Loving Father | Find Your Way Home Week 5

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- Today, we're going to examine what may be

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the most misunderstood story in the entire Bible,

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the one where God comes off like a crazy person

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with a turn or burn sign.

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It's Noah and the Great Flood.

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How can God be a loving Father

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and then brutally kill, like, basically everybody?

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How can the story of Noah and the Flood be true

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and God be the loving Father

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we'd actually want to come home to?

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To get the answer, we're going to tackle

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the hardest questions surrounding this story head on.

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And I believe if you hang with us

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you'll see this story in a new light

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that helps you find your way closer to home.

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We're hoping to open the front door

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and find a loving father waiting for us,

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not the turn or burn sign guy.

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Hey, I'm Kyle. This is Crossroads.

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Today, I'm going to look at the story

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of Noah's Flood under a microscope.

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This is one of the most famous stories

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in the whole world.

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And chances are, you've written an offer,

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haven't really thought about it in a long time.

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But take it from someone who's been studying

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the Bible for 20 years, when you dig in,

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some of these stories like this

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become fascinating, and problematic.

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Frankly, this story has always bothered me, like, a lot.

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You know, like that one thing you stay up

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all night trying to figure out because

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it makes no sense to you. It's like that.

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Nearly every message I've ever heard about it,

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I feel like at some point I've been asked

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to just check my brain at the door

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and swallow the red pill.

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But we're not going to do that today.

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Take it from me, when you dig in,

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you can actually find real answers that hold water

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and unlock all kinds of fresh insights about God.

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We'll read the actual story from Genesis 6

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in just a few minutes.

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But I want to give you a quick summary first.

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It starts like this: God is so bummed

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at the deplorable state of humanity

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He says He wishes he had never made us.

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So He floods the whole earth and kills everyone,

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except for Noah, his immediate family,

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and a few lucky animals

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who basically win the animal lottery.

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It takes Noah a hundred years to build the ark,

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which literally means box,

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and had never been built anywhere before,

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like, no one had ever seen it.

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So for the majority of this story,

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the people watching it unfold saw something incomplete

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and we're probably super confused

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about what the -- what the heck is going on?

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I want you to remember that

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and I want you to remember this picture.

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Unless you're an awful person,

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this story should elicit massive questions,

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like, How can God be a loving Father

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and then brutally killing basically everybody?

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And how does this square with Jesus

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who saw people messing up too,

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but rather than kill them, He died for them.

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And also wait, like, a flood over the whole earth?

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Is that even possible?

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And do I really have to believe this story is true

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if I want to follow Jesus, or can I just kind of

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write it off as like kind of the Bible gets crazy

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for a little bit?

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We're going to tackle all those questions.

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But I want to start with the last one.

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Do I really have to believe this story is true

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if I want to follow Jesus?

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Because if not, again, all the other questions

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don't really matter, it becomes really easy.

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And the short answer you might not like is this: Yes.

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If you want to follow Jesus, you do.

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Why? Because Jesus treated it like a true story.

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In Luke 17 Jesus said:

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Just as it was in the days of Noah,

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so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

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Now Son of Man is His nickname for Himself.

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So He's comparing the events of His life

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to the events of Noah's life,

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which means Jesus basically considered Noah

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to be as real as Himself.

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So if you want to follow Jesus, it's not a great idea

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to disagree and decide this story is just fake.

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So let's take that off the table

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and go to the next question.

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Does believing Noah and the Flood happened

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mean you must believe the Flood

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literally covered the whole world?

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And this answer may surprise you,

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I'd say not necessarily.

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See while you can find some really well-meaning

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YouTube videos that describe how massive canyons

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could have been power carved in a matter of days

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by a worldwide flood.

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Those claims are, geologically speaking,

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suspect at best.

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Also, a worldwide flood poses some other big problems,

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like all the water in the world

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would have kind of mixed and swirled together,

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saltwater oceans with freshwater lakes and rivers,

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which would have killed all the freshwater fish.

