Word for Word 8/1/18


Noah’s Ark and Creation Museum ... A group of Waukon area residents visited Noah’s Ark and Creation Museum in Williamstown, Kentucky as part of a chartered bus tour. Built to Biblical dimensions at 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high with three decks, Noah’s Ark and Creation Museum is pictured behind the group during their July 24 visit. Submitted photo.

The Ark Encounter and the Door

As I am returning home from a trip to visit Noah’s Ark and the Creation Museum in northwestern Kentucky, I’m pondering the fact that I’ll probably never be quite the same. It’s like going to Israel and seeing and experiencing the land where Jesus walked and the places you read about in the Bible. It makes the Bible, even though you believe in it, come to life in a new way.

Visiting the - built to biblical dimensions - Noah’s Ark is called the “Ark Encounter” (see accompanying photo at left) and rightly so, because you come face to face with the significance, the reality and the enormity of what it represents. This ark replica is the largest wooden structure in the world today. The dimensions God gave Noah in our modern measurements stretches 510 feet in length, 85 feet in width and 51 feet in height (100 feet at the highest bow fin). It was designed to many biblical specifications, inside and out, complete with sound effects, 3D animals and so much more.  The Ark Encounter gives you a glimpse as to how it could have been. We have to remember that man in Noah’s day was much more technologically advanced than we realize.

I thank God that the Answers in Genesis ministry  took the time, effort and expense to build the Creation Museum and to replicate the ark and that we still have the religious freedom in this country to do so! Even though it’s in the U.S., it’s for the whole world. The museum and ark are a tribute to the one, true God - Creator of everything that is - and His Word, the Holy Bible, which is the pillar and support of the truth.

Upon embarking and touring the ark, one can only marvel at the wisdom of God.  This ship had to be constructed to be able to endure the worst catastrophe of our world - the worldwide flood.  Noah also had to prepare enough food and provisions for his family and the animals for an unknown amount of time.

Some may not know the story of Noah and the ark.  The ancient story is a sober yet reassuring lesson for us in our day, five thousand years later. In the beginning God created everything, His highest creation being the human being made in His image. It was all very good. But sin, therefore death, entered the world through deception and disobedience. Man and all flesh became corrupted, violent and continually evil.  God was sorry He’d made man. Noah alone was righteous and blameless, perfect in his generations.

God chose Noah and gave him a divine warning and calling to build an ark to save his family and the animals to start over and repopulate the earth. According to 2 Peter 3:1-7,  it says that there were scoffers in Noah’s day, ridiculing and mocking him. It took Noah one hundred years to build the ark to God’s instructions.

In Noah’s 600th year, God commanded Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives and the animals, two by two, to enter the ark. Then the Bible says that GOD SHUT THE DOOR. It rained forty days and nights, as well as the windows of heaven and the fountains of the deep opened up. The whole face of the earth was flooded and judged in water. The scoffers were no longer scoffing.   God then gave the sign of the rainbow that He’d never flood the earth again.

Is the story of Noah and the ark, or the Bible for that matter, really true, or is it a myth? We live in a world that is becoming more negative towards biblical truth each day. There are many scoffers embracing a very anti-biblical worldview. FYI

The abundant, worldwide fossil record is just one testimony to the reality of the flood! Ancient cultures of the world have similar flood stories as well.

How does the story of Noah and the Flood relate to us in our day? In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus is teaching His disciples about the last days before His promised second coming. Jesus said that the days before His return would be just like the days of Noah! Take note, people were living life, eating, drinking and marrying until the flood came and took them all away. So too, we’re to be ready for Jesus, preparing for His return, being about His business.

The 2 Peter passage mentioned above also tells us that just as there were scoffers in Noah’s day, so too there would be mockers and scoffers in the days before Christ’s return. Willfully forgetting God and His Word and walking after their own pursuits and riches, they say, “Where is the promise of His (Jesus’) coming? All things continue as they’ve always been!”

Could the reconstruction of this ark be a vivid sign and warning to our generation? God’s Word and promises are true. Though they delay, like the hundred years to build the ark, they will come to pass.  God is patient, waiting for all of us to come to Him in repentance.

As one tours the entire ark, all three decks, there’s one major point of emphasis on the second deck - the door! When God gave Noah instructions to build the ark, he was to make an entrance door in the side of the ark. When all had entered, GOD SHUT THE DOOR! John 7:9 Jesus said, “I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”

Door to what? Door to forgiveness, eternal life, heaven, peace and safety. We must be forgiven of our sins if we want to be spared of the wrath and judgment to come (like Noah’s Ark). Noah and his family and the animals had to enter through “the door” to find the safety. Jesus is our ark of safety; He’s also the door to enter this safety.

You can have an “ark encounter” right where you are. The people of Noah’s day had a chance to quit scoffing and repent, but they didn’t. Jesus is the Door; it’s your choice to enter through the door or not. We must also follow Noah’s example and live blamelessly in our generation.

But, I also encourage you to go and experience the ark if you can. Take a living walk through the first chapters of Genesis, our beginning and our foundation. This walk takes you from the very beginning and leads you to the Cross, the pinnacle of human history. Lastly, you’ll walk through the last 2000 years of history and see how the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has gone to the ends of the earth. Man’s existence on this earth begins and ends with Jesus Christ and everything in-between, and man’s response to Him. It’s truly His-story!

Steve and Robin Oden
New Life Christian Church
Waukon