Ok, it’s so good to have you all back again today and as we do every week, we’re just going to pick right up where we left off last week, so if you’ll turn with me again to Genesis, chapter 7. And just for a little quick review you remember that last time we were together we explained the Ark and its tremendous size and how it was certainly capable of holding all that the Bible says it did. But I think the main thing that I tried to get across, and I hope that I succeeded, was that the Ark was a picture of our salvation.

And you remember that I pointed out that the word "atonement" is also the same Hebrew word "pitch" and it was the pitch that sealed the Ark against the waters of judgment and consequently then made the Ark a place of safety for those within. And then I pointed out that the blood of Christ is what makes our salvation secure. If we’re not under the blood then we have no salvation. And so I pointed out also that God must have been in the Ark as He made the invitation then to Noah and his family, as well as to all of creation, to "come into the Ark."

It was now time for judgment to fall but God waited seven more days with the door open and if you want to call it that, with the gangplank down. And anyone could have still come into that Ark of safety, it was there for the taking, but none responded. And then we found and this is what I want to start with then tonight is in Genesis chapter 7 in our verse by verse we left off at verse 10, but I want to skip across at least in my Bible across the page to verse 16, where it says:

"And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: (then if you haven’t underlined it in your Bible before, underline because this is so crucial, it is so tantamount to New Testament doctrine I think and it’s shown here again in type and what is the word?) and the LORD shut him in" Now I pointed out in my earlier classes back in Genesis chapter 2, that the word in our King James capital ‘L’ capital ‘O’ capital ‘R’ capital ‘D’ is always a reference to Jehovah and Jehovah in the Old Testament with maybe two, possibly three, exceptions is always God the Son. Jehovah is Christ in His Old Testament personality and so when the LORD, Jehovah, God the Son, invited them into the Ark and He became as I said before then that gyroscope, that maintained the safety of the Ark throughout all of the flood.

And when I begin to explain the flood if not this half-hour hopefully the next one, you’re going to know what I’m talking about. That old box didn’t float up on some calm ocean of water. Quite the opposite, but we’ll come to that later. But what I wanted you to see as we start out tonight is that God shut the door. Now remember there’s only one door in this Ark. Only one. And again this is all so typical. As we come into the New Testament economy we are told over and over "there is only one door."

John uses the analogy in his Gospel in chapter 10 that it’s the sheepfolds door and there’s only one door into the sheepfold. And who is it? The Lord Jesus! And then Paul makes it so plain in the book of Acts that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. And then later on, Paul also uses that same analogy in I Corinthians I think it is chapter 3, where he says, there is only one foundation. There is no other foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.

And so this is the reason that there was only one door going into the Ark and when that door was shut, there was no possible way for entrance by anyone else. There was only one window and it was not in the side where it had any access to someone from the outside, it was in the top of the Ark. In the roof. And there was only a band, somehow under the roof line for ventilation. And no doubt that eave of ventilation was constructed in such a way that the air could flow but the water would not splash into it as the seas rose and so forth.

But all these things I think are pertinent with regard to our own salvation experience. There’s only one door into salvation and there is no other way except through that one door. Once we go into that door of salvation, who seals it? God does. There’s not a human latch on that door. God shuts us in!

And so with that as a backdrop, since there is so much confusion and argument, and of course I won’t argue. I don’t think I’ve had an argument with anybody in twenty years. There’s no point to be made in arguing things, but yet there is so much controversy today and I’ve been accused of taking the stand that I stand and so be it. I teach as I think the Lord has opened it up to me and I feel that’s where my responsibility lies.

But I’m talking a little bit about this whole concept of eternal security. Oh it just riles some people up, and on the other hand there are those who have beaten it into the ground. They have totally taken it out of context and as I said, they have overdone this doctrine of eternal security. And so with this concept now then coming from the Ark, my wife and I have often talked, you know all the teachers that we ever heard and sat under they usually take a subject, you know, they’ll teach maybe for a week on the Holy Spirit, and may teach a week on the Trinity. And I’ve never done that. Those of you who have been with me a long time know we always start in Genesis and just go on through. But just like now, as we come to a certain point, you have to stop and analyze a particular doctrine. And that’s the way I’ve always taught. And as we come through Genesis – Revelation, I think we hit every major subject in Scripture – all of them. So tonight, we’ll just take a look, briefly at eternal security.

Are we secure once we have entered into that Ark of safety? Is the blood of Christ sufficient to take us through those times of testing and in the final judgment and so forth? Let’s go to Romans first but in the back of your mind always remember what we’re trying to get out of this is that God shut the door. And it was the pitch, the atonement as it were, that sealed out those waters of judgment for Noah and it’s the blood of Christ that secures us from any judgment from whatever source.

Well, if you’ve got Romans chapter 8, I like to just start right there with verse 1. A verse that’s been precious to me for many, many years. What a promise! And always remember, God cannot lie! If we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and I trust you all do, then we have to rest on the fact that if God said it, that settles it. There’s no room for controversy.

Romans 8:1a

"There is therefore now (how much?) no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus…." See, that’s conditional. That’s qualifying. That doesn’t cover the whole human race, but all those members of the human race who are in Christ Jesus, now the promise of God is, we will never face condemnation. There is "Therefore (now then) to them no condemnation who are in Christ Jesus."

And I won’t even use the rest of the verse because just about every commentary I’ve ever read and every scholar that has really looked into these things, maintain that the last part of this verse 1 was never in the original manuscripts. Only in a few and so they feel that somewhere along the line, someone not inspired added that "who walked not after the flesh but after the Spirit." Because it comes up a little later in the chapter where it’s appropriate. So just take verse 1 for that first part and that says all we need to have, that there is "therefore now no condemnation." You know what that means? It means what it says.

There is nothing that God can bring against us in condemnation if we’re in Christ Jesus. Why? For the same reason that once Noah and his family went into the Ark and the door was shut, and the Ark was sealed against the waters of judgment, what could touch them? Nothing! And the same way here. All right, let’s come on down through chapter 8 and go to verse 14. This whole chapter and some of you were in my class where we’re studying the book of Romans right now and in the first seven chapters of Romans the Holy Spirit is only mentioned once or twice. And that’s what leaves Paul in such a dilemma in chapter 7. Why is it Paul says, that the things I want to do and the things I do do I shouldn’t do? And then it breaks out in chapter 8. What’s the remedy? The Holy Spirit. And then in chapter 8 we have 19 times the Holy Spirit is used in just one chapter because that’s the answer for all the dilemma of chapter 7.

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they (might be? They can hope to be? No. But what?) are the sons of God." That’s a present tense verb. What? "The sons of God, or children of God." Now let’s just take a contemporary situation. Let’s say a family, husband and wife, have borne two or three children. But one of those children becomes a belligerent renegade. He is an embarrassment to everything the family stands for. And finally that parent says, "He is such an embarrassment. We don’t want that kid to even partake in our inheritance. Let’s just go to the law and let’s totally disinherit him. Let’s not even recognize him as a son." And that can be done. But no matter where that son may roam, whose blood is flowing in his veins? His parents.

And it’s the same way here. Once we have entered into this kind of a relationship and we have become bona fide children of God by virtue of all the acts of God that are attendant to our salvation, who can change that? It just can’t be done. Oh we may think that God should kick that person out of his family. And we may have all kinds of ideas but listen, the Scripture stands. If that person has GENUINELY, now that’s where I make the qualifications, those of you who have heard me teach over the years, you know that. I am a firm believer in eternal security ONLY for those who have been genuinely saved. Yes, for that person, there is no condemnation.

But I’m not talking about people who have gone through maybe a set system whereby they become a church member and automatically by rote repetition of things, well now you’re a Christian. No, I don’t buy that. I don’t buy people just simply walking the aisle and following whatever procedure may be given to them. And they also do it by rote description. No, that’s not salvation. But, for the person who has genuinely come under the power of the Holy Spirit and has genuinely believed Paul’s Gospel of salvation with all his heart, which is "That Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again!" which is found in I Corinthians 15:1-4, then I have to maintain, the Scripture says, there is no condemnation, they are a child of God and always will be.

