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Man, this morning I'm preaching on the subject of the flood found here in Genesis. Of course, this is one of the most famous Bible stories of all time, Noah's ark, God destroying the world with a flood, and it's a very important Bible story. It's referenced multiple times in the New Testament, and it's a foreshadowing of things even to come. So it's not just history, it's also the future in a sense. But let's go ahead and jump into the story here in chapter 6, verse number 1. The Bible reads, And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives, all of which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is also flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. So the first thing that I want to get into is the background of the flood and the reason why God decided to flood the entire earth and wipe out mankind aside from one single family. Now the Bible says here that it starts with the sons of God beholding the daughters of men and seeing that they're fair and choosing them as their wives. Now what is this talking about? What does it mean when it talks about the sons of God and the daughters of men? Why is this a problem? What does it lead to? Well first of all I want to read the Bible in context because a lot of people will take this passage and teach a lot of crazy things that would probably require the Bible to be moved over to the science fiction section of the bookstore. But let's go by what the Bible actually says, what it actually teaches, and the context. So when we're reading the Bible we want to get it obviously in the context of the chapter, context of the book, but ultimately the context of the entire Bible itself because this story does not exist in isolation but it has to be in context. So what do we know about the sons of God from reading the rest of the Bible? Well the Bible consistently from Genesis to Revelation defines the sons of God, whenever it defines the sons of God, it defines them as people who are saved. That's what it defines them as. You know when you're reading the New Testament it says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. The Bible says to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name. That means that if you don't believe on the name of Jesus you're not a child of God because you become a child of God by believing on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are begotten again unto a lively hope, the Bible says. We're born again of the incorruptible seed. We are born into God's family. We are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, the Bible tells us in Galatians 3.20. And so there's a lot of evidence, a lot of Bible pointing to the fact that the sons of God are believers. Now the alternate view here would be that the sons of God are angels and not only that but they'll say they're fallen angels. Now why would demons or fallen angels be called the sons of God? That doesn't make any sense why evil, wicked, demons or fallen angels would be called the sons of God. Not only that, the Bible explicitly tells us that that is not what sons of God is referring to because if we read Hebrews chapter 1 where the Bible is talking about Jesus being so much better than the angels, it says in Hebrews 1.5, but unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. According to Hebrews chapter 1, that's something that God never said to any of the angels at any time. So why on the Old Testament they were called the sons of God? Well, at any time, New Testament, Old Testament, at any time, he never said to them, you're my son, today I've begotten you, or hey I'm going to be a father to you, you're going to be a son to me. That's not something that he said to the angels, okay, is what the Bible actually tells us in Hebrews 1. So not only do you not have a single scripture that says the sons of God are angels, but you have a verse that specifically says sons of God are not angels in Hebrews chapter 1. So what is this referring to? Okay, well again, if sons of God is referring to regenerate man, saved man, right, man who is a believer, then the daughters of men is just referring to those who are just carnal, physical, unregenerate, just human beings that are not saved. Okay, now does this fit the context of the passage? Well, what is the context? What leads us into this? Well look at the end of chapter 4, okay, because chapter 5 is just a genealogy. Chapter 4 is where the story leaves off, and what's happened in the story so far? Of course in chapter 1 God created the earth. In chapter 2 is the story of the Garden of Eden. In chapter 3 we have them sinning and eating of the forbidden fruit and getting thrown out. In chapter 4 we have the story of Cain and Abel. Of course Cain murders Abel, and God does not give Cain the death penalty. Instead what he does is he banishes him and exiles him and sends him away, he separates him from the rest of the people there. And so at the end of chapter 4 we have a genealogy of Cain's descendants and we see that there's more violence among Cain's descendants because it says, for example, in chapter 4 verse 23, this is one of Cain's descendants, and Lamech said unto his wives, Ada and Zillah, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech, for I have slain a man to my wounding and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech, seventy and sevenfold. So he's saying, look, if Cain got away with it, if Cain got away with murdering someone, he said, I'm even more justified for the guy that I killed. And what he's referring to is the fact that God said that if anyone killed Cain for what he had done, they would be avenged sevenfold. And so this guy's taking that basically as a license to get away with murder. So because Cain got away with murder, as it were, and he's going to be avenged seven times, he's like, well you know what, I'm even more justified so if Cain's going to be avenged seven times, I should be avenged seventy-seven times. So this just goes to show the direction that Cain's descendants are going is a bad direction. We don't have a lot of information here, but that's what we have in front of us. See I like to base what I believe on what the Bible says, not on what the Bible doesn't say. Let's go by what we have in the text, alright? So then, after that, look at the next verse, verse 25, it says, And Adam knew his wife again and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. So you see a dichotomy here. You've got Seth and his descendants, and what are they into? Calling upon the name of the Lord. Getting saved. People are getting saved. Men begin to call upon the name of the Lord. And then over here, we've got some talk about Cain's descendants, and it talks about them getting into metallurgy and music and things, but then it also refers to the fact that there's violence among them, and