Behind me is a lush tropical setting in southern India. Taking a stroll on these grounds early in the day it's possible to image just a little of what Adam experienced when he walked with God in the cool of the day in the garden of Eden. Our studies in the book of Genesis begin now as we observe The Bible From 30 Thousand Feet.

Major figures dominate the pages of the first book, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph cast long shadows through the pages of scripture. It is impossible to understand the Bible's other 65 books without getting a grasp on Genesis, the book of beginnings.

Now, I want to welcome you, if you're from different places, different churches, we want to welcome you as well. This is a community Bible study and we want to fill Albuquerque with the doctrine of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And I'm gonna ask and challenge you to make this a weekly habit for the next year or so. Let's just say a year, to go through the Bible rapidly in a year's time. And I'm gonna ask you to buckle your seat belt, put your heart in an upright position, and we're gonna be taking off and going through the Bible. And the method is that we're gonna be going and covering a lot of ground very rapidly, so I need your mind tonight and I'm gonna ask you to give your hearts to the Lord fully and completely. Because we're gonna cover all the way from (in our Bible study), eternity past through history, all the way into eternity future, so there's a lot of ground to cover. And as the study implies, it's from 30 thousand feet, cruising altitude. So we're not gonna go verse by verse but we're gonna look in certain sections very closely, especially when we have shorter sections. But it's sort of like flying through and pointing out, "On the left is the Grand Canyon, on the right is the Washington Monument," and noticing some of the high points as we go through it.

And tonight we're in Genesis 1 through 11, God willing. Now, in your minds, divide all of life up into two levels: a horizontal level and a vertical level. And on the horizontal level, knowledge is acquired by reason and experience. We look at things and we think about them, we reason, we go through certain activities in life, we have experiences, and we learn by reason and by experience. But those would both be very limited, in terms of knowing truth, unless we had a third element, a vertical level; someone from the outside, i.e. God revealing to us who He is and what He wants. And that's where the Bible comes in. Because otherwise, you have on the horizontal level, people asking questions: "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?" So we need God's revelation. And God has revealed Himself. He has revealed himself through creation, we call that general revelation; Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork."

But then there is special revelation, and that is the Bible. Now the Bible isn't just one book, you know its 66 different books; 31,173 verses comprise your Bible and that's about 8,000 in the New Testament and about 23,000 in the Old Testament. But we can do it. In fact, we could read the Bible as a congregation, all the way through, verse by verse, in a year. I mean, if you were to think about it, it's estimated that it would take you 71 hours to read the Bible at what they call 'pulpit speed.' That's an interesting measure of time, isn't it, 'pulpit speed?' That means it's slow enough to read out loud and listen to. You could cover from Genesis to Revelation, they figure, in about 71 hours, at pulpit speed. If you were to break that down into 365 days a year, that would only be 12 minutes a day. And if you just devoted a portion of time each day, you could cover the entire Bible. Charles Spurgeon used to say, "A Bible that is falling apart is an indication of somebody who is not." So, I hope you use, not a-buse, not misuse your Bible; I'm not saying go buy a Bible and run over it with your car so it looks like you're really spiritual because it's worn, but just read it, just feed on it, and wear that puppy out till you have to get a new one and then another one, as we go through the Bible together.

Well, the Bible sweeps, as we said, from eternity past to eternity future, but all of it together points to one person and two events. And that one person is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And the two events the Bible points to is the first coming of Jesus to deal with sin and the second coming of Jesus Christ to reign over, and with those, who have been cleansed from it. One person, two events, is the general theme of the whole Bible, and Genesis is the foundation. If we don't understand Genesis we won't understand the whole lot of it because we get the beginning of everything here. The beginning of creation, the beginning of sin entering in the world, the beginning of God's remedy to take care of sin, the beginning of government and family, and the beginning of the nation of Israel, as we'll see next week, through the man Abraham.

Tonight we want to take a sweep of chapters 1 through 11 and we want to look at four great events. This week, four events, next week four people. The four great events, (and by the way, we're taking a sweep of about 2000 years), the first event is formation, the second event: fall, third event: flood, fourth event: fall out. First of all, the beginning of everything, the formation of the Universe. Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering [or brooding] over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God saw or God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day."