"For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have (past tense, this has been done) received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father." We’ve come into that relationship with God that places us as a complete mature son and then you see that is brought about even to a fuller extent in verse 16.

"The Spirit itself (or Himself) beareth witness with our spirit that we (and again what’s the verb?) we are. (no ifs, ands or maybes about it. The Spirit makes relationship with us known) that we are the children of God." And then verse 17, look at the promises that follow.

"And then if children, then heirs (if we’re a child of God) of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ,…" You know what it means to be a joint heir? Yeah you do. Everything that’s His is ours. But on the other hand how does it work? Everything that’s ours is whose? His. A lot of believers don’t like to accept that part. But this is where it comes in, that just as surely as everything that’s God’s is now ours, He expected everything that’s ours to be His. Now that’s that He expects it. He doesn’t command it. He doesn’t demand it and this is the beauty of living under Grace. Once in a while, people will say things that just make my day. And the other night as I was leaving a class I heard a dear lady that I know has been a believer for years and she said to a friend of hers as she was going out the door, she said, "You know it wasn’t until the last two or three weeks that I’ve come to understand the Grace of God." And oh, that just made my day!

Because we had been talking of course, back in Genesis where Ishmael comes on the scene. Now here I go chasing rabbits, I’m sorry, but you’ll remember that Hagar was now pregnant and she was causing such a problem in the home that finally Sarai, and that was before the name was changed, Sarai finally said what? Abraham get her out of here. I can’t stand it. And so Abraham did. But who came on the scene and says, now you go back to Sarah’s tent? God did. Well, why didn’t He just leave her there because that’s where they ended up, some years later? Oh, God had an eternal purpose in the whole thing because that was going to be a living example of a New Testament truth.

And so you know the story and we’ll be there in a few months I guess, here in this class, but anyway. Some years later now, the son of promise comes on the scene, Isaac. The one that God had said in the beginning would be born. And so Isaac is now a young lad and what’s Ishmael doing to Isaac? Making life miserable for him. And now God comes into the picture and what does He tell Abraham?

"Send Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness" Why? "For Ishmael will not live under the same roof with the son of promise, Isaac." Now that sounds almost cruel but remember God’s doing all this because Paul is going to use that as an allegory in Galatians chapter 4. And what’s the allegory? Oh, he says, "Abraham had two sons. The one was born of the flesh, Ishmael. The other was born of promise, Isaac. Ishmael stood for law and legalism. Isaac stood for Grace."

Now to prove that you cannot let those two live under the same roof, Paul says, "Even as Ishmael was sent out, so also legalism has to be send out. Because law and legalism cannot live under the same roof with the son of promise Isaac, or Grace." And so we have to come to that understanding that to live under Grace, the Grace of God, it’s just beyond our human comprehension.

And that’s the only reason that I can stand here and teach that if you’re once a genuine born again child of God, you can never be cast out of God’s family. Now the first thing I know people say, "Well I know people who have done such and such. And they’ve done such and such." Even preachers. Bless their hearts. But you know what my answer is? If God hasn’t begun a disciplining process in their lives, I doubt, I don’t care if they’re a preacher or not, I doubt if they’ve ever been a child of God because the Bible makes it so clear that if we’re a child of God, and if we begin to waver in our discipline, what’s God going to do? The same thing you did with your kids. You begin to discipline. And then we know that the Bible also promises that if discipline doesn’t work and they get rebellious God takes them home. He’s not going to let someone stay and continue to bring reproach to His name.

Now isn’t all of that enough to tell us that a child of God, first by choice, remember several weeks ago, I used the illustration of the Redeemer and I think that’s probably already been on the television. How that we’re bought out of the slave market, remember? And we’re totally removed from anything that is tying us to the slave market. And then what would the Roman slave master do? Now he says, "I’ve given you your freedom. You’re free to go anywhere in the Roman Empire, you’re a purchased citizenship". And what would that servant more than likely say? "You’ve done so much for me, I want to stay right here and be your servant."

All right, now this is exactly how salvation works. Once we’ve come into the Grace of God and we comprehend all that God has done for us, how can we help but want to serve Him? All right, now we’re in Romans chapter 8, come on down just a little further. Come down to verse 22. Now this is another whole thought in here but I’m going to leave that for now, we’ll come up with that in another time, but here in verse 22, Paul continues,

"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain unto now. 23. And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, (We as believers have the first fruit of the Spirit) even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is to say the redemption of our (soul? No. That’s not what it says. Redemption of our what?) body." Now if you’re like myself and my wife, we’ve been under the preaching for years and years and 90% of the time all we hear is the salvation of the soul; the concern of the soul. And I’ve come to understand since I’ve been teaching and getting into the Book, that God isn’t concerned just for the soul, He’s concerned with the whole person. God is concerned in the salvation and the redemption of the body, soul and spirit.

All right now in light of that then, come with me if you will to I Corinthians chapter 12, now we’re on this same concept now. Once we enter into that Ark of Safety, which for us is the Gospel of salvation – that Christ died. His blood was shed, He was buried, He arose again. And when we believe that with all our heart, then we enter in to this Ark of Safety, which we call salvation.

Now then, in chapter 12 of I Corinthians. We have Paul expressing this concept of being in the Body. Instead of the Ark, we’re going to use the Body, the Body of Christ. Now in verse 12, he’s going to use the illustration of the human body as a type, if I may use that word, of the Body of Christ. Now the human body is made up of all of our various members, isn’t it? Our fingers, our toes, our legs, our hearing, our sight, these are all different organs, these are all different functions but they all operate under one center of operation in the mind and we’re one body, but we’ve got all these different members. All right, now look at the analogy in verse 12:

"For as the body (the human body) is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.(and of course he’s making reference to the Body of Christ, the True Church) 13. For by one Spirit are we (and that’s capitalized, so it’s the Holy Spirit. Now what’s the next word?) all (not just the most spiritual believers. Not just those who say they’ve arrived. But how many? All) baptized into one body,…" Now stop right there. Does the Holy Spirit baptize with water? No. So this is not water baptism.

Now all you have to do is just stop and think for a moment. Almost, and I’ll protect myself by using the word almost, every Christian group will not accept membership without water baptism. Isn’t that right? All right now I’ve always got a question for all of them, and I don’t care who they are. Do you firmly believe that every member in your congregation is a born again child of God? Well, now you’ve got to be honest. Of course not. We’re all in memberships where there are unbelievers who have been baptized in whatever form of baptism you may use. Or whatever time in life you may use. There are still people coming in to every group who are totally unsaved, but they’re baptized. And they’re ‘member-ized’. But not the Body of Christ, there will be no unbelievers in the Body of Christ.

Because you see, that’s the Holy Spirit’s work that when a person becomes a child of God, the Holy Spirit immediately places them and that’s what the word baptized here means, the Holy Spirit places them in to the Body of Christ. Now the reason Paul uses this analogy of the human body, some believers, their role is nothing more than a little pinkie. Some may even have the role of a little toe, which most people never see. Some are going to be more visible, but every one of us, regardless of where God has placed us in the Body have a function in that Body, be it small or great.

The other night we were studying Romans chapter 12 and I’m going to come back to that in just a moment but in Romans chapter 12, it’s laid out so clearly of what God expects of His children. And there are listed the gifts that really amount to something. The various gifts that every believer has at least one of. All right, so we are baptized or placed into the Body of Christ by an act of the Holy Spirit who can search the heart. The Holy Spirit will never place an unbeliever into the Body of Christ. None of us can examine one close enough to screen him from the membership in our local church. We can’t do it and we’re not supposed to. That’s why Jesus gave the illustration back in His earthly ministry, of tares and wheat. You remember?

