I am now trying to understand the bible and hopefully I just misinterpreted its stance on sexuality. I just don't see how gay people are any threat and how they are looked down upon by some forms of religion.

Basically, we are looking at Biblical covenants and laws of nature when we discuss this situation. The Bible says that God told His people to be "fruitful and multiply." God gave this as a commandment and a promise at the same time. I suppose what we really have here is a decision. People have to decide if the Bible is true or not and whether one wants to accept these Scriptures. The Judeo-Christian community has long accepted these as a part of God and the creation account.

Gen. 1:27-31
So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb
bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Gen. 9:1
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

Gen. 9:7
And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

Gen. 28:3
And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

Gen. 35:11
And God said unto him, I [am] God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;

The Creation Account has been "under fire", so to speak, ever since the Darwin Theory and the resulting "big bang" theory, etc. Here we see a type of non-scientific data. The Darwin Theory is just that, a theory, with no scientific data to prove or disprove it, which has been put forth as a formula. The base they use for the numerical numbering of the ages are built upon base ten of standard math. However it produced the following article from the encyclopedia.

It is now generally assumed that planets are formed by the accretion of gas and dust in a cosmic cloud, but there is no way of estimating the length of this process. Our Earth acquired its present size, more or less, between 4 billion and 5 billion years Life on Earth originated about 2 billion years ago, but there are no good fossil remains from periods earlier than the Cambrian, which began about 550 million years ago.

The largely unknown past before the Cambrian Period is referred to as the Pre-Cambrian and is subdivided into the Lower (or older) and Upper (or younger) Pre-Cambrian—also called the Archaeozoic and Proterozoic Eras.

So it would appear that God’s account is certainly as good as the "gas" account fostered by Darwinites. We do not have a numerical accounting for the past ages for this reason. God chose not to give man a precise number of years from which to count time, but there is a Scripture that has been acceptable throughout the span of Biblical teaching.

If evolution supporters had decided to make the base system a twelve, binary, sixteen, eight, or any other base, the formula would have given certain periods/ages with an assigned number. In other words, a person can come up with different numbers for the ages depending upon which base is used. These do not necessarily reflect a true numerical age because we do not know for sure.The Christain belief, however, has always dealt with the number 7, 12, 1000, 44,4,3,77…and any of these could be substituted into Darwin Theory/formula to produce a given number of years for the Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era and Cenozoic Era.

Psalms 90:4
For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.

II Pet. 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Now we move once again to theory versus belief. A theory is a formula put forth that serves as a base from which an ideology can be formed. A Christian belief has to have faith as its substance. The writer of Hebrews addressed this in a long discourse of which I will put forth a few verses:

Heb. 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen...

Heb. 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God, so that things which are
seen were not made of things which do appear.

Heb. 11:6-8
But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

Heb. 11:23
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three
months of his parents, because they saw [he was] a
proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's
commandment.

Heb. 11:28
Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch
them.

Heb. 11:30
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.

Heb. 11:6
But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I have said all this to say that the Scriptures teach the Creation Account, they teach the marriage concept of Adam and Eve, and they do teach the birthing of children by the way of the womb.

Gen. 3:20
And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Gen. 4:1
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

We as Christians, have to remain steadfast and unmovable in our hearts, but this has nothing to do with condoning or condemnation. There is a constant circle of humanity around us each day, with their own beliefs and habits. The whole idea of Christianity is a matter of choice. In fact, God set it up having "choice" as the starting point. After we choose to become a believer in Christ, we are certainly not to condemn.

John 3:17-20
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither
cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

I think that this is the dilemma that you are feeling. You do not want to judge but rather to have a right spirit toward man. By the way, I’m glad you gave up on "religion". We are supposed to be "born-again" Christians. There is a world of difference in the two. Religion brings rules and self-righteousness, and a looking down our noses at those that are not as perfect as us. Christians are moved with compassion. Sympathy will not suffice, neither will empathy nor pity. The Scriptures say this of compassion:

Mt. 9:36
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Mt. 14:14
And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Mt. 18:27
Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Mark 1:41
And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth [his] hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.

Mark 6:34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

It is this "compassion of Christ" that we are to have toward our fellowman. I have a "shelf" in my home and I have learned to put many things upon it, things that are not visible to the world, but God sees when I put them there. I just simply tell Him that I cannot make a decision about this matter and that He will have to bring this about in me. In this manner, I do not "pop off my opinion" about something in a condescending manner. This will only alienate the person who is the source of concern.

Prov. 18:19
A brother offended [is harder to be won] than a strong city: and [their] contentions [are] like the bars of a castle.

It all comes down to the choice a person makes. Is the Creation Account to be believed or trashed as archaic. If it is to be believed, and this can only be done through the gift and fruit of faith, then a person would naturally have one sexual orientation. If it is to be trashed as old and out of date, then the mating pattern of the lower animals will become prevalent in mankind as well. What we see is a moving away from the teachings of the Bible. Again, it is up to each person to accept or reject the teachings contained in God’s Word.

