Latest / Hunger & Thirst / Could This Be Noah's Ark: Faith Meets Investigation - Ep. 2

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Could This Be Noah's Ark: Faith Meets Investigation - Ep. 2 · Hunger & Thirst

• H&T: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Hunger and Thirst Podcast. I'm your host, Joshua Griffiths. Joining me today again on the pod is our lead pastor, Jeff. Welcome back, Jeff. Hey, super excited to be here. Fun topic. Really excited to kind of dive into this one. It's huge. Yeah. Absolutely. so let's just jump right in. Let's do it. All right. So if you're one of the people that likes to keep up with the news, I try to avoid it as much as possible. I I'm just happier that way. Me too. but you can't help but notice this this new headline coming out that we have possibly not we, we're not there. Yeah. Humans have possibly discovered, scientists have possibly discovered Noah's Ark on the top of the mountains of Arat in Turkey. Yeah. Wild development. Crazy. Yeah. So Noah's Ark we've Grown up listening to the story of it, you know, a lot of nurseries and you know, across the US have had the Noah's Ark little mobile, like the animals hanging on the on the walls and stuff. But for some reason, seeing on the news that, you know, some outlets are saying hundred percent confirm we found it, others are saying, Well, the sample, this, that, and the other. For whatever reason, this just feels more real. Like the Bible is actually coming to life more so than it ever has before. what are your thoughts on this so far? It's pretty wild. Yeah. So I mean, talking about what they've actually found in Turkey is is kind of crazy. Cause they've actually found and I guess it was found in I believe originally it was found in like the 50s. And and we kind of talked about it just a few minutes before. So there was someone in Turkey that did a flyover. They're like, wow, there's a really weird shape down there. And evidently it was kind of uncovered by a mudslide that really brought the form to the top. And so The it's been around for a while, but they did some studies, I believe in the early nineties. They did some studies on it and they ended up finding that it was inconclusive that what you know, one way or another. I think they ended up deciding that it likely wasn't. But then they just got in 2026, they just got permission to actually start drilling again and actually go in, drill out samples and figure out what's down there. But really the location that it is, the things around it, what they're finding. I I can't say that I'm 100% sold that it is like those news outlets, let's be honest, those are headlines. No geologist would ever say something is a hundred percent until they're literally sitting with the evidence in their hand that's been examined. So the Noah's Ark scans, they're not the one saying 100%, but you the Daily Mail and stuff like that. They're saying 100%. Yeah. Now, what they have said is they have they're almost a hundred percent that it is a man made structure. And so that itself, and they've done LIDAR scans and things like that of the area. That have brought them to that conclusion that there's just too many right angles, there's too many cavities and corridors and things like that that really lead them to believe and and are pretty sure that it is a man-made structure. Is it the arc? We don't know that yet, but we are sign very close. Enough that it's making a believer out of me, out of what I'll all I'm seeing there. Sure. Yeah. It is. Yeah, it it's one of those things that you want to You wanted to just be it because w I mean, what other boat in history that could or could not end up on the top of a mountain? I mean, if it was near the ocean, I'd be like, all right, yeah, we found a boat near the ocean that was kind of roughly the same dimensions, but that's the part that just makes you want to lean in a little bit closer and be like, Come on, please let it be it. Please let it be. Talking about the location, it's literally sixty five hundred feet above sea level. It is 200 miles from the nearest ocean. Happens all the time. Yeah, it happens all the time. You know, and and not only that, but they're actually finding on top of this mountain, they're finding unfossilized coral and starfish and things like that, which is just insane. Again, 6,500 feet above sea level, 200 miles from the nearest ocean, and they're finding evidence of like unfossilized, which means it's only been there less than 5,000 years because it's not yet fossilized, and they're finding it. And they have it in their hands and and like showing it off. So there's a lot of stuff that's saying this is some sort of aquatic something another, right? 'Cause they also found the the anchor stones which are Yep. Yeah, they found the anchor stones, I forget the name, they're like drogues drogue stones. And they actually found those and they found like twenty six of them from all around and they are massive in size. And again, two hundred miles from the nearest ocean. Why else would there be anchors, you know, drogue stones up there? Yeah, it it's kinda wild. That still just blows my mind. Yeah. I think it it it's fun to sit here and fantasize about this update of just, you know, it's kinda like when all the UFO stuff came out and everybody's just like, the UFOs are real, it's in the news now. And then we, you know, when these sensational stories come out, it's really fun to get hype. I fell for the headline thing. I was like, It's 100% confirmed. Like see y'all at church. Lord's coming back. Yep. it's one of those things that it's easy to get Sucked into the hype of what this new discovery, I want to back up and may not be the popular thing to do. Is not I don't really talk about this stuff with the water cooler much anymore, but I want to dive back into the story of Noah because I've heard the childhood version of it. And coming back as an adult, I've told y'all previously that, you know, I'm just now actually studying what the Bible has been saying. It helped. Changing up the versions, you know, for you know, young man, the King James version, a little confusing. Right. So glad to actually read it through some, you know, modern language. But I want to get back to the story of Noah because that point in time, there's a lot of parallels with just how people talk about the world today. And, you know, in scripture it tells us, you know, when the Son of Man returns, it'll be similar to the days of Noah. So I I think it's only fitting. That we go back to the days of Noah, if you can just talk through that. Yeah, absolutely. So, whenever we're talking about, you know, the days of Noah, what really's taken place is, you know, God has created, you know, Adam and Eve, they've had their children, and and few, you know, hundreds of years have passed, but the world has become so like evil and corrupt. And then there's like some strange things in there. We have like the sons of God, and we have Nephilim, and all kinds of weird things are taking place. And so God basically he decides that he's gonna put an end to This version that what's going on right