chapter 20.

I didn’t plan to do this in this lesson, but I have to feel that the Holy Spirit prompts me to do things that I really hadn’t planned on doing. In John’s gospel chapter 20, here we are on that resurrection Sunday morning. Drop down to verse 11. Look at the verses closely.

We have the account that I am sure you are all familiar with, where Mary has come to the sepulcher on that early Sunday morning to anoint the body of Christ, as was the custom. So at verse 11 she stands outside the sepulcher weeping and as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulcher.

Now all the people are very human, aren’t they? And no doubt as Mary left home in the darkness of that early morning predawn. She must have wondered, “Well, I wonder who I can get to roll that stone away so I can anoint the body?” This was customary.

So she gets to the tomb and it was already open! But, filled with grief and I think she is probably weeping and through her tear filled eyes she realizes that she won’t have to find somebody to roll the stone away. It is already open. As she makes her approach to the body and was going to anoint with the ointments, it wasn’t there! The tomb was empty!

John 20:12

“And seeth two angels (I don’t know if she comprehended who they were but the Scripture says she saw two angels) in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”

But, He was gone! Then verse 13.

John 20:13

“And they (the angels) say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him”

I always like to ask my students, did these people, Mary and the Twelve (or the Eleven because Judas is gone. All these followers of Jesus) did they know that come Sunday morning He was going to rise from the dead? NO!! Here again, most of Christendom just doesn’t seem to realize that.

These people, the last they saw of Him as He hung there on the cross, said “It’s all over”. He’s dead.” And they had no idea that come Sunday morning, He would be risen from the dead. Now they should have, but they didn’t.

Alright, so here she comes now and she says, what have you done with Him? Verse 14:

John 20:14

“And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.”

Now, that may seem hard to comprehend, but after all, it’s only been a couple of days. But what was her last mental impression of Jesus? Hanging on that cross. You want to remember that the book of Isaiah tells us in chapter 52, that He was so disfigured, that by the time He gave up the ghost, He wasn’t even recognizable as a human being.

So, awful had been His physical mutilation by the Romans but also the affects of that burden of sin that had been placed on him. So, Isaiah could say that He was marred so that His visage was not even as a human being. I have to think that this is what Mary had remembered. She saw him just totally, almost inhuman.

Here she sees this perfectly normal human being standing there and she can’t put two and two together, that this is Jesus. So, she supposed that he was, what? The gardener. Now read on.

John 20:15a

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?…”

If you will go back through Christ’s earthly ministry, do you ever realize how many times He will ask questions even though He knew the answer? But He gave the people the opportunity to speak without being confused. They could answer a question. So here again, He says, “Woman who are you looking for?” And all she had to say was “Jesus”. Whom seekest thou? Well, Jesus! Reading on in verse 15.

John 20:15b

“…She (Mary) supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast lad him, and I will take him away.”

Now Jesus in verse 16 says:

John 20:16

“Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.”

You want to remember that Mary was one of His closest friends of the flesh, here in His earthly ministry. I think He spent a lot of time in their home. What did she recognize? Oh, the voice! That voice of endearment. “Mary.”

But, here is what I want you to see. She turned herself and said “Rabboni”. That is to say “Master”. What do you suppose was her natural inclination? Oh, she was going to go and embrace Him! To think that this one that we thought was dead, was alive! So she went to embrace Him, but Jesus stopped her.

What does He say? “Touch me not”. Now that is rather unusual because you go on through this chapter and you come to the end of it and by this time He has come to the Eleven and poor old Thomas who couldn’t believe. What did He tell him to do? He said, Thomas put your finger in my hand. Put your hand in my side. That wasn’t anything like saying, touch me not. But, to Mary He said, touch me not. Read on.

John 20:17a

“Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father:…”

Where is the Father? He’s in heaven. Christ is here on earth but He’s telling Mary, “Now Mary don’t touch me because I have to go FIRST to the Father.”

We have to go back into the Old Testament. On the day of atonement, and that is what made me think of all this, before the priest could even put on his clothes which had been washed and washed and washed, until they were impeccably clean, what did he have to do with himself? Same thing. Wash and wash. There had to be an impeccable cleanliness to approach the Holy of Holies by the High Priest.

So this is what is implied that Jesus couldn’t be touched with this defiled earth person, and after all that’s what we all are. Because, where is He about to go? Into the very Holy of Holies. Not in the temple there at Jerusalem, but the one in heaven. I will show you that in just a minute. So He said:

John 20:17b

“… but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God.”

So Mary immediately goes and tells the Eleven and then later in the chapter Jesus appears to them and He tells them to touch Him. To handle Him. To make sure. So what did He do? Again we have to go to the book of Hebrews. You should be able to find that one easily now. Hebrews chapter 9 and here’s the clue to the events there on that early Sunday morning and the reason that Jesus had to tell Mary not to touch Him. That first He had to ascend into the very throne room of heaven. Then He would be back and appear to the Eleven.

Now, we are tied up in space age lingo and we know how many hours it took just to go to the moon. But always be aware of this. That when we come into the things of the Spirit, the things of God, I think we can attach it to the speed of light! One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. So however far out the very throne room of heaven may be, it was a matter of seconds for the Lord to transport from earth to heaven and back again. The speed of light!

Look at Hebrews chapter 9. This is why I know that He made that journey in those moments or hours before He came back to make Himself available to the Eleven. In Hebrews chapter 9 Paul is rehearsing in the first ten verses, the day of atonement. And how the High Priest would go in, that is in verse 7:

Hebrews 9:7

“But into the second (that is the second little room behind the veil) went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood,…”

He wouldn’t dare go behind that veil without the blood of that sacrificial animal to sprinkle on the mercy seat. So it is a whole allusion to the day of atonement by the High Priest.

Hebrews 9:11a

“But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come,

Now, He’s a priest, remember, after the order of Melchizedek and Melchizedek was not a priest of Israel. He was a high priest of ALL. So Christ is not a high priest after the order of Aaron in the Old Testament Jewish economy. But Christ is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, who appeared long before Israel even became a nation.

