Restoration of Mankind

A 2001 LA Times article says, “Earth's greatest mass extinction. An Armageddon that wiped out nearly all life on the planet 250 million years ago may have been triggered by a massive meteor collision like the one that 65 million years ago helped end the reign of dinosaurs” a team of scientists reported Friday. The articles goes on, this extinction is called the "Great Dying."

They believe it is closely linked to a meteor. But no telltale traces of a meteor have ever been found for the extinction event. And the science team that produced the paper has no direct evidence of an impact." The article goes on, "A large number of scientists agree with a theory put forth by Dewey M. McLean, that massive volcanic activity caused the demise of species.

Scientists know there was a massive extinction event. The fossil record makes it clear. Evolutionary theory forces them to believe that 250 million years ago and 65 million years ago there was a massive extinction of dinosaurs. And this is on the evolutionary model where everything happened in a slow process of uniform change and mutation without cataclysmic divine intervention.

The earth's size, the earth's distance from the sun and rotational speed had to be just right for our universe to form. We need the air above, not only for breathing, but to protect us from cosmic rays and meteorites. We need light, but not too much ultraviolet. Heat, but not too much. And DNA code discoverer Francis Crick calculated the possibility of life originating spontaneously is impossible.

The truth about Creation is that God created the universe. And the truth about the "Great Dying" is that God drowned His world. So we can shorten the 540 million years of evolution to six days. And we can shorten the mass extinction from 250 million years ago to about 6,000 years ago. The "Great Dying" did occur. The surface of the earth shows evidence of massive volcanic explosion, and breakage in the earth's crust.

They know there have been explosive climate changes, shortened life, instant extinction of dinosaurs and mammoths. They're looking for an evolutionary explanation, but the only explanation is the Bible. The Genesis 7 and 8 record indicates that the global flood had two specific sources. The fountains of the deep, and there was water above in a canopy that filtered out the ultraviolet of the sun.

That's why people lived to be 900 years. That's why animals lived, and reptiles grew till they became dinosaurs. They were all wiped out and they are found in the fossil records. This was a massive eruption of the earth's crust that changed the shape of the planet. It created the continents, and it really made the earth primarily sea and reduced the land to the smaller portion of the two.

Psalm 104 simply says that during time of the great flood, God pushed up the mountains and pushed down the ocean basins. And that's how the flood ran down. As the mountains pushed up and the ocean basins went down, the water began to move by virtue of gravity into those ocean basins to fill up the oceans as we know them. The disaster of the flood explains the fossil record.

It explains the stratification, the extinction of all air-breathing life. It also explains the massive destruction of marine life because of the tremendous movement of the crust of the earth that was under water, and because of the tremendous cataclysms that were going on. Separation of the continents happened at that time. And so we have evidence of that massive death of marine life, as well as land animals.

We studied this flood in Genesis 6, 7, and 8. We come tonight to Genesis 8:6-22, the aftermath of the flood. This was a global flood that covered the entire earth. When it was time for the flood to be over, God began to remove the water. Verse 1, "He caused a wind to pass over the earth," and this wind began to blow the water away. And the breakup of the canopy exposed the sun and there was evaporation.

And as the mountains are pushed up, they force the water by gravity down into these great basins. The earth that appeared after the flood was very different. It now has these massive high mountains. And it has these deep ocean basins. Mountains that go as high as 30,000 feet, and oceans that go as deep as 35,000 feet. All this is extremely different compared to the earth before the flood.

Mountainous rock is lifted up. And that is true for all the mountain ranges of the world. Most of these mountain ranges are made up of igneous rock, because there was explosive volcanic movement on the crust of the earth. The base typically in these mountain ranges is of igneous rock. Whereas, on the surface, you see layers of sedimentary rock. And there is an explanation for that.

As the mountains are pushed up, they push up the sedimentary rock so that what you find on the top of the mountain is the sedimentary rock. That is why in almost every mountain range, you find marine fossils at the top of the mountain because that's where the sedimentary rock is that once was at the bottom. And it was in that great stratification layers that these burial grounds formed.

In the Himalayas, for example, they find fossilized sea animals above 18,000 feet. You might say, "Well, does that mean the flood was at least 18,000 feet?" No, it means that when God reshaped the face of the earth and pushed the mountains up, He pushed up the sedimentary rock, which was on the bottom of the earth, so that it becomes the top layer of the mountains.

The highest parts of the mountain ranges are often limestone, which is rock formed by the gradual deposit of shells. So limestone at the top of a mountain was once at the bottom of the sea. That's another indication that the whole earth was changed dramatically in the flood. Why do these scientists say that meteors did it? Because they will never say something that might make you think the Bible is true.