now, and he's going to destroy the earth with with water. And he finds, you know, one righteous man and he finds Noah. And so he instructs Noah, which is one of the interesting proofs about what we're seeing at Derepenar, which is the location where the ark is. One of the interesting things we're seeing there is the dimensions match the exact dimensions, pretty close anyway, to what God instructed Noah. So God instructed Noah to to build a boat, I believe it's 300 cubits long, which is about 515 feet. And so Noah builds this boat verbatim, like exactly how God told him to build it, this giant ark, and then and then ha God instructs two of every animal to come onto the ark. And there's a little bit of debate whether there are dinosaurs and stuff on there. I'm a young Earth guy, so I believe there was. I mean, I just can't imagine Jurassic Park but all on a boat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's it's wild. Like can you imagine like you got it's your b baby T Rex over here, you know? It's like just chillin'. That's a good point. Maybe it was just all the babies. It was all babies, yeah. The baby animals. Because I can't imagine a a giraffe and a rhino like they give you sweat on a a small airplane if like you have two people with, you know, luggage and all that. They're like, no, we have to shift everything, we have to balance weight. Like you imagine a a rhinoceros and a giraffe or a or an elephant walking in there? Yeah. Even better. Yeah. Giraffes I imagine are actually probably pretty well. Can you imagine the ceiling? Yeah, but you know, like a baby giraffe, you're talking like 10 feet and and really it was told it was said to be, you know, 30 cubits high. So it's plenty high to have like three stories, I believe, is what it's supposed to be. Yep. So it's to have to be three stories. So like you could get taller animals in there, but if God is pulling off a miracle and sending two of every animal, why would he send full-size animals? You know, it it's much more likely that he sent basically infant animals to to to board the ark. It'd be far less room, far less food. all around. It would just be better if they were babies. And so my belief is that yeah, I know my my son has in his room, you little Noah's Ark and you have a big giraffe sticking their head over. I don't think they're that big. I think they like ten foot tall, you Exact like that's the mental image that I have from childhood, from, you know, the pictures. Yeah. Yeah. But it it all the while it makes sense if it's just babies. Because babies are gonna take up less room, they're gonna eat less food, they're gonna not eat each other, hopefully, yeah and stuff. So it's th it's there's a lot more advantages to it being babies. And so, but to get back, we're We have God sending, We can get off track real quick. Take that skeptics. Yeah. They were all babies. the baby animals. That's how they did it. Yeah. Next question. Yeah. And so God sends two of every living creature. They they board the boat and then it begins to rain. And it rains. And and we also see there's all kinds of other stuff going on. The firmament of the earth opens up, water you know, geysers from underneath, and and soon the the tallest mountaintops are covered with water. And if you can imagine the amount of pressure that would actually put on the earth's surface, that you'd have this millions and millions of pounds of of pressure and weight that's just pressing in. It's causing all sorts of you know worldwide catastrophic, like in volcanoes are erupting, plates are shifting, earthquakes everywhere. And so beneath the surface of the water is absolute chaos. And that's actually how I believe that we have what we call our fossil layers. It's how the sediment settled in the ocean. We actually seen with the eruption and flood at Mount St. Helens in like the 80s. They have very similar sediment layers. And actually, some of the trees that they knew were a hundred years old have been dated to be 50 million years old using carbon dating. So, and we actually have legitimate recent documented proof of that happening. And so if you can imagine all the crazy things going on underneath the water with that amount of weight on the earth's surface, and then we have Noah and his three sons and their wives and his wives, so eight people total on the ark, and they're taking care of the animals and they're just floating around, man. That's all they got to do is float till God. takes the water back away. but really the whole flood was just to deal with evil and corruption that was on the earth at that time. And so yeah, that's the, that's the rough run of the story of Noah. I I think it's so incredible. And you actually hit on a lot of the key elements that I hear skeptics talk about, you know. And this is the thing that keeps me curious as I'm studying the Bible of just like, this is the most important thing you could decide on is your faith and how you spend eternity. That's either going to be with God or separated from God. And the way to know like where do I stand is to study his word, understand his commandments. And you do a great job of talking through that because I think it can get a bit scary when you do read Old Testament, or really if you just read anywhere in the Bible with unfamiliar, you know, experience. It can feel daunting of just, I don't know if I've done enough to be saved. Like, you know, if God comes back, you know, am I gonna be good enough? Like I have I done enough? And you read stories like Noah where I mean it says in scripture that God's heart was broken by humanity's wit wickedness. Letting that sink in a little bit that we could have broken God's heart. And Fast forward, you know, thanks to the good news, we have a savior that that rescued us from it. Did you ever feel like we still break God's heart with our wickedness today? Because it's hard not to see some parallels here. We've already spoke a little bit about it of the there's wars going on. There's people that are just bringing up the absolute worst in humanity. We're Some of us are, you know, are divided, like households are divided. Everything Jesus said, and you know, I will come to divide households. Do you feel that kind of weight? And is it do you see parallels between the actual story of Noah and where we're at today? You know, is this the days of Noah? walk through that a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So I would say abs absolutely, but I believe that there have been similarities throughout the centuries. I mean, we can think of things like the the Holocaust and and early slavery and things like that. There there have been se you know, that's been the case forever. And I believe that God's heart is is constantly broken by his children, that that we were created to love God and be loved by God. That that was our purpose. And yet we see today and we see a hundred years ago there were people that were rebelling against it. There have been people that have used his name to commit you know heinous evil actions. And so I believe that yes, with God's heart is being broken by our actions. And I believe that at