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All right, so this morning I have a pretty fun sermon. All right, don't worry, this isn't a rip-your-face sermon. I'm not going to be rattling my cage at any sin or anything like that. It's actually, I had a lot of fun preparing for this sermon. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and the kids especially might get a kick out of it. The title of my sermon this morning is Rainbows, Unicorns, Dragons, and Dinosaurs. Rainbows, Unicorns, Dragons, and Dinosaurs. Now, this is an important subject for one very important reason, and all of these things, well, dinosaurs not by the name dinosaurs, but rainbows, unicorns, dragons are all found in the scripture. And, you know, we have a scientific community out there that wants to discredit the Bible, it seems, at every turn it possibly can, and refers to creatures as being mythological creatures that the Bible refers to as actually having existed. And, you know, there's always some spin to this stuff. We're going to get into this in a little bit. You know, when it comes to dragons, we're going to go heavily into dragons and, you know, how the world's just going to say, oh, these are just mythological creatures. But when you actually just look at history, you look at all the various cultures, you look at the Bible, to me it's like you'd have to be insane to say dragons didn't exist. Now, we know just in natural history, in the course of human events, in the course of the world, that animals do eventually end up going extinct. It happens. There's been, you know, there's animals that are not around today that used to be around before, so that makes perfect sense. And to me, it's just kind of mind-boggling to think, well, why is it so hard, why is it so hard to think that there may have been a creature that existed that's been described by all these various cultures that, okay, yeah, maybe it doesn't exist today, but it doesn't mean that it never existed ever. You know, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because when we get into the dragon section, we're really going to look at that real hard. But I just want to point this out because there's always going to be people who are going to try to shake your faith and try to minimize the impact of God's holy word and want to mock it or ridicule it or make you start to question it and go, oh, I didn't know it said that or whatever, which, first of all, shame on you. If you didn't know it said that, read your Bible. Know what it says. If you're going to claim to believe in a book, then know what it says. Read it for yourself so you're not blindsided by someone trying to point out something. Do you know the Bible talks about unicorns? Do you believe in unicorns? Yeah, you know what? I do. I believe they existed. I'm not saying they exist right now, but I believe they existed. You know, I don't think it's talking about a rhinoceros. I don't think it's talking about some of the things that the modern versions will also try to just, you know, put it away as something else when we look at. And that's why we're going to go through these various references to these creatures just so that you can get, you know, an understanding of what they were like, right, of what the Bible describes them to be. Now, you're not going to get a perfectly painted picture of it, but I do think, you know, when you can look at these combined with other historical sources, it's not that hard to figure out what it is. And quite honestly, I don't think the unicorn is that far removed from being what you might normally, the first thing that would pop in your head is being a unicorn, like a white horse with a long, you know, a long horn on its head, something to that effect. I'm not saying that's exactly right and that's exactly the way the creature looked, but I don't think it's that far off from it either. And if you notice, we started off in Job 39, and in Job 39, the first reference you have is a reference of a mule, then you get the reference of a unicorn, and then later on you get a reference to a horse all in the same chapter. And then you also have some birds that are referenced. So you've got, you know, peacock and you've got a couple other things that are referenced. I don't believe that unicorns had wings and flew. I think that's been added or changed in some cultures. I don't see any evidence, at least not in the Scripture, that points to that aspect of this creature. But let's take a look. I'm going to read some different passages for you, because the Bible references these things multiple times, and we're starting with unicorns. The unicorn is actually one of the least mentioned of what I'm talking about here. Well, rainbow is the least mentioned, but that's going to be at the very end of the sermon. We're going to tie in the rainbow and how it applies to everything here. Numbers 32, verse 22, the Bible reads, God brought them out of Egypt. He hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn. And we're going to see this attribute being used multiple times. One of the main purposes of even bringing up a unicorn, where a unicorn is being used as an example of a real strong animal. So it's something that's strong and also not easily bound. Numbers 24, verse number 8 reads, God brought him forth out of Egypt. He hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn. He shall eat up the nations, his enemies, and shall break their bones and pierce them through his arrows. Deuteronomy 33, verse 17 says, His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns. With them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth, and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh. Now, before I continue on with some of these references to unicorns, there's a couple times where you see the Bible make a reference to say, like, a constellation. But, when it comes to these various references, to me it doesn't make sense that the Bible is just going to repeatedly refer to a mythological creature that just has no foundation in reality whatsoever to try to associate with everything else, especially when every other animal that's being used, even in the context, is real and there's no doubt about it, there's no question about it, right? I mean, why would you use a bullock and then a unicorn in the same sentence? One of them is mythological and one of them is not. And, you know, to just try to apply, oh, well, that's just a myth throughout all of these references