Live Free with Josh Howerton - Did The FLOOD/Noah’s Ark REALLY Happen!?…(or is it a MYTH!?) ft. Dr. Jeremiah Johnston | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Can someone be forgiven if they never apologize? What is the unforgivable sin? And did Noah's Flood really happen? In this episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham are joined by New Testament scholar and apologist Dr. Jeremiah Johnston as they explore biblical forgiveness, the danger of bitterness, the true meaning of the unforgivable sin, and whether Noah's Ark and the Flood can be trusted as real history. Drawing from Scripture, archaeology, ancient civilizations, and the teachings of Jesus, they examine the evidence and explain why these topics still matter today. Most importantly, this episode points us to the heart of the Gospel: while the Flood could not remove sin, Jesus can give us a new heart. In this episode: • Can you forgive someone who never apologizes? • What is the unforgivable sin? • Did Noah's Flood really happen? • Did the Bible copy flood stories from other cultures? • Have researchers found Noah's Ark? • Why Noah's story ultimately points to Jesus What if the hardest questions about forgiveness, judgment, and Noah's Ark all point to the same answer—Jesus? Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment JESUS 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

We apply a hyper-scepticism because the Bible's involved that doesn't apply in the real world to any other artifact. You don't counterfeit something unless it's real. So there must be a real story, a real version now there that the rest are counterfeited off of. The flood gave Noah a new earth, but only Jesus can give you and I a new heart. Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this,

we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time.

And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in, and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast.

This is Episode 80 here with Live Free Podcast. I'm here with Pastor Paul Conningham. My name is Carlos Zarassar. And today, Paul, we have a special guest. I'm going to give you a whole introduction right now. You ready? Come on. So he is a New Testament scholar, pastor, author of a bunch of books,

radio host, Bible, teacher, apologists, and more. His first time here with the Live Free Podcast. podcast, that episode became probably one of the most special, unique episodes we've ever had here in the podcast. Literally, till this day, I still have people come and ask me about it. It's because you were on it, Carl. Well, trust me. I think there's another reason why. But between the first time he was here and until now, he became a number one best-selling author for his book, The Jesus Discoveries.

He is married, five kids. He's a man who loves God, loves his family, loves the church. We want to welcome right now the Shrout Schroats. the Indiana Jones of apologetics. The Nicholas Cage of Biblical Archaeology. Dan Brown's worst nightmare. That's right. Let's go with that. Dr. Jeremiah Johnson.

Come on, man. You miss one thing, and I'm the overstressed father of triplets. There you are. They're nine, and again, I remind everyone I haven't slept in nine years. It's great to be back. I mean, God is using this podcast so tremendously, and it's so delightful for me to have people stop me all over the country and say, I watched you on Live Free.

Wow. And I mean, I had a veteran recently, very, very great man. And he said, man, that ministered to me so much watching Live Free. And so God's using you guys in a powerful way. So keep it up. And I celebrate the work of God in your lives and in this podcast. Probably one of the podcast episodes where you were here, Jeremiah, where honestly people are just like still talking about even until this day.

And so if somebody here is listening and they're new and they've not checked it out yet, go back to our archive, the Shrout of Turin. Paul here is not fully there yet, Jeremiah. Hold on. We need to change the whole direction of this podcast now. You know what? If you want, I can give you like a minute. It's like a...

Paul, what do you? He's not convinced. First, have you seen the episode we did? I have seen the question. That's a good question. Oh, number one. Well, no, I have to ask my own family. Have you actually read?

Have you read my books? Yeah. Answer is usually no. So number one, I'm excited to be here with you. I am a little disappointed. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. Well, no, just stop.

I am a little disappointed because when I wasn't here, you brought on a whole life-sized replica of the Shrout of Tour. Today, we're talking about the arc, and I was thinking maybe we'll get a life-size replica as well. And we've got one plank of wood, which has nothing to do with that. We'll get inside differently. I don't want to spoil. I'm not going to spoil. But, no, seriously. So to be with you.

And I'll say, like, I don't know how you're feeling right now. But I feel like if we are in ancient Rome, you know, Carlos over here is like, hey, guys, let me give you a tour of the Coliseum. And then all of a sudden we get in and he's like, hey, guys, here's some swords. Let's see a fight in front of each other. That's kind of what you're doing right now. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. That's what you're trying to take a fight. He's throwing a snake in the middle of the room and just seeing what happens.

Oh, Carlos. So Paul, why don't you believe in this trial, man? Are you seriously doing this right now? I'm just curious. Look at this. He's trying to pick a fight. Okay. Okay.

This actually be a good to be a good. You got 30 seconds. I didn't more time than that. This will be a good setup. This will be a good setup for some of the stuff I know we'll jump into at the art to kind of explain how to go about this. Let me put it this way. I'm going to put you on the spot, Carlos. Since you put me on the spot, I might ask you the same thing.

So forget Shrout of Turin for a second. Let's just talk about the resurrection, right? The reliability and the historicity of the resurrection, would you bet not only your life, but your wife and kids' life on the reality and historicity of the resurrection? We, as Christians, we believe the resurrection. That's right. So you would do it. I'm all in on the resurrection.

You wouldn't think about it. You would just say, yep, I'll bet my... We're all in on the resurrection. We're all in the resurrection. Would you bet their life on the shroud of Turin? You hesitate. No. What about you?

Would you say the same thing? Yes and yes. Okay, so you would bet your kid's life on the shroud of turn. Absolutely. Because I'm not irrational. I love it. See, right there. I know he was going to say that.

I should have asked him first to make a kid. on the spot. And I would say most people probably respond. He wrote a book about it. He's going to say yes. He's going to say yes. You can't say no. You know, Paul, I was where you were. I mean, just three years ago. I mean, I did a 93,000 word thesis on the resurrection. I'd publish 300,000 words on the resurrection. We don't need the shroud to believe in the resurrection. But I do believe this. I believe that there is a amazing revelation happening right now. That is a controlled revelation tied to technology as we get closer to the second coming of Jesus. We are living in the most exciting time to be a follower of Jesus. There are so

many new discoveries, and they're also tied with technology. And the technology that is showing us things about the shroud that the human mind cannot explain. I mean, four times the power on earth to leave this amazing signature that Jesus manifests himself in brilliant light, it gives me chills. And one of the cool things that I didn't say on the last podcast, because I'm a lifelong learner. I'm still learning about the shroud. I actually received an amazing email recently. The fireman was an agnostic. I get chills right now. There's a YouTube video out there where a fireman saves the shroud in 1997. The shroud is behind Unbreakable Glass. He's hammering away at it. He was agnostic. And saving the shroud was a big part of a life change for him. That's amazing. And he has this like

Goliath, Samson's superhuman strength. And then I'm studying Romans 8 that says, says in a flash, our bodies will be changed. Interesting. We had a flash with the shroud. So is Paul hinting at something there? We don't know. Well, and seeing with it, the reason I said it up that when I think you would agree with what I'm about to say is that even if we didn't have the shroud, we would have everything we need to believe in the historicity of the resurrection. That's usually how I approach things like the shroud or anything else, is that it's not that it doesn't matter because I want to come back of what you just said, because I do think it matters in a lot of people's lives.

I'm more like just to tell people that, that, hey, what's at stake with the shroud is not the historicity of the resurrection. Exactly. What rises and falls. You need all the same data that they had in the first century to believe fully in the reality of the resurrection, that it's a reasonable thing. Right.

And so I just like to tell people like, hey, the way I approach the shroud is more like that, that, hey, it could be true. And to your point, I think that in apologetics, which you are so good at, you get this, is that not every argument works with every person. Exactly. And so I think it's almost, I heard an illustration use, this is almost like a tapestry.

In this case, I think like a safety net. Or it's like, hey, I could take one thread out and it still hold up, but hey, that one thread may be the thing that gives that person confidence to jump in. And so for me, if I were to put it on, we can talk more later because you could convince me. I actually love that you shared your journey because the point is, you were convinced of the resurrection before this. That was the point I was trying to do. Well, and it's a valid point.

And it's a great point for Christians to hear this because I wrote a whole book. called Body of Proof, the seven best reasons to believe in the resurrection of Jesus and why it matters today, I mentioned the shroud zero times. Yeah. Because I was totally skeptical of it. And now I would say the eighth reason is the shroud. Come on. We can do this off camera because we got a lot.

We do, man. We know. That was a fun way to start the podcast. I know. Now we're going to have to put Carlos on the spot or something. Carlos, are you going to watch the World Cup? Absolutely. Who are you cheering for?

Oh. I don't know. yet. I want it on the table right now. Hold on, you know why? We need to, we have a podcast.

No, I ask you a question. Well, honestly, likely the United States, you know why? Why? Because El Salvador isn't even qualified like for the,

like fortunately, that hasn't made, didn't make it to the, to the, so you're betting United States. I'll give us something we need to pray what happened. Then again,

I won't talk to you about something to Shratering because you can help me with something anyway. Anyways, leaving that behind now. We need to pray this would happen.

Fast and pray. I found out, it is, theoretically possible. It's a long shot, but it is theoretically possible that the U.S. could play England on July 4th on the 250th anniversary of our independence. It's a long shot, but if that happened, it would be the most amazing thing ever. This is going to be the greatest between that and the MMA fight on the White House lawn. Isn't it great to be American? Speaking of that, hey, we got to move on here. So, guys, we have a great episode today. We are going to be

talking about what is the unforgivable sin. We're going to ask the question since we have Dr. Jeremiah Johnson with us today. Did the flood and the story of Noah's Ark really happen or is it a myth? Didn't the Bible actually rip off the story of Noah's Ark from other pagan myths? And also this went viral like a month ago or something or like a couple months ago. An organization called Noah's Ark scans led by researcher Andrew Jones. They basically are claiming that they are convinced that they have found the actual nose arc in Turkey.

