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

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

We apply a hyper skepticism because the Bible's involved. That doesn't apply in the real world to any other artifact.

Paul Cunningham

You don't counterfeit something unless it's real. So there must be a real story, a real version out there that the rest are counterfeited off of.

Carlos Araso

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 Pointe 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 live hosts 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 the live free podcast. I'm here with Pastor Paul Cunningham. My name is Carlos Araso. And today, Paul, we have a special guest. I'm going to give you a whole introduction right now. You ready?

Paul Cunningham

Come on.

Carlos Araso

So he is a New Testament scholar, pastor, author of a bunch of books, radio host, Bible teacher, apologist, 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

It's because you were on it, Carla,

Carlos Araso

trust me, I'm, I'm, I think there's another reason why. But between the, the first time he was here and then 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 Shroud scholar, the Indian Diana Jones of apologetics, the Nicholas Cage of biblical archaeology, Dan Brown's worst nightmare.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That's right. Let's go.

Carlos Araso

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson. Come on, man.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

You miss one thing and I'm the Overstressed father of triplets. 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.

Paul Cunningham

Wow.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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,

Carlos Araso

probably one of the podcast episodes that where you were here, Jeremiah, where honestly, people are just like still talking about even till 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 arch, the. The Shroud of Turin. Paul here is not fully there yet, Jeremiah.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

So hold on. We need to change the whole direction of this podcast.

Carlos Araso

You know what? If you want, I, I can get, you know, I can give you like a minute.

Paul Cunningham

It's like, Paul, what do you.

Carlos Araso

What do you convinced.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Have you seen the episode we did?

Paul Cunningham

That's a good question. That's a good question, number one.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Well, no, I have to ask my own family. Have you actually read. Have you read my books?

Carlos Araso

Yeah.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Answer is usually no.

Paul Cunningham

So, number one, I'm excited to be here with you. I am a little disappointed.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Oh, wow. Okay.

Carlos Araso

Okay.

Paul Cunningham

Well, no, just stop. I am a little disappointed because when I wasn't here, you brought on a whole life size replica of the Shroud of Turret. Today we're talking about the ark. 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 into that.

Carlos Araso

Don't spoil it.

Paul Cunningham

I don't want to spoil. I'm not going to spoil it. But no, just be seriously stoked 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 there and he's like, hey guys, here's some swords. Let's see you fight in front of each other. That's kind of what you're doing, right?

Carlos Araso

That's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Paul Cunningham

That's what you're trying to do. I'm trying to pick a fight. You're like Mel Gibson.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

He's throwing his snake. Throwing a snake in the middle of the room and just seeing what happens. I know.

Paul Cunningham

Oh, Carlos.

Carlos Araso

So Paul, why don't you believe in the shroud, man?

Paul Cunningham

Are you seriously doing this right now?

Carlos Araso

I'm just curious.

Paul Cunningham

Look at this. He's trying to pick a fight.

Carlos Araso

Okay, okay.

Paul Cunningham

This actually be a good setup.

Carlos Araso

You got 30 seconds.

Paul Cunningham

I need more time than that. This will be a good setup. This will be a good setup for 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 shroud of turn for a second. Let's just talk about the resurrection. Like 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?

Carlos Araso

We as Christians, we believe the resurrection. That's right. That is the mark of our faith. I'm all in on the Resurrection.

Paul Cunningham

You wouldn't think about like you would just say, yep, I'll bet my life

Carlos Araso

we're all in on the resurrection. We're all in on the Resurrection.

Paul Cunningham

Would you bet their life on the shroud of Turin? You hesitate. No.

Carlos Araso

No.

Paul Cunningham

What about you? Would you say the same thing?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yes and yes.

Paul Cunningham

Okay. Okay. So you would bet your kids life in the shroud of Turtle?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Because I'm not irrational. Love it.

Paul Cunningham

See I right there.

Carlos Araso

I knew he was gonna say that.

Paul Cunningham

I should have asked him first to make you put him on the spot. But no. And I would say most people probably

Carlos Araso

respond, bro, he wrote a book about it. Like he has to say can't say

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

no, no, 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 published 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 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, super Samson, superhuman strength. And then I'm studying Romans 8 that says, in a flash, our bodies will be changed. We had a flash with the Shroud. So is Paul hinting at something there?