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But we still have those swimming around today.

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So while there's not great scientific footing

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for a literal worldwide flood, there is actually

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really strong evidence for a very large localized flood

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in the Middle East that corresponds

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with the time of Noah.

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Now, a large localized flood also fits with

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what I think is like an almost like an Easter egg

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hidden in the biblical text itself

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that points to the whole world

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actually meaning Noah's whole world.

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Now Easter Egg is a little fresh olive leaf

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that's carried back to the Ark by a dove after the Flood

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is a sign that the water was receding.

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Here's the thing, olive trees die

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if they're underwater for a year,

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which is how long the story says the Flood lasted.

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And do you know who would have for sure known that,

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because they knew way more

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about growing olive trees than we do?

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The people of the ancient Middle East,

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who this story was originally recorded for.

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So, you may disagree, but in my opinion

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there's evidence both in the scientific record

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and inside the Bible itself for us

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to take a local flood interpretation.

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And I wanna say this, I have to acknowledge

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that God being God also means I fully believe

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He could absolutely do impossible things,

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like flood the entire world and then miraculously

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get rid of all the water

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and erase it from the geological record.

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So who knows?

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Really, I'm not super concerned about

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what angle you want to take

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on the scale of the flood.

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Because what's much more important than that

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is what you decide this story says about who God is.

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This story is about a search for home,

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that place of belonging, acceptance, safety, direction.

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And this story presses on the most important part

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of what we're looking for in home:

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a perfect, loving father,

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someone who will fight for us, not fight against us.

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Someone who'll come and rescue us,

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not come and condemn us.

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Someone to remind us who we really are

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when we mess up or lose our way.

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Not, you know, drown us in a horrible flood.

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Like at least you think He could have done

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that merciful Thanos,

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just kind of turn everybody the dust thing,

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you know what I mean?

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So how can this story be true

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and God be a loving Father?

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That's the question we're tackling next.

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- Do you know where you're going?

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To get different results in life,

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you're going to have to do some different things.

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And if you're up for adventure this year,

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do the Bible Challenge with me.

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Read every day, get inspired,

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and see what others are saying.

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I believe the Bible is more than a book

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that's meant to sit on a shelf and just collect dust.

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It's meant to take you somewhere in life.

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What about you? Where are you going?

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Download the Crossroads App

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and do the Bible Challenge today.

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- Man, I can't say enough about the app.

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I use it personally and I publish what I'm thinking

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and learning probably three or four times a week.

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I'd love you to jump in and start using it

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with Brian, me, and thousands of other people.

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Okay, so let's get to our main question.

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How can this story of this ark and the Flood be true

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and God be a loving Father?

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Now, this matters deeply to me personally,

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because I grew up in and around church,

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and the answers I got fell apart shockingly fast

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once I hit that phase in my life,

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my late teens, early twenties,

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when you just start questioning pretty much everything,

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that caused doubts about God,

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that rippled into every area of my faith

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and even threatened to destroy it.

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I think misunderstanding stories like the Flood

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can be like that first loose thread in a sweater

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that, if pulled on, could unravel the entire thing.

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Now, the typical church explanation that I heard

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is the Flood is about God's justice.

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You know, the people deserve the punishment they got.

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And Kyle, you don't want to live in an unfair world

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without justice, do you?

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Well, here's my pushback.

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One, well, God is just,

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that's a key part of His character.

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And two, sure, none of us, me included,

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want to live in a world without justice.

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That answer alone isn't at all satisfying.

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Because remember, on this journey

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to find the place called home,

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we're looking for a loving Father.

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And I'm willing to bet your mental picture of that guy

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isn't a judge who gives you exactly what you deserve.

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Son, you screwed up. So, so good news.

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I'm going to give you what you deserve.

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Oh, awesome, Dad.

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Drowning. Yes. I'm so glad you're just.

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No, of course not.

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You want what I want?

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You want someone who will give you

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what you don't deserve.

