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Noah
Sermon by Dr. Bob Benchoff, May 31, 2002
Updated March 2, 2005.
Updated April 29, 2007.
Updated July 12, 2008 scientific proof!
Updated January 18, 2010 interpretations.
Typically, when people think of Noah, they think of the story of the ark. While it is an important, mind boggling story, it probably isn't the most important story about Noah. That is, there is another story about Noah that has a far greater direct impact on people. This other story deeply concerns people and many people spend their lives trying to undo what God has done in this story.
This story is about the human life span. Many medical researchers, health workers, biologists, and professors donate their lives to the sole purpose of making people live longer. The key to all this, of course, is right there in Genesis Chapter 6 verse 3.
In both stories, that of life span, and that of the ark, the most impressive matter is the personal involvement God has with Noah.
Amazing things were happening before Noah's big stories. People of faith were doing things that may otherwise be considered humanly impossible.
Enoch walked with God. And Enoch was no more because God took him. In one Bible, the interpretation is that Enoch and God walked off the face of the earth together and Enoch was seen no more.
Enoch was the father Methuselah of who lived nine hundred sixty nine years.
Methuselah had fathered Lamech who fathered Noah. Lamech said that from the cursed ground, Noah would deliver them from the toil of their hands.
Later, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ fulfilled similar prohecies.
Noah is among the last recorded of the people of great longevity. After Noah reached 500 years of age, Noah fathered some children.
God was not pleased with most people, such as the Nephilim, and God shortened the human life span and felt sorrow that he had made man.
So the first story ends and Noah's second story begins. The ark could fit in a football field and stood less than thirty feet high. It was a cross between a yacht and a barge, by today's standards.
The ark was an amazing design. Today's large ships, even to a large extent barges, are streamlined to cut through the water and move in a straight line over long distances.
Even small pleasure craft that turn on a dime, have streamlined aspects. But none of that mattered for the purpose of the ark.
The ark didn't have anywhere to go: everything was flooded! So the ark was to be something that would best carry the passengers, creatures, and cargo. A long streamlined ship would roll. A ball would spin and roll. The ark design was perfect.
Later, after the ark, another ark appeared, a symbol of God's promise: The Ark of the Covenant. This was before great nations as a triumphant reminder of God's grace. It was good to see a modern passion for this with Indiana Jones (no endorsement or affiliation, unless otherwise stated) which did an good exciting job, mixing reality with fantasy, while keeping focus on reverence.
A couple of days ago, at Ryerson / Tull, an employee brought forth the subject of Noah and the ark. Their keen insight and awareness of concerns people have prompted the writing of this sermon.
They focused on the popular ideas of fitting all of God's earthly creatures on the ark. Could they fit?
Yes. Fish lived in the sea, they didn't have to fit. Insects are often found not on the earth, but underground, especially their eggs, so they didn't have to fit. So all things considered, it is nearly incomprehensible, but yes it is possible.
Did Noah go to the Galopagos Islands, gather critters, and afterward go back and redistribute them? I don't think it worked that way, but new discoveries are shedding more light on the subject. It wasn't so long ago that people thought that if the world was round, people would fall-off. Is the ark on top of Mount Ararat? Perhaps.
The important part is Noah and his family left their existence behind and did what God said to do. Imagine Noah's surprise when he finished the ark and the ground was dry.
But the ark was just part of it. Now God commanded Noah to gather animals into it. Then the rains came.
Book of Mormon, Ether, page 492, gives another perspective of how Jared had faith and worked accordingly and saw God provide light.
Something I have not seen mentioned is about the storage of food that God commanded to be provided, and that is the possible further abundance of life on the ark.
In the old days, if you had a cow and you wanted to preserve it's meat for a long time, you wouldn't go into the pasture and kill the cow, you would simply let the cow live and graze until you needed the meat.
Noah wasn't just concerned about his own land property but was concerned with the whole earth according to God's command, and so since Noah had two lions, he wanted to have sufficient food for them. Lions eat gazelles. So the ark may have had extra gazelles for lions in the days ahead.
As we look to all things good, and further investigate the path of righteousness, I believe we will become more united than ever before. In a few decades we may see Noahs accomplishments as a relative trifling as compared with modern capabilities. In a few decades we might just beam the animals onto a spaceship; or think the thought and it is done.
Nonetheless, we will always have Noah to thank for being God's instrument in weeding-out undesirable qualities, moreover we have Noah to thank for working to accomplish God's good work.
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Update March 2, 2005: New scientific research adds further support to the Noah's Ark Story. If great rain fell and a flood covered the Earth as described in the Old Testament, then it would likely have melted a lot of snow and ice, and likely even all of it given that warm water was free to move on the surface of the water unhindered by land, and similarly the warm currents would have been able to move relatively unrestrained among the mountain tops and into the polar regions.
