Transcript of Is it TRUE that Noah’s Ark Has Been DISCOVERED “100% Confirmed”? (ft. Jeremiah Johnston) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Every 2 days, some new viral thing about the Noah's Ark has definitely been found thing comes out.

It's the most exciting time ever to be a Christian.

What's not at stake in this is the trustworthiness of the Bible, but what is at stake is your trustworthiness as a witness.

They went down 4 to 5 meters and then the drill bit broke because they hit something so solid, and they're concerned in a good way that they hit gopher wood.

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Pointe. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Orozco, and today I'm excited because I'm here with the one and only Pastor Josh Howerton and the Epistle Missile, Chad G.

Paulsee, AKA Paul Cunningham.

Boom! And we're about to prove Noah's Ark 100% confirmed.

My goodness. No way.

Listen to— so we are— so let me give listeners a heads up. We recorded the back part of this episode before the first part. We just finished a daggum mind-blowing hour with the Indiana Jones, uh, correspondent of Live Free, Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, on the whole Noah's Ark discovery. That dude has deep-dived this thing. It's gonna blow your mind. Honestly, it blew our minds so much that we spent a bunch of time on it because we couldn't stop talking. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna like rapid-fire the front end of this thing because what you want to get, I guarantee you, is you want when we start talking Noah's Ark found stuff here in a second. So that's gonna be great. That's the heads up.

We're gonna go Isaiah 58. What does it mean to be a repairer of the breach? Because we are, Pastor Josh, in a new sermon series called Into the Breach.

Hey, can I tell you where I got it?

Where did you get it?

So shout out. I hope he hears this. So go comment on his stuff and tell him we talked about him. So this is legit where I got this.

I don't know this.

I'm flying on a plane. Yeah, I've never told you this. I'm flying on a plane. Isaiah 58:12 is now like a life verse for me, and I'll read it here in a second. I'm flying on the plane, on a plane back from— I can't remember where I was. I was preaching somewhere, and this dude that is kind of big online, he's a younger preacher. His name's Keenan Clark. You know Keenan?

Yeah.

Keenan texts me, like we've only texted like 2 or 3 times, and he essentially is like, hey dude, I was sharing with him a difficult thing I was going through, and he essentially texts me a prophetic word, and he's like, man, I think this is who God's raising you up to be in our generation. And I'm on a plane and he texts me Isaiah 58:12. He says this, and your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. And dude, I'm on his plane and my eyes start leaking. There's 2 things that make my eyes start leaking real fast, Jana and Jesus. And sometimes when God speaks to you, he'll take a verse and personalize it. And it was one of those that just tattooed itself in my soul. All that came from a text from Keenan Clark that he probably doesn't even remember.

Shout out. That's a God moment.

That's amazing. Well, I think we're in a very special season in our church right now. And so here in just a second, I wanna ask you about it. Yeah. But hey, every single week we'd love to do a giveaway. So if you're on YouTube or Spotify, go ahead and comment hat. We kind of wanna get rid of these because this is the first edition. Yeah, we got a new hat. This is the first edition. And by the way, which means that if you have not gotten it yet, it's iconic. It will become vintage classic, which means the value goes up.

Carlos is personally signing every one that we sell.

Every single one.

Man, that's ChatGPT actually. He said that he wanted to do that. So I was like, okay, you can do that. So comment hat, and then you can also text the word hat to 20411 or go to livefree.shop to purchase them. Uh, Pastor Josh here gets all the— all that. That's a joke.

Yeah, I personally pocket all the money.

Uh, that's a joke. I stopped myself.

According to the internet, according to the internet, that's what happens.

Good, let's clarify that. Uh, thank you for subscribing and liking.

Did you see how uncomfortable Paul got when you started making that joke?

I was like, no, no, they're gonna literally isolate that clip and now rebroadcast it.

I think that just came out and I was like, wait, no, that's why I stopped it. Uh, also to download the Lake Point app, you can get the daily Bible reading plan plus the weekly sermon plus an early release of this episode, especially this one's going to be amazing, and a discipleship guide. Text the word app to 20411 or go to Apple or Google Play Store. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. No, no, no, don't do that. No, no, no, I know, I know, not that one. I have a different question. All right, uh, I want to get back to this. I want to ask you, yeah, uh, so Into the Breach, new sermon series, tell me about it.

So it's kind of a big deal. Uh, first of all, I've been prepping these messages for about a year. I think they're, uh, I'm preaching, I'm doing all 5 weeks of series. Uh, I honestly think they're the 5 best messages I can preach.

Wow.

Um, and they all came out of this thing where God just tattooed it on my soul. So I'll do the whole— it's come— it's the start of a 2-year discipleship journey that we're taking the entire church through. We got, you know, big discipleship notebook. Actually, you can go to the Lake Point, uh, website and you can get our 21 Days of Prayer guide. Like, we're kicking— we're starting The beginning of the series syncing up with 21 Days of Prayer. We got devotionals from me, Jana, some of the people sitting at this table, the elders of the church leading up to that. This is all going to crescendo at Encounter. But what's also happening is we're starting Into the Breach initiative we're really excited about. So, bro, all in this, it's the most significant thing our church has ever done. It's kind of big. I'll just roll it. I've been waiting to be able to tell people about this for a long time. Yeah. So 5 new campuses. Um, by the way, one of them, dude, this is nuts. One of them, public announcement for the first time, uh, Lucas campus in the DFW area. Yeah, bro, this is nuts.

So, uh, so Lucas campus coming. We also announced, uh, McKinney.

Oh, okay.

Future college campus. Yeah. Greenville campus.

Yeah.

And then, uh, there's one more in there. Oh, uh, North Rockwall. North Rockwall. Um, one of— I don't know, one of these. That's awesome. Some campus somewhere.

That's one of our campuses. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was amazing. So I'll just shout out Lucas Campus. It was a church that was, they were like, hey man, having a harder time. And dude, proud of this church. They were like, hey, we don't want our church to become a strip mall or a mosque. So they reach out to us, dude, we haven't even announced this thing before ever even public announcing it. Over 550 people. Wow.

It's amazing.

Had already signed up to be on the launch team. That's wild. So by the way, I didn't even know where Lucas was. I had to look it up on a map. Like somebody was like, hey Josh, Lucas, Texas, bro. Literally they were like, Josh, Lucas called. And I was like, I played intramurals with him. Lucas, what? They were like, no, no, Lucas.

They do. Texas has a name for like a city for everything. Like Paris, Texas, Greece, Texas. It's crazy.

All of the things.

Yeah. Lucas.

So anyway, if you live anywhere close to Lucas, text the word launch to the number 20411.

Yeah.

We wanna just storm that city for Jesus. So we're doing that. I'll just do these real fast. Yeah. Because I wanna actually teach people about the Bible here in a second. Honestly, the one I'm most excited about, we will be— Lake Pointe will be personally quarterbacking the first in human history translation of the Bible into the heart language of the Braj Bhasha unreached people group in India. We are personally quarterbacking that. I just wanna let that sink in. Yeah. As a Bible teacher, that sends a chill down my spine. There has never in human history been a Bible translation in the heart language of the Braj Bhasha people. By the end of this thing, there will be. That's crazy. Dude, it's awesome. So we're doing that. 2 special needs ministries. Again, that stuff makes your eyes sweat. Scaling up Rockwall, launching one at East Dallas. Honestly, kind of our goal, all just cards on the table, we want that to long-term become like, that's the reputation of Lake Pointe Church in DFW. I'll just say it in a real straightforward way. That's the church that all the kids— people told the parents they should have aborted those kids.

That's the church that says, nope, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You should know that full well. Before you were formed in your mother's womb and before a word was on your lips, he knew all those things.