So, as our High Priest, He’s not just a high priest of Israel out of the tribe of Levi and in the line of Aaron, but He’s the high priest of EVERY human being. Verse 11:

Hebrews 9:11b

“…by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, (more perfect than what? Than the one that Moses had. Or more perfect than the temple that finally Solomon built but on the same pattern, of course. But he says a greater and more perfect tabernacle) not made with hands, (not constructed by men) that is to say, not of this building; (or creation)“

In other words, this tabernacle with evidently the holy place and the Holy of Holies, the very presence of God, wasn’t on this earth. So where would it have to be? In heaven! So, into this tabernacle in heaven. Into the very throne room of God Himself, God the Father, verse 12:

Hebrews 9:12

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, (as the high priest of Israel did but how?) but by his own blood he entered in once (the reason it says once is He didn’t have to do it every year. But, it was ONCE for ALL. He entered) into the holy place, (in heaven. We could go back to Exodus to see where God is giving Moses the instructions for building that little tent in the wilderness and again God says it’s going to be patterned after the one in heaven. So we know from all Scriptural accounts that there is something like the tabernacle architecture and the floor plan in heaven. And into that holy place the Lord Jesus entered in once with His own blood) having obtained (what’s the word?) eternal redemption for us.”

As I mentioned to my class last night. Jesus said one time in His earthly ministry, that it was harder for a rich man to enter into heaven than it was for a camel to go through the needle’s eye. That has caused so many problems but if people would just read the next verse, that puts the answer on it. And what does the next verse say? With God nothing is impossible!

Alright, I know that the blood of Christ flowed down that old wooden cross on to the soil and the ground of Golgotha. But, do you think it was any problem for an eternal God to put that blood in a container? I don’t see any problem.

And I think that the blood that flowed there on that cross, somehow, the Lord Jesus was able to take it right into the throne room of heaven. And I think it is there tonight! I think that blood is going to be there for all eternity and all the time we are going to be aware of it. We are going to know that that’s why we are there, ourselves. It is because the blood of Christ was shed for our eternal redemption. And the Lord Jesus presented it, Himself, as our high priest.

Now, that is comfort. To know that it is eternal, in the heavens never to be rescinded. Never having to be done over again!

Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 3* PART 2 *BOOK 2

Noah: The Ark of Security

Genesis 6:1 – 7:10

Please, turn to Genesis Chapter 6. We are going to pick up right where we left off in our last lesson. For those who join us on television, we just love to have you find a Bible. Find a place where you can sit down and just share these things with us. Learn to study! After all the only reason I teach is to try to help people to study the Bible on their own. To be able to understand what it says, why it says it and to whom it says it.

In our last lesson, we were talking about that whole human race that had become so wicked. Had become so corrupt that God actually got to the place where He said He was sorry that He had made man in the first place. And, that He was going to have to do something – drastic. Then in verse 8 now as we continue on in Genesis chapter 6:

Genesis 6:8a

“But Noah…”

I always emphasize to my classes over the years, watch for that little three lettered word – b – u – t . It’s just a conjunction. But in our English language it usually denotes what I call the flip side! Even though on the one side we have seen the demise of the human race because they have just been going down the tube. But, the flip side was, there was still this one man, Noah!

Genesis 6:8b

“…found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”

Always remember, God has been a God of grace from day one. And, even though we speak of our particular Church Age as the Age of Grace, yet, that doesn’t mean that the attributes of the Grace of God started with the Church.

If you will, remember when Adam and Eve had sinned and had sewn on their aprons of fig leaves and yet the minute God approached them in the Garden, where did they go? They ran and hid! Well, what prompted God to go and find them? His Grace!

God is a God of Grace! That’s one of His attributes. So, here again, even though the human race, for the most part has totally turned against God and have put Him out of their life, yet, we’ve got this man Noah to whom God could extend His Grace.

Genesis 6:9a

“These are the generations of Noah: (remember, Noah comes out of the line of Seth and later Shem) Noah was a just man (he was a believer) and perfect…”

Now the word “perfect” in the Bible, if you look at the Hebrew and the Greek; and I don’t claim to be a scholar in either one of those disciplines, but I can go to a Greek or Hebrew dictionary and can find that the word translated “perfect”. At least in the King James Version NEVER means a sinless perfection.

The word perfect simply means a spiritual maturity. You want to remember that the Christian life, the spiritual life begins, and the New Testament makes that so clear that we are babes in Christ. Peter writes as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that you might grow thereby.

Paul refers to the believers of his day as not being capable to digest spiritual meat. Well, what had they been on? They had been on milk and so many times over the years, I will tell people coming into my classes that the first thing that you going to have to do is get off the bottle. The milk bottle. You are going to have to throw that milk bottle away because we are going to put you on a diet, hopefully, of meat.

Now, the same way here. The word perfect doesn’t mean that Noah was sinless. But, he had a mature spirituality like no one else of his day and time. So he was perfect:

Genesis 6:9b

“… in his generations, and Noah walked with God.”

He had fellowship with God. He communed with Him. He was a man of Faith! Verse 10:

Genesis 6:10

“And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.”

They become important names after the flood when we see the whole earth will be populated once again from those three men. Ham, Shem and Japheth and we will cover that in detail when we get to it.

Genesis 6:11a

The earth also was (what?) corrupt…”

I don’t have to define the word corrupt, do I? When we think of something as being corrupt, we think of it as being vile. It is something that just simply turns us off; whether it is a corrupt politician or whether it is a corrupt garbage can out there waiting to be picked up.

Corruption is something that is abhorrent. Now this was the civilization just before the Flood. It was corrupt! It was rotten to the core! Read on, verse 11.

Genesis 6:11b

“…before God, and the earth was filled with (and again I like to emphasize the next word. With what?) violence.”

We hear a lot about television lately as being filled with sex and violence. Well, what do we think of as violence? Murder! The killing of human beings by other human beings. That’s violence!

I read again the other day, where foreign movie markets don’t think our movies, which we think are already awful, are bad enough. If there are only three or four killings in a movie, they won’t even look at it! So we can count ourselves fortunate again, for living in America, We at least haven’t gotten quite as bad as the rest of the world.

The rest of the world wants movies that are just filled with violence and filled with nudity. Filled with pornography and as yet you see, America, thank God, hasn’t swallowed that completely.

But, here we are before the flood and this is the picture. It was a society that had just gotten totally corrupt but the epitome of that corruption is violence or murder.

What I like to impress on anyone that I teach with regard to this civilization before the Flood and again let’s look at a verse of Scripture, I want you to see it with your own eyes. Go back with me to Matthew chapter 24, verse 36 where Jesus, during His earthly ministry, is speaking of the end of the Age.

I always like to again remind my students that when Jesus spoke in His day and time, He gave no hint, He gave no indication that there would be two thousand years intervening between His first coming and His second coming.

He never let that even be hinted at. So, He spoke of it as something that was not too far into the future. So in Matthew chapter 24 beginning with verse 36, He says:

Matthew 24:36

‘But of that day (that is, of the end of the Age as we think of it) and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

Here I like to stop for just a second. It always becomes so apparent when someone reads that verse; then Jesus didn’t know! Oh, didn’t He? What do you think? Sure He did! Because in John’s gospel, what does he say regarding Himself and the Father? Hey, We are One!

