What a difference a year can make! Part 3

by Clint Bishard

Jesus Created Ministries

Last time, we covered the details given about most of the events of the Flood in this incredible year of the life of Noah.  Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons wives, as well as all of the animals at this point have been on the ark for 285 days and the ark has been resting on the mountains of Ararat for 128 of those days.  Noah has just finished sending out the raven and the dove 3 times with the dove not returning the third time.

Noah waits another 36 days after the dove does not come back to remove the covering of the ark and clearly observe that “the surface of the ground was dry” Gen 8:13).  Noah was now 601 years old and it was “the first month, the first day of the month” of a new year for Noah (Gen 8:13).  They had been in the ark for a total of 321 days and the ark had been resting on the mountains of Ararat for 164 days. Yet, God was still not ready for them to come out of the ark.  For it was another 56 days “in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month” before the Lord said to Noah, “Go out of the ark” and bring your family and all of the animals with you to repopulate the earth (Gen 8:14-19).  In all, they had been on the ark for a total of 377 days and resting on the mountains of Ararat 220 days waiting for the earth to be ready for habitation again.  Note: a detailed illustration of the entire timeframe is available on our website.

Wow, what a difference a year can make!  Actually, one year and seventeen days to be exact.  I can see why these details were so clearly impressed upon Noah and recorded for us to contemplate the extent of God’s judgment.  There is no doubt here regarding the global nature of the Flood.  Also, it is interesting to think that only recently has man been so involved in studying the multitudes of earth’s strata.  Too bad most are blind to the picture of judgment that the earths geologic column contains.  For the Flood dramatically changed the face of the earth.  Burying tons of plants and animals and creating the strata, separating the continents, creating the fossil fuels, and fossil record that we see today.

Contemplating these events as well as the decades Noah and his family spent building the ark, one can clearly see why Noah has such a prominent place in the record book of faith as noted in the New Testament – “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Heb 11:7).  What we need to do now is clearly teach and proclaim these truths of the duration and description of the Flood as described above.  The true story of earth history as found in the Bible is what we need to use to counter the naturalism that is dominating our culture and undermining the authority of the Word of God to those around us.

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