I remember a few months ago – years ago, I was teaching on that very concept of tares and wheat and the agronomists down at the college brought in some tares and some wheat and you couldn’t tell the difference. But, one would never give a grain and the other would. And it’s the same way in the church. We can’t judge and say well now that church member is not a child of God, that’s not our job. We can’t do that. But we have to be aware that in the Body of Christ, there are no false professors. Only the genuine believer is in the Body of Christ and that’s the only criteria.

And so I tell everybody, that’s the membership you’d better be sure of. Don’t worry about whether you’re a member of the biggest church in town or the smallest or whatever, are you a member of the Body of Christ? And remember the qualifications here is, it’s for all, see?

Well, we’re going to have to pick up where we left off in our last lesson on the eternal security of the true believer. So I’d like to have you turn with me again to Romans chapter 8 once again and we’ll drop down to verse 35. Even though Genesis is interesting and I always feel as though all those Old Testament teachings are so foundational, yet there are times when I think that the Holy Spirit behooves us to jump into the New Testament and pick up some things that are so apropos for us today.

All right, in verse 35 then of Romans 8 on this same concept – are we secure once we have entered into that Ark of Safety and the door has been shut, as we saw in the last lesson? Or do we have to somehow work and worry and strain and hang-on lest we be lost. My, that would be awful. I’ve had so many people come in my classes and I make no apology that I think the biggest part of my ministry is teaching believers. And to bring them into this place of really understanding and loving the Word of God and the God that bought them. Albeit God has certainly given me, I think, more than my share of lost people to His glory, but nevertheless, if believers can just come to this place of trusting. Now that’s not license. Oh, I always have to follow that right up with that. Grace is not license. Now it’s a possibility, God does not hamstring us. But it’s not license.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Can any of those things take us out of that Ark of Safety, after we have truly believed in our heart for salvation that "Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again?"

"As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We are counted as sheep for the slaughter." Now we’ve been fortunate in America. We don’t know what that is, but you know what I read the other night? There are more Christians being martyred right now in the world than in any other time in human history.

I couldn’t believe it but somebody wrote that and I have to trust that they knew what they were talking about. There are so many areas of the world where life is cheap and religion, you see, is coming on so strongly and most religionists have absolutely no tolerance for a Christian. And so I tend to believe it. There are probably more people being martyred for their faith than at any time in human history in other areas of the world. We in America don’t know. I hope it never comes. It certainly could. The setting is there and I think it could come a lot faster than most of us like to think. But as yet we fortunately don’t know what it is to come under this kind of pressure.

"Nay (Paul writes) in all these things we are more than conquerors though him that loved us. 38. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,…" You see that includes everything - that includes the powers of Satan; that entails the power of the human intellect because I’ve even had people tell me this - "Oh no, God won’t cast me out but I can take myself out." Oh you can? You’re greater than God? You’d better think twice before you say something like that because God’s power is supreme. And he has placed us in this Ark of Safety.

"… nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. 39. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, (or anything in creation) shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now go back to the flood a moment, not in your Bible, but in your mind. Do you remember that when the earth was filled with violence and God said, "I’m going to have to destroy man?" What does that next verse say? "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD"

See Noah found grace. It was that love of God for that righteous man, Noah that brought about the instructions to build the Ark and to have that place of safety. All right, now same way with us. It’s the love of God that constrains us and that pulls us into that place of safety.

Now, let’s come across the page to Romans 9, 10 and 11, and I guess here I can put a little something on the board. You know that in English and in our grammar or our sentence structure, we can put in what we call a parenthesis can’t we? And we do it quite often even in our speech. Now something that is parenthetical is something that does not have to be there because we’ve got the complete sentence. This together with this makes the complete sentence, doesn’t it? And the parenthesis is just complementary. But what can you do with the parenthetical part of that sentence? Well, you can take it out. You can just simply remove it and what do you still have? Well, you’ve still got your complete sentence; it still makes sense even with that section removed.

All right, now this is the way chapters 9, 10 and 11 sit in the book of Romans, they’re parenthetical. Now from chapter 8, which we’ve just been looking at, for 9, 10 and 11 Paul deals almost primarily with the nation of Israel, just sort of a departure from those first eight chapters, so they’re parenthetical. All right, now let’s use that concept.

Let’s just mentally take 9, 10 and 11 and lift them out and see if we haven’t got a complete sentence. Now turn to chapter 12, verse 1. Remember what chapter 8 said, the last verse said, "nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"I beseech you therefore, (see? What’s the "therefore?" Because of what he’d just instructed us in chapter 8) brethren by the mercies of God,…" The what? The mercies of God, not because we deserve it, but because of God’s grace, His mercy and because of all that He’s done for us without putting any strings on it. But what does He beg of us? And that’s what the word beseech means, it means I beg of you. It’s still left up to you to respond however you want, but oh what does God expect? And that’s the word. He expects:

Romans 12:1b

"…that you present your (soul? No. what?) bodies a living sacrifice,…" The whole person as a result of our regeneration. As a result now of our new life in Christ Jesus. What’s it to do with this body? Well, it’s to control it, to affect it, and what does it do? "That we might present it a living sacrifice."

Oh not one that’s put on the altar as Isaac was to be put to death, but what? A sacrifice that can continue on living. One just comes to mind. Keep your hand here in Romans, turn back with me to Hebrews. I think it’s in chapter 13. Yeah. Hebrews chapter 13 and let this become a precious verse to you, let’s just begin with verse 10.

"We have an altar, whereof we have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." Now I’m sure Paul wrote Hebrews, Paul is addressing primarily again, if I may use the word, Hebrew believers. And so there’s this constant bringing of the Old Testament economy and explaining how something far better has taken its place. And so this is the reason for this. And then he says, verse 11:

Hebrews 13:11

"For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned (where?) without the camp." Now you know what a stench burning flesh is. And so it was repulsive and so they were to be destroyed way outside the camp.

"Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered (where?) without the gate." Why wouldn’t the Jews let Him be crucified inside the city wall? It was so reproachful. The cross was a place of terrible reproach. And they weren’t about to let that take place in the city wall. And so they crucified Him outside the city, because of its reproach. All right let’s go on. Verse 13:

"Let us go forth therefore, unto him outside the camp, bearing his (what?) reproach." Now again, in America we’ve never understood this. But you go back and you read history, secular history of the Dark Ages, and I’m kind of amused when our present day students in high school or college or university, the history books have almost totally removed any reference at all to Christianity.

But, someone who graduated from one of our Oklahoma universities several years ago, quite a few years ago, brought me his textbook on American History…not on American History but on Ancient History and it was dealing with that whole period of time that we know as the Dark Ages. And you know 99% of the context of that university history textbook dealt with the religion that was in Europe in the Dark Ages. Religion was in the basis of everything that took place.

Now that was the time of the Crusades, you remember. And the Crusaders were trying to liberate Jerusalem from the Moors, if I remember correctly but everything that happened was based on religion. All right, now in the name of religion then, they have always persecuted the true believer. I don’t care what group would happen to have the upper hand, and so we don’t understand what that was like, but you see, Christians have been the fodder of the mills of persecution for centuries; it’s just that we’ve been so fortunate to be born in America. All right, so basically, Christianity has always been something of reproach - that is true Christianity. Now, verse 14:

"For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." In other words, the songwriter has put it how? "This world is not my home, we’re just passing through." Now here’s the verse I wanted you to see, verse 15:

"By him therefore (in other words, because of God’s grace, because we have now entered in to the Ark of Safety by virtue of His shed blood, of His death, burial and resurrection, oh what are we to do?) let us (now watch the language, it’s not a command again, but what is it? Like beseech - It’s up to you, but oh please, God says, let us) offer the sacrifice of (what?) praise to God continually,…" Not just once a week, not just Sunday morning at 11 o’clock. You know that’s what most people think is all that’s required to be a Christian and if you’re there every Sunday for fifty-two weeks, boy you are the epitome of spirituality. Huh?

Listen that is by far the weakest criteria for spirituality. Now I’m all for the local church. And in fact I’ve always told my people that come to my class, if you have something that’s in your church calendar that’s important that’s where I think you ought to be. And I never want to interfere with any of the workings of the local church, not at all.

