Sermon - The 7000 Year Theory Part 2: Days of Noah

Sermon on

The 7000 Year Theory Series:

Part 2: Days of Noah

By C. B. Pepper

This is the second of a series of 5 sermons which examine the 7000 Year Theory. In sermon Part 1 we looked at the introduction of sin into this world and God revealing His Plan of Redemption. In this second part we will move on to see God's active involvement in the history of the world. From the days of Noah and the antediluvian world we will see parallels to our world today.

God's Appointed Timetables are Implemented

God did not create the Earth then walk away from it when man sinned. In fact when Adam and Eve sinned, God revealed His redemptive plan to them and the sacrificial system was initiated as a pointer to Jesus' ultimate sacrifice.

Many prophecies have been made in the Bible, particularly in the Books of Ezekiel and Daniel, which show that God is in control over the nations and affairs of men down through thousands of years of human history.

Tower of Babel

The Bible records that God intervenes in human events to ensure that His appointed timetables are implemented. One striking example is after the Deluge at the tower of Babel. Essentially, the whole earth had one language, and all the world’s population had migrated to the same location. The whole world then joined together to build a great city, and had aspirations of building a tower that reached the heavens. Not much detail is given in regards to what exactly their great sin was, but the Lord came down and confused their language, so that they no longer understood each other, thus the people of the city of Babel were dispersed throughout the earth.

What is noteworthy about this event was God saying in Genesis 11:6, "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."¹²

What is interesting from this text is that God appears to have intervened and dispersed the people not primarily because of their sinfulness, but rather because of their technology capability and globalisation which threatened to interfere with His redemptive plan for Earth.

Advanced Civilisation before the Flood

Evolutionists would have us believe that the further we go back in history the more primitive man was. However we know from the Bible that that was not the case. The civilization before the flood was advanced.

Genesis 4:16-17 says, "Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD [after his evil deed] and dwelt in the land of Nod [which means "wandering"] to the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch."

Adam was the first generation; Cain was second generation; and Enoch was the third generation. By the time we get to Enoch, Cain was already building a city. He was not building a village, town, enclave, or compound, but he built a city in the time of the third generation. What does that say about their abilities?

The Bible also tells us about the achievements of others in the antediluvian world. Jabal was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. He industrialized agriculture, and that included breeding animals and selling them commercially. His brother Jubal was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. In Genesis 4:22 Tubal-Cain is mentioned as "an instructor of every artificer in brass an iron". An artificer is an inventor or craftsman. Is that not interesting? This means that not only was Tubal-Cain able to work in bronze and iron (the Iron Age did not reappear until the time of David, 1000 BC), he was working at his own forge and teaching other craftsman in the art of metalworking. Thus, you are getting into the manufacture of tools. If you already have iron, it is not long before you create steel. Of course, when talking about iron ore and bronze—which must include copper—you are talking about mining the ore. How do you get the fire to be hot enough to be able to melt them and work with them? We are talking about advanced scientific knowledge that it takes to be able to do these things.

What we have here is the kernel of civilization: agriculture, husbandry and all the assorted related fields, the arts, heavy industrial sorts of metalworking. Do not forget, either, that the Jews tell us that there was a calendar that was available within 250 or 300 years of creation. That means that there were people who were dedicated to watching the sky and the astronomical bodies go round and their cycles, which they calculated, which means they had higher math skills. There is no doubt that they all could read and write, because these things had to be written down and recorded to be made available to wider audience.¹³

Why God Intervened at the Tower of Babel

So we see that God intervened at the tower of Babel when mankind was rapidly rebuilding the pre-Flood society and its technologies. God intervened powerfully in human affairs to stop mankind's progress in order to keep His divine timetable in effect. Genesis 11:1-9 records that God altered the language of all mankind in order to stop man from rebuilding the pre-Flood technologies and culture. By confusing everyone's language, God made it impossible for humanity to either pool its knowledge or read any pre-Flood manuscripts. This caused the work to be stopped and the people dispersed throughout the world as God intended.¹⁴

There are parallels in the world today with the time of Babel. The last 100 years has seen us develop into a high tech civilisation. We have also been going down the globalisation path. Recent globalization started on a large scale with worldwide mail and the telephone, where we could almost instantly communicate with others all the way across the globe. Next it was air-travel, opening up global travel in a way like never before. Now, with the internet, email and 24hr news stations, we are experiencing a globalization at a growth rate unprecedented in all of human history (except, maybe, in the case of Babel). The governments and economies of the world are becoming increasingly integrated and the Book of Revelation predicts that this trend will continue. We are becoming, quite frankly, a modern-day, worldwide, Tower of Babel.¹⁵

As in the Days of Noah

In Matthew 24:37-39 Jesus gave us insight into what the world would be like at the time of the Second Coming. He said, "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

What Jesus is saying in these texts doesn't appear to be very remarkable. However we need to look at other texts to get a better insight. Genesis 6:5 says, "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". Genesis 6:12 says, "All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth". Genesis 6:13 says, "...the earth is filled with violence." Genesis 6:6 says, "It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth."

