DWDP - Gen 6; 13-16 Make for Yourself an Ark.

A world soaked in violence. A warning no one wanted. A colossal barge with one door and a promise that judgment would not have the final word. We open Genesis 6:13–16 and follow the details many skip: gopher wood, three decks, precise dimensions, and a sealing pitch that does more than waterproof—it whispers the first hint of atonement. Along the way, we share a striking story from the Middle East, where a nursing student’s night vision of flowing blood confirmed the gospel she’d heard and pulled belief from possibility into surrender.

We talk plainly about how God speaks now—through the written Word, preached and taught—and how extraordinary moments like dreams never replace Scripture but can press its truth home. Then we dig into the ark’s design with clear, accessible reasoning: why a barge for stability and capacity, how cubits translate into modern terms, and why feasibility matters for an honest reading of the text. The symbolism deepens the structure: one door in the ark, one door to the sheepfold, one way to the Father. This isn’t narrow for its own sake; it’s a coherent rescue plan in a world of false exits.

Finally, we challenge the quiet creed of our age: that everything continues the same, untouched by the living God. Creation, the worldwide flood, and the resurrection say otherwise. Noah built when rain had never fallen. Faith looked foolish until it was the only wisdom left. We ask you to choose a foundation—scientism and uniformitarianism, or the God who speaks and saves—and to live like people who expect Him to act. If this stirred new questions or fresh courage, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so others can find these conversations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Passage Setup
• 0:39 Reading Genesis 6:13–16
• 1:45 How God Speaks Then And Now
• 3:34 Dreams, Visions, And A Mission Field Story
• 4:46 Violence, Judgment, And Collateral Damage
• 6:51 Ark Design, Cubits, And Capacity
• 9:47 Pitch And The First Atonement
• 11:08 One Door And Christ As The Way
• 13:20 No Rain Yet: Noah’s Costly Obedience
• 15:53 Scientism, Uniformitarianism, And Faith
• 19:02 Choose Whom You Will Serve
• 19:58 Closing And Listener Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, Dr. Robert Jackson.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Papa, can you tell me a story? Do you really want me to tell you a story? Well, you go get your brother and your sisters, and I will tell you a story. Welcome to Devotions with Dr. Papa. Gather round, grab your Bibles, and let's look into the written word which reveals to us the living word. Today we're at Genesis six, verses thirteen to sixteen. Give attention to this reading from God's Word. Then God said to Noah, The End of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it. The length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark and finish it to a cubit from the top, and set the door of the ark in the side of it. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. All right, may the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. We don't know how God spoke to Noah. Scripture doesn't specify was it a dream or a vision or a theopany? Now theopany is just a theologian's word for when God reveals himself in a physical form, like when he appeared as a man to Abraham. We really just don't know. How does God speak to us today? Good question. Primarily God speaks to us today through His written word. He speaks to us through preaching and teaching of His written word. The Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by His Word, by the Word of God. But does that mean He cannot use dreams or visions to confirm His Word? Certainly God can. If you spend any time at all among Arab people who have become Christians, you will hear many stories of Muslims who had nighttime dreams of meeting Jesus or seeing flowing blood or blood filled fountains that usually confirm the truth of the word of God that they heard on the radio or reading a portion of scripture or that they heard shared by a missionary. I'll tell you a personal story. When my wife was a missionary in the Middle East, she had a nursing student named Iftakar. She had shared the gospel with her nursing students many times, and eventually Iftakar, who was a Muslim, became a believer. But before she became a believer, she had a vision in the night, and she saw blood flowing down from the corners of the rooms and flowing all over herself. And it confirmed the teaching and preaching of the missionaries. It confirmed the Bible teaching of Carlotta, her nursing instructor. And she came to Carlotta and shared the vision and said, I am now ready to become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. She and two other nursing students who were Muslims confessed Christ as their Savior and they became disciples of Miss Carlotta for a portion of the time that she had remaining in the Middle East. So now let's move on. God informed Moses that the end of all flesh was near. All flesh meant human and animal flesh. He would destroy them all with the earth. What had the beasts done wrong? After all, they can't make moral judgments. Of course they don't, but they were the collateral damage of the sin of mankind. That's true even today. How often do we see innocent victims of alcohol related motor vehicle accidents, for example? Or innocent children suffer because the angry tirades of the uncontrolled temper of a parent? How often do entire nations suffer because of the socialistic communistic rule of a single man, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who ruined a thriving, prosperous economy with his socialistic policies, enriching himself and his cronies and impoverishing the people, ruining the economy, kicking out all the Christian missionaries and making himself public enemy number one. Yes, the sin of one or a few often causes serious collateral damage. So even the beast of the field died in the flood because of the sin slash violence slash corruption of man. Once again God explained why he was going to destroy the entire world. Say it with me, for the earth is filled with violence, much like our world is today. In verse fourteen, God instructed Noah to build a boat to preserve both human and animal life, and he gave him precise dimensions in verse sixteen and verse seventeen. The boat was more like a barge designed for large capacity and stability rather than speed or navigability. The specified dimensions were three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. You have to understand that different cultures had different measurements for a cubit, ranging from nineteen point eight inches for the Babylonian royal cubit to the Egyptian seventeen point six inch shorter cubit. The Hebrew even had a long and short cubit. Most biblical scholars believe that the biblical cubit was eighteen inches. Henry Morris, in his scientific discussion of the ark and its dimensions, its stability, and its capacity, chose the Hebrew shorter cubit to be conservative, I guess is the word I would use. With these dimensions, the internal capacity would be one million four hundred thousand cubic feet equal to the capacity of five hundred and twenty two standard livestock cars as used on modern