"…the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name." This is a continual all through the week not just on Sunday, Not of your billfold, not of anything else, but in this instance, what does He want? "The lips of praise."

Now is that so hard to fulfill? My, the minute we get up in the morning, what does God want to hear? Oh He wants to hear praise that He’s given us another day of His grace, that He’s extended health or strength or whatever we need. And He wants to hear it from our lips. Don’t just say, "Well He can see it in my heart." No, God wants us to communicate with Him. That’s the whole idea of prayer. "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name."

Isn’t that perfect? All right, now then, let’s come back and I want to look at one more portion in the New Testament before we go back to Genesis and that would be in Ephesians. This is in that same line of thought that we started last week as we left Noah and all the creatures in the Ark and God shut the door. Their safety has been made secure by the "pitch" which remember was analogous to the blood of Christ, we also are in the Ark of Safety. Now let’s come into Ephesians chapter 1 and oh let’s drop down at verse 6.

"To the praise of the glory of his grace, (now I didn’t intend this, but do you see how that fit with what we just read?) wherein he hath made us accepted (not by who we are. Not by what we have done, but we are accepted how?) in the beloved." Who’s the beloved? The Lord Jesus. So we’re accepted in what He has accomplished on our behalf.

"In whom we have redemption through his (what?) his blood, (you see the emphasis now? We are redeemed through the power of His Blood) the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;" You see why I emphasize grace? Oh so many people think that somehow they have to do something that merits all this. Well that’s human nature. There’s nothing that the human race would love better than if God would have said, "Well now, if you’ll just do such and such I’ll save you." That’s what the human race would like to be able to do but we can’t. We have to just lean back and say, there’s nothing I can do because God has already done everything that’s required of me – that’s grace.

"Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;" When we enter into His grace, what does He do with the Word? Oh, He just opens it up to us. I’ve seen people – in fact got a gentleman sitting right here and he’d be the first to admit that when he first came into my class, he knew nothing of this Book, and oh how he’s grown in grace and how he has got so many of these things so absolutely right. Well, I didn’t do it, the Spirit does those things. He opens it and He gives us as it says here, wisdom and prudence.

"Having, made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10. That in the dispensation (or the administration) of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:" In other words, it’s all His and He’s going to bring it all together in His own time.

"In whom we also have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:" Now we’re getting closer to the verses that I want to home in on and that is verse 12 – 14.

"That we should be to the praise of his glory, we who first (what’s the next word?) trusted in Christ." Now how much work is involved in trusting? None. See, trusting is the same word as what? Believing. And believing and faith, so you’ve got trust, believe and faith, they’re all basically synonymous. All right, so it’s in Him that we believe, we placed our faith, we trusted. When?

"In whom ye also trusted, (when?) after (what?) that ye heard the word of truth, (and what’s the word of truth?) the gospel of your salvation:…" And remember, what’s the Gospel of salvation for us today? I Corinthians 15:1-4 "that Christ died, was buried and rose again" That’s the Gospel. Nothing more and nothing less. All right, when we heard the Gospel of salvation look what happens now.

"…in whom also after that you (what’s the word?) believed. (you see the emphasis? Then what happens?) you were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise." Now before we go into verse 14, turn back with me to the little book of Jude way at the back of your Bible, and let’s just drop in at verse 1.

"Jude the servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James, to them that are sanctified (so who’s he writing to? Believers) by God the Father, and (what’s the next word?) preserved in Jesus Christ and called."

Now I imagine most of you gals no longer put up preserves, not much canning, but I think it’s coming back. Maybe you’ll remember. But when you preserve something, when you put something in that fruit jar and you seal it, how long to you expect it to be good? From then on. If something wrong doesn’t happen that material is safe. It’s preserved. Means the same thing here. Now, come back with me to Ephesians and we have that same word. That we have been ‘sealed.’ It’s a mark of ownership but it is also a mark of preservation. And how long is God going to preserve us? Read into verse 14: That this sealing by the Holy Spirit:

"Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption…" Now you’re going to say, "Well I thought we were already redeemed?" Oh, we are. We’re redeemed but yet not totally, because see, this old body is still here. It’s still in the flesh, it’s still prone to sickness and weakness and sin and all the rest. There’s coming a time, when even this body, is going to be redeemed. It’s going to be changed. It’s going to be like His glorious body. Read the verse again.

"Which is the earnest…" Now our real estate lady isn’t here otherwise I was going to put her on the spot and say now what is earnest money in a real estate transaction especially? It’s a down payment, but $100 on a $200,000 home? That’s no down payment. Somebody could skip town and forget about that $100 but when you have earnest money what is it? It is such a big payment that nobody’s going to walk away from it. And that’s what God has done with us. He has sealed us, He’s preserved us, He has made us His own and it is His earnest money until we finally enter into that great day, the resurrection day and we receive our new body and we’ll be with Him in glory.

Now this is all the act of God Himself. We haven’t done a thing with this. It was all triggered the moment we what? Believed. Oh, and people want to work for their salvation. But now here we have to be careful and we touched on this the other night; we’ve got a retired pastor and his wife is retired from the mission field and he came up afterward, he said, "My, Les, I appreciate this tonight. He said, "This is what people need."

All right, I’ve only got a couple of moments left, go back with me quickly if you will to I Corinthians chapter 3, and I hope I can wind this up and then so that our next half-hour we can go back to Genesis chapter 7. So in I Corinthians chapter 3, now verse 9, here is what God is expecting of us even though salvation is a free gift, we are totally set at liberty, we are free, this is what God expects.

"We a laborers together with God: you are God’s husbandry, you are God’s building. 10. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder,…" Now Paul doesn’t claim that he’s anything but the contractor. He’s merely carrying out what God has already established.

"…I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereupon…." Now Paul is using here an analogy of building something. So I always like to tell my classes, now just image there’s a long block wall or even a brick wall, and every one of us have been given a little section of that wall to put in our bricks. After salvation we’re laborers in that great work of God, but let’s just picture it now of a building made of bricks. All right, Paul laid the foundation. But he’s not the foundation. Who’s the foundation? Jesus Christ is! See? He says, verse 11:

"For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12. Now if (and that word ‘if’ is conditional) any build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and stubble." You’ve got two different categories of materials. Look at them real quickly. Gold, silver and precious stones – fire can’t hurt them. Wood, hay and stubble – fire puts them up in a puff of smoke. Now those are the things that every believer is given to put in his little section of the wall.

"Every man’s work (that is as a believer now) shall be made manifest:…" It’s going to be put in the spotlight someday. And I think it’s going to be at the Bema Seat, the Judgment Seat of Christ.

"…for the day shall declare it, (declare what? What have we done with our Christian life? What have we done with our little section of the wall?) because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall test every man’s work of what sort it is." Gold, silver and precious stones or wood, hay and stubble.

"If any man’s work abide (it’s gold, silver and precious stones) which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive (what?) a reward. 15. If any man’s work shall be burned, (in other words, he’s put in nothing but wood, hay and stubble. Nothing really that counted) he shall suffer loss: (not of salvation, but loss of what? Reward. Because the rest of the verse says it) yet he himself shall be saved;…" Now isn’t that plain English? There’s going to be a multitude of Christians going out to meet the Lord with nothing in their section of the wall but a bunch of old sticks, like the three pigs. Nothing that stood for anything. Oh, they’re saved. They’re going to be there. But they’ll have no reward.

And Paul alludes to this throughout his letters, he uses the Olympics so often, he said everyone that enters the Olympic race runs for what? "The prize" and so he says, "so run you that you might receive the prize." And then he says, and "they ran for corruptible prize, but you for an incorruptible prize."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this lesson we’re going to look a little more at the Flood and why the earth that now is, as the Bible calls it, a result of all that took place during this particularly the five months, 150 days, that the water was at it very deepest. It covered what at that time was the highest point, and that didn’t necessarily mean that there were 14-15 thousand foot mountains before the flood, we don’t know for sure, but it was a universal flood. There was no such thing as just part of the Middle East being inundated, but it was universal.