I Cor. 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Heb. 11:6
But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I Cor. 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord.

James 1:4-5
But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth
to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be
given him.

It is the believers’ job to witness. The Great Commission holds true for every person that names the name of Christ. Ideally, we should witness to individuals while they are still young and tender towards the good things of life. For this reason, the Sunday school bus ministry is still the most vital/effective of all the ways a church might use its funds. The little child must be given the opportunity to hear the Word of God. Herein lies a great problem! Too many of our people have never heard the Scriptures and do not know that they have a choice.

Does nature bless the homosexual sexual orientation? I will let you answer this for yourself. When people try to use the things of nature in an unnatural way, Mother Nature can be very unbending and unforgiving. In the natural, we cannot breathe under water, we cannot live in outer space, two women cannot birth a child, neither can two men. I will stop here with these Scriptures that were brought forward into the New Testament from the Old Testament Teachings. They have to be considered as one makes a decision about the lifestyle they chose, condone, or condemn.

Rom. 1:24-32
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in [their]
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenant breakers, without
natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which
commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Summation: Freedom of choice is the key word here. God allows mankind to have just that when He told the Believers of old.

Deut. 11:26-28
Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:
And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of
the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way
which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

Deut. 11:32
And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and
judgments which I set before you this day.

This has by no means been a complete treatment of the issues of homosexuality and the individual/society; but, hopefully, it will give you enough Scriptures to get started on your own research.

Question-Comment: Dear Rev. Love: Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus!I just found your

sight and it is very nice. I do have a question, on your chart, the age of conscience you state

that conscience replaced mans dead spirit. I know man, at the fall became dead in "trepasses

and sins". Can you elaborate on you statement. I look forward to corresponding with you. May

God Bless You!!!!

Gen. 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath [spirit] of life; and man became a living soul.

…

I Thes. 5:23
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These are two well-known Scriptures that depict a "whole man"; but we are told of much that happened between the times wherein these Scriptures apply. The first major event that effect the makeup of man took place in the Garden of Eden during the first age of man, the Age of Innocence. In fact, this event brought the Age of Innocence to a close and set to ticking the time allotted to fallen man.

Gen 2:15-17
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thouREVELATIONS shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die…

Gen 3:
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where [art] thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [was] naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What [is] this [that] thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

In this passage we see the first handiwork of the master of lies and deception. Since the time of his testing and subsequent failure, Lucifer—the fallen angel who is better known as Satan or the devil—is confined to his chore of testing the hearts of men and women. To do this he often quotes enough of God’s word to disarm his victims, and then he twists those words to accomplish his purposes. In this particular instance we read: "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3: 4). To the natural eye, it looks like Lucifer was telling the truth. For the day that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree, to all appearances, they seemed not to have died. (It was more than 900 years later that Adam died.) And sure enough, they did become aware of good and evil. But the whole truth is that Adam [and Eve] did die spiritually that day and that they passed that spiritual death on down to all of their posterity. Also, not only were they made to be aware of good and evil, but they understood that they would pass the consequences of the evil that they had committed to their children and their children’s children, etc.

The Apostle Paul wrote of the consequences of the first couples’ disobedience in his epistles to the Roman church.

Romans 5:
15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.
17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ.)
18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Then in his epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, Paul made it plain that Adam’s transgression had brought about a spiritual death; for he spoke of them being dead even though their bodies were yet alive.

Ephesians 2:1
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Colossians 2:12
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

We know that Jesus came to the earth to undo the works of the devil, and a crucial part of His work was to undo the death of the spirit of man brought about by Adam.

REVELATIONS

So, now we have it, the spirit of man died in the Garden and that death has passed on down to all of mankind; but for those who receive Christ as Lord and Savior, the spirit is alive, being born anew. But just a minute! If the spirit of the natural/unregenerated man is dead as we normally think of something being dead, what about these verses?

James 2:26
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Prov. 18:14
The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

Ecc. 8:8
[There is] no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither [hath he] power in the day of death: and [there is] no discharge in [that] war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

Mt. 26:41
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed [is] willing, but the flesh [is] weak.

