Midland, Michigan SDA Church Sermon

Opening Hymn	"Let All Things Now Living" SDA Hymnal #560
Children's Story	"The Mayflower Crossing" Presented by Mike Hamblin
Scripture Lesson	II Peter 3:1-14, Hebrews 11:7 (J. B. Phillips)
Hymn of Response	"We Have This Hope" No. 214
Service Music	"We Have This Hope" composed by Kenneth Logan to honor Wayne Hooper's 80th birthday.

INTRODUCTION: Our scripture lesson warns us that the last days will in many respects be just like the time before the flood. This morning I think it would be interesting for us to explore this period, the time in which Noah lived. Let us examine the 120 years of preparation, the flood itself and Noah's response to its end. While we do this let us observe the similarities and the differences between then and now. It will be important for us to apply personally these observations and to see that God is calling each of us to make commitments like the Pilgrims who rode the Mayflower. And further God is calling each of us to be a "Last-Day Noah!"

According to the chrono-genealogy recorded in Genesis 5, Noah was in the ninth generation of Adam's descendants. He was born 1056 years after Adam's creation, less than 120 years after Adam's death. He was of the line of Seth, the third son of Adam. Cain, Adam's first son you recall murdered his brother Abel in a confrontation over worship and sacrifice. Cain was cursed and became the father of a line of evil doers. Eventually intermarriage between the descendants of Seth and Cain resulted in nearly all mankind falling under the spell of evil. In the brief account presented in the Bible we find listed sins that include adultery (polygamy), murder, rejection of God's authority, and sadly, an unwillingness to take God at His word. Violence was everywhere. The practice of evil was a preoccupation to the point that God observed that "every one was in his heart studiously and continuously bent upon evil" (Septuagint on Gen. 6:5). {Ellen White notes of this generation "Every emotion, every impulse and imagination, was at war with the divine principles of purity and peace and love. It was an example of the awful depravity resulting from Satan's policy to remove from God's creatures the restraint of his holy law." PP 79:0}

{Actually, Noah was not the first to warn of a flood. Enoch, Noah's great-grandfather had been shown by God a sweeping view of the future, including God's judgment of the world by a flood. Enoch described these revelations to his sons and others. Were these messages largely forgotten after Enoch was translated at 365 years of age? This was still 70 years before Noah's birth.}

In Genesis 6:8 we read that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What does this mean? Grace ultimately comes from God. It is undeserved, unmerited favor. That Noah found grace in God's sight is in one sense not unique, for every son and daughter of Adam may find grace in the sight of the Lord. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Romans 5:8. What is unique about Noah is his response to God's grace. You see Noah was a righteous man. He walked with God. In walking with God, Noah became like God in character, he was just, he was honest, and his reputation was above reproach. Because Noah was responsive to God, God could make Noah a part of His plan.

WHAT WAS THE PLAN? WHAT WAS NOAH CALLED TO DO? Noah was 480 years old when God warned him of the coming flood. Speaking of those living in the sinful antediluvian generation God said, "Yet his days shall be 120 years" (Genesis 6:3). Some 20 years later Noah and his wife became parents to their three sons; Ham, Shem and

Japeth. For 120 years Noah committed himself without reserve to the work to which God had called him. And what was that work?

Noah was called to build and equip an ark according to the plans given him by God, and equally important, he was called to be a preacher of righteousness. His message was to be a call to repentance. Like Jonah, Noah was to not only warn of impending destruction but offer a solution. {Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 97:2} "Had the antediluvians believed the warning, and repented of their evil deeds, the Lord would have turned aside his wrath, as he afterward did from Nineveh." Beyond that, Noah begged the world to join him in the ark. But in the end it was Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their three sons' wives -- eight souls -- who entered the ark and were saved.