Now, the reason Jesus said this and He was not being facetious. He was not putting out misinformation as, we like to call it today, He wasn’t lying when He said that no man knoweth but the Father.

Always remember that Jesus on the one hand was TOTALLY man but on the other had he was TOTALLY God and by virtue of that fact He never let the two interfere. In other words, at no given time, when He was operating in the human did He let His Deity interfere with that humanity. He could have, but He didn’t.

When He got tired. When He got exhausted, He could have just let the Deity part of Him overtake and rejuvenate Him and so forth. But what did He do? He rested! He slept. He played the role of the human.

But, on the other hand, He was totally God. See? He never let the two interfere. What we have to look at when He makes a statement like this in verse 36; I know that this is a departure from Genesis for a moment, but this is the way that we cover every aspect of Scripture as we go. Here we have the Lord Jesus speaking from His human side when He says that no man knoweth.

From His God side, He knew! But, since He was speaking from His human side He could honestly say, no man knoweth the time or the hour but my Father only. That’s just “a little aside.” But, He and the Father are One so of course He knew. He could have told the disciples exactly at what day and time certain things would take place, but He didn’t. Now verse 37. This is where we are connected to Genesis.

Matthew 24:37-39

“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also (that is the events and the economy and the activities of mankind) the coming of the Son of man be. 38. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, (there is nothing wrong with that. And they were) marrying and giving in marriage, (there is nothing wrong with that) until the day that Noe entered into the ark. 39. And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the son of man be.”

Let’s just bring that up into our own time. I think all of us are agreed that the return of the Lord Jesus is verily at the doors. Now we don’t set dates. We don’t know when it will be but we know it is getting close and the more the Middle East broils, the closer the end is coming!

Then all we have to do is look at the world in general again. What is the world all hung up on? Materialism. Just materialism. A constant pressure to buy and to own “things”. The constant pressure to have something that as yet you don’t have, but oh, you’d better have it, or you won’t be “living”!

Not only that. It is such tremendous activity! Everybody is so busy! And guilty! We are all guilty of it. We are SO busy! I am always amazed that night after night people find time to come my classes. And, I will mention it once in a while, I am just surprised that everybody is here on a week night because everyone is so busy.

Well now, look at it. We are in the same situation. We are busy eating and drinking. Satisfying the demands of the flesh and there is nothing wrong with that. And we are busy with the marriage of friends and loved ones and we go to weddings and all these things and all the preparation. But, it all just adds to that hyperactivity that man finds himself in tonight.

So it was, before the Flood. They were just so involved. They were just go, go, go, go, go! And we are in the same thing today! But, you see, Genesis tells us a little more. Come back to Genesis. That in the midst of all this activity and I think it’s the activity that precipitates so much of the wickedness.

In fact, maybe I’m a little odd and I won’t deny that. I can be watching a newscast and I will see these riots and they are out in the streets, and kids are throwing rocks or stones or bottles. Do you know the first thing I ask myself? Why aren’t those people at home!? If they were at home, you wouldn’t have all this turmoil in the streets! Isn’t that about right?

Well, why aren’t they home? Because they are too hyped up to just spend an evening at home with Mom and Dad. They have to be out burning up that energy. So it was here. These people were just burning up their energy and along with it, you see, they had inflicted upon themselves such a demise in the fabric of their society that they were murdering one another in unprecedented numbers.

The violence was getting so tremendous that God had to look at unborn generations and what did He see? That these children as yet unborn, as soon as they would come in to that kind of a society, what did they have to look forward to? Probably being murdered because it was becoming so common. Or, becoming a murderer themselves.

So, God says, I have to put an end to it for the sake of the unborn generations! Now that is the way I have to look at it. It has just become so awful that it can’t continue. We are fast approaching the same thing in our own day and time. Continue on to verse 12.

Genesis 6:12a

“And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt;…”

I have mentioned for the last several months, even as we have been teaching on television, that whenever the Bible repeats itself almost to the place we think, well why does it have to say it so often? It is for a purpose. And that purpose is to get our attention. Or the word we use is for “emphasis”.

This is for emphasis. To help us understand that this generation was vile! It was corrupt!

And don’t forget it. Alright, let’s read on.

Genesis 6:12b-13

“…for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13. And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

Now, a couple of lessons ago, I alluded to a little paperback book and I couldn’t remember the author’s name. I remembered the title. Well, I went home and looked it up and in case you want to write it down, if you want to go to you library, it is an interesting little paperback to read. The title of which was “WE ARE NOT THE FIRST” and it was written by a gentleman whose name was Andrew Tomas. I think maybe he was an Englishman, I’m not sure.

If you get a chance, find that little paperback, WE ARE NOT THE FIRST. He is without a doubt NOT a Bible believer. I think it is evident from some of the statements that he makes. But he draws all of his information from archaeology and other items of antiquity going all the way back into the archives of some of the ancient Eastern religions where those priests had things that, as I read the book, I couldn’t help but think, well I think it is very possible!

Ham, Shem and Japheth as young men, going into the ark may have taken a few of those things with them. And they came out on this side of the Flood and it ended up finally in the hands of some of these Far Eastern Oriental religions. I have no trouble with that. He points out in that book the technology that existed at some point in time on the earth.

Again, he doesn’t allude to the Flood. He never mentions Noah’s Flood. All he says is that sometime in our past man evidently went into space. Man had rockets. Man had storage batteries. He had the internal combustion engine. They found bits and pieces. I mentioned it a few lessons ago, and a few of you couldn’t quite believe it! Where they had found bits and pieces of a spark plug. Not just laying in the soil someplace, but imbedded in rock!

And, all these things show us that at some point in our human history there were people who had tremendous technology. Like I said, he never alludes to the Flood, and I will tell you why. Turn back to II Peter chapter 3. These are good verses to just sink you teeth into, if I may use that expression, because it is SO on the mark! Where Peter writes beginning with verse 3:

II Peter 3:3-4

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4. And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? (Have you heard that before? I have. I hear it every day. Well now wait a minute Les, the world’s always had war. The world’s always had earthquakes. The world has always had pestilence from time to time. That doesn’t really mean anything. Well, you see that’s the scoffers’ line. 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.”

People say, there is nothing different. But, read on!