Back in 1903 a guy by the name of Herbert Spencer (and you may have heard his name), Herbert Spencer was the guy that categorized everything; categorized matter. He's the guy who came up with the system of phylum or phyla. And he categorized not just the bio-sphere, but he said that everything that is knowable, everything in the Universe, could be categorized into one of five categories: time, force, action, space, matter. Time, force, action, space, matter. Everything in the Universe that is knowable could be put into one of those five categories. Well, we applaud Herbert for that bit of knowledge, but that's just Genesis 1:1 right? "In the beginning," that's time, "God" -- that's force, "created" -- that's action, "the heavens" -- that's space, "and the earth" -- that's matter. So we see right in the very first verse of the Bible, the precision with which this document will be put together by the Spirit of God. All of those five things are covered. And I've always said that if you can believe Genesis 1:1, the rest of the Bible is easy. If you have struggled with Resurrection, if you have struggled with miracles, go back to Genesis 1:1. If you can believe that your God is powerful enough to create the heavens and the earth, the rest is a piece of cake.

So, the formation of the Universe. In verse 5, God called the light day and the darkness He called night, so evening and morning were the first day. And now as we go on, there's days of creation that are spelled out in this chapter. God creates the lights, He then creates, the next day, vapors, then water, then land, then plants, and then finally animals. Verse 26, "God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" So you see, all the creeps that you know, God is over them as well. Verse 27, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Then in chapter 2 verse 1, notice God is done, God rests on the seventh day because we are told in that verse that God finished His creation, the heavens and the earth were finished. Now, here's where people generally will turn off God. One word will turn them off: creation, creation. For a lot of people, the whole idea of a God with a special creation turns people off. And as I've observed and looked around, and talked to people, I don't necessarily think it's because of intellectual reasons as much as moral reasons, because if there is a God, then there is a standard. No God; no rules. Get rid of God, you can get rid of all of the rules and regulations and create a perfect system of humanism and existentialism. Then, you can do anything you want. Evolution, know this, is the basis of many philosophies, including Marxism, Communism, Atheism, and Nazism. If you were to study, many papers have been done about the correlation between the whole shift in Europe, especially Germany, over the idea of Creationism and Nazi Germany.

Well, for the most part, in pop culture, the idea of evolution is a done deal right? It's a closed case. I mean you ask the average person on the street and they'll say, "Oh, everybody knows we've evolved! That idea of creation has been [they say] disproven a long time ago. It's a done deal." However, in the academic world, as was just pointed out by the good doctor, there are many people that have difficulties with evolution. They've done the research, they've got the hard facts, and they find it an untenable position. He had a book, Dr. Weiss, by Michael Denton. Let me just give you a snippet, a quote, "Evolutionary theory is still, as it was in Darwin's time, highly speculative hypothesis, entirely without direct factual support." I don't know if you know this or not but when Charles Darwin wrote, "Origin of the Species, by Natural Selection," he knew when he wrote it that there was one glaring problem that he had, and it was the fossil evidence. He knew that in the world of paleontology, the fossil record was against him, but he believed that given enough time, there would come evidence to support his theory, that's what he believed. Well, the evidence hasn't come but the theory has certainly been developed.

When you came tonight, probably most of you came from that side; from the east/northeast entrance. And as you came through the courtyard and you noticed the fountain and the pool that we fill up and warm up for baptisms, and the glass entrance. You know that that was a building and a courtyard that was designed by an architect and then built by a builder. But what if I were to tell you, "Well, actually, what happened is -- and it took a long time, it wasn't just a few months, but over millions of years -- chemicals collided and there were explosions and just randomly, over time, it oozed out of the ground."

You'd say, "You need more rest Skip; maybe a long vacation. That's ridiculous." I'd say, "Why is it ridiculous?" You would say simply this, "Any design like this points to a designer. I bet there are architectural plans somewhere and an architect behind that design and a builder who carried them out." Now that would be wise. So to go from this building to the complexities of the human body and biological forms of all kind, that is much more complicated, and to say, "It just randomly happened over time," isn't as tenable as you've been led to believe. There are holes in that; it's just not wise. And we call this the teleological argument for the existence of God; we can see by design that there is a Designer.

