DWDP - Gen 7: 17-23 And the Flood Came

A rising sea, a rising question: can we trust the plain words of Genesis when everything around us urges a softer read? We open Genesis 7:17–23 and trace the language, the logic, and the stakes of a global Flood, exploring how God’s justice, patience, and mercy meet in one world-shaping event. Along the way, we talk through the Hebrew term mabbul, the repeated claims that “all the high mountains” were covered, and the eyewitness feel of the account that describes waters prevailing, increasing, and overwhelming.

We also examine the cultural pressure points. Evolutionary uniformitarianism frames earth history as slow and steady; Genesis presents rupture and re-creation through a catastrophic deluge. Drawing on Henry Morris’s arguments, we consider what a universal Flood would mean for interpreting the fossil record, and why the credibility of Scripture in one major event can affect confidence in other core claims, including the resurrection. This isn’t about winning an argument; it’s about forming the courage to read what the text actually says and let it reshape us.

Most importantly, we connect the scope of judgment to the scope of mercy. The text insists that everything with the breath of life perished outside the ark, while Noah and those with him were preserved by God’s provision. That pattern—warning, refusal, judgment, rescue—invites us to trust the Word as inerrant and reliable and to hide it in our hearts. If you’ve wrestled with the Flood’s historicity, or with the tension between Scripture and cultural consensus, this conversation offers clarity, conviction, and hope. If it challenged you or helped you see Genesis with fresh eyes, share it with a friend, subscribe for future studies, and leave a review so others can find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Scripture Reading
• 2:20 Why The Flood Matters Today
• 4:49 Evolution, Geology, And Faith Claims
• 8:10 Textual Case For A Global Flood
• 12:30 Mountains Covered And Eyewitness Detail
• 15:30 Total Judgment And Survival In The Ark
• 18:00 Believe Or Doubt: A Call To Trust
• 19:40 Closing Blessing And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 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_02: 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 who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Well today we're at Genesis chapter seven verses seventeen through twenty three. Let me read those verses to you. Chapter seven verse seventeen to twenty three. Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark so that it rose above the earth. The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beast, and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind. Of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died. Thus he blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading from his word. Now let me ask you a question. Why is the biblical story of the flood important to you and me? Well let me give you two reasons. First, it teaches that the God of love is also a God of justice, whose patience with man eventually runs out, both individually and collectively. We understand from the biblical account that God sent preachers of righteousness to the pre flood, the antediluvian generations out of love. The people did not listen, and their corruption and violence increased greatly, and God's patience expired, and judgment came in the form of a world destroying flood. God sent prophets to warn his chosen people for literally centuries, but they rejected God to worship Baal and other false gods. His patience eventually ran out with his chosen people, and he sent judgment in the form of the Assyrians and Babylonians, who carried them away into captivity. Now I want you to understand that God haters and liberal Christians try to persuade you and me that either the great flood did not happen or it was a localized flood rather than a worldwide cataclysmic event in order to undermine our confidence in Scripture. Because you see, if you doubt such a major event in Scripture, then you will doubt other things in Scripture as well, such as the resurrection, which is the foundation of our faith. I want to read to you from doctor Henry Morris in his book The Genesis Record. This is a three page, three paragraph excerpt from his book The Genesis Record, and he explains a little more fully why this is so important. The question of the nature and historicity of the Noic deluge is of immense importance to biblical Christianity. The fact of the flood is a pivotal issue in the entire conflict between Christianity and anti Christianity. If the principle of innate evolutionary development can fully explain the universe and all its inhabitants as its proponents claim, then there is no need to postulate a creator. The chief evidence for evolution is the geological record of the supposed billions of years of Earth history documented by the fossils entombed in the sedimentary rocks of the Earth's crust. And there is no room in this framework of rocks I'm sorry, in this framework of interpretation for a world destroying flood. Thus, if the latter has actually occurred, the assumptions of uniformity and evolution as guiding principles in interpreting Earth history are thereby proved completely deceptive and false. In its history, the earth has suffered much under the effects of the curse. Heat and cold, floods and drought, earthquakes and eruptions, all kinds of physical upheavals have disturbed its crust and the inhabitants dwelling on its surface. But immeasurably greater in magnitude and extent than all other catastrophes combined was the Great Flood. In our modern age of scientific skepticism, the enormity of this great event of the past has been all but forgotten. Its testimony of the awfulness of sin and the reality of divine retribution is so disturbingly unwelcome that men have tried for ages somehow to explain it away and forget it. Even conservative Christians, although professing belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture, have often ignored the significance of the flood. They have been intimidated by the evolutionary geologist and paleontologist who, for over a hundred years, have insisted that all of Earth history should be explained in terms of slow development over great ages by the operation of the same natural processes which now prevail, completely rejecting the concept of the universal flood at the dawn of history. Many Christians have attempted to work out a compromise with evolutionary geology by explaining the flood as a local flood caused by a great overflow of the Euphrates or some other river in the Middle East. His last sentence is this It must be settled here, therefore, first of all, that the Bible record does describe a universal world destroying flood. Now let's you and me go through the plain text of Genesis chapter seven verses seventeen through twenty three. And if you're somebody who respects the word of Scripture, if you value the Word of God, then as we read through the very plain words of the text, you will plainly understand that there's no room in these words for a localized flood. But the plain text describes a universal cataclysmic world destroying event. So let's read through it and let's see what the words of the scripture actually say. The wording of the entire record, both in these few verses and throughout Genesis six through nine, could not be improved on. If the