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Someone who will have your back

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and love you with unwavering commitment,

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even and especially when you mess up and lose your way.

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And besides that, if a parent drowned all their kids,

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we wouldn't ask, "Okay, but did the kids deserve it?"

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Like, no, it doesn't matter, they're your kids.

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A good parent just doesn't drown their kids,

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period, no matter what, end of story.

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In that light, this explanation of,

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oh, this is just God being just,

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I think it falls flatter than Kyrie's take on the earth.

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So let's step back from the Bible for a second.

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Do you know, a very, very similar flood narrative

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is actually in the cultural legends

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and the ancient texts of literally

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most of the whole world, like,

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in China, Egypt, throughout Africa, India,

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the Philippines, native North American

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and South American tribes, Korea and Ireland,

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just to name a few.

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Which is weird, right?

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Some people say this is evidence that the story is fake.

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It's just the Bible just kind of repeating

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what everybody else already said.

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But I think it's actually what you would expect

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if it were true.

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Like, if a catastrophe of this size happened,

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wouldn't you expect it to show up all over the place?

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My question is: why would God want to save

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this horrible moment and what He looks like

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an angry tyrant on His story highlights?

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Like isn't that kind of the exact moment

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you'd want everyone to forget?

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Well, I think there's actually a reason.

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See, it's to highlight the one critical difference

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between the biblical account and every other,

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which is why does the Flood happen?

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To find the answer, let's dive into the story.

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- All of the springs of the great deep burst forth

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and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

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40 days the Flood kept coming on the earth.

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All the high mountains

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under the entire heavens were covered.

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Everything on the face of the earth was wiped out.

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Only Noah was left, and those with him in the Ark.

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- So the flood ends, the waters start to recede.

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Noah's family is saved.

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There's a rainbow in the sky.

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It's great, but we still have an answer to the question:

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why does the Flood happen?

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And actually, first, let's go back

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and address the animals and how two of every kind

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can fit into one boat,

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because we kind of skipped through that part.

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So, a couple of things.

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One, it wasn't actually two of every kind.

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It was actually two of every unclean animal

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and 14 of every clean animal,

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also 14 of every kind of bird.

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So if you've ever wondered what's God's favorite animal,

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it's birds.

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And how did all those animals fit on one boat?

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You have two choices.

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One, if you take the local flood angle,

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it would be easy.

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Noah had 100 years to gather all of the animals

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of his world or region.

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Or if you take the angle of that God did flood the whole world

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and can do whatever he wants. Awesome.

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Noah's Ark was probably like Mary Poppins purse,

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you could fit whatever you want to in there.

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And here's the thing, it honestly doesn't matter.

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What does matter? Why does the Flood happen?

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That's the question that matters.

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See, in most versions of this story

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told throughout cultures and ancient texts,

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the gods caused the flood because their motive is anger.

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That's the why.

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One example, there's an ancient near Eastern version

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that says a goddess was woken up from her nap

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by humans who were having a rowdy party.

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So she decided to go all Beth Dutton

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and just start frigging killing everybody.

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It's a very simple story:

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angry god kills misbehaving humans

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with a very simple lesson, don't piss off the gods.

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See, the Bible tells a completely different

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heart for God, not a heart of anger, but of grief.

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See, if you want to understand God

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through the entire Bible, you have to understand

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that God chose to progressively reveal Himself

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to humanity over time.

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Which means the earliest parts of the Bible,

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like the Flood story back in the Book of Genesis,

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they were recorded when we knew

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the absolute least about Him,

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when our view of God was incomplete.

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You know, the best way to understand it

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is to picture what the boat would have looked like

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as Noah was building it.

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Remember, it took 100 years.

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So for most of that entire time, the view of the boat

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would have been incomplete.

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And please, please, please hear me clearly on this.

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I'm not saying it's errant or wrong, not at all.

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I'm just saying the skeleton of the boat wasn't wrong,

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it was just incomplete.

