Category: Great Flood of Noah’s day

Diets and the Dispensations

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

“For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4,5 KJV).

Opponents of dispensational Bible study claim that because God never changes (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8), His dealings with mankind never change. Certainly, God’s essence—His character and nature—never changes. But, His directions to man do change, and this is easily exemplified by comparing today’s Scripture with the following:

  • NO MEAT, VEGETATION ONLY — Genesis 1:27-29: Before sin, God instructed Adam and Eve to eat only vegetation like nuts, seeds, vegetables, and fruits (no meat).
  • ALL MEAT AND VEGETATION — Genesis 9:1-4: After the Great Flood, God taught Noah to eat any animal that he could catch (1,600 years after Adam, meat is incorporated into man’s diet).
  • ONLY CERTAIN MEAT — Leviticus 11:1-31 and Deuteronomy 14:1-21: In the Mosaic Law, some 850 years after Noah, God ordered Israel to abstain from some meats, the “unclean” beasts which included bats, owls, camels, vultures, lizards, and swine. These kosher food laws of Judaism remained in effect for the next 1500 years.

Which passage should we obey? Eat only vegetation (Genesis 1:27-29)? Or, eat any meat we choose (today’s Scripture and Genesis 9:1-4)? Or, eat only certain meats (Leviticus 11:1-31 and Deuteronomy 14:1-21)? While these seem like contradictions, notice God spoke them to different groups of people at different times (dispensations). We must never mix the directions God gave in the various dispensations because Bible “contradictions” will arise. “Rightly dividing the word of truth” is necessary to determine which passage is God’s Word to us (2 Timothy 2:15).

As Gentiles, Paul is our apostle (Romans 11:13): Paul is God’s spokesman to us. In today’s Scripture, the Holy Spirit through Paul tells us that since we live in the Dispensation of Grace, we are not bound to observe Israel’s kosher food laws. We can eat all meats, provided we give God thanks (but note how God did not allow this in other dispensations).

No clearer example of the importance of dispensational Bible study could be presented.

No Thanks, God! #2

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4 KJV).

Once Adam sinned, God could have immediately annihilated the human race. All these millennia later, God is still tolerating man’s wickedness. Myriads of scoffers today shake their fists at God and curse His name, and yet the heavens are silent. Why?

Fire and brimstone do not rain down from heaven, as during Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction (Genesis 19:24,25). No flood consumes our planet, like in Noah’s day (Genesis 6:13). Today, the earth does not open and swallow the infidels, as it did Korah and his men, and God’s fire does not consume men, as it did 250 other blasphemers (Numbers 16:30-35). God does not strike unbelievers dead, as He did King Herod (Acts 12:21-23), or blind them as He did Elymas (Acts 13:9-11). Why does God not exact vengeance today as He did in time past?

Today, we live in the Dispensation of the Grace of God. This dispensational change allows mankind to receive the riches of God’s “forbearance” and “longsuffering.” God is patient and is restraining Himself from pouring out His wrath so more people can be saved before His wrath is executed. “The Lord is not slack [lazy, undependable] concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”(2 Peter 3:9)

Ecclesiastes 8:11 says: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” In due time, God will punish the lost world, just not today in our dispensation. Since the Lord does not immediately execute wrath, people take advantage of Him. God is extending His grace and peace to us undeserving sinners, but as today’s Scripture says, people hate God’s goodness and grace and reject it.

Do not toss away the gift of God’s grace and salvation through Jesus Christ. Accept that gift by faith and escape that wrath to come!

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!