the same time though, God's heart is being blessed by our actions too, because there's always that that dichotomy of man, like there is good and there is evil. And and it's in it's in all of us. And ultimately we are saved by the goodness of Jesus, thankfully, because the goodness in us does not equal out to what it needs to be. Now, as far as like the days of Noah being like an end times type situation. I am probably the wrong person to ask about this, because a lot of my early skepticism toward Christianity came from all the amount of times I was terrified the world was ending because some preacher said the world was ending and it didn't. And so I don't put a whole lot of weight into any of that. Cause it's really easy to look at the generation you're in right now and say, this is this part of scripture and this is this part of scripture and this is this, but they've been saying that for the last six hundred years. Yeah. Right. Or the last two thousand years, really since Jesus came. And and so I'm Not the right because I'm not a big predictor of the end. I will know that it's the end when I'm in the air. Like that's that's my thoughts on it. because I would hate to say something that like, yeah, this is absolutely the end, and then it's not, and then people walk away from the faith because we you know, we're wrong. And it and so for me, I'm not a huge predictor. This could be the end. I see a lot of things lining up, but I feel like, you know, people in Germany in the 1940s also did. And so I it's hard for me to say that like our generation, this is the end. Maybe we are, maybe we're not. At the end of the day, what I tell everybody and what I believe is regardless if this is the end f of the world or not, the end of everyone's life is coming and there will be judgment then as well. So our goal right now is to make as many disciples as absolutely possible before whichever end comes first, whether it's Jesus coming back or someone leaving and and facing ultimate judgment. And so for me it's like maybe this is the days of Noah, maybe Jesus is coming back next week, maybe before we finish the podcast we'll get raptured out of here. I don't know. I hope not. I have dinner waiting on me. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean I I'm terrified of heights. I'm hoping that's gonna go away during the rapture. Right. and so I I don't really know what's gonna happen. No man knows the day nor the hours how Jesus says it. True. And so, in my opinion, I would rather focus on the work we need to do than an outcome we have no control over. You know? And so I'm always more like, Hey, if you think this is the end, then you better have boots on the ground, reaching as many people as you can. And if you don't, someone's end is still coming. So have your boots on the ground and get to work. I love that answer because it's you did you hear some predictions, you don't think anything of it, like, all right, I'm not getting my, you know, apocalyptic information from the guy that's screaming outside of Walmart. you know. No, Bruce is a good guy. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me three times, like, all right, I should probably stop going to that entrance at Walmart. Right. Yeah. pick a different one. but it's an important thing to help just Pull that anxiety back. It is so easy to start overthinking as you read scripture for the first time. And I'm the number one guiltiest person of doing that because I'm hanging on every single word, hoping not only that I don't miss something, but also trying to take everything that I can from scripture to be able to apply that to my life. Right. And looking back in the days of Noah, you it's one of those stories that you just really Start seeing the most wild, just I mean, people living for hundreds and hundreds of years, and then God's heart gets broken. He's like, All right, I've had enough with you. 120 years, that's all you get. Yeah. And and fun fact, as we were doing a little bit of research for this, there's only been one woman, Jean Clement, I think is her name, in France where that led to 122. According to Guinness Book of World Records, yeah, that's the claim. The cool part is the Bible says, you know, no one will live past 120. Every single person that I was doing research on, like before her, one nineteen. Like the age of one hundred and nineteen years old, that's as far as they made it. And that's where you pair that with Noah. And that's just a little fun sidebar to understand that this is the living word of God. I don't want to glance over the fact that it talks about the sons of God in Genesis six. it talks about the sons of God, you know, the Nephilim. The giants in the Bible. Like talk through that. Cause that is one thing that I know I've read Genesis at least this far when I was younger. I don't remember giants and you Nephilim. How did I glance over that? What are they? Yeah. Talk me through this. Okay. So there's Three different views. I don't know how deep I want to go we want to go into this, but there's three different views on what the Nephilim are. So there is the supernatural view, which holds that the sons of God, which are it says in that scripture in Genesis six, that the sons of God basically had relations with human women and the Nephilim were born, essentially the Nephilim were in those days and before. And so the supernatural view believes that those sons of God were angels, and so they were actually likely fallen angels. They were fallen angels. A angel still with God would not be sleeping with human women. yeah. So they were fallen angels. And then there's the the Sethite view that says that the sons of God were like the the children of Seth, which was, you know, the son who didn't kill his brother of Adam and Eve. And then there is the the royal tyrant view. And so those are the three like theological views when we get to like the sons of God and the Nephilim and stuff. I hold the supernatural view, and that seems to be the most like scholarly position. Is that or I sorry, the sir supernatural view. I don't know if said that. I hold that view where I believe that the sons of God, and we see all throughout the Old Testament, when sons of God is referenced, when that phrase itself is referenced, it is always a an angel. So it's always an angel. So it makes no sense that randomly in Genesis six it would not be an angel. Sure. And so the sons of God have relations with human women, and the the what is produced through that is Nephilim, which we know of them as giants. Now It's interesting you put into context what kind of giants we're talking about, because like some mythology has giants as like, you know, forty foot skyscraper style. We're not talking like that. We're talking more, I imagine the realm of Goliath, somewhere between nine and twelve feet, which is a giant person. That's a huge. I mean, still absolutely huge. But yeah, I won't go too deep into the Nephilim because I know we have a whole episode planned about that in the future. So anyone interested, stay tuned. But yeah, we'll get back on track. I do have a lot of questions about that, but