Paul Cunningham

We don't know with it? The reason I set it up that way, and 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 on 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, 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. 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Exactly.

Paul Cunningham

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 where 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Exactly.

Paul Cunningham

And so for me, if I were. Put it on, we can talk more later because you could convince me. But I actually love that you shared

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

the journey because the point is, you

Paul Cunningham

were convinced of the Resurrection before this. That was the point. I was Trying to.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 because I was totally skeptical of it. And now I would say the eighth reason is the Shroud.

Paul Cunningham

We can do this off camera because we got a lot to do.

Carlos Araso

We do, man.

Paul Cunningham

I seriously would love. Because you.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That was a fun way to start the podcast. I know.

Paul Cunningham

I just tell you, he's.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Now we're going to have to put Carlos on the spot. Carlos, are you going to watch the World Cup?

Carlos Araso

Absolutely.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Who are you?

Carlos Araso

Oh, I don't know yet.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I don't know. Put it on the table right now.

Paul Cunningham

Hold on.

Carlos Araso

You know what? We. We don't. We. We need to. We have a podcast.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I asked you a question.

Carlos Araso

Well, honestly, like, likely the United States. You know why?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Why?

Carlos Araso

Because El Salvador isn't even qualified, like, for that. Unfortunately, it hasn't. It didn't make it to the point.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

So you're. You're betting United States?

Carlos Araso

Absolutely.

Paul Cunningham

Something we need to pray would happen, then again followed. I want to talk to you about something. Shadowshare, because you can help me with something. Anyways. 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 US 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

This is gonna be the greatest. Between that and the MMA fight on the White House lawn, isn't it great to be American?

Carlos Araso

Speaking of that, hey, we gotta 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 gonna 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 Noah's Ark 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 things I want to celebrate before we jump in. This year, this just happened. We had over 1,300 students attend our 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. God's is doing more and more and more. Paul, you were there, right?

Paul Cunningham

Yeah, I got to go to our fifth and sixth grade camp.

Carlos Araso

Okay.

Paul Cunningham

Went there to bless our staff because our staff and amazing volunteers, many of them were there for two straight weeks because we had seventh and eighth and fifth and sixth back to back. And so got to go and visit them and bless them. But then also my daughter was there, so I had a little bit of ulterior 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 respond to the 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 just 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 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. I'm getting chills and trying to hold back tears 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

Carlos Araso

we've had at camp, lots of answered prayers from parents basically praying for their children, sons and daughters. Hey, I pray for them to have an encounter. Brought lots of answer prayers in in this. So praise God. Hey, we're also getting excited because 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 truths. 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 are an audio listener, you probably want to come on YouTube or Spotify because we got some, some visuals here. We got a little show and tell, but we have a giveaway. Jeremiah, what's the giveaway for today?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 Rite, an incredible hospital here in Texas. And I told 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 man on my social where when 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 that Jesus healed, 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 requests. 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 Rite in his spine is as straight as an arrow. 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 emailed my publisher in February. I said, I hope you printed enough, because I believe God's hands on this, and I believe God's going to heal my son. So praise Jesus. Amen.

Paul Cunningham

Thank you.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Sorry for the long answer.

Carlos Araso

No, you're good.

Paul Cunningham

That was amazing.

Carlos Araso

Well, we want to be a part of that. And obviously for this week's giveaway, I

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

didn't even share the giveaway.

Paul Cunningham

I'm giving it away.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I'm celebrating it.

Carlos Araso

We got 37 copies I keep giving

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

away to the team here.

Carlos Araso

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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

What do they have to do, Carlos, to get the free version?

Carlos Araso

So to get the free version and win this giveaway, go to YouTube or Spotify and just comment, Jesus.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And we'll make sure 37 of you right now, Jesus.

Carlos Araso

That's right.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

J E S U S. And so,

Carlos Araso

man, also, if you want to get our merch, you can go to Live Free shop or text the word hat.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I've been wearing my gray Live free hat. I need another one of them because I sweat through it. I wear it everywhere.