And I want to ask Dr. Jeremiah Johnston here if he finds the evidence compelling enough to agree. So we're going to go there and more. It's going to be a great episode. A couple of things I want to celebrate before we jump in. This year, this just happened. We had over 1,300 students attend their summer camp

alongside 300 volunteer leaders. We saw 198 students place their faith in Jesus. So, bro, we are celebrating as a church. This is a great summer. We see this every single summer. got to doing more and more and more. Paul, you were there, right? Yeah, I got to go to our 5th and 6th grade camp. Went there to bless our staff because our staff and amazing volunteers,

many of them were there for two straight weeks because we had 7th and 8th and 5th and 6 back to back. And so I got to go and visit them and bless them. But then also my daughter was there. So I had a little bit of, you know, arterial motives to get to go. And it was just incredible. We stayed for worship that night and the pastor gave an invitation and just got to see dozens and dozens of students response to invitation to receive. salvation. But then another touching moment for me was then afterwards after they had left and they

were counseling those kids who had received Jesus. They were like, hey, if you need prayer for anything, just come up. And so they had leaders in the front and the back and this wave of kids get up. And it was amazing not only to see that God was working in their hearts, but I had a moment where I got to see my daughter walk up with a friend who was struggling. And so it was cool to see students come around each other and pray with each other and getting chills and trying to hold back to yours right now thinking of it. It was beautiful. And so you hear the numbers, but we just got to remember that those were real kids with real names and real stories that God was redeeming that night and so many of the nights that we've had at camp. Lots of answer prayers from parents basically praying for their children, sons and daughters.

Hey, I pray for them to have an encounter. Lots of answer prayers. And so praise God. Hey, we're also getting excited because in July 11th, we are starting our brand new sermon series at the movies. Every summer, this is a thing. In the gospel, Jesus uses stories to illustrate biblical truth. in this four-week sermon series we will use movie clips to illustrate biblical

truths and so we'll have fun with it characters in the lobby popcorn drinks for everyone obviously in addition to worship Bible teaching and more don't miss four weeks at the movies come hang out also if you're part of the live free nation and you have not yet come say hi if you're ever in the area we'd love to visit

find us in our first time guest stand we have a small gift for you and Pastor Paul Cunningham wants to fact check your tattoo as well every single week we do a giveaway. So this is a good one because if you are on YouTube or Spotify, but by the way, this is the episode,

if you're an audio listener, you probably want to come on YouTube or Spotify because we got some visuals here. We have a little show and tell. But we have a giveaway. Jeremiah, what's this giveaway for today? Well, I'm praising God for just the blessing. I dedicated this book to Abel.

I don't think I've shared this on any other podcast. And we experienced a physical healing of my son Abel, who's nine years old. I wrote the book last May. It was a very traumatic time in our family's life. We had to go down to Scottish Wright, an incredible hospital here in Texas. And I told the little Abel, he's the oldest of our triplets. I said, I'm dedicating this book to you, brother. God's got huge plans for you, bro. And so there's a video out there from last May on my social where when I click, I let him click the mouse to hit the manuscript. And so it comes out, And I believe in praying big prayers.

And I said, Lord, will you heal our son? And they told us at Scottish Rite, the cast he had to wear for 12 hours a day would not heal his body. They said it will just help him from having to get steel rods from his chronic scoliosis. And the Holy Spirit, I believe in a God who heals. I believe in Jesus, that Jesus heals. And so I prayed that. And we didn't want to put it on the church prayer list because we didn't. And that might sound crass to some people, but I didn't want anyone asking, how are you doing?

or, you know, are you healed yet? You know, you have to be, every parent should be mindful about how they ask for prayer request. And so we shared it with my pastor, Jack Graham. The same week that my book hit the number one New York Times bestseller list, we go to Scottish right, and his spine is as straight as an arrow.

Oh, wow. I have chills telling you this. We're praising Jesus all the way home. And so now Abel will sign the book because I believe God honored him, a nine-year-old who loves Jesus. And so I give God all the glory for what he's doing through my book. And it's just reaching a ton of people for Christ.

But I've been waiting for a big podcast to share that story on that God still heals. And if any of you are going through stuff with your kids at children's hospitals, it will humble you really quick. And I email in my publisher in February. I said, I hope you've printed enough because I believe God's hands on this. And I believe God's going to heal my son. So praise Jesus. Amen. Thank you.

I'm sorry for the long answer. No, you're good. That was amazing. Well, we want to be a part of that. And obviously, for this week's giveaway. I didn't even share the giveaway. I'm giving it away. I'm celebrating it.

We got 37 copies of these. I keep giving away to the team here. We started with 40. So now 37 copies that we just want to give away to people. Obviously you can get this also on Amazon, all the places, right? Get the free version. What do they have to do, Carlos, to get the free version? So to get the free version and win this giveaway, go to YouTube or Spotify and just comment Jesus.

And we'll make sure we'll... 37 of you right now in Jesus. That's right. And so, man, also if you want to get our merch, you can go to livefree. That shop or text the word hat to 201. Bro, I've been wearing my gray live free hat. I need another one of them because I sweat through it. We got you.

I wear it everywhere. We'll hook you up. Last thing to find our daily Bible reading plan plus the weekly sermon plus an early release of this podcast. You can download the Lake Point Church app. Text the word app to 20411 or you can go to Apple or Google Play Store. Hey, we got a lot to cover today. So let's dive right in.

We are in week two of this sermon series called Enfuego. where Pastor Mike Bro is walking us through anger. And the first week was on combustible, explosive anger. Second week, he's addressing slow smoldering anger, and we call that bitterness and lack of forgiveness. And so I love this is what he said in this last weekend. He said, explosive anger hurts people around you. Smoldering anger hurts the person carrying it.

And the main text is Colossians chapter 3. And so this is what we see in scripture. Here is Paul basically sitting in a Roman prison because of people that falsely accused him and abandoned him and offended him and more. And likely within chains and his wrist, he's writing this letter to the Colossians and he says, forgive one another

if any of you has a grievance against someone. So Paul, I want to ask you anything else from this weekend that stood out before we dive read in on forgiveness. And then what we're going to do is I want to ask you a couple questions, both of you guys. And then we'll transition to talking about Noah's Ark. Yeah, yeah, I'd say a few things.

I mean, number one, maybe if you weren't there, if you're listening or watching this and you weren't there, you haven't listened to the sermon yet, just a few other points that I think is really important because Mike covered, hey, here's what forgiveness isn't, and here's what it is. Because I think sometimes we'll read verses like the ones in Colossians or like when Jesus talks about forgive as you've been forgiven. And then we maybe misapply that and misunderstanding. So might hit a few things. Number one, forgiveness is not forgetting. You often hear that, oh, forgive and forget, but we literally can't forget. It's literally not in the Bible.

Yeah, it's not in the Bible. And even sometimes when people say, well, hey, God says he'll remember your sins no more, no more. But that doesn't literally mean he forgets. That's a way of expressing is he isn't holding that over you or against you. And so if you're out there, you're like, man, I want to forgive, but I keep remembering it. You can forgive even though you remember it. Number two, he said forgiveness is not saying it's no big deal.

Now, there are some things. This kind of goes back to week one where sometimes our anger is disproportionate to what's actually happened against us. but then other people have had to deal with some really tough things. And it's not about saying it's no big deal. In fact, the sin that was committed against you was such a big deal that the son of God had to give his life for it. So it's okay to say it's a big deal. It's just about I'm not going to hold on to it because if Jesus died for it and he satisfied God's wrath against it, one of two things is going to happen.

If the person who hurts you does not repent and place their faith in Jesus, they're going to have to answer for that one day. or if they do place their faith in Jesus or have, guess what Jesus already was punished for it? So by you clinging on to it, you're basically saying, Jesus, what you did was not enough. I want more. So it's not saying it's not a big deal.

It's simply saying that Jesus paid the price for it so I can let it go. And then finally, Mike said, forgiveness is not a feeling. Because if you wait until you feel forgiving, you're going to be waiting forever. Yeah. In many cases.

Instead, he said, what forgiveness is, it's something that comes from your heart. So it's actually, it's not a matter of, like, if you're going to feel anything, it's actually saying, hey, it's allowing yourself to feel the pain of what happened to you, but then two other things, giving up your rights to get even and then agreeing to live the consequences of their sin. So if you haven't listened yet, just want to give you an overview of what he said.

So just a few things from my end. One, just on a personal level, forgiveness is a huge part of my story. I think every person has like two or three or four big themes that God kind of weaves in and out throughout their story. And this is one of mine. And there's a lot there. I'll try to keep it brief. But, I mean, I just had a really rough three years, starting from when I was in seventh, eighth grade, into ninth grade. My brother became a really severe drug addict, had to put him into a rehab center just because he was a really violent guy.

Lost a couple of family members in a week, you know, about a year after that. And then when I was in ninth grade, my mom left. And I was just filled with such anger going back to week one. I mean, just I was angry at my mom. I was angry at Satan. But just being real, I was angry at God. I would just scream at God and just say, God, like, you say you love me, you say you'll take care of me. But I feel like I am a toy in yours and Satan's hands, and you're just seeing how far I can go to a break.

I'm done. I still believe God existed. I just thought, hey, if this is what it's like that relationship with you, I don't want that. So I walked away for a season and then just spied out of control. One of the things, it's not about this right now, but I'll just say this if you're there right now and you're feeling this like the way I was then. And I realized later that the greatest mistake I ever made in that whole situation was not that I was angry at God or frustrated with God. It's that I stopped carrying those feelings to him. That's good.

It's when I actually went off on my own that I spied out of control and just sunk into a deep depression, became suicidal. God rescued me from that. And by his grace restored me. But what happened, though, is I was trying to now hold back on to God, but I was also trying to hold on to the anger I had towards my mom. And God said, hey, I love you, but it doesn't work that way. You got to give that to me if you're going to want to hold on to me. It's almost like you joked he's the Indiana Jones, which, by the way, just good. I love that you also equated him with Nicholas Cage.

From national treasure. I mean, from national treasure. I mean, from national. Listen, Nicholas Cage is a little bit of a national hero and treasure. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. But in Indiana Jones, the third one, there's that scene where he's trying to reach for the Holy Grail. And his dad is holding him on.