yes, we can we digress. So I want to just put all this into perspective and try to figure out where in history did this story kind of resume. So you took us through all right. Flood happened, they floated around. I'm paraphrasing here. They got off the boat. where do we go between there and at some point between them landing and the nineteen fifties, somebody had to stumble upon a giant boat in the middle of a mountain. Has this popped up anywhere else in history before the fifties here? yeah. So absolutely. And there's actually a lot of like criticism. People are saying, well, they have this giant wooden boat. Why wouldn't they have, you know, taken it apart, used it for shelter? Why wouldn't we have been used for other things? And one of the things that God had them do is like, yes, it's a big wooden boat and covered by pitch. Like this thing is basically the the hardness of concrete at this point. So just cutting a piece off really wasn't that easy. And so we see Noah and his family whenever they finally make it on dry ground, they go and they they make a tent. They don't don't say anything about them cutting the boat up and reusing the wood. Like they wouldn't really have used wood wasn't that useful in Israel in at this time because there's not much of it. I've been there. It's all rock. They use rock for everything because they have an abundance of rock like in yeah here in the United States we have trees everywhere. That's why everything's made of wood and it doesn't last 200 years. You go to Israel today, there's still things two thousand years old standing because it's all made of rock. But yeah, to answer your question, the boat was still there, and evidently it would everyone knew where it was. Like it it was a it was a public thing. People knew where the ark was. we have the first first like kind of historical evidence of the location of the ark was from Matthew Paris' map in 1250. And he actually draw draws out a map, and he has the mark for the Ark of Noah somewhere near Armenia. And then we have again another map from from Urban. In about 1587, and he draws this big map, and it's this world map. And right there is a little picture of the boat, and it says the ark. And so they know exactly where it is. And then if you even like go further back to more like the time of Jesus, the first second century, we actually have the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who documents a lot, I mean, pretty much everything we know about first century Jerusalem is from Josephus. And he actually says that during this time, people. People would go to the ark and they would break chunks of wood off of the ark and they would wear it around as like a good luck piece, essentially. And they'd put it on like necklaces and stuff, but people would go and like just cut little chunks out of the ark. I mean, this is first, second century. Jesus is walking the earth when this is taking place. That is wild. And so, like, we know the ark, like historically, we know the ark was there, present somewhere. It was just documented in too many places to to kind of deny that it was the boat was there. And then of course, you know, over the years, and what they believe happened at Durpinar is that basically a mudslide came and it covered up like it was originally higher up. If you you look at the map, it's higher up on the mountain. Yep and it mudslide came and it slid down into its resting place where it is now. And then over the years it's been covered by more mud and grime and weather and things of that sort. Sure. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, it is wild. Never heard this story. Yeah. Maybe I have and forgot. Right. But No, that does not ring a bell. So they would carve it little pieces off, wear it around as memento. They'd sell them in the marketplace and stuff. Which I mean, you could probably buy like your T Mu version of the Ark, but some people had the real one, you know, like I just love the thought of a biblical times Timu. Timu's like, trust it's from the Ark. And it's like, that looks like the notch out of that tree over there. Yeah. You can clearly still say I've watched the guy go over there and cut it off. But it's clearly not from the real it's from the real ark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, that was like a pretty like historical popular thing in this first sec second century. Wow. Yeah. So we've come full circle to where we are today with the rediscovery or trying to further prove the arc in its entirety is sitting where they say it sat. Yeah. You know, thousands of years ago. Yeah. So I've read up a little bit on it. We'll provide a link of the actual scientists that are doing this research to where we can give credit where credit's due because absolutely I don't know if this is gonna shock anybody, but I'm personally not a geologist or a scientist. Yep. So I don't feel like we're qualified to take people through all of the details of the art, but we can at least walk through what are we hearing nowadays. Like what what's the update? Where are we at? You know, how much farther, how many more days before they say It's the Ark. Let's party. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much what has happened now is they've so this has been a thing for a while. Like the Ark has been there. they have a tourist site built there in the area. So like you can go, you can stand on the grounds of the Ark, you can take your picture. Like it's turned into kind of a tourist destination. But because of that, they don't want to just let people go and dig it up because, well, one, you're gonna lose all your money, and they like their money. And so they're not just gonna let you dig it up because, you know, in I think it was like the 90s or so, maybe a little after. they tried to blast there and they they tore up a lot of stuff to to trying to get to it. So now we have technology that's quite a bit more advanced. So even in our drilling and stuff, like we're in the 90s when they were drilling it, they were drilling with water-cooled drills. And so whenever you push water down in there, it's obviously messing up everything that you're kind of drilling into. So some people say that's why they didn't find what they were looking for. We don't know until we get these scans back. but they just drilled, and so they have some sort of different cooling mechanism where they're not actually disturbing what's underneath the soil with their drill, and they're actually able to get out, you know, good samples. Now, one thing is really interesting, they actually broke one of their giant drill bits going through. And it's crazy because these bits are designed to go through rock and limestone and and things of like an extreme hardness. And so one of the points they're making is that petrified wood is actually harder than stone and and you're limestone and the rocks that it's designed to go through. So it's possible that it hit petrified wood, which if it's the arc, it'll be made out of gopher wood like God said it would. And so that over the last you know thousands of years that this wood is, you know, petrified and