A HERALD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
2 Peter 2:5
"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;"
In 2 Peter 2:5, the apostle remarks, almost parenthetically, that “[God] did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Noah was a herald of righteousness—someone proclaiming the Good News!
Building the Ark was very public. We can conjecture that Noah could have contracted labor and materials, and so there would have been conversations. Peter labeled Noah as a herald of righteousness was made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so he must be referring to actual utterances or conversations, even though these are not reported in Genesis.
What could this message of righteousness have been? We know, from the account of Noah’s drunkenness in Genesis 9, that he was not a perfect man. But Hebrews 11 reminds us that Noah “became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). His righteousness came by faith. But what was the source of that faith? Scripture does indeed record this; in Genesis 6:8 we read “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8 NKJV). To summarize, Noah was saved by grace, through faith. And that is how people are saved today.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
That is the Good News, of which all we believers should be heralds.
Thank You, Father, for saving us through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to proclaim this Good News of salvation boldly to the world, in our everyday lives, as Noah did. Make us heralds of righteousness. Amen.
Ref: Taylor, P.F. (2013), Don’t Miss the Boat, (Green River, AR: Master Books), Appendix. Image: Adobe Stock Photos, licensed to author.
2 Peter 2:5
"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;"
In 2 Peter 2:5, the apostle remarks, almost parenthetically, that “[God] did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Noah was a herald of righteousness—someone proclaiming the Good News!
Building the Ark was very public. We can conjecture that Noah could have contracted labor and materials, and so there would have been conversations. Peter labeled Noah as a herald of righteousness was made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so he must be referring to actual utterances or conversations, even though these are not reported in Genesis.
What could this message of righteousness have been? We know, from the account of Noah’s drunkenness in Genesis 9, that he was not a perfect man. But Hebrews 11 reminds us that Noah “became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). His righteousness came by faith. But what was the source of that faith? Scripture does indeed record this; in Genesis 6:8 we read “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8 NKJV). To summarize, Noah was saved by grace, through faith. And that is how people are saved today.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
That is the Good News, of which all we believers should be heralds.
Thank You, Father, for saving us through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to proclaim this Good News of salvation boldly to the world, in our everyday lives, as Noah did. Make us heralds of righteousness. Amen.
Ref: Taylor, P.F. (2013), Don’t Miss the Boat, (Green River, AR: Master Books), Appendix. Image: Adobe Stock Photos, licensed to author.
Instant Creation
�Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.� (Psalm 148:5)
�Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.� (Psalm 148:5)
Certain Christian intellectuals today are promoting the concept of what they call �process creation,� a euphemism for theistic evolution. This is a contradiction in terms, however, for creation by definition is supernatural and instantaneous. The Bible makes this plain.
Our text is in one of the beautiful �hallelujah� psalms in which the entire creation is exhorted to praise the Lord. The sun, moon, and all the heavens are included, and then the testimony of our text is given. As soon as God commanded, they were created, not over long ages, but immediately! God said �Let there be . . .� and it was so.
This is especially emphatic in the 33rd Psalm: �By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. . . . For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast� (Psalm 33:6, 9). This is also the testimony in the great �faith� chapter, Hebrews 11. The very first object of faith is the following: �Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear� (Hebrews 11:3). That is, the things that are seen (sun, moon, stars, etc.) were not made out of preexisting materials (things that appear), but by the spoken word of God.
There is not any need at all to compromise either God�s omnipotence or His inerrant Word by such devices as theistic evolution, progressive creation, or process creation, for no natural �process� could ever generate the complex and beautifully organized systems of the creation. Compromising evangelical scientists and theologians who are intimidated by the ungodly philosophy of evolution should be corrected, not accommodated. HMM
GOD: NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL
Genesis 1:31a
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
C.S. Lewis suggested that those who deny the supernatural can still believe in a god of sorts. He said:
The great interlocking event called Nature might be such as to produce at some stage a great cosmic consciousness, an indwelling 'God' arising from the whole process as human mind arises (according to the Naturalists) from human organisms�. What Naturalism cannot accept is the idea of a God who stands outside Nature and made it.