Anyone who uses numbers to measure preachers' success would probably declare Noah a failure. One-hundred-twenty years of effort and only his own family to show for all his labor! But if the other part of Noah's task is any indication, the fault for the failure of the people to respond did not lie with Noah's preaching. Building the ark was a massive undertaking. The Bible gives us a hint of the complexity of the task by listing the dimensions of the ark and the materials to be used in construction. In actuality the instructions given to Noah were no doubt explicit in every detail. Not only was Noah the engineer responsible for the ark's construction, he was also the nutritionist responsible for stocking the ark with food to meet the needs of the animals and humans who were to make the ark their home for more than a year. Noah was the botanist who would determine which seeds would be brought aboard the ark to replant crops and desirable plants after the flood. Noah was the business manager who hired the construction crew to help with the work. Noah wrote the contracts for specialty items. And where did the financial resources for this massive effort come from? {Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 95:1}

Noah's work constructing the ark, had a major impact on his preaching. The fact that he was dedicating his life, his wealth and his reputation to a project of this magnitude drew considerable attention. I can imagine that people made the construction site a prominent stop on their annual vacation itineraries. And without fail, if they stayed long enough, Noah would lay down his tools, and remind them that because of the sinfulness of humankind, God intended to destroy the earth with a flood. "Only those who `prepare . . . by repenting and reforming their lives, . . . [will] find pardon and save their lives, (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 92:2)'" Noah would urge.

EXCUSES: Even though Noah's work on the ark testified powerfully to his faith, the people were difficult to persuade. There were a variety of reasons for this:

1. First there were Scoffers -- you know the ones who make fun of anything serious so as to avoid sober personal reflection of the issue. As would be expected they never really listened to Noah's message.

2. Emotional Responders: Some of those most deeply involved in the sin and violence of that day believed initially, but when as the years passed the majority of their associates rejected Noah's message, their faith was tested, and they failed the test. Those who were emotionally moved by Noah's preaching were also swayed by the not-so-subtle pressure exerted on them by the scoffers. To base one's decision on emotions is to go with the crowd -- whichever crowd you happen to be in!

3. Sincerely Confused: A third group were similar to the nominal Christians we find in the world today. This group practiced a form of religion that included a confused worship of the God of heaven. They created beautiful representations of God form the precious metals, minerals and woods readily available to them. These they worshiped while claiming that they were not idols but "reminders" of the true God. But in doing this they broke the second commandment. From there it was but a small step to suggest that the rest of God's law was no longer in force. Because their representations of Deity were but human creations, they lost sight of the holiness of God's character, the sacred, unchanging nature of His law, His awesome majesty and His cosmic power. Their transgressions separated them from the voice of God. They could no longer discern the divine credentials stamped on Noah's message. They imagined that it was contrary to God's divine nature to punish sinners. God would never judge the earth and destroy it, they claimed. Their minds were blinded. They rejected the light of truth. They sincerely believed that Noah's message was a delusion. But when the flood came was sincerity sufficient?

4. Scientific Skeptics: This group used science as their basis for rejecting Noah's message. They reasoned that for centuries the earth had continued in a fixed cycle, season following season. Rivers stay within their banks. Water levels in lakes and seas have always been the same. It has never rained. Perhaps they did calculations to show that there was not enough water available to cause a flood. They reasoned that Nature was superior to God. They did not recognize God to be the creator of nature so they concluded that "natural law" superseded God. They went so far as to propose that Noah could not be right because if he were, certainly the great scientists and wise men of the day would have known of the impending catastrophe first.

Scoffers, Emotional Responders, the Sincerely Confused, the Scientific Skeptics: do these groups seem strangely familiar? Not unlike those living in our world today? Keep listening!

5. Practicing Unbelievers: As a final call to repentance, God performed a miracle beyond the explanation of all unbelievers. When Noah's preparations were complete and the time of probation was about to close, Noah was inspired to make one last, final appeal. With an agony of desire, he entreated the people to seek refuge while it could still be found. While this last solemn appeal was being made, with multitudes looking on, suddenly beasts of every description, from every environment, from the fiercest to the most gentle, seemingly without a guide -- came two by two in a calm orderly procession to enter the ark. Clean, domestic animals come in groups of seven. Then a sound like the rushing of wind was heard as birds flew from all directions, their numbers darkening the sky, and in perfect order they, too, entered the ark. It was beyond explanation. It was supernatural, a miracle. The watching world wondered, some even feared. Philosophers, called to explain the phenomena, were speechless.