Genesis 2:4: "This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens." If it's a clear night tonight, before you go to bed, walk outside, and just do this [looking upward], and do it for a while, and just look up and check it out. And think of all of those stars and even try to imagine how many there might be in your estimation and how far they are out there. (And it's beautiful to look at the stars on a clear night.) But what I want you to think of before you go to bed is this: if the art that is displayed in the skies is that beautiful, what must the artist be like? And really, that is the theme of the Bible, pointing us to the very artist Himself. He created and it's put together so perfectly, so balanced. Now listen how ridiculous this would sound, "It just so happens that the Earth and the Sun are 93 million miles apart and the surface temperature of the Sun is 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit; it's just a coincidence, it just so happened.

But if the Earth were as close as Venus, we'd all burn up; as far as Mars, we'd all freeze. It just so happens, that the Earth takes 365 times to revolve in it's journey around the Sun, in it's revolution, in a year. Why 365? Why not 30 times? Because the days would then be ten times longer, right? And the alternate episodes of cold and heat would kill us, we couldn't survive. Oh, but it just so happens that the Earth is tilted at 23 and a third degrees on its axis that just happens to give us a beautiful balance of four seasons. It just so happens that the atmosphere is a combination of 79 parts of nitrogen to 20 parts of oxygen with one percent of variant gases -- it's just a coincidence. Well, what if it was 50/50? Fifty percent nitrogen, 50 percent oxygen? The first guy in history to light a match [laughter] would see the biggest firework display and the last ever. It would all go up. And the more and more you go through it, you realize it didn't just so happen, it was just so designed. This isn't a result of spontaneous generation, but this makes sense: "God created the heavens and the earth." Listen to astronomer, Sir Frederick Hoyle, he said, "The probability of 'spontaneous generation' of a single bacterium, is the same probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein." That, from a scientific figure -- love it.

In the 8th verse of chapter 2: "The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The Tree of Life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Verse 15: "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. [Great job!] And the Lord God commanded, [verse 16] the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" Now keep that little phrase in mind 'you eat it, you die,' because by the time we get to chapter 5 which is the genealogical record of Adam and his family -- not the Adam's family -- the Adam family, from Adam through Seth, all the way to Noah, eight times you will read that phrase, 'and he died,' 'and he died,' 'and he died,' 'and he died,' God says the day that you eat it, you will surely die.

Verse 19: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature that was its name." Wouldn't you love to have that job? That's your job all day long; you get to hang out in nature and name animals. This is like a hippy's dream! [Laughter] Add a little granola -- you got it made! This is what people save and retire for! He got to name animals. Now I don't know the roots of all our present day animal names and how far they would go back, but it would seem, if they did, that he was very ambitious when he began this job of naming animals. Think of hippopotamus -- that's five syllables -- that's an ambitious naming, isn't it? Hip-po-pot-o- "What were you thinking of it when you named it that, Adam?" But the day wore on and it got shorter -- rhinoceros, that's four. Next day, he's tired -- elephant, three. Now as days wore on, this got so laborious, you know, he's just tired, it's like [Laughter] pig, dog, cat, you know monosyllabic terms but a good job.

Verse 18 of chapter 2: "And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper that is comparable to him.' And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, [or a part of his side] and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man." Did ya ever hear about that kid in Sunday School class, who was taught that story -- that woman came from Adam's rib, his side, and he told his mom that, and that afternoon he was lying in bed with a stomach ache? And his mom didn't quite get the correlation, but she went in and he was doubled over on the bed and she said, "Son what's wrong?" He said, "I think I'm gonna have a wife!" [Laughter] That's how kids would read this story.

"And Adam said," verse 23, "'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'" I know it doesn't sound so romantic, the first time you see a woman, "This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." But you know, the Living Bible makes it a little closer, at least to the emotion of the original. The Living Bible translates it, "Adam saw Eve and said, 'THIS is IT!'" He recognized, "This is the one God has brought to me for my completion. "And Adam said," verse 23, oh I already read that. This is verse 24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

Okay, now notice something -- everyday that God creates something, every episode of His creation -- ex nihilo; out of nothing, every time God makes something, He comments on it, and He says it's good. Chapter 1 verse 4, God said it's good. Chapter 1 verse 10, it is good. Verse 12, it is good. Verse 18, it is good; 21, it is good; 25, now look at verse 31. "God saw every thing that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." He says that all the way through chapter 1.