Amen.

So we're gonna— we're going full bore at that deal. Um, one, we're calling a More Than Us Center on the back end of this property. food pantry and clothes closet so that everybody from Lake Pointe, they can just— all the Heath housewives can take all the clothes. We got too many, and we can put them all there and help people. So that's gonna be a spot. And then, dude, I'll just— this is what we've been waiting to tell people about. This, um, we're getting, uh, Lake Pointe Bible teaching into every correctional facility. That's another word for a prison. Uh, in America to 1.2 million prisoners.

Wow.

Will now have access to Lake Point Bible teaching. Wow. Um, we cheated and we went ahead and did it before the initiative. So we're trusting in faith that our people are gonna pay for it with their generosity.

We're already getting letters from prisoners. Uh, I'm gonna talk about that here in a second.

It's incredible. Handwritten letters.

I get handwritten letters thanking us for it. I need, yeah, I need to share more about it.

You get the handwritten letters, of course. I didn't get any. I didn't either.

So dude, this is, I got the data. I got the, this data. Dude, let me just— let's see, people want to hear about the Bible. Let's get it.

Teach people the Bible.

Uh, I looked at this yesterday, so we just pre-went ahead and did it already. It's 1.2 million views in correctional facilities already. Over 500 people have indicated a first-time decision to follow Christ. Yeah. And bro, this is the thing I did at the end of the sermon. This is the thing that's like, make your eyes sweat. So this guy shows up at the Royse City campus. It was like, uh, 2 months ago. Never been before. And they're like, hey man, how'd you hear about it? His daughter is serving a life sentence in prison. She starts hearing Lake Point Bible teaching. By the way, if you're that daughter, we love you. We are for you. It is an honor to be your brother in Christ.

Yes.

And she starts telling her dad that she's going to church for the first time. God's moving in her life. Life sentence in a correctional facility.

Wow.

He is a dad, shows up to Royse City. They're like, why'd you come? He tells them that story. And here's what he says with tears in his eyes. He says, because today is the first day that me and my daughter are going to church together. He's like, she's watching this in her cell block and I'm here to worship with her and we're going to talk about it.

Amen.

No sob.

And I love this with all these things, just to help understands, like, man, with this initiative we're doing, all these things, it's not about building our kingdom. We're simply saying, God, would you let us be a part of seeing your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? And it's an honor that we get to be a part, because I actually got to be there and meet that man.

Did you really?

And in that moment, you're just like, God, why would you use us this way? Just thank you that you were using us. And God, yeah, we just want him to get all the glory for all the good he's doing.

Praise

God. So it's gonna be real clean. That's a lot. That's a lot. Hey, Carlos, before you dig in.

Yeah. Hold on. Before you ask me that.

No, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm doing a different thing.

No, no, wait. I just want to tag in something about Into the Breach because we are excited. There's one thing that we do as a church coming up in November that I want to let people know of. So we pick one night and it's a special night of worship and prayer and responding to the vision God has given us in this season called Encounter. This is Encounter Advanced Commitment Night, November 4th. This is an in-person only. And so I just wanted to tag it. That's something that we're excited for that it's coming up. soon. So it's gonna be great.

It's a big deal, man. That's prayer and worship night. That's like, you know, you know, people— the little joke is Lake Pointe is Presbaptical, and that's the night we lean into the costal.

Come on,

man. And we see, dude, all the things— prayer for healing, all the— it's that night. It's awesome, dude.

It's

amazing. Uh, now, all right, we're— we have to do this fast because we need to get to Noah's Ark stuff.

That's right.

Okay, so let me do this. I do just want to point out, I think we got our coolest podcast endorsement ever.

Oh,

you know, you know where I'm going with this?

I have an idea.

All right. So this is about— if you've ever seen— before, before I sent you this video, you guys were familiar with Granny Bibbins or not?

I was not familiar.

Okay, so, bro, Granny Bibbins— I've been following Granny Bibbins for a minute. She's a— I think across all platforms, she's got like 3 to 5 million followers. I

saw that.

Yeah, dude. I mean, it's insane. And so I've been following her for a minute. So then one day my phone starts blowing up. Granny Bibbins, Granny Bibbins just talked about Live Free. And this This is the greatest endorsement we've ever received.

Call her daddy.

Oh, that's a bad one. An F.

Agree with Granny Bibbins.

A B.

Live Free with Josh Howard.

Hey!

Oh, he's really good. I think I'll give him an A.

That's enough.

Granny approves.

Hey, listen, listen. Hey, that's the second time we beat Rogan.

Well played. Man,

that's Granny wisdom right there. We got Granny Bibbins. I love it. That's high praise. High praise.

High praise.

Shout out.

All right. Before I get into talking about the Bible, Carlos, you read anything good in the word this week?

Uh, thank you for asking. I like asking. I'll allow it, by the way. Uh, yeah, man. Uh, we're always trying to help people read their Bible a little bit better. Um, this is something that I think a lot of Christians don't know when they're reading the Bible, especially the gospels. So the 4 gospels in your Bible are actually much more different than people realize. And when you understand how, It really changes how you read it and it helps you understand what they're saying. Oh yeah. So first of all, people need to know, uh, each gospel was written by real people with their own personalities. And, uh, each one of them has their own purpose and their own audiences in mind. So they're different. They're not the same. For example, Matthew, who ironically was a tax collector, he was hated by the Jews for that reason. He writes his gospel primarily for a Jewish audience. Uh, and this is why he includes over 60 references to the Old Testament. And he organizes the teachings of Jesus into 5 different discourses, which parallels the 5 books of Moses in the Torah. And his purpose is basically to show the Jews, hey, um, Jesus is the greater Moses.

And so Moses gives us a law written in stone, and Jesus gives us a new law written in our hearts. So that's Matthew. Hmm. Then we have Mark. Mark is the shortest gospel. Many people believe that Mark's primary audience were the Roman Gentiles, so non-Jewish people. And we know this because when you read Mark, what you'll see is that he'll explain things that Jewish people will would know that non-Jewish people would not know. And so he's trying to help them understand. Uh, Romans at the time were also obsessed with power and status and authority. And so here comes Mark and he says, hey, Jesus is a king with power, authority, and status, but the way he exercises that authority is by being a servant. So that would've been like extremely radical for his audience. Next we have the Gospel of Luke, which was, uh, primarily a Gentile Greek audience, uh, gospel in mind. So he's writing for, uh, Gentile Greeks and Luke was a His profession was a doctor. Doctor. That's right. So what you need to know is a doctor can be very detailed and organized. So Luke puts so many details in his gospel.

Luke is actually the longest gospel, and it's also the longest individual book in the New Testament. So question, and funny, do you know what the second longest book in the New Testament is?

Acts.

It's the book of Acts, which was also written by Luke. And Acts is the sequel to the gospel of Luke. Luke has given us all these kinds of details. And for example, he is the only, One that gives us both the birth narrative of Jesus and the narrative of, uh, the birth narrative of John the Baptist, and gives us details that only Luke has and no other gospel has. And Luke also places a special emphasis on the marginalized— women, poor, the Samaritans— and his point is, hey, salvation goes beyond the religious, social, and ethnic boundaries people have set up at the time. And the last one we have, John. This is one of my favorite gospels. Uh, John is Jesus's closest friend. Or so as he describes himself very humbly, he says, I am the disciple that Jesus loved, which I love. Traditionally, it is believed that John could have been the youngest disciple and maybe possibly a teenager when he was called by Jesus. And John, his purpose, he actually tells us what the purpose of his gospel is in John 20:31. He says, hey, I just wanna tell people about Jesus. And I just want people to know who Jesus is and be saved by Jesus.