But it was too late. The message of mercy had been rejected too often before and now the final, miraculous demonstration of God's loving concern for the creatures of His creation made so little impression that not one person's mind was changed! They had practiced not believing so long that their response now was automatic.

Time for accepting God's call had run out. Noah and his family entered the ark and the door was closed by an angel of dazzling brightness. Once closed the huge door could be not be opened by Noah and those within the ark or by any human on the outside.

Where were those whom Noah had employed building the ark? What about Noah's brothers and sisters? Didn't he have cousins? Some, it is true, like Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, died just before the flood. Lamach, Noah's father, had been laid to his rest 5 years earlier. But what of the others. Had the peer pressure been too great? Why hadn't any of these been willing to enter the ark, just in case there really was a flood?

A lesson to be learned is that action springs from faith. Without participating in revival and reformation, that generation lacked the spiritual insight to recognize God's voice in the words of Noah. Without insight, without faith, there was no possibility that any would enter the ark even to take out a life insurance policy. Noah was saved because he acted on his faith. As expressed in Hebrews 11:7, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

As with the Pilgrims who set out aboard the Mayflower for a New World, Noah left his world behind. In both cases those who made the journey did so for big reasons. There could be no looking back. What had been before was to be no more.

AND SO THE FLOOD CAME! "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. . ." Genesis 7:11-12.

To get just a tiny grasp of what a cataclysmic event this was let us take an imaginary journey to Southwestern United States. Some of you have no doubt visited the Grand Canyon. You have viewed the displays attributing the formations exposed there to hundreds of millions of years of gradual deposition and change. But today let us visit this area from the perspective of one who believes the Genesis account and desires to confirm his faith that there really was a global flood which in one short, earth-changing event destroyed all "flesh that moved on the face of the earth and every fowl and cattle and beast and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man."

THE GRAND CANYON is huge! Those of us who have seen it in person know that no picture can do it justice. The distances are vast. More than a mile deep, 5 to as much as 20 miles wide, over 950 cubic miles of material removed in its formation. As huge as the canyon is, the Colorado river that runs at its base is small as rivers go.

As huge and awesome as the Grand Canyon appears, it is actually small by comparison to the larger canyon in which it is found. This canyon is also a mile deep, but measures 125 miles in width. The best analogy for this is the river valleys which we find here in the Saginaw Valley. Our rivers typically flow in stream beds which are a few feet deep. Occasionally our rivers flood and the water spreads out across what we call "the flood plain." Now the flood plain is itself a well-defined valley with walls which rise up to the level of the surrounding flat, featureless plain.

It is as if at some point a flood much larger than any experienced in historic times surged across the plain cutting a prehistoric stream bed perhaps 100 times the size of the present one. It is this much larger stream bed which we term the "flood plain." While erosion and shifting of the stream bed is occurring at the present time, erosion of the much larger flood plain by water action is at a standstill.

In the case of the Grand Canyon the much larger canyon of which it forms the central "stream bed" is some 125 miles wide. The significance of the larger valley begins to sink in when we realize that the sediments removed to form this larger valley are nearly as thick as those in the Grand Canyon itself. Thus the difference in elevation between the present Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the top of the larger canyon is over 10,000 feet.

The walls of the larger canyon do not appear to have developed over long geologic times because they are free of talus, (debris collecting at the bottom of cliffs due to ongoing erosion). Rather it appears that this huge valley was formed quickly as a result of a gigantic rush of water which carved the upper canyon or "flood plain" and scrubbed the outer walls clean.

Both the upper canyon and the Grand Canyon itself are composed of sedimentary rock of various types. These layers vary in thickness from a few feet to nearly a thousand feet. Upon viewing the Grand Canyon one is impressed by the uniformity of the layers and the vast area (spanning hundreds of miles in many cases) over which the layers remain almost perfectly parallel and constant in thickness. The material contained in each layer is relatively uniform but differing in composition from one layer to the next. Some layers are sandstone, a rock obtained when sand is placed under very high pressure. Some are shale a rock formed when clay is compressed. Some are limestone -- calcium carbonate -- a material which precipitates from water solution to form rock under the proper chemical conditions. The layers have characteristic colors. Some have exclusively fine grain size. Others are comprised of course mixtures of aggregate ranging from sand grains to rock pebbles 2" in diameter and larger.

