Day 3: Noah's Ark — The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

hi i'm father mike schmitz and you're listening to the bible in the ear podcast where we encounter god's voice and live life through the lens of scripture the bible and ear podcast is brought to you by ascension using the great adventure bible timeline we'll read all the way from genesis to revelation discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today this is day three let's get started today we'll be reading genesis chapter five in chapter six is still in the early world that period of pre-history essentially we'll also be

reading from psalm 136 the bible translation that i read every day is the revised standard version catholic edition the rsv ce and i'm using the great adventure bible from ascension if you want to follow along and not just listen along but read along you can download your catholic bible in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com bible in a year that's all one word bible in a year ascensionpress.com bible in a year and you can subscribe to your podcast app if you subscribe we'll keep popping up in your podcast apps um every single day for

the next 365 days you can also sign up for our email list by texting the word catholic bible to 3377 that's all one word catholic bible to the number 33777 let's get started genesis 5 and 6. this is the book of the generations of adam when god created man he made him in the likeness of god male and female he created them and he blessed them and named to them man when they were created when adam had lived 130 years he became the father of a son in his own likeness after his image and named

him seth the days of adam after he became the father of seth were 800 years and he had other sons and daughters thus all the days that adam lived were 930 years and he died when seth had lived 105 years he became the father of enoch seth lived after the birth of enoch 807 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of seth were 912 years and he died when enosh had lived 90 years he became the father of keenan enosh lived after the birth of kenan 815 years and he had other

sons and daughters thus all the days of enosh were 905 years and he died when kenan had lived 70 years he became the father of mahalalel kenan lived after the birth of mahalalel 840 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of canaan were 910 years and he died when mahalalel had lived 65 years he became the father of jared mahalo lived after the birth of jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of mahalal were 895 years and he died when jared had lived 162 years he

became the father of enoch jared lived after the birth of enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of jared were 962 years and he died when enoch had lived 65 years he became the father of methuselah enoch walked with god after the birth of methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of enoch were 365 years enoch walked with god and he was not for god took him when methuselah had lived 187 years he became the father of lamech methuselah lived after the birth of

lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of methuselah were 969 years and he died when lamech had lived 182 years he became the father of a son and called his name noah saying out of the ground which the lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands lamech lived after the birth of noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters thus all the days of lamech were 777 years and he died after noah was 500 years old noah became

the father of shem ham and japheth when men began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them the sons of god saw that the daughters of men were fair and they took to wife such of them as they chose then the lord said my spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh but his days shall be 120 years the nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of god came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them these

were the mighty men that were of old the men of renown the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and the lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart so the lord said i will blot out man whom i have created from the face of the ground man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air for i am sorry that i have made them but noah

found favor in the eyes of the lord these are the generations of noah noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation noah walked with god and noah had three sons shem ham and japheth now the earth was corrupt in god's sight and the earth was filled with violence and god saw the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth and god said to noah i have determined to make an end of all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them behold i will destroy them

with the earth make yourself an ark of gopherwood make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch this is how you are to make it the length of the arc 300 cubits its breadth 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits make a roof for the arc and finish it to a cubit above and set the door of the arc in its side make it with lower second and third decks for behold i will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh and which is the breath of life

from under heaven everything that is on the earth shall die but i will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark you your sons your wife and your son's wives with you and of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you they shall be male and female of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind two of every sort shall come in

to you to keep them alive also take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up and it shall serve as food for you and for them noah did this he did all that god commanded him psalm 136 god's work in creation and in history oh give thanks to the lord for he is good for his mercy endures forever o give thanks to the god of gods for his mercy endures forever o give thanks to the lord of lords for his mercy endures forever to him who alone does great wonders for

his mercy endures forever to him who by understanding made the heavens for his mercy endures forever to him who spread out the earth upon the waters for his mercy endures forever to him who made the great lights for his mercy endures forever the son to rule over the day for his mercy endures forever the moon and stars to rule over the night for his mercy endures forever to him who struck the firstborn of egypt for his mercy endures forever and brought israel out from among them for his mercy endures forever with a strong hand and

an outstretched arm for his mercy endures forever to him who divided the red sea in two for his mercy endures forever and made israel past through the midst of it for his mercy endures forever but overthrew pharaoh and his host in the red sea for his mercy endures forever to him who led his people through the wilderness for his mercy endures forever to him who struck great kings for his mercy endures forever and slew famous kings for his mercy endures forever sihan king of the amorites for his mercy endures forever and og king of bashan

for his mercy endures forever and gave their land as a heritage for his mercy endures forever a heritage to israel his servant for his mercy endures forever it is he who remembered us in our low estate for his mercy endures forever and rescued us from our foes for his mercy endures forever he who gives food to all flesh for his mercy endures forever o give thanks to the god of heaven for his mercy endures forever father in heaven thank you so much for giving us your word thank you for not giving up on us and

especially father we thank you that you continue to speak to us even when we experience brokenness you continue to reach out to us even in the midst of our mess and the mess of this world we give you praise and we thank you for your word and thank you for the way in which you continue to hold this world in existence in jesus name we pray amen wow so again it's i mentioned yesterday that uh things escalate pretty pretty quickly here once you introduce sin into the world all of a sudden it just sounds like