Now -- and you read it as well as I did - here's the first time in the entire creation story that God says something isn't good. He comes to man and looks at His creation and says, "It's not good." Not not the man [Laughter] but, but, please don't, don't quote that and stop there; "It is not good that man should be alone." God saw the first problem with His creation was isolation and no companionship. That's interesting! I know we've been told, "Dog is man's best friend," -- not according to the Bible; he had all these animals, including dog, and cat, and hippopotamus, but it wasn't enough to complete him and God saw that that problem of aloneness needed to be fixed. So God becomes the first Matchmaker. And truly this is a "match made in heaven," right?

I agree with somebody who said that Adam and Eve had the ideal marriage because he didn't have to hear about all the men she could have married. [Laughter] "I don't know why I married you, I could have married-" "Uhh, 'scuse me, there was no one else -- I was it!" And she didn't have to hear about the way his mother cooked. [Laughter] It was perfect. Well, we notice then, that marriage was designed by a Creator to solve the first problem that was in creation, which was aloneness, separateness. However, I've noticed something; I've watched people get married a long time now and though marriage ought to cure aloneness, sometimes it does not. In fact, I've even watched couples where marriage accentuates the loneliness because they will keep from intimacy on a number of levels and not get real and honest and vulnerable with each other, and though they're in the same bed in the same house, that loneliness isn't cured, it's worse; that was not God intention. Well, let's quickly move on from that, that's the formation of the heavens and the Earth.

Now chapters 3 and 5 is the fall of man. And without these chapters, we would not have a reasonable explanation for all of the heartache that is in the world. Notice verse 1: "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he [the serpent] said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" Now, obviously, this serpent is a different creature, right? In the description - as well as the fact that this creature can talk to humans and understand humans - unlike all the rest of the creatures, this serpent is none other than the super-being behind all of the heartache of the world -- Satan himself. Now the Hebrew word, nachash -- there's a lot of different roots that people try to take it back to, but some believe that a better translation would be, "shining one." And that Satan came as this "angel of light" so to speak, this "shining one" and spoke to this couple.

Now, man was given one command as a negative command so far. Only one negative command. Remember what it was? The tree. "You can eat everything you want, except only one tree you have to stay away from -- that's it." That's the only negative. There may have even been a sign on it -- "Caution, danger, stay away from this tree." But you know what it's like when you're told you can't do something? Okay, when you see a sign that says, "Wet Paint," what do you want to do? [Hand splat] you want to touch it. A sign that says, "Keep out," what do you wanna do? Go in! It's human nature to try to discredit, or go against, any kind of negative, or prohibition.

Well, Satan comes, the serpent, and starts questioning God, God's Word, and God's motives. And notice he doesn't come with little horns and a pitchfork and a tight little red suit, going, "Boo, I'm the Devil!" That's not effective, by the way. He likes to come as an angel of light. He's all about deception. He's all about the package, the oooo, the wow, the awe. "And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, [at least she had that right] but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 'So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise."

What does that sound like to you? It sounds a lot like First John chapter 2: "For all that is in the world; the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." Beautifully described here. That is exactly what is going on with the Serpent and this woman. She took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave to her husband with her and he ate. Now notice those words, in verse 6, together: saw, took, ate, gave. The woman did that. It says the man ate. [Laughter] It's just like a man, isn't it? Just grunt, [grunt, snort sound] eat. And yet do you know this, in the Bible you get all the way to the New Testament, you know who is saddled with the responsibility and gets blamed? Adam. You wanna know why? Every man is going, "I do wanna know why!" First Timothy chapter 2: "Adam was not deceived. But the woman being deceived fell into transgression." You see, Eve is listening and engaging in conversation, probably trying to be very helpful, "Well you're a nice little serpent, well what do you have to say? Well, I don't know if I agree with that or not..." Adam evidently knew full well what was going on here, he knew all what was happening, and yet he ate it.