hardened so much so that it might have broke the drill bit. But we don't have that actual like 100% that everyone's saying until they get the the test results back. And so I have it here. They they actually drilled out 88 soil samples from 22 different locations around just like little kind of pucks. that they they're you know like long tubes I guess that they've drilled out and they've sent it out to you know third party laboratories and stuff for testing. But once they they do those tests and they can prove, you know, yes there is, you know, natural natural look there's a word, I've lost it now. once it's proven basically it's wood. Yeah. that then then we'll know for sure, okay, this is more than likely the art. So like organic organic matter, that's the word I was going for. It could could help me out there, man. I forgot immediately right after you forgot. So we were in the same boat as soon as I said nap. Pun intended, same boat. Same boat. Exactly. Yeah. But that's the test they're running right now. Gotcha. So The th it's spot on with things that I've been seeing. I've been trying to follow closely on this and understand it. It looks like we've reached about as much public information as possible without having boots on the ground. We're just waiting on these tests to come back. So is some I've seen you say the wintertime, which you know, we're getting close. Right, we're getting close. So it seems like couple months, I don't know. I'm gonna be staying up to date on I think the website is Noah's ArcScans dot com. That seems to be the source of the research, the scientists, that seems to be their organization. So I did want to just give them the the proper Avenue for folks that want to go hear it straight from the horse's mouth. the horse that was on the ark, he can hear it straight from the they found him. just they did not find him, disclaimer. I couldn't resist. As many boat puns and jokes that I can get out, I will. This is the episode for it. So yeah, noahsarkscans.com That's where you can get the full updates and pictures. I would encourage folks to go because these scans using the LIDAR, which is just ground penetrating radar. I don't know, someone smarter can explain it to you, but essentially it X rays the ground. And I'm butchering the explanation of this, but they're finding right angles, compartments. It's matching up. We could sit here and talk about it all day. But I think there's more power in if you're listening at home, go look that finish this episode, then go look the pictures up for yourself. But before you do that, go back and read Genesis six and Genesis seven goes over the flood. Just let it sink in and truly feel the weight of this is the Bible coming to life. And even if this is not Noah's Ark. How do we get people not to be bummed out? Right. If they come back and say, like, nope, this ain't it. Yeah. I d should we feel defeated? Should we like. So here's the thing. At the end of the day, our our faith is not in it's not in the ark. It's not in, you know, whether we actually find the ark, we never find the ark. It's not in whether the earth is six thousand years old or ten billion years old. Our our hope and our faith is in Jesus. And that's that is the foundation. And if we want to go historical, we can prove without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus of Nazareth existed. The Flavius Josephus, who I spoke of a minute ago, reports that he was killed under Pontius Pilate and that his followers reported that he had risen from the dead. Like our faith. Faith is in Jesus. And whether this is the ark, if it's the ark, amazing, awesome, I'm super excited. I'm hoping it is. But if it's not the ark, nothing has changed. At the end of the day, we're not saved by whether or not we find a boat in the middle of the desert, right? We are saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross. And that is where our faith is, and that's where our hope is. And so whether this is the ark or it's not the ark, nothing changes. Like God is still real, God is still good, and God is still at work, regardless of what we find here on Mount Arrat. Man, that is such a powerful point to make because I think that's the part where I can fall victim of of just getting myself so hyped up of there's endless amounts of stories in the Bible. that you're just you're sitting there thinking, if I had a time machine and could go back and just see this for myself, it sounds so wild. Right. Hearing the voice of God directly. See standing face to face with him. I mean, David facing off with Goliath. I mean, you could go through here. I can't even imagine being stuck on a boat for forty days. Right. I don't like cruises. Yeah. My wife loves them. It sounds like a nightmare to me. A great concept. Yeah. But practically speaking, I'm good. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can go through this book and just hear story after story and just be curious. So when something comes along and and says it's real, we found it, that part inside of you is just like, okay, like this thing that cause faith is exhausting to have sometimes. I'm not scared to say it. It's challenging. It is. Because where all this evidence stops, that's where faith begins. Right. And that is the hard part for people to swallow, especially in the early in their walk. Like I've been talking about like whole life, heard the stories just now starting to peel back the onion on like, what about these giants? Like, I don't remember that. Like, it should should I have believed in them the whole time? And then you feel this, this struggle between everything has to be so black and white, like it's either true, it's either all true or it's not true. And if you have any sense of like doubt or questioning, you know, Thomas doubted. Right. I feel guilty when I have that doubt of just, hey, this story sounds kinda wild. Like I don't I don't know I I trust you, God, that it's true. I'm just having trouble wrapping my small brain around it. I've prayed that prayer many a times. Lord forgive me for my own ignorance and just help me figure out the answer or accept it that I can't find it. Right. it's hard to know where to go from here as far as either way, it's it's real. Or there just happens to be another giant boat sitting on a mountain. Right. I'm pretty skeptical of that way. I think it takes more faith that way. But can you just talk about building faith as I'm sure this is not the only, if this is your first intro to proven the Bible's real, you're gonna likely get started off on some rabbit holes. yeah. I've done it. yeah. No, have we? I know Michael's done it. Yeah. so speaks for the folks that maybe this is their intro into either their own research, what should they be on the lookout for? Right. How do you effectively navigate all the noise that's out there and then, you know, just false claims of, you know, this is true about the Bible, this is not true. Can you give any tips for that? Because I feel like if this is your entryway into research on the Bible and proving biblical facts. There's a lot of landmines you could step on. So if you could, I'll just