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That's what the view of God

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through the Old Testament is like.

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See, the Bible describes that view of God

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before Jesus as seeing God through a veil or a curtain.

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You just imagine that for a moment,

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what it's like to look at a figure behind a curtain.

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You can probably see their outline,

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their body movements, but critical details

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are missing, like, you can't see their face.

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To tell whether they're happy, sad.

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You have no idea.

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You can't see that kind of thing through the veil.

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It's not that what you're seeing is wrong,

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it's just that it's not the complete picture.

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Paul, the author of the majority of

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the New Testament part of the Bible,

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specifically said that people who don't believe in Jesus

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still read the parts of the Bible that Moses wrote,

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which include Genesis and Noah's Flood

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with that same veil in place.

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2 Corinthians 3 says:

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For to this day, when they read the old covenant,

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that same veil remains unlifted,

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because only through Christ is it taken away.

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Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read

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a veil lies over their hearts.

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But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

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Did you catch that? This is so, so critical.

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It's the thing that I somehow missed

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that got me all out of whack.

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Paul says Jesus fundamentally changes these stories.

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He completes them.

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You take another look with the veil removed,

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you'll get a much clearer picture of God.

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This is critical if you ever want to read

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the Old Testament and understand what you're reading.

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Because you'll read stories that without Jesus

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make God's motives seem so obvious, like,

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Oh my gosh, He's so obviously angry,

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or He's so crazily vindictive

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or He's irrationally rash right here, like just crazy.

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But when you add the missing piece of Jesus,

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you complete the picture

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and what you thought you saw

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that seems so obvious completely changes.

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Jesus said in John 14:9:

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Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.

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See, the picture of Jesus in the New Testament

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sits on top of the language you read

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in the Old Testament, it's how you interpret it.

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Having Jesus means that we have

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the blueprints of the entire boat, so to speak.

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We know what it'll look like when it's finished,

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which changes everything when we go back

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and read the reports as they were written in the moment

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is the best way to understand God, the Father,

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is to look at every story through the lens of Jesus.

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Who, when He encountered sinful humanity,

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He didn't kill us. He died for us.

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That is what God, the Father is like.

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Jesus going to the Cross

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to give up His life to save yours.

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And when you look at the story in light of Jesus,

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it just changes because we can finally

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see God's face in this moment.

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And it turns out He's crying.

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You probably heard of Palm Sunday.

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It's when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey,

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just five days before He was crucified.

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His plan was to die for the people.

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But as soon as He rode into the town,

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He didn't say, "Have no fear. I'm your Savior.

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Everything's going to be great from now on."

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Instead, with tears in His eyes, He warned them

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about the coming flood of their enemies

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that would destroy them all.

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Luke 19 says:

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When Jesus caught sight of the city,

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he burst into tears with uncontrollable weeping

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over Jerusalem, saying, "If only you could recognize

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that this day peace is within your reach!

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But you can't see it.

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For the day is soon coming

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when your enemies will surround you,

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hem you in on every side, and lay siege to you.

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They will crush you to pieces, and your children too!

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And they will leave your city totally destroyed.

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Since you would not recognize God's day of visitation,

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you will see your day of devastation!"

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Jesus was crying as He said these words.

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He was sad about the destruction that was coming.

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He wasn't happy.

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He wasn't saying, "Man, you pissed me off

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and I planned your destruction.

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I'm sending your enemies to wipe you out."

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No, He was on his way to die for them,

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to do everything He could to try to save them.

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But He also knew that many of them would reject Him

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and His plans and therefore bring down ruin

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on themselves and everyone around them.

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And He was heartbroken because it.

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But He still went to the Cross.

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He still went to die for them anyway,

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like the perfect, loving Father that He is.

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See, Noah's Flood doesn't happen because

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God gets pissed off and punishes everyone.

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That happens because humanity

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chose to not follow God's plans,

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which means God isn't the Father who kills His kids.

