Category: Great Flood of Noah’s day

Is Our Preaching a Waste of Time?

Friday, October 21, 2011

“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48 KJV).

If most will never trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, then why preach to them at all? Are we wasting our time by preaching salvation through Christ alone, since most of our audience will ultimately go to the everlasting lake of fire anyway (Matthew 7:13,14)?

Frankly, we know not who will ultimately trust in Christ and who will not. We simply preach the Gospel of the Grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) to everyone, and then let them choose to have faith in Christ or reject Christ. If they reject Christ, and most will, our preaching is still not a waste. As Jesus taught in today’s Scripture, the salvation message that lost people reject will be that which condemns them to hell at the Great White Throne Judgment!

God knew only eight people would be saved from the Great Flood, yet He still directed Noah to preach (Genesis 7:7; 2 Peter 2:5). Why? So the people who rejected God’s Word would be without excuse and justly condemned.

“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (John 6:64). Jesus knew “from the beginning” that many Jews would completely ignore His preaching, so why did He preach? Firstly, to save anyone who would trust in Him. Secondly, so that He would fair in condemning those who rejected Him. Those who rejected Christ will be condemned by the very words that He preached… the very words they rejected! No one will argue with God, “I did not know” or “I never had a chance.”

The Apostle Paul admitted he would never convert many or most, just “some” (Romans 11:14; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:22). Even though God knew just a few people would believe His written Word, He still preserved it for the benefit of those who would believe it. Furthermore, God’s preserved Word and our preaching it will be used against the lost when they are ultimately judged.

Same Old, Same Old (Ignorance and Unbelief)

Friday, September 2, 2011

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 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” (2 Peter 3:3,4 KJV).

Continue reading the context of today’s Scripture (verses 5,6): “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:”

Geologist James Hutton proposed the principle of uniformitarianism, the belief that the same natural processes operating on earth today are generally those that sculpted earth in the past. Basically, “the present is the key to the past.”

A college geology textbook reads: “Two fathers of modern geology, James Hutton and Charles Lyell, led us to understand that the planet was not shaped by a series of catastrophic events over a mere few thousand years, as many people had believed. Rather, what we see today is the product of ordinary geologic processes operating over much longer time intervals” (Understanding Earth, Grotzinger et al., 2007, 184).

Notice how this textbook rejects the Great Flood of Noah’s day (“catastrophic events”) by claiming that “ordinary geologic processes” have always operated on earth. In today’s Scripture, the Apostle Peter mentioned Bible scoffers who are willingly ignorant of the Great Flood. This describes Hutton, Lyell, and the other scientists who accept the theory of uniformitarianism and reject the “catastrophic” Great Flood.

  • UNIFORMITARIANISM = slow processes operating during long periods of time, suggesting an old earth (~4.6 billion years old).
  • CATASTROPHISM = accelerated erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments during the Great Flood, suggesting a young earth (thousands of years old).

Because the extreme conditions and accelerated rates of processes demanded by the global Flood disprove almost uniform, ordinary, and slow rates of geologic change, most scientists reject “catastrophism” (the Bible’s Flood) in favor of “uniformitarianism” (to keep their “old earth view!”).

As the uniformitarianists shout, “Same old, same old!,” we catastrophists exclaim, “Same old, same old ignorance and unbelief!”

The Colorful Evidence of the Great (Worldwide) Deluge

Thursday, June 23, 2011

“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13 KJV).

Was the Great Deluge of Noah’s day truly a global flood? Or, as much of the (skeptical) scientific community contends, an inundation confined within the Mesopotamian Valley?

Today’s Scripture, documenting the first appearance of the rainbow, verifies that it was a global, not a regional, flood. The rainbow is the sign (token) of God’s promise, the Noahic Covenant, to never again flood the whole world to destroy all flesh (Genesis 9:8-17). Had the Great Flood been merely a regional flood, why would God promise to never again destroy “all flesh?”

The Great Flood indeed covered the world. In fact, the peaks of the highest mountains were covered by 20 feet of water, forcing it to be a global flood (Genesis 7:19,20). In a regional flood, how could mountain peaks be covered with 20 feet of water?

Prior to the Great Flood, Scripture indicates that it had never rained. [Imagine how foolish Noah sounded when he warned of a coming flood!] Before the Great Deluge, God used a mist to water the earth’s vegetation. The Bible says (Genesis 2:5,6): “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

Interestingly, a rainbow has seven distinct bands of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Seven in the Bible represents perfection.

Whenever you see a rainbow, remember what God told Noah (Genesis 9:15): “And I will remember my covenant, which between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

Was the Great Deluge a global flood? The rainbow is the multicolored evidence that it was indeed a worldwide flood!