Now one of the arguments of course is, well where did the water come from? Well it’s easily explained as we did in the last half-hour that originally in Genesis 1 the earth was covered with water and God removed half of that water, or at least a portion of it, put it up in the atmosphere and the rest He made seas. And then it all came back down and covered the planet totally; the Scripture says in one place that even the highest point was 15 cubits under the surface of the water. But with all that was taking place, as we pointed out in our last half-hour, the tremendous volcanic and earthquake activity – and again we especially living here in the Middle West, we just have no idea of the power that can be involved.

Now back in 1883 I think it was, there was a volcano in the East Indies, in the area of what is now Borneo or Java called Krakatao, probably the largest single eruption that this planet has ever known this side of the Flood. And as history gives the account of it, it was in a civilized area and this thing had been building for several weeks. Getting more evident, and still people didn’t move away from it. In fact, they even scheduled tours up to the base of the mountain to listen to it and then finally I think it was one day in August, Krakatao erupted and in its eruption, the sound of it now was registered three thousand miles away.

Now imagine if a volcano, or any kind of a noise, would take place in New York City and it could be heard in LA. Well, so was that one. But that was just one and as a result of that one volcano the whole atmosphere of the planet once the dust started going around it, was affected, weather was affected. And that was just one. Now multiply that as one author has put it by thousands and thousands of other great volcanoes and you can get just a little bit of a picture of what took place when the fountains of the deep were broken up.

Now earthquakes also come into the whole scenario and when you’ve got earthquakes taking place under water – you want to remember the whole planet is now covered with water and out of that water is coming all this volcanic eruption but underneath you’ve got all this earthquake activity. The planet is in convulsions. Everything is changing and we have to realize that all living things died. Normally we think that the fish and the water creatures survived, but you see, archaeologists have found humongous areas of accumulated dead fish that can have no other explanation but that they also died in Noah’s Flood.

In fact, there are a few Biblical geologists who give credit for our oil pool, crude oil, not to the precursors of coal and so forth, the great vegetation that has decomposed and turned into oil but rather they were great accumulations of fish and so that our crude oil is actually precursed by these water creatures. But there is evidence all over the globe and we know it right here in eastern Oklahoma. You can go into almost any high spot around here and you can find oyster shell. And right along with fresh water shells they find seawater shells.

And in various areas especially up in the northern part of the Mid-West, the upper plains, Montana and so forth, they’ve found areas of great seemingly burial yards of all the great wild animals. All mixed together. And of course a few human as well. So this great flood and all that action has caused a lot of confusion in the area of science.

But there’s ample evidence all around the planet that there was some tremendous event that totally tore this planet apart. When they speak of the ancient continent of Atlantis, I personally think it existed. I think that at one time the land mass was all single, there was no big division of oceans and indeed if Atlantis was somewhere between South America and Africa and it’s on the bottom of the ocean, I have no trouble believing it because all we know is that that pre-Flood civilization was destroyed. The planet was completely renovated and everything that’s on the scene tonight, everything, our mountains, our rivers, our canyons, our Grand Canyon, our ocean beds, everything is the result of Noah’s Flood.

And so everything has a new beginning. God’s in control, He’s Sovereign. Do you think that it was an accident that the Middle East ended up with the world’s oil? Of course not. That was Sovereignly designed because God, from the very beginning, had decreed that time as we know it would come to an end in the Middle East. We know that everything that is taking place in the Middle East tonight is tied to God’s program of bringing things now to its culmination and the only way it could be done is with this business of oil.

Now we like to think that we didn’t go into that war (1990) because of oil, and I don’t say that we did, but yet the whole world is concerned about the Middle East only because of that one commodity. Just stop and ask yourself, if there was no oil in the Middle East would the world be concerned about those deserts? Why of course not. But oil is at the center of everything.

Now, I’ve mentioned before we know that at some point in the future there’s going to be a great Russian invasion of the land of Israel. We know that’s going to happen. But the problem has always been, why will the Russians want to invade Israel; there’s nothing there? And I’ve said for years, they’re going to find something, either going to discover a great deposit of gold, because Russia is strapped for cash, or they’re going to find a great deposit of oil. And in the last Jerusalem Post, they have struck oil and they are excited down in the Negev and they think and again it’s only projection, they think it might be one of the greatest oil finds ever. Now if that comes to fruition, then you just mark it down, Russia is going to have her eye on that great oil reserve. And of course, the nation of Israel with all of her technology and her ambition, are the ones that can bring it to fruition. But everything that now is can only be traced back to the time of Noah’s Flood.

Our whole Middle-western farm area, scientists and geologists like to tell us that it’s all the result of great glaciers that brought all that great topsoil and came down about as far as central Missouri and then they receded. Well, like I was telling my wife one night here while back, you know, they can pull the wool over our eyes and it sounds so good, but there’s a lot of things that these people don’t tell us. And I think you’re all aware that glaciers are made up of snow and ice and dust and so on and so forth, but there’s only one way a glacier can move. By gravity. The only way it can move is gravitationally. But you know what they tell us? That glaciers that began in Canada actually traverses elevations of over 2000 feet, in their move down into the Mid West. And some of those things, and they can’t give an answer for it. So all you can say is – it’s ridiculous.

We also know that glaciers were able to just grind to powder great rocks and granite and just literally ground it, then why in the world do you find in those same areas fossils, which are far more fragile, totally intact. They weren’t destroyed in the glacial move and they can’t explain that. And so the best way as I’ve been trying to tell my classes now for 20 years, you look at something on this old planet tonight and you just tell yourself, this is the way God prepared it when the water left the surface. He laid down all the great farm areas. He laid down the coal beds. He laid down the oil pools, the gas pools. He laid down the rivers, the canyons. All of these things came on the scene as this water began to leave.

Next time you go to Grand Canyon, you ask one of the guides, well how much deeper is the Grand Canyon now than when they first discovered it a couple of hundred years ago? He’ll say, "Oh I don’t know, probably an inch if that. It hasn’t gotten any deeper." Why not? I mean if that thing was cut by wind and water and erosion, why isn’t it still cutting it? Well, why not just be logical and say "Well as the waters left, that volcanic disrupted surface of the earth, it was probably molten. It was still soft. And just like if you were to take a pail of water and pour it on some fresh concrete, what would you do? Oh you would just cut little tracks right through it, easily."

And so I think of all these great canyons as this great rush of water began now finding its way to the sea, and God brought the land areas up into view, all these things took place in just a short period of time and the planet was now prepared for the great restoration of mankind, and it’s the only logical way to realize that everything we have needed in our technological society, God provided. God has provided every bit of it.

He has provided the great forest areas for our lumber. He’s provided the farm areas for our grains and for our food. He’s provided everything. And I’ve already made the point, He put the oil, the greatest part of it, in the Middle East because that’s where the world is finally going to have to come together in that final great effort, which of course we refer to as Armageddon and I’m kind of amused that when the Iraqi thing started a lot of people started saying this is Armageddon. No this isn’t Armageddon! Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Now it’s a preview. All I told my classes – now that just goes to show you how easy it is to believe that the time is coming when some great world leader will call the armies of the world together in the Middle East but it won’t be to get rid of Saddam Hussein; it’s going to be to get rid of the Jew, first and primarily. And then of course, it turns into the forces of the anti-Christ and Satan trying to actually create a war with the coming of the Lord Jesus and of course that’s futile. But their whole premise to start with will be to bring the armies of the world to get rid of the Jewish problem. That has been Satan’s aim all through Scripture. To get rid of the Jewish problem!

And now I don’t have to explain what that is. Every day’s news is trying to deal with the Israeli and the Palestinian problem. Palestinians will tell us there’s only one way to solve it and that is to push Israel into the sea. Bless their hearts, I know they want a homeland, and I can feel with them, but again being a student of Scripture we know that Palestine was deeded to the Jew. It’s Israel’s homeland and God is going to see to it that they keep it. No one is going to drive the Jew into the sea.