when, in the context of all of these various passages, there's nothing else even closely, remotely could be considered mythological or even figurative, you know, apart from the side of just saying, you know, figuratively saying that the strength of a unicorn or like, you know, the horn, it's describing something that people already know and have an idea of, hey, this is like the strength of a unicorn. Oh, yes, unicorns are real strong, you know, especially going back. And one of the other things that's really interesting, too, and I have this at a later point in my sermon, but I'll bring it up now, the references to dragons and unicorns are all in the Old Testament. You don't find, now, with the exception of dragon being used in Revelation, but the way that the dragons used in Revelation, it's like always describing Satan and using its symbol in a way that's more symbolic, right, in referencing Satan as a dragon. But other than that, like all these other accounts, and we're going to see in Job especially, are very descriptive of an actual creature. And the reason why Satan is depicted or represented as a dragon isn't because Satan himself is a literal dragon, but the attributes that a dragon has closely mirror Satan's attributes. So that's why he's using that as a symbol, right? But we'll get into the dragon soon in a little bit. Again, I'm getting too far ahead of myself with that. Psalm 22 verse 21, the Bible reads, Save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Psalm 29 verse 6 says, He maketh them also to skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syria, like a young unicorn. So that verse is talking about, you know, skipping like a calf and then like a young unicorn. So that again gives me this idea that this creature is able to skip or prance or kind of move kind of lightly on its feet, unlike a rhinoceros. A rhinoceros is not moving very lightly on its feet. Now it does have one horn, so I give you that. I mean, there's a horn coming out of his nose. And I'm not even saying that this animal is being described, couldn't have a horn like a rhinoceros. But I don't think that that accurately describes exactly what this creature is being described as. And a rhinoceros has strength too. So you could easily say that, well, there's a lot of strength there. But when you start looking at some of these other verses, I don't think it exactly matches up. Psalm 92 verse 10 says, But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. Isaiah 34 verse 7 says, And the unicorn shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls, and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. And then back in Job 39 where we started, verse number 9 says, Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee or abide by thy crib? So here we're going to get the concept that a unicorn is not something that's easily tamed or something that you're going to be able to control. So is it going to be willing to serve thee or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after thee? So basically saying, are you going to be able to use him to do your work and to do all this stuff? He said in verse 11, Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, or wilt thou leave thy labor to him? Wilt thou believe him that he will bring home thy seed and gather it into thy barn? So obviously this is an animal that cannot be tamed. It's not trustworthy. It's got this great horn where earlier these other references to the horn is important as it's like a great horn, and it's able to skip like a calf. It's brought up in reference with the mule, with a horse in the same chapter in Job 39. To me it just kind of references that it would be a similar type of an animal to the mule and the horse. That makes sense. I don't think it's a mule. I don't think it's a horse. I think it's a similar creature that doesn't exist anymore, that did exist, and it has a lot of properties and values to it that spans. And you go into it, and I don't have any of this, but I was doing a lot of reading just on what other cultures and other historians and other historical evidence that references these types of creatures, and they exist. This isn't just brought up in one thing. This isn't just like Roman mythology or some false god or something. This is brought up in spans, many cultures, different people who would have no reason to lie, have no reason, no purpose, and works from other people like Marco Polo and from these other people who come up with that document, findings, and it comes to different animals and things they come across in their journeys, in their travels, their expeditions, and they make reference to these things in passing kind of like it's normal. This creature, yet modern science is going to tell you, and I say it's literally just like the scientific community just that wants to believe that this is all myth. Because everyone else, it's like, well, why does it even matter? Why do you care to say whether or not this creature actually existed? What would be the bad thing about saying, no, this creature actually existed? Well, I believe the bad thing is just that that just gives more credence to God's word being true. Because it talks about them. And it's easier to make fun of the Bible when you say, oh, it's talking about some mythological creature. Now let's move on to dinosaurs, and we're going to be looking at Job 40 for this, because I believe that the Bible describes dinosaurs. People always say, oh, well, dinosaurs disprove the Bible. Dinosaurs don't disprove the Bible at all. The Bible referred to these extremely large creatures and powerful creatures that we know today as being dinosaurs, but you know there's a reason why the Bible doesn't use the word dinosaur is because that word wasn't even created until 1841. The literal, just the word dinosaur that we come and know and use every day, or not every day, but we use very frequently, right? I mean, in kids growing up, they love dinosaurs. We've got dinosaurs at home, little toys that the kids play with, things like that. It's very common to use the term dinosaur, but that's a new word that was created in 1841. I got this quote from a website that said, it wasn't until 1841, and I looked this up, too. I verified this just in the dictionary that the origin of dinosaur is New Latin dinosaurus in 1841. And I got this quote. It says, it wasn't until 1841 that English scientist Richard Owen suggested that the group of newly discovered animals, he's referring to just