let you go for that. No, absolutely. So the first thing I would say to that too is like d don't be ashamed of doubt. Like faith and doubt are just two sides of the same coin. Right. Like at the end of the day, there would be no need for faith if doubt didn't exist. And and like you said, Thomas doubted, right? And and we see throughout scripture, there are plenty of people Who doubt and we're going to have doubts in this life. I mean, ultimately that's how it goes. And I think what the most important thing is is never let a question stay unanswered. Yep. Find real, legitimate sources. And so if you ever want to like dig into apologetics, it is a huge passion of mine, which is actually the defense of the Christian faith is what it's not like just being a professional at apologizing. That seems boring. It's very Canadian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. sorry. Yeah, but so apologetics is just the the defense of the Christian faith using like science. archaeology, history, philosophy, things like that. And so a couple resources. one answers in Genesis is phenomenal. That is Ken Ham's project. also huge fan of William Lane Craig. And I don't know, we might put some of this in the show notes if we remember to. and but like William Lane Craig is is phenomenal. Frank Turk is awesome. Sean McDowell and John and his his father Josh McDowell are are really good. So there's some really good resources. Like if you want to look for more answers, this is where I always say, don't leave a question unanswered. And and this is whenever I first came to faith. This is one of the things I had to do because I had all kinds of questions. Like I had more questions than I had answers. True. And so, like whenever I felt the call of Jesus, I then had to find those answers. And my my faith was actually strengthened through the discovery of the answers than it was just leaving them unanswered. And so my big thing is like if you have doubts, find the answers. If you don't know where to find the answers, go to a you know, good Christian individual in your life that is further ahead in their walk than you are and talk to them about it. Find the answers together. Maybe they just have the answers. but but go and actually find the answers. So if this is your first like kind of getting into seeing if the Bible is true archaeologically and historically, let me just assure you, there are many, many, many proofs within archaeology and history that the Bible is true. I mean, in fact, when we went to Israel, we got to walk. Into an active dig site, and it was actually they had just found within the last 10 years a place in the Bible they thought didn't exist, and then we were there while they were digging it up. Wow. And they're like, it was right where. And this is actually the place where Jesus cast the pigs out of the the demoniac. and so he cast the pit or he cast the demons out of the man into the pigs. You know what I meant? What translation is that from? It's the y'all version. that's actually on the Bible app, actually. I found that's the y'all version. Car, the demoniac. Yeah, yeah, no. so no, man filled with demons. Got Jesus cast the demons out. They go in the pigs, pigs run down the hill and they and they drown. so they've made incredible discoveries there. First off, and kind of going off a rabbit hole, but I like it, so I'm going with it. Go for it. First off, one of the discoveries that they made is like whenever you read the scripture, you read this event, the man wants to go with Jesus. And Jesus tells him no. Which is crazy. And you go, why would Jesus not allow this man to follow him? Because Jesus walks up to everybody, he's like, follow me, you know? And this man wants to. And Jesus says, No, stay and and basically do your work here. And we find in this pagan town, when they dug it up last 10 years, there is seven Christian churches in this town. And it all came from that one man that Jesus told to stay. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So like it it all started right there. Jesus drives the demons out of this man. He changes his life. He becomes a Christian, follows Jesus, and evidently converts the whole town to Christianity. Because the town was not big enough for seven Christian churches. And so like it's just things like that. But like over and over again, I mean, they actually thought that Magdala didn't exist, you know, Mary Magdalene, where she was from, they thought it didn't exist. It wasn't where they believed it to be. And then they fed they used the Bible to find the coordinates. Go so far from this lit river, go so far from this way. They started digging, they found Magdalene, they found some of the greatest discoveries. And that's all following what the Bible says. And they've done this over and over and over again in Israel, is that they'll go to the Bible, the Bible says it's here. So they start digging because that is their history book for it. Man. And that's that's just one and so like, okay, it whether the ark is real or not, so many other things have been proven from the Bible. This is actually kind of small in comparison to what you find in Israel at still today. Wow. And so there's just all kinds of proof. Then we can go in like the historical proof of Jesus and we can go into the historical proof of the disciples and and the conversions that took place. Like I mean, there's there's a lot of historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth existed, that he died. There's a lot of historical evidence of the the tellings of the Old Testament and things like that. There's just so much there that really this is this is small compared to what we've already found. That's Not only so ironic 'cause it's a massive structure. It's a massive structure. But I I understand what you're saying. And I don't want to glance over the fact of what you just said. Yeah. They were looking for something, they read the Bible, got the coordinates, and they went and digging. Yep. I think there's a life lesson somewhere in there for each and every one of us. You you have trouble. I mean, you can flip in the front of any Bible and it's like, what you know, verses on family, verses on worship, versus on, you know, struggles, temptations, sin. If you got something going wrong or right and you want to figure out how to make it even better, find the find the verse. Read the Bible and go digging. Yeah. Because that's that's just as simple as it needs to be. That is as simple as it needs to be. A hundred percent. You don't need to be an archaeologist, but I could not glance over that part because you accidentally just made a awesome statement. Yeah. Look at that. Look at that. Love it. Yeah. Love it. So taking it from here, I think you've given some solid advice on Hey, it doesn't matter. If this is real, it's not real. yeah, it's real, but if this is in fact the location of it, or if it's somewhere else, doesn't matter. The word of God is still word of God. The the path to heaven is still the same way. So full circle, we talked about, you know, this is in the story of Noah, this is the first time humanity broke God's