Carlos Araso

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 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 En Fuego where Pastor Mike Bro is walking us through anger. And we 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. Smoldering anger hurts the person carrying it. And the main text is Colossians chapter three. And so this is what we see in scripture. Here is Paul basically sitting in a Roman prison. And because of people that falsely accused him and abandoned him and offended him and more and likely within chains in 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 right in on forgiveness. And then what we're going to do is I'm. I want to ask you a couple questions, both you guys, and then we'll transition to talking about Noah's Ark.

Paul Cunningham

Yeah, yeah. I'd say a few things. 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, Mike, hit a few things. Number one, forgiveness is not forgetting. You often hear that, oh, forgive and forget. But we literally can't forget.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Literally. Not in the Bible.

Paul Cunningham

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 and you're like, man, I. 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, 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 onto it, you're basically said, 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 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 wanted 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. You know, I think we, 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 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, I was angry at God. God, I would mar, 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 and yours in Satan's hands. And you're just seeing how far I can go till I break and I'm done. I still believe God existed. I just thought, hey, if this is what it's like to have relationship with you, I don't want that. So I walked away for a season. And then just spirit 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 I, I, I, 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That's good.

Paul Cunningham

It's when I actually went off on my own that I spiraled 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, 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 equate him with Nicholas Cage, always from National Treasure. I mean, from. Listen, Nicholas Cage is a little bit of a national hero. And Treasure.

Carlos Araso

I'm a fan. That's all I'm going to say.

Paul Cunningham

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 and out of the pit.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That's when he says, Indiana?

Paul Cunningham

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, another hand onto 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 unforgiveness. And God's like, it gotta 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 onto 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.

Carlos Araso

That's right.

Paul Cunningham

It's only going to hurt you. So you. 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 them. Or number three, you can give them what God gave you. 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.

Carlos Araso

Well, let me, 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 I probably, 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?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

First, Paul, thank you for sharing that. 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, why don't we pray like that? Do we not trust him? 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 Habakkuk2.4 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. In Habakkuk 3, this is where Paul is quoting Rejoice in the Lord. Philippians 4. That's a call back intertextually to Habakkuk chapter 3, where he says, hey, if there's no grain in the van, a 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. 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 delivered 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, 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, and he says, master, how often should we forgive those who sin against us? What do you think? Seven times in the Judeo Christian mindset. But 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 of you who haven't read the passage, Jesus said, no, 70 times 7. 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? Ephemi. In Greek, it means to just let it go, 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. And so we. But we can talk about our pain like Paul did. We learn from it, but we don't live there either.

Paul Cunningham

Good.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And so that's what Paul reminds us.

Carlos Araso

Yeah, I heard somebody describe it kind of like. Like a knife. When you're holding the. The edge of the knife and you're. 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I love it. And you just. If I may, we actually have a quote. I just read the Weight of Glory. This is the CS Lewis image right there. So this is the. Paul actually quoted this, but this is in the great sermon that 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 ever.

Paul Cunningham

I think one thing, finally you got a few other FAQs as well. As you said in Matthew 18, basically, Jesus commands us, but I think also remind that Jesus showed us this as well on the cross while they're still mocking him. He says, father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Right?

Paul Cunningham

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 in doing this for us.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Well, and that was a perfect segue to some show and tell. I brought, Carlos, if you don't mind.

Carlos Araso

No, I do not.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

You just mentioned mentioned something. Do you mind holding this, Carlos?

Carlos Araso

I would love to.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 took it all on the cross. This is Jesus, Iesous Nazareth, ho basileus ton udayon. Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. Then we see it in Aramaic and then we see it in Latin. And remember, 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 in Jesus Discoveries 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 for 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 from me. And remember the Pharisees, they would come to me and they said, no, you needed to write. He said he would. Hey, what I've written, I've written.

Paul Cunningham

Wow.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Isn't that cool? I haven't shown that before.

Paul Cunningham

So cool.

Carlos Araso

That's amazing. Thank you for bringing that.

Paul Cunningham

Absolutely.

Carlos Araso

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 him. And yet time goes by and then the pain is back, Right?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 Wagners. 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 Beachfest. 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 forgiven? 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 Palau 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 concocted 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 story is they were so real. They said, hey, first we. 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 leaving 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, lysa, 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 be our surrogate daughter? Because we don't have any anymore. Lisa had come to Christ in prison. They now go to public libraries. They go to aren't. After I shared their story in my Fox News op ed, they went out to Twentynine 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 or 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.