And so when you look at this gospel, 90% of the content in the book of John It's actually, you will not find it elsewhere. So it's unique to John. In other words, I think John is basically saying, hey, I knew Jesus intimately and personally. And the reason I'm telling you about him is because I want you to know him personally and intimately as well. Uh, bottom line is, man, these are not 4 different stories. It is one truth seen from different angles. And it all points to the same person that is King Jesus. So that's it, man. Hope that helps.

What's interesting, hold that thought, because we're going to come back to a couple of verses from the gospels. This is quite a deep cut, by the way. the way. There's— we're gonna explain why here in a second. There is only one gospel that records when Jesus was raised from the dead. Other people raised from the dead at the same time temporarily, and it's like a super deep cut on— it's something called— I'm gonna give away the cards— the Christus Victor. It dovetails into the Christus Victor atonement. Not— they say atonement theory. Why do they call it theory?

I hate that phrase. I like to call it facets of the atonement. There you go. Like, Jesus can chew gum and walk at the same time. He can accomplish multiple things on the cross. at the same time.

So we're gonna come— there's only one that records. It's really interesting that comes back to that. So my favorite— I didn't know you're gonna talk about that. My favorite— so when people— the John thing can throw people off. Yeah. Uh, why, bro, why is it so different? The best analogy I've ever heard is like, hey man, you turn on the news, one event happens, and you see— you go to basically Fox, NBC, CNN, and even though they got different biases, they're generally going to cover generally the same event. But then you flip over to C-SPAN and they're covering this. It's the same things happening, but they're like, ah, let's show the angle from inside the Senate. And it's like something that nobody else— it's the same thing, different angle. John's like that. John's like the C-SPAN of the Gospels.

That's great. That's great.

Also, I didn't know you were gonna talk about this, but it is— I just find it hysterical. Personal theory, I think John and Peter like had like like frenemy beef.

Yes.

So dude, this is— have you ever noticed? Have you?

I think I know where you're going. Bro, this is hilarious. The race?

There's 2 things. Hilarious. So in the Gospel of John only, we didn't plan to talk about this. It's just a really fun thing. In the Gospel of John only, if you read the gospel, you'll notice it's like every 2 chapters he's finding a way to get a dig in at Peter. So like, and there's my 2 favorite examples. So when all the guys come to arrest Jesus and somebody cuts off the Roman guard's ear and all the other gospels, they're like, ah, it's really not important who it was. Well, really not because Jesus rebukes whoever tried to cut off the guy's ear. Really not important who did it. We don't need to know. So one of the disciples tried to cut off his ear. You get to the Gospel of John and he is like, Peter, it was Peter. And then, and then this is hilarious, and then the Gospel of John's the only one where Jesus gets raised from the dead, and, and, and John specifically records, there were 2 of us that took off running, and we were running as fast as we could, and John got there first. I love it. Just so you know, it's like, there's like frenemy beef.

I love it, man.

It's real people, man. Real people. That's amazing. So now, Pastor Josh, I do have a question for you now.

I will allow it.

What didn't make it to the sermon?

Okay, let me do this fast because there was a lot. But so actually, this is a great example. The C-SPAN angle of Isaiah 58 didn't make it into the sermon. So let me do this real quick. So again, Isaiah 58:12, shout out Keenan Clark. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach. the restorer of streets to dwell in. Now here's what you got here. This is obviously Isaiah 58:12. Hey, a little trivia question. Isaiah 58:12 is in what book of the Bible?

Isaiah.

Isaiah. All right. So Isaiah, I just like pointing this out to people. A lot of Bible scholars, interestingly, they call Isaiah the Romans of the Old Testament. You've probably heard that before. The interesting thing is Isaiah is one of the major prophets. By the way, major doesn't mean more important. It just means longer. Isaiah, by far, contains really the most prophetic doctrine of any book in the Old Testament. And most Bible scholars would say it's by far the most Christological, like basically all the famous Jesus prophecies, not all, but you know, the ones you read at Christmas and Easter, a whole bunch of them, they're all Isaiah. So it's— Rome is the New Testament or Old Testament. When we'll— let's do a little Indiana Jones stuff here real quick. When Isaiah prophesies in Isaiah 58, he's prophesying 150 years before the Israeli exile into Babylon. By the way, this can be important here in a second. Bookmark this in your head. Uh, uh, Old Testament Babylon was roughly equivalent to what is now the modern-day nation of Iraq. Yes. Okay, part of it in Iran, I think, but mostly Iraq. Um, what's interesting is he's prophesying 150 years before Israel is judged and disciplined by God for their covenant unfaithfulness, taken as captives into Babylon.

That's now Nebuchadnezzar and Darius and all the things. Okay, that— I'm gonna get to that here in a second. Then Israel is in exile for 70 years. Just all this can be important here in a second. They're in exile for 70 years. Um, if you get this stuff in your head, the Old Testament just starts to make a little more sense. If you can kind of get the big rocks in your head— 70 years of exile. What Isaiah's doing in Isaiah 58 is he's giving what's called a post-exilic— Yeah. This is very interesting, actually. So 220 years before Israel will come out of exile, Isaiah is giving a quote-unquote post-exilic prophecy about, hey, you're gonna go into exile and be under the judgment of God for 70 years in Babylon. Hmm. On the back end of it, I'm going to go ahead and give a prophecy of hope. Here's what's going to happen. Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt. You're going to raise up the foundations of many generations. You, and I wonder who the you is. It's interesting. You will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets to dwell in.

Now let me go a little layer deeper because this is, I will say, I worked to get this into the sermon because it'd blow your mind a little bit and it really frustrated me. There was no way I could do it in my timer. So let me just do this real quick. This is, Paul's talked about it before on here. This is what's called a sensus plenior prophecy. Mm-hmm.

What does that mean?

What is— I know what it— what does sensus plenior mean in Latin?

Full meaning. Full sense.

Is it Latin? Full sense or full meaning. Yeah, it's Latin. And so it's the idea if it can have one meaning, but there's also a greater, fuller meaning that it can point to simultaneously. It can be 2 things at once.

Yeah, yeah, ChatGPT. So, so what a sensus plenior prophecy— for you, if you're like— for you, uh, guys who like to hunt or whatever, here's the best analogy. Uh, when you're taking, you know, let's say you're sighting in a rifle and you got, uh, you got the, uh, uh, the front sight. That's that little— if you don't know what that is, that's that little steel thing on the very end of the barrel that's part of an iron sight. You got the front sight, and when you're taking aim, you're looking at that front sight. Okay, that's one thing you're looking at. But then way past that is the actual target you're aiming at. Big juicy deer, I hope. Uh, and you're trying to get it right, right back here. Uh, what you're looking at 2 things.

That's right.

Okay. And both are lined up with the same thing. The front sight you're looking at, but way past that is a target. There are certain prophecies in the Bible that are very obviously— that's a sensus plenior prophecy. There's something that's a near fulfillment. That's usually a historical event that happens in the Old Testament. And then there's the way out there is the full fulfillment and the target that it's aiming at. That's right. Isaiah 58:12 is a sensus plenior prophecy. So I'll give I'm gonna go ahead and give away my cards. What happened in the book of Nehemiah is the front side. It's the near fulfillment. That generation of Jewish people come 70 years later. You, in some ways, you could kind of go like Nehemiah and those people were the repairs of the breach, the restorers of the streets to dwell in. Ezra and Nehemiah rebuild the walls and the temple. But then what's very— here's where things get a little interesting, and you gotta put on your little tinfoil hat because there's a far fulfillment.

Yes.