fossils and bones that were dug up, be called dinosaurs, which literally means terrible lizards. The word dinosaur just means terrible lizards. They always like to make things sound real scientific, but it just has a literal meaning. It just means they're terrible lizards. And that's because you look at dinosaurs and their bones and stuff, they're very similar to just reptiles and lizards and things like that. That's the type of creature that they are. It's their kind. It's their type. So you have to ask yourself, well, what did people call dinosaurs before 1841? To me, it's preposterous also. And this is, again, when you look, as I was reading articles from the scientific community, American scientific, I was looking up all the famous science publications that mention, that talk about dragons. And I was reading these articles from different people in the scientific community because I wanted to see what they say about it. I kind of already knew, but I wanted to confirm it. So I was reading all these articles and some of them will think like, well, they came up with this idea of a dragon when they found a fossil here or there, but they didn't really know anything about fossils. They didn't know anything about dinosaurs. We just discovered dinosaurs in the 1800s. That's ridiculous to me. If you believe that mankind has been, especially they believe mankind has been around even longer on this earth, but for mankind to be around so long and just not discover fossils, not understand anything about it, it still goes back to this concept of man just being really stupid and ape-like, Neanderthal, we came from a monkey and just couldn't process anything other than a wheel. Look, God created man in his own image. Again, are you a Bible believer or not? Because the Bible teaches us that God created man and formed man out of the dust of the earth and that we didn't come from some monkey, some ape somewhere and have just really no concept of how to do anything, and the wheel is just this super crazy space-age technology for the very first person that ever just invented this. No, God created man with an intellect, with the ability to learn, with the ability to study and grow and have good thoughts and be intuitive and engineer things and have a mind to think and create and learn and grow. Now, there are some things that we know more today than people in history have, but there's a lot of things that we don't, and I'll submit this to you, that while there may be a passing of knowledge from generation to generation, and much of that can be good knowledge, and as a collective, mankind has more knowledge available to them based off of the work of predecessors and people before you. Man themselves are still the same. They're still capable of the same level of thought. They're still capable of the same level of reasoning and thinking, and it's not like someone who's going to come across some bones is just going to have no clue, I don't know, how could this have been? I don't know. They have no idea of dinosaurs. To me, that's ridiculous, and especially when you look back at all of the great wonders of civilizations from thousands of years ago, that today scientists go, I don't know how they did this. It's like, yeah, why don't you just give them the credit that they can think, that people have always been able to think and think really well because God made mankind to be able to think and be smart. Yes, people who lived thousands of years ago were very intelligent people. There's extremely intelligent people, and the things that they were able to come up with, just because we're focused on electronics and in one particular field that makes us think that we're so smart, well, what about the husbandry and the other concepts that have just been lost through time? There's been a lot of knowledge that's been lost. There's been libraries and writings and things that have just been lost throughout history and knowledge that's gone by the wayside, and societies that have shifted from one main focus to others where they came up with brilliant inventions to do things that later on wasn't necessary anymore for whatever reasons, but they had these great minds to create and produce and come up with new things. It's astounding how intelligent people have always been. Don't fall into this trap or this lie of thinking that, oh, people back then are just really stupid. This is the pride of man. The pride of man, every generation likes to think, oh, we are just so smart. I mean, those people a few hundred years ago, could you believe they were doing this? Can you believe they're doing that? Can you believe? It's easy to look back on history and kind of scoff at the failures that was modern science back then, but no one today wants to recognize and say, you know, this has happened throughout all of history. What are they going to be saying? What are people in 100 and 200 years from now going to be saying about us? What a bunch of idiots, right? How could they not have known? I mean, this is just right. How could you be so stupid as to think that this is the way things are? No one is going to want to tell you that that's how we are right now, but we are. If you can use your brain, you're going to have to think, wow, modern science is going to be obsolete in a few hundred years from now, and it's going to be looked at as just no big deal. There's nothing. Yet mankind does want to be, we're so superior. But here's the thing. I don't think people today are any less intelligent than they will be. I think the brain capacity and ability is still available. Now, again, there's some passing of knowledge, but overall, God has made people the same, and we're not evolving to become these super creatures or become our own gods in the future that science might have you to believe. And again, when I say science, I don't want to use it derogatorily in a broad scope because science is great. I love science. Science is good. Science, the pursuit of knowledge and wanting to know things and wanting to understand the natural world around you is great. I love it. I'm referring to the science falsely so-called. I'm referring to the people who make a religion out of science and think that they can put all of their faith, because that's what it is, all of their faith in a science that maybe a hundred years from now is just going to be proven to be completely false. That's always changing, just all the time. Oh, there's this new study. There's this new evidence. This