Paul Cunningham

That's right. And I would give another CS Lewis quote. I don't have it on the screen. I'm going to paraphrase it.

Carlos Araso

That's what happens, by the way, when you have two really smart people, they're just quoting C.S. lewis, like, every 10 minutes.

Paul Cunningham

That's all I need is he was one time talking about this, and he made good. Because Jesus says, forgive 70 times 7. And so CSO said sometimes that 70 times 7 may be for the same offense. Right.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That's good.

Paul Cunningham

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 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. And that moment, moment you go back and you forgive again. And so I think just an encouragement if someone's like, man, I've tried to, but it keeps coming 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.

Carlos Araso

Yeah, you don't forgive and forget, but you do have an opportunity to forgive every time you remember.

Paul Cunningham

That's right.

Carlos Araso

And so on that note too, we say, man, God is faithful to forgive. We forgive because we have been forgiven by a good 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?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Absolutely there is. According to the Bible. Let me pull out the Scriptures for a minute. I brought my wonderful side by side reading. And this is interesting because Paul, all four, all the gospels record the fact that we have this thing called blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And let me just make it really simple what the Gospels 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. Sin it. The sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit is rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Plain and simple.

Paul Cunningham

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 things that you're doing, that's the 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 were wrong, we were wrong. And then God, God's like, too bad. You had one chance and you blew it.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Right?

Paul Cunningham

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 this sin.

Carlos Araso

Yeah, Oftentimes this is not a theological question. This is like an anxiety. Have I, Have I done this thing? Am I. Am I too far gone?

Paul Cunningham

And so knowing then the background of what you shared and the passage and what I just said, I suppose, hey, if you're afraid you've committed it, I have good news for you. You haven't committed it.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Exactly.

Paul Cunningham

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 so I tell you, if you have any fear of this, you have no reason to be afraid of it because you haven't committed it. Otherwise you wouldn't care.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 unpardonable 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. Listen to the book of Act. 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 2, 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.

Carlos Araso

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. Absolutely. Two, it really reminds us that the Bible is not a myth. It is actual 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 a 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 longtime 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 12 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 20411. Now let's get back to the conversation.

Paul Cunningham

That's right.

Carlos Araso

And so like, you know, when we open up, if you grew up in church, you're probably used to listening to all these stories and, and then you. There's a point where it becomes so familiar that you forget, forget that these things actually happened. 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 Shroud 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

But you know, generally that's the bonus episode.

Carlos Araso

There's believers and there's skeptics. You know, we're all welco welcome here. This is the 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 discovered the Ark of the Covenant, for example. You know, 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's cross, found the nails of Jesus, the spear that pierced Jesus, Jesus's side, the crown of thorns, the holy sponge. I'm sure you know about, 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's again, what I mentioned 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 genius is 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, we don't want to take for granted. So here, here's what the, the story of Noah's ark is about. This is Genesis chapter six. I'm just going to read this, the brief text. Genesis chapter 6, verse 5, 8. This is what it says. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human Ra come on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Verse 6. The Lord regretted 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 Contents 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, God's. 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 Roman rainbow in the sky. Now here's where I want to start talking about this. We're gonna have, we're gonna have a clip of, from 2014 to be clear.

Paul Cunningham

Yeah.

Carlos Araso

From 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 Crowe. 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, a biblical movie. It's not true to the text. You know, the book was better kind of thing. And, and he, before we play it, he cites this 2004 ABC News poll that found that 60% of Americans believed 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, I did not find any studies from, you know, recent years on that same thing. But I did find this 20, 20, 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.

Bill Maher

And speaking of cruise ships, you know, I don't mind that the Noah story is impossibly childish. Okay, I do mind. What am I saying? I mind very much. I mean, seriously, people, you believe a man, Noah lived 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.

Paul Cunningham

That's funny. I don't care where you're from. That's good, this part.

Bill Maher

And when he was, 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 five miles of the boat. 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. When you're in a movie with Russell Crowe and you're the one with anger issues.

Carlos Araso

All right, that's the clip. There's a lot.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah, there's a lot there about blasphemy.

