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Bob Davis: The ark, the pitch, the whole deal is going to show the Jewish people he can take them through the tribulation and protect everything in that boat. Everything that went into the boat, when it finally comes to a halt and the water is low enough for animals to be turned loose, not one animal dies or is lost.

Everybody that went in comes out. John 14:6, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." There was just one door in the ark.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply His word within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse by verse through the Bible. Our study of Genesis chapter six continues from verse 11, as God instructs Noah to build an ark. Here's Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: We're in chapter six and we've gotten all the way through verse ten. Now, God has said God saw that the wickedness of mankind was great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. They couldn't think of a nice thing to say that wasn't offensive. They couldn't make a movie or a TV program. Everything people were doing back then was offensive to God.

It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. It tore God's heart. It broke God's heart. The Lord said, "I will destroy mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and the beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them." God said look, they've gone so far they've gone beyond the point of no return. There's no getting them back.

God will not take our free will from us. He will never make you do anything that you don't want. You might say, how come Noah, in verse eight, found grace in the eyes of God and nobody else did? People say he's playing favorites. No, God has already said if you will read starting in verse one, God is going to give everyone 120 years before the flood.

I'll give you another 120 years, and I'll continue to call you back and call you back. So it's up to you. Noah found grace in God's eyes because it was by faith that Noah trusted in the first place. That's how I got saved, and that's how you got saved. If you're not saved, that's how you get saved: by taking God at His word and saying, I trust you. I don't have all the answers, but I still trust God. We learn and we grow as we walk.

Here we come to verse 11: "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

The wickedness of mankind, verses 11 through 13 in Genesis six, filled the earth. There was no place where there were people that there wasn't trouble. Wherever there were people, there were robberies, muggings, and rapes. You name it, wherever there were people, it was wickedness. The human race was completely and totally out of control and corrupt because mankind had completely turned from the purpose that God had created them for.

The Lord says He's going to send judgment on the entire earth, and the language does mean the entire planet. We live quite a ways away from that, so many years back there. We're used to the little 7-Eleven here getting robbed every other week. We're just used to that. You think, well if you're going to go somewhere, don't go there after dark.

Look at verse 14. Here's what God says. He is going to destroy and send judgment and flood the earth away. So verse 14 says, "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch." This is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: "The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."

"A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it." If you get a picture, it's easier, but he's just described it for us. That is amazing. God is detailed. He calls upon Noah to build an ark of gopher wood. Most believe that gopher wood is probably what we know as cypress wood.

God tells him what kind of wood to use and to build an ark. The Bible uses cubits as its standard measure. We use a foot. That would make the dimensions of the ark approximately 450 feet long, which is bigger than some of our modern aircraft carriers. It was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

According to Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. Ken Ham, the ark's dimensions are almost miraculously perfect. Those dimensions are so perfect that it would be stable and almost impossible to capsize that big ship. They say that it could go almost 90 full degrees if a wave could shove it, and it still would right itself back up. Is that God smart or what?

The volumetric capacity of the ark was approximately 1,400,000 cubic feet. To put that in something that I can grasp, that is equal to 522 standard livestock railroad cars. That's a long train that would be miles and miles long. A standard railroad car would carry 240 sheep in each car, and there would be room for them to spread out and lie down.

With 522 cars, that means that the ark could have carried more than 125,000 sheep. Remember, the animals that went on the ark, most of them were smaller than sheep. You have bunnies and little turtles. Everybody's picturing that one or two big elephants or a couple of horses. What they're showing us is there was plenty of room.

Now use pitch. This is kind of cool. It's really the idea of some sort of a rosin to spread on the outside and on the inside of the wood to make sure it's sealed and no water could slip in anywhere. The Hebrew word for pitch is kopher. The word itself means to cover or a covering. Think about that. A covering.

It gets better, if you ask me. It's translated in the Old Testament after this as atonement. In the book of Leviticus, the same kopher is atonement. Shed blood to pay the price for sin. A covering. Are you starting to get it? Use pitch, a covering, atonement. Bible scholars point out this is the first time the word atonement is used in scripture. It's the pitch that protects and covers.

I think that's just the gospel. What was that rosin designed to do? To protect, to keep it waterproof, to protect, to cover. Just as the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, provides an atonement for all sin to cover and to protect. It's gone. Then God tells Noah to make three decks, three floors, or levels.

Put windows in it. I like that. The word here for windows means opening for daylight. The language looks like it says it's one cubit, which would be about 18 inches, and it goes all the way around the top of the ark. So you have light coming in on all sides up at the top. They were open, providing for light and ventilation because you've got fresh air coming in from all sides constantly.

How many doors? One door. Only one door. What that tells me is there's no way to get out once you're in. All these animals coming in have to just work their way to this deck or that deck and keep moving. But there's only one door. All must enter through that door and all must leave through that door. That's a picture of Jesus Christ.