just completely disproves everything that we thought up until this point. That happens all the time. So it's always changing, so you can't put all of your confidence into any of that because they're always coming up with new things, new ideas. But you know what doesn't change? The Word of God doesn't change. The Holy Scriptures don't change. They still say what they've always said. And you know what the Holy Scriptures bring up, the fact that there's unicorns? I believe that there is unicorns. It's not a myth. It's a reality. So what did people call dinosaurs before 1841? They called them dragons. That would be one common term because, I mean, think about the word dinosaur meaning terrible lizards. What would a dragon be? It would be a terrible lizard. The reptile-like creatures, they exist in the historical record. The dragons exist in the historical record in every geographic region with just this amazing similarity of these various records that people who didn't have communication with one another. And it's printed on their pottery, on their coins. It's written about. Is this all just made-up myth? To me, that's pretty hard to believe that different cultures and different areas all just conjured up the same image. But here are some examples of how some scientists, I'm going to use this term loosely, are so willfully ignorant because they cannot possibly accept that these creatures could have actually existed, and not just existed, but existed with mankind. Because it doesn't fit their model. It doesn't fit their evolutionary theory. It doesn't fit that a creature like a dinosaur could have possibly existed with mankind because the only thing that they could think of is a creature like a dragon would be like a dinosaur. And if they're referring to dinosaurs, well, we know that dinosaurs didn't exist with mankind. So it just has to be a myth. Well, wait a minute. How do you know that they didn't exist with mankind? I think you have a faulty premise there that you think is proven and is not proven. Because the Bible actually teaches otherwise. But listen to this. I mean, this is what you have to do when you hold so strongly to your science religion of it being an impossibility for these creatures that have coexisted together. Here's a quote. It says, but how did these two general currents, let alone all of the parallel traditions around the world, converge on a single image, the image being a dragon? How did all of these parallel traditions, or traditions all over the world, how were they able to come up with basically the same image? That's the question. This is taken from a scientific website. I didn't get the name of it. I should have put it on here so you could check it out for yourself later. But you could just Google word for word what I'm saying here. You'd be able to pull it up. So how were they able to come up and converge on a single image? Mythologist Joseph Campbell, following the earliest theorist of psychology, Carl Jung, pointed to a shared inner experience that people inherit. The collective unconscious. Perhaps the dragon symbol is just one of the basic images people recognize without being taught. Okay, now you're following what I'm saying. He's saying the image of a dragon is part of our collective unconscious. That it's been planted in your head without you even knowing it, without it being taught that people all over the world have just had this image subconsciously, unconsciously planted into their heads. This is science. This is science. Come on now. Don't mock. Don't scoff. You're the idiot. They're the smart one. A recent variation on the idea of hardwired imagery draws on animal behavior studies. So maybe this is just hardwired into our brains. In his book An Instinct for Dragons, anthropologist David E. Jones proposed that over millions of years, natural selection imprinted upon our primate ancestors a recognition of the form of the dragon. Okay, first of all, natural selection isn't a thing. It's not an entity. We say natural selection imprinted. Natural selection has become their god because they're referring to it like a person, like a creature that has an ability to do something, like, well, natural selection did it. I thought natural selection is just survival of the fittest, just, well, this one's stronger and this one's weaker and the weaker ones die off. So how is that imprinting anything on anybody's brains? That makes no sense at all. It's not doing anything. It's just a process. It's just something that happens. There is no imprinting into a brain from something that's just a described process. Well, this is just the way things work. The strongest survive. How does that imprint anything? The basis for his theory is that vervet monkeys automatically react to snakes instinctively and show similar responses to images of big cats and birds of prey. That's the basis of his theory. First, going back to the monkey, of course, right, because we came from monkeys, so this image of dragons must just be from monkeys that are scared of snakes instinctively. But see, when you don't have a god, you're going to look like a fool trying to explain how god created everything, how god created animals and god created humans with instincts. God created us and everything with a drive to do what it's supposed to do, with a knowledge, a pre-programmed knowledge of what it needs to do to survive in the world that god created it for. We have that. Animals have that. God created that. It's not natural selection imprinting on anything, but this is what they come up with, because the idea of mankind actually seeing a dragon and painting it and writing it and imprinting it is just too far removed from them to be able to accept that that could possibly be the truth. Let's get back to some Scripture here. Job 40. You're in Job 39. Just go to the next chapter, Job 40. There's a creature here that I believe very perfectly fits the bill for a dinosaur, and it's called behemoth, and it's described very vividly. Look at verse number 15 of Job 40. The Bible reads, Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee. He eateth grass as an ox. So is an herbivore, right? At least we see that he's eating grass. Lo, now his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. Look at verse 17. He moveth his tail like a cedar. Cedar is referring to a tree, a big tree. His tail moves like a cedar. The sinews of his stones are wrapped together. Look at verse 18. His bones are as strong pieces of brass. His bones