By careful observation one can see evidence that the upper sedimentary layers were in place before the lower layers were completely converted to rock. When water is removed from clay on its way to becoming shale, it shrinks a great deal even when the process occurs underwater. The result is huge vertical cracks in the clay. In some of the shale deposits of the Grand Canyon cracks can be seen extending down from the top of the layer, some cracks are over twenty feet deep. Significantly the cracks appear to have been filled with the same sand which formed the overlaying sandstone. This could only have occurred if the sand and clay were laid down in quick succession, not millions of years later as geologists suggest. Interestingly this has occurred at points in the geologic column where, based on the fossils found in the respective layers, evolutionists propose that millions of years worth of sediments are missing.

Recent research done by a team from the Seventh-day Adventist Geoscience Research Institute has uncovered strong evidence that at least one of the major sedimentary layers in the Grand Canyon sequence (Tapeats Sandstone) was formed under deep water rather than the shallow lake and pond environment hypothesized by the evolutionary model.

We could become much more specific in developing evidence based on the rocks themselves--that the beautiful layered rock structure observed in the Grand Canyon is the result of a rapid, cataclysmic event specifically, the global flood described in Genesis. But let us move on and consider now evidence based on the fossils contained in these layers.

THE FOSSIL RECORD: Since our journey is purely imaginary let us start at the bottom of the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon and climb the wall, something prohibited in actual life. Thus we find ourselves cooling our feet in the somewhat silty water of the Colorado River. The Canyon seems to envelop us. As our climb begins we first pass more than 1000 vertical feet of Precambrian rock. There are few if any fossils in this layer. Presumably it was rock which existed before the flood and formed the "ground" on which plants animals and man lived in antediluvian times. Our climb has brought us to the top of the inner gorge and we still have seen no fossils. But that all changes as we enter layers associated with the Cambrian Period These layers include the Tapeats sandstone, Bright Angel Shale and the Mauv limestone. Altogether these layers span another 1000 vertical feet! The fossils in these layers are abundant and varied, hardly the progress from simple to complex expected from the evolutionary model. All of the fossils have in common that they lived in a underwater habitat. They include trilobites, brachiopods (a bivalve shellfish) and various segmented worms. Over 1500 species are represented in the Cambrian layers of which 60% are trilobites & 30% are brachiopods.

Moving higher in the canyon we find come next to a thin Devonian deposit of less than 50 feet thickness. Significantly the fossils from two major geologic ages are missing between the Cambrian and Devonian layers here in the Canyon. This great "unconformity" in the evolutionary model represents 100 million years of evolutionary development, yet the interface between these layers shows no evidence of erosion or vertical disturbance. In the Devonian one commonly finds fish fossils. Now normally when fish die they float to the surface and are destroyed by scavengers. The fish in these fossils beds however show abundant evidence of death by sudden entrapment in sediments being deposited so rapidly that entire schools of fish are killed simultaneously. The suddenness of this event is illustrated graphically by the occasional fish killed while in the process of swallowing whole a smaller fish. As the great fountains of the deep were broken up no doubt tremendous amounts of soil sediments became suspended in the ejected waters. When the horizontal velocity of the waters dropped below a certain point these particles dropped to the bottom trapping any fish present in the waters.

Moving higher in the Canyon we pass 500 feet of "Redwall" limestone associated with Mississippian fossils. Elsewhere (in the Eastern USA) we encounter tremendous Mississippian coal beds, what is left today of huge deposits of terrestrial plant materials. But here we find no coal and only a few fossils of small amphibians.

The last 2000 feet of our climb out of the canyon takes us through four prominent layers, the Supai, the Hermit shale, the Coconino sandstone and the Kaibab limestone, all part of the Permian. One of these layers, the 350 foot thick Coconino sandstone contains tracks of innumerable small reptiles and amphibians all seemingly heading uphill as if fleeing an advancing flood of water. The tracks appear to have been made in mud not loose sand, and must have been buried almost immediately in order for preservation to be so perfect.