II Peter 3:5a

“For this they willingly are ignorant of,…”

Now if someone is WILLINGLY ignorant. What does that tell you about them? They have no desire to learn and if they heard it, they would just say, “Hey, I don’t believe it. Don’t tell it to me!” They are willingly ignorant. They don’t want to know the truth.

In other words, I’ve always liked to use the illustration of electricity. I know enough to be able to hook up a light switch. And I know enough electricity to wire a few things and I had a little of it in physics in my days gone by. But, nevertheless, when it comes down to the nitty gritty of the knowledge of electricity. I am ignorant!

But now, I am not willingly ignorant. In other words, someone hasn’t said “Les, if you will just take the time, I will teach you all about electricity. And if in that situation I would say “No, I don’t want any part of it!” Then, I would be willingly ignorant. But as it is, I am ignorant simply because I have never been exposed to it.

Look at this again. Peter is writing by inspiration that mankind is going to be willingly ignorant of one great historical fact. And what is it?

II Peter 3:5b-6

“… that by the word of God (as a result of God’s word of judgement) the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water: 6. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:”

In plain English, what are they willingly ignorant of? Noah’s Flood! They will not accept the fact that his world at one time was totally demolished and destroyed and renovated by Noah’s Flood.

I always like to remind my classes, I have never had anyone refute this. I don’t think you can find a single college or high school text book in either the literatures or the history or in the sciences, that will ever maintain the fact of Noah’s Flood. They will not do it.

They are sometimes mentioned in literature. In fact, I was a guest teacher for a college literature class several years running because the textbook used the first chapter of it’s course studying the first six chapters of Genesis. It was the only literature that alluded to the Hebrew Nation. Then they would go to other books of literature for various other people.

But, anyway, never will textbooks of high school or college or anywhere else, ever make a statement that they would agree with Noah’s Flood. They just totally ignore it and if they are brought to a point where they have to say something, they deny it. They will never admit that there has been a point in time where this world was utterly destroyed.

The amazing thing is that the Flood is in the myths or the legends of every major culture on this planet. It was in the Babylonian culture that there was a great deluge. And, of course, in their legends and myths, they always have it that one of their own was a survivor.

The South Sea Islands, the Polynesians had a legend of a great universal flood. But, their chief happened to survive in some kind of a bath tub, and then was able to bring about the Polynesian people.

South America, the Incas. They had it in their culture, that there was at one time a great flood. And so in all the great cultures of the world it’s there. It came from someplace. And it is near enough in it’s description that when you come back to the Biblical account you can say that’s where people got it. It actually happened and somehow along the line it was handed down.

But our intellectual community. Our scientists for the most part, now not all but some, reject the fact of the Flood. So, they are willingly ignorant of it.

I also said with regard to this tremendous technology, long before I saw this little book by Andrew Tomas, I had taught, and anyone who had been with me a long time knows that I have, that from Ecclesiastes chapter 1 I can only come up with one reason for the Holy Spirit putting this in the Word of God.

Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 9. Again, it is repeated in chapter 3 verse 15. But look at chapter 1 first, verse 9 where the Word says:

Ecclesiastes 1:9

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; (now watch the language) and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.”

This was being written when Solomon’s kingdom was at its height of glory. When Solomon was doing things that for a long time our contemporary people couldn’t believe that he had accomplished. But now we know that he did.

Solomon here was writing that everything that was apparent in his kingdom was not new. It has been here before. But he also leaps into the ages to come and he says everything that will happen has already been here before. Now turn to chapter 3, if you will, verse 15.

Ecclesiastes 3:15

“That which hath been is now; and that which is to be (that is in the future from Solomon’s point in time. Remember the Scripture is eternal. The Scripture just leaps the centuries. It leaps the millennia and yet Solomon can write..) hath already been;…”

When I take those two verses in their context and really look at what it says, then I have to say that whatever technology we think we have today that is brand new, it’s not new at all. It’s all been here before.

I am of the total conviction that this generation from Adam until the Flood had tremendous intelligence. They were living up to 900 and so years. Adam lived 930 years and Methuselah 969 years. And everybody contemporary lived that long.

Imagine the great men of today who have to accomplish everything almost within 40-45 years for the most part. What if they could go for 900! Look at the technology that these people could bring out. And they did! I am convinced of it. Then after I read this gentleman’s paperback book, I know that by the time we get to the Flood that they had a technology that was just unbelievable.

But along with that technology, what had happened to them spiritually and morally? They went down the tube. Down, down. Up technologywise and down otherwise until finally God had to destroy them.

Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 3* PART 1 * BOOK 2

Noah The Ark of Security

Genesis 6:1 – 7:10

We will pick right up where we left off in our last class. If you will, turn with me to Genesis chapter 6. Those who watch us on television, we would ask you to take your Bible and a notepad and follow right along with us and be part and parcel of our class time. Last week we were discussing chapter 5. Notice that we came to the man called Seth. If you want to go back for a moment of review, Genesis chapter 5 verse 5.

Genesis 5:5

“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”

But before Adam died, Seth came on the scene as a replacement for Abel who had been murdered earlier by Cain. Then we come to verse 6 and we pick up the genealogy of this man Seth, the replacement for Abel, or the beginning of what we would call the “spiritual” line.

Remember, that we pointed out earlier that all though Scripture the process is first the natural or the unbelieving end of it then the Spiritual or the believer. Cain, the unbeliever, followed by Abel the spiritual man. Abel was then replaced by Seth. Then as we come up through the Scriptures you have first Esau and then Jacob. First King Saul and then King David. As we approach the end time, we will have first the appearance of the anti-Christ and then the appearance of the real Christ.

This follows all the way through Scripture. So Cain was the beginning of the natural or the non-spiritual aspect of the human race. But, now Seth comes on the scene to become the head of the spiritual line. We pick it up in verse 6 where it says:

Genesis 5:6a

And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos;…”

And so on down the line. We aren’t going to take all of these names. But, finally we get closer and closer to the flood and I think in the closing remarks of the last lesson, we talked about Enoch, who walked with God, and then Enoch was translated, he did not see death. And I think that’s probably a perfect picture, in type, of the out calling of the Church or the believers before the coming judgment of the Tribulation. Enoch was translated shortly before the flood, as the judgement of that day came upon the scene.

Then as you come through the genealogy you next run across Methuselah, the man who lived the longest of any one in Biblical history. Nine hundred and sixty nine years as against Adam’s 930 years.

After Methuselah, we have Lamech in verse 28 and finally we get down to Noah. Noah of course, is going to bring us to the flood of chapter 6. But before we go to chapter 6, I’d like to explain these two family lines.

