Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20050109.htm

ANSWERING OTHERS WITH REASONS FOR OUR FAITH
Part VII: Evidences For Holding To The Validity Of The Genesis Flood
(Genesis 6-9)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

(1) Some today actually scoff the Genesis Flood Account:

Chris Hastings, a media correspondent, reported last summer from the United Kingdom that the British Broadcasting Corporation had decided to air a television program that claimed: "The Biblical story of Noah's ark is a great myth', devoid of any scientific or historical credibility." (News.telegraph.co.uk, 7/03/2004)

Jeremy Bowen, the host of the BBC program was reported to tell viewers, "It is time to forget the original story and start again. The traditional notion of the Noah story does not pass any sort of rational or historical test. Maybe it was not meant to, maybe it was made up.'" Ibid.

(2) However, in such scoffing of the Biblical account of the Flood, one actually belittles the words of Jesus Christ, for He treated the worldwide Genesis flood account as an actual historical event. In Matthew 24:38-39 He is recorded by Matthew has having said this: "(38) For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah 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."

Thus, the truthfulness of our Savior, and, hence the validity of His sinless atonement on the cross and thus our whole salvation is undermined by such scoffing at the credibility of the Genesis Flood account!



Well, HOW do we RESPOND to such charges, charges that counter one's trusting Jesus of Nazareth was a truthful and hence sinless and thus effective Savior of our souls?



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "The Genesis Flood has been scoffed as a myth for its alleged lack of scientific and historical evidence! How may I answer this?!"
  1. Opposite critics, there is MUCH scientific evidence for the Flood:
    1. Henry M. Morris, a former Chairman of the Applied Hydraulics Committee of the American Society for Engineering Education wrote: "Almost all sedimentary rocks of the earth, which are the ones containing fossils and from which the supposed geological history of the earth has been largely deduced, have been laid down by moving waters," Whitcomb and Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1978 ed., p. 124.
    2. Sea level was once well over a mile lower than it is now as "great numbers of . . . drowned islands in the middle of the ocean . . . are now in many cases 1,000 fathoms below the surface." Ibid., p. 124-125. Thus, a world flood could have ebbed as its sea beds sank.
    3. The earth once had much more volcanic activity than it does now, Ibid. This corroborates the Genesis 8:2 witness that God opened the "fountains of the great deep'" in sending the Flood, Ibid., p. 126-127.
    4. Most sedimentary layers "have been tilted, folded and faulted on a tremendous scale," evidence for a worldwide flood, Ibid., p. 127-128.
    5. The fossil record gives evidence of a world flood (Ibid., p. 128-130): in Germany, a fossil graveyard holds vertebrates, insects, mollusks and plants with discernible delicate tissues and fungi! The Karroo formation in South Africa contains 800 billion skeletons and Agate Springs, Nebraska has many "exotic animals" all "jumbled together", Ibid., p. 160-161. Other fossil graveyards exist in Los Angeles, Sicily, the Rockies, the Black Hills, the Gobi Desert and Scotland, Ibid.
  2. Opposite critics, there is MUCH historical evidence for the Flood:
    1. In The God Who Is Real, p. 56, Henry M. Morris affirmed: "the ancient story of the Flood, accurately reported in Genesis 6-9, is also found in corrupted form in the records or traditions of nearly every ancient nation and tribe in the world."
    2. One such account strikingly VERIFIES the Genesis VERSION: a remote, Aboriginal tribe of Western Australia found by secular anthropologists before missionaries arrived had a flood account matching the Genesis version on these points: (1) a Supreme Being (Gen. 6:5) (2) was grieved at man's abuses (Gen. 6:13), (3) so (4) He (4) told (5) a man (6) to take his wife, (7) his sons and (8) his son's wives (9) on a boat (Gen. 6:18); (10) a world flood came (Gen. 6:17) (11) from this Being (12) Who used rain and (13) underground waters (Gen. 7:11) to send it; (14) the man took food (15) and animals on board (Gen. 6:19-22); (16) he sent out birds (17) to test the earth's drying (Gen. 8:6-13); (18) the flood survivors burned meat (19) and its smoke (20) pleased this Being (Gen. 8:20-21); (21) He (22) sent a rainbow (23) to pledge (24) He would not again flood the whole world (Gen. 9:9-15) and (25) the survivors understood His pledge, Gen. 9:16-17), Creation 23(1):2!
    3. Timothy R. Wise, in "Pictures From Genesis," Moody Monthly, March 1987, p. 52-53 noted Dean Ortner of the Moody Institute of Science shows the old Chinese pictograph "for boat . . . consisted of the pictures for eight, mouths and vessel" and hints of the record of eight people being the sole survivors of the Flood via the ark, 1 Peter 3:20! [This is not just a coincidence: Ortner reveals (a) the pictograph for garden combines the pictures for dust, breath, two persons and enclosure in affinity to Genesis 2 where God made man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and placed him [male and female] in the Garden of Eden; then, (b) to form the pictograph for create, the pictures for walk and talk are added to this garden pictograph, matching the Genesis account of God's making Adam and Eve and putting them in Eden for fellowship with Him, Gen esis 3:8-9; Ibid., p. 53!]
  3. To understand WHY men reject the Genesis Flood regardless of all this evidence, and WHAT we are to do about it, we heed 2 Peter 3:
    1. Peter predicted men in the last days would "deliberately overlook" the Genesis record and scoff at Scripture's forecasts, 2 Peter 3:3-6 ESV.
    2. He claimed such men would temporarily get by with such sin because God was gracious, and would give man time to repent, 2 Peter 3:8-10.
    3. Yet, Peter prophesied of a final world judgment by fire after which God would make a new world for believers; thus, man was to trust in Christ and heed God's Word about such matters, 2 Peter 3:11-13!
Application: As much evidence supports the Genesis Flood, may we (1) trust in Christ as Savior from sin to receive eternal life (John 3:16) and (2) obey Scripture to prepare for the next world, 2 Peter 3:1-12. (3) May we then testify of these truths to others!