And he's like, Indiana let it go because he couldn't pull him up out of the pit. That's when he says Indiana. Yeah, Indiana. And he's like, he couldn't pull him up out of the pit if he was trying to hold on to one hand on his dad and another hand on to the Holy Grail. And that's how I felt. I felt like I was trying to hold one hand on to God and one hand on to my unforgiveness. And I was like, it got to let it go. So this is a huge part of my story.

And so here, if I was going to share something that I learned at one point with everybody is when someone hurts you, big or small, you've got really three options. Number one, you can hold on to what they gave you. You can hold on to the hurt and onto the bitterness. but there was a writer who one time said, holding onto bitterness and unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. That's right.

It's only going to hurt you. So you can hold on to what they gave you. Number two, you can give them what they gave you. You can return hurt for hurt, evil for evil, but then now you're becoming the very thing you hated. You're becoming like that. Or number three, you can give them what God gave you. So you can give them what they gave you

or you can give them what God gave you. And so part of my story is that, I had to realize that yeah, my mom and others had done some things that hurt me, but I was just as sinful as them, that my sin put Jesus on the cross as much as theirs, and that if God was willing to forgive the inexcusable and hurtful things that I had done, I must be willing to do the same. So that's just a few things that I would just share from my personal story and just some pastoral things. Well, let me make it practical.

Let me just ask you some questions real quick, and then you guys can answer it as you guys see fit for people that are most likely going through some of this. somebody might be asking, should I still forgive them even if they never apologized? Jeremiah, what do you think? First, Paul, thank you for sharing that really genuinely touched my heart. And I know there are so many thousands identifying with you right now. And you dropped so much truth. I would encourage people to go back and rewind everything you just said.

If I may just give a few footnotes and then answer the practical question, we all pray way too religiously. I would encourage people when you're struggling to pray the prayers of the Bible. Have you read the book of Habakkuk recently? It's 56 verses. And at one point, his prayer literally goes like this. Hey, God, God, are you dead, God? Wow. Why don't we pray like that?

Do we not trust them? He already knows our heart. And this is when God responds. And he said, if I were to tell you what's going to happen, you wouldn't even believe it. Because guess what? It was about to get a lot worse. A lot of people misquote that verse, they think it's going to get better. It was going to get worse.

And that's where Habakkuk 2-4 says, the just will live by faith. And it takes three New Testament verses to figure out why God responds to Habakkuk that way. And then Habakkuk eventually does pass out. He says, God, you have to stop. You're wearing me out. And then Habakkuk 3 is the greatest picture of faith of what you just explained in all of the Bible. And Habakkuk 3, this is where Paul is quoting, Rejoicing the Lord, Philippians 4. That's a callback intertextually to Habakkuk chapter 3, where he says, hey, if there's no grain in the barn, if there's no

cows on the hills, I'm still going to trust you. So he goes from God, are you dead? To God, I'm going to trust you no matter what. And so what's really cool about that is God is a big boy. He can take our deepest, darkest questions. 2 Corinthians 1, Paul had the authenticity. And a lot of people say Paul is the Job of the New Testament because he was so clear about his problems. Some of his greatest problems came from other believers who didn't believe God was with him because he had so many challenges. At one point,

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, I have the sentence of death within me right now. I don't even want to go on living. Any of you out there feel like that some days? I do. But he said, if I look behind me, God delivering me. If I look forward, he will deliver me, and he is delivering me now. And so that's the message someone needs to hear right now. So is it always right to forgive someone whether they apologize or not? The biblical answer is Matthew 18, 21, and 22. Peter feels as if he's being generous. And so for people that are new to the Bible, he walks up as he often does, says, Master, how often should we forgive those who sin against us? What do you think seven times? And in a Jewish, in the Judeo-Christian mindset, forgiveness was not ubiquitous at all.

And he thinks he's doing a favor to Jesus. You think seven would be good? And for those who haven't read the passage, Jesus said, no, 70 times seven. And if we wait for everyone who's wronged us to apologize, we'll never forgive anyone. And you've got to And what is forgiveness? Ephemia in Greek. It means to just let it go. Release it. Let it go.

And just keep letting it go. And then the enemy will want to bring it back. Hey, I already let that go. I'm not going to go there. But we can talk about our pain like Paul did. We learn from it, but we don't live there either. And so that's what Paul reminds us. Yeah, I ever somebody described it, kind of like a knife when you're holding the edge of the knife and you're not forgiving or you refuse to forgive.

You try to get that knife out, but the more you try, the more it hurts you. And so what you need to do is when you forgive, you basically let go. And then that way God can get that knife out of there, and then your hands are now open to receive the healing from God that God wants to give you. I love it.

And you just, if I may, we actually have a quote. I just read the weight of glory. This is the C.S. Lewis image right there. So this is, Paul actually quoted this, but this is in the great sermon that Louis Lewis gives in 1940, and he says, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, which you alluded to. And so many of us have been hurt because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

And that's from the weight of glory. I'd encourage people to one of the greatest sermons ever given. I think one thing, finally, you got a few other than they're accused as well. I love it. In Matthew 18, basically Jesus commands us. But I think I also remind that Jesus showed us this as well. on the cross, while they're still mocking him, he says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Right. So he not only commands us, but also he leads the way and he can look at us and say, I've experienced the same thing you have. Right. And yet while they were still mocking me before they showed any remorse, before they ever asked anything, I still had a heart of forgiveness to him. So just know that Jesus knows how we feel. And he led the way and doing this for us.

Well, and that was a perfect segue to some show and tell I brought Carlos if you don't mind. No, I do not. You just mentioned something. Do you mind holding this, Carlos? I'd love to. This is actually in my book, the Jesus Discoveries. This is the condemnation. All four gospels record that the condemnation, you just were talking about Jesus, it took it all on the cross. This is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Nazareth, Ojo, Basileus, Tone, Udion, Jesus Christ, the king of the Jews. Then we see it in Aramaic, and then we see it in Latin.

Which one's Latin? Latin is on the bottom, Greek in the middle. Then Hebrew would read right to left. This is so beautiful because this is the condemnation, the titulus. I have a chapter of in Jesus' discovery on this, but I wanted to show it to your audience because we just had this made. Because every time you want to feel condemned about being hurt by someone, I want you to remember this picture right here because Jesus took all of our condemnation.

That's why Paul could come back and say in Romans 8-1, there is now therefore, no condemnation because we are in Jesus Christ. So every time I look at this condemnation, whether it's unforgiveness, whether it's a traumatic event, I know Jesus has handled that equation. I don't have to figure it out, and I can trust him because he is the king who took it for me. And remember the Pharisees, they come to in and they said, no, you needed to write. He said he would in, hey, what I've written, I've written. Wow.

Isn't that cool? That's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Thank you for bringing that. So on that note, if somebody's asking then, well, what do you do then when you do forgive, but then you still have pain coming back or bitterness is still in your heart and you're trying,

you're like, man, I forgive them. And yet time goes by and then the pain is back. Right. Well, forgiveness doesn't equal immediate healing. And forgiveness doesn't ever equal reconciliation either. Reconciliation takes both parties. I have a great. story, if I can just share it briefly with you. If we could bring up the picture. I met this couple. I was speaking in Santa Cruz, the Wagner's. If you can bring this up, Dan and Lynn Wagner, this sweet couple, they were serving with their two daughters, Carrie and Mandy, at a Luis Palau. You know Luis Palau, the great evangelist who's now in heaven. They're serving with their two daughters being altar workers at Beach Fest. They're at the church I'm speaking at,

great church in Santa Cruz, California. She walks up to me and she said, can I share our story of forgiveness with you. And I'm going to summarize it very quickly because it was so powerful. I heard it firsthand. She said, we were on our way home from serving at the altar at the Luis Plau Beach Fest rally. We never made it home. We were in our family minivan. We were buckled up. And a woman named Lisa, who was both drunk and high on meth, plowed her suburban into our vehicle. And she said, instantly, both of our daughters were killed. Dan, when I interviewed him and I put his story in the book when I interviewed him, he talks about the fact that he was concussed. And if you've ever been concussed, his best friend, he had amnesia short term. His best friend had to keep

telling him both of his daughters were dead. And what I love about their stories, they were so real. They said, hey, first, this happened shortly after 9-11. They said, first, we blew up Christmas that year. We just blew it up, you know, feelings, our feelings. But over time, it took about seven years. God spoke to Dan and Linda, Lynn, that they needed to forgive the driver of the vehicle, Lisa, who was serving in state penitentiary. They asked for permission to meet with Lisa. The judge allows it, but there's an armed guard there, because is this going to be an act of violence? What's going to happen?

Talk about anger management. They walk up to Lisa, and they say, Lisa, through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone, we want you to know, we forgive you for killing our daughters. and through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone, we'd kind of like to have a surrogate daughter. Would you like to be our surrogate daughter? Because we don't have any anymore. Lisa had come to Christ in prison.

They now go to public libraries. After I shared their story in my Fox News op-ed, they went out to 29 Palms and spoke to all the Marines about the power of forgiveness. And here's the key. Here's where it all comes back to. Dan told me himself, I'm not living for the 80-year-so.

years on earth. He said, I know I will see my daughters again because of the power of the resurrection. So I can forgive now and I can live my life as well as I can. Now, do the feelings still come? Absolutely. But they, every time I want to think about forgiveness, they didn't feel like it. And it took time. So that's okay. If someone right now isn't ready, you don't have to just slam them. You've got to just wait and the Holy Spirit will lead you to that point. That's right. And I would give another CSLO quote. I don't have it on this one. I'm going to paraphrase it. What happens, by the way, when you have two really smart people, they're just quoting CS Lewis like every 10 minutes.

That's all I'm saying. He was one time talking about this and he made, because Jesus says, forgive 70 times seven. And so CSO said sometimes that 70 times seven may be for the same offense. Right, that's good. There you go. And so it's this idea that, hey,

there's this initial forgiveness that you give. That is sometimes the hardest one. It's the letting go of the knife, Carlos, to your analogy, that is the one of the hardest ones. But then sometimes, whether it's because a memory is triggered or just something happens, you begin feeling those feelings of bitterness and anger come back over you. In that moment, you go back and you forgive again.