that a murder takes place, and that murder is being justified. So in chapter 5, we have the genealogy of Seth's descendants. So chapter 4 ends with a genealogy about Cain's descendants and the nature of his descendants, and then we have some talk about Seth's descendants, people being saved, calling upon the name of the Lord, and then chapter 5 is just that whole litany of those descendants of Seth, and then when we get to chapter 6, all of a sudden we roll into this talk about the sons of God and the daughters of men. So we're actually reading the.. now has there been any talk about angels or anything? No. We roll into a story talking about these two groups of people that God separated. God separated Cain's descendants from Seth's descendants. That was the punishment of Cain was to be exiled and sent away. But yet what we see in chapter 6 is these two groups of people uniting. That's what's going on in the context. Then we can stick with our normal biblical definition of sons of God, and it actually fits the context. So the Bible says that when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives, all of which they chose. So the result of these Christian young men, you know, I'm using that word obviously anachronistically because they wouldn't have called themselves Christians until after Antioch, right? But at this point, you know, we're talking about God's people, instead of choosing to marry women that also love God, that also are saved, they're choosing to marry heathen women. And what are they basing that choice on? Looks. They're just saying, well look, I'm going to marry her because she's beautiful. I don't care that she's a daughter of Cain. I don't care that she's not saved. I'm just going to go by looks. I'm going to choose her because she's good looking. That's what they're basically saying here. Now the result of this is that all of mankind becomes corrupted. Think of it this way. Think of a clean glass of water and a dirty glass of water and then we pour them together and mix them together. You know what happens? Now everything's dirty at that point, right? It's not like, oh, it's going to clean it up. We're cleaning up this dirty water. When you have an unequally yoked together man and wife, okay, that can lead to corruption ultimately. And that's what we see here that in general, when we see God's people mingling with the heathen and intermarrying with the heathen, pretty soon everybody's corrupt, okay? So because of that, the Lord says, my spirit shall not always strive with man for he also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. Now who is God mad at in verse 3? Who's he frustrated with? Who does he not want to strive with? Man. So to sit there and say that the sons of God are somehow not human does not fit the context. He's angry at man because of what man, I mean, if this, if these were, according to this alternate theory, if these were fallen angels that are not human coming down and mating with humans, why is he getting angry at mankind? Why would he get mad at these fallen angels or whatever? See, you see how that story doesn't actually fit what the Bible's saying here. What they're teaching is, you know, all these fallen angels came down and they mated with humans. First of all, you know, the Bible doesn't, or they'll say they fornicated with humans. The Bible doesn't say they mated or fornicated. You know what the Bible says? They took wives. They actually got married is what the Bible says. And you know what the Bible says about angels? They neither marry nor are they given in marriage. So you can see that interpretation just leads to contradiction upon contradiction. I mean, it sounds exciting. It sounds cool. It sounds like a great movie or something, but you know what? It's not real. It's not what the Bible teaches. Now this is what they'll also say. They'll say, no, no, no, these angels came down and mated with humans and the product were these giants, were the product of that. Okay, let's see what the Bible actually says. Look at verse four. And by the way, you'll hear talk about the Nephilim. Who's heard that word Nephilim? Now here's the thing. When they use this word Nephilim, this is just kind of a way to snow you with a foreign word, just kind of hitting you with a foreign word. Nephilim is simply the Hebrew word translated here as giants. So instead of saying Nephilim, we could all just agree to speak English and we could just say giants. But when you see people invoking a foreign word, a lot of times the reason that they're doing that is to snow you because if they say giant, you know what that means, don't you? Who knows what a giant is, right? But when you hear the word Nephilim, it's just kind of like, ooh, whoa. And then you kind of need them to explain it to you. And then they can start telling you about all these aliens and UFOs and fallen angels mating with humans and stuff like that, hybrids and genetic freaks and stuff. So don't let them snow you with that. When you hear that word Nephilim, that's all that is, is just the Hebrew word behind the English word giants. So it says in verse 4, there were giants in the earth in those days. Ah, there it is! You know, they've created these monsters. But let's keep reading. There were giants in the earth in those days. Watch this. And also after that, let's get the sequence here, after that when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. So let me ask you something. Did the giants come before this union of the sons of God with the daughters of men? Or did the giants come after this union? Well according to the Bible, the giants were already in existence before this union between the sons of God and the daughters of men because there were giants in the land and then also after that when the sons of God go into the daughters of men, they bare children unto them that became mighty men which were of old. Now why bring that up? Because mighty men in the Bible are leaders. That's what that means. Mighty men are basically people with power, people with authority. Even people with a lot of money are referred to as powerful people, mighty people. For example, when you're looking at the genealogy, you'll find Nimrod mentioned in Genesis and it says he began to be a mighty one in the earth. You know, he began to be a mighty hunter before the Lord, he's a mighty one. He's a person of influence. He's a person with power is what that means. All throughout the Bible it talks about the mighty ones in the earth. So what's happening is that basically you have God's people mingling with the heathen and the product of these unions are becoming the great men, the leadership, and as the leadership goes, so goes the nation. As the leadership goes, so goes the church. As the leadership goes, so goes the family. Everything rises and falls on leadership. So it says in verse number 5, and God