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He's a heartbroken Father, weeping for the kids

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who have rejected His good plans and in doing so

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brought destruction raining down on themselves

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and the entire world around them.

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This means God doesn't plan for awful outcomes.

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And maybe that's all you needed to hear today.

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See, I don't know what tragedy

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has happened in your life,

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but if any well-meaning Christian ever told you

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that horrible thing was all part of God's plan.

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I'm sorry it wasn't.

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His plan is most clearly seen in Christ.

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It's redemption and restoration.

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Your miscarriage wasn't His plan.

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The abuse that you've suffered, it wasn't His plan.

00:18:41

The addiction that you're struggling to kick,

00:18:43

they're not His plan.

00:18:45

They're the devastating consequences

00:18:47

of living in a broken world that's gone off God's plan.

00:18:51

The best thing you can do

00:18:52

is to get back on His plan with your life.

00:18:56

It's my hope today is not just to give you

00:18:58

a clearer picture of God, The Father,

00:18:59

it's to deliver the words that I think God,

00:19:02

as your loving Father, wants you to hear.

00:19:06

He will not force you to follow His plans.

00:19:11

Instead, He'll ask you to trust Him.

00:19:15

- Hey, did you know that only about close to 10%

00:19:18

of people that will watch this very episode

00:19:20

contribute to Crossroads?

00:19:21

Now, wait a minute. That's not meant to discourage you.

00:19:24

It's just meant to show you that, man, we get it.

00:19:26

This thing is hard.

00:19:27

This idea of tithing could be

00:19:29

a little bit foreign to all of us.

00:19:31

I know that one of the barriers that I had

00:19:33

to tithing is like, where is the money going?

00:19:37

Just show me where the money's going.

00:19:38

That's one of the hardest ways to get.

00:19:40

- Absolutely. The thing that sticks out to me

00:19:42

is that tithing is a spiritual act.

00:19:45

At Crossroads where donor funded.

00:19:47

If you're interested and beginning to give,

00:19:49

you can just open your Crossroads app,

00:19:51

click your profile in the bottom right corner,

00:19:53

the gear in the top right corner.

00:19:55

And then there's a give button right here.

00:19:57

- Super easy. - It is super easy.

00:19:59

- Kyle, you ready? - I'm ready.

00:20:00

- All right.

00:20:01

We're going to get right back to Kyle right now.

00:20:03

What was it you were saying again?

00:20:04

Talking about Noah and the Flood.

00:20:06

- That's right. - And the animals.

00:20:08

- Animals. Got it.

00:20:13

- It took 100 years for Noah to build the Ark.

00:20:16

And in those 100 years, there was no sign of a flood.

00:20:18

There was no rain.

00:20:19

There was nothing in what he could see or understand

00:20:21

that said what he was doing day after day

00:20:24

made any sense.

00:20:26

But Noah did it anyway.

00:20:27

He chose to trust God's plans more than his plans.

00:20:32

And because of that, he and his family alone

00:20:34

made it through the Flood to see the other side,

00:20:36

a world remade more beautiful than before.

00:20:40

And that's the lesson of Noah:

00:20:41

God will not force you to follow His plans.

00:20:44

Look at the very beginning of the story again,

00:20:46

Genesis 6:3:

00:20:48

Then the Lord said,

00:20:49

"My Spirit will not contend with humans forever."

00:20:54

Contend in the original language means to strive,

00:20:57

to fight or to use force.

00:20:59

And God, The Father, says, I won't do it.

00:21:03

This means something important.

00:21:04

It means we can go against His plans for good

00:21:06

and caused them to fail.

00:21:09

We're thinking like, "Wait, what?

00:21:10

I thought God's plans can't fail? Isn't that heretical?"

00:21:14

Well, no, actually.

00:21:15

See while God's overarching cosmic scale plans

00:21:18

and designs do not fail, His plans for nations

00:21:21

and individual people, they fail all the time.

00:21:24

That's actually what sin is.

