Creation, Noah's Ark & the Flood Creation to Kings | Episode 1
We live in a world that is inundated with opposing worldviews,
and among these is one that is embraced by nearly a third of the world's population:
Christianity.
The Christian worldview is based on the Bible
and uses this sacred text as the basis for its ideological framework.
The Bible begins with these words:
'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." [Genesis 1:1]
This text provides the answer in the Christian worldview
to the question of origins.
The earth was made in six days by God,
and the Bible says that the most significant part of this process
was the moment God made man and woman with His own hands,
and then breathed into them breath from His own mouth.
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The father and mother of the first race were named Adam and Eve,
and God gave them a beautiful garden, the Garden of Eden, as their first home.
Scholars believe that it was located somewhere in the Middle East,
based on the names of the four rivers which flowed out of it.
As a test of their love and loyalty to God, they were given a single prohibition.
They could eat of any tree of the garden,
except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The consequences of disregarding this prohibition would be death.
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Unfortunately, Genesis 3 records the account of Eve being lured
to the forbidden tree by a talking serpent.
Seduced by his lies about God and the nature of death,
she ate the fruit of the tree,
and the Bible then says she gave the fruit to her husband and he ate it as well.
As a result of disobeying the command of God,
they had to leave the Garden of Eden,
a place of peace of peace, joy, and face-to-face communion with God.
In the aftermath of their sin, the witnessed the first death,
as an animal was sacrificed for their sin,
and then later on they were given clothes made from the skins of this animal.
Their mourning turned to joy, though,
at the birth of their first son Cain, and later Abel.
But nothing could prepare them for what came next:
the horror of seeing their firstborn son murder his younger brother.
Wracked with guilt, Cain separated himself from his family
and set up camp in Nod, on the East of Eden.
And thus began a separation between those who follow God
and those who went their own way.
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However, as time went on, the two groups began to intermingle through marriage.
This led to a gradual falling away from God and a loosening of moral restraint.
As the Bible describes it, 'The wickedness of man was very great.'
As God surveyed the rapidly-deteriorating situation on earth,
He gave its inhabitants 120 years of probationary time
to make a decisive choice.
They could either choose to follow His guidelines for morality,
or they could follow their own.
Their own perception of morality had led to a terrible state of crime and violence,
and if they chose to persist in this course, God would cleanse the Earth with a flood.
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God instructs a man named Noah to build an ark.
The length was to be three hundred cubits, and the width fifty cubits,
roughly 150 metres by 25.
Today there are two life-size replicas of the ark in the world,
one in Holland, and one here, in Kentucky [USA].
It's fascinating to see how much wood it takes to build an ark,
roughly 14,000 trees, and yet how solid it appears.
Sadly, only the eight members in Noah's family
make it into the ark before the rain starts to fall.
Soon the Earth is covered with water,
and the flood continues for 150 days before the water starts to recede.
Today there is a lot of evidence for the flood in geology,
if you are looking at it through the lens of this cataclysmic event.
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God did not forget His people,
and in fact, one of the key points is found in Genesis 8:1, which says,
'Then God remembered Noah.'
Sometimes it's in the midst of a storm,
when it seems like God might have forgotten us,
when we're tossed about in the waves of life,
that God then makes His presence known.
The same God who made the world restored its beauty after the flood.
Have confidence and assurance to know that we serve a powerful God,
and the same God who made you can restore His beauty in you,
no matter what you have experienced or gone through.