And so I think just an encouragement, if someone's like, man, I've tried you, but it keeps come back, and keep forgiving. It may not be a one-time thing that you never feel again. It may be something that you just keep forgiving and keep forgiving and keep forgiving. Yeah, you don't forgive and forget, but you do have an opportunity to forgive every time you remember. That's right. Right.

And so on that note, too, we say, man, God is faithful to forgive. We forgive because we have been forgiven by a good and faithful God. and yet there's a question that comes up with this conversation, is there anything that God will not forgive? Is there such a thing as an unforgivable sin? What say you? Absolutely, there is according to the Bible. Yeah, let me pull out the scriptures for a minute. I brought my wonderful side-by-side reading.

And this is interesting because all the Gospels record the fact that we have this thing called blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Let me just make it really simple what the gospel say. The Holy Spirit is who convicts us of truth. He's our Hodego in Greek. He's literally our truth tour guide. The Bible says he will convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment. When someone comes to Christ, they never come on their own. The Holy Spirit leads them to Christ.

And guess what? He's really good at his job. He can be rejected. God is a gentleman. So to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, let me be very clear. That is not suicide. That's not some kind of mortal sin. the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit is rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Exactly. Plain and simple. Because if you go to the original context, the way I like to put it sometimes is the only unforgivable sin is unforgiven sin. That's good. And the only unforgiven sin is sin that hasn't been covered by Jesus because you haven't repented of it and placed your faith in Jesus to forgive it. And so if you go back to the context, what's happening here is the religious leaders

are basically saying the miracles and the things that you're doing, that's Satan. You're actually Satan. You're empowered by Satan to do this. And so the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is these guys are so far gone that they've hardened their conscience to the conviction of the Holy Spirit by their own choices and actions. And so they're beyond repentance. They're never coming back from it. And so if they never come back from it, if they never repent of it, they'll never be forgiven

of it. And so we shouldn't picture. It's like these guys later change their minds. And they come and say, never mind, we're wrong. We're wrong. And then God's like, too bad. You had one chance and you blew it. It's not that.

Instead, really what this is is their conscience is so seared, they're never going to repent. And so sometimes what I'll get is, hey, what does this mean? But then a lot of times maybe you've gotten this is people will be afraid they've committed the sin. Yeah, oftentimes this is not a theological question. This is like an anxiety. Have I done this thing? Am I too far gone?

And so knowing then the background of what you shared and the passage and what I just said out to be, well, hey, if you're afraid you've committed it, I have good news for you. You haven't committed it. Exactly. Because if you committed it, you would literally think Jesus was empowered by Satan and you wouldn't care about your sins at that point. And if you have any fear of this, you'd have no reason to be afraid of it because you haven't committed it. Otherwise, you wouldn't care. And I've dealt with this a lot.

I have a piece of God's study Bible. And I do want to say this. There's been spiritual malpractice in the Catholic Church claiming, I cannot tell you, I've been working in ministry for decades, how many people have said a son or daughter, someone close to them committed the unpartable sin because they completed suicide. Because the church taught that that was an immediate hell sentence. Now, I'm not obviously, it's never God's will for anyone to take their life. I always think of Acts 19. We have a stopped suicide in the New Testament where Paul literally tells the Philippian jailer, don't hurt yourself. So don't hurt yourself. You know, listen to the Book of Acts. But we have to be so

careful. And what I love about your podcast, you're not afraid to touch these touchy issues. And this is where I encourage Catholics who are watching, read the actual Bible. Don't go by Vatican II. Don't go by dogmas. Read what the New Testament says. And it will be made clear. And guess what? That's going to give you a lot of peace too. That's right. Jeremiah, one of the reasons why I love having you here, man, is because you, one, you always bring a show and tell. And we love that. Two, it reminds us that the Bible is not a myth. It is actually history. Well, hey, before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you about something coming up at Lake Point that we're really excited about this summer. We're hosting at the

movies, a four-week sermon series where we'll use movie clips and stories to illustrate powerful biblical truths. It's one of the most fun and creative experiences we do all year here at Lake Point, and it's designed for the entire family. And so every weekend at our physical locations, we'll feature unique movie-themed experiences, fun characters in the lobby for both kids and adults, incredible worship and practical teaching from the Word of God. And of course, popcorn and drinks for everyone. So whether you are here, and maybe you're a long-time churchgoer,

someone who's been away from church for a while, or maybe you're looking for an easy way to invite a friend, neighbor, or co-worker to church, this right here is the perfect series for you. At the Movies is an in-person-only event and begins July 11 and 12th and continues through August 1 and 2. And so if you're in the Dallas area,

we'd love for you to join us at one of our campuses. You can find service times, locations, and more information by texting the word ATM to 2.2. 2041. Now, let's get back to the conversation. And so, like, you know, when we open up, if you grew up in church, you're probably used to listen to all these stories. And then there's a point where it becomes so familiar that you forget that these things actually happen.

I feel like recently, I don't know if it's like in the last year or something, it seems like the idea of like archaeological discoveries and ancient relics. They're kind of becoming more and more popular. Obviously, the Stroud of Turin was a big deal this year. during Easter. And it still is, obviously, because of everything that you shared with us in our previous episode. Paul, we're still working on that. That's okay.

But, you know, generally speaking. That's the bonus episode. There's a, you get to watch our back and forth. Tombo where you try to convince together. There's believers and there's skeptics. You know, we're all welcome here. This is a same spot here. Welcome, everybody.

So, but then there's others, other relics, other quote-unquote ancient archaeological discoveries. I kind of was doing a little research. Some are contested. Some are not so much. Some are, there's a lot more evidence. Others are a little bit harder to prove. Apparently somebody has claimed that they discover the Ark of the Covenant, for example. At some point we need to talk about that as well.

There's people that have said, hey, we found fragments of wood claimed to be from Jesus' cross, found the nails of Jesus, the spear that pierced Jesus' side, the crown of thorns, the Holy Spunge. I'm sure you know about all of these and how true or not true they are. But recently, I bring this up because there is, again, what I mean, at the beginning, this organization went super viral, led by researcher Andrew Jones, and they claimed, hey, we believe that we found the actual Noah's Ark in Turkey. And this is a, this is, we discovered it. And so this is what we're going to do in this episode right now. We're going to do a deep dive on the story of Noah's Ark and the flood. We got two geniuses here next to me. And we're going to

address this issue from a biblical perspective, because we're Bible people, from a historical and archaeological perspective and a theological and pastoral perspective. So if somebody is new, because we do get a lot of people that are honestly new to the Bible and, you know, they're like, we don't want to take for granted. So here's what the story of Noah's Ark is about. This is Genesis chapter 6. I'm just going to read the brief text. Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 through 8. This is what it says. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Verse six. The Lord regret it that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth, the human race I have

created and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground. For I regret that I have made them. Verse 8, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So basically after that, God tells Noah, hey, build an ark, build the boat. His family joins him and animals as well, as we all know, God sends rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The Bible also says that waters burst forth from beneath the earth. We'll talk about that. And after many months, the Bible says God remembers Noah and causes the waters to recede. The ark ends up on a mountain.

Noah leaves the ark, offers a sacrifice to God, and God establishes a covenant with Him. We'll explain what that means. And he promises never again to destroy the earth by a flood. And the sign of the covenant in this case is a rainbow in the sky. Now, here's where I want to start talking about this. We're going to have a clip from 2014, to be clear, from the the theologian Bill Maher. And he is reacting to, at the time, if some of you guys remember this, the movie Noah came out with Russell Crow. And he basically, Bill is reacting to this movie, especially because a lot of criticisms at the time from Christians was, hey, this is not a biblical movie.

it's not true to the text. You know, the book was better kind of thing. And before we play it, he cites this 2004 ABC News poll that found that 60% of Americans believe that the Noah story was literally true, meaning it happened that way word for word. I did some research, and that study was from 2004. I did not find any studies from, you know, recent years on that same thing. But I did find this 22 Gallup study that said that only 20% of Americans say the Bible is the literal word of God, word for word,

which is the lowest in their trend since the 1980s, which implies that likely, perhaps less people think this story in the Old Testament is true. So let's check out what Bill says in this clip. And speaking of cruise ships, you know, I don't mind that the Noah story is impossibly childish. Okay, I do mind, I mind very much. I mean, seriously, people,

you believe a man, Noah, live to be, 900 years old. That's what the Bible says. And when he was 500, he decided to have three kids, just like Clint Eastwood. That's funny. I don't care where you're from. That's good. This problem. And when he was 600, he and his three 100-year-old sons built a boat onto which, in one day, they loaded over 3 million animals, all of which were apparently indigenous to within 5 miles. of the book. But get this, what the Christians who are now protesting this movie are upset about is that it doesn't take the biblical story literally enough. They're mad because this made-up story doesn't stay true to their made-up story. But the thing that's really disturbing about Noah

isn't the silly. It's that it's immoral. It's about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and his name is God. Genesis says God was so angry with himself for screwing up when he made mankind so flawed, that he sent the flood to kill everyone, everyone, men, women, children, babies. What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at?

I mean, besides Chris Christie. Hey, God, you know you're kind of a bitch when you're in a movie with Russell Crow and you're the one with anger issues. All right. That's the clip. There's a lot. Yeah.

There's a lot there. Talk about blasphemy. So let me, we're going to go in order. We'll get there. So if you're like, oh, what about this? We'll get there. So let me start here. Jeremiah, did this Noah story really happen?

Or is it a myth? The Noah story in the Bible is absolutely historical, 100%. And we don't have to appeal just to scriptures. The scriptures are our best source for it. But I do want to let our audience know if we could bring up the keynote because I put together a slide that shows how wrong Bill is and how he this is a very important slide that we know of the Genesis flood account from the book of Genesis. It's our best source. But look at this, you guys. We have a dozen or more other flood accounts,

Acadian, Sumerian, even as far as India. We have in China writings about the flood. We have Egyptian, of course Babylonian, I give you the citations that you can read on your own. And what's fascinating about it is there are so many interesting parallels, but the Bible is the superior source, which we can get into. And so all you have to do is go walk through the halls of the British Museum. I have a photo of the epic of Gilgamesh. I took this photo myself. Check this out.