00:21:25

It's when you and I fail to follow God's plan.

00:21:28

And to be clear, His plans are never for us to sin.

00:21:32

What a monster God would be if He was upset

00:21:34

for us doing exactly what He planned for us to do.

00:21:37

You might wonder, well, why would God make a world

00:21:40

with the potential for that kind of pain

00:21:42

that comes with us not following His plans?

00:21:46

It's because a world without the potential for pain

00:21:48

is also a world without the potential for love.

00:21:51

See, if God forced us to follow His plans,

00:21:54

we'd be nothing more than robots,

00:21:55

just mindlessly following our programing.

00:21:58

But God must think love is worth the pain,

00:22:00

and apparently we do too, because we keep having kids.

00:22:03

We bring them into a world

00:22:04

with the potential for love and pain.

00:22:08

See, it's for the sake of love that God says,

00:22:10

"I will never force you to follow My plans."

00:22:13

Instead, He'll just ask you to trust Him.

00:22:16

This message isn't turn or burn.

00:22:19

It's trust or go your own way.

00:22:23

And that's not a one time choice in life.

00:22:26

It's in every phase of my life,

00:22:28

that choice has taken on a new meaning.

00:22:30

In high school it was trust God's plan

00:22:33

for what was healthy and what wasn't,

00:22:35

or go the way of all my friends

00:22:37

and get high every weekend just like they were.

00:22:39

In college it was trust God's plan

00:22:41

for what He wanted me to do with my life

00:22:43

that didn't fit the neat blueprint

00:22:44

or chase money and status above everything.

00:22:47

When I was single, it was trust God's plan for sex

00:22:51

or go my own way like everybody else.

00:22:53

And then I got married and it became

00:22:55

trust God's plan for loving my wife,

00:22:57

even when I don't want to

00:22:58

and even when she doesn't deserve it,

00:23:00

or maybe look at other options because

00:23:03

I'm not a happy as I thought I'd be.

00:23:07

See, every day there's a million small choices

00:23:10

to trust God and be honest, even when it's costly,

00:23:13

or go your own way.

00:23:14

Trust God that He'll protect you or sink into anxiety.

00:23:18

God's question for you

00:23:19

through the story of Noah is clear.

00:23:21

He's saying, "Will you trust I'm your loving Father,

00:23:25

and will you follow My plan?"

00:23:28

See, my hope and prayer is that today

00:23:30

gave you more faith in that loving Father.

00:23:33

The father who loves you, not condemns you.

00:23:35

The Father who will stop at nothing to rescue you,

00:23:37

even if it costs Him His own life.

00:23:40

A Father who welcomes you home

00:23:42

with a smile, and who always will.

00:23:45

The Father who has good plans,

00:23:47

if you're willing to trust Him.

00:23:49

Maybe you're at a moment in your life

00:23:51

where you're saying, "Yeah, you know what? I am.

00:23:54

I am willing to trust."

00:23:55

And if that's where you're at,

00:23:57

I want you to sing the song with us right now.

00:23:58

It talks about trusting God.

00:26:34

- Hey, if you found this message helpful,

00:26:35

don't stop here.

00:26:36

Jump into the Bible Bible Challenge

00:26:38

that we talked about earlier. Super easy.

00:26:40

You download the Crossroads app

00:26:41

and read and journal with the rest of us.

00:26:43

- That's exactly right.

00:26:44

And more than that, we've actually got

00:26:46

something else for you, the tool to help you

00:26:49

as you do the Bible Challenge, the Genesis Guide book

00:26:51

that will mail to your house for free.

00:26:53

You can go to Crossroads.net/BibleChallenge.

00:26:56

- That's it.

00:26:57

We'll see you guys next week on Crossroads.

00:27:00

- Today, we're unpacking

00:27:01

the story of Joseph in Genesis.

00:27:03

It's a riches to rags, back to riches story,

00:27:05

so popular that's been made into a Broadway musical.

00:27:09

But it's actually about you.

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