Carlos Araso

So, yeah, 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?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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, 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. Akkadian, 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 cuneiform, probably from the second century B.C. excuse me, third century B.C. so the 2000s and some B.C. 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.

Paul Cunningham

Yes, and I think on that, the way I put it like this, because know you, 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 had happened, and they would be right. And yet when it comes to the flood, even though there's dozens and some would even say hundreds of stories from everywhere of this great flood, then their conclusion, like Bill, is, oh, 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 counterfeit off of. 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 out there that the arrests 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 sound bites instead of living off substance. So get beyond the sound bite, 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 civilizations go back to Gobleke Tepe, which is in Modern Day Turkey, 10,000 B.C. 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.

Paul Cunningham

And we'll get to the moral argument

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

here in a bit.

Carlos Araso

We will. So, yeah, 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. World. That obviously they did not, you know, collude with each other to agree on which story they were going to write. How. How do you know that? You know, somebody hears this story and they be like, Dr. Jeremiah, how do you know that that's history versus like, just. That's a, a common story that people just told. And it just so happens that, you know, it's kind of similar all through, 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Right?

Carlos Araso

How do you know that?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 24:37, as it were in the days of Noah, so will it be in the coming of the Son of man. And the parallel passage is 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 its history? Because it's in the sources.

Paul Cunningham

Okay, good.

Carlos Araso

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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 any more. 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, 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.

Carlos Araso

Interesting.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah. So you mentioned we apply a hyperskepticism because the Bible's involved. That doesn't apply in the real world to any other artifact.

Carlos Araso

Yeah, so you mentioned too, there's other stories. Obviously somebody must have written those before others. Which means is it true that some of these stories were written before the Gentiles Genesis story was written? And if so, I'm putting on my skeptic hat. This is not me asking. This is what other people might ask. Isn't that, wouldn't that imply that the Bible basically just like, stole this from other civilizations?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

The. The accounts in Genesis antedate all the other accounts. That's what I'm saying. The source material is Genesis.

Carlos Araso

Oh, interesting. Okay, so it's because I've heard people say. No, well, you know, the, the. I said the Gilgamesh. Yeah, that one's much, you know, earlier, and then Genesis is later.

Paul Cunningham

What, what's that? What that usually is based off of is the assumption that the entire Pentateuch, the Torah, was made up during the Babylonian captivity.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Exactly.

Paul Cunningham

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'd heard and it becomes corrupted and all that kind of 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, the word 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. It's just a little bit. So who lifted from they. I think it's. And again, I could be wrong. So just Google this later and say no, it's actually from this. I apologize, but it was the Epic of Gilgamesh that lifted from another narrative like this. That was the Atrahasis.

Carlos Araso

Okay.

Paul Cunningham

Which is I think from the second millennium B.C.

Carlos Araso

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?

Paul Cunningham

What say you?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yes.

Carlos Araso

Okay.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 don't know exegesis, we don't do eisegesis. We don't foist our modern reading like Bill Maher does and his cruise ship analogy on the text. We let the Bible speak for itself. Exegesis means we, we actually read it in context. For your viewers. I've actually put together a six question exegesis 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 the that text to your life. Or, or as I say in Jesus discovery, CIA context helps me with interpretation and then I get to apply the text to my life.

Carlos Araso

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

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

own beliefs that on there, which many Christians do wrongfully and they weaponize the Bible therefore or they twist the Scripture, that'd be isages.

Carlos Araso

We want exegesis.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

That's right.

Carlos Araso

That's great. So keep going.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Okay, where were you at again? I forgot the question.

Paul Cunningham

Was it a global arena?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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. View. This is in Genesis 8, 9, 9, 5 and 7 19. 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 10:24 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 old ultra wooden literalism that the original authors certainly didn't mean. 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 study is fun.

Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And this is where we have to do more than sound bites. We have to do substance in Psalm 104, 5, 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 he creates mankind. Very good. We can talk about that if you want. And the waters 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.

Paul Cunningham

So I love this because, Carlos, you thought you were going to pick a fight between us on this and we ended 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 the sense of it affected all of humanity. But the way a lot of people would put this backing up just a tad was some people 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, you 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, right? 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 space. Fan of the earth to where that was nothing but like a water world. Old Kevin Costner movie. You've probably never seen that, Carlos, and you probably shouldn't. It's a terrible movie.

