The Meaning Of Life

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; 2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; 3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

For those of you that like scientific proof of things, there have been fossils of fern plants found in the arctic circle. If our earth once wasn’t perfect, with a perfect climate, lush and green world wide, how do you explain fossils of green plants founds on one of the coldest regions of the earth?

And along with those notes, fossils of ancient animals have been found in animal graves along shorelines, as if they had washed up on shore. And in the middle of South America, researchers have found remains of a whale, and they can’t figure out how it got there since there are no seas or waterways nearby it could navigate.

If you stop and think about it, a Great Flood is the most logical answer; the what was there when the waters subsided and it became trapped. Just like the fish I’ve seen on land near a local creek after it comes out of its banks during a heavy rain and floods; when it recessed back within its confines, some of the fish inevitably get trapped in mudholes and puddles.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Bible is written according to the Hebrew calendar, in which the new year falls sometime between March and April of our modern day calendar.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: 7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. 10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; 11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. 12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

We’ve all seen the typical caveman, one of the assumed links in the theory of evolution. They are not portrayed to be very small at all, half beast, half man, with no intellect. In fact, one insurance company had commercials that said, “So easy, a caveman can do it!”

Let’s think about that for a minute. If that were true, would a caveman have the intellect to send a bird out to see if there was dry land anywhere? No. Human beings had to be a Divine creation by a Super-intelligent Creator who gave them the knowledge to logically thing of a method to determine if the waters were receding or not.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. 15 And God spake unto Noah, saying, 16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. 17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. 18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

And just like in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, God gave the command to man and animal alike, to “be fruitful and multiply”, starting over. And God was sorrowful about the flood, which shows God is loving, and caring, and not a dictator like some believe.

As I’ve said, the primary purpose of this blog is for my own personal Bible Study and a new and different way to approach the Bible. That said, as I read Genesis 8, something new just popped into my head. God said, “I will not again curse the ground”, and “neither will I will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.”

I don’t mean to jump ahead, but I do not believe in hell. The Bible says the punishment for sin is death, not “the punishment for sin is everlasting torture in a burning pit of fire”, and as I debated, God would have to miraculously keep you alive to be tortured because your body cannot withstand fire, and any God that would torture you is not a loving God, not like my God. So I’ve come to the belief that the wicked die because they are not able to withstand the Glory of God. And I’ll discuss this deeper in the coming days, but as I read this chapter once again, I had another thought.

What if God doesn’t destroy the earth by fire, but what if it is actually Satan that does that? What if Satan is so angry that he is unable to draw everyone away from God, the he destroys the earth? Something new for me to contemplate. And as always when I read God’s Word, I pray and ask Him to send His Spirit to me, and to give me wisdom and understanding, because I’m not a smart man at all, and to be my teacher, just as Jesus was our teacher during the time He walked the earth as a human.