American railroads. A standard railroad car can transport 240 sheep. Therefore, the Ark could have carried 125,000 sheep. Furthermore, the Ark was to have three decks, each ten cubits high, divided into rooms, and covered with pitch for waterproofing. It was made of gopher wood, which was presumably a very dense hardwood. Morris' book on page 181, and this is a book that I've I've used extensively, it's called the Genesis Record, says this, and this is very interesting. The word for pitch, the Hebrew word is kofr, k-o-p-h-r, is different from that used in other places in the Old Testament. It's equivalent to the Hebrew kafar, K-A-P-H-A-R, which means to cover. And in the noun form, it means simply a covering. However, it is also the regular Hebrew word for atonement. How about that? As in Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11, for example. In essence, therefore, this is the first mention of atonement in the Bible. Whatever the exact nature of this pitch may have been, it's probably some kind of resinous substance that would, you know, have waterproof the ark, it sufficed as a perfect covering for the ark to keep out the waters of judgment. Just as the blood of the lamb provides a perfect atonement for the sin stained soul of man. Now, remember I told you, if you put Jesus in the middle, these scriptures come alive. Well, there it is again. The word atonement mentioned for the very first time in the scriptures. And it it applies to a word that means covering, just as the blood of Jesus covers and atones for your and my sin. Now let me ask you another question. If this were a local flood, as some have proposed, why didn't the all-knowing God just tell Noah to pick up his family and walk to another country? He warned him 120 years in advance. He had plenty of time to flee, and there was no need for a gigantic barge if it was merely a local flood. And I'm just honestly submitting to you that it's foolishness to suggest that this was a local flood. It was a worldwide cataclysmic flood that required an arc of safety. And in verse 16, it informs us that there was to be a door in the side of the ark, a single door. Have you ever seen a cruise liner with only one entrance and one exit? That would have certainly violated all manner of codes. But in the ark, there was only one door. And upon entering the door, the animals had to go deeper and deeper in to find their resting place. There's no doubt that the ark is a type, a picture, a representation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by him. Jesus told us plainly that he is the door of the sheepfold in John chapter ten verses seven through nine, through which his sheep must enter for rest, and then exit for service. There was only one door to the ark, and only one way to the Father, only one door to the ark, and only one door to the sheepfold, only one door to the ark of safety, and only one good shepherd, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. Did I not just tell you that if you put Jesus in the middle of this passage it would come alive? Now before we leave these verses, I want us to focus on Noah's obedience to God. You have to understand that prior to Noah's time there had been no rain upon the earth, and no such thing as floods. Genesis chapter two and verse five tells us that God had not sent rain upon the earth. Many Bible scholars believe that a heavy dew fell upon the earth every day, providing moisture, and that most, if not all, of the earth was like a tropical rainforest. There must have been a great occasion for ridicule for a hundred and twenty years as Noah and his sons built this huge monstrosity and warned folks, folks, of a flood to come. Or as Hebrew puts it, Noah had been warned of God of things not seen as yet. What had not been seen as yet? They had never seen rain. They'd never seen a flood. And Noah believed God's word. And he preached for a hundred and twenty years, and he built the ark to prepare an ark for the saving of his house. Do you have that kind of faith, my dear listeners? Do you have that kind of obedience? Now let me ask you another question. What was the prevailing belief in Noah's day? I'll tell you what it was. It's the same prevailing belief today. It's called scientism and uniformitarianism, which believes that everything continues the same, uninterrupted by outside forces. Do you think those folks believed Noah when he said there was going to be rain and a flood? Of course they didn't. Do you think folks today believe that one day God's going to destroy this world and replace it with a new heaven and a new earth? Of course they don't. Do you think that they believe the judgments predicted in the book of Revelation are ever going to happen? Of course they don't. If they did, they would live differently. Noah is crazy. That's what they're thinking. There will be no flood. Both Pilate and the Pharisees believed that there would be no resurrection. Yet over five hundred people witnessed the resurrected Christ. And eight out of ten Christians in the first 200 years of the church gave their lives as martyrs for their belief that Jesus Christ was alive, not dead, and had transformed their lives. You see, God intervened in the affairs of men and nations. That was not uniformitarianism. You see, God intervened as an outside force. The events of the flood were certainly not uniformitarianism. How do you explain the resurrection if uniformitarianism is true and God does not intervene in the affairs of men and nations? How do you explain the flood? How do you explain the creation of the heavens and the earth where God merely spoke and the heavens and the earth appeared? That's certainly not uniformitarianism. You see, scientism and uniformitarianism are two sides of the same coin. We cannot worship God and scientism. We cannot worship God and uniformitarianism. We have to choose one or the other. We have to choose either atheistic evolution and we believe that that explains the universe, and we worship scientism and uniformitarianism, or we worship God. And we believe that by the word of his mouth and the strength of his will, he spoke the world into existence in six days, as the holy scriptures inform us by divine revelation. And we believe that there was an interruption to uniformitarianism called the Great Flood that destroyed the earth, that created the Grand Canyon in just a few months' time, not over millennia, placing fossils in the Sahara Desert. How would they get there except by the Great Flood? Disrupting the fossil record all over the world. You see, choose ye this day whom you will serve. Will you serve the God of science and uniformitarianism? Or are you going to serve the true and living God? That's a decision and a choice that every one of us has to make. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. You're listening to Devotions with Dr. Papa. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson. If you like what you hear, I pray that you will follow, like, share, or download, and please tell your friends about it. And until next week, remember, Jesus loves you, your doctor loves you, and I pray that the Lord will bless you real good.

Speaker: 20:21

Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, Instagram, or webpage at Jackson Family Ministry.