Well how did the Earth get into such a predicament? Genesis 6:1-2 provides some background. It says, "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

Sons of God and Daughters of Men

There has been some difference of opinion as to what this marriage between "the sons of God" and "the daughters of men" represents.

Some people have taken the rather remarkable view that they were angels and that at that time they were angels who fell in love with beautiful ladies and married them. There is a fatal objection to that interpretation and that is that angels have no bodies and that they are not in a position to marry anyone. Mathew 22:29,30 says, "Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken [margin: deceived], not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven." Jesus tells us plainly that angelic beings neither marry nor are given in marriage. All the angels, including the demons as revealed in scripture, are described as if they were male. As far as I know, there are none shown to be female. Jesus' word suggests that beyond their appearance of having gender, they are not sexual beings and thus have no need for marriage. Humans were created as male or female in order to reproduce, and thus we have the need for the institution of marriage. That is what God has given us in order to reproduce and have a family and learn great things. Since angels do not reproduce and cannot reproduce, they are essentially sexless.

However getting back to Genesis 6:1,2 many reliable Bible teachers believe, that "the sons of God' were the descendants of faithful Seth and "the daughters of men" were from the wicked seed of the murderer Cain. For some hundreds of years they kept apart and intermarried only with themselves but nearer to the flood, they began to intermarry. There was loss of conviction on the part of the godly families and the effect of it was that the whole church, if I can call it that, was entirely at risk. The danger was there would be no godly men or women left in the next generation. That is why God had to intervene. There would have been nothing left - no religion at all; not a single godly man or woman would have been left - so God intervened. In fact only Noah and his family were saved in the Ark despite Noah having preached to the then world for 120 years.¹⁶

Are there Parallels in our World Today?

We can possibly conclude from Jesus' statement about the "days of Noah" that the latter days will mirror the days of Noah. We know that the days of Noah were characterised by moral wickedness, violence, high technology and globalisation.

These same conditions exist today. We are living in violent times. Crime and arrests are continuing to increase. Law enforcement officers are concerned because more and more young people under the age of sixteen are becoming involved in serious offences. But this should not surprise us. Many of these young people have been conditioned from birth to violence—to commit it, to acquiesce in it, and to consider it normal.

Our entire nation is being geared to produce a generation like unto that of the days of Noah. The carefree use of sex and violence on TV, internet, in comics, DVDs, videos and video games, in movies, and in books is producing - and will continue to produce - a harvest of horror, of immoral sex and sexual deviancy, brutality and crimes of every nature. Censorship laws have been so relaxed that almost anything goes.

Our Lord also said that in the days before the flood the people were "eating and drinking" (Matt. 24:38). The mention of eating has real significance for our generation. We are a nation of heavy eaters. Go into any city and just take note of the number of eating places. Medical statistics prove that we eat too much. For the most part, people are more interested in the physical and material spheres of life than they are in the spiritual.

The marrying and giving in marriage refers to the looseness which abounds in relation to the marriage vows. It also has reference to men and women living together without being married. Divorce and separation are on the increase. It is alarming that in the past forty years divorce has risen from one in forty to one in two marriages. Juvenile delinquency, the result of broken homes, is increasing by leaps and bounds. Sex crimes are sweeping over our communities like a flood. Disobedient Christians are marrying unbelieving partners in outright rejection of God's Word which says, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Corinthians 6:14). Some churches even ordain openly gay priests.¹⁷

History of Earth

Let's have a look at the history of Earth and see whether any part of the so called 6000 year plan has occurred.

A study of the "begats" of Genesis 5 reveals that there are approximately 2000 years (2 Redemptive days) from Adam to Abraham. Abraham to Christ can be chronicled to be another 2000 years (2 Redemptive days), which gives 4,000 years from Adam to Christ. (4 days)

Our calendar places us about 2000 years AD. (another 2 days) completing about 6000 years since Adam, or 6 days before the Lord. (Note: God's Redemptive plan is 6000 years or six days old.

Biblical Chronology of Earth

Let's take a look at some of the chronological events of Earth's history to see whether historic events fit within the 7000 year theory. The dates ascribed in the following table can be verified by looking at Bible genealogies.

BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY CHART

Time begins - creation of Adam	4005 BC⁵
Fall of Adam and Eve	3969 BC²
Flood	2349 BC
Noah dies at 950 yrs	1998 BC
Abraham born	1996 BC
Abraham 100 yrs at birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:5)	1896 BC³
David becomes Israel's 2nd king and reigns 40 yrs (2 Samuel 5:4,5)	1010 BC
Artaxerxes yr 7- he issues decree for Jews to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Start point for Daniel prophecies.	458 BC⁴
Jesus Christ, the Messiah is born on Tishri 15 (Feast of Tabernacles)	5 BC²
Messiah is baptized in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar	26 AD²
Passover. Messiah is crucified. Christianity begins.	30 AD²
The Gospel is taken from the Jews to the Gentiles	33 AD
Siege of Jerusalem and destruction of Herod's temple	70 AD
Abomination of Desolation	508 AD
Beginning of the Time of the End and end of '1260 year' prophecy	1798 AD
End of Daniel 8 '2300 day' prophecy and Daniel 12 '1335 day' prophecy. Jesus begins His Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary.	1843 AD⁶
End of 6,000 years since the creation of Adam	1996 AD
Second coming	2029-30²

Assumptions:
1. The dating system used is based on the Ussher chronology which is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Bible by James Ussher, the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh (in what is now Northern Ireland). The chronology is sometimes associated with Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created only a few millennia ago.
2. Two redemptive days or 2000 years from the crucifixion of Christ arrives at 2030 however several texts suggest time will be shorter..
3. There is some conjecture as to the date of birth of Abraham depending on whether his father Terah begat Abram at 70 or 130 years of age.
4. Daniel's '490 year prophecy' start date as interpreted by Sir Isaac Newton.
5. 4004 BC is the generally accepted date of creation. However counting back 4000 years from Jesus birth at about 5 BC accords with a creation date of 4005 BC (see discussion below).
6. "I have seen that the 1843 chart (which placed the 1335 days as ending in 1843) was directed by the hand of the Lord, and that it should not be altered..." Ellen G. White, Bible Commentator, Early Writings, p 74-75.

The first 2000 years are characterized, by the school of Elijah the prophet, as years of "tohu" -- that is, waste, emptiness, confusion and chaos -- or "void." That would be the world prior to Abraham, including the Flood of Noah's time, from 4005 B.C. to 2005 B.C. The next 2,000 years is the time of the "Torah," or "Law" of God -- from the time of Abraham, 2005 B.C. to the birth of Jesus Christ in 5 B.C.!

Analogies of Isaac

Looking approx. 2000 years from creation we come to Abraham and Isaac, and we find some amazing parallels between Isaac and Christ. They both had miraculous births. God had promised that a child would be born to Abraham in his old age. In fact Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah 91. It was only through the work of God which allowed Sarah to conceive and it was the power of God that bought about Jesus in an even greater miraculous birth. Isaac, whom Abraham loved, was to be a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. This was actually a mountain range upon which Calvary stood. So this is the same place that approximately 2000 years later God would allow His own Son to be sacrificed for the sins of the world.

While Abraham carried the fire and the knife, it was left to Isaac to carry the very wood on which he would be sacrificed. This again pictures the Lord Jesus who, while he was physically able, carried his wood, the cross, to Golgotha where He would die. In Genesis 22:7,8 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Just as Isaac was to take the place of the lamb for this sacrifice, so Jesus became the ‘lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.’

Mt Moriah then, is absolutely sacred to both Jews and Muslims. The Jews believe Abraham was directed by God to take his son Isaac, to go into the land of Moriah, and there to offer him for a burnt offering upon a mountain which God would show him. The Muslims agree that this was the spot where Abraham was tested to sacrifice Ishmael and so on top of the Temple mount where Herod’s Temple once stood, they have built “The Dome of the Rock” Mosque.¹⁸

Next Part of 7000 Year Theory

In the third part of our series on the 7000 year theory, we will look further into God's redemption plan and the coming of Jesus as the Passover lamb. We will look at the parallels and differences between the two Adams and the significance of Christ's sacrifice in the plan of redemption.