are like bars of iron. A very strong creature, strong bones, strong made. Verse 19. He is the chief of the ways of God. He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Now, this is referring to a creature that is the chief, right? The top, kind of the top of the food chain or whatever, of the ways of God. It's a very strong creature. So if you're going to be representative of the chief of the ways of God, it's going to have to be strong. Verse number 20. Surely the mountains bring him forth food where all the beasts of the field play. So I would gather from this that it's probably not just an herbivore. He says he eats grass as an ox, but then it's also bringing forth food where all the beasts of the field play. Now, maybe it is still just eating grass. I don't know. But look at verse 21. He lieth under the shady trees in the covert of the reed and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow. The willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river and hasteth not. He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. So he's just drinking a lot of water. He's drinking so much. Obviously, it's poetic language. We say he's drinking up so much, he just thinks he can just drink the whole river. This is talking about a large animal, a large beast, the chief of the ways of God. His tail is like a cedar tree. I mean, it's huge. It's massive. And verse 24 says, He taketh it with his eyes. His nose pierceth through snares. So snares would be like traps. I mean, fishermen putting out some nets, and it means nothing to them. It's that massive and that large. It just pierces right through any of these traps. It does nothing to them. This, to me, describes a beast that can be comparable to a dinosaur. Because what do we see when we see these fossils and these skeletons of big dinosaurs? They're huge animals. They're huge creatures. They're massive, right? They're towering. They have these huge tails. They have these huge mouths. They're so big, you'd be like, man, how would I ever do anything if I saw that creature? What are we doing? You set out your fishnets, your trout lines. You set out whatever out in the sea, and this thing's coming and going to get a drink, and it's right where you laid your traps, your snares, and it's just destroying them because of the massive size. Go to chapter 41. We're going to continue reading here, and now we're going to see Leviathan being described, and you want to talk about a fire-breathing dragon. We see this described perfectly in Leviathan in Job chapter 41. Look at verse number 1. The Bible reads, Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? So right away we're seeing this is referring to a creature that at least spends some time in the sea because he's saying drawing him out with a hook. That's what a fisherman does. They draw out with a hook. Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down. Canst thou put a hook into his nose or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Again, things that people use, thorns, hooks to go fishing with. He's saying, Can you do that? You're going to be able to draw up Leviathan with a hook? Verse 3, Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee? Basically saying, Leviathan, you are not the master of Leviathan, right? He's not going to speak softly unto you because he's scared of you. Verse 4, Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant forever? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? Basically, again, you're not going to domesticate this beast that he's being referred to here in Leviathan. Verse number 6, Shall the companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons or his head with fish spears? So now, this is talking about, you know, when you kill an animal in sport and you fill his skin with barbed irons, right? You do like a taxidermy on them and you recreate the animal after you've killed them and you set them back up again. That's what I think. Obviously, this could be referring to just trying to bring him down, but I think it's just referring to his massive size. Let's keep reading it. Verse number 8, Lay thine hand upon him. Remember the battle. Do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? So this is referring to this thing so big and so strong that your hope, just seeing this thing, let alone trying to do anything to him, like your hope's just going to be shot down. It's like there's no way I can do anything to this creature. Verse number 10, None is so fierce that dares stir him up. Who then is able to stand before me? Who hath prevented me that I should repay him? Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. So this is now God referring to, you know, well, this creature is so fierce, none's going to stir him up. So who's going to stand before me? Because God's the one who made this creature, right? Who prevents me and who should I repay? And He's using this creature that instills fear in man to make the bigger application of how you ought to be viewing the Lord. Verse 12, I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion. Who can discover the face of his garment? Or who can come to him with his double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride. So again, now this is referring to a beast. It's talking about bringing him up from the water and it has scales. And his scales are so close together as they're shut up together as with a close seal, like they're airtight. It's like an armor. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another. They stick together that they cannot be sundered. Sundered would be like cut apart, right? Verse 18, By his kneesings a light doth shine and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. So this is giving some pretty good detail to this creature, Leviathan. So by his kneesings, so you think about this is going to be, it's kind of like a sneeze or something coming out of his mouth. A light doth shine. Light coming out of his mouth or out of his nose maybe. And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. So there's like an orange, probably yellow-orange eyeballs. And then verse 19, Out of his mouth go burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out. This is talking about a fire-breathing dragon. I mean, it's literally what this is describing. The purpose of describing this beast, again, is to show the great power of God. But the amount of detail, why would the Bible, why would God spend so much time going into detail about