saw, sorry, before I move on, why don't we get a biblical definition of what a giant is? Because a lot of people are thinking jack in the beanstalk. That is not what the Bible teaches. Because again, let the Bible define the Bible. Go by what the Bible actually says. The Bible gives us the height of a giant in the Bible. Goliath. Goliath is considered a giant. He's one of the remnant of the giants. He's one of those that remained of the giants. He's the son of the giant and he was approximately what? Between 9 foot 6 inches tall. Exactly. And you know what? That's not some crazy jack in the beanstalk, Gulliver's Travels type of a giant, is it? Nine foot six inches tall approximately. That is pretty reasonable of a height because you know what? There are even people in modern times that have reached that height. There have been people that have reached heights of 10, 11 feet tall. So we have Goliath on one hand who is one who was less than 10 feet tall. But look, if somebody walked in here that was almost 10 feet tall, you would consider them a giant. Because look, I've seen some people of just an incredible height. They're so tall. They're giant. And you're like, how tall are you? And they're like, 6'10". Right? Think about it. I mean, look, if you've ever been confronted with somebody who is 7 feet tall, that is no joke. You say, oh, it's only one foot tall. I don't know. There's something about that foot. It makes a big difference. It makes a really big difference. I mean, does anybody know how tall Pastor Aaron Thompson is? 6'8". 6'8". The guy's huge. He's giant. I mean, I feel like a grasshopper in his sight. Whenever I get my photo taken with him, it makes me look like a child. Like I'm a small child next to him. So one time he said, I said, hey, I'll take a picture with you as long as you stoop down to my level. He stooped way down and he's still several inches taller than me, squatting down. And he's only 6'8". Let's add another foot to that height. Now add another foot. Now add another foot. You're going to call that a giant if you're confronted with that. That is a giant. That is someone who's huge. Because here's the thing about tall people too. They don't just stay the same proportion everywhere else and just get taller. They're not just like this long snake-like person. Obviously, they're going to have shoulders and they're going to have arms and legs of commensurate size to their height. It's all going to be proportional. So these guys are huge. And then of course, we have another giant mentioned in the Bible, Og the king of Bashan. And it doesn't give us his height, but it talks about his bed, that he has a bed. And I believe the bed is like 13 feet long or something. So obviously, he's not hanging off the edge of this bed. Obviously, the bed is going to be longer than him, not shorter than him. So those two heights tell us that when we're talking about a giant, we're talking about somebody who's approximately 10 feet tall. That's what we're talking about. Now in foolish, fake scriptures like the so-called Book of Enoch, it talks about giants being 450 feet tall. That's just ridiculous. I mean, that's just stupid. You know, it's like, oh man, I feel bad for these daughters of men that have to give birth to that baby. You know, this is like something in the Weekly World News, you know, 600-pound baby or something. You know, put the Weekly World News right between the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jasher and all these other fake scriptures, okay, because it's bogus, all right. Giants are just talking about huge, mighty warriors. And look, one giant who's 9 foot 6 inches tall, you know, he had the whole nation of Israel scared. They don't want to face off with him. They're all hiding for 40 days straight. Only when David shows up does Goliath have a challenger, okay. So you can see how these men are powerful men in the earth. There are giants, there are these mighty men, powerful men, but no aliens, no UFOs, and no hybridized humans married to angels. And not only that, if that was the issue, then pray tell me this. Why are there still giants? If God's whole point in flooding the earth is to wipe out the giants or wipe out these Greeks of nature, then why are there still giants after the flood? Explain that, all right. Why are there still giants after the flood? That makes no, like God's just going to wipe out all of mankind, but then he just allows that to get on the ark anyway, or he just allows it to happen again or something, it makes no sense, all right. And if it happened back then, why wouldn't it be happening today? There's just so many holes in that story, it's not even funny, okay. But it says in verse number 5, and God saw that the wickedness of angels was great, no, God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So the purpose of the flood was not to purge some DNA problem, it was to purge a heart problem, it was a mind problem, it was an imagination problem. And it says in verse 6, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart, and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God, and Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God tells us what the specific sin was, it's violence. And it makes perfect sense because what was Cain's issue? Violence. What was Lamech's issue, the son of Cain? Violence. What's the issue once his descendants are mingled with God's people and everybody becomes heathen? Violence is the big colossal issue why God wants to destroy the earth. God hates violence. God hates violence. If you just love violent video games and violent movies, hey, get right with God because you know what? God hates violence. And so we should not delight in what God hates. The Bible says that the earth was filled with violence. Verse 12, God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me. For the earth is filled with violence through them. He's not making it a secret why he's going to destroy them. Because violence. He says for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth, make an ark of gopher wood, room shalt thou make in the ark and shall pitch it within and without with pitch. So we understand now the background, what's going on? God is angry with the violence on the earth. The earth is corrupt, it's filled with violence and it's not like there's even a godly group of people because the godly group of people has mingled with the ungodly group and now you're down to basically one family of one guy and God's not even necessarily jazzed about his family but he's looking at one guy and saying the only singular have I found him unrighteous, for Noah's sake he spares Noah and his family. And so that's the background of why he's going to destroy the earth. Now stop and think about that. It sounds to me like it's pretty important as a Christian young person to make sure that you marry a believer. Sounds to me like that's very important if God wiped out the whole world because of the fact that this mixing was going on. So look, the most important criteria that you should look for in a spouse is that they are saved. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath Christ with Belial? Hey, he that believeth with an infidel, you shouldn't even have that much in common with them anyway to where you even want to have that relationship. And you know what, if you're going to base your choice of a spouse on looks, you're right on the path for a Genesis chapter 6 type of outcome of just say well you know I'm just going to choose because she looks good. Wrong answer. Find the one that is saved. Find the one that is godly. Now obviously it's possible for one to pretend to be saved that's actually not saved. But number one, you should never knowingly date someone who is not saved. And number two, you should pray for God to protect you from the one that is not saved and to open your eyes to show you the red flags and the Bible says in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. So you need to pray and follow God and allow God to shield you from those that are not saved and you need to also do some diligence to make sure that the person that you're dating is actually saved. Have some spiritual conversations. Talk about the word of God. Try to gauge their understanding of the things of God and their love for God. And by the way, I wouldn't want to be married to somebody who's just saved, I want to be married to somebody who actually loves God and wants to serve God, cares about the things of God. And you know I think about some of the girls that I dated when I was a teenager and let me tell you something, some of them turned out not to be saved. Even though I did never knowingly do that, some of them turned out not to be saved and I thank God for protecting me from that situation. But I always did my best to evaluate and try to make sure that I only was interested in girls that were saved. And if you have this idea, oh I'm going to get her saved later, I'm going to get him saved later, that is a bad idea. You need to make sure that they are saved before you become romantically involved. Before you get your heart set on someone or get into that relationship whatsoever, you must evaluate whether they are saved. That is so important. And you know what? These days there's so much wickedness in the earth, there's so much iniquity abounding in the last days. You know, if I were you, I would do some diligence, I would meet the parents, I would meet the siblings, I would meet their friends, then try to figure out who you're actually dating. You know, nowadays it's like an online profile could be made or something and people are going to really polish the apple sometimes. And you want to make sure that you know what you're getting. And so you should actually make sure to meet other people in that person's life and actually pay attention and don't turn a blind eye to the red flags that are there and do some diligence because I think that this is the biggest mistake you could ever make in your life is marrying a wicked person. I mean you want to ruin your life, I mean I can't think of anything that would flush your life down the toilet faster than marrying a wicked person. That's the biggest prayer that I have for my children is just, oh dear God, please let them not marry an unsaved person, let them not marry a wicked person. You know I would just be so happy if all of my kids could just marry someone who is saved and loves the Lord. That would make me as happy as a God. I don't care what color they are, I don't care how much money they make, I don't care where they want to live geographically, I don't care what they do for a living, I just want the spouses of my children to love God and to be good Christians. That's all that matters. That is what matters. Well I just hope my sons all just have drop dead gorgeous wives, no I want them to have Christian wives. You know I don't care about the carnal measurements that the world would have for success, hey I don't care if my daughters marry someone who works a humble job, a lowly job, a low paying job, hey if he loves the Lord then I'm for that union. That's what I want for my kids. That's what you ought to want if you're a single young person that ought to be priority number one, two and three, spiritual things. Now obviously you have to marry someone that you like because you're going to spend the rest of your life with that person. Don't marry someone you don't like and say well she's just so godly. You know, the chemistry has to be there. You have to be attracted to her, you have to like her, but you know what? You need to adjust your thinking and make the most important thing the most important thing to you. And make sure that that is number one on your mind, that that is number two on your mind, and obviously these other things are important but they're not even close to being as important. And as a parent, they're not important to me at all, I just want my kids to marry someone who loves the Lord. As long as they like that person, as long as that person loves the Lord, hey, I'm sold. So the Bible warns of what could happen when this goes wrong, total corruption. Now look, if you've already made this mistake, let me just throw this out there for those that have already married an unsaved person. Hey, the Bible tells you you got to stay with that person and don't just hold your nose and stay with them, you're supposed to love them, right? Please love your wives, obviously wives are to love their own husbands, that's if they're saved or unsaved. If you've already made that mistake, you've made that mistake, now you need to make the best of it, love them, and do the best you can with that situation. But if you haven't made that mistake, don't make that mistake. So what does the Bible say in verse number 14? It says, make thee an ark of gopher wood. You say, what in the world is gopher wood? Literally no one knows, okay? Even the translators of the King James Bible didn't know. That's why this word gopher here is not an English word. They basically just left that word in Hebrew because they don't know what it is. It's just a transliteration, they just brought the Hebrew word directly over to English without translating it because it's unknown what kind of wood was used to build the ark. Frankly, I'm not really interested in what kind of wood it was. So that's not really the point of the story, right? So don't sweat the small stuff. Make an ark of gopher wood, rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch, pitch obviously being the sealant. So what we do know is that the ark is a wooden boat and that it has pitch sealing up all the gaps and making it watertight. And it says, this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, and