intention of the writer was to describe a universal flood as a description of a river overflowing, it's completely misleading and exaggerated to say the least. The expressions involved describe the universality of the flood and its effect occur occur more than thirty times in Genesis six through nine. It describes the flood as being forty days upon the earth. There was a continual downpour lasting for forty days and continuing with a bursting of the great clefts in the crust and that would be impossible under the uniformitarian concept. And you understand that evolution requires uniformitarianism. That means that everything then and now continues just as it has always been. There's no room for a great flood. There's no room for a world destroying deluge. The flood which came on the earth was in the original language the Mabul M A B B U L, and that word was used only to describe the great flood in Noah's day, and it's not used anywhere in the Bible except to describe the great Noah flood. The ordinary Hebrew words for a local flood are not used here in Genesis six through nine, nor is it used anywhere else in the Bible except to describe Noah's flood. The water rose very quickly, and it was sufficient to bear up the ark, indicating a depth of at least twenty feet in the earliest stages of the flood. Since the ark was at least forty four feet high and heavily loaded, as we already noted, the ark was far too large to accommodate just a few animals locally and was more than adequate to house two of every species of land animal in the whole world that was living at that time and perhaps extinct now. As the rains continued, the waters prevailed. That's a word which means literally were overwhelmingly mighty. And it would be quite inappropriate in the setting of a local flood. In the book of Job, chapter twelve and verse fifteen, the scripture says that the waters overturned the earth. Now does that sound like a localized flood? I don't think so. Now let's go on to verses nineteen through twenty. The record of the flood gives every indication of being an eyewitness account. It probably wasn't Noah, but probably his sons who recorded the eyewitness account. And they described exactly what they saw and firmly believed to be a worldwide, uniquely destructive, cataclysmic event. And they described the waters as covering all the high hills and mountains. And you know that that's amazing because it you know they they just they said very plainly that it just that it covered up every high mountain. Um the waters prevailed more and more upon the earth, verse nineteen, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. Verse twenty. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits higher and the mountains were covered. Now we know that Mount Arat is seventeen thousand feet high. That's a lot of water. The windows of the heavens were opened, the fountains of the deep were opened. That's a lot of water. And the ark rose up on top of that water seventeen thousand feet high. Now was Aerarat that high at that time? Well we don't know because there was a lot of convulsions of the earth's crust at that time. Maybe the the uh the aerat was pushed up higher because of that event, but at any rate, regardless, the water was higher than the highest mountain at that time. And these guys were eyewitnesses, and everywhere they looked, there was water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. They weren't going to drink that water. It was full of dead animals, it was full of dead people, it was full of the the well, you've seen floods, and the flood is full of rocks and boulders and trees and and it's like a torrent, and nobody wants to drink that water. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. And the water was so high that it covered all the mountains. The waters were not only overwhelmingly mighty, but it prevailed exceedingly over the earth, and it said that all the mountains under the whole heaven were inundated under the at least fifteen cubits of water, which is half the height of the ark. And then the mountains were covered. The Hebrew word there was Kassa, K A S A H, which conveyed a very positive emphasis, and it could well be rendered overwhelmed, and is translated in some instances as overwhelmed, and the waters not only inundated the mountains but eventually washed them away. Alright, so let's keep moving. Go down to verses twenty one. It says that all flesh died that moved upon the earth. And you know, a local flood would not have killed all of the animals and all of the trees and all the plants, but everything died in that flood. And it didn't matter what it was, but it everything was completely killed by this overwhelming flood. And then it goes on to say that every man died, which was the purpose of the flood, because of their violence and their corruption. In a localized flood, people escape, the animals escape, but this scripture very plainly tells us that every man died, which was again the purpose of the flood. There were no survivors. Not only did everything with the breath of life die, including the animals, but so was every living substance destroyed. That means the plants as well, everything was destroyed. In fact, God had already told Noah in advance that he would destroy man with the earth. Everything. And only Noah and those with him in the ark survive the flood. So that all present men who are descended from Noah's three sons, everybody that's on the planet today is descended from Noah's three sons. And then all the animals that are alive today are descended from the animals that were on the ark. And so let's stop there today, and we'll come back next week and we'll talk more about verse 24, where it talks about the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days, and we're going to talk about the implications of the water being upon the earth so many days. And we'll talk about after the deluge. So let's stop there now, and I'll let you just ponder that and and I want you to think about, you know, there are a lot of things that that people are called by. People are called as conservatives and liberals, they're called progressives and and uh fundamentalists, but I I prefer the term believers and unbelievers. Either you believe the word of God or you don't believe it. Either you believe the word of God is inspired by the Spirit of God, that it's inerrant, that it's reliable, that it's trustworthy, or you don't. If you believe that the Bible is inerrant, that it's trustworthy, that it's inspired by the Spirit of God, then brothers and sisters, you need to pay attention to it. You need to read it, you need to study it, you need to hide it in your heart. And it's reliable for you and me to make it our sole guide for faith and practice. Hide it in your heart so that you may not sin against God. All right, that's enough for today. We'll be back again next week. Until next week, remember your doctor loves you and Jesus loves you. Until then, may the Lord bless you real good.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

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.com. Also, don't forget To check out Dr. Jackson's books that are available on Amazon. The Family Doctor Speaks, the truth about life, in his first book, and The Family Doctor Speaks. The truth about seed planting, equipping believers for evangelism, is his second. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan, Audio Productions.