a creature that doesn't really exist? About something that's just myth. And trying to relate how people are so scared of that, but you ought to be scared of me. Scared of what? Scared of a non-existent creature? Oh, yeah, I'm real scared. I'm real scared of these creatures that don't even exist, so why would I even be scared of God? It doesn't make any sense. It would be counter-intuitive. It would be counter-productive for the Lord to make a reference to something that's not even real. I mean, you already have people saying, well, God's not real. Why should I fear Him? Just like I don't have to fear this dragon. This fire-breathing, that's not real. Look, it is real. It's a real creature being described here, and it's talking about fire going out of His mouth. Verse 20, out of His nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of His mouth. In His neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before Him. The flakes of His flesh are joined together. They are firm in themselves. They cannot be moved. His heart is as firm as a stone, yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. This is important. I believe this to be physically true, that the heart is very hard of this creature being described, but when you start looking at all of these various characteristics of the dragon, you can see, or Leviathan, you can see why Satan is referred to as Leviathan. A hard heart, right? A stony heart. A heart that's just already given over to this reprobation. You've got this pride in the scales, right? And, you know, fire and destruction coming out of His mouth. All of these various attributes of this creature line up perfectly with Satan, which is why I think this is a perfect creature to describe Satan. And it's scary. Satan is scary. Satan is out to devour. The Bible says that the devil is a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. Verse 24, his heart is as firm as a stone. Verse 25, when he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid. By reason of breakings they purify themselves. The sword of him that lieth at him cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as straw and brass as rotten wood. So, iron is like nothing to this creature. It's able to just break it like a twig. And it's talking about these weapons, spears, darts, habergeons. They can't do anything to this creature. They just bounce off of him. That's how strong and formidable this creature is. Verse 28, the arrow cannot make him flee. Sling stones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble. He laugheth at the shaking of a spear. Sharp stones are under him. He spread the sharp pointed things upon the mire. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot. And, again, that makes sense, too, if you figure this is a fire-breathing dragon. It's got fire and spark coming out of his mouth. Well, when he's underwater and fire's coming out of his mouth, he's going to make the deep to boil like a pot. He maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. Verse 32, he maketh a path to shine after him. One would think the deep to be hoary. So, you can just see the shining path going under the water. Verse 33, upon earth there is not his like who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things. He is a king over all the children of pride. That is a very descriptive passage about Leviathan, referring to this huge creature. This describes everything that you have already probably seen or heard about dragons. And it's from a lot of people who don't even believe the Bible. But because it's been in every single culture, you know, there's a very reasonable explanation as to why every culture has accounts of dragons. It's because they actually existed. Because people actually saw them. And yes, they're enormous creatures. And yes, they're very hard. And this refers to how solid, how weapons don't do anything against it. But yet, you have these accounts of people going and defeating these creatures, you know, and these beings, these very heroic acts, and these incredible tales of someone destroying, because they're so formidable, because it's such a big deal. And there are accounts all throughout history with these creatures being represented. Why would you think that it's just all fake? It's all mythology. There's no reason to think that. Other than some scientists saying, well, these creatures couldn't have existed with mankind. Why? To me, it makes sense for them to go extinct, that a creature that can create so much havoc and destruction and instill so much fear that people would want to destroy these creatures, if possible at all, do whatever they can to try to destroy these creatures to the point of extinction. That makes sense to me. I mean, we do that already with creatures that are a danger to society, to people. When people start building communities out in the wilderness, they're going to start killing the bears and the snakes and all the creatures that are going to cause harm to the people that are living there. Well, if you've got a problem with this big creature that's able to breathe fire, again, it's obviously not going to be an easy thing to do, but there's a good motivation to try to wipe these things out. And this is also another area where many people record, like, living dragons in all these different cultures. And again, people who have no motivation to lie at all, just zero motivation to lie in just recording various accounts. I'm not going to go through. There's a lot of other references here for Leviathan in Psalm 74, Psalm 104. You can go check those out later. I'm getting late on time already. Isaiah 27, verse 1, the Bible reads, In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. So Leviathan in that verse is being referred to as a serpent and a dragon. So a dragon is a serpent-like creature, and that's what Leviathan is. It makes perfect sense. Man, I've got so many notes on this, I didn't think I'd be spending as much time preaching as I did. At the beginning, I wanted to go through all these just to kind of document how many times, just even the word dragon is used, but you can see on this page, everything that's highlighted in yellow is the word dragon. These are all scriptures that I copied out. Job 30, 29, Psalm 44, 19, Psalm 74, 13, Psalm 91, 13, Psalm 148, verse 7, Isaiah 13, 22, Isaiah 27, 1, Isaiah 34, 13, Isaiah 35, 7, Isaiah 43, 20, Isaiah 51, 9, Jeremiah 9, 11, Jeremiah 10, 22, Jeremiah 14, 6, Jeremiah 49, 33, Jeremiah 51, 34, Jeremiah 