First the natural posterity of Cain. And even though Cain was out from the presence of God, he turned his back on God, yet, he was not without a motivating power. Remember, I pointed out that when Cain pushed God out of his life the very power of Satan enters in.

You can’t create a vacuum. There is no such thing as having absolutely no spiritual influence. If we push God out, Satan is going to come in. I pointed out that just because we speak of Satan of being evil and he is that which represents wickedness, Satan doesn’t always do awful things.

Satan is very well qualified to promote good things. Beautiful things. Things that even we as believers enjoy day by day. Paul says in II Corinthians he can transform himself into an angel of light. He is the master counterfeiter. I like to use that word. He is a counterfeit of God at every opportunity. If he can make a sham or if he can make something look like an original ( I said look like), he will do it!

I always like to remind my classes that I read sometime ago, that when the United States government brings in young people to work in the Treasury Department, especially to work on counterfeit, they don’t sit down and show them a lot of counterfeit bills. But for six months all those people study are legitimate American currencies. That is all they study. The idea is that if they know meticulously how the original looks, when they see something that is a counterfeit, they will recognize it immediately.

This is what I beg people to do with the Scripture. Be so profound in your knowledge of the Scripture that when the cults come along, and when people come to your door with something less than the truth, that you will recognize it immediately as a counterfeit.

The master counterfeiter is so capable of making it look like the original. Satan is the master counterfeiter. So as he comes in to the experience of Cain, we saw that this becomes a tremendous civilization with technology.

With technology, I use the word, explodes! The reason for it is that Adam was a perfect person. Adam and Eve were both perfect. They had tremendous intelligence. I don’t think that we can even use a percentage of what Adam and Eve and those early members of the human race were capable of doing. Always remember that. Adam was created perfect.

Now as these people began to multiply they didn’t become cave dwellers or savages. That’s man on his way down. I’ve had that question come up so many times over the years, especially from college age young people. Well, what about the cave man. Where did he come in? Well, he is not man on his way in his ascendancy. That’s what evolution likes to show us, that man gradually crawled up until finally he reached where we are today. But it’s not Biblical.

We know that Adam and Eve started as perfect human beings. They had a tremendous civilization that just erupted from their offspring. Then, as years and centuries and yes, millennia go by, what happened to the human race? Well, they degenerated. So in that process of degeneration, sure we have had cave people. There is enough evidence of that, but always remember, it’s man on his way down not on his way up.

So the Cainitic Civilization, the natural aspect, begins to explode in technology as well as in population. It is very easy to comprehend that by the time we get to Genesis chapter 6, by the time of the flood, probably about 1,600 years after Adam’s creation, it is very easy to believe that there were probably four billion people on the earth.

About equal to the population that the earth had at the turn of the 70’s. I think we reached about four billion people somewhere in the 70’s. Now in just the last 15-20 years, we have come all the way up to six billion. The latest figures I have read is that we will probably approach something like eight billion people by the year 2000. Then, if the thing were to keep going, that would double again by about the year 2020 or 2025.

It’s just like that old story. Remember when the king offered a job to somebody for a penny a day but he would double it every day of his life. And a penny a day doesn’t seem like much. Two cents a day doesn’t seem like much. But, as you well know, if you keep doubling it isn’t very long until it becomes explosive. So that’s the way it is with the population here and we are seeing the same thing in our own time.

The civilization of Cain went out from the presence of God, precipitated a society and economy that was tremendous but was without God. It was motivated by the powers of Satan. But remember, that doesn’t mean it was all bad.

So over on the other side, we have the line of Seth and again we come down through the genealogy until we finally get down to Noah. And, Noah has his three sons: Ham, Shem and Japheth. We will be covering them later.

Now I think we have the setting so that we can come into Genesis chapter 6 and verse 1. We are about 1,600 years after the creation of Adam, which puts us about 2,400 BC.

Genesis 6:1

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, (I have already alluded to that. You are going to have a doubling. And every time it doubles, it’s just going to be that much shorter period of time until it will double again. So men were beginning to multiply.) and daughters were born unto them,”

Then verse 2. Now these are points of controversy among the best of theologian and Bible scholars, and I don’t claim to have a corner on it. But I prefer to agree with the consensus of opinion that the Sons of God here, are simply the Godly line of Seth.

We have the ungodly line of Cain and they have been going on in their materialism and in their technology. But over against that, probably quite well separated, was this Godly line of Seth who had not become too involved with what we today would call this worldly community. They have maintained a relationship with Jehovah God. In fact it says in there that then began man to call upon the name of Jehovah.

So as this godly line of Seth comes down through the centuries of years building up to the flood. Let’s look at it.

Genesis 6:2

“That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took wives of all which they chose.”

There is that controversy where some feel that the Sons of God were angelic beings, who took on sexuality and actually cohabited then with human women. That offspring became the giants of verse 4. There are a lot of good men that adhere to this. And I mean good men. But, there are also as many or more, and this is the one that I will stay with, who feel that the Sons of God here were the Godly line of Seth. They had kept themselves pretty much from the ungodly line of Cain and their children had intermarried within this family and had totally kept themselves separated from the line of Cain.

Until, as you come down through the years of time, and I think we have seen it even in this the Church Age. Up until about 1900 the Christian community was pretty well separated from the world. Christian people had their testimony and the world knew it.

But since about 1900, we have seen the same thing happen, where more and more the Christian community has just overlapped with, and has joined with the world, or where the world has come into the church. And the church goes out into the world.

Consequently I am one of those who just can’t get too enthusiastic about Christian Rock. Because in my line of thinking that is just another amalgamation of the church and the world. The world coming into the church.

So, I think what we can see here then in verse 2, is that the Godly people in that line of Seth finally came to the place where they lost that separated character and they began to intermarry with the line of Cain.

We know from genetics, any kind of genetics, in animals or in plants and it also comes into the human elements, that when you have a long line of bloodlines totally separated from this blood line and you begin to cross them then the word we use for that today is hybrid.

What do you get? You get a species that is stronger, more virile. Everything is just expanded. Size, energy. And, I think that all that we can see here is, that after hundreds of years, the line of Seth began to intermarry with the line of Cain. As a result, those children were probably six, eight or ten inches taller than their forefathers. They had greater physical stamina. So the world called them giants. Now, all I have to say is if you think we are not living in much the same kind of a situation today with our increase of nutrition and technology, look at our pro football players. Look at our pro athletes now approaching seven feet tall and 350 pounds. I’ve had one or two of these pro football players in our class and it is just unbelievable the size of these guys. We would call them giants.