One Christian evolutionist has maintained that Christians who are scientists do not mention God in their research papers, because there is a long-standing tradition against partiality in science. It follows that his scientific research does not start from God, and does not start from the Bible. While he maintains this as a virtue, it suggests to his readers that nature is all that there is; there is nothing outside of science that science cannot, or will not one day be able, to explain. Yet he believes in God, and is a member of a Bible-believing church. This gives the impression that faith is a bolt-on. It is not part of reality. Therefore, the god who is implied is not the supernatural God of the Bible, despite the claims of such people that this is the God in whom they believe. Instead, the impression is given that nature is all that there is, so God must be a natural god arising out of creation.
This is why the first few words of the Bible are so important. �In the beginning, God created...� gives the correct context for everything else that we read in the 66 books.
You put everything in place, Lord God. You created it all from nothing. We praise You that only in You can everything be understood in its place. Amen.
Ref: Lewis, C.S. (1947), Miracles, (New York: Macmillan Collins), p12. Image: Adobe Stock photos, licensed to author.
Genesis 1:31a
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
C.S. Lewis suggested that those who deny the supernatural can still believe in a god of sorts. He said:
The great interlocking event called Nature might be such as to produce at some stage a great cosmic consciousness, an indwelling 'God' arising from the whole process as human mind arises (according to the Naturalists) from human organisms�. What Naturalism cannot accept is the idea of a God who stands outside Nature and made it.
One Christian evolutionist has maintained that Christians who are scientists do not mention God in their research papers, because there is a long-standing tradition against partiality in science. It follows that his scientific research does not start from God, and does not start from the Bible. While he maintains this as a virtue, it suggests to his readers that nature is all that there is; there is nothing outside of science that science cannot, or will not one day be able, to explain. Yet he believes in God, and is a member of a Bible-believing church. This gives the impression that faith is a bolt-on. It is not part of reality. Therefore, the god who is implied is not the supernatural God of the Bible, despite the claims of such people that this is the God in whom they believe. Instead, the impression is given that nature is all that there is, so God must be a natural god arising out of creation.
This is why the first few words of the Bible are so important. �In the beginning, God created...� gives the correct context for everything else that we read in the 66 books.
You put everything in place, Lord God. You created it all from nothing. We praise You that only in You can everything be understood in its place. Amen.
Ref: Lewis, C.S. (1947), Miracles, (New York: Macmillan Collins), p12. Image: Adobe Stock photos, licensed to author.
ECHOES OF A BIG BANG?
Genesis 1:6-8
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Outer space has a temperature. It has become common to think of space as a vacuum, that has nothing in it, which means it would be at absolute zero temperature. In fact, space is nearly a vacuum, but not quite. And the particles in that near vacuum are in motion, so they have a temperature of 2.73K�the equivalent of 2.73 Celsius degrees above Absolute Zero.
This so-called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (or CMB) has been known about since 1965. It is assumed to be an echo of the Big Bang, and is offered in High School textbooks as a proof of the Big Bang. Yet, it is actually problematic for Big Bang cosmologists.
CMB is the same temperature in all directions of space. For this to have occurred, there must have been a transfer of heat energy in the past, by radiation, from hot spot to cold spot, in order to even out temperature differentials. This radiation would travel at the speed of light. Since Big Bang cosmologists assume the universe to be 14.7 billion years old, it follows that this radiation could only travel a maximum of 14.7 billion light years. But the universe is much bigger than that. Therefore, the Big Bang theory cannot explain the regular, even temperature of CMB.
The Bible suggests in Genesis 1:6-8 that there is water at the edge of the universe, which could act as a blackbody, absorbing heat radiation, and neatly accounting for the regularity of the temperature of space. The Bible helps provide an explanation for a phenomenon, which remains a mystery for evolutionary cosmologists.