51, 37, Ezekiel 29, 3, Micah 1, 8, and Micah 1, 3, all reference dragons. But it's all myth. It is just a made-up creature. And I wanted to go through these more and just read them out so you can see, this isn't just referring to some, you know, mythological creature and using language that's in a way to, you know, no. Even in Nehemiah, remember the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah goes out to Jerusalem after he'd been taken captive, and he's going to scan the city and see the state of things, and he sees all the rubble and the walls are broken down, right? One of the things that he mentions in verse 13, he says, And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dungh port and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates that were consumed with fire. So it's referring to a part of the city that's known as the dragon well. There's probably a reason for that. And another thing is that the, when you read through these verses, dragons make their homes in these places that are like destroyed, or there's kind of these areas that are already been destructed, and it sounds like they have their habitations and areas where there's not going to be a lot of people around, and they like, you know, just kind of hiding out or whatever. It says here in Isaiah 34, 13, And thorn shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and it shall be an habitation of dragons and a court for owls. Owls are also another creature that's used as a creature that's just going to be, when cities and places just get destroyed, then these are the types of beasts that come in and kind of move in and have their habitation there. So, again, I'm not going to go too far into all of these. I wanted to, but I want to tie just all these different concepts together. We've seen the unicorn. We've seen the dragon. We've seen what I believe are dinosaurs in the Scripture. Turn, if you would, to Genesis 9. And I want to say why I believe, even scientifically, why this just makes perfect sense anyways, that these creatures existed with mankind. First of all, we know from Genesis 1 in the creation account that God created everything in six days, and He rested on the seventh day. We know that God created all the birds and the beasts and the things in the ocean, the things in the air. Every living thing God created in six days, including man. So right there from the Scripture, we know that dinosaurs and man existed together at the same time because God created all of them within six days. And that's what the Bible teaches. And you can either trust the Word of the Lord, you can either trust the Bible, or you can trust what some unbeliever is going to tell you of how things happen by evolution and how we came from a monkey. Okay, I'm going to choose the Word of God. The Word of God that tells us about Jesus Christ, our personal Savior, that's going to save us from sins and save us from hell, I'm going to trust in the same Bible, the same Word of God, and not trust in man whose knowledge is always changing and always wrong. Because the knowledge that they had 100 years ago was wrong. And 200 years ago was wrong. And 300 years ago was wrong. And what we believe today and what they're spouting off today about the age of the earth and where we came from, it's wrong. And they're going to have some other wrong theory in another 100 years. And there's going to be another wrong theory until ultimately you just reject that and just go with the Word of God that doesn't change and has always been consistent and is the truth. But why does it make sense for these great, massive creatures? Well, first of all, you know, reptiles, they don't stop growing in their lifetime. Well, we could still observe this today. You have alligators, crocodiles, they don't stop growing. For as long as they live, they grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. Well, what do you think happened prior to the flood when we see accounts in Genesis of man, of men living to be six, seven, eight, 900 years old? Okay, pre-flood, pre-catastrophe flood on this earth, living conditions were different. And that is evidenced by how long people live versus how long people live now. People now, you know, the age of mankind has tapered off to a pretty consistent normal and has been for, you know, thousands of years now where we live, you know, 70, 80, 90, if you're lucky, 100 years old, I mean, mankind in general. But back in the days before the flood, that was nothing. I mean, people were having kids at two, 300 years old. Right? So for whatever reason, again, there's a lot of theories on this. I don't want to spend a bunch of time getting off into all these different theories, but we know that how long people live is a fact. So obviously, the way that they aged or however, you know, the conditions were back at that time, before the catastrophe of the flood, people were able to live longer and healthier and sustained. You know, it's not like they were 300 years old and just extremely withered up, you know, like we would consider under our current aging, if people, you know, if someone were to live that old today, they, I mean, as you get older, you know, your eyes dim and you kind of get bent over a little bit, your bones just like, like your whole body is just getting more and more corrupt as you get older and older. Right? And that's why things get harder and harder. It's harder to walk. But people that lived back in those days obviously were doing a lot more and the aging was not impacting them the same way. So there's no reason to think that that was not the same thing for the animals and for the vegetation and for everything, which is why, and guess what? You wouldn't believe this. We actually see the evidence of this through fossils and through things that are dug up. And there are these huge, massive creatures and they're all these lizard type creatures. All the big creatures you see are all, I mean, isn't that what's common about dinosaurs? They're all the same type. Virtually all of them. There's, you might have the saber tooth or the wooly mammoth, but you know what? Those ones aren't to the massive scale that the lizards are. They're big, they're big, but they're not to the same level of enormity as the lizard-like dinosaurs are. And if they're real lizards and they're going to continue growing for the lifespan and they have these long lifespans, it makes sense that they're going to grow to be these huge creatures. And it also makes