Now here's, here's where you start getting a little interesting. Okay, so they're taken captive into Babylon. Okay, now if you go read the Book of Daniel, uh, Daniel and his buddies Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, uh, Daniel's roughly 13 to 15 years old when they're taken captive, uh, into Babylon. He's POW, he's marched 700 miles away as a victim of human trafficking, taken into captivity. Now all this is gonna, uh, matter here in a second, so just stick with me. Let me, let me describe the nation of Babylon. You might— why are you talking about this? It's all gonna make sense here in a second. Just all gonna make sense here in a second. Okay, so Babylon that they're taken captive into, uh, largest civilization in the world at the time, uh, zenith of civilization, largest city in the known world. It was both an empire and a city, uh, modern-day Iraq. The city, 2,500 acres, uh, massive walls, walls 80, uh, 80 320 feet high, 56 miles long, by the way. I just want to point that out. That's kind of a big deal. There's actually a picture of it. Go ahead and toss that up there.

That, uh, somebody reconstructed what was called the Ishtar Gate in, uh, in Babylon. That was one of the entrances to the city of Babylon. That's it. It was a big, big, big deal. Uh, and, uh, this was also— Babylon was the empire that had the ziggurats that you studied in high school. And

these are— By the way, for people people that don't know, these are like temples.

Yes. Correct.

That's right.

Honestly, uh, what, uh, what they honestly were, if you think about this spirit, they were almost trying to recreate the Tower of Babel.

Yeah, trying to reach God higher.

They were. They viewed the ziggurats as the intersection point between heaven and earth, and it was man's attempt to build his way up to God. So it's very interesting spiritually. So you got that. Okay, now here's what Babylon's known for. All this matter here in a second. Wealth, greed, extreme violence.

Yes.

Sexual confusion. You actually got like, uh, they would never have used the word transgender or non-binary, but massive castration of males culture in ancient Babylon. Power and domination. Okay, now again, all this is going to make sense here in a second. I'm going to apply it to you. You just got to stick with me and be a Bible nerd for a second. The weird thing about Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, is other empires would do domination, they would do persecution. It's like, hey, we're just going to wipe out who we conquer. Interestingly, Babylon did the opposite. Babylon was not— they did assimilation. So they would conquer your Christian family and your Christian family. They would take your kids and they would go, we're not going to kill you and your kids. We're going to brainwash your kids. and indoctrinate your kids, and we're going to make your kids worship our gods and believe our things and do our ethics and turn you into a Babylonian.

Yeah.

Now, again, just stick with me. Here's what they would do. All this is going to make sense here in a second. They would, number one, they would separate the children from the family. Okay? So they would say things like this, hey man, instead of honoring your father and mother, you should cut off your father and mother. You know what you may need to do? might be good for you to go no contact with your father or mother. They didn't do education. They did indoctrination. Go read the book of Daniel. He was quote unquote educated for 3 years in Babylon. So like, hey man, they weren't doing education. They were doing indoctrination.

Yeah.

Let's, let's get you to deconstruct all your beliefs about the one true God, and then we're going to import all of our beliefs about our Babylonian false gods and get you to do our thing. And then they would do incentivization. So, you read the book of Daniel and how they get all these generations to become little Babylonian pagans is, we're going to give you choice food. We're going to give you a big job. We're going to give you a big salary. And essentially, it was kind of this vibe. If you'll just adjust your life and celebrate what we celebrate and affirm what we affirm, well, then you can keep your job. But if not, man, you really can't work here, and we're going to have to fire you and deplatform you and cancel you. So, so now, does any of that sound familiar?

Sounds a little familiar.

Right now, now, okay, now let me ask this question. If you're listening to that and you're going, huh, why is all that stuff still happening today? Okay, well, I have a great answer for you. Uh, very interestingly, Bible scholars have noticed the New Testament pulls on this thread of exile in Babylon And it looks at it from the camera angle of the spiritual realm. And the New Testament starts going, exactly what was happening in Babylon is happening in every nation. Now, I'm gonna give you 2 Bible verses to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. So this is 1 Peter 5:13. Okay? It says this. Peter's writing to Christians in the New Testament. He says, she who is in Babylon— Babylon. Chosen together with you sends her greetings, and so does my son Mark. Now, this is interesting. Why does he say Babylon? The Babylonian Empire don't even exist anymore. He goes, hey, you're in Babylon. Nice. Interesting. He's talking about Rome. Yep. But he calls it Babylon. Huh. Why would he do that? Okay, now fast forward to Revelation 14. Okay, Revelation chapter 14. Now remember Revelation, if you ever read Revelation and you get in and you're like, man, this, you know, dragons eating babies and, you know, metal angels.

And you're like, you know, I didn't know they dropped acid in ancient Rome. What's that? People, uh, the Book of Revelation is not primarily Revelation about what's gonna happen in the future, although there is that. Yep. It's primarily revealing what's going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm all throughout human history. Okay? Now, what I'm doing, we're connecting the whole Bible together all the way back to Isaiah 58. Just stay with me. Revelation 14:8 says this, a second angel followed and said, fallen, fallen is Babylon. The great, which made— listen to this language— all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.

Hmm.

Now, if you're reading that and you're a Christian, you're like, oh my man, Babylonian Empire don't even exist anymore. Why is Peter calling Rome Babylon? Why is, why is Jesus revealing in Revelation that all these nations and empires, he calls them Babylon? What's going on? Okay, well, here's what's going on. When— remember when Jesus rebukes Peter at Caesarea Philippi when he goes— okay, you remember? Yeah. Well, I'm never gonna— you know, Jesus, we're never gonna let you— and Jesus looks at Peter and says, get thee behind me, Satan. When Jesus says that, he's not addressing the person, he's addressing the spirit behind the person. Watch, here's what the New Testament's doing. It's not addressing the nation, It's addressing the spirit that is at work behind every nation. Here's the point. There was a nation called Babylon, and the New Testament seems to be saying there is also a demonic spirit named Babylon that is at work in all the nations.

Hmm.

Now, bro, look at— I gotta do this quick, and then we can talk about the ark. You go all Lara Debra, bro, and you start looking at things that have happened in great empires throughout human history. I'm just going to tell you, it'll start making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Yeah. Like, what I'm getting ready to show you right now is going to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. All right, so you got this. We just read in the New Testament there's some spirit at work behind all the nations that is Antichrist, that tries to, uh, get you to assimilate into their thing, be conformed to the pattern of the world. Called it Babylon. Now remember in Daniel chapter 3, what did, uh, the the king of Babylon build and then try to get everybody to bow down to? Remember, a 90-foot golden statue of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Okay, now bro, if you start looking at what has happened in dictatorial nations throughout human history, you're gonna notice some things that sound real familiar when you read about Babylon in your Bible. Okay, let me, let me show you some stuff that'll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Show that first picture. What you got right here, that's in North Korea. Remember, in Daniel 3, you got a golden statue, you better bow down. down or else. Okay, okay, that's in North Korea. That is a very Babylon-like empire. It is, uh, it is Antichrist. It is overtly demonic. It has a, a, a ruler that rules with an iron fist, builds a golden statue of himself, and demands that everybody bow down to it. That's number one. Number 2, show this next one. That's Turkmenistan. Hmm. Now, if you don't know where Turkmenistan is, you look at a map, you got Iraq, which is where Babylon was. Next you got Iran. Right after that you got Turkmenistan. Now bro, this is what they got in Turkmenistan: an image of— well, check this out— a king, a golden statue of a king riding in on a horse to set up a kingdom. Now bro, I'm gonna say this, dude, if you know your Bible, that's copyright infringement.

That is.

That's our thing.

That is right.

We got a king that's riding in on a horse to set up a kingdom. This dude sets up a golden statue of himself, and there's everybody, you gotta celebrate this thing.