heart with its wickedness. Fast forward to today, you could s you can make all those predictions, like you were saying, you could make all these parallels of the Son of Man returns when then it's similar to the days of Noah. You know, that scripture's in there. But at the end of the day, it takes just keeping your head on straight, focusing on what the word of God is actually trying to tell you instead of Being like the Pharisees, trying to find loopholes, you know, sticking legally, you know, trying to just make it so much harder than it needs to be. At its simplest form, it's just believing that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and then following that. What else can what other wisdom can you impart on folks that are, you know, they they're gonna go look up, you know, least trouble, they're gonna look up all the apologetics, and they're gonna start asking those questions of of, all right, this is all making an incredible amount of sense. Yeah. What next? What can I do next? Yeah. So the first thing I would say, there's a story with Billy Graham. And there's there's an instant a a skeptic of some sort sends asked Billy a question. I can't remember if it was in person or sent him a letter, one of the two. And but at the same time, he sent the same question to Billy and he sent the same question to another evangelist. And what ended up happening is the other evangelist went really deep. He he found the science and he found the stuff and he really kind of dove into it. And he gave like a really deep historical accurate answer. And Then Billy comes back and Billy basically says, I don't know, my faith is in the Son of God who died on the cross for me. And that other evangelist only lasted like another five years and then he left the faith. Billy, Billy's biggest point was that at the end of the day, my faith is what saves me, nothing else. And I would encourage anyone because I found myself getting so far into this too. It's like I love the evidence, I love the science, I love that stuff. But at the end of the day, Christianity is a faith-based religion, right? I mean, love the term religion for what it is, but it is faith based. And if we get to the point where we have to prove everything for us to believe it, we are no longer relying on faith. And Jesus calls us to walk in faith. So yes, find the answers, find the response first. Peter 315, one of my favorite scriptures says, always be ready to give a defense for the gospel, but do so with gentleness and respect. So always be ready. Always have an answer. Always have, like, and I'm not saying you're gonna be perfect, you're gonna know everything. People have asked me questions I have no idea the answer to. And I'm like, hey, we'll figure it out together, you know? Yep. And but at the same time, you can't rely entirely on evidence. You were never intended to. At the end of the day, I mean, Thomas walked with Jesus, watched him walk on water, feed 5,000 people, heal the leper, you know, call Lazarus to get up from his nap, right? Like, I mean, Thomas has seen all this, and he's still. Doubt it. And so at the end of the day, we can't go 100% on evidence. It is faith. And so we have to make sure that at the end of the day, we are submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in faith. And then the evidence is all secondary. So don't go. I guess what I'm saying here is don't get so overwhelmed with the evidence that you lose faith. Does that make sense? It does. Okay. Okay. It's such an easy trap to fall into. It is I think it's one of those do as I say, not as I do things. Cause yeah, there's so many different avenues you can go down. And this is just one of many. I mean, don't even get me started on the whole Ark of the Covenant underneath the cross where Jesus crucified. Yeah, yeah, that's wild. That's a recent one. I've been me and Steph have been going back and forth of just like, have you seen this video about it? Like, you should watch this one. But I think all this does do a wonderful job of getting folks talking about Jesus. I mean, it's across every news outlet. Right. It is something that I know I've recently read in you have a study in Philippians in our Bible study, and in I don't know the verse, so don't quote me on it, but essentially Paul is talking about, you know, some people will preach from self-serving from a self-serving place, but others will preach from a genuine place. And he basically says, I don't care why they're preaching. The fact is that they're preaching the good news. And I think that is a beautiful spot to bring it. when talking about this, that the fact that a Bible, a a real factual event from the Bible is being reported across almost all major news networks in the midst of oil crisis and, you know, this bad thing is going on, a war, that bad thing is going on. Still a story about the Bible is making it nationwide. Yeah. Like globally. And I just love that. yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So how do we ride this wave from here on out? It's like, let's Yeah. Yeah. So right now more people here. Right now you have a nation more curious about God than we've probably seen in the last hundred years. Yeah. And so what I would say is right now is the optimal time to be doing evangelism and bringing people into the church. Because they're already asking the questions. Like these headlines, whether they believe them or not, they've got them asking questions. And so it's a really good time to be like, hey, you want to know more about this? You want to know more about the God that's making the headlines right now? Hey, come with me Sunday to church. You know what? And and it's like this is just that optimal time. Like when you have people curious, I'd also say another optimal Time is like when after the death of Charlie Kirk, like people were so hungry for God that's such an and we've seen people flock to churches. 100%. Which means if there are people in your life that you know they that and I love the way Joe B Martin always says, if there are people that are close to you but far from God, like that's your one more, you know, that right now is the time to be reaching that one more because curiosity is being sparked, whether they're religious or not, whether they've been to church or not, like they're curious and they're gonna be curious about these headlines. And this is the opportunity. to invite them into the church to get them to the foot of the cross, to get them to Jesus, because they're already asking the questions. We just need to be the Christians bold enough to stand up and and help answer those questions and also lead them to Jesus. Yep. Like I mean it the opp it the it We're primed for it right now is what I was trying to say there. Yep. And we're it's just primed. Go in, do the work, do the great commission, go and make disciples of all nations, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That's what we're called to do. Do it. It's perfect timing. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I mean, you get me fired up just to go like, all right, let's go. Let's go. Let's find someone. I'll start at Walmart. You go in the pharmacy, I'll go in the meet in the middle. Yeah. I love it. I think that's a a great place to. to kind of just start is if you are in the faith and you know We may be hammering this thing a little bit too much, but it's of the utmost importance. That's why I feel it's it's necessary to circle back on multiple times is if you're attending church regularly and you're not asking questions and you're not you're just kind of showing up to get the attendance points and then going home and, you know, watching football and not thinking about this for the rest of the week until next Sunday comes and you gotta get dressed for church again. Right. If that's you, like wake up. Because whether this is the the point where the son of man returns or not, he still calls us to be ready. You've said it before, you've you'll say it again. He calls us to be ready. He doesn't care how many times you sat on the church pew, it's what you've done with your life. Yeah. Will he say, Depart from me? I never knew you, or Well done, good and faithful servant. What happens with every breath that you are borrowing from God? That's what matters. And the best place to do that or at least begin that journey is talk to someone who knows what they're talking about. Right, yeah. Don't rely on TikTok or like every. I'm guilty. I see so many videos now. I send them all to you and like I I'm just like, please tell me if this is real. Yeah, yeah. I know. No, there's so many bad preachers on TikTok. Yeah. But there's also some good ones. There are some great ones, 100%. So just get plugged in somewhere. You it doesn't have to start at a church, like talk to someone who goes to church. Just be curious. It's okay to ask questions. Even if you are a Christian, you've been baptized, even if you're teaching lessons, it's still okay to have those doubts from what you're telling me. Like it's okay. Just treat this as if it's the most important thing in the world because it is work's always going to be work. You know, family, you know if you have a good relationship with them, they'll be there. But the the biggest thing in your life You know, you're not gonna get a second chance at eternity. Like and it matters. So can you land the plane here and just what parting words do you want to give to folks that are kind of seeing this? You've told them like, hey, go out there, use this curiosity, ride the wave. Is there any other parting words you wanna leave folks with? Yeah. Yeah. So my final parting words here is like this is exciting. This is really cool stuff. And and it's so much fun to get nerdy, to dig into the research. Ultimately, what I'm gonna say though is make sure that your faith is fully in Jesus. And that's and I guess that's always gonna be the parting words is make sure that you are following Jesus. Use things like this, man. This is exciting, things to dig in. Get deep in scripture. Like there's so much power when when you open up the Bible and and you dig into the Bible, like there's so much there. And so, like, don't just don't read more of the news headlines than you read of your word, right? Because you're gonna find so much more about the ark in the word of God than you are in what they're putting posting on the Daily Mail and Facebook. Facebook and everything else. Right. So so use this. Get in the word. Learn the story of Noah. Learn what God did. Learn the meaning of the rainbow. Right. Learn what God did through Jesus and how you know all of this relates and it pushes us forward and it likes it's a shadow of Jesus and things like right. Like use this as an opportunity to dig deeper into scripture and just get more excited about it. Like the Bible is awesome. Yeah. And we realize that when we dig into it and study it. I think well said. And yeah. I want you to to finish that say I know I was like, all right, let's land the plane again. Yeah. But what did that rainbow represent in the time of Noah? Yeah. So the rainbow was a promise from God. And it's funny because the rainbow at this point has been perverted. but the rainbow is actually a promise from God. It was it was a picture in the sky that represented that God would never again destroy the earth by water. It was a covenant that God made with humanity, that he would never destroy the earth in this way again. Now there's also a little bit of gospel Representation to it that I've heard. I don't know if I buy a hundred percent, but it's kind of cool to talk about, is that it's interesting, the arc of the rainbow. If you think of the rainbow as like a bow, an arrow, sure. it is actually a covenant with the bow pointing at God, showing that the ultimate strike is going to go to God, like what happened to Jesus on the cross for the people. And so I've heard that. Don't know if I completely buy it. I don't even know if bows were invented at that time, but still, it is it is really interesting to kind of think about and talk about. And that's the fun little like. theories and stuff that come out. I love that. And I think that's a great place to just button up of you can start with one story and have a thousand different branches go off of that one story. And not only that, but throughout the old testament there is reference of Jesus all along the way. And if you're not looking, you'll miss it. so yeah. Pastor Jeff, thank you again for covering this with us. Again, for folks that want to learn more of the updates from the actual scientists, the boots on the ground. noahsarkscans.com. we're not endorsed by them. That's just where we prefer, you know. Hey, they're on the research. They're they're actually there. They're gonna do a better job explaining what all this means. But go see for yourself. Be curious. Get plugged into a church, any church. We'd love for you to have it here. you know, our doors are always open. But Pastor Jeff, would you do me the honor of praying this out again? Yeah, absolutely. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this day. We thank you for all your mighty works, God. And we just thank you for the curiosity that you've put in the hearts of people. God, that I pray that through all the headlines and all the noise and everything that's coming out, that it would just get more people into your word. And that as they get into your word, they get closer to you and that their lives are changed forever, Lord. I just pray that you would work through each and every person. I'm here at Grace and listening to this podcast, God, that I just pray that your Holy Spirit, that He would be present in their life, that He would go out, God, that I just pray for a boldness that we Would go out and use this as an opportunity to tell the world about the greatest news of all time, Lord, that your son laid his life down on the cross and died so that we could be saved, God, that we are saved through the sacrifice of Jesus and the resurrection, Lord. I just pray that you'd be with each and every person that hears this, whatever they're facing and going through. I lift them to you today, God. We love you, Lord, and we trust you. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen.