Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
Alright. So this is a three part question from Melissa and I’ll. Go ahead and read all three, but then we’ll dive into them one at a time. So the first one is, why does God murder the entire planet? It except for one family in a boat that’s clearly referring to the flood and Noah’s family. Next question is, why does God use Syria to punish Israel when Israel has done things God’s unhappy with, but then turn around and punish Assyria for being wicked to Israel? And then the last question is, do the stark differences between the underlying attitudes and motives of the Old Testament version of God and the New Testament version of God ever strike you? And if so, what do you do to reconcile them to yourself? So there’s kind of a trend here that I’m seeing of this idea that the God of the Old Testament is kind of evil, vengeful God, and overbearing God. And the God of the New Testament is this loving, FuzzyWuzzy, soft and comfy kind of God. And that’s certainly held by a lot of people. So let’s dive in with the first question first. Why does God murder the entire planet except for one family in a boat?
Speaker 2
So can I take this one?
Speaker 3
Sure. I just have one verse, but you probably are going to bang it out.
Speaker 2
Go ahead and start with your verse. It’s always going to start with a verse that’s true.
Speaker 3
God is good, so we love his word. So the verse, obviously that I was going to go to Genesis 65, which simply States, let me just go ahead and read it for you. Genesis six, verse five, says, And God saw that 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 state of the entire world Besides Noah and his family was only wickedness. There was no good in the people. And the Bible talks about the violence of these people. They were violent, I don’t want to say horrible, but very violent people. There was no mercy, there was no love of God in them whatsoever.
Speaker 2
I imagine everybody around probably having the stuff being stolen, the stuff being vandalized, the daughter’s being raped, I mean, just probably everything going on and they don’t think anything about it.
Exactly.
Speaker 2
And they’re just thinking evil all the time too, right? Not just doing bad stuff all the time, just only thinking bad.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So there’s never a thought of like, oh, I should stop doing this. I need to think to repent. No, there was no room for repentance in their mind, in their heart whatsoever. They were beyond repentance. So God will always wait for us. Like it says in two Peter, chapter three, that God is long suffering, that’s why he hasn’t come yet, that God is long suffering, that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That’s always God’s plan is for us to repent and come back to him. But when we cross that point of no return, that’s when God says, look, I have to put an end to this suffering, because I’m not going to just let people suffer needlessly. If there’s going to be suffering, it has to have purpose. It has to be to work out something for good. As much as suffering is terrible. Like, we see Jesus suffering on the cross, but there is something beautiful that came out of it. But the suffering that was going on in the time of Noah, there was nothing good that could come out of people just being hurt around them.
Speaker 2
And then I think there’s a couple more things. Even in the next verse, it says, basically God regretted that he had made human beings on Earth and his heart was deeply troubled. God is not happy about what he’s going to have to do next. It’s not like, oh, I can’t wait to wipe out these evil people. No. He is so sad at the state of things that he basically feels like he has no choice. I am so sad about I have all these people here that have to destroy, but they’re so bad. I think a good example of this is and talk about following up on what you’re saying, Tina, was, do you remember the movie Old Yeller?
Speaker 3
Yeah. You’re going to break my heart, right?
Speaker 2
Good. But this is how God feels. Right. Because what’s the ending? The dog saves the family, but then he ends up getting rabies and Old Yeller starts going crazy. And if Old Yeller is released, he will chew up the family, kill the kids. Once he has those rabies, he’s gone. The Old Yeller is no more. And so ends with the dad having to shoot Old Yeller, put him down like he was loved. It was an act of love because the father knew what made Yeller good is now gone. There’s no hope he’s not coming back. And the other thing was to protect his family.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I was going to say and the dog was suffering like there was no cure for rabies at that time and there was no remedy. And the dog would just continue to suffer a horrible, painful death. It was an act of mercy to put down that dog. So I see the point that you’re making. Sorry. Just to add that.
Speaker 2
No. And that’s a good point, too. There is a part of suffering that comes with sin. And I think the next point I want to make and we actually have a comment from Landon Wagstaff that touches exactly on what I want to bring up to. God hasn’t murdered anyone. Yes. The question implies something that’s not there. When you think of Merry, you think someone’s going to come up and savvy in the back. But what do we really have here, God? If we go back to Genesis six, verse three, it says, My spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal or corrupt. Their days will be 120 years. Some people read it as God says their lifespan will be 120 years. But actually a good interpretation of this is God as well, said, in 120 years, I’m going to bring an end to this Earth as it is. And basically says the flood is going to come.
Yeah.
Speaker 2
And we actually have a clue that the flood was going to come even way earlier than that. And in fact, Enoch may have been the first to know more than 1000 years before that there was going to be a flood because his son was named Bethuzula. Which means. What does it mean?
Speaker 3
His death shall bring.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Or when he dies, it shall come. Something like that. Right. And so people knew that this oldest man who lived longer than anybody else, he’s almost 1000 years old. I mean, he’s got to be famous. We keep track of the generous Book of World Records. Right. We know who’s the oldest person. Right now, everybody knew MATHUSLA. They knew what his name is, and they probably knew something big was going to happen if he passed away. So he died shortly before the flood. So people know he’s coming up to something. And then Noah actually spent about 100 years building the Ark. It could have been a little less, but he spent about 100 years. This boat is gigantic. Nobody’s ever seen a need for it. He’s telling people there’s going to be rain, people laughing at him. But the boat was big enough so that other people could have come on. I think you could say Enoch probably methods. A lot of these people were given warnings. And then for sure, with Noah, he’s giving warnings. It’s not that God murdered everybody. God wanted everybody in the Ark.
Speaker 3
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2
But only eight people chose to get in. And that arc still symbolizes Christ today. And if we don’t put our trust in Christ relying on Christ, we’re not going to survive the upcoming judgment, too, when people will be finally destroyed.
Speaker 1
The time of trouble and all. Everything.
Speaker 2
After that, the judgment when the wicked are judged.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
And how much time and effort did God put into trying to reach these people, the preflight people. Yeah. Before the flood occurred? Before.
Speaker 2
Well, that’s what I was saying. It was almost potentially 10 years. Yeah. He was warning them.
Speaker 1
Are there some indications of how he warned them or how he was trying to warn them?
Speaker 3
So I understand that Noah and his son’s building the Ark was a living gospel or preaching to the people. The entire time they’re building this boat, they’re saying a flood is coming. You need to be getting ready for it. Obviously, the building of the Ark, that was 100 years of them seeing this thing grow and get bigger. And the opportunities were there for everybody.
Speaker 1
I just think about, like, if that was going on today, what does it mean to get ready for it? How did they know that there’s all these people today that preach, the end is coming because of this and the end is coming because of that. And so you’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do that. And we know that with most of this, there is no biblical basis to it. It’s not rooted in God. It’s rooted in people’s own paranoia and delusions and egotistical kind of things going on in their mind. It’s things that they have concocted. And how would the people of that day have known that this was from God?
Speaker 3
Sure. I guess when I think of that, obviously, in the time of Enoch, Enoch spoke to the people. God always had a line of his people, as well as the enemy always had a line of his people. Like you read in Genesis three, I believe it’s 15, where after Adam and Eve’s sin, he says to the serpent being Satan that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent and it would bruise the heel of the son of God, basically, who would come in the line of God’s people through Eve. And so there’s always been a line of, I shall put enmity between thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed. So there’s always going to be this clash, this enmity between the two people. And so God’s always had a people group. And because he has, he always has had a Prophet or somebody he’s speaking through to God’s people. It’s always been his word in either the form of a person or as we have it now, the form in the Bible. And so everything we have, we have to compare it to the Bible like it says in Isaiah, I believe, chapter nine, that says to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because there’s no light in them.
Speaker 3
So in Noah’s day, Noah was that Prophet and his sons were living testimony of the reality of what he was saying to be true.
Speaker 1
Good response. Here’s a comment here from Landon Wags that the animals were the final warning. How could you not believe when you see that?
Speaker 2
That’s a great point.
Speaker 3
And the seven clean animals.
Speaker 2
Cover from all over.
Speaker 1
Yeah, that would be a sight to behold to simply watch all these animals coming from everywhere and lining up onto this big boat and that Noah’s been preaching to them about for 100 years as he’s building it. That’s an interesting.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, these people had no excuse. Absolutely none. There’s a question, I think, about the Millennium. There’s a question of Millennium that we could later on we could talk about that. There will be this period of time when we’ll be able to see for sure, like these people again, have plenty of time, plenty of opportunity, plenty of notice. And the important lesson takeaway for us today is now is a time when we are being warned of the upcoming destruction. It won’t be destruction by water. But as we’re told Josh hints at in Genesis, the rest of Bible confirms, especially Peter, his letters. The next one is going to be with burning heat that will melt away all the elements, the Earth, the atmosphere, all that’s going to be burning, melt away. That’s going to be the next flood and God’s warning. I mean, talk about global warming, right? I mean, that’s the ultimate global warming is coming and God wants us to get onto the new Ark to get through Christ the Salvation.
Speaker 3
And Jesus himself says in Luke 1726, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall also be in the days of the Son of man. And just like it goes on the next first thing in Noah’s time, people were eating, drinking, marrying, getting divorced, giving a marriage, doing whatever they felt like until Noah entered the Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. And so in the same way, we can definitely see the world in a state of just doing whatever you want and who cares? And I’m just going to live for now and have fun and have a good time and not really caring about the reality of things.