I was just gonna say, almost sounds like an antichrist.

Uh, sounds a little bit like that. Okay, I'll do one more. Let's keep going. The next one, that's in China. Golden statue of the ruler. Are you starting to see a pattern? Yeah. Okay, now I'm gonna explain why this—

See how small that little— that guy is?

Yeah, look at the dude at the bottom. Massive golden statue. You see this over and over. You watch, here's what I'm trying to point out, and I'm gonna answer it at the end. You see the same thing happen in Antichrist nations all throughout history. Go to this next one. That's a picture of Saddam Hussein who ruled in Iraq, built a massive golden statue of himself. Where was ancient Babylon? In the modern-day nation of

Iraq.

Iraq. Bro, now this— ChatGPT, I'm gonna stump you. I figured out before this you didn't know this, dude. This is the kind of thing that will start just freaking you out, man. So Saddam Hussein famously had a weird fixation with the ancient civilization of Babylon. So in 1980— this is, bro, this is— put your tinfoil hat on, okay? In 1987, Saddam Hussein, evil demonic man, all the things. In 1987, he commissions them to rebuild the city of Babylon. They started it. Go ahead and show that next picture. They started it rebuilding. Like, he's literally saying, Yeah. I want to rebuild ancient Babylon. So he starts doing that after, uh, sort of the, the image and the pattern of ancient demonic Babylon. He did the same things that Nebuchadnezzar did when he built Babylon. He's— go to the next one. He stamped the bricks. Now, they didn't do Arabic in ancient Babylon. He did his own language. He modeled the stamping of the bricks with things praising him as Saddam Hussein. Hmm. He modeled it after what Nebuchadnezzar, the demonic leader in the Old Testament, did, did that. And then, bro, he literally would say things like this.

This is direct quote from his administration. He would say things like, yesterday Nebuchadnezzar, today Saddam Hussein. Now, bro, let me just— if you look at that stuff and you're like, man, why is it that the same things are still happening? Because the same spirits are still working. There was the nation of Babylon, And then the New Testament says there is now a demonic spirit of Babylon that's at work behind all the nations. Why do the same things keep happening? Because the same spirits are still working. But greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Amen.

All this stuff is happening. Now you load it all the way back to Isaiah 58, and what you get is Isaiah's— let's do the census plenier. So there was a near fulfillment in Nehemiah. Hey, you're going to come out of exile. There's going to be a day when you come out of exile and it's going to be that generation's job to look at the walls and find where did the enemy break down the walls? I want you to go right to those places and I want you to rebuild them. The New Testament now, it's like Jesus is the greater Nehemiah. He is the one who's rebuilding. He's building the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That's what he's going to do. We get to join him as co-laborers. Mm-hmm. And what is the New Testament Christian's job? Our job is to find the spots on the walls throughout this world where the enemy's broken in and there's chaos and destruction. And it's our job to be convictional, courageous men and women of God who run right at— that's the whole point— right at those things. And we go, hey dude, it's my turn.

Amen.

I'm gonna run right at that thing and I'm gonna bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven and go right at it. Now, I didn't get to do any of that in the sermon and it killed me. It kills me, dude.

Glad we have a podcast.

Yeah, me too. Now, real quick, I do want to just point this out. Anytime we talk about spiritual realm and all this stuff, which is very, very real, I do think sometimes you got to do it fast because we need to talk about Noah's Ark.

Yeah,

I do think that a lot of times Christians, especially people who don't come from charismatic backgrounds, theologically charismatic backgrounds, we really don't even understand, like, ah, so What does the cross and Jesus have to do with the defeat of demonic power? So there's generally 5, they call 'em quote unquote, they call 'em theories of the atonement. Paul and I both hate that. Yeah. 'Cause it's not a theory.

No, it's what he did.

He did it.

Yeah.

We're gonna call it facets of the atonement.

Yeah.

I will say for people who have come from cultures that are not basically white Western cultures, they are way more aware of spiritual realm and spiritual realities. way more sensitive to it, which is, by the way, way more biblical. And they a lot of times have a better grasp on what the cross did in the defeat of demonic spirits and that kind of thing. Paul, can you just give a real quick synopsis of what theologians have historically called the Christus Victor aspect of the atonement?

So you'll hear the word atonement, and really when we say the word atonement, we just mean what did Christ accomplish on the cross? So usually in our tradition, and I'd say most people, if they're watching and it's probably their tradition too, huge emphasis on substitutionary atonement, penal substitutionary atonement, the idea of Christ absorbed the penalty for our sin, which is true, by the way. Yes. But then a neglected part is that in addition to that, he also on the cross kicked in the teeth of Satan and all of his demonic forces and defeated them decisively. They still have a measure of power and influence on this earth, but he defeated them. So actually, you see these both side by side. In Colossians 2, it says, you who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. So that's where he canceled the penalty of sin. So he was a substitutionary atonement for our sins. But then it goes on, it says this, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

That's right. The imagery that's pulling from is that when Romans would go off and conquer a land, they would lead the people they had defeated and lead them back through the streets and publicly humiliate them. So the imagery is that not only did Jesus die for the penalty of our sins, but he defeated Satan on the cross and then led him in shame and mocking him. Yeah. And then what I love, to your point, even while we didn't have to be afraid of him, I hadn't planned to pull this in, but as you were talking, it came to me. In Ephesians 1, which is very similar, all the book of Ephesians is Colossians, it talks about how after the death and resurrection of Jesus, it said that God exalted him to the right hand in the heavenly places, far above every rule and authority and power and dominion. Where that's important is that is often a reference to spirits, including demonic demonic spirits and above every name that is named. And he put all things under his feet, that's Jesus' feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body.

The fullness of him fills all in all. So not only are the evil spirits and Satan under Christ's feet, according to Ephesians 1, they're under us as well, that we have authority over them, that we get to now go and do damage to the kingdom of darkness in Jesus' name. That's what going into the breach is about. So I get excited when we start talking about this.

Here's a little deep cut that people miss. So here's the little Easter egg. I was pointing to earlier. So only the Gospel of Matthew points out that when Jesus is— so remember what it said. It said that he leads us in triumphal procession. It's pointing— that's a throwback to— who was Matthew written towards?

Jewish people.

Okay. So it's a throwback to in ancient Rome, which, by the way, all the Jewish people are in ancient Rome at the time. It's a throwback to when the Roman people would conquer an enemy. What they would do is a lot of times they would, if they wanted to kill them, they would just cut off their And then whoever was the general of the commanding army would literally hold up the dude's severed head, march it through the city, and be like, is that your guy?

Yeah.

That's your guy. That's the statement. Yeah. That's your guy? Okay. And like, for instance, if you go outside of the Roman Colosseum today, it's the— I think it's the Arch of Tiberius is what's there. And a lot of those arches in ancient Rome are where they would lead the triumphal procession. It's right into the Roman Forum. You need to go see it. So they would march under that, commemorate it with a little arch and then march right through it, holding up a dude's severed head, defeated enemy. Or if they kept him alive, they would cut— there's actually a story. They would cut off his thumbs and his big toes. Cut off his thumbs as if to say, this dude's been disarmed. Yep. Never going to hold a sword again. That specifically said he disarmed the rulers and the authorities. Cut off his thumbs. He's been disarmed. Cut off his big toes. Never going to walk again. Never going to do anything again. What those passages are saying is that the only weapon that Satan the accuser had was our condemnation before the law, that all of us were guilty. And when Jesus goes to the cross and takes the penalty for our sin, he goes, hey man, that's the only weapon you had against my children.