Carlos Araso

Sounds like it's a terrible movie.

Paul Cunningham

And so that's for some people, that's what they mean by a global flood. A little bit more of, of the traditional view. Then you have more of this idea of it's a regional flood. Not in that people who 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 live, lived and in that place. And just so people know people who hold to this view, which just sounds like you hold more to this view in which I think I lean towards it as well. This is not. Oh, then you guys don't believe in the miraculous. No, we do.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah.

Paul Cunningham

Everything in the story is still miraculous. I kind of tried 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. Against humanity.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Sin.

Paul Cunningham

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 7:19 that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. So this is one. And I'll try to 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 7:19. But let me read for you. Deuteronomy 2:25, 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?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah, no, exactly.

Paul Cunningham

No, it means that the people right there that they're talking about in context were. So the re. 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 have done out the faith. And I'd say, listen, there are credible men and women who have believed this in church history who are not like, I'll just like Jeremiah. You and I would probably be called fundamentalists by most liberals.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yes.

Paul Cunningham

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'd 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've just heard philosophers last few minutes, doctor. Jeremiah takes the Bible very seriously, and I do as well. And yet you can still hold to this viewpoint.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 the Bible interpret the Bible. And so even back to the seam, I mean, Peter sees it in 1 Peter 3, 20. He references God's patience during Noah's time while the ark 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 people, 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 eight. 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. Out of the flood. I mean, this is a guy that got drunk. He had his flaws as well. 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 minor. Let's not major on the minors. Amen. And a lot of Christians are clickbait Christians. They want to clip this. They want to major on the minors 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? 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 Protois 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, Hosea 6:2, 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 pseudepigrapha to you, where they believe OG the giant is hanging on to the rudder of the ark. And that's how OG survives as a giant. And this. And when I say Old Testament pseudepigrapha, that means pseudepigrapha, fake writings of the Old Testament. We have Midrash, which is rabbinic tradition, that talks about the giants holding onto the flood to Noah's boat. And that's how we have OG as a giant or Goliath. It's all totally dubious. But my point is people have been discussing this for 4,000 years now, so it's fun to talk about. But let's make we get the things of first importance correct.

Carlos Araso

There you go.

Paul Cunningham

I know, I know you want to get to the moral problem of evil, but I want to hit something because I think this is really important, especially in light 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Oh, yes.

Paul Cunningham

You know, and 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 are clickbait definitely on divisive issues, but also they can do clickbait on things like this where this discovery that confirms the Bible. And some of them could be legit, but then some are not. So I think.

Carlos Araso

You're so kind. You're so kind. I'm just kidding. What do you give you a hard time? 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 20ft deep. They will say that they see patterns that they interpret as support beams, walls, compartments, and. 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 that, that they. What this is is basically decayed ancient wood or organic remains from man made vessel.

Paul Cunningham

So I actually think just to give people a sense of scum, we can put them up side by side. We have. This is from the Ark Encounter. Have you ever been there before? No.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

I want to go. I've heard great things.

Paul Cunningham

Yeah, I've heard great things. So this is a reconstruction of what's

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

parked outside right now.

Paul Cunningham

Again, I was really hoping for a life size replica when I got here. We would have had to have filmed this from a football.

Carlos Araso

That's the Lake Point parking lot, by the way.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Come to church this weekend.

Carlos Araso

Yes, that'd be great. Yes. That's a cheerleader.

Paul Cunningham

Two weeks of rain, it has fell

Carlos Araso

off that I want to clarify that's a joke. Because I don't want people to come here and be like, where's the ark?

Paul Cunningham

We do not have a temporary arc exhibit here.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah.

Paul Cunningham

So going back, you can go back to pictures. So it's like, oh, 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. Jeremiah, what say you? Is this a legit thing or is this something people should be wary of?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 Bee when my mom would share the Babylon Bee stories, not realizing that they were fake. Yeah, 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 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. That's in Darunapar, 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 archeologists to agree 100% is truly a miracle. All archaeologists agree this is not Daruna Par. 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 archeologist, 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 archeologist, 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. So I don't mean that to be uncommon kind. But as Christians we have to appeal to scholars, we have to appeal to archaeologies, we have to archaeologists, we have to appeal to truth. And so 100% of Christian or of Christ of archaeologists who are even atheists agree that that's not the spot. I can go on more if you want, but that's, I think that's really covers it well.