sense that when God flooded the earth, the whole earth, that you'd have these big groups of bones and dead creatures and dead bodies all kind of in graveyards, as it were, in these big areas and sections where you keep on finding all these bones together and even under the right conditions to be able to fossilize. Because not everything that dies fossilizes. The conditions have to be right for that type of preservation. And to find as much preservation as we have is indicative of a catastrophe that's able to produce those conditions in a short amount of time. And guess what? There's no historical record of that happening. It's called the flood. When the great waters of the deep broke up and it rained on earth and flooded the whole earth so that the whole earth, even over the tops of the highest mountains, was covered with water. Which leads me to the rainbow. And you know, with these creatures coexisting with humans as they have, this explains why you have across all the cultures all these accounts of these creatures. Unicorns, dragons, you know, these great beasts. Because it's reality. Not because it's in the Bible, not because it's in some other holy book, but because it's reality. I mean, obviously the Bible is reality, but I'm just saying it's not like it's one sect, one religion that had this belief in these things but no one else did. It wasn't a belief. It's reality. Dragons and unicorns existed. The dinosaurs existed. Some crazy people out there call us those Christians that don't even believe that dinosaurs were real. They were real. They're described in Scripture. But they didn't exist millions and millions of years ago. Genesis 9, verse 8. The Bible reads, And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth, and I will establish My covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be 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. And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh as upon the earth. Now, up to this point, see, this rainbow, this bow that he sets in the cloud, is a new thing, because before the flood, it wasn't raining. There was a mist that came up from the earth, and this is all a new thing that happened. Especially for early generations, the rain coming was symbolizing the destruction that God brought on the whole world. So, God gives him this covenant and this token, and He makes this promise. He said, look, I'm not going to do this again. We're not going to destroy the world with water, with the flood. You don't have to worry about a flood anymore. It's going to keep raining. You're going to see clouds in the sky. You're going to have thunderstorms. It's going to happen, but you don't have to worry about destroying the whole earth. And He says, see, look, when you see that rainbow, when you see this bow, that's a sign of the covenant that I made, promising to never destroy the earth again. And normally, you only see the rainbows normally during really bad thunderstorms, when the sky is really black and dark, and it finally passes, and then you see that rainbow as a reminder. But that's why that rainbow is there. God made that rainbow, and He made it for that purpose, and it has nothing to do with pride. Leviathan is the children of pride. He's the master of the children of pride. You know, the pride people out there ought to have a dragon as their emblem, because that's much more representative of who they are and what they are than the rainbow. The rainbow is a good symbol. It's a symbol of peace with God as far as no more water destruction on the earth. But unfortunately, there still is this destruction that's going to come. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it depends on where you fall. I think it's fortunate that God is going to finally bring, you know, judgment on the world at some point, and destroy the world with fire. He's not going to do it with water. He's going to destroy it with fire. But the rainbow gives us that symbol, and that rainbow explains perfectly how the dinosaurs are real, how they existed, how they existed with mankind, because it was the rainbow that was given after the flood that wiped out all these great creatures that were on the earth. And, you know, were they carried on the ark? Yeah, they were, but they weren't as large as they were. They were smaller creatures, and I believe they continued until they got killed off or died off or became extinct through whatever means. And you can see when, after the flood, humankind, they still lived longer, but real shortly, just after a few generations, it didn't take long at all before the years came down to under 100 years old. So there's no reason to think that it wasn't the same with all of the animal kingdom as well. Same type of thing. You can still have them living longer, but then not quite as long, and I think that's another good reason why we don't see these types of creatures again later. It's not living as long. If alligators continue to live and live and live and live, they're going to grow longer and bigger and bigger and bigger. And all these various types of creatures will. Do animals go extinct today? You better believe it. I mean, how much do you hear about endangered animals? All kinds of animals go extinct. So the Bible, you know, everything, all that said to say this, the Bible is the Word of God and can be trusted 100%. You don't have to doubt the Word of God. You don't have to come across a word like unicorn or behemoth or leviathan or dragon and go, oh, man, I don't know if I believe in this stuff. Look, it's the Word of God. This is the truth. This is consistent. It's consistent with reality because it is the truth. We can trust it. Hopefully you learned something today. I don't know. There's a lot of cool references. If you want my notes, you could have them that just has, or you could just do your own word study for the word dragon because I didn't even get to all these verses that reference the word dragon. It's interesting to check it out and to kind of get a big picture of what these creatures were like. But let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You so much for giving us Your words, giving us the truth, dear Lord, giving us everything that we need in this lifetime to know. And I pray that You would please just help us to strengthen our faith and to be consistent in reading Your Word and helping it to guide us and instruct us in our life, dear Lord. And we love You. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.