In upcoming chapters, when all the animals are in, Noah doesn't shut the door, nor do his sons. The Bible says God shut them in. Once he's the door and he shuts it, no man opens. The Messiah Jesus Christ, in John chapter 10, says, "Truly, truly, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

There's only one door, and Jesus said he's the door. John 14:6 says, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." He's the door. The ark, the pitch, the whole deal is going to show the Jewish people he can take them through the tribulation and protect everything in that boat and everything that went in the boat. When it finally comes to a halt a year later and the water is low enough for animals to be turned loose, not one animal dies or is lost.

Not any of Noah's kids, his wife, or their wives. Everybody that went in comes out. That's what Jesus is saying. So let's look at verse 17: "And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh." The fish are going to be fine because they're in the water already. They're cool.

But the birds are in trouble. No trees to land on. Everything's going to be covered. So everything that has breath, remember God breathed the breath into mankind and the animals. He says everything that has breath under heaven and everything that is in the earth shall die. "But with thee, Noah, will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee."

"And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them."

He's going to eat the same stuff the animals are eating. He's going to bring a lot of hay and a lot of grain. Remember, the animals didn't eat each other. They were pretty much vegetarian and they would eat roots, vegetables, and grasses. Verse 22 says Noah did it. "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he." That's faith.

Establish my covenant with you, Noah. You will go into the ark. Take two animals of every kind. In the next chapter, you're going to see that for sacrifices and other purposes, he's going to end up taking seven of the clean animals and two of the unclean. That's interesting because he hasn't even explained what clean and unclean are like yet. But it was set up back then.

People usually argue right here because they want to argue. If you don't want to believe, be careful because you'll come up with some of the silliest things to say to try and prove the Bible wrong. People usually argue, how in the world is Noah going to collect two birds of every kind? How do you trap that many birds? How long is that going to take him?

How about donkeys? They're so stubborn. People say it's impossible. It would have taken him 50 years or more. How could he fetch all those critters and how do you get those birds to cooperate? It can't be done. It's a fairy tale. Really? You didn't listen when I read the Bible. Listen. God said of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shall come to you to keep them alive.

Did you hear that? Do you think Noah, while he's building the ark, is also taking three weeks at a time and going hunting and putting them in some kind of cage? No. The Bible says God says I'll just send them to you. They will come straight to you. That's exactly what happened because God made ducks, so he can speak duck. Come on ducks, just two. You have to keep telling the rabbits, only two.

Remember, animals really basically weren't eating each other in those days. They ate hay, fruit, roots, and grain. Noah was to load the food on the ark as well. It's going to be the same in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The animals won't be eating each other. Isaiah 11 might shock you to learn that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the baby goat.

The calf and the young lion and the fatling will sit around together, and a little child will lead them. You take your little three-year-old and they go out and they get the lion and they walk them around. The cow and the bear shall feed together. Their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

Zoologists say that lions could live on grass and roots, and God says they will like they did before in His millennial reign. Remember that covenant when God said I'll make my covenant with you? I base mine on the pre-millennial dispensational position. I believe in a pre-millennial rapture and the dispensation.

There's the church age, which we call the age of grace, and there's the tribulation. These are separate dispensations starting from creation going through. I'm just telling you what I am basing my Bible study on. That's a covenant. There are eight major covenants. There's the Edenic in the Garden of Eden, the Adamic with Adam in Genesis 3, and the Noahic covenant with Noah.

There's the Abrahamic with Father Abraham and the Mosaic, which you and I call the Law. You know, the Ten Commandments, but really there are 613 commandments. Everybody kind of focuses on the big ten. Then there's the Palestinian, and that's a terrible name to call it because all that's about is Deuteronomy chapter 30 and that just promises the land.

The land will always belong to them, even though they're not in it at the time, it's still theirs. Then there's the Davidic covenant where God is going to set up a throne for King David for all eternity. Then the last one is the New Covenant, which is what we're under right now. Covenants are either conditional or unconditional.

Conditional means when God makes a covenant with you and me, if it's conditional, that means God will say, "I'll do this and you do that." Now, if you don't do that, instead of doing this I'll have to judge. Everything's a condition. That's what the law is. Of the eight major covenants, only one is conditional, and that's the law.

That's the very one that is also temporary because we're out from under the law. The others are all unconditional. We're living under the New Covenant, which is unconditional. What do I have to do? Nothing. Jesus Christ did it all. God said, "This is what I'll do." What do I have to do? Believe. Just by faith, believe. It's unconditional.

Of the eight major covenants, seven of them are unconditional. The one that is conditional is gone. When Jesus says I'm giving you a new covenant, this is the New Covenant in my blood, it made the other one, the Mosaic covenant, the Old Covenant. The only one that was meant to be temporary and conditional. All the others, by the way, are eternal and unconditional, meaning nothing I have to do to get it done. All I have to do is thank God for doing it and trust him in it.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is a radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM.

You can download today's message in its entirety at northcountrychapel.com/studies. That's northcountrychapel.com/studies. If you would like a copy of today's message, write to us and ask for the message with today's date. The address is Apply Within, 2281 West Seltice, Post Falls, Idaho, 83854. Or call us at 1-800-572-8851. That number again is 1-800-572-8851.

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