Paul Cunningham

And I think where this matters is because some come back to original conversation. Although again, I wanted to explain people. I am not saying that there's this same amount of evidence between this and the shot of turn that was actually one of the. No, it's not that. The point is, sometimes when people look up, this confirms. I'm like, y', all, hey, in this case with this thing with the ark, 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 gotta 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 sees you in other places sharing things on the historicity of our faith, they're going to say, oh, this must mean the same thing. It's basically the boy who cried wolf. And so I 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 would make. For example, with the Shroud of Turin,

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

it took me three years.

Paul Cunningham

And other things, 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 sort. 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. Our two best sources for Alexander the Great are Arian and plutarch. They write 400 years after Alexander the Great. Nobody questions Alexander the Great. We have far better resources for Jesus of Nazareth than we do for Caesar crossing the Rubicon. No one questions that we do this. Hyper skepticism on the Bible. And then as a historian, yes, I can grade the evidence in different ways ways. Like this is an 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 ends tours.

Carlos Araso

Well, we haven't.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Is this one.

Carlos Araso

We haven't, by the way.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Oh, you haven't?

Carlos Araso

Not yet, but we will.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And we're very excited to pay you to stay.

Paul Cunningham

No, I didn't.

Carlos Araso

We are very excited for the opportunity in the future. I'm excited, but mostly Paul is excited.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Well, let me. I'm using the analogy. Those who have 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 Tomb, for instance, is an A plus spot. I've filmed in Lazarus Tomb in 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 where 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 things. Was it really Jacob's? Well, we don't know, but it approximates it. That's helpful. Now the steps going up to Caiaphas home, 100%. Jesus walked up those steps on the. On the night he was betrayed. Does that make sense?

Carlos Araso

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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Let me give something, 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 tribe tradition. You begin, remember at the right. And this is numbers 30 to 33. We see Yahweh's name Yad. Hey Vav Heav. Right there.

Carlos Araso

Wow.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 colophon. 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 prophecy 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.

Carlos Araso

Wow.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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? Because they had to be so accurate. So I want you to hold this in your hand, and 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 Tanakh, he quotes from the book of Isaiah and the writings. Then he quotes From Psalms, Psalm 110, the most. And so isn't that 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.

Paul Cunningham

Everybody get nervous.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah, absolutely. Especially when the music people get it. You know, you want it, it'll v. You know, I was at the pastor's conference the other day, speaking to 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.

Carlos Araso

Explain that, Jeremiah, when you say it's not a codex.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.

Carlos Araso

For normal people out here.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

So this is a codex. Okay. The church did not invent it. But the only time the church has 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. 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. 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 31. 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 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. Qumran K4, 1Q Isaiah. And there it is. It's 200 BC. It's 1000 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.

Carlos Araso

Let's go. Come on. Coming soon.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And it's 24ft long, so make sure you don't miss it that day.

Paul Cunningham

I'm not gonna miss it that day. I'll be here.

Carlos Araso

Jeremiah, you said 800 years old.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 code. We date things by studying handwriting. And so I was actually studied in the Griffith Paperology 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 has been printed and it has put all the manuscripts together. Reading an actual fragment is much different. I had to learn what a lunit 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 Thinkers Society because we 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 because. 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 heart, the right conditions. So don't believe the Bible skeptics who are like, oh, we, 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.

Paul Cunningham

That's good.

Carlos Araso

That's amazing. Thank you for bringing this. Yeah, we'll keep it. I'm.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Is this a gift? This is another giveaway, right? Jesus and number 38 will get this.

Carlos Araso

That's awesome. That's amazing.

Paul Cunningham

I know we probably got to get to the moral part.

Carlos Araso

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 things to share as well in terms of like man, the whole of bunch Bible's about Jesus. So real quick to address Bill's question. Why would a good God kill everybody?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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. Then when he creates mankind, it's very good. But guess what? Sin has to be dealt with.