the height of it 30 cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof with lower second and third stories shalt thou make it. So we see that the ark is three stories. We see that it has one door, one window, and it gives us the dimensions of it. It's obviously huge because the Bible talks about it being the length of 300 cubits. That's 450 feet long. You know, basically one giant could lay in it, no I'm just kidding, but anyway. So basically, you know, 450 feet long. So this is very long, it's huge. Now atheists are always trying to say, hey this story can't be true because of the fact that the ark's not big enough. You can't hold everybody, you can't hold all the animals. But what they're doing is they're trying to basically make it out that every single little species of animal was on that ark and that is simply not true. You know, they basically think that, you know, there's basically, you know, a bull terrier and a shih tzu and a Great Dane. You know, guess what there was? One dog and his wife, right? Not wife, but two dogs, alright? That's what there was. There weren't a whole bunch of different kinds of dogs. There's just dog. And the Bible says take two of each kind on the ark, each kind. So the kind is not the species. The kind is the type or the kind of animal. So basically there are just only two dogs. There are just only two felines on the ark. There are just two of each kind, so it's a much smaller number of animal than these atheists. You know, we had to bring 17,000 different kinds of animals on the ark. No, there aren't 17,000 different animals that had to be on the ark. They're exaggerating those numbers in order to make it impossible to happen. Now if you think about this, you know, what we believe then as Christians who actually take the Bible seriously and we believe that this story took place, and there's a lot of physical evidence in the world that this actually took place anyway, but we believe it because the Bible said it happened. But here's the thing about that. You know, when we think about this happening in the Bible, we would then say that every dog on the earth comes from those two dogs that were on the ark, right? So no matter what kind of a dog you have, it came from just two dogs. And a lot of atheists will say, that's just so ridiculous to think that every dog on this planet came from just those two dogs, or every cat just came from two cats. Folks, they think that every animal came from one animal. How could, how could the genetic variety be there, you know, for these two dogs to produce all the dogs, you know? It's like you believe that there's enough genetic variety to produce like a banana and a cow from the same ancestor. They believe that everything descended from one life form. We're saying every dog came from two dogs. Now look, if you know anything about breeding dogs, and I know something about breeding dogs, because my parents bred dogs when I was a kid. We bred Boston Terriers, and we sold Boston Terriers. We introduced them to the Sacramento area, all right? Because we had to drive hours away, because it was not a popular breed back then. And we brought them to Sacramento, and you know, just from those couple of dogs, we basically populated the Sacramento area with Boston Terriers. But anyway, so we bred Boston Terriers, so we read books about it, and we were interested in that and studied that. But if you know a little bit about dog breeding, you know that even if you just look at one breed, let's take the poodle for example. How big is a poodle? Does anybody know how large a poodle is? Now look, somebody, I'm not going to name any names, but somebody just went like this, you know, and said, hey, it's a little dog. Hey, poodles are a very big dog, actually. Poodles are giant dogs. An actual, what's called a standard poodle is a large dog. You know why people think of a poodle as being a small dog? It's because people have bred poodles down and created small poodles, and so you have miniature poodles. And so when people think of a poodle, they often think of a miniature poodle. You know, that's kind of what you'd see typically in cartoons or something. You'll have some woman who's really rich or something, and she's got her little poodle, and it's got diamonds all over its collar or something, you know, come here, Fifi, or whatever. So that's what we think of. But you know, there's actually a poodle known as a teacup poodle that's literally a little tiny thing that is called a teacup poodle. But then you have a teacup poodle over here, and you have a standard poodle over here. Folks, those all descended from poodles. And that didn't take thousands of years. It's not like, man, we've been working on this project for thousands of years trying to create a teacup poodle. It wouldn't take that long when you breed the smallest with the smallest with the smallest. You breed the biggest with the biggest with the biggest. You breed the most ferocious with the ferocious, evil, and you get the pit bull. So I just want to make the pit bull people mad for a minute there. But anyway, mix in some demons and you know, another story. But anyway, so here's the thing about it. You know, you can breed dogs to be dramatically different from other dogs. I mean, if you just, and by the way, this is how plants work too. You know, you can sit there and make plants. I mean, you ever eat heirloom fruits and vegetables? They look pretty wild, don't they? And you're like, what? This is what a tomato is supposed to look like? It looks like a pumpkin or something. You know, we're used to these little perfect, round, bright red little tomatoes. That's not the tomato that God created. You know, that's something that man has cultivated. I'm not saying it's bad. I mean, I like the, you know, the bananas and oranges and apples that we have today. But the heirloom stuff isn't like that, okay? That stuff has been cultivated and animals have been bred and cultivated. You know, you look at the cow and you might wonder like, well, how did this animal make it in the wild? It didn't. No such animal as an American domestic cow ever made it in the wild that way because that animal has been selectively bred and cultivated. But you know what? It's still a cow. So you can make all kinds of dogs. You can make dogs with long hair, short hair, big, small, vicious, friendly. But at the end of the day, they're all dogs. And you know, there are certain profound differences between dogs and cats where they are just dramatically different. For example, dogs can eat things that are not animal based. I mean, you know, sometimes you'll feed a dog some, you know, rice, lamb and rice formula or something, you know, when you go buy the dog food, right? And some zealous vegans will even feed their dog a vegan diet. And it's possible for a dog to survive on a vegan diet. But it is impossible for a cat to survive on a vegan diet because a cat cannot process any plant-based food. It cannot do it. A feline is incapable of eating vegetarian food. It will die. It can't happen. Whereas a dog can eat all kinds of stuff. You know, obviously it predominantly eats meat. But it can eat other things. This is a profound, it doesn't matter what breed of cat you have, if it's a feline, it eats an animal, diet is a carnivore, okay? And you know, a dog has four legs. A cat has four legs. They have a mouth, a nose, two eyes. They have two ears. They have certain attributes that are part of what makes them a dog. And you can breed them and breed them and breed them and breed them. They will remain a dog. The dog will never produce a cat and the cat will never produce a dog. It's not going to happen. So there are lines between animal kinds that are never crossed, okay? And this is where evolution goes astray and teaches a fairy tale or a fable that says, oh, this animal eventually evolves into a totally different kind of animal that is false. That has not been observed. That is not something that actually takes place in the real world. In the real world, everything brings forth after its own kind. And then they'll point to different kinds of finches or different kinds of dog breeds or different kinds. And there's, oh look, evolution is happening. You know, coronavirus mutated, it's evolution or something. Folks, that's not evolution. You know, and then they try to confuse you by saying, well, it's microevolution. Okay, well, then there's no macroevolution because everything brings forth after its own kind. That's what we observe. That's what we see. That's what actually takes place. The theory of evolution is wrong on that, okay? Now, when we understand that, we understand that the Bible's story of the flood is plausible, okay? You have a gigantic boat, yeah, you're gonna be able to put one of each kind of animal on there. And then some people would bring up, well, what about these gigantic animals or dinosaurs or whatever? Look, we don't know exactly when which dinosaurs went extinct, but we do have indication that there are dinosaurs present on the earth after the flood because we have books of the Bible talking about them as being there like in the book of Job or elsewhere. But here's the thing about that. First of all, you could bring a baby one. You don't have to bring some gigantic specimen. You could bring a baby, you could bring a small one of whatever large creature needed to be brought. I believe that this is a real true event. This is not a fake. Some people would just say, well, you know, it's kind of just this epic poetry or it's just this kind of a parable or kind of a fairy tale to give us the moral of the story. Folks, here's how we know that that's not true. How do we know that this really happened? Because when we look at how the New Testament treats this, the New Testament doesn't only treat this in a symbolic way. You know, you could say, well, you know, God's just giving us a lesson about faith, a lesson about violence, but here's the thing. When we look at how the New Testament treats this in, for example, 2 Peter chapter 3, okay, and if you would just flip over there quickly to 2 Peter chapter 3, we see that this is something that actually happened. Because you could say, well, you know, in Hebrews 11 when it talks about Noah preparing an ark to save his house and he had great faith, he feared God, that's all just giving us an object lesson from an exciting story or something like that. But look at how the Bible deals with this in 2 Peter chapter number 3. It says in verse number 5, 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. How do you, you guys are ignorant of this fairy tale. He's saying you're ignorant of something that actually happened. Obviously these verses would not make sense if the flood did not literally happen. If it were just a story that's just to kind of teach us something from the symbolism, then why would he say, hey, these people who are denying the second coming of Christ are ignorant of the fact that the flood took place and they're willingly ignorant of it. That's what he's saying. And then he says, but the heavens and the earth which are now, verse 7, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Is that symbolic? Because look, if the flood was symbolic, then you'd have to say the end times are symbolic. Where are we going then? Hey, the Bible tells us where we're going. We're heading toward a one world government, one world system. We're heading toward the antichrist. We're heading toward tribulation, judgment, wrath. We are headed toward ultimately the second coming of Jesus Christ. And nothing could be more clear in the New Testament than the second coming. I mean it's mentioned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, I mean it's just, it's brought up so many times. Jesus hammered the second coming. Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17, Luke 21. I mean Paul's epistles hammer it. First and second Thessalonians bring up the second coming in all eight chapters. Eight chapters to the Thessalonians, all eight of them talk about the second coming of Christ. Folks, the second coming is part two of what took place with the flood. It's the sequel. The flood is part one. Don't tell me that the flood was figurative. And by the way, you know, all these geologists and all these so-called pot smoking experts, if you listen to my pot sermon that I just preached at the Red Hot Preaching Conference on Friday, the marijuana sermon, look folks, here's what they'll say. They say, oh well, we know that North America used to be totally underwater. And they'll show a map and say, hey, 35 million years ago, here's what North America looked like and half of it's underwater. Hey, here's 60 million years ago and more than half of it's underwater. It's just like, there's just these little strip of land, it's all underwater. Why? Because there's all these seashells and, and fish and fossilized sea life all over the place up in the mountains and all these different places, way inland, nowhere near the coast. So they say, well, this had to have all been underwater. Hey, you got it right. It was all underwater. But it wasn't millions and millions of years ago. And I don't know how you set that clock in order to calculate that because of the fact that, you know, we've only been recording history for a few thousand years now. And so, you know, obviously they can talk a lot about millions of years and billions of years. But you know what? That could never be proven. You couldn't really prove that because you, in order to set that clock, in order to calibrate that measurement, you'd have to have something where you're like, okay, we know how old this is. And then we can use that as a, as a, as a guideline. You know, think