References and notes
1. What is spiritual death? - http://www.gotquestions.org/spiritual-death.html
2. What Death Did Adam Die? - http://antipreterist.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/what-death-did-adam-die/
3. THE 6000 YEARS - http://www.cephasministry.com/water/bible_believers_6000_years.html
4. God's Redemptive Week - http://bibleteachingonline101.net/God_s_Redemptive_Week.html
5. Spiritual Pictures of 6000 and 7000 Years in the Bible - Part I - http://www.hebroots.com/lul11.html
6. Why the Week Has Seven Days - http://www.almanac.com/content/why-week-has-seven-days
7. The 6000 Year Timeline Dilemma -
http://www.escapeallthesethings.com/6000-year-timeline.htm
8. How could there be light on the first day of Creation if the sun was not created until the fourth day? - http://www.gotquestions.org/light-first-sun-fourth.html
9. ECLIPSES A MIRACLE OF GOD’S DESIGN (WITH FUTURE SIGNIFICANCE?) - http://stevenmcollins.com/WordPress/?p=594
10. THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF BELIEVING IN RECENT CREATION - http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/btg/btg-138.pdf
11. What does Genesis 1 really teach? - http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/OT/tripp.htm
12. Globalization and the Tower of Babel - http://shepherdtheflock.com/2009/01/26/globalization-and-the-tower-of-babel/
13. Sermon: The Days of Noah - http://cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Audio.details/ID/2201/Days-Noah.htm
14. 6,000 years for mankind as understood by Churches of God still valid - http://www.thejournal.org/issues/issue121/six-thousand-years-for-man-still-valid.html
15. Globalization and the Tower of Babel - http://shepherdtheflock.com/2009/01/26/globalization-and-the-tower-of-babel/
16. Online Text Sermon - The Days of Noah, Matthew ch.24 v.37 - http://www.bible-sermons.org.uk/text-sermon/421-the-days-of-noah/
17. Revealing That The Days of Noah and The Flood Are Here! - http://www3.telus.net/thegoodnews/noah.htm
18. Jesus in the Life of… Isaac – The Sacrificed Son - http://www.jesusplusnothing.com/studies/downloads/jcisaac.doc
19. First Adam - Last Adam - http://www.hebrew4christians.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=122&t=504
20. Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man - http://ldolphin.org/accomplish.html
21. Why did Jesus preach for such a short period of time? - http://andrewconard.com/2009/09/01/why-did-jesus-preach-for-such-a-short-period-of-time/
22. Old Testament Pictures of Jesus - http://www.onlinethoughts.com/onlinethoughts/old_testament_pictures_of_Jesus.htm
23. Hebraic Spring Festivals/Holy Days - http://www.tedmontgomery.com/bblovrvw/c_4a.html
24. THE FEAST OF PASSOVER - http://brenda.ratcliffs.net/03Passover.pdf
25. The Last Supper (Luke 22:7-23) - http://bible.org/seriespage/last-supper-luke-227-23
26. THE PASSOVER - http://www.bibleprophesy.org/feasts2.htm
27. The Feast of Passover Exodus 12 - http://www.bibleinsong.com/Music/Images1/Jesus%20the%20Passover%20Lamb.pdf
28. It is Finished Six Hours One Friday… - http://www.onlinethoughts.com/onlinethoughts/it_is_finished.htm
29. Jesus Died a Startling Death - http://www.christianinconnect.com/jstardea.htm
30. Christ Our Passover is Slain for Us - http://www.abideinchrist.com/messages/ex12v1.html
31. Was Jesus crucified on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday? - http://biblelight.net/pasover.htm
32. The date of Armageddon without using the code - http://www.biblecodeintro.com/intro44.html
33. A CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE - http://www.cocoris.com/BBC%20pages/Microsoft%20Word%20-%201.%20Bible%20Chronolgy.doc.pdf
34. ON WHAT DAY DID JESUS DIE? - http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/date-crucified.html
35. Notes on The Sabbath - http://ldolphin.org/sabbath.html
36. Jesus born 5 B.C. #1 - http://www.keithhunt.com/Wheborn1.html
37. Daniel's Prophecy - Foretells date of crucifixion - http://www.ldsmag.com/sci_rel/040915prophecy.html
38. Year of Jesus' Death - http://www.rusearching.com/nostradamus/nostradamusyearofdeath.htm
39. When Was the Crucifixion? - http://www.hissheep.org/messages/when_was_the_crucifixion.html
40. A Prophecy Explained - http://www.mundall.com/erik/ezekiel4.htm
41. THE TEMPLE DESTROYED, 70 A.D. - http://www.bibleresearch.org/articles/a11pws.htm
42. THE MYSTERIOUS EVENTS OF THE YEAR 30 A.D.! - http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/mysteriousevents.html
43. IMPORTANT HAPPENINGS ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT - http://www.electalert.org/content/b7c62.html
44. Futurism's Countdown: Fact or Fantasy? - http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/Futurism's%20Countdown.htm