Paul Cunningham

Yes.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And God is gracious. The same kind of questions pop out during the conquest. You know, 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 day days of Noah. And I just would ask our audience, are we kind of living in a similar time right now?

Paul Cunningham

Yeah.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

What does it look like without God? It turns out it becomes law of the jungle. The first thing in all, 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 dehumanize people. We enslave them. Guess what? It's a lot easier 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, 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 destruct. And so you see this no Concept of individual freedom, no purpose. And that big one, no ultimate meaning. Here's a great mental health checkup for everyone watching. How are you at your relationships right now? How's your physical health? And do you wake up every day? Listen, living on mission for a purpose? I just saved someone $300 seeing a psychologist. 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. 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 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.

Paul Cunningham

Yeah, let me get back to that, guys. I think that's such a good point of. I don't think when people hear the story, because honestly, Mar, 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, at least as 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Exactly.

Paul Cunningham

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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Absolutely.

Paul Cunningham

Women alive.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Yeah.

Paul Cunningham

And so you're telling me that if that was 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. 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 it. So he's not happy about it. He's grieved. He says he's grieved at the wickedness. So if it was that bad for the Cainite combination conquest to happen, how bad must have it have 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, and I do want to give a few thoughts if you're ever interacting with a non Christian on this issue. For Christians, I'd say, hey, you've got to remember some guardrails when you're Because a Christian may read the story, they may really struggle with it. Let's 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 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, as 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 when he has 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 Bill Maher'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, is that while you have some of these other guardrails, you're going to get to a point where you may not understand God. God. And guess what? Yeah, he's an infinite God and you're not. So 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 on the table, they think they could be better at being God than He is.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Right?

Paul Cunningham

That's the issue. And there's nothing to say convinced about. So that was mainly more for the Christians. Hey, God is perfectly good. He's perfectly just. And therefore anything he does is 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 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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. I got ahead of myself first Peter 3:20 Peter, if he were on the podcast would say what do you talking about? God was so patient in my Sean Ryan show. I went deep into the Nephilim. I mean the earliest part of Genesis is the weirdest part of the Bible. The earliest verses in Genesis 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 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 him himself. 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. This is why it says but God demonstrated. I said this for Russell Brand recently. It's because he's a movie guy. 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 much he loves us because he sent his son who's perfect when we were at our worst. God sent his best.

Carlos Araso

Yeah.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And that's what. That's why it's so great that we have no condemnation in Christ.

Carlos Araso

Let me, 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And by the way, grace doesn't make sense. Like, we always want to try to make sense of the. The equation. It's too good to be true. That's how you know it's grace. Pardon my interruption.

Carlos Araso

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. But then to your point, Jeremiah, in Genesis 1:8, 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, what 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 the. A wind, a ruach, over the earth, and the water receded. In Genesis 1, the. The Bible says that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. The word hovered, it. It means to flutter like. 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's a. That's. 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. The ark, and they filled 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 9:20, 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 since after creation, Noah takes the fruit. And since after recreation, the Bible says he got drunk. Here's the point. The first flood removes the. The flood removed 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. 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 deserved on a wooden cross and offer salvation to those who trust in him. And here's what. 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 trusting in the wooden ark 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.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And back to your question. What is exegesis, what you just did, letting scripture in terms of scripture. Can I end with a warning and also a message of hope?

Paul Cunningham

Please do, please.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

So Audrey and I, my wife and I recently went to a concentration camp. We went to Buchenwald. And if anyone has ever doubts, because 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, physically ill. And I was driving away and there was a scholar with us, and he said, do you know what'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. Why 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 2 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.

Carlos Araso

That's right.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And I have the details on that. The final thing I want to say is I want to actually end where we began. 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, Golder's 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.

Paul Cunningham

Amen.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

And remember, we need people around us. So this is why you need to be at Lake Point.

Paul Cunningham

You can't.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

We 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.

Carlos Araso

That's right. Dr. Jeremiah Thompson, would you pray for us?

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

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 Howerton. Thank you for the power of his voice through this podcast. Thank you for all the people who are listening and watching and for 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.

Paul Cunningham

Amen.

Carlos Araso

Amen. Lay free brother.

Paul Cunningham

Let free God.

Dr. Jeremiah Johnson

Sam.