All right, so coming back then if you will to Noah’s Flood, I hope you’ve been asking yourself the question, "Well now if there was such turmoil and with all these great tidal waves being caused by the earthquakes and volcanoes, what about this Ark?" Even though it was built sturdily, and even though it was built of tremendous water capable lumber, how did it survive? Well do you remember I told you several weeks ago, that the verb when Noah and his family were getting ready to go into the Ark, verb from the Lord Jesus was what? "Come into the Ark." So I think that I’m safe in saying that throughout these five-six months when the water is roaring and this Ark could have been tossed around like a cork and sunk many, many times, yet it was the very presence of Jehovah within that guaranteed that that Ark stayed afloat.

Now we won’t take time to look at it because these thirty-minutes just go too fast. But you all know the account, when Jesus and the Twelve were coming across the Sea of Galilee in that - wasn’t too small a boat because after all, Jesus was evidently below deck and a storm rose and where was Jesus. I’ve already told you, below deck, and what was He doing? He was sleeping. And those storms on the Galilee can get pretty ferocious because it’s a shallow lake. You think that little boat would have ever sunk? Huh-un. It would have never sunk. But see the Twelve still hadn’t gotten it through their thick heads who He was down there. And so they go down and they wake Him up.

And you know the account. And they said, "Lord we perish." Well, the Lord could have just said, "Let me sleep, we’re not going to perish." But you see, so many times, He would condescend to those Twelve and so He did, He went to the upper deck and what does He do? "Calms the wind." The storms went down. But they wouldn’t have sunk, because He was in the boat. And I think that’s the same way it was with the Ark. When I explained the tremendous tidal waves and someone will come and say, "Well then how did the Ark survive?" The Lord was in it. Had He not been in it, it wouldn’t have. But it does. And remember it’s not going to go any place, all it has to do is just stay practically in one place.

Now we’ll skip all these verses, you can read them in your leisure. But it rained for forty days, no doubt about that. And then we come down to verse 24 of chapter 7:

"And the waters prevailed upon the earth (in other words, they maintained at that deepest depth) an hundred and fifty days." For 150 days, that’s five months. Now if you can just again imagine not only what was taking place in the activity, but the pressure. The pressure that is now placed upon the surface of this planet by all this water. It’s just beyond our comprehension.

Now scientists I think have practically proven that can take common garbage and if you can put it under enough pressure, what can you make out of it? Well a form of crude oil. And so if you can picture again, the tremendous amount of vegetation that was on this beautiful earth, and remember it was pole to pole. It was a semi-tropical climate and so the vegetation that was on the surface would again be beyond our imagination. And all of that was just plowed under, and I’ve talked to coal miners who have worked in coal mines oh almost a mile deep and they said, every once in a while you’ll see right in that vein of coal the perfect outline of a tree, of a limb, of leaves. So they know that all this stuff at one time was living vegetation. And so all of this then became under the pressure of this tremendous amount of water, the coal beds of today, and I think the oil fields, albeit some think it’s accumulated fish; I’m not going to argue with it.

And by the way, I do want to pass this on, if anyone wants to read a good book on the Flood, one of the best I’ve ever read and someone just gave me a copy here a month or two ago, it’s by a gentleman by the name of Rehwinkel, I hope I’ve got that spelled right, and if you can’t find it in a bookstore, you can call Concordia – now I’m not here to advertise anything but Concordia Publishing, in St. Louis. In order to get my copy, I just called them, I didn’t bother to bring a phone number along, but if you’re interested in reading a good book on the Flood, I think it is $15 if I’m not mistaken.

"And God remembered Noah…." Now that throws a curve at us because I say, "Well if He’s in the Ark how could He forget him?" Well I don’t think that’s what’s implied. But it was coming to the time now when God to begin to move things forward on behalf of Noah and those things in the Ark.

"And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;" In other words, they begin to leave. Now it isn’t just the wind itself because we know that from all the activities of these volcanoes, new surfaces are coming on the scene. The mountains are rising up, the rivers are being formed and as you drive across the countryside, always be amazed. I mean if you really get a good look at this, most of the surface of this earth is naturally drained.

Do you ever think about that as you drive through the country? How that as it rains, the water, through all its various little trickles and streams all finds its way to a common place. On this side of the Rockies of course it goes to the Mississippi. On the other side it goes to the Pacific, but you go all around the planet and everything with isolated instances, I know, but everything is draining to the sea and a common creation. Well this all happened at the end then I think of Noah’s Flood.

"And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated, (in other words, they have reached their peak and they’re running to the sea) 4. And the Ark rested in the seventh month, and upon the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat." Now that doesn’t mean it’s up on the top of Mount Ararat. Mount Ararat is a rather high mountain, I think it is around 16,000 feet if I’m not mistaken. That doesn’t mean the Ark was at the 16,000 point. You know as well as I do that when you call a mountain, like Mount Hood in Oregon, or even some of our mountains here in eastern Oklahoma, you consider all the ground, down to the base and all the way around. So the Ark could have rested at any level somewhere in the area of the great mountain, Ararat.

"And the waters decreased continually (oh they’re flowing into the sea now, maybe in some areas a little slower than others but God’s getting the surface ready for re-habitation) until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 6. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the Ark which he had made:" Which remember, there’s only one and it’s in the roof, it isn’t in the side. And it was a rather small one, only about what? Eighteen inches by eighteen, something like that.

"And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth." And it doesn’t come back to the Ark does it? Now I think the analogy here is, what kind of a bird is a raven? Well, it’s like a vulture, it’s a bird of prey and it’s something that’s carnivorous. So I think what you have here is this old raven goes out and it doesn’t come back because it could find ample stuff floating on the water that had already died and was perfectly at home with him. But the next little bird he lets go is of a totally different sort. What is it? The dove. Now in Scripture we always associate the dove with the Holy Spirit, so the spiritual realm here as over against the natural.

Now remember what I told you several weeks ago, all through Scripture, you always have first the natural and then the spiritual. First we have Cain and then Abel, first Esau and then Jacob. First, Saul and then David and all that. Well same way here, the very same way. First, the raven which spoke of the unregenerate person, who is always satisfied with the things of the old life. Well what about the dove? Let’s look at it quickly.

"Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; 9. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark." The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she returned unto the Ark. That dove wasn’t going to light on some old rotting carcass. It just wasn’t at home on it. And as a believer we’re not to feel at home in the world either.

"And he waited another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; 11. And the dove came to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." What’s that the sign of? New life. Now this dove, the spiritual aspect is finding that which she could identify with and so she comes back with this signal that new life is coming on the earth.

Now don’t sit back and say, how can that be so quickly? I told you also several weeks ago, all you have to do is go out and look in the area of St. Helen’s. And you’re from out there in Oregon and I’ll bet you know it as well as anybody that that area has come back so fast after the terrible eruption of that mountain just what, ten years ago now? So if God speeds things up, then this all becomes so believable, and remember with Him nothing was impossible. And so the dove comes back now with something that signifies the new creation, the new life.

"And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth:…" Now that’s a year and 10 days they were on that ark.

Now before you read any further, I always like to ask the question, unless you’ve been in my classes – How did Noah and all his creatures in the Ark, how did they get out? Oh everybody says, oh he opened the door. Oh no they didn’t. God had shut that. And just like in the life of a believer, now remember this has got to carry all the way through. A believer doesn’t go out of this life the same way he came in. Not into the spiritual life. Now read on, how did they get out of the Ark?

"…and Noah removed the (what?) covering of the ark,…" That’s roof isn’t it? So how’d they go out? They went out the top. They didn’t go out the side. They went out the top, they went up. And if the Ark rested in a crevice like some people think it did, they walked out on ground level.

And so the only way out of the Ark was through the roof. "Noah removed the covering and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry." I’ve been amazed over all the years of teaching I’ve never found anyone who could answer it for me until I showed it to them. Now this goes to show how easy it is to read something and never see what we read. Because, it’s there, plain as day, that he removed the covering. All right, now let’s move on again quickly. Verse 14.