about how do you, how do you calibrate a thermometer? Yeah, you take some temperatures that you know, like, well, we know the boiling point of water. So we can, you know, boil some water and stick the thermometer in the boiling water. And we can put a little line on that thermometer and say, hey, we know that this is 212 degrees Fahrenheit. And we can say, well, we know the freezing point of water, or we know the melting point of water, and we can put another line on the thermometer, 32 degrees. Now I don't think the human body temperature is a great place to put a line because people's body temperatures are so different, but you know, it's going to be roughly 98.6. And if you, you know, build your thermometer, and you start drawing lines on it, and you stick it in somebody's mouth, and it's telling you something dramatically different than 98.6, you know, there's something wrong with your thermometer. But it's because you have some known values, you know. Okay, we know this is the freezing point. We know this is the melting point. We know this is the boiling point. We know that this is the human body temperature, you know. But you can't take some fossil or artifact and say, hey, I know for a fact that this is x, y, and z million years old. You just can't do it because there's no control. There's nothing that you can say, well, this is our starting point. So they can have all their ideas and all their concepts and all their theories, but at the end of the day, though, they're going to have to take a lot of it on faith. And you know what? They have some holes in their theory, too. If you look at them talk about the Grand Canyon and stuff, and they're trying to figure out, one guy said, hey, it's pretty clear that the Grand Canyon was made by this dramatic gush of salt water. And another guy said, no, it was fresh water. And this scientist got his evidence that it was covered in salt water. This guy's got his evidence that it was covered in fresh water. One guy says it was formed over millions of years. Another guy said, no, it was formed rapidly. They don't know. You know, they've got their ideas. They've got their thoughts. They've got their theories. They're right about some things. They're wrong about other things. They're right about one thing. It was all covered in water. They got it right. But at the end of the day, folks, what we believe is a matter of faith. Because nobody was there thousands of years ago to observe the flood. You know, we can pull out evidence for the flood on our side. They could pull out evidence for evolution and evidence for millions of years on the other side. And at the end of the day, who do you trust? Who do you believe? You know, at the end of the day, this is what I believe. The Word of God. The Bible. This is what it comes down to. And we're not just plugging our ears and just refusing to listen to evidence or something like that and just denying reality like a flat earther or something. You know, what we're doing is we're believing the Bible is God's Word. This is the anchor of our soul. And we know that nothing in the real world is going to contradict the Bible. And guess what? It doesn't. Nothing that could actually be proven is going to contradict the Word of God. Because if so, then the Bible wouldn't be true. If the Bible is absolutely true, it's not going to conflict with reality. And guess what? It doesn't conflict with reality. Do I believe in the literal flood? Absolutely. Because the Bible treats it as literal. The Bible looks back on it literally and foreshadows a future event that's coming that's comparable to the flood. Now, that's where I want to end the sermon today is what's coming in the future. Go back if you went to Genesis and let's look at this. What's coming in the future? What does this mean for us today? Well, first of all, we took a great point from the sermon that we don't want to marry an unbeliever. We don't want to do missionary dating. Okay? We want to make sure that the person that we date and marry is already saved. Now, it's okay to get them saved and then date them, but make sure you got that order right. Get them saved first. Make sure that they want to serve God first. Figure out what kind of a person they are first. But we saw that as far as the cause of the flood. We also saw that God hates violence, so we should not delight in violence. We should try to stay away from those things and meditate upon pure, holy, just, clean things. And we see, of course, that God punishes. We see that God is not playing around. When he brings judgment, it's no joke. He wiped out the whole earth. He was willing to kill an incredible number of people and even animals indiscriminately and just wipe out all the life on earth. He is serious about judgment. But we do know that there's a promise from God at the end of chapter 8, if you would flip there, that God is not going to do this again. Okay? God is not going to do this again. What is it that he's not going to do again? Two things that he's not going to do again, okay? Number one, he's not going to send another worldwide flood, so you don't have to worry about that. If it starts raining really hard and the creek begins to rise, you don't have to worry. This is it. It's happening again. Too much violence. I knew I shouldn't have married that unsaved girl. Here it comes, you know. You don't have to worry about that because he's never going to send another global flood. But not only that, it goes deeper than that, the promise goes deeper than that. He's also not going to wipe out all of humanity ever again. Because of the fact that yes, he is going to send a major judgment of fire, not flood, but fire, where there's going to be fire and brimstone and talks about, you know, the third part of the trees being burnt up on earth, you know, one third of trees are burned up and all the grass gets burned up and all that. So when you see that, you can say like, oh well God's wiping out the world again, he's just using a different method. That would be a little bit, and I joke like that sometimes, like yeah, don't worry, I'm never going to flood it again, this time I'm just going to barbecue it. I joke like that, but here's the thing, that would, if God was really, literally going to do that, it would be a little disingenuous, like hey, I'm not going to flood it. And then he just finds like six other ways to kill everyone. That's not what he's going to do because not only is he never going to flood the earth again, you know what else he's not going to do? He's not going to wipe out all of humanity again. Because even in the tribulation, and even when God pours out his wrath with the trumpets and the vials, he does not kill everyone. In fact, he doesn't even kill the majority of people, I don't believe. Because when the judgments ramp up to their most intense, it talks about one fourth of