So, I don’t think that you have to look at this verse 4 and think they must have had men ten or eleven feet tall. Not at all. I think that probably the average size of men at the time of Adam was about 5’7″ or 5’8″. But, then all of a sudden they began to get people well over six feet and maybe even as much as seven. And so the Scripture refers to them then in verse 4 as giants.

Before we go on any further. Let’s come back up to verse 3.

Genesis 6:3

“And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: (in other words, God hasn’t lost sight of the fact that man is still man. He may have accomplished a lot of things in his technology over here on the Cainitic side. They may have even accomplished an increase in the size of their offspring when they began to intermarry. But, they are still men. And now look at what God says:) yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”

Here is another portion of Scripture, I think, that has been maligned and has been taken out of context and all it refers to is that from the point of time here that God says ‘Now I’m not always going to put up with this. I’m going to give man 120 years and then judgement is going to fall.’

The New Testament refers to Noah as that Preacher of Righteousness. From that I think that we can take that from the time that God commissions Noah to build an Ark until the flood would come is 120 years.

That’s a long time in our way of thinking, but you want to remember that people lived 900 years back here. And so, Noah has 120 years to build the Ark but every blow that goes into the building of that Ark, every piece of energy that went into it was also a sermon to the surrounding people of the coming judgment.

Now I think we are finding ourselves in much the same situation today. We are right on the threshold of another tremendous judgment of God, which the Bible calls the Tribulation. But, oh, look what God is doing to get people’s attention. I’ve been amazed these last few months in the awful increase in interest in prophecy. We were listening to a gentleman Sunday down at McAlester, Ok., and we enjoyed him tremendously. He alluded to the fact that a really good friend of his, and I am assuming that it must have been Dr. John Walvoord, he didn’t name him, who had written a book back in the early 1970’s and it had only sold a few hundred thousand copies. It was a book on prophecy.

After the invasion of Kuwait, I think it was Zondervan who published it, they put it back into publication, and renamed it, if I am not mistaken, “Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis” by John Walvoord. I read it a few weeks ago. I’m sure some of you have read it. But since they have now come out with a new printing, they have sold a million copies just in these last few months.

I read in one of the news magazines, either Insight or Time are the two I subscribe to, and they were giving a full page article on the same thing, that Christian books stores have just been deluged with requests for Hal Lindsay’s book “Late Great Planet Earth” and some of the other books on prophecy.

Well, I think it is as it should be, because suddenly, at least the Western world, is realizing that we who have been teaching prophecy for the last many, many years and have literally been screaming at people that the center of everything is going to be Israel. The center of all end time events is going to be the Middle East and now when they suddenly realize this is where it is all at, then they remember.

In fact I had a young man call me just the other day that I had taught in Sunday School years and years ago. Taught these same things then. Now he is a practicing professional man and he said “Les, I was just suddenly remembering the things that you tried to put into our heads when we were kids. And I had to give you a call. Is this what you were talking about?”

Well, it’s the beginning of it. Now certainly this war that just ended was not Armageddon, not by any stretch of the imagination but it is showing the world that the Bible knows what it is talking about when it speaks about all these end time things as culminating there in the Middle East.

So anyway, before judgment would fall, God is going to warn that generation of people for 120 years while Noah is building the Ark, of a coming judgment. But for the most part I’m afraid people just didn’t listen and probably for the most part most won’t listen today. Then we go to verse 4.

Genesis 6:4

“There were giants in the earth (as a result of this intermarriage) in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

Well I don’t think there is anything special to pick out of that except that this generation of people that came out of the intermarriage of these two lines, became better at everything. They were probably more ambitious. They were more energetic and they just simply capitalized on everything that they possible could.

Then we get into verse 5. Now, along with this tremendous increase in technology, and I will be bringing that out more in detail in the next lesson, but along with this tremendous increase in technology, look what also comes. Again we are seeing it in our own time. We have tremendous technology. We have tremendous intellect. But what has happened to our moral fiber? It is rotting away right before our very eyes.

Murder is on the increase. Crime is on the increase. Immorality is on the increase. Drug use, drunkenness. Everything is increasing in spite of our tremendous level of standard of living. Look at it here. Verse 5:

Genesis 6:5

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every (what?) imagination (those people couldn’t think a thought but that it had to be evil in one sort or another) of the thoughts of his heart was only evil (not just now and then but) continually.”

If they woke up in the middle of the night the only thing they could think was something evil that they could perpetuate when they got up in the morning.

When I would hear a dirty story – I haven’t heard one now in years and years and years but I was just like anybody else, I heard my share when I was in sports and service and what have you. And, I used to wonder, who thinks this stuff up?

And I read one time. Do you know where most of it comes from? From our prisons! Where you have that mentality of just thinking evil continually. Not all of them, but most of them. That is all they have to think about, so they can just spew this stuff out.

Well it was the same way back here. This society of people couldn’t think good thoughts. It just constantly enveloped their thinking to come up with something evil, something wicked, something less than honorable.

Now, how did that affect God? Well, verse 6. Here’s a word that a lot of people have come and asked me about. You mean God had to “repent”. No that isn’t what it means here. It says:

Genesis 6:6

‘And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”

God didn’t repent of the fact that He made man but, when God saw what man was doing, He had an act of sorrow. Oh, He was sorry to see what His created beings had now become.

In fact I have often had to think of this. Adam lived within just a few hundred years of the demise of that human race. So, he must have seen the beginning of all this. How do you suppose the man must have felt? I can’t help but wonder. What must Adam have thought when he realized that he had precipitated all of this rebellion against the Creator. The Bible says nothing about it but I am sure that he must have had some thoughts on the matter. Well lets go on down to verse 7. So then God was sorry that He had brought mankind into the picture:

Genesis 6:7

“And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; (everything that He had created had been affected by this terrible degeneration of the human race to the place that He couldn’t just destroy man. He had to take everything with him, except the things that were living in the sea.) for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

As you read your newspapers and you watch television, and you watch some of the “stuff” that comes into our living rooms, do you ever stop and ask yourself, what must God think of this? I’m sure you do. Aren’t you amazed that God puts up with it? He doesn’t have to. He’s Sovereign.

But, there is coming a day when He is going to say “I’ve had enough.” Even as He did back here. It finally got to the place where as God looked upon that human race, maybe some four billion or more. I think probably more rather than less. And steeped in wickedness. How could God help but say I’ve had enough.

Through the Bible with Les Feldick

LESSON 2 * PART 4 * BOOK 2

Cain and Abel

Genesis 4:1 –5:24

Now let’s pick up again where we left off last lesson, and that would be in Genesis chapter 4, and we’ll start back at verse 16. Now for a little review, I want you to remember that after Cain murdered his brother Abel, he continued to be rebellious, and he leaves the very presence of the Lord, with nothing more to do with Him. I think perhaps after Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden they would return in the vicinity of the Garden to sacrifice to the Lord.