This is a story that parallels this story. of Noah and the flood. And this is in Cunea form, probably from the second century BC, or excuse me, third century BC, so the 2000s and some BC. And this is a story that in many ways, we actually have a document that parallels all the way. So it's not just the Bible talking about this global flood. It appears in at least a dozen other sources from all over the world. Yes. And I think on that, the way I put it like this, because you have, interaction with historians, I have a little bit of a history background. And here's how I like to say this, is that if we found dozens and hundreds of stories from different Native American tribes about a great fire that desolated the land, what, Jeremiah, would every modern historian conclude from that? There had been a fire.

That there had been a great fire that happened. And they would be right. And yet when it comes to the flood, even though there's dozens and some, some would even say hundreds of stories from everywhere, this great flood, then their conclusion, like Bill is, oh, this. This is definitely a myth. And so it's just an example where there's a double standard here going on, whereas, hey, there's so many different things that show, hey, if this is a common telling all across the world, it's probably because it actually happened. Another way I like to think of it, even to kind of play off of what you said, is if we found one day a preponderance of dozens of different counterfeit bills, we would still believe that there was a true bill out there that they were all counterfeiting off of. Right. And so again, the idea that, hey, there's all these stories, well, hey, the most likely story, the most likely thing that actually happened is that there was a true event and there must therefore be a true version because you don't counterfeit something unless it's real. So there must be a real story, a real version now that the rest are counterfeited off of. So kind of what you're saying is, hey, all these counterfeit stories don't negate the story of the Bible. They actually prove that something happened and that there's a true story out there. And there's other things that I know you'll get to in a minute that show us there's other credible reasons why we believe that our story. is the true story. Well, and this is why we have to be careful Christian thinkers. We can't be credulous.

We can't watch, you know, so many people out there, and this is why I love the live-free podcast. You're living on soundbites instead of living off substance. So get beyond the soundbite, get to the substance. Go walk around the British Museum, and no one will doubt that there was a global flood. It's actually historical. The cool thing about the Genesis account is it's monotheistic. In fact, we know from history that the earliest civil

civilizations, go back to Gobleque Tepe, which is in modern-day Turkey, 10,000 BC. They were monotheists. Isn't that interesting? So polytheism comes much later, and the cool thing about the genus account is we see grace, where we don't see that. The floods with these other accounts, the gods are capricious, they're mad at you, they're kind of annoyed with you, whereas this is a god of grace, believe it or not. We actually see the picture of grace. And let's not be too hard on God either, what I would tell Bill. Having had triplets, there are some days I identify with God that I'm grieved, that I have so many children. Let's not be too hard on God. Yeah. And we'll get to the moral argument here to a bit. We will. So again, let me put on my

skeptic hat on because, okay, so you guys are saying that we find the same story in different civilizations in different parts of the world that obviously they did not, you know, collude with each other to agree on which story they were going to write. How do you know that, you know, somebody hears this story and to be like, Dr. Jeremiah, how do you know that that's history versus like just, that's a common story that people just told and it just so happens that, you know, it's kind of similar all through all these civilizations. You're saying it's history. These are civilizations writing history and we have found these things. So it's not myth.

Right. How do you know that? Because we rely on the sources. We don't get in some kind of Christian religious trance. We don't privilege the Bible, even though we love the Bible. We actually see the text as artifact. And the earliest testimonies that we have in the Pentateuch, which I have some show and tell here in a minute for you, actually tell us that. And these are in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

These are the greatest sources that you can have that discuss this incredible event. and it's mentioned as well by Jesus himself. So we should take it pretty seriously. The mentioning of the flood happens in a very important part. You might know of the Olivet discourse. This is where Jesus is giving his eschatological predictions. And we see in Matthew 2437, as it were in the days of Noah, so will it be in the coming of the Son of Man. And the parallel passages in Luke 17. And so this is how we always let the Bible interpret the Bible. This is an exegetical principle. We let scripture interpret scripture, but why do we know it's history? Because it's in the sources. Okay. Good. That makes sense. So in addition to what you just said, any other physical evidence that, you know, we would point to to say, man, this is another reason

why we think it's history. And this is a true story, not a myth. Because it's in the Bible. Absolutely. That's first and foremost. But for physical evidence of the flood, I mean, I don't need anymore, I've already appealed to all of these other stories that are in all of these other cultures where there is a ring of truth that we have. And so I think that's enough for me as a historian when I apply the same metrics to any other discovery. I mean, we actually know a lot more about the flood than we do of other artifacts that we really take a lot more seriously. Interesting. Yeah. So you mentioned... We apply a hyper-scepticism because the Bible's involved. That doesn't apply in the real world to any other artifact. Yeah. So you mentioned, too, there's other

obviously somebody must have written those before others, which means is it true that some of these stories were written before the Genesis story was written? And if so, I'm putting on my skeptic head. This is not me asking, this is what other people might ask. Wouldn't that imply that the Bible basically just stole this from other civilizations? The accounts in Genesis antedate all the other accounts.

That's what I'm saying. The source material is Genesis. Oh, interesting. So it's, because I've heard people say, no, well, you know, the, the, the Gilgamesh. Yeah. That one's much, you know, earlier and then Genesis is later. What's that, what that usually is based off of is the assumption that the entire Pentateoth, the Torah, was made up during the Babylonian captivity. Exactly.

Because there's such a great distance between, at that time, between Babylon and Israel. And so how they have learned that story. Well, they learned it when they're in captivity. And that's when they made up the whole Torah. But you can maybe get into some of the main issues with that. But one thing I would even just say is, is, yeah, there's some common themes, which, again, shouldn't surprise us. Because if there is an actual event that happened, and then when you get to the story of Babel where people are scattered across the earth, they then carry remembrances and stories they had heard and it becomes corrupted and all that kind of the stuff, that shouldn't surprise us. But what you don't see is any very close, like, word for word lifting from the Genesis account from the epic of Gilgamesh.

They're extremely different in a lot of the details. If anything, there's another account that predates the epic of Gilgamesh. I think it's the atrahasis where you do find almost word for word of lifting of some of the things. So if anything, I could say it was the epic of Gilgamesh that copied somebody else's. But you don't see anything like that. You see common themes, but not common wording. This is a little bit of detail. So who lifted from who?

I think it's, and again, I could be wrong. So just Googled this later and say, no, it was actually from this. I apologize. But it was the epic of Gilgamesh that lifted from another narrative like this. that was the atra hastis, which is, I think, from the second millennium BC. Okay. So it's history. That's helpful.

In that case, let's go back to the story. It talks about a flood. Paul or Jeremiah, I know there are two different views on what does this mean as a flood? Was it a global flood or was it a regional flood? Oh, what say you? Yes. Okay. Yes.

What we need to know about civilizations in this time period is that people did not travel or live very far from the Tigris and the Euphrates. And so you don't have people living in Britain at the time. You don't have people living in South Africa at the time or in Alaska or Antarctica. What we can say exegetically and be true to the text. And explain what for people that I don't know. Exegesis. We don't do isogesis. we don't foist our modern reading like Bill Maher does

in his cruise ship analogy on the text. We let the Bible speak for itself. Exegesis means we actually read it in context. For your viewers, I've actually put together a six-question ex-de-jesis guide. I've been teaching this to my students for 15 years of six things we should ask every single passage. Because, hey, guys, it's easy to become a heretic. All you need is the Bible in no context

and Jesus in no context, and you've just become a heretic. And so you read it in context, and then you apply the timeless principles from that text to your life. Or as I say in Jesus discovery, CIA context helps me with interpretation, and then I get to apply the text to my life. Exegesis basically just means you start with the Bible and you let the Bible lead where you go. Versus if you start with your own ideas and your own beliefs and then you take your own beliefs through the Bible. And voice that on there, which many Christians do wrongfully and they weaponize the Bible therefore or they twist the scripture. That'd be isegesis. We want exegesis.

That's right. Great. That's great. So keep going. Okay. Where were we at again? I forgot the question. Was it a global arena? Oh, yes. You said yes. Yes. So do I believe that all of humankind was absolutely flooded and knocked out? Yes, absolutely. But let me show you this. Let's keep going through my slides. I wanted to help our audience with how we see this. So what does the Bible actually say? This is where, by the way, it helps to know the original languages. And so we actually see the dove's point of view.

This is in Genesis 8, 9, 9, and 719. The dove finds nowhere to land because water is all over the surface. That's 8, 9, yet four verses earlier. Again, we're reading the text. Now, this is the Bible. Four verses earlier, it says the mountaintops were already visible, even though the dove couldn't find anywhere to land. Both are true at once.

humanity has been knocked out. So under the entire heavens means the sky over Mesopotamia where everyone lived. Let's move on. The Bible uses interesting words about the whole world. This is how we let scripture interpret scripture. I just picked this morning 1 Kings 1024 and Romans 1 8. The whole world sought wisdom from Solomon. Does that mean every person sought wisdom from him? We don't want to apply. an ultra wooden literalism that the original authors certainly didn't mean. There is, I always use this and I always like to talk about my favorite Kansas City Chiefs. I saw someone on the airplane yesterday who had a Raiders hat. We hate the Raiders. So when I say I hate the Raiders or the chiefs killed the Raiders, I love it. Do I really mean that? No, I'm talking about victory in a football game.

The Bible is about real people, real places, real events. And so look at this. I love this. Then we also interpret it next to Psalm 104. And by the way, this is where Bible studies fun. Yes. And this is where we have to do more than sound bites. We have to do substance.

In Psalm 104, 5 through 9, the promise then settles the question. Do you see this? The Psalm recalls the early earth. Oceans once covered the globe. Then the continents rose. That was day three. God says it's good on all of those days. Again, on the day it creates mankind.

Very good. We can talk about that if you want. and the waters gathered gathered into their basins. It then declares that the waters, and I've highlighted this, never again cover the whole earth. This is the creation account. A global flood would break that word from Psalm 104. A flood to Noah's world does not.