people being wiped out, you know, and you see a number like the fourth part of the earth, or you see one third, you know, you see numbers like that. And you know, those numbers are open to interpretation, I don't want to get into that for sake of the sermon, but what we see is that at the end of it all, when the dust settles, when the smoke clears, there are still going to be billions of people that are still alive when it's all said and done. So God is not going to do this thing where he kills everyone except one little family or something. He's not even going to kill everyone except believers because of the fact that of course we believe in the rapture, and we believe in the post-tribulation, pre-wrath rapture. And so when that takes place, the believers are going to be removed, but everybody who's left behind doesn't die. A lot of people are going to survive that. Obviously a lot will die, but a lot are going to make it through that. A lot of people are going to survive unto the bitter end. And so God is not going to do that again. Look at chapter 8, verse 20, Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, Genesis 8, 20, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Watch this. Neither will I again smite anymore everything living as I have done. I'm not going to kill everything again. I'm not doing that again. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. And then of course he talks about in chapter 9, in verse number 13, I do set my bow in the cloud, talking about the rainbow, and it shall be a token for a token of a covenant between me and the earth, and it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. So he says it a few different ways. I'm not going to flood the earth, and I'm also not going to wipe everybody out either. I'm not going to do either of those things again. So what's the moral of the story? God's judgment is no joke. We're talking about a God who wiped out humanity with a flood because of sin. So God is not playing. If you think, well God, a loving God wouldn't do that. Well you know what? We know two things about God. Number one, we know he's a loving God. Number two, we know he did that. So you're wrong. He's loving and he did it. He's not going to do it again. You're right, he's not going to do it again, but I'll tell you what he will do. You know what he will do? He will bring a local flood. Now people will say, you know, these are like liberal theologians, well you know, it wasn't a global flood, it was just a local flood. That's foolish and has no basis in scripture to teach a local flood. But let me tell you about a local flood. You want to hear about a local flood? God can send a local flood. He can send a flood that's local to you. He said, hey I'm not going to wipe out all mankind, but you know what God can do? God can wipe you out. I mean did God break his promise if he wipes you out? No. He just said I'm not going to destroy all flesh, but he can destroy you. He can wipe out you. He can wipe out your family. He can wipe out your friends. Hey, he can send a local flood, and I'm using the word flood figuratively here, because remember these local flood guys, everything's figurative anyway. So here's my liberal preaching for you today. I'm going to do a little liberal, I've been fundamentalist this whole sermon. Now I'm going to get a little liberal at the end, tell you about a local flood that's figurative. Here's the local flood that's figurative, it's when God sees you committing a bunch of wickedness, doing a bunch of wicked sin, doing things that are violent or whatever, and you know what God will do? He will punish you. And so the story of the flood is to teach us about the fear of God. Because how is this interpreted in the New Testament? Well in 2 Peter, he's warning mankind, hey, punishment's coming. Don't be ignorant of the first time he punished, he's going to punish again in the future. But not only that, in Hebrews chapter 11 it says, by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. What did he say there? Noah was moved with fear and saved his house. You know what? You want to save your house? You better fear God. Fear the Lord. Because by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. And so the moral of the story of Noah's ark is a story about fearing God. Fearing the Lord. And being moved by that fear. Hey, I don't want to just fear God, I want to be moved by that fear. I want the fear of God to affect my actions. I want the fear of God to cause me to purify myself and get sent out of my life and do right and obey the Lord. Why? So that I can save myself and others. And I'm not talking about going to heaven now, I'm already going to heaven, I've already done been saved because I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. But let me say this, you know, there are a lot of other catastrophes in our life besides going to hell. I'm never going to go to hell, I never have to worry about that because Jesus already paid all my sins and gave me the free gift of eternal life. But you know what, there are a lot of other bad things that could happen to me this side of eternity that I don't want to happen. And so I am going to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And in fear and trembling let's serve God and let's let that fear move us. Because you know what, the fool doesn't have any fear of God, he just thinks nothing bad is going to happen. He just goes out and sins and sins and lies and steals and cheats and he thinks nothing bad is going to happen. Well guess what, you've got a local flood coming and you're not going to be on the ark. You're going to get punished. And so we need to understand God's judgment is real, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, God's a loving God, but he's also a God of judgment and wrath and we need to make sure that we don't get on God's bad side. We need to make sure that we love him, worship him, praise him, and serve him with fear and trembling. That's what the Bible says. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this story, Lord, and I just pray that this story would really sink into our hearts and that we would understand that you are not playing around when you make threats in the Bible that they are real, Lord. And so help us that are saved to live a godly Christian life so that we can be blessed by you and not be on the receiving end of chastisement and chastening, Lord. And to those that are not saved, I pray that they would get saved before it's eternally too late. That they would be on the ark because of the fact that there's a flood coming in this world that's not a flood of water, but great wrath and punishment, but there's also a personal appointment that they have with death. And I just pray that every single person would accept Christ as Savior before it's eternally too late. And it's in his name we pray, amen.