Surprisingly, fossils of the creatures which made the tracks are nowhere to be found in this layer, nor are plant forms required as part of the habitat and food chain necessary for these creatures to exist. The occurrence of incomplete ecosystems in the fossil record we are told is not uncommon. Some coal deposits contain well preserved plant fossils. They may also include footprints of dinosaurs and other large creatures but seemingly never the fossil remains of the dinosaurs and other larger members of the animal kingdom. The dinosaur beds in Utah contain none of the plant materials the herbivorous dinosaurs would need for survival. These fossil records fit well with a global flood model where animals fled their normal habitats to escape the rising flood waters and were buried following death on the basis of the body shape, mass and buoyancy, while the habitat from which they came was destroyed and buried catastrophically in a separate process.

Returning to the Coconino sandstone which we were discussing, here on top of some 2500 feet of fossil bearing flood deposits we see evidence that small creatures, typical of a low-lying terrestrial habitats, are still alive but may now be fleeing the rising flood waters. Lower layers have represented primarily aquatic habitats you will recall. Might this level, above 2500 feet of flood deposit, reflect the conditions on earth when the flood had progressed for only a few hours or at most days? Very conceivably so.

Finally we reach the rim of the Canyon. Here at what Paleontologists refer to as the Permian Triassic boundary a sudden dramatic change in the fossils occurs. It is referred to as the K/T mass extinction. Ninety-six percent of the species represented in the geologic column below this point are not found again in higher layers. Based on a flood model we would conclude that species which were saved on the ark or managed to survive the flood and regain a niche in the post flood ecosystems were very few in number, perhaps even less than the four percent suggested here. While numerous suggestions have been proposed to account for this and other mass extinctions in an evolutionary model, the cause remains largely unresolved.

While our climb out of the Grand Canyon has left us awestruck and breathless, we must realize that we have seen only certain parts of the lower half of the geologic column. In the walls of the much larger "flood plain" canyon described previously we encounter layers containing small and large dinosaurs, flying reptiles, insects, new families of plants, and at the very top, fossil mammals, and terrestrial creatures related to those which now exist.

The record of the fossils is a record of death, sudden death, universal death for all creatures large and small, whether aquatic or terrestrial.

The Genesis flood account tells us, "The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man (Genesis 7:19, 21).

A young creationist training to be a geologist tells of going on the first field trip in her college curriculum. She climbed alone to the top of a small formation her class had come to study. Resting on a rock at the top she reached down and picked up a handful of soil. But when she looked at it she recognized it to be not soil, but the calciferous shells of small, dead sea creatures. Geology is the study catastrophe. Paleontology is the study of death and extinction. Evolutionists would have us believe that death is useful -- that natural selection, survival of the fittest, is the route to a better world. The young geologist burst into inconsolable tears. She had to conceal her tears from her professor and classmates throughout the rest of the day. She was overwhelmed with the thought that the whole world is filled with a record of death for innocent creatures small and large. It is like Paul says in Romans 8:22, "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

As frightening as the Pilgrims crossing of the Atlantic must have been, Noah's voyage in the ark was many times more fearful. The time was longer (one year and ten days), the storms were more fierce, the route less charted. Had not God dispatched mighty angels to guide and protect the ark, all aboard would have perished. In fact who did sail the ark? The Bible makes no mention of a rudder, of sails, of navigation equipment. Yes, Noah was totally dependent upon God to pilot that mighty ship with its precious cargo.

Finally the storms abated. What wonderful words we find in Genesis 8:1, "God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark! Actually God had never for a moment forgotten him. And then the account tells us that the God who caused the flood to come, caused it to go away. The fountains of the deep were plugged, the rain was restrained, God caused a great wind to blow to dry up the waters and cover the dead bodies strewn over the earth.

Finally the day came for Noah to leave the ark. Do you remember his first act on emerging from the ark? Genesis 8:20 tells us that Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings from every clean beast and fowl. Noah had a Thanksgiving worship service! In that barren, inhospitable, ruined new world Noah's first act was to bow and worship the God in whom he had placed his complete trust.