So when Noah and his family stepped out of that ark, they saw a very different world. There were massive mountains where there had not been mountains before. There were great valleys where there had not been valleys. And there was death everywhere. So they stepped out into a world that had been stripped of its vegetation for the most part. And the flood was indescribable evidence of the judgment of God.

Now, let's study the story for tonight. Verses 6-7, “So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.” The water is going down. The mountains are pushing up. Forty days later Noah opened the window of the ark.

He waited until the water, which had subsided, revealed the tops of the mountains. He was a very patient man. Noah didn't go very far without hearing from God. He didn't know anything about the new world. So he sent out a raven as a scavenger bird who would eat just about anything. Apparently, the raven did find some flesh, because "It flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth."

Now Noah needed to know if there was life out there. So he send out a dove that ate vegetation. And the dove was a clean bird. Verse 8-9, “He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth.”

Noah had waited seven days to send that dove out. Now he waits another seven days in verse 10 to see if the water had subsided so that plants begin to surface. One of the trees that can survive under water for a long time is an olive tree. In fact, they have so much olive oil in them, if you want to carve it, you have to let it sit for a long, long time, or it remains green and very difficult to carve.

Verse 11, “And behold, a freshly picked olive leaf was in her mouth.” The raven showed Noah there was death. The dove showed Noah there was life. That meant the little hills were exposed. That meant the valleys were becoming clear. So Noah at the end of verse 11 knew the water had receded. Verse 12, “So he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.”

Verse 13-14, “And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth.” Again the dates are there to tell us that this is history. “And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.”

Now, the ark is resting on the mountains of Ararat. Verse 15-17, “Then God spoke to Noah saying, “16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

Verse 18-19, “So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.” Look at Genesis 9:19, “These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.” He is kind of like a new Adam and Eve.

We are all descendants of Noah and his sons and his wife and their wives. It sounds very much like Genesis 1:20 where God creates living creatures and birds and sea monsters and all the things that move and every winged thing after its kind, and verse 22 says, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the seas. And let birds multiply on the earth." That is the same as Genesis 8:17.

2 Peter 3:6-7, “The world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the Day of Judgment.” When they came off the ark, they came into a completely different world, which 2 Peter 3:7 calls the heavens and the earth which now are. That was a different world than what we now know.

And life, instead of living for 900 years, begins to be shortened. And Noah, at the time he steps off the ark, is 601 years old, and life from then begins to shorten and shorten till you come to the time before Jesus Christ. The Bible says then that a man's life may generally be 70 years. Very different from the pre-flood world. Medicine has extended life a little bit more today.

The first thing Noah did in verses 20-21 was “build an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animals, every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.”

They came off that ark, and there was death everywhere and desolation. There was plant life, but it wasn't profuse. And it had to develop and grow and repopulate the earth in the same way the animals and man did. And we don't know how much of that vegetation God preserved, but it wasn't like the Garden of Eden. It would have been the opposite of that. It was a destroyed world.

A burnt offering is primarily a recognition of total devotion to the Lord. A burnt offering was an offering that was completely consumed on the altar. It was symbolic of total devotion, total dedication to the Lord. You gave everything to the Lord. You didn't keep anything back for yourself. You didn't give anything to the priest. You just gave everything to the Lord.

But it also symbolized a recognition of repentance. A recognition of one's sinfulness. Do you know, this is the first mention in the Bible of an altar. This is the first mention of an altar used for the purpose of sacrifice. Noah on his sons' behalf and their wives' behalf said, "We completely, comprehensively dedicate ourselves to You." And this is also a sin offering.

Noah knows he's not a perfect man. He knows he's not married to a perfect woman and doesn't have three perfect sons and perfect daughters-in-law. He knows they are sinners. He knew his own sin. He knew what he deserved. And this is an act of penitence, saying, "God, this is what we deserve, and we know it. But we need a substitute. We offer You a sacrifice of atonement, a sacrifice of propitiation."

So God was pleased with the heart of the worshiper. And in response God says, "I'm not going to do this again." For 1656 years, God tolerates sin, and then comes the flood. And here we are 4500 years later, why have we lasted when God destroyed them? Because God said, "I won't ever do this again." This is what we call grace, Amen? This isn't a covenant that He made with Noah. This is one that He made with Himself.

And Romans 2:4 says, "The patience and forbearance of God is meant to lead people to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9, “And the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Oh, there are still floods, and there are still volcanoes, and there are still natural disasters, and there is still death and divine judgment and hell, but the world just keeps going along.

So the catastrophe of the flood, what the evolutionists think took 500 billion years has really taken 6,000 years. A six-day Creation of the universe and a one-year flood. Everybody says that things will continue just the same. Nobody believed there will be judgment, and so they drowned. And so the fire will come, but for some people Jesus is our ark, right? Because of Him, Paul says, "We escape the wrath of God to come." Let us pray.