Speaker 2
And it just seems to be getting worse. Right. Like people are getting angrier. Everybody talk about mail being stolen now, Amazon packages are being stolen, cars being vandalized. You just don’t go down the list. It doesn’t feel like the way things were even ten years ago.
Speaker 1
Yeah. You hear stories where people ask like, why did God allow my child or my parent to be murdered? Why did God allow this horrible thing to happen? God gave those people 1000 years. He was patient, he was long suffering. He tried for 1000 years to get them to turn from that kind of wickedness and that kind of evilness. And because of that, the people who wanted to do good were being given over to that same evilness. And so it was taking people further from the goodness of God until literally there’s only one family left that wasn’t affected by it. And everybody else chose to follow the evil as opposed to wanting to choose to go to God, making that decision to say, you know what, I struggle with this evil, but I want what God has. I want to be living that way. I want to be living in his character and his spirit. I’m going to get on that boat by my choice. And I think that’s really interesting that it was God gave them the choice and ultimately they were the ones who chose. All they had to do was get on that boat.
Speaker 1
And they didn’t do that.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Because anything about it. I mean, was it a matter of pride? Was it a matter of Why wouldn’t you do it? And I think that’s really the question we have to ask ourselves. What is keeping us from coming into a right relationship with God? Are we clinging to sin? Are we clinging to something? Are we not willing to let go of an ambition? Are we not willing to let go of a relationship with someone that we know we shouldn’t be in with? Really, what is keeping us from a walk with God? Are we holding onto emotional baggage or just bitterness to God because of something bad that’s happened to us? And I think it’s only when we get real with God and come before him and have a real conversation with Him that we can find that peace and that joy that comes in a right relationship with God, and we can have assurance not only for this life that he’ll be with us, but for the future to come. I thank God that he says in Isaiah 118, Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, though your Sinbus Scarlet, they’ll be his whitest.
Speaker 3
No, though they be red like Crimson, they shall be his wool. God desires us to come to him, to reason with him. He’s an intelligent God, and then he’ll be the one to make our lives right.
Speaker 2
Yes. And we just got to start appreciating how bad sin is. And we’re so used to it because we’re so steeped in it. We see it everywhere. It’s like how our eyes might adjust to a certain level of brightness or to room being a certain color. And then we step out of that room also like, oh, my eyes, wow, everything looks so different. And that’s how we are. We’re so blinded, in a sense, because we just see so much thing that we don’t realize how awful it is. We don’t realize that most of our day to day experiences, especially all the negative ones, were not intended by God for us to live. He doesn’t want us to experience having our rights violated for us, feeling shame for us, feeling sadness and loss and all these things talk about diseases right now in Cobid and people getting sick, people dying. That’s not God’s plan. God doesn’t want that. He wants to bring an end to all of these things. But as long as people want to continue sinning and really, what sin is us wanting to go our own way, do our own thing, do it our way, I would say, is one of the best ways to think of sin.
Speaker 2
And when we’re going contrary to what God wants us to do, how God wants us to be. So many bad things happen, and it doesn’t hurt just us or it’s others. And we’re experiencing consequences of what other people did, too. Before us, the whole world is destroyed and devastated because of what we’ve been doing or generations before it’s been doing. God wants to hit the reset button.
Speaker 1
He wants us to turn to him and follow his path.
Speaker 3
Can I say one quick verse? Really quick just showing God’s beautiful nature and I always think of this verse all the time when it’s in Ezekiel chapter 18 I believe it’s verse 28. Sorry just talking about God’s heart and who he is as a loving God and it says I don’t have the verse I’m sorry but basically it says that sorry that God’s saying why will you continue your sins? God says, I do not desire anybody to die in their sins but I want you to come and live Israel he’s talking to his people and he’s just saying why will you continue in your sin repent from your sin and come and live I’m sorry I lost the verse.
Speaker 2
I thought it was why would you die of Israel? Yes, that verse yes.
Speaker 3
And I’m humble enough to say I don’t know every verse in the Bible.
Speaker 1
That’s the truth why we have a Bible and why we have apps so we can look them up.
Speaker 3
Here it is. Okay. Sorry. It’s verse 23. Ezekiel 1823 I thought it was 28 it says, have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die save the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live? God’s saying, I don’t have any pleasure whatsoever in destroying people at all even the wicked people I don’t have pleasure in destroying them but all I want is for you to turn from your wicked ways and live like that’s always his plan so how can we say God’s a murderer? He’s so mean he’s not but there’s going to come a point where he’s going to say, look, we got it like you’re saying Jay set the reset button and clean up this mess and start over and we could choose to be a part of that the new beginning.
For full episode:
https://youtu.be/lWShVLnOSWM
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