God rewarded Noah's act of worship by making promises to him, to his heirs, to all living creatures, and indirectly to us as well.

1) God's first promise was, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease (Genesis 8:22). The first promise is still in effect. To me it is an assurance that until Christ's return we can be assured that there will be no nuclear winter. And likewise that global warming will not totally disrupt our ability to grow food.

2) Secondly God promised "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered (Genesis 9:2)."

Here God offered Noah and his tiny band assurance that wild animals would not sneak into their camp some night and destroy them to satisfy their hunger.

3) God's third promise was, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth (Genesis 15,16).

How wonderful is our God! How precious are His promises. How much more Noah received as a result of his worship than he gave! One of the greatest blessings our relationship with God brings is a continuing hope.

The echoes of that first Thanksgiving ring yet today. God's promises are still in force. He still protects and provides for those who honor Him with their worship, their trust, their faith and their actions. And in doing so the entire world benefits.

WHAT IS THE ENDTIME SITUATION? As a result of Noah's faithfulness his family was saved along with a relatively few life forms with which the world has been repopulated. Noah's warnings to human kind were rejected.

Peter warns that a similar scenario will play itself out at the second destruction of the world, this time with fire. Yes we still have the Scoffers, Emotional Responders, the Sincerely Confused, the Scientific Skeptics, and the Practicing Unbelievers.

And where do we stand in this regard as a church, as individuals? How many around us are truly preparing for Jesus return?

In the world around us, how many of those who claim to be Christians and to believe the Bible, understand that before the Second Coming occurs, the great door of salvation will silently, close forever?

You are probably aware that a series of 12 books on the rapture by Tim LaHaye are in the process of being published. Number one "Left Behind" went to the top of the best seller list as soon as it was published in 1998. A Hollywood movie based on the series will be released next February. A key teaching of the rapture theory is that those not taken in the rapture will be left on an earth largely unaffected by the event with another chance to get right with God. Only after the rapture will the time of trouble break loose.

Others suggest that Christ's coming is a spiritual event, that Jesus will come into the hearts of mankind and will change the lives of those willing to respond.

Many assume that Christ will reign on earth for the 1000 years which is soon due to begin.

In many ways those living today are just like those living before the flood who found reasons to believe whatever they chose to believe about Noah and his message.

The texts upon which the rapture theory is constructed are Matt. 24:40-42 and Luke 17:34-36. In both Matthew and Luke just before these texts which speak of one being taken and the other left, Jesus makes reference to Noah and his family being saved while the rest of the world, those left behind, are destroyed. Luke records the saving of Lot from Sodom as a second example of the "coming of the Son of Man." Here again, only Lot and those who left Sodom with him were saved, except for Lot's wife who died when she looked back. Clearly Jesus intended to teach that only one class survives the Second Coming -- namely, the righteous who are translated and "rise to meet Jesus in the air" (1 Thes. 4:17) and go with Him to the Heavenly New Jerusalem where Jesus has gone "to prepare places for us." (John 14:1-3)

Today many Christians even question the creation and flood story. Theistic evolution is proposed as a compromise to make the Bible fit the "record of science." But in order for this to be valid the fossils and the geologic column had to have been formed over long periods of time before man came into existence. According to this hypothesis, death had to have been planned by God as a part of "natural selection" and not come about as a result of man's sin. What a difference it makes if one attributes the geological column to long millennia of slow development instead of to a universal flood! Without a flood to account for the fossils, a six day creation is meaningless. If death existed before sin, how can Christ' death atone for sin? If there was no "fall" why should we expect any more than evolutionary progress towards a state of deathless, sinless perfection?

A SPECIAL ENDTIME MESSAGE IN REVELATION: Open your Bible with me to two texts, first Exodus 20:11 and secondly Revelation 14:6-7. In the book of Revelation it is very uncommon to find a direct quotation from another book of the Bible. Ideas are used, allusions are made with word pictures but direct quotations are almost non-existent. But here in Revelation 14:6-7, in what we term the 1st Angel's message we find a very significant quotation from the 4th commandment as recorded in Exodus 20.