Gone. I'll take that now. Let me cut off your thumb. You've been disarmed. How are you going to attack my kids anymore when I've already taken the penalty for their sin? What you going to accuse them of? That's right. And then, so deep cut, you go to Matthew and it's like, man, why when Jesus raised from the dead did all these other dead people raise too? What some Bible scholars think is is that's the on-earth triumphal procession.

Yes.

That literally— here's his little parade, and he's like, I'm, I'm like, essentially he's dunking on the enemy, Satan, death, and going, I conquered this enemy. These people are parading with me. This is the triumphal procession. I want everybody to see, bro. This is it. This is it. And then he does it in the spiritual realm because we have those verses about how he went and preached to the spirits of the dead in both things. And that, my friend, is the Christus Victor aspect of the atonement. She's like, I'm him.

I'm him. Wow, that cracks me up, man. Well, and what's amazing, and I'll do this really fast, in Colossians it says that Jesus Christ is the fullness of deity, or he was the fullness of deity on earth. That word fullness is pleroma. It's the exact same word here used of what the church is for Christ. Wow, man. So Jesus Christ was the fullness of deity on earth. We are the fullness of Christ. So in other words, what Jesus accomplished on the cross and what he started, we now continue. We now continue. Again, we're called to run into the breach. It's a future episode right there. Victory or failure. I gotta be careful. I'm getting like amped up right now. I'm gonna stop though. I will stop. Yeah, we gotta get to the ark here in a second.

So, uh, anything else you had on there?

I mean, there's so much. There's a lot.

Yeah,

well, here's all I did. Here, let's go talk about the ark because your mind's gonna be blown here in a second. Uh, so what I would say is practically, this is live free, not learn free.

Amen.

Yeah. So we're trying to make actual disciples, man. I'm going to ask you to join me on this discipleship journey. You can get the 21 Days Prayer Guide on the Lake Point website. You'll see a little link to it as soon as you go to the website, lakepoint.church. Here's all I'm asking everybody to do. There is probably some area in your life. I preach about this from Isaiah 58, because what he does in Isaiah 58 is he's like, hey man, you guys are fasting and you're doing this whole thing where you're weeping in prayer and fasting, But you're mistreating everybody around you and you're oppressing the poor and you're lying to people. And what he's doing is going, hey man, before you fix the breach in the world, there's probably a breach in your heart and in your family.

Yeah.

And I'm going to rebuild that. And then as I rebuild that, I'm going to make you into a person who can go rebuild this stuff out in the world. Here's what I'm asking every single person to do is we want to take you on this journey is to ask the question, where is the one spot in my life or my family's life where if I'm honest, The enemy, he got a foothold that turned into a stronghold. And honestly, now he's got me in a bit of a chokehold. And, uh, I want you to know what that is because I think we're going to take you on a journey to repair that breach.

Come on, man.

So that's my thing. I want you to get the answer to that question and come on this journey with me. We are done with this part of the podcast. Let's hear about the arc. Hey, Live Free Nation, let's have fun with this and swing some elections. In all seriousness, this. Midterm elections are obviously coming up in November. In the state of Texas, there's an estimated 16 million Christians, and the midterm elections coming up in November will be decided by a predicted— actually about 300,000 votes. So what this means is if Christians do their job as salt and light in the world, good things really easily happen. So what we've done at Live Free Nation is we actually built a website to help mobilize Christians to do our job as salt and light in society. So you can simply text the word vote to the number 20411. Text the word vote to 20411. And we have built a website all at our own expense to help Christians remember to vote leading up into the midterms, because the number one reason that Christians don't vote, especially in midterm elections, is they just forgot. So with one text, vote to 20411, 411, you will get one text, which is a link to the website where you can put in your address.

We do not keep any of the information, and it will tell you where the polling location is for voting in your area, when to come, and what in your area you need to bring. Again, we keep absolutely none of the data, and we will send you that text and then only one other reminder text right before midterms. So let's have some fun with this. Text VOTE to 20411 and we'll see what Live Free Nation can do. Indiana Johnston, welcome back.

Dude, it is so great to be back. I'm the Live Free archaeologist correspondent, self-proclaimed.

Yeah, no, dude, this is like— we have—

we, we agree.

We agree. Yeah. So this is Jeremiah Johnston. By the way, did we decide he was our first ever 1 million view episode?

I think he was. I think he was. In fact, I think this is, uh, I think you're the first guest, Jeremiah, who's been here 3

That's

true. I don't think we've ever had a different guest.

Yeah, right?

Bro, it's true.

How true is that?

Because Barton's been twice, right?

Yep. Yeah.

OJJ in the house.

Thank you.

Man.

Come on, man.

The Nicolas Cage of biblical archaeology. Yes!

I mean, even better than Indiana Jones, dude.

I mean, uh, okay. Yeah, go ahead.

So, all right, here's what we're gonna do. Uh, here's what we're gonna do. We honestly, at first I was like, I don't want to do an episode on this. At first I was like, I don't want to do an episode on this. And then honestly, dude, it's like every 2 days, like some new viral thing about the Noah's Ark has definitely been found thing comes out. And dude, I'll be honest, I'm excited. I'm gonna lay my cards on the table. I've been hearing about this since elementary school, and I keep seeing this stuff. You know, I'm a dumb pastor from rural Kentucky. I don't know what's true and what's not. And so it's exciting to me. And I was like, let's get somebody on and actually pin this thing down.

Let's go. I love it.

All right. So, uh, first, and by the way, for listeners, if you have not listened to the first, uh, Shroud of Turin episode, you need to put— can we put that in the, in the sub, the little link thing?

Yes, we can.

You need to go listen to that thing.

That was our Easter episode,

bro. It crushed.

Yeah. And it reached so many people for Christ. And I brought a gift for you. I had something made for you. Okay.

Oh, did you? So did you make me a bathrobe modeled after the Shroud of Turin?

It's not a bathrobe, but it's, it is. I'm actually jealous. Carlos, because I can't give away my sources, but, you know, I want you to always know how much God loves you, Pastor Josh, because God is raising you up. I'm, I'm just celebrating the work of God in your life. And so I commissioned something for you, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reach back.

I hear it's dangerous, so I'm gonna like give him space. Now

watch out, dude.

What are you talking about, Carlos?

Bro, are you serious?

This is my gift to Pastor Josh Howerton and Live Free, that is Spinos Christus that is grown on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives. I'm actually growing it in my backyard right now, but I wanted it to have this scarlet hue to it. That's why I'm jealous. So I just want you to have that in your ministry to be reminded every day how much God loves you. And think Romans 5:8 every time you see it. God keeps demonstrating his love for us.

Wow. Gosh, Jeremiah, Yeah, dude, that is a— if that doesn't go on this set, that is going in my office where I write my sermons. Isn't that fun?

Be careful with it.

For people who did not listen to the Shroud episode, will you explain real quick what we're looking at for them? Because this is like a little mind-blowing. And then we'll get into Noah's Ark, 100% confirmed found.

John 19— okay, fantastic. John 19:2 says that they fashioned a crown of thorns and they put it on his head. And we've all been so influenced by medieval Christian art that we thought it was something like a sweatband, a wreath, a little cutesy thing. No, these— this is a shrub, the Spinos Christi shrub. It will grow to 15 feet in Jerusalem. My colleague was just there and snipped off a branch and brought it home. That's how we're growing it in our backyard right now. My boys help me take care of it. Wow. And so this was readily available, and you would have taken these branches and truly, as the Bible says in 19:2, folded them together, twisted them together. And when these spinos Christi nails dry, as you can see, these are as sharp as nails. Super sharp. And they put that on our Lord's head. And this is at the point where he's been flogged. Pilate brings him before the mob and he uses in Latin, Ecce Homo, behold the man. And this is when everyone begins to yell, crucify him. And so for me, Pastor Josh, I had studied a lot on resurrection.