We read in Your word, O Lord, that the Heavens declare the glory of God. We know this is the case, and we thank You that it is the Bible, and not human wisdom, that has the answers about how the world was made. Amen.
Ref: Faulkner, D. (2016), Created Cosmos, (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), p53-54. Image: The binary star system Rho Ophiuchi, by Rogelio Bernal Andreo; released to Public Domain.
Genesis 1:6-8
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Outer space has a temperature. It has become common to think of space as a vacuum, that has nothing in it, which means it would be at absolute zero temperature. In fact, space is nearly a vacuum, but not quite. And the particles in that near vacuum are in motion, so they have a temperature of 2.73K�the equivalent of 2.73 Celsius degrees above Absolute Zero.
This so-called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (or CMB) has been known about since 1965. It is assumed to be an echo of the Big Bang, and is offered in High School textbooks as a proof of the Big Bang. Yet, it is actually problematic for Big Bang cosmologists.
CMB is the same temperature in all directions of space. For this to have occurred, there must have been a transfer of heat energy in the past, by radiation, from hot spot to cold spot, in order to even out temperature differentials. This radiation would travel at the speed of light. Since Big Bang cosmologists assume the universe to be 14.7 billion years old, it follows that this radiation could only travel a maximum of 14.7 billion light years. But the universe is much bigger than that. Therefore, the Big Bang theory cannot explain the regular, even temperature of CMB.
The Bible suggests in Genesis 1:6-8 that there is water at the edge of the universe, which could act as a blackbody, absorbing heat radiation, and neatly accounting for the regularity of the temperature of space. The Bible helps provide an explanation for a phenomenon, which remains a mystery for evolutionary cosmologists.
We read in Your word, O Lord, that the Heavens declare the glory of God. We know this is the case, and we thank You that it is the Bible, and not human wisdom, that has the answers about how the world was made. Amen.
Ref: Faulkner, D. (2016), Created Cosmos, (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), p53-54. Image: The binary star system Rho Ophiuchi, by Rogelio Bernal Andreo; released to Public Domain.
ATONING PITCH
Genesis 6:14
"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."
Wood will get waterlogged, if it is left in water for too long. And yet wood has often been used throughout history to build boats and ships. For example, the city of Pensacola, Florida, was, in many ways, the birthplace of the US Navy, because of the deep harbor, and the abundance of live oaks, from which to build ships. To prevent water-logging, the wood must be treated, to make it waterproof.
In this regard, the Ark was no different. So God told Noah to coat the Ark inside and out with pitch. There have been many discussions on what this pitch could actually have been. Could it have been like modern pitch, which is a fractional product of petroleum oil? How could such a material have existed before the Flood, if we believe that fossil fuels were formed during the Flood?
More important than this discussion, however, is what the purpose of the pitch was. It was a covering. The Hebrew word is khafar, and means �covering�. Khafar is a common word in the Old Testament�but everywhere else it is found, it is translated by the word �atonement�!
Atonement refers to the covering of our sins, making us right with God. The Ark was waterproofed against the watery judgment of God by the atonement of pitch. As believers, we are fireproofed against the fiery judgment of God to come, by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, which does not just cover our sins, but washes them away completely.
Thank You, Lord, that we can see so much of the Gospel of Jesus Christ anticipated in the account of Noah and the Flood. Thank You that our sins are covered completely and removed, when we repented and trusted in Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
Ref: Taylor, P.F. (2013), Don�t Miss the Boat, (Green River, AR: Master Books). Image: Adobe Stock Photos, licensed to author.
Genesis 6:14
"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."
Wood will get waterlogged, if it is left in water for too long. And yet wood has often been used throughout history to build boats and ships. For example, the city of Pensacola, Florida, was, in many ways, the birthplace of the US Navy, because of the deep harbor, and the abundance of live oaks, from which to build ships. To prevent water-logging, the wood must be treated, to make it waterproof.