Genesis 3:23-24

“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

So I would agree with those who would maintain that this probably was the place that this first family met the Lord with their sacrifices. It was probably a designated place that they would come to this area of an angelic gatekeeper with their sacrifice, and that’s where the Lord met them.

Well anyway, Cain just totally removes himself from any contact with God, and goes out from the presence of the Lord as it says in verse 16, and he began to build a civilization. Now the question came up after our last lesson, “Well who does Cain marry?” Well it’s very obvious that these early families married sisters and gradually they married cousins, and next of kin. Now that sounds awful to us, but you want to remember back here at the beginning human history, the physical makeup, the gene makeup was so pure, and so perfect that there wasn’t any problem with inner-marriage of next of kin.

In fact all through the Scriptures until after the time of Abraham they married next of kin. In fact Abraham himself married a half sister. So it wasn’t until sometime later that God put a taboo on close relatives marrying because by now you see the gene pool had degenerated to a place where it was causing genetic problems. So don’t have a problem with that back here at the dawn of the human race, because they were so pure. Their gene pool, as we use the term, was so perfect that it didn’t cause any problem whatsoever. Cain now then takes a wife from the daughters of Adam and Eve, as we’ll see in chapter 5. You want to remember that Adam and Eve had far more children than just Cain and Abel. Now verse 17.

Genesis 4:17a

“And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch; and he builded a city,…” (not the Enoch that walked with God in chapter 5)

As we discussed in the last lesson, they didn’t become cave dwellers, and uncivilized wild people, but rather they immediately began with the very core of civilization, because the first thing humans do when they’re civilized, they congregate together and form communities. So he built a city, and called the name of the city after his son’s name, Enoch.

Remember now as these families are beginning to enlarge, keep in mind there many years going by. We’re not talking about just a couple of years when all this is taking place. Remember Adam lived 930 years, and that’s hard for us to comprehend. And in that period of time Adam and Eve continued to have sons and daughters, and their children lived that long and had sons and daughters. And again remember the race was so pure that there wasn’t much death and sickness or diseases so they were profound in their populating the earth. Now come on down to verse 20

Genesis 4:20

“And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.”

Now there you have your domestic animals, livestock production and ranching in full bloom. So you’ve already got people living in a city, a good number of people living in a concentrated area, but out over the countryside, now there are those who are beginning to raise herds of livestock. Now verse 21.

Genesis 4:21

“And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.”

Now what have we got? Music and musicians. And I always say that this isn’t the little old tonette that most of us learned our first 4 or 5 notes on, but rather these were the complicated instruments, the harp and the organ. So every thing is coming together now. We’ve got city dwellers, we’ve got livestock people, and we’ve now got music, and along with the music, I’ll just put in all the aspects of culture. Now let’s read again.

 

Genesis 4:22

“And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron:…”

Now again you go back to secular history and the evolutionists, and they maintain that the human race didn’t know anything of metals until way, way, down the line. Well here we are at the very dawn of human history and according to Biblical account they were already mining the ore so that they could put brass together, and their iron, and now we see they’re manufacturing with it. They are beginning to produce things made with these metals. Now put all that together and what have you got? You’ve got a civilization beginning to bloom, and grow, and its technology is going to explode.

Now when I say explode, all I have to do is call to your mind how much of what we take for granted today was evident back then. Let’s just go back to World War II, some of you are old enough to remember that far back. From 1940 on up to where we are today, about 50 years, do you realize what an explosion of technology that we’ve experienced? I read here not too long ago that about 80% of the items that are in your supermarket tonight were unknown in 1945. So if we look at a period of time from Adam to the flood a period of over 1600 years, and they’re starting out this well, can you imagine what they had by the time we get to Noah’s Flood.

I like to think that the technology and life style of the pre-flood people just before the flood was equal to or surpassed to where we are tonight, and there’s evidence of that. There’s a little paper back book, by the name “We’re not the first.” I wish I could remember the author’s name but I can’t. The author is certainly not a Bible believer, and he writes all of his information just from what he’s gathered from archeology and other, and shows ample proof that at some point in our human history there were people who had space travel, they knew air travel, they had computers, they had the storage battery that we use in our cars. They’ve even found replicas of the internal combustion spark plug. Now we know that none of that was evident after the flood, so it had to have been before the flood.

In this Cainitic civilization there was a literal explosion of knowledge and technology. Now why can I say that? Number 1. Adam was a perfect human being. Adam had a mind that would probably blow ours, and his children were not that much below him. And on top of that tremendous intelligence, look at all the years they had to use it. What if Einstein, who died if I can remember correctly at the age of 90 or 91, could have lived to the age of 900? Can you imagine what that mind would have produced? Or an Edison or any of these great men who have been responsible for so much of our technology, what if they could have lived ten times longer than they did? Can you see what would have happened? And that’s what you’ve got here before the flood. You’ve got people with tremendous intelligence, but they had 900 years of time to use it. So I stick by my guns that there was tremendous technology on the scene by the time we come to the flood. But always remember, where were most of the people spiritually? Out there in utter darkness. Without God it’s a Satanic inspired civilization.

Now just look at our own time, with all the things that man is accomplishing, and we enjoy all of it. But really how much of it is to glorify God? Now when I talk about our technology, I’m talking about our transportation, our air travel, look at our technology in the recent war, including our smart bombs, and what have you. Is God the architect of all that? Why no.

Remember that Satan will promote anything, even a beautiful city park, or work of art. Satan will promote anything as long as it will keep men’s eyes and hearts from God, so never forget that. The world tonight is Satan’s domain, the world is his, and I pointed that out a few weeks ago at the temptations with the Lord Jesus back there in Matthew chapter 4. And when Satan offered Christ the kingdoms of this world if He would fall down and worship him, was he sincere? Sure he was, because they were his to offer. They won’t always be, but tonight he is still the god of this world according to Paul’s writings.

So this Cainitic civilization then is driven by the very forces of Satan. If this will help you understand this a little better, consider what was the state of this great civilization by the time we get to Noah’s flood. In spite of all their intelligence, and all their technology, where had they gone morally and spiritually? They’ve hit rock bottom! That should tell you again that Satan was driving it.

So now let’s come on down to verse 23. Here, if I’m not mistaken, we have the first instance of multiple wives or polygamy. Lamech actually took these two wives up in verse 19.

Genesis 4:23

“And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.”