So I love this because, Carlos, you thought you were going to pick a fight between us on this, and we end up probably agreeing pretty much on this stuff. So backing up a little bit because I'm like you, I'm like, yeah, it was global in this sense of it affected all of humanity. But the way a lot of people would put this back in up just a tad was some people would think of global flood because when it says in scripture that the water covered all the mountains under heaven, I want to come back to that because you've got to read it in the context of how they use language at that time. People think, put it this way, oh, then the water covered Mount Everest or whatever at that time was the highest mountain. So some people believe it was global in the sense that literally it covered over the entire span of the earth to where it was nothing but like a water.

Waterworld old Kevin Costor movie. You probably never seen that, Carlos. And you probably shouldn't. It's a terrible movie. Sounds like. I don't want to watch that. And so that's for some people that's what they mean by a global flood, a little bit more of the traditional view. Then you have more of this idea of it's a regional flood, not in that people who have this, they don't believe that it literally covered every square inch of land all over the globe as we know it, but where people actually lived and in that place. And just so people know, people who hold to this view, but it just sounds like you hold more to this view in which I think I'll lean towards it as well. This is not, oh, then you guys don't believe in the miraculous. No, we do.

Everything in the story is still miraculous. I kind of try to narrow it down to two things of why people would hold more of a regional view. Number one, what is the main point of the text? The main point of the text is this is not a judgment against geography or geology, but against humanity. Sin. It's against sin. So if that's the main point, a regional person would say The main point is not to literally cover Mount Everest, is to deal with the wickedness that was on the earth. So this view doesn't violate the main point of the text, and it calls into mind the language of the text and the language of the Bible. So it does say in Genesis 719 that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. So this is one, and I'll try to care careful here not to name names, but that certain people say, well, if you actually have a regional view, then you have to contradict Genesis 719.

But let me read for you, Deuteronomy, 225. it says that God will put fear upon the nations under the whole heaven of Israel. So does that mean that the Mayans were afraid of the Israelites? No. Exactly. No, it means that the people right there that they're talking about in context were. So the thing I would say on this is because recently people have turned this issue into, hey, if you deny a global flood that covered Everest, you are a heretic.

You are denied the faith. And I'd say, listen, there are credible men and women. women who have believed this in church history who are not. Like I would just, like, Jeremy, you and I would probably be called fundamentalist by most liberals. Yes. And yet we have more of a leaning. It sounds like to a regional flood. So I tell people, don't get too obsessed over this and make this the breaking point of

fellowship. I say, hey, we still believe the main point of the story and we still believe in the miraculous in the story. And so I just wanted to say that because increasingly people have made this a, you're saved or not issue or you don't take the Bible seriously issue. I hope you just heard for the last few minutes. Dr. Jeremiah takes the Bible very seriously, and I do as well, and yet you can still hold to this viewpoint.

And don't ever let anyone tell you this is an issue to divide over. There are fine Christians who believe it's global, and they probably have great reasons for that, and there are fine Christians who believe like me. But the one thing I'm an expert in is exegesis. I have to let the Bible speak for itself. I do not let theological systems define me. I read the Bible in the original language, and then I let it. let the Bible interpret the Bible.

And so even back to the seam, I mean, Peter sees it in 1 Peter 320. He references God's patience during Noah's time while the arc was being built. I love this, noting that only eight people were saved, but God still left the door open seven more days. We know that from Genesis 7. And so if we're reading it through the eyes of Peter,

he's not seeing a vindictive bully of a God. He's seeing a God that was patient and loving, and kind. And I love this because in verse 8, but Noah found favor, Ken in Hebrew. It's literally the first mention of the word grace in all of scripture. God found favor, or excuse me, Noah found favor. And it's not because he did anything great. I mean, he gets hammered when he gets out of the flood. I mean, this is a guy that got drunk. He had his flaws, as we all do. And yet only because of grace does God pick him up, and then he's remembered in the great Hall of Faith. And so this should give us hope today. Let's not major on the minors. And a lot of Christians are clickbait Christians. They want to

clip this. They want to major on the miners and go pick a fight with someone. And you know what my problem is with that? They haven't shared the gospel with anyone in the last year, but they want to argue with you about, was it a global flood? And they want to use the Bible as a battering ram. And guess what? what I'm concerned about what the New Testament is concerned about. There's 138,000 words in the Greek New Testament, and there are really concrete things like I cover in the Jesus' discovery. Paul uses the Greek word protoise in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, it's the word we get prototype from. He says, these are the matters of first importance. And was it the global flood? No, it was that Jesus died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried. And on the third day,

Joseus 6-2, he was raised from the dead. And then he was raised from the dead. And then he gives the appearance tradition. That's the thing that the Bible is really focused on. So it's fun to have these conversations, and we should, because Bible study is fun, but at some level, they're very speculative. I mean, we could get really deep if you want. I mean, I could quote the Old Testament pseudipigrapha to you, where they believe Og, the giant, is hanging on to the rudder of the ark, and that's how Aug survives as a giant. And when I say Old Testament pseudipigrpha, that means pseudapigrapha, fake writings of the Old Testament. We have Midrash, which is rabbinic tradition that talks about the giants holding on to the flood to Noah's boat,

and that's how we have Aug as a giant or Goliath. It's all totally dubious. My point is people have been discussing this for 4,000 years now. So it's fun to talk about, but let's make sure we get the things of first importance correct. There you go. I know you want to get to the moral problem of this. people about I want to hit something because I think this is really important, especially in line of like you're writing books like this that talks about these different discoveries.

On the historicity part, one thing that we didn't talk about is recently there was the story of, oh, we have found Noah's Ark. Oh, yes. Thank you for bringing this up. This goes into the historicity thing because I think, as we talked about, we laid out some reasons that you can believe that this is historical. And yet when stuff like this comes out, you talk about sometimes Christians or clickbait, definitely on divisive issues.

Yeah. But also they can do clickbait on things like this where this, just, just, that confirms the Bible and some of them could be legit, but then some are not. So I think you did you have the story of the picture? What? I'm just kidding. What? I didn't know what you were talking about.

Yes, I did. We have a photo here. So that right there is the photo that was shared. And this kind of, again, this made the news. This organization claimed that they found Noah's Ark. And the reason that they said they did is because they have found that what they would call the remains of a large wooden vessel matching the size of the ark in the Bible. they've also done scans that reportedly show quote linear features right angles corridors

and room like chambers up to 20 feet deep they will say that they see patterns that they interpret as support beams walls compartments and they would say that's not random natural geology and in addition to that they did a soil chemical analysis and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this and they found what this is is basically a decayed ancient wood

or organic remains from man-made vessel So actually, just to give people a sense of skin, we can put them up side by side. We have, this is from the Ark Encounter. Have you ever been there before? No, I want to go. I've heard great things. Yeah, I've heard great things. So this is a reconstruction of what it would have looked like.

It's parked outside right now. Again, I was really hoping for a life-sized replica when I got here. I'm going to take an Uber home. We would have had to have filmed this from football. That's the Lake Point parking lot, by the way. It's come to church this weekend. Yes. That'd be great.

Yes, that's a joke, by the way. The last few weeks of rain, it has felt like that. I want to clarify, that's a joke, because I don't want people to come here and be like, where's the arc? We do not have a temporary arc exhibit here. Yeah, so you can go back to picture. So it's like, oh, like if you kind of put something like that and you compare to the original picture, it kind of has the same shape. So, yeah, so Dr. Germain, what say you, is this a legit thing or is it something people should be wary of? Okay, I've talked about this extensively, and I want to be kind.

So this kind of reminds me of the early days of Babylon B when my mom would share the Babylon B stories not realizing that they were, fake. There are a lot of credulous Christians and I don't mean this unkindly, but I think the internet is making the church dumber than all time. And we have, it shouldn't be that way. We have an abundance of Bible study artifacts. We should be the strongest Christians of all time. And yet we go to chat, GTP or Google, we don't go to God's Word, and then we see this. And man, that is an interesting looking mountain range. It's in Jerunipar. It's in eastern Turkey. And guess what? You can see very similar ones. I think I saw one outside of Las Vegas the other day

from the airplane. I really mean that. And to get archaeologists to agree 100% is truly a miracle. All archaeologists agree this is not Darunapar. This is not the site of Noah's Ark. GPR ground penetrating radar I'm very familiar with. It's fantastic for sand. If we're looking for different metals,

it is notoriously unreliable for studying these kinds of mountain ranges. Every archaeologist, including my dear friend Scott Stripling, will attest to this. And so what can we say factually? 100% of archaeologists agree that this is not Noah's Ark. Secondly, we've known about this site since 1959. The lead person who I'm sure is a wonderful Christian man. I have nothing against the man. He's not an archaeologist. So this is not his area of specialty. It'd be like me saying, you know, this scroll is really cool, but I've never actually been trained in it. And so I don't mean that to be unkind, but as Christians, we have to appeal to scholars, we have to appeal to archaeologists, we have to appeal to truth. And so 100% of

archaeologists who are even atheists agree that that's not the spot. I can go on more if you want, but that's really covers it. So. Well, and I think where this matters is because some come back to original conversation, although again, I wanted to explain to people. I am not saying that there's this same amount of evidence between this and the shot of turn. That was actually the point of the point. It's like, hey, it's not that. The point is sometimes when people look up, this confirms, I'm like, y'all, hey, it's, in this case, with this thing, with the arc, it's bunk. It's not, it's not true.

And number two, even if it was, you didn't need it to already believe in the history of it. And so instead, for things like this, you got to think about it like this, is if you share this, especially on social media, and then it later is debunked, if someone who is not a follower of Jesus sees you share that. and then also it sees you in other places sharing things on the history of our faith, they're going to say, oh, this must be in the same thing. It's basically like the boy who cried wolf. And so I'd say to Christians everywhere,

like be very careful when you see stuff like this about instantly jumping on it and instantly sharing it. Let time play out. I think that's part of the argument that you'd make, for example, with the Shrout of Turin. It took me three years.

It takes years. And there's decades. There's still division. But so it's like there's been decades for stuff to sort out. When you see this stuff, just be careful because you actually don't want to harm your witness by sharing something that is later debunked.

That's a great practical word of advice. And we have to know that when it comes to how we do history, it's never certainty. It's based on probabilities. And so we don't have a video camera of the past. And so we have to base everything off of probabilities, whether it's, you know, our two best sources for Alexander the Great are Aryan and Plutarch. They write 400 years after Alexander the Great. Nobody questions Alexander the Great.