1Cor. 2:11For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Prov. 20:27
The spirit of man [is] the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

Before we go any further, we need to consider this triune nature of man: i.e., his body, his soul, and his spirit. Briefly, the purpose of the body is to have world consciousness: i.e., via his senses man is able to be aware of his surroundings. The purpose of the soul is to have self-consciousness. In man’s soul are his volition, his reasoning, his emotions, and those things that make up his personality. But the purpose for man’s spirit is not that simple. Apparently, the purpose for his spirit was originally two-fold. That is, it was for "God consciousness" and it was the "spark of life" that made man a living soul. (Granted, from this point on we are delving into the mysterious of God, for only God can give and sustain life. Consequently, we are left to speculation. If God were to bother to tell us all about the spirit in our temple of clay, we probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend. More than likely we’d find ourselves in the arena of questions like: "Where did God come from? How can it be that He’s always been? How can He be boundless—being able to go in any direction forever with no one or nothing to contain Him?…and all other such questions that can only be answered by faith [cf. Heb. 11:3]. ) If the spirit of man was originally for "God consciousness" and the "spark of life," then the death of man in the Garden was the withdrawal of the presence of the Spirit of God from the spirit of man. This makes sense when we consider that Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Since God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three-in-one, when the Spirit of God removed Himself from man, man no longer had any spiritual life in himself. However, there is an abundance of Scriptures which seem to support the stance that the spirit of man (i.e. the spark of life from God) is still functioning in man. But we should note that this spirit is not man’s to keep. We read in the book of Ecclesiastes the lot of those who die apart from the salvation in Christ Jesus.

REVELATIONS

Ec. 12:7
Then shall the dust [the body] return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

However, for those who die in Christ, whose spirits have been born again and have become one with Christ, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Not only will the believer’s spirit return to Christ—but the believer goes with it.

Hopefully, this will shed some light on the spirit of man.

Also in your WRAP AROUND, you wonder on what authority I contend that the conscience was placed in man the day that man’s spirit died in Adam (and Eve). Good Question!

The wife and I have done a study on the three parts of the triune man; and in my mind I had included that study in our book THE CLOCK OF THE AGES. However, I cannot find it on our site; so, apparently, I had used the study in one of our radio programs instead. The Church of today calls the period after the fall of man from the Garden of Eden the Age of Conscience. This being because man entered into a new age wherein he could not make all decisions by the indwelling Spirit as they were able in the Garden, but by the conscious knowledge of good and evil. There are several Scriptures that deal with the conscience in man. Here’s a couple of them. If you’d like to check out all of them, go to either the Blue Letter Bible or the Bible Gateway buttons in our Bible Study Treasure Chest and search for the word "conscience."

Rom 2:15
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and [their] thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

1Ti 4:1-2
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

If you go very far into our site, you will find that I try to always alert our visitors when I am inserting an inference/speculation. I goofed up on this one, thinking that I had commented on it elsewhere. In short, my conclusion is a speculation for I can find no Scripture that explains when man was given a conscience. Others have speculated that man was originally created with a conscience that went bad at the time of the fall. I don’t buy this because in his state of innocence, man had no need of a conscience. But in truth, it doesn’t matter when man got his conscience. He’s got it and it works in conjunction with the law to bring us to Christ—if we’ll let it.

Your astute observation underscores the reason that we’ve named our site "doweknow." When man puts his mind to the things of God—even when his understanding is quickened—his finite mind stands in wonder and amazed. How can it be that God did not have a beginning? Why does He never grow tired? For man, there is no answer to these kinds of questions but FAITH. To us, the particulars of the spirit of man fall in this category. For this reason we are determined not to get caught up in arguments over whose speculation is the best. We’d rather spend our time and substance promoting an absolute such as: God loves with the love of the cross every individual that has known or ever will know life. To us, the only thing that gives this life any reason, purpose, or hope is the cross of Calvary; for there we see the love and the intent of God. The Bible says that God send His Only Begotten Son to die for the sin of the world so that "whosoever" will believe in that atoning death and receive this One who rose from the dead as Lord and Savior will be given the gift of eternal life. It is also our determination to witness to others that when we receive this Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior, that He sent His Holy Spirit to be a witness to us and to help us to witness to others.

Thanks for taking time to WRAP with us and giving us opportunity to share with our other visitors as well.

Yours in Christ,

CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE I CAN FIND THE ABC'S & THE NUMBER'S WRITTEN IN HEBREW LANGUAGE?

IN HIS NAME

W BLACK

P.S. I REALLY DO NEED A LOT MORE INFORMATION ON THE CREATION & ABOUT NOAH & THE ARK & THE FLOOD, SOMETHING THAT MIGHT EVEN HAVE QUESTIONS WITH IT FOR MY CLASS AGES 6-9.

REVELATIONS

Mat 2:1-6

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

When Herod the king had heard [these things], he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

And thou Bethlehem, [in] the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

As to the Creation account and Noah’s Ark, the Bible account is the very best to use when teaching about this time in the Bible. I personally feel that at the time of Noah, the world was so highly developed that cloning was the norm and that only Noah’s family practiced natural birthing of children.