The first person according to Optusnet was known as Handy Man, and is known to Christians as Adam, two and a half million years ago.
A great change from Handy Man to Java Man, or from Adam to Noah, seems to have occurred 900,000 years ago.
It happens, that according to scientists studying Earth's ice, that the oldest ice on the planet is 900,000 years old, according to televised broadcasting. This would scientifically explain a lot about why Handy Man disappeared and why Java Man took over. Formerly some have thought that Java Man killed Handy Man, or that Java Man was a better hunter leaving nothing for Handy Man. We see the Noah's Ark Story makes a lot more sense.
Hence from faith on the Bible of Jesus Christ this logical correlation was derived. We bless from the True Sword of Peace.--Dr. Bob Benchoff.
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Update April 29, 2007: NewsWhiteHouse.com just released a news article today supportive of the faithful reasoning of this sermon, withstanding the test of time. The news includes a scientific chart of the first humans, the point in time that Adam and Eve dwelt, advanced, and similar, branching-from, that is also, created-from that which was not human. So too with Noah, the chart shows branches around 900,000 years ago. Similar to a rock from which an artist is inspired and creates an artwork, so too the new creation evolves: not against the rock, rather to glorify the rock as never before, yet moreso rather for the greater glorifying of Jesus Christ: No monkey was ever so glorified as with the creation of Adam, no dust was ever so glorified as from monkeys and thereafter people: All for the greater glory of God.
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Scientists stated on television about a decade ago that Noah could not have had enough evolutionary intelligence to have built the Ark then [circa 900,000, see above oldest ice / ice cap discussion]. Yet today Smithsonian scientists using DNA recognition talents have reorganized scientific thinking with regard to the human timeline. Yes, today we know very clearly that Noah could have built the great Ark, and Noah was so intelligent that any special divine miracle intervention from God might be as compared to modern times as when a person evolved and created the first supertanker, and the Noah story may seem to many to be far less miraculous than the 1st People on the Moon (people back then didn't even know nanotech, genetic code sequencing, nor hardly much at all about space plasma, and instead of computers, they often used slide rulers akin to the abacus used by pyramid builders). If Noah lived 900,000 years ago, then it was a time when Homo Erectus had long experienced the talent refinement and usage of tools as in cutting meat and trees. Over 2 million years prior was the famed Lucy (perhaps Eve), the upright walking Australopithecus (1 Corinthians 4.1-6) yet distinguished from crawlers (Leviticus 11 distinction of the upright, pleasing God).
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January 18, 2010 update. Interpretations are made when a scientist views ice, rocks, formulas, or winds. Interpretations are made when a person reads the Bible or when they write Christian Sermons, often. These interpretations are of course accurate if One with Jesus Christ per se in times and situations, such as while a person conducts a miracle, or such as certain unseen energies.
Sometimes a single choice can mean whether a nation starts to fight your nation or not. So if a scientist disagrees with a preacher, there can be consequences of great impact to civilization. Yet more importantly is the choice opportunity for peace, typically. Even so, important is the matter that each is only speaking of interpretation(s), typically. And if they do not agree, they are to get other counseling as much as time will allow (see other ICCDBB Sermons and GodMath Testament for higher solutions).
This ICCDBB Sermon on Noah talks of facts and of interpretations (ibid.). Here are examples of interpretations in both fields of study, both science and faith.
In science for instance a scientists said brains had not evolved enough to construct a boat so long ago, in the timeframe as indicated above per the old ice indicator. Science also shows both shorter and longer timeframe indices.
In faith for instance, there is much discussion of lineage, who begat who, in the generations such as in Matthew Chapter 1, and such as more detailed in Ether Chapter 1 further elaborating the generations and their trend. Also Ether 1.4 explains the long list of generations is not a full list, merely a partial list, and that the full list is written otherwise on the plates. So knowing the limit of how small a person can write, and there was small writing otherwise discussed, it can be figured as to what limits there were as to numbers of generations and patterns such as the 14/3 pattern of Matthew 1.17. This is figured such as via knowing the number of plates, and via knowing the other things also written on the plates.
So we have two important indices, the scientific age of oldest ice, and the faithful calculation of maximum number of generations indicating a likely much shorter time frame than the old ice time frame.
Which is better, to start a war over old ice, or to start a war over pre-recorded history matters prior to much if any civilization? rather the solution is peace and increasing these types of studies peacefully together for mutual benefit.
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To visit the Internet Church of Christ founded by Dr. Bob Benchoff, click here.