We have far better resources for Jesus of Nazareth and we do for Caesar. crossing the Rubicon, no one questions that. We do this hyper-scepticism on the Bible. And then as a historian, yes, I can grade the evidence in different ways. Like this is a A-plus piece of evidence. This is B. It's like, have you all ever been to Israel? You know, you go on the Bible lens tour as well. We haven't. Is this 100? By the way. Oh, you haven't? Not yet, but we will. And we're very excited. Does you pay you to say this? No, I didn't. I know. We are very excited for the opportunity in the future. I'm excited, but mostly Paul is excited too. Well, let me, I'm using the analogy, those who've been to Israel other than you two,

will know that there are some places we take people in Israel. That is like, this is 100% the spot where this happened. Lazarus's tomb, for instance, is an A-plus spot. I've filmed in Lazarus's tomb and Bethany. Unfortunately, it's in West Bank. Many Christians don't go there. Jews aren't allowed there. But then you go to a place like the traditional side of the upper room.

Definitely not the spot, okay? You go to the garden tomb, definitely not the spot. Jesus rose from the grave. That's happened at the Holy Sepulcher. Now that will cause some comments right there. But even the director of the garden tomb agrees with me. And I have a 2,600 word chapter in my book, Body of Proof on the site. So we can, you know, again, we can know certain thing. Was it really Jacob's well? We don't know, but it approximates it. That's helpful. Now the steps going up to Caiaphas's home, 100% Jesus walked up those steps on the night he was betrayed. Does that make sense? Makes a lot of sense. I want to give you a chance. I don't know if you

brought any other things that you wanted to share? Let me give something that is so cool to you. I want you to hold this. I want to show the audience. This is a, we've been talking about Torah. The flood account is in the Torah. It is in the Pentateuch, right? The first five books of the Old Testament.

And I am holding in my hands right now a 800-year-old scroll that reflects a 1,000-year scribal tree. tradition. You begin, remember, at the right, and this is numbers 30 to 33. We see Yahweh's name, Yadha, Vovhev, right there. Moses is commanding all that Yahweh, the Lord, told him to say. There's one mistake actually on here, if you're a Hebrew scholar, down here, where they actually fix the caliphon, they fix the, they say, oh, it was of the land. It's on the, they write it on the very top. I love that. It's so cute to me because it shows like the scribe probably fell asleep. He gets to the very end of the parchment, okay? He gets to the last line and he made a mistake.

Oh, no, it was of the land. And he has to write in the word of. So this was still acceptable because it was only one textual variant on it. Again, variant, not error. You know, you actually have in the scribal tradition, the scribes, not all of them are Christians, by the way, and some of them are like, this is so boring recording the Bible. When do we get a lunch break? like like they because they had to be so accurate so i want you to hold this in your hand and while while you're holding it i want to explain how it was donated to our ministry and again it begins up here on the right you're reading right to left and do you just feel that so that's bovine material and again jesus quotes so much from the Torah he quotes from the book of deuteronomy the

most he also if we look at then tonac he quotes from the book of isaiah and and the writings then he quotes from Psalms, Psalm 110 the most. And so it's not amazing to hold this in our hand. This was donated. This was smuggled out of Iraq during Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing. It was smuggled out in army rubber tires. And then it was given to a man who donated it to our ministry. And so often when I'm speaking, I'll actually pass it around the audience. I did that. Yeah, absolutely, especially when the music people get at it. You know, it'll vanish.

I was at the pastor's conference the other day speaking all these pastors. And I said, you know, I want you to hold the Word of God in your hand. And you can see, again, it's not a codex. This is a scroll. And there's writing on only one side. Explain that, Jeremiah. When you say it's not a codex. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, thank you. For normal people out here. So this is a codex, okay? The church did not event it, but the only time the church is ever. been ahead of the technological curve is when the church said, hey, this is really expensive, and there's only writing on one side, and you have to unroll it. They started using a codex, or the plural is codices. All that means it was in book form, and there's writing on the front and back of the page. Okay. This, and that's generally, the earliest that we have is on papyrus

fragments, not parchment. This is parchment. And do you see the seams? So imagine how long the book of numbers would be. This is just three chapters. It begins numbers 30, verse one. My man gets all the way to the end, makes that one. Do you see the mistake at the very last line where he writes of the land? Darn it, but it's still passed. And this is so powerful to me because it shows the preservation of God's word. I mean, do you realize that skeptics of the Bible claim that Isaiah 53 did not exist, that it was made up in the MT, the Masoretic text? And then we have the greatest discovery of all time, Kumron K4, one Q Isaiah, and there it is. It's 200 BC, it's a thousand years older than the Masoretic text,

and there on column 44 is Isaiah's prophecy of 53. So I want to give a preview, Lord willing, when I'm back at Christmas, and we talk about messianic prophecies, I'm bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls with me. Let's go, come on, coming soon. And it's 24 feet long, so make sure you don't miss it that day. I'm not gonna miss it that day. You're not fun to hold.

You said 800 years old. Yes, and it's a thousand-year-old scribal tradition. So how do we date things? That's another thing that I love to talk about. You have to learn how to read paleography and codecology. We date things by studying handwriting. And so I was actually studied in the Griffith Paprology lab under a woman named Daniela Colomo, who taught me how to read not a composite text,

which is a composite text is like a Greek New Testament that it's been a printed and it has put all the manuscripts together. Reading an actual fragment is much different. I had to learn what a lunate sigma was, but it was so powerful for me, you guys. I was holding a third century gospel of John fragment in my hand, and I was reading it. And this is where the Lord spoke to me, not audibly, but in my heart to say, you've got to do Christian thinker society because we've got to raise up an army of people that love God with their heart, soul, and their mind. So isn't it inspirational just to know that, you know, 800 years ago, a Jewish, scribe wrote this Torah, and it's relevant to the conversation because that's the flood account.

Jesus appeals to Torah. And I just wanted you guys to hold that in your hand to feel it. And also see, yeah, it would survive given the right conditions. So don't believe the Bible skeptics who are like, oh, we don't have, you know, the Word of God is very stable. That's the technical term I would use. We have a stable text. That's good. That's amazing. Thank you for bringing this. Yeah. We'll keep it. This is a gift. This is another giveaway, right? Jesus and number 38 will get this. That's awesome. I know we're probably going to get to the moral part.

Yeah, that's right. So we're going to do this. We're going to do moral part real quick. And then I got a couple of things to share as well in terms of like, man, the whole Bible is about Jesus. So real quick to address Bill's question, why would a good God kill everybody? Yeah. Well, here's what I want to back up and say contextually. Every time God creates, he says it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good.

it's good. Then when he creates mankind, it's very good. But guess what sin has to be dealt with? Yes. And God is gracious. This same kind of questions pop out during the conquest. You know, why does why does God allow the Amalekites, the Canaanites to be wiped out? Well, God had waited 400 years for these people to repent. And then finally judgment comes. And it tells me that my sin is a serious offense to God. and can you imagine how evil the world must have been? And we have a slide, actually, because one thing that I find myself asking is society without God. This is what it looked like in the days of Noah. And I just would ask our audience, are we kind of living in a similar time right now?

Yeah. What does it look like? Without God, it turns out it becomes law of the jungle. The first thing, and more than one half of the world's governments have turned their back on God in the last. 70 years. And this is what happens in every case. Like look at Cuba, what's going on right now in Cuba. Well, immediately you have inequality. Why? Because the Bible brings equality. We have moral relativism. That means I decide what's right. If I'm in China and I say if you're under the age of 18, you can't go to church and we're going to put artificial intelligence on the podium and we're

going to make sure that you're not in church. That's moral relativism. Then we have humanity dehumanized. We literally dehumanized people. We enslave them. Guess what? It's a lot of to enslave people when we get God. There's a really fascinating book called The Plot to Kill God that a professor at Baylor wrote, and it talks about how the Soviets tried to kill God and how, guess what, every negative category increased, suicide, divorce, despair.

It turns out we're really terrible at leading our own lives. We self-destructs, and so you see this, no concept of individual freedom, no purpose, and that big one, no purpose. one, no ultimate meaning. Here's a great mental health checkup for everyone watching. How are you at your relationships right now? How is your physical health? And do you wake up every day living on mission for a purpose? That, I just saved someone $300 seeing a psychologist. Are you, how are you with your closest relationships? Are you caring for those? How are you doing with your physical health?

And then, listen, do you wake up every day on mission? I have to sleep at night with a legal pad next to my bed because God wakes me up and just gives me ideas. I wake up every day out. I couldn't wait to get to this podcast today. I'm living on mission for a purpose. So if you haven't given your life to Christ, do it right now and say, Jesus, I give my life to you. I want to live on mission for a purpose. But the other question we need to ask, we can talk all about the days before the flood. But when I see that, we may be even worse right now. Yeah. Yeah, I'll me get back to that, guys. I think it's such a good point of, I don't think when people hear the story.

Because honestly, like Marr, like he did a big injustice to the text. Number one, like he said, he was blasphemous. Number two, he really pulled some things because it wasn't just a few people he had a problem with it. He says all of human society was so wicked. It was awful. In fact, but leaving this for a second, but going to another place that people often have problems with when you have the Canaanite conquest when people go in.

Exactly. There have been archaeological sites where what they have found is the people that were there before the Israelites went in would burn. infants alive. Absolutely. Sacrifice. Yeah. And so you're telling me that if that were happening today, you would just be fine with

sitting back and having people do nothing about it. And my point about that is to say, okay, if it was that evil at that time and God didn't reset the whole world, how much worse would have had to have been in Noah's time? And it literally says, and he's not mad, it says he is grieved. He's grieved that he does. So he's not happy about it. He says he's greeded at the weakness. So if it was that bad for the K-9 conquest to happen,

how bad must have it been now? So I think that is just one thing. We have to remember of how evil it must have been. Now, here's a few things I want to say specifically to Christians. Then I do want to give a few thoughts if you ever interacting with a non-Christian on this issue. For Christians, I'd say, hey, you've got to remember some guard rows when you're, because a Christian may read the story. They may struggle with it.