I've given my life to study the resurrection. I had never seen this because I'd been so influenced medieval Christian art. And the first time I saw an actual Jerusalem-grown thorn crown helmet, it took my breath away.

Wow.

Yeah, because I mean, until you did that episode, I always just thought of like the— Everyone— Halo, right, type of thing.

But can you imagine the agony? And the reason that tracks with the Shroud episode is we have 50 puncture wounds on the crucified man of the Shroud, on the scalp, the forehead, and especially the back of the head. That's where the pooling of the most amount of blood is. And so

if people didn't— first of all, that honestly is a lot to take in, dude. Honestly, that, uh, it'll be really— I'm gonna— I know, I already know where I'm gonna put it. It'll be really meaningful. That's gonna sit on the desk where I write sermons every week.

Praise God. Praise God. Well, what a reminder. I mean, and by the way, yours is cooler than mine, so I'm jealous already, but mine was kind of an old school one. Um, and you know, I just— we all need that reminder. And Romans 5:8 is in the continuing It's like a movie that never ends. It's one of 2 passages. And what I mean by continuous for our audience is God keeps showing our love for us, his love for us, by when we look back at the cross. It's a reminder every second of every day. And I need that reminder in my life. Amen, man.

So if you didn't listen to the Shroud episode, you really need to. The reason I'm saying, like, make that your next listen. The reason I'm saying that is this. I already know a little bit of where this is going to go. It's going to be really interesting. The Shroud episode, for people who didn't listen to it, I was a— literally, I had you on. Yeah, because I saw you do an interview and I was like, bro, this guy, this guy's ridiculous. This is like— I'm gonna take that. I'm like, I was like, you know, I'll

own it.

Yes, like totally out. This is, you know, whatever. That was like, this is ridiculous. And bro, you came on, it's like there's too much that I can't explain.

It walks like a duck if it quacks like a duck. Yeah, I got one other cool thing to show you. So I'm an artifact guy, Indiana Johnston at work here. So listen, what does Elvis Presley have to do with the Shroud of Turin? Are you ready to have your mind blown?

I know the answer to this. I'm not saying anything.

Okay, Elvis dies in August of '77. Okay, and do you— and he dies— I know a lot of dudes watch this, so forgive me— he dies on the commode. Yes, it was a way to go. And do you know what book he is reading while he dies on the commode at Graceland? He's dead by 2:30 at Graceland. No. Dude, this book is so hard to find. I could only find 2 of them. It cost me 4 digits to buy it because I wanted it signed by the author. Wow. And so check this out. This is a scientific study for the face of Jesus. But check it out. It's signed by the author. The year of Elvis's death, 1977. So Elvis— I'm just, you know, I'm a huge Elvis fan. I don't know if you guys are. He only— the King of Rock and Roll only won 3 Grammys for all of his gospel music and his hymns. He never won the gold Grammy for rock and roll, even though he's the King of Rock and Roll. I had no idea. And yet—

Carlos, do you know who Elvis is?

I, uh, I have heard of him. Yeah, no, I do know who Elvis is.

You need to leave the show.

No, no, no. Well, there's— I don't think I think it's El Salvador because, you know, he's known worldwide. I think it's more of a generational thing. Oh my

God. Oh

wow. That was Carlos's remarkable—

I was gonna say that he did the background music.

It's not that I immigrated here, it's that you're old.

He did the background music for The Godfather, if you didn't know. Yeah. Okay. I say that because he's never watched The Godfather either, so he wouldn't know.

I know of it though.

Isn't that crazy? That's amazing. So I got my hands on it, and so that's now part of the exhibit because, you know, when you bring Elvis with the Shroud together, the algorithm loves it. That's right.

It's meant to— I haven't shown this on a podcast yet because I just got Come on, man. All right, let's talk Ark.

All right, Noah's Ark.

Let me set this up for people if they don't know what we're talking about. So first, Trini, will you go ahead and toss that first? Okay, so bro, you're— you've like, like deep, deep, deep dived this thing. Like, we don't call him Indiana Johnson for no reason. Yeah,

and I brought my shirt, you guys.

Oh, looks like rain.

Yeah, nothing like a little joke about, uh, worldwide damnation. Okay. So I started hearing about this. I remember being in elementary school and hearing rumors that, hey man, they found something in— and I'm going to give away some cards— in modern-day Turkey. I started hearing about this in elementary school. So for people who don't know, let me set this up. So Genesis 8, I'm going to read the passage. Yeah. Genesis 8 says this. This is Genesis 8. This is kind of 1 through 5. I'm going to read part of it. It says, at the end of the 150 days. So this is when Noah Noah is in the ark. The waters had abated in the 7th month on the 17th day of the month. By the way, that doesn't sound like a myth to me.

No, exactly.

So we're going to come back to this here in a second about worldwide, in virtually every major culture in the world. This is fascinating. There's some quote unquote myth about a catastrophic flood that one family is safe from. We're going to come back to that. interesting, but not the Bible. The Bible's like, happened on this day in this month in that year. That ain't no myth. That ain't no myth. So then it says this: the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. I'm gonna come back to that in a second. And the waters continued to abate until the 10th month, the tops of mountains were seen. Now, so what you're looking at right here, I'm setting all this up, I'm gonna kick over to you. This is— how do you pronounce that for me?

Durunapar.

Say it one more time.

Durunapar.

Durunapar.

And that is, that is the name of the captain in the Turkish military who was taking aerial photographs of the region of Ararat, and he takes a picture and thinks, that looks man-made. That looks— that doesn't look like a mountain range. That looks like a boat to me. And so we have actually known, Pastor Josh, about this site since Captain Derunapar took that photo in 1959. As we're recording this right now, 67 years ago.

I had no idea. So I never heard that before. All right, so they see

Correct.

That is on— now, when people— people, a lot of people don't know this. When the Bible says the mountains, it says, uh, this translation says— yeah, notice this, it says Mountains of Ararat. A lot of people don't know this. That's not one mountain, that's a mountain range.

Correct.

So it's similar to me going, hey dude, like in college I hiked all over the Appalachian— I tried to do the whole— I want to do the whole Appalachian Trail. It's similar to somebody going like, hey man, we went to the Appalachians. It's not one mountain, it's a range.

Great point. It's like saying it came to rest in the Rockies.

Exactly, just like that. So that's that formation that I just learned about. I'm gonna show our viewers— by the way, this is one you really need to watch on YouTube. This is going to help you a lot. We got a lot of show and tell here. Uh, here's another angle of the— am I saying it right? Darunapar.

Perfect. Yep.

Okay, formation. Uh, so they've known about this for 60-plus years. Uh, now real quick, I just— I think I know the answer to this. I'm gonna say some more stuff, just quick answer. It's in modern-day Turkey, right?

Correct. Eastern Turkey.

Okay. And one question. So I think I know the answer. Why haven't they just dug the thing up yet?

That's a great question. I wish they would.

You don't know the answer?

If you have $500,000, I'll go there and start excavating today.

Carlos gotcha.

Yeah, I got you, bro. Let's talk after. GoFundMe. I'll go start digging. I mean, that's really— that's the next step.

So I thought it was— tell me if I'm wrong. I thought it was because, like, I visited Turkey for the 7 churches in Revelation. And what I understand is the Turkish government does not like Christians excavating sites that have any chance of contradicting the Quran.

True. Very true.

So I want— is that why? Do you know? Does that have anything to do with it?