In this regard, the Ark was no different. So God told Noah to coat the Ark inside and out with pitch. There have been many discussions on what this pitch could actually have been. Could it have been like modern pitch, which is a fractional product of petroleum oil? How could such a material have existed before the Flood, if we believe that fossil fuels were formed during the Flood?
More important than this discussion, however, is what the purpose of the pitch was. It was a covering. The Hebrew word is khafar, and means �covering�. Khafar is a common word in the Old Testament�but everywhere else it is found, it is translated by the word �atonement�!
Atonement refers to the covering of our sins, making us right with God. The Ark was waterproofed against the watery judgment of God by the atonement of pitch. As believers, we are fireproofed against the fiery judgment of God to come, by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, which does not just cover our sins, but washes them away completely.
Thank You, Lord, that we can see so much of the Gospel of Jesus Christ anticipated in the account of Noah and the Flood. Thank You that our sins are covered completely and removed, when we repented and trusted in Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
Ref: Taylor, P.F. (2013), Don�t Miss the Boat, (Green River, AR: Master Books). Image: Adobe Stock Photos, licensed to author.
THE BIG FIZZ
Genesis 1:14-15
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so."
Many secular cosmologists believe that the universe came into existence in a singularity, as a result of a quantum event about 14.7 billion years ago. However, this so-called Big Bang theory is not without its problems. Principle among these is the Horizon Problem, which refers to the fact that Big Bangers cannot account for the Cosmic Microwave Background being the same temperature in all directions. This phenomenon would have required different parts of the universe coming to thermal equilibrium by radiation moving at the speed of light. Yet the maximum distance this radiation could travel is considerably less than the size of the universe.
In the 1980s, theoretical physicist Alan Guth proposed the Inflation Theory. In this model, a very rapid expansion of the universe happened from 10-36 seconds to 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang event. This allowed the entirety of the universe to be in close contact for a while, enabling transfer of energy between all parts of the universe.
There is no scientific evidence for this inflation, which is sometimes called the Big Fizz. The extremely short timescale of the event, at the beginning of a period of extremely deep time, gives the whole theory an impression of being a convenient construction, just to make the math work. Moreover, it creates new problems of its own. There are several different models of inflation, and recent work suggesting that evidence for inflation is now available, turns out simply to disprove some of the models, without validating the concept itself.
As biblical creationists, we know that none of these models are correct. God has explained how and why the universe was created in the first chapter of the Bible.
Lord God, who formed the Earth to be inhabited, we praise You as we consider the beauty of the heavens. Thank You for putting the whole universe into place, to bring glory to Your Name. Amen.
Genesis 1:14-15
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so."
Many secular cosmologists believe that the universe came into existence in a singularity, as a result of a quantum event about 14.7 billion years ago. However, this so-called Big Bang theory is not without its problems. Principle among these is the Horizon Problem, which refers to the fact that Big Bangers cannot account for the Cosmic Microwave Background being the same temperature in all directions. This phenomenon would have required different parts of the universe coming to thermal equilibrium by radiation moving at the speed of light. Yet the maximum distance this radiation could travel is considerably less than the size of the universe.
In the 1980s, theoretical physicist Alan Guth proposed the Inflation Theory. In this model, a very rapid expansion of the universe happened from 10-36 seconds to 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang event. This allowed the entirety of the universe to be in close contact for a while, enabling transfer of energy between all parts of the universe.
There is no scientific evidence for this inflation, which is sometimes called the Big Fizz. The extremely short timescale of the event, at the beginning of a period of extremely deep time, gives the whole theory an impression of being a convenient construction, just to make the math work. Moreover, it creates new problems of its own. There are several different models of inflation, and recent work suggesting that evidence for inflation is now available, turns out simply to disprove some of the models, without validating the concept itself.
As biblical creationists, we know that none of these models are correct. God has explained how and why the universe was created in the first chapter of the Bible.
Lord God, who formed the Earth to be inhabited, we praise You as we consider the beauty of the heavens. Thank You for putting the whole universe into place, to bring glory to Your Name. Amen.
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