Lesson: (1) Opposite scoffing to the contrary, MUCH SCIENTIFIC and HISTORICAL evidence SUPPORTS the Genesis Flood! (2) Such critics were PREDICTED by God to arise due to willful ignorance of this evidence, (3) a sin God would judge with a final, fiery end to the earth. (4) Yet, God predicted He would give man TIME to repent before this final judgment, so (5) NOW we best HEED the evidence and OBEY God!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 Some of the most effective evidences on the validity of the Genesis Flood come by our own observations, and here are 2 of them:

(1) Last Thursday, the NBC Evening News program ran a story of two elephants that had been chained to their posts near a shore where the tsunami later hit. Suddenly, about five minutes before the wave hit the shore, they began to get very restless. Untypically, they broke their chains and quickly headed up into the nearby hills to get away from the wave! This kind story has been repeated all over the lands hit by the wave -- the animals knew it was coming and fled!

That animals can sense such a danger makes the huge "fossil graveyards" found all over the world signify a worldwide flood: as we learned from the December 26, 2004 earthquake-caused tsunami that animals sense either the vibrations of the earthquake that caused these waves or the sounds of the coming waves themselves, the many kinds of animals that are buried together in these large graveyards located all over the world must have rushed together in large numbers to higher ground to survive the giant waves of a great, worldwide deluge they sensed was headed their way! They were abundantly aware of the danger from the opening up of the earth's deep underground fountains that would have been accompanied with massive earthquake activity followed by gigantic, repeated tsunami action!

(2) Today I hold up a rock that I picked up at the cliff on the northeast corner of the intersection of routes 118 and Interstate 8 located south of Torrington, Connecticut. You can see nearly 20 layers of different colored sediments that are each about 1/8 of an inch thick, layers of sediment that were laid down by water action; now, each fold of sediment runs parallel to all the other sedimentary layers. That means these sediments were laid down rapidly and all were folded together while still existing in a soft state. That means a huge, rapid amount of water flooded the area followed by tremendous movements of the land. Further, this rock is part of a whole cliff with such parallel folded layers of sediment. This rock and its cliff argue for the presence of a huge flood that in undated our area, the Genesis Flood!

May we thus HEED the SIGNIFICANCE of all the evidence for the Genesis Flood and trust in the God of the Bible and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and proceed to HEED His Word so we might be BLESSED by Him!