And this day that we're reading about is 'THE' darkest day in the history of the human race. This is where all the problems began. This is where sin entered. In fact Romans chapter 5 outlines exactly what happened: "By one man sin entered and death by sin so that death spread to all and death reigned." Sin entered. Death entered. Death spread and death reigned from Adam to Moses. Now, when Adam took that fruit and sinned against God, this is what happened: a constitutional change occurred where he went from innocence to sinfulness. And he passed on that to the entire human race. We call it the Federal Head. Adam acted as the Federal Head representative of every human being, so that what he did was spread to everyone throughout all of history; he passed it on as the Federal Head.

And this is what it's like: when I was a boy, my dad took us four boys to the Grand Tetons. There was a beautiful lake -- Jackson Lake -- at the foot of it. Early in the morning it was a mirror; you could see the reflection of the mountains perfectly outlined in the lake. But you know, a perfectly glass lake is like an invitation for a kid to throw a stone at it. So we all picked up stones to skip across the lake. The very first stone -- it only took one, small one -- bounced on the lake and there was a rippling effect, but that beautiful picturesque mountain scene was distorted by one throw. In effect, Adam did this [throwing motion] one stone and it distorted the whole face of the entire human race. Which answers in short, "Why is the world the way it is? How did we get this bad? Whose fault is it, anyway? It must be the Liberal Media! It must be the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq! Maybe it's the Democrats or the Republicans!" No, keep going back further, all the way to this episode.

Now chapter 4 is the first home. Two kids are raised, Cain and Abel, they worship together, they both bring an offering. Verse 3: "And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell." In other words, he was bummed out; he looked sad. He brought an offering and God said, "I don't accept that," and he was bummed out, he was sad. And so we ask the question, "What was the difference?" And someone will say, "Well the difference is, is one guy brought a bunch of plants and the other guy sacrificed animals and God was pleased with the sacrifice of animals because of the shed blood." Perhaps. I think it's simpler than that. I mean, keep in mind this was a long time ago, they didn't have all the advanced theology on the atonement. In fact, it says in the book of Hebrews, here was the problem: "By faith, Abel offered a more perfect sacrifice." You see, he came with the right attitude; by faith. The indication is that Cain did not. In fact, as we go on, the Lord says, 'Why are you so bummed out? If you did well, you would be accepted.' In other words, when God looks at what we come and bring Him to worship, God never separates the worship from the worshiper. The attitude of the heart, the lifestyle of the worshiper; to Him they're one. So this guy brought something, but he probably brought it in rote; he had to do it; I'll bring this, this is good enough; his heart really wasn't in it; it wasn't by faith -- it was not accepted.

So, it goes on to say that Cain kills Abel. That's the second murder, not the first. The first murder is the fall of man in chapter 3. The Bible says Satan was a murderer from the beginning and he murdered the human race by plunging them into sin and passing on the worst disease ever -- worse than the HIV/AIDS virus. It's called the S-I-N virus and every human being is plagued with that from birth; that's the first murder. The second murder is Cain killing Abel. And also we read on and we find that Cain wasn't able to enjoy fellowship with God. He was branded and marked and cast out of the garden.

Which brings us to verse 25 which introduces a new son of Adam and Eve -- Seth, now the new son of promise. Chapter 5 is the line of Seth. It's the genealogy in chapter 5 of Adam all the way to Noah, through the lineage of Seth. Now let me just throw something in. When you get to a chapter like this that has a bunch of names in it, you automatically think, "I don't need to read this." It's boring first of all, unless your name was in it. But I want you to notice a few things. This is a book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man he made him in the likeness of God; he created them male and female and blessed them and called them mankind -- the Hebrew 'a-dam. Mankind; Adam. In the day they were created. Now, in God naming them, He is asserting His dominion over them just like He said, 'Adam, you will have dominion over everything; start naming the animals.' It was a sign of his dominion over them; God names a-dam -- mankind -- exercising His dominion to rule over His creation.

"Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image and named him Seth." Verse 5, "So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years." No thanks. "And he died." Go all the way down to verse 25 -- this is the oldest guy in the chapter -- Methuselah. You've heard of him. "He lived 187 years and begot Lamech. After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had sons and daughters." Boy he waited long enough. "So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died."

This brings up the question that's often disputed, "How was it that man was able to live so long in these ante-diluvium (pre-flood) days, but post diluvium, (after the flood), it goes down quickly and after several generations, it's sort of normal?" Scholars, in tackling this issue, Creationists, will point to the fact that before the flood there was a canopy over the earth, a water canopy, a vapor canopy that would keep out those harmful ultra-violet rays that would bring uniform temperatures and that would create a moderate and healthful condition. There would be no mass air movements; things would be very temperate. And a lot of studies have been done on this but we don't have time to get into them because it's a survey.

Methuselah -- the name -- is a profound name. The name Methuselah is a couple of Hebrew words put together that when you put them together could be translated, "When he is dead it shall be sent." When he is dead it shall be sent. Granted, it's a weird thing to call your kid. Enoch had the son. And Enoch called his son, "I'm gonna call him, 'When he's dead it shall be sent.'" Which we wonder why about. I'm gonna venture a guess. It could be - because it says that "Enoch walked with God," in this chapter -- that in that intimate fellowship God somehow revealed to Enoch that as soon as that son is dead God will send judgment on the earth. Which is interesting, because if I was given that revelation I'd be so nervous every time that kid got a cold, had to stay home from school, nicked his toe. Well, here's what's even more interesting; the exact year that he died -- and studies have been done on this -- was the exact year that the flood came upon the earth. "When he is dead it shall be sent." Noah was 600 years old when that judgment came.

Which brings us to chapters 6 through 9 which is the third division of chapters 1 through 11, the flood upon the earth. So we've got formation of the heavens and the earth, the fall of mankind, and now we have the flood on the earth. Chapter 6, verse 1: "Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them..." Now how many people could there have actually been -- what kind of multiplication could you even have back then with so few people? Well think about it. Long life spans, as mentioned here, would equal to a rapid increase in population. I commend to you the books by Dr. John Whitcomb and Henry Morris who did a book called "The Genesis Flood," and they computed this. They took the genealogical records of Genesis and the average lifespan and number of kids that are given here, and they figured at the end of 18 generations there could have been 774 million people on earth.

And according to conservative calculation, at the time of the flood there could have been a billion plus people on the earth. Did you get that figure? A billion. Now think about this: it took from that time (after the flood) to the year 1850 before we saw one billion people in modern times -- that's how recent we've seen a billion people -- 1850. Then from 1850 to 1930 -- 2 billion; 1930 to 62 -- 3 billion; 1975 -- 4 billion. Now there's about 6 and a half billion people on the earth; we're multiplying on the face of the earth. Truly back then there was a multiplication because of the longevity of man and the average lifespan and number of kids. Remember Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man," and one of the signs is this multiplication on the face of the earth.

Verse 5: "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.' But Noah found grace..." Aren't you glad that word but is there? God's really mad at people, but - ahh, whew, finally! Noah found favor -- grace -- in the eyes of the Lord, or as the Living Bible puts it, "Noah was a pleasure to the Lord." Now you'll notice that I skipped one of the hot potato issues of the book of Genesis, and that's that whole issue of the 'sons of God coming in and marrying the daughters of men,' and that whole controversy that produced the Nephilim -- the giants -- and that whole thing. And here's why I skipped it: that would take a whole week of studies first of all, but second, so we get the big picture here and that is that Satan so corrupted the world, that virtually every area of society was affected.

So verse 14: "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch." Verse 17: "Behold, I Myself am bringing flood waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark--you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female."

Look at chapter 7, verse 17: "Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters." Now folks, this is more than just a lot of rain. The Bible says that the foundations of the earth were broken up, water was released from subterranean cavities in the earth, this water canopy was broken up, it rained upon the earth, and all of that was a tremendous amount of water that produced this flood, this worldwide flood. "And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth," verse 19, "and all the high hills under the whole heavens were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps," there's these creeps again, "and every man, and in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died."