Now according to Revelation 1:1-3 the book of Revelation is THE REVELATION of Jesus, received from God the Father and transmitted to John, the servant of Jesus by the angel Gabriel. By comparison, Exodus 20 is a record of the words written in the tables of stone on Mt. Sinai by God's own finger. Thus in Revelation 14:7 we find God quoting what He himself had previously written in stone. Could God give us a more profound message than this? Every word of this passage deserves our most thoughtful scrutiny.

Revelation's first angel's message begins with John proclaiming that he saw an angel, a messenger fly in the midst of heaven, he speaks with a loud voice and his message is the everlasting gospel which is to be preached to the entire world. Then John quotes the angel as he proclaims with a loud voice this everlasting good news (gospel message), "Fear God, give glory to Him, worship Him which made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of the waters for the hour of His judgment is come."

Notice the source of these words in Exodus 20:8-11, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, Six days shalt though labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it though shalt not do any work . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."

Clearly Jesus is quoting from Exodus here in Revelation 14. The context of the quotation is worship and the 4th commandment defines how God's followers are to worship Him by keeping the Sabbath day holy. And why are we to keep the Sabbath holy? Because God made/created the earth in six days and commemorated his creation by establishing the Sabbath, the 7th day, as a memorial of creation. But even more importantly Revelation 14:7 states that worship -- proper worship -- is imperative because the hour of God's judgment has come [and after the judgment, probation will close]. So we have a clear allusion here to God being our creator, judge, and the one who gave us the 7th Day Sabbath as his memorial of the work of creation.

But we must notice the end of the quotation. In Exodus the phrase concludes "and all that in them is." In other words God created everything in the heavens, on the earth and in the seas. All the rocks, fish, birds, beasts, plants -- everything. Now notice how Revelation 14:7 ends the quotation "the sea and the fountains of the waters. Clearly if God created everything, that included the fountains of the waters. So why did Jesus instruct the angel to say "the fountains of the waters" instead of "all that in them is?" Why are the fountains of the waters singled out from all of God's creation for special mention at this point?

Remember the cause of the flood? Genesis 7:11 tells us that two events marked the beginning of the flood, "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven opened." Only when these two sources of water were stopped did the flood begin to recede (Genesis 8:2).

Here in the Three Angels Message we have not only a reference to the God who created earth and heaven, the sea and everything in them in 6 days, but also to the God who judged the earth with a global flood by opening the fountains of the great deep, a resource which He had also created. How important that we take seriously the implicit warning that the God who judged the earth once with water will judge the earth a second time -- this time with fire. But as with the flood there is no need for anyone to perish. A way to safety has been provided by the grace of God. There is hope!

You and I are called to be Last-Day Noahs. Our message is a message of hope, hope in the soon Coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, in glory, in a physical event which, like the flood, will mark the end of life as we know it on earth and forever change the face of our earth. Our message may not be popular but it is important. Our message must be synonymous with God's message as found in His Holy Word. There can be no compromise, there can be no wavering, there can be no uncertainty. Even if it means rejecting philosophies advanced by the greatest theologians and turning our backs to the hypotheses of the world's greatest scientists. Noah was great because he had faith in God and what God said. Noah was willing to act on his faith, commit his lifetime savings to building a boat where there was no sea and no rain to form a sea let alone cause a flood. Noah became a preacher with a message rejected by the masses. But Noah was faithful in doing all that God told him to do. Through his faith, Noah obtained the righteousness which leads to salvation.

Ellen G. White, "Patriarchs and Prophets," Pacific Press Publishing Association, Boise, Idaho; c. 1913, 1980, pp 80-124.

John Templeton Baldwin, Editor, "Creation, Catastrophe, and Calvary," Review and Herald Publishing Association, Hagerstown Maryland 21740; c. 2000.

Harold G. Coffin, "Creation - Accident or Design," Review and Herald Publishing Association, Hagerstown Maryland 21740; c. 1969, pp 75-250.

"From Eden to Eden -- Exploring the Saga of Salvation History"

Part III: Noah's Mayflower & the Very First Thanksgiving