"And in the second month, and the seventh and twentieth day of the month, the earth was dried." It’s been a little over a year from the time of that sudden destruction until now the new earth is making its appearance. And let’s move on quickly, verse 18.

"And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife and his sons wives with him: 19. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. 20. And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (remember the sacrificial animals, and fowls he took in by sevens. And he takes one of them to sacrifice to God) 21. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour;…" And then verse 22, here’s where we’re going to end for tonight.

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." You don’t have that kind of language before the Flood. There was no such thing as seasons before the Flood. There was no such thing as weather. It was constant. And so the Flood changed all that. One scientist has put it that that’s probably when the earth began its seasonal tilt so that we consequently have now our seasons.

Good evening and again it’s good to have everybody back and we’re going to pick right up where we left off, so if you’ll be turning in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 8 and then we’ll be ready to go into chapter 9. We would encourage you to study right along with us.

All right, let’s turn to Genesis chapter 8 and in just a few words of review, you remember that from Adam until the flood was about 1650 years. That’s a long time. And in that 1650 years we come from the perfect couple all the way down to a planet filled with people and I’m of the opinion that there were probably as many at the time of the flood as there are on the planet today, possibly even more. They had a tremendous technology, but you want to remember in that 1600 and some years, there was no civil government. There was no organized worship. And as far as we can see from Scripture, there wasn’t "religion."

Now I think most people realize I don’t like that word. But, sometimes we have to use it for lack of a better one. But as a result then of no civil law per se, no government to maintain law and order and no system of worship to really maintain a relationship with God, we find that by the time you get to Genesis chapter 6, the earth is filled with violence. It’s corrupt. It is rotten to the core and God sees there’s only one remedy and that is to just utterly destroy them.

But then we found that God’s grace was still evident, there were eight souls that He was able to save and bring to the other side of the flood. There was Noah of course, and his three sons and their wives. Now that’s quite a commentary on how far the human race can remove themselves from any relationship with God even in a period of only 1650 years. And I think we’re seeing much the same thing taking place in our own day and time.

How rapidly we’re seeing the human race and we’re seeing the very fabric of what we call Christian society falling apart and even as Jesus said, "as it was in the days of Noah, so it would be at the second coming." And for those reasons plus many, many others, we certainly do feel that we’re approaching the end-time rapidly.

And then in our last study you remember, we explained that the flood was not just a simple rising of rain water and a quiet flooding of everything, but rather it was tumultuous; it was cataclysmic! It was so fantastic that the whole planet erupted instantaneously to such a degree that all of the evidence of that pre-flood civilization has been all but totally removed. Now we have the fossil record of course, but other than that, it has been completely removed from the scene and then last week as we saw the floodwaters, begin to recede and finally new life appears and God instructs Noah now to leave the Ark and remember I told you that they didn’t go out the door. The door had been shut previously by the Lord Himself, and so Noah removed the roof, or the "covering" of the Ark and they went out through the top.

And then as we wound up our last half-hour in the final verse of chapter 8, we see that now it’s a completely different earth. It’s a different climate. And rather than having one climate of one spring-like temperature with no weather, and the beautiful environment of that pre-flood civilization, now it’s a complete change. And the earth is now going to come under weather. It’s going to come under climatic changes as we understand now the four seasons.

"I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." And I think possibly from a scientific point of view, that’s when the Lord instigated then the tilting of the earth as we go through our seasonal changes. That’s only speculation of course, the Bible doesn’t tell us.

Now we come into chapter 9 we want to keep moving on as quickly as we can. And yet I always like to explain to people the reason that I take Genesis so slowly and so in detail is that if you have a good solid understanding of the book of Genesis, then the whole New Testament is more readily understood. Now we’re living in a time when we’ve got all these various groups and they’ve all got their various ideas and their various doctrines. And many times I’ve told people, well analyze what you believe. Does it fit all of Scripture? Or are you just taking a verse here and a verse there and then building doctrine on it? Because if you’re going to have a doctrine that is true to the Word of God, it has to fit from cover to cover.

We have absolutely no options that we can pick and choose and that’s what I try to show people as I teach, that we’re using the whole Scripture and making it fit and that nothing is out of place, hopefully. But, we’re going to take our time and we’ll still be in Genesis for a little longer.

In fact a class that I started just exactly a year ago, we just finished the book of Genesis last night. So it was twelve months with two-hour classes once a week to go through the book of Genesis. So I think here on this program, we’re doing quite well. And of course it’s because we’re not being interrupted with questions, although I miss that. I like, and those of you who are in my other classes, you know, that we love to answer questions. And again, I can direct that to our TV audience. If you have questions we would appreciate hearing from you and I always tell my classes, I’ve never had a dumb question. If it’s a question on your mind, then it’s a good one. And it’s worthy of time to answer. But hopefully as we go through the Bible we’ll answer many questions that you might have.

The question about salvation comes up often. Have I believed what the Word says about my salvation? Well we might stop for a moment and answer that right here. As most of you know, God gave the Apostle Paul our instructions in this Age of Grace we’re now living in. (Acts 9:15, Romans 11:13, Ephesians 3:2) Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:1-4 for us to be saved "that we must believe that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again," plus nothing else. That is called faith + NOTHING! And God loves it when we rely totally on what he has done for salvation. Now for our study in Genesis chapter 9 and we’ll begin with verse 1.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said unto them, Be fruitful, multiply, and (what’s the word?) replenish the earth." Now you remember way back in Genesis 1, and this is why I like to compare Scripture, come back with me again if you will to chapter 1 and drop down to verse 28. This is just after Adam and Eve have been created and placed in the Garden and they too are given a like instruction.

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and (what’s the word?) replenish the earth…." And are you getting the drift? Just as surely as Noah is now coming on the scene and filling up the planet that had been filled once before, that’s why I feel that Adam and Eve also then, were coming on the scene and refilling the planet, not that it hadn’t been inhabited by humans previously, but evidently by an angelic kingdom but Adam also was told to once again fill up the earth or the planet.

All right, now if you’re back in Genesis chapter 9, this is also the instruction to Noah the three sons and of course their four wives. "Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth." Fill it up again. Verse 2, now I’ve got to emphasize, this is going to be what we would say in today vernacular, a whole new ballgame. This is going to be totally different than it was back before the flood and if you’ll remember we could have said the same thing when Adam and Eve came out of the Garden to the existence out of the Garden. It also was a whole new ballgame - something totally different. All right here it is again, now he says to Noah and these sons, we’re going to set down a whole new set of rules and regulations, a new criteria. And what is it?

"The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air and upon everything that moves upon the earth, upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand (He says to Noah and these three sons) they are delivered. 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you;…" Now the King James uses the word meat, but it would be better translated ‘food’ because the word meat in the old English meant your general diet of food, and not just meat as we understand it. So, everything in God’s creation God is now giving permission to be food for the human race, but He’s going to put a stipulation on it. And here it is in verse 4.

"But the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, you shall not eat." Now there is a strict command of God to the human race that even though He’s given permission – they can eat of anything and everything, they were never to partake of blood. That has never been rescinded. That is still just an anathema even in the New Testament.

Now it’s interesting to note, that like almost everything else that God commands in one direction, the powers of Satan always come back and say what? The opposite. Now here is a good one, it’ll make you think. God has commanded that the human race never ingest blood of anything. And yet you get into the satanic cults and satanic worship, what’s one of the first things they demand? Drinking blood as part of their ritual. And that just should wake people up that that is in direct opposition to the command of the Creator. All right, now I want to get back to a little bit I skipped back there in verse 3 that emphasizes the change – now they can eat of meat animals. And remember before the flood they never had that permission.

Again let’s go back to chapter 1, we’ve got to compare back and forth, it’s the only way you can learn to study and as I’ve told my classes over the years, the only reason I go to all the trouble and take the time to teach, is to show people how to study. I’m not a proselyter. I have never tried to convince someone to move from one group to another, or from one church to another. That’s not my business, but what I do try to do is get people into the Book and show them how to study on their own.