He has to remember a few things. Number one, God is perfectly good. He's perfectly good. All of Scripture attests to that. Number two, he's perfectly just. And part of being perfectly just, you've said earlier, Jeremiah, is that he must punish sin. If we had a judge who didn't punish sin, he wouldn't be a just and good judge. So therefore, if you put those two things together, all that God does or allows is good and right.

Now, that doesn't mean that he can do whatever he wants. We have to call it good because God is also a moral God. But it does mean that I have confidence that if he is always good and always just, and if something happens or he allows it to happen, it must in some way be good, even if it doesn't seem good to me. Now, then that produces the last point that I want to make, and then I'll give maybe just some answers to some things to think about, especially around when Vilmar's big thing is around. You mean he drowned infants and things like that.

I want to give some thoughts, even though it's a hard thing to deal with. God's knowledge infinitely exceeds ours. So that's the last guardrail I'll give. What that means is that while you have some of these other guardrails, you're going to get to a point where you may not understand God, and guess what? Yeah, he's an infinite God, and you're not. there's going to be some things that you don't understand.

And here's what I say is, is that no matter what you say to some unbelievers, like Bill Maher, at the end of the day, they're not going to be satisfied with any of the other answers I'm going to give to help. Because at the end of the day, if they put their cars in the table, they think they could be better at being God than he is. Right. That's the issue. And there's nothing good to convince him. So that was mainly more for the Christians say, hey, God is perfectly good. He's perfectly just.

And therefore, anything he does or allows is good and right. even that's the last point, if I don't understand it. And then I'm going to have to ask myself, if there's a gap between what I understand and who God is and what he's allows, what am I going to fill that with? Well, if I'm a Christian, I'm going to fill it with trust. I don't have to perfectly understand God to perfectly trust him.

I think it's a great analogy. And two things I'll point out, just I can't improve on it. I would just say, let's read it like Peter did. That's why I quoted it. I got ahead of myself, 1st Peter 320. Peter, if he were on the podcast, would say, what are you talking about? God was so patient.

And my Sean Ryan show, I went deep into the Nephilim. I mean, you have, and it's the earliest part of Genesis is the weirdest part of the Bible, the earliest verses in Genesis 6, because we don't get that much information. We know that there could be, likely was, this hybrid demonic race. And God needs to deal with that. He has to deal with, he cannot believe what's happening with angels and females. And he has to deal with that. And so that to your point, he has to deal with sin.

But God was patient. And that's very important to point that out. Another analogy is Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember, God said, hey, if there are 10 righteous people in this city, I'll hold back my hand of judgment. There was only two, well, really one, lot at the end of the day. And so God is a God of grace. And we have to read the Bible in its full art because guess what? What I liked, you said, we're going to bring up Jesus.

God ends up and he pulls out all the wrath, all the sin of mankind on himself. Yeah. and his son comes and he bears it on the cross for you and me. So let's make sure we read the whole narrative of scripture. That's right. This is why it says, but God demonstrated. I said this for Russell Brandt recently. It's because he's a movie guy.

Like, God is constantly on a loop. It's one of two places. It's in the continuous in Greek. It would be like the movie never ends. God is constantly showing us how much he loves us because he sent his son who's perfect when we were at our worst. God sent his best. And that's why it's so great that we have no condemnation in Christ.

Let me land it here. So one, everything you just said, yeah, like 100%. And at the cross, Jesus took the wrath of God upon him. That's not fair. That's grace. Right. He took our place. By the way, grace doesn't make sense.

We always want to try to make sense of the equation. It's too good to be true. That's how you know it's grace. Pardon my interrupt. No, you're good. And so I would say, too, as we continue to finish this conversation, a lot of people don't know this, but the flood is actually the reversal of the Genesis 1 creation. So if you think about it real quick, in Genesis 1, there's a separation of waters and dry land appears. In Genesis 7, when the flood happens, waters come back, and dry land disappears. Genesis 1, animals fill the earth and humans multiply. Genesis 7, animals, die, and humanity is wiped out. Genesis 1, God creates birds, animals, and humans. That's the order. In Genesis 7, the text says that what perished was birds, animals, and humans. Then, to your point, Jeremiah, in Genesis 1A, the Bible says, God remembers Noah. That's covenant language. And what that means is basically God is faithful when you and I are not.

And so after that verse, recreation starts to happen. And so in Genesis 1, in creation, the spirit of God, the Bible says, was hovering over the waters. The word for spirit is the word ruach, which means wind. And so that's Genesis 1. And in the flood, God sends a wind, a ruach over the earth. and the water receded. In Genesis 1, the Bible says that the Spirit of God hovered over the water is the word hovered. It means to flutter, like a bird.

In Genesis 8, after recreation starts and the flood receipts, Noah sends out a dove over the water. That's new creation, which is interesting because in Matthew 3, Jesus gets baptized in water. And what happens? There is a dove coming as the spirit. Again, that signifies a new creation in Christ, different conversation. I'm digressing. back to the flood. The flood happens.

There is chaos. There's a new creation happening. In Genesis 1, God is creating everything, and he says, let dry land appear. After the flood in Genesis 8, the Bible says that as the waters went down, dry land began to reappear. In Genesis 1, animals filled the earth. In Genesis 8, after the flood, the animals leave the ark and they fill the earth. In Genesis 1, God tells Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply. In Genesis 9, after the flood, God tells Noah be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.

Now, this is really interesting. Adam was created from the ground. The word ground is Adama. In Genesis 920, the Bible calls Noah immediately a man of the Adama, which means a man of the ground, a man of the soil. Noah is the new Adam because both Adam and Noah are the fathers of this new humanity. Both are given dominion over creation. Adam is in a garden. Think about this.

Noah, after the flood, he plants a garden. The Bible calls it a vineyard. Adam is associated with the fruit. Noah is associated with fruit, but in this case, it's wine. Adam takes the fruit and sins after creation, Noah takes the fruit and sins after recreation. The Bible says he got drunk.

Here's the point. The flood removes sinners. It did not remove sin. Why? Because our greatest issue is not our environment out there. Our greatest issue happens in our heart in here. We need our creator to step into creation and recreate something in us.

And this is what this means. The flood gave Noah a new earth, but only Jesus can give you and I a new heart. Like you said, the gospel is, God becomes man, in Christ, receives the judgment that you and I deserve on the wooden cross and offer salvation to those who trust in him. And here's what happens.

In the ark, God's judgment was avoided through the ark that God provided at the cross. God's judgment was absorbed through the cross of Jesus and God provided. In the ark, God saves Noah and his family by church. trusting in the wooden arc at the cross, God saves all who today trust in Jesus who died on a wooden cross. In other words, we can trust in Christ. That is the gospel. That is good news. And back to your question, what is exegesis, what you just did? Letting scripture, interpret scripture. Can I end with a warning and also a message of hope?

Yes, please. So Audrey and I, my wife and I recently went to a concentration camp. We went to Bukinvald. And if anyone has ever doubts, because you, you have the relativist like Bill Maher who say that sin doesn't exist, we can all just, you know, that's your truth. When you go to a concentration camp, you see the wickedness and the evil of mankind. And there's this, it almost makes you physically, it can make you physically ill. And I was driving away and there was a scholar with us. And he said, do you know it's very unfortunate?

The Bible says it will get even worse than this before the second coming of Jesus Christ. So thank God that sin has been dealt with. So that is a warning. And it is a warning when we need podcasts like yours to be bold for Christ. And I do want to mention one thing about the Bible. I was with a very learned person two days ago who has a very informed knowledge of Bible sales, because you were talking about biblical literacy, more Bibles sold last year than they have in the last 200 years. So that we're seeing a resurgence of scripture among young men buying Bibles.

That's right. And I have the details on that. The final thing I want to say is I want to actually end where we began. and Carlos, with your permission. I have a photo I want to show people of a bridge because often the hardest person to forgive is yourself. People struggle with this. And it turns out, Paul and Carlos,

we're all far more dangerous to ourselves than we are to other people. I used to live in Oxford, England. This is Golders Green, North London. If anyone knows anything about crossing the street in London, you know they do not stop for pedestrians. If you've been in England, they'll run you over. So giving it a little context,

this is one of the busiest intersections, in all of London, Golders Green, and this is a man who had come to the end of his wits and wanted to take his life. Strangers are walking home from work. Everybody walks in London. And they see something that doesn't look right. None of these people know each other.

And they stop and they protect and save this man from himself. Look at the picture. Carlos, do you see the guy who's holding onto the belt? I see someone who's crouching. hey, I've got him by his calf muscles. I see that man. He's probably whispering something, grasping, saying, you're going to make it, you're going to be okay. You don't believe in God's providence.

Someone has a rope coming home from work that day. How do you explain this? They lasso him. And guess what? This is a picture of God's forgiveness for us, and we need to accept it. God is, his love is literally, Jude says, we should be caught up in the atmosphere. We should be enveloped in his love. And so I want to encourage you because of this series you've had on forgiveness,

you probably need to watch it again. And you need to accept the forgiveness that God's already given you. Amen. Amen. And remember, we need people around us. So this is why you need to be at Lake Point. You can't do it alone. And you know what?

Were it not for the grace of God, it'd be every one of us on that bridge right now. That's right. Dr. Jeremiah Johnson, would you pray for us? Thank you, Jesus, for the power of your truth. Thank you for Paul and these incredible insights you gave to him. Thank you for Carlos and just the intertextuality. He just shared things, Lord, I've never heard before and learned. Thank you for Pastor Josh Howardton. Thank you for the power of his voice through this podcast. Thank you for all the people who are listening and watching. And, Father, we pray that we would be truth addicts, that we would know the scales of truth tip in our favor. We spell truth, J-E-S-U-S. And, Lord, I pray all of this would cause us to fall more and more in love with you, Jesus. Not to walk out of here to try to be the smartest person in the room, but to be the person who's most in love with Christ. who is most eager to share the truth of the gospel with someone else. Bless this podcast to make a huge impact in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. They're free, brother. Let free. Let free. Let's go.