Do you really know what he’s saying? I have killed a man who was trying to kill me. Lamech killed in self defense we would call it today. Now verse 24.

Genesis 4:24

“If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.”

Now I can’t put a lot on that except to say that here again there was no human government or system of justice to maintain law and order. Now by the time we get chapter 6 which may be in these next few moments, but I doubt it, we’re going to see that the thing that I think came before the heart of God, more than anything else in that pre-flood civilization was the “Murder!” They were killing each other just left and right, and we’re seeing just a little bit of that in our society today aren’t we? Every news cast, what do we hear? Murder.

I read way back in the middle 70’s and at that time Detroit was the murder capital of the country, it’s changed now to Washington D.C. But at that time some statisticians had put together a set of numbers that a baby born in Detroit during that era had something like a one-in-three chance of being murdered by the time he was 25. Now we can hardly comprehend that, but that was just the situation that existed in this pre-flood Cainitic civilization. They had a tremendous society, but as Jesus refers to it in Luke’s gospel

Luke 17: 26-27

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”

Those people were as busy as a colony of ants, and our society today is doing the same thing, to include all the building that is going on. So if you’ve ever had the idea that those of the pre-flood civilization were cave dwellers, I hope you will forget that, because these people had everything going for them. They had cities; they had manufacturing; they had music and culture; that had livestock production. And as I said before, whenever you have a society living in a city environment you have just as many people or more working in areas of service as you have in areas of production.

Now let’s leave that Cainitic civilization for just a moment and go on to verse 25, and God is going to pick up and bring on the scene a replacement for the spritual man that was murdered by Cain, a replacement for Abel. Now again I imagine that Satan thought that he had already “licked’ God before things had gotten too far by removing the “Spritual Seed,” Abel. But God in His sovereignty comes back through Adam and Eve who have another child who is a special individual because he is to replace Abel.

Genesis 4:25a

“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth:…”

Now you want to remember that name because out of him will come genealogy the man Noah and eventually Christ. Now finishing the verse.

Genesis 4:25b-26

“…For God said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. 26. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD”

Now maybe we can go to the board and show what Eve had in mind when she said that “God has given her another seed.” Now there comes that word “seed” again. Remember what we’re always keeping in mind is the Seed of the woman. Now as the seed came down from Adam, the next one was Abel, who was murdered, so God replaced him with Seth. Now through the line of Seth will come Noah, and through the three sons of Noah we have Ham, Shem and Japheth. Then from the line of Shem we come right on down to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And through the 12 sons of Jacob we have the formation of the nation of Israel, and then through the nation of Israel, the line of King David, and David’s son Solomon, and then the genealogy follows all the way to the birth of the Messiah.

Now that’s all based on that word “Seed of the woman” in Genesis 3:15, and we know God keeps it all the way through. Now this is why I just can’t comprehend men who claim to be students of the Bible, learned men, theologians, and they can’t comprehend this. They try to tell the world that the Bible is not entirely the Word of God, and they tell the world that Christ never claimed to be God. Well the whole idea of Scripture is beginning with “The Seed of the woman”. Beginning with Eve, and through this Godly line it would all end up with the coming of Christ the Redeemer, in whom as He told Abraham “that all the families of the earth would be blessed.” All we have to do is search the Scriptures and all this becomes evident.

Now in the time we have left, let’s go on into chapter 5 and verse 1.

Genesis 5;1-2

This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him: 2. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, (remember we referred to that in one of our earlier lessons) in the day when they were created.”

Genesis 5:3

“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth; 4. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters;” (plural)

Sons and daughters, and we have no idea how many children Adam and Eve had just between the two of them. Now verse 5.

Genesis 5:5

“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”

Remember when were back in Genesis chapter 3, and when he ate of that forbidden fruit, he died spiritually immediately, but physically the seeds of death began, and even though he lived 930 years yet that promise finally caught up with him, and Adam too died.

Now let’s move on down to the next verses, and we’ll be ready for the flood in our next lesson hopefully. So we come through the line of Seth, and we don’t have to concern ourselves with every one of these, because I’ve already shown you the Scripture is so explicit in how the “Seed of the woman.” would finally come on the scene, and how Israel’s Messiah would come through that Godly line of Seth, who takes Abel’s place. So let’s pick up the genealogy of the Spritual man Seth:

Genesis 5:6

“And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:”

Then come down through all these gentlemen and their sons, and so forth, and now come down to verse 22 where we have Enoch who was the father of Methuselah the man who lived the longest of any of them.

Genesis 5:22-24

“And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not: for God took him.”

In other words, Enoch was here one moment and gone the next, and we have no record that Enoch died. He was, I think, a beautiful picture in type of the Rapture of the Church. Now I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again that there is nothing spoken in the Old Testament about the Church, but I have to feel that this is a picture in type of what’s going to happen to the Church just before judgment falls. And the judgment that is about to fall here in Genesis is the flood. And just shortly before the judgment of the flood this Godly representative, Enoch is suddenly translated, he disappears.

Enoch believe, it or not, left us some tremendous prophecy before he left the scene, and so let’s look at that in the Book of Jude. I think most of you are aware that I certainly believe in the imminent return of Christ for His Body, the Church, the True Believers! And as I’ve already spoken the event of Enoch translation, I think is a picture in type of the Church being suddenly snatched away the same way that Enoch was. But I like to point out that this man Enoch prophesied of things that are approaching even our own day and time.

Jude 1:14

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his (not angels, but rather His) saints, 15. To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinner have spoken against him.”

But the thing I want to point out is, that this man Enoch who was translated just shortly before the judgment of the flood was able to leave the prophetic statement that Christ is going to return with the ten thousands of his saints. Well the first thing I have to say is, how can He return with the saints, unless He takes the saints out first?

So the whole concept of our chronology is that the Lord will take the Church out one day we think rather soon, although we never try to put a date on it, but in the minute we have left, turn with me to Revelation chapter 3, because a question came up in our class last night, “Will the Church, the Body of Christ, go into the Tribulation? And I maintain that we will not, no more than Enoch went into the flood. This passage is to the Church at Philadelphia which was representative of all true believers. And to them in verse 10 the Lord Jesus says:

Revelation 3:10

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, (or testing) which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

Now the only time that would fit would be in the Tribulation seven year period. But here the Lord Jesus is promising the True Believer, the ones who believe for their salvation: “that Jesus died for their sins, was buried and rose again,” He is promising that we will be kept from that hour of awful testing that will come upon all the world. So if we’re a believer tonight we can rest and take hope that one day soon we’re going to be snatched away in His presence.