All right, back in chapter 1 now then, by comparison with Genesis chapter 9, God told Adam and Eve, verse 29:

"…I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so." Now what was the diet then of every living thing including man? Those things that grew naturally, the herbs. The fruits. The nuts. The grasses. The forages. There was no indication here of anything having the freedom to kill and eat.

Now, in chapter 9 this is all part of this whole new program. Now it’s just the opposite. God said anything that liveth, you are free to kill and use for food, with that one restriction. You cannot have the blood of it. All right, the reason behind it of course, as the Bible knew way back here and medical science really didn’t get the impact of it until WWII, those of you who are old enough to remember that even as WWII began, what did they use in badly wounded troops? Well not blood transfusions but what? Plasma. And then all of a sudden, they began to realize that life was in the blood.

I always like to remind people as well, you go back to even the early days of our country, what was the number one way of treating most disease? They’d bleed them. In fact, someone told me, I don’t know how much truth is in it, that was really what caused the death of George Washington. He had gone to what we now call barber shops, you remember that’s why you’ve got the red and white pole out in front of a barber shop, because that was part and parcel of their trade. They would bleed people hopefully to bring them back to health. And evidently according to, like I say I don’t know how much truth is in it, but someone said that this is what happened to George Washington. He was sick and someone just bled him a little bit too much.

But anyway medical science didn’t pick up on this until our generation that life is in the blood and now rather than take blood from a sick person; we transfuse them with more blood. And all that just to show that the Bible is so scientifically correct. So God says, the life is in the blood and then verse 5, He continues why He’s putting this stipulation on this.

"And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, at the hand of man; and at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6. Whoso (or whoever) sheddeth man’s blood, (or kills him) by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Now that puts man head and shoulders above anything else in God’s creation because we were created in the image of God and God so ordained that the life of this human being is in the blood. Now of course it carries through in all the animals and birds and everything, I know that. But God is putting a stipulation on the human being as not being cheap, but rather that this human being’s life is of intrinsic value to God.

Now we know there are many areas of the world where life is cheap. They think nothing of killing people by the hundreds or the thousands, in fact, we’ve seen it quite profusely over the last several years, first in the Far East – the killing fields of Cambodia and Viet Nam and now we’ve seen it again in the Middle East and this is nothing new of course to the human race, but this isn’t the way God ordained it. God ordained that man was to be of intrinsic value. His life was not to be taken lightly. And if someone did take the life of a fellow human being, what was the stipulation? That individual also then must be put to death by his fellow man.

Now we call that in the vernacular of Bible study, the instigation, or the beginning or human government. In other words, before the flood, man didn’t have this authority from God to control the behavior by capital punishment, or incarceration in prison or anything else. But now God is instituting that man would have authority over fellow man, under God. And that if man was guilty of murder or of some other crime, then the authority of human government was to take that person and deal with them accordingly. Now that particular aspect and we call it, capital punishment, has never been rescinded throughout Scripture.

Now there are some things of course, that have changed, but this has never been rescinded. It still stands as God’s law for the human race and of course, mankind and if there are sociologists listening to me, they’ll probably almost go into orbit, because you know they’re trying to tell us that capital punishment is barbarian and it’s just not fit for civilized society. But what has caused our problem? Why is crime increasing every day? I just read in yesterday’s Tulsa World that crime jumped what? Something like 27% again the last year? Why is it jumping? Because we are not deterring it with a severe enough punishment.

Now in the few moments that we have left let’s go back to the New Testament, because after all this is why we study is to compare, as I said earlier, all of Scripture with Scripture. Go back with me to Romans chapter 13 and now Paul writing to the church, and to the church at Rome in particular, but of course to the church down through the ages. Now in Romans 13, Paul is laying out so clearly the role of government. We in America are blessed aren’t we? We think that we have the best government that the world has ever known. And it’s got its weaknesses. It has its problems, no doubt about it, but still it’s the best that the world has ever seen. And we’re not to take advantage of it but rather we’re to recognize what a blessing good government is.

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, (now that higher powers is not talking about God, it’s talking about government - the authority over us in society) For there is no power (there is no government) of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." A Saddam Hussein? Yes. Why? Because certain things had to happen and they have happened because God has ordained it to come in the way it has.

Personally, I think this war that has just ended – the hundred hours – might very well have been a fulfillment of Jeremiah 50 and 51 where the prophet describes the total annihilation of the nation of Babylon, which of course, Saddam claims that he is. And he wanted to be another Nebuchadnezzar. But, a Hitler? Ordained of God? Yes.

And I’ve always said, and you know the German people got just exactly what they deserve and then horror of horrors, maybe you saw in on the news this morning and I read it in one of the newspapers yesterday, where now circulating amongst the young people again of Europe, did you see it? Video games, not tapes but games, where the player of the game actually is the head of a concentration camp and the game is registered on how they can put their subjects to death and how much they can make them suffer.

Now you see, this is all getting the world ready again for some awful things that are coming upon human society, but the government has been ordained of God for the good of Christian people. Now many time governments are not that, but again like I’ve just said, nations get what they deserve. And if someday we lose our beautiful democratic way of living, it will probably be because we’ve brought it on ourselves with poor choices.

Romans 13:2-3a

"Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, (that is the government) resists the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive unto themselves condemnation. 3. For rulers (government) are not to be a terror to good works, but to the evil." In other words, when you meet a local policeman, he shouldn’t strike terror in the heart of the law-abiding citizen. Rather he should be almost complementary. But what should he be to the law-breaker? Just that. It should make that law-breaker just skip a heartbeat, because this is the reason that they’re there.

"…Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? (or respect it?) do that which is good, (or which is right) and thou shalt have the praise of the same; 4. For he (the local government) is a ministry of God to thee for good. But if you do that which is evil (or you’re a law-breaker, you’d better be what?) you better be afraid; (that government should strike terror into the law-breaker) for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him who (what?) does evil." Or is a law-breaker. And we’ve lost that. Our young people seemingly have lost that fear for the authority. Our criminals, they can let them out in a matter, I think I read it again the other day, in an average of eight months, some 70% if I read correctly, are back in. Why? Because they have no fear of it. And this is the only thing that holds the fabric of society together.

And this is what we call then, human government, and if you want to go back to Genesis for just a moment we have left – human government was to maintain law and order; it was to protect the lives of the citizens; and the deterrent for crime and murder in particular, God instituted capital punishment. And any nation that practiced capital punishment had a real low crime rate until they removed it. And I think the last, most visible example is the nation of France.

Up until sometime in the 70’s France believe it or not, still used the old guillotine to execute murderers. You know how many murders they had in France? You could just about number them on one hand. But you see again, they said, oh that’s barbarian, that’s something from the Dark Ages and so they outlawed it. What do you suppose happened? Their murder rate when up just like everybody else’s. So no one can tell me that capital punishment is not a legitimate deterrent to murder or to major crime.

So again, come back to Genesis chapter 9 and see clearly and do not forget what the Word of God says on these things because the Word is true. I stand on it from cover to cover. Make no apology for it. And so, here it is again the stipulation that "Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood by man (that is by man’s human government) shall that person’s blood be shed (he shall be put to death) for in the image of God he made them."

Let’s just pick up where we left off last week as we were in chapter 9. Noah and his sons have now come out of the Ark and God has given them new instructions. Now they are permitted to eat of anything that lives, except they were not to partake of the blood. And life is indeed precious and so God makes the stipulation now that human life is to be protected by a civil government and that civil government was to exercise law and order by setting up a deterrent, which in this case we call capital punishment.

And again, we have to realize that there are many influential people who are aghast at capital punishment. And of course I can be, because there’s always that fear that you may be executing an innocent person. But I think the Bible takes all that into consideration. We’re talking about people who are without a shadow of a doubt, guilty of murder and they have to be dealt with.

No one wants to see an innocent