Now did you know that in the records of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Hindus, the Chinese - all of them - have cultural records kept where they believed in a universal, world-wide flood; not just here in the Bible. All these ancient cultures will bring testimony to a universal, world-wide flood and, an ark. Now according to the description here, the ark would have been- just try to picture it in your mind - 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet tall, displacing about 20,000 tons, or roughly the size of the Titanic. It is estimated that if you had three levels in the ark, where you could place creatures, you would have 1.5 million cubic feet of space, or the equivalent of 522 railroad cars - that you could trans - you know how they transport animals in those animal railroad cars? 522 of those would fit in the ark.

So that - since the animals came in pairs -- right? Unless they were clean, then how many? Seven. They were brought into the ark. It is estimated that the ark could safely carry 18 thousand species of mammals. Why is that interesting? 'Cuz the latest I checked, and I checked online today, there's around 15,000 plus or so species of mammals cataloged today. They could have safely carried 18 at that time. If there were 72,000 creatures aboard that would have taken only 60% of the space, the rest would be free, so it's a big boat. And the rains came and the waters were broken up and it lasted for 150 days, then the water subsided and God made a covenant with Noah and the ark settled atop a mountain called Ararat. Mount Ararat is encased in ice today. It's a very high mountain in the Himalayas. But all the way back to 140 some years BC, a Chaldean priest wrote that there were spottings of an ark, or a large boat on top of Mt. Ararat. Josephus, in 70 AD wrote that the ark -- and there was evidence of it, on Mt. Ararat. And recently, on television, a CBS special talked about climbers that have gone up and found evidence of a large structure somewhere up there on Mt. Ararat. Of course they don't want to say.

Now chapters 10 and 11 and we've got one minute! Okay, the flood is over. There's a new social order on the earth, a very interesting one. Capital punishment is ordained and human government is established in chapter 9, the end of it. There is also a new physical order. The thermal blanket around the Earth seems to be removed and man's life is dramatically shortened. What happens after the flood? A lot. According to chapter 10, which is called the Table of Nations, Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth have lots of kids and they're all mentioned in what's called the 'Table of Nations'. Japheth, verses 2 through 5, and his family. Ham, verses 6 through 20, 30 nations are mentioned. Shem, verses 21 through 31, I want you look at the 24th verse where we have Arphaxad begot Salah, Salah begot Eber. See the word Eber? It is thought that Hebrew, the term -- the name Hebrew -- is related to this word, name, Eber; they're Semitic, these are Shemites.
Okay, God says fill the Earth, or spread out, they do exactly the opposite, in chapter 11 they coalesce, they all come together, and they build this super state in rebellion against God. Verse 1 of chapter 11: "Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there." Verse 4, they said, "'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.' But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, 'Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."

Babel means 'gate of God,' or better translation, 'the gateway to God.' The gateway to God. They're not trying to climb a latter up into heaven; they're building a tower, a temple, toward the heavens. A seven level astrological temple; remains of such towers have been found, because they believed that the stars dictated how men's lives would be lived. It's called worshiping the Zodiac, its astrology. This is the beginning of the nascent stage of it. Babel, later will become Babylon. And if you think about it, I wanna close with this thought: you could think of the Bible as a contrast and a decision between two cities -- the City of Man and the City of God. A Tale of Two Cities. Babylon/Jerusalem. So it's fascinating when we get to the end of the book, in Revelation 18 we have Babylon the Great, the Mother of all harlots, as opposed to the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Which city do you live for? Which city do you belong to? In chapter 3 of Genesis, verse 15, a Redeemer is promised, One who will crush Satan's head and crush the rebellion.

So we've read about formation, fall of man, the flood, and the fallout from man's rebellion. And if you go home tonight and you say, "You know, if I ever see Adam personally, I may have to like, slap him upside the head. Or at least have some strong words for him." I'm saying don't blame Adam. He was given a choice: Tree of Life/Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You all have a choice, the Tree of Life, which is the Cross of Jesus Christ or any other choice, knowledge, wisdom, education, good life, or will you take the Tree of Life?

Let's pray. Father we thank you for these 11 chapters that we've flown over and gone through quickly. I pray that over the next year, as we get our pacing, each night, each installment, we would see how this Book all fits together and we would be committed, Lord, to studying Your Word and applying it to our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.