it gets it gets remarkably crazy really really quickly if you remember in genesis chapter 4 at the very end it said that adam knew his wife again and she gave birth to another son his name was seth and that's gonna be important for our readings today because of the fact that we have in chapter five we just heard is a lot of names that are really easy to read and kind of difficult to read out loud so um part of that though is following the the uh genealogy of seth why is that going to be

important it's going to be important because it seems that there are two kind of distinct threads of humanity that come off of this there's the canite line right kane because he's still alive and the sethite line uh seth because he he is alive now it's not two different kinds of people in the sense of like races or whatnot but what this is it's got clearly it's the same family but what happens is um there is a distinction that's made in chapter 6 that is very very complicated for us because we think what does that mean

and if we understand that here is seth born to adam and eve after cain who's born to adam and eve and that they kind of split and the sethite line was referred to could be referred to as the sons of god and that the cainite line right cain who had killed his brother would be referred to as the daughters of men right so that's in chapter six this very very complicated thing where like it says the um sons of god saw that the daughters of men were fair they took wife such of them as they

chose and we think that is remarkable what does that mean and the answer lies in the genealogy that we had previously read in chapter five okay what do i'm talking what am i talking about well here's here's an answer that comes out of jeff cavins and tim graves book called walking with god it is a book based off of the great adventure bible timeline and it probably is the best description of what the difference is between or the who are the sons of god who are the daughters of men in the in the book of

genesis today it says this it says in the book of walking with god describing the nephilim it says adam's genealogy in genesis chapter 5 we find some important clues while modern readers often find genealogies boring reading they include important details and are often strategically placed to prepare for the narrative that follows adam's genealogy as we noted earlier begins with an account of how seth is born in adam's image and likeness and his preface by reminder that god made man male and female after his own image and likeness okay so that's going to be oh sons

of god that makes sense because seth being born in adam's image and likeness adam being created in god's image and likeness that makes sense these important details are recalled not only or only in genesis chapter five with cech's line but not in genesis 4 with kane's line in order to draw a sharp contrast or distinction between the two lines that cain's line produces murderers and polygamists like lamech the nephilim may refer to this fallen line as the word nephilim comes from the hebrew word nafal which means to fall for whereas seth's line produces righteous men

like enoch and noah who worship god and call upon the name of the lord seth's line the line that worships god is the one that is singled out as being in the image and likeness of adam and eve who are in turn the image and likeness of god and as we noted before um keynes i just go on my i'll paraphrase now as you noted before that cain's line um is one who he has fallen and so the nephilim those who are fallen would make sense so what happens then is all of humanity though does

not stay pure when it comes to here's this sethi line when i say pure i don't mean uh obviously it's not a racial thing because they come from the same two parents so it can't possibly be a racial thing what it is is a way of life thing that seth walked in the way of the lord and cain did not walk in the way of the lord and it's that kind of i guess you might call intermarrying that brought wickedness on earth it's not necessarily who you marry but marrying someone is an incredibly important thing

as many of you who are married already know who you choose to be your spouse determines in so many ways the trajectory of your life and it determines the trajectory of your family's life for good and for ill it's it's hard to look back on that in recognizing that hindsight is 20 20. at the same time it still is true that who we marry determines in so many ways the trajectory of our lives both positively and negatively and in this case what's being described is those who were who walked in the way of the lord

those in the sethite line ended up ceasing to walk in the way of the lord because of the fact that the intermarried with people in the canine line now obviously that's not to say that all of seth's children were like automatic saints and all of cain's children were automatic uh sinners we are all born into this broken world so we all would do this but we do know exactly what happens right we know what we know what happens when we surround ourselves with people who have the same worldview and that's one of the reasons why

we're doing this bible in a year podcast is to give us a biblical worldview and to highlight the decisions that others have made even ancient decisions others have made that have then brought about kind of great destruction and the decisions that they made that have brought about a great hope because even the destruction that god is preparing noah for is also meant to be a great hope because yes it is an end to much of humanity it says that now the earth was corrupt in god's sight and the earth was filled with violence god saw

the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth so god determined to destroy that corruption god determined to root out the cancer and the reality is when we cling to the cancer you can't destroy the cancer without destroying everything that's holding on to it at the same time it's a promise of hope because god is saying noah make this ark because since you have clinged to me i will lift you up one of the things that we can recognize in our day in in our age is that

even if the people around us are wicked now obviously parenthetically right no one is 100 wicked and no one's 100 good we are good but we're broken but even if the culture around us will say like that even if the culture around us is more broken than it is whole we can still choose like noah to live as those who are following and pursuing the lord we can continue to as it says about noah noah walked with god noah walked with god and so today as we move forward from listening to god's word proclaimed we

can ask the question god how do you want me to walk with you how can i walk with you today regardless of what people are in the culture around me are doing regardless of what the people in my family are doing regardless of maybe i'm married and my spouse does not walk with the lord i can walk with the lord today because yes there are consequences to our actions but also yes the lord always holds out an offering of hope to every one of us no matter what our situation so today how are you going

to walk with god like noah walked with god and how are you going to cling to him so that even amidst the storms of life the floods that come he can continue to lift you up thank you so much for joining us today once again in this bible in the year podcast if you want to get updates you can text the word catholic bible to the number 33777 you can subscribe to this podcast please do because we're going to be journeying with you for quite a few days upcoming but we just live in right now

one day at a time one day at a time we're walking one day at a time and we're choosing to live with god and let his word shape our view of his world my name is father mike god bless [Music] you