1Pe 3:20
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

(Remember, those who lived before the flood experienced longevity, living hundreds of years; and more than likely they were able to reason with a higher percentage of their intellect than we—the effect of the curse having less effect on them than us who are limited to an average of 70 years and who can only use a very small percentage of our brains.) We have been taught to envision a rustic ark put together with crude tools with all the animals marching into it two-by-two. True, the ark was rustic, but this was only because God had commanded it to be so. The making and loading of the ark took roughly 100 years, but, probably, it took little of that time to actually build the ark. In my opinion, the most of that time was spent in "loading" the ark. I am not sure the dimensions of the Ark was large enough to encompass the enormous zoo that would be needed. I think of the zoo I visit at Tampa, Florida, and I find this unlikely. To me, Noah only took enough full-grown animals aboard to take care of their sacrificial and eating needs. For the rest of the animals, I firmly believe that Noah spend a great deal of time gathering DNA, eggs and sperm, and storing them cryogenically (or he may have used a more highly advanced system). Jesus compared the culmination of our age with "as in the days of Noah." To me, man has not yet approached the time comparable to Noah, though he might do so rather quickly if he were to become "as one" in his scientific endeavors—remember, it took but a decade to get to the moon when only one nation united its resources and efforts for the task.

Mat 24:33-39

So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, [even] at the doors.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

If my speculation about how it was before the flood is correct, then by simple deduction we can get a fairly accurate glimpse of where we are on the prophetic time line by looking at the "artificial" life and crossing of DNA through genetics. REVELATIONS For example, this past week on the news, we heard that the DNA of a spider’s web was meshed with the DNA of a sheep to make a thread so strong that our own U.S. army has purchased all the flocks to make bullet proof vests. The Bible does not say anything about the things man was accomplishing before the flood; but in my opinion, whatever was going on at the time of Noah was so horrendous that God buried it under tons of water. Among the horrendous things, I suspect, was the ability to clone human beings without the spirit that God had given man. If we can already genetically cross spider web DNA with sheep’s wool DNA for a super thread; then, the animal life before the flood was probably an unbelievable conglomerate. I feel that unless the "Son of Man" comes within the next few years, we are going to have unbelievable knowledge about how to alter the species on earth.

(Please note from Matt. 24:26 that only the Father knows when this time will be. Jesus did not even know.)

Why has no one ever presented this type teaching about life before/on the Ark? Just because no one has, DOWEKNOW that it wasn’t so? We have only become aware of genetic mapping on a large scale the last few years. So, if the end of our age is to be "as in the days of Noah," then can we not look at our Lord’s prophecy in reverse and surmise that if we are doing these things, then so were they—and probably things even more astounding! Why the crude boat called the Ark? If travel was streamlined and sophisticated, the Ark would set there undesired and unmolested in a state-of-the-art world. Indeed, the Bible does say that the people made fun of it. Evidently, it was ugly. With my "taught" mindset, I had often wondered how they could have endured the unhygienic conditions on the ark with all those animals penned up in the big boat. Cryogenics makes sense.

Do you teach this to your students? I think we have to consider this as a possibility. Why should going to church be thought of as sitting in a moth-eaten building with dirty, stained glass windows? Why can’t going to church be interesting and fun? Why can’t the Bible be taught as the current, informative, exciting book that it is? Why should it be presented as an old, dull book in a boring manner. Our children live in a high-tech world and science fiction fascinates them. I contend that the Bible makes science fiction old fashioned. In fact, if you’ll notice, most good science fiction stories borrow their ideas from the Bible. These are only my thoughts; and keep in mind that God chose not to talk about the mess the world was in before the flood. In the same vein, I have often wondered why it was during the mid-1800s before we started finding dinosaur bones . In the study of the history about the first dinosaur skeletons, we find that the church had people put into prison who claimed to have found these giant bones. When the bones started cropping up all over the world, then the church community had to relent and admit that they did exist. We do not need to be "fossils" within the Christian community, but always be open to revelations from God’s word. Indeed, all of a sudden, we are massing knowledge upon knowledge and it is fast becoming as when they built the Tower of Babylon to by-pass God’s plan. Anyway, the Bible does say this about man even at that long ago date.

Gen 11:4-8

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Maybe this will give you some ideas to spice up your teaching. To me it is unfortunate that our young people are too often taught that Jesus is a stern task master Who requires things of us that we can’t do, and stands ready to "whip up on us" when we fail. Why should He be presented to our youth, and to our church at large, as though He were one of the very religious zealots/nuts that had Him Crucified? IN TRUTH, the Bible presents Jesus as a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, as the Gentle Shepherd who commanded the adults of his day not to forbid the little children to come unto Him—explaining that the Kingdom of God is comprised of such. Oh that we might present our Savior as the One Who created us to "ahh" at the beautiful flowers, and to hug the puppies and the kittens, and to feel snug and secure in our mommy’s hug and our daddy’s presence. If you can make the children in your class to understand that Jesus wants to walk with them as One who desires their friendship, both now and for the rest of their lives, then you have done the very best that you can do for them and for your Savior.