Absolutely. They don't want— it's Islamic because they want you to go to Konya and see the whirling dervishes. They want you to go see Muhammad's beard and cry over that. We've been there and seen all of that. So there is a resistance from the government to anything that would confirm the biblical narrative for Christianity and Judaism. Is

that—

Has to play into it 100%. Yeah, so much props to the people that are actually getting the, the rights to do this going through those channels. I'm sure that there's been bribery. There has to be in that part of the world. I'm sure they've had to pay a few people off just to get the exceptions to do it. Okay, that's a great point.

Now here's— we've got— so

there's a geopolitical implication of digging there

big time. Now we've got, uh, like lots of— we're We're going to go through, I think, at least 13 reasons that some people think, bro, that's it. It's

exciting.

I'm going to give you just a couple reasons that— and dude, we did not talk before this episode about any of this. I have no idea what you're going to say. Here's the stuff that as a dumb rural Kentucky pastor—

I don't believe this dumb Kentucky pastor thing at all. It's a nice trope, but I don't believe it. I think you're the smartest guy in the room right now.

That is definitely not true. That's all I'll say. That's definitely not true.

Paul's very silent over here. You know what Paul did? Paul's like, you said that, and Paul's like,

just— Yeah, I know.

I'm sitting over here getting a drink of water and he wrote me on—

What is it? We have Paul GPT here. ChatGPT. ChatBPaulT. ChatPaulPT. I agree. That's AI for those that don't know.

All right, so here's the stuff that as a lay— I'm not a layman, but in this field. Okay, number one, I'll point a couple interesting things out that have made people go, hey, Okay, dude, this could be legit. Number 1, you got the length. Trinity, go ahead and toss that back up. The first— yeah. All right. So number 1, you've got the length.

Right.

So Genesis 6:15 says that when God gives the instructions for the ark, he says 300 cubits long. Now, Jeremiah may correct some things I'm about to say. I'm just going to run through all this with no interruptions. Then I'm going to kick to Jeremiah. We're going to deep dive this thing. So Genesis 6:15, God gives the instructions to build it 300 cubits long. long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high. Now, from what I understand from my little research, 300 cubits, depending on which form of cubit you use as the recommendation, 300 cubits could either be anywhere in between 450 and 515 feet long. What's interesting is interesting, that formation is exactly, from what I understand— That length. 515 feet long. Then some people have pointed out the width of the thing. Okay, obviously God commanded it to be built 50 cubits wide. That would range anywhere between 75 and 85 feet. Now you're going to talk about this a little more. For some people, they say actually that's a problem because the Durupinar— did I say that right?

Yep.

Formation is wider. Now what, what they've said is, hey man, anytime you take a ship with a rounded hull and you put a bunch of of mud and, you know, thousands of years on it, the sides will splay outward. Correct. So like, hey man, actually, if you took a splayed outward side, it would be similar to this formation. Then obviously you got the boat shape. There is a seeming— can you go to that other one again, Trinity? You got the boat shape. I mean, you know, I'm just, I'm just a guy. Looks like a boat to me. Yeah. It's got a boat shape. Number 4, and we've got way more than this, but these are just just top of the funnel here. Location is obviously Ararat Mountains, right? Yes, obviously confirmed by the scriptures. Then, and I know nothing about this, you're gonna go a little deeper here, I guess nearby there were found ancient pottery fragments.

Correct.

That might have, you know, might have some correlation. And then somebody— and bro, I don't know, I don't know anything about this— somebody said that there were some unique stones

Anchors is what they call

them. Yeah, they called them anchor stones. Hey, around that time—

We got a pic of them.

Oh, you do have a pic of them?

Yeah, we got a pic of them.

Can we go ahead and show them? Yeah, yeah.

That's one of a few anchor stones.

So, and you see, I've never seen that before. So the little eyelet would be where they would slide something.

Exactly. That's the claim.

All right.

From Ron Wyatt.

So those were from Ron Wyatt the comedian?

No, Ron Wyatt who did—

Oh, Ron Wyatt.

Yep. Who found, uh, yeah, we'll get into that.

The archaeologist. I don't know. I don't

know. Yes.

Now that was my word.

Nagging.

I heard the same thing you did.

All right. So the, you know, and those were found close by. Some people say, hey, those could be anchor stones.

Because they think the rope went through that eyelid right there.

Yeah. Now even that raises a question for me. And you're, I'm sure you're going to come at like a rope. Would you do that? I don't know. We'll come back to that. So, and then you'll, you'll get into this a little more, I guess. Recently there's an organization called Noah's Ark Scans. Scans, with an N. Noah's Ark Scans.

Correct.

That they've started doing groundwork, and I— and I will get into specifics later. Something about soil, uh, testing that they say, man, there appears to be a concentration of, I don't know, stuff that could be like decomposed wood. And then they claim, uh, that I guess they've done— was it sonar something like that.

Yeah, like geometric features under there that looks like rooms and corridors.

Ground-penetrating radar. Yeah.

All right.

Which is good till you do.

That they say, you know, look like corridors that might correspond to the thing. Now, all this led— here's where this blew up, okay? All this led to— go ahead and show that headline from the Daily Mail. This was a few weeks ago. Noah's Ark resting place, quote, 100% confirmed.

That got my attention. That's

a lot.

It got my attention. After 4,300 years, as astonishing, quote, man-made structure is detected Buried deep underground. And then didn't you say that, that drill— there's something about that drill?

So they're drilling, they're wanting to get down. They went down 4 to 5 meters. So they go down and the drill bit broke because they hit something so solid that the drill bit broke. And they're concerned in a good way that they hit gopher wood.

Okay, fossilized gopher wood, I guess.

Mineralized is what you would call it. Mineralized wood. wood that could have been part of the ship.

Okay.

And it broke the drill bit.

Okay.

And that wasn't the only headline. There's another one that— yeah, 100%.

Uh, oh, oh, there was another one.

There was another 100% I think we had.

I don't have that one, but I did. I will point this out. So then Daily Mail did that. Now, first of all, I will just point this out. I want to get this— like, Daily Mail is like just barely not a tabloid. I will just kind of point that out. Sometimes Daily Mail—

This is the science and technology reporter Stacy Liberator, who actually does great work. So she is a real seeker of truth. So Daily Mail has all kinds of—

And the article's quoting somebody, right?

It's quoting— she's not saying it. This is quoting the lead of Noah's Ark Scans who said it's 100% confirmed.

So then they posted that headline.

4.7 million views. You can see just on that tweet.

It blew up. And then after they posted the headline, Noah's Ark Scans, their X account, I'm going to read it for people who can't see it. They quote tweeted it and said, we are 100% sure that the Daily Mail will come under fire for this headline. But knowing what we know now, we are also 100% sure that they are not going to have to issue a retraction. We will be releasing more information soon. The last thing I'll say, and then I'm just going to kick it over to Jeremiah, let him do his Indiana Johnson thing, is from what I understand, they've taken hundreds of soil samples that are still being processed, from what I understand, and scans. So I don't know if they have access to information the general public doesn't, but they feel very confident. Now, Jeremiah, I literally just told you everything I know about the thing. I know nothing else. I just want you to take it from here. What's interesting to you about this? What are all— there's a million details we have not just shared that you know about. I just— here you go. What do you think?

Anything that gets a secular world to be interested in the biblical narrative excites me. Amen. So I'm super excited that in, in on secular media and all of our algorithms right now, our kids, skeptics, people that visit your church are like, dude, have we found Noah's Ark? Like, because they're not aware of the history of this site. And so to be able to see that, that excites me that people are excited about corroborating the Bible's accuracy. So I give them total props for that. Um, and they even say that the date fits Noah. I mean, they say that. I've— they say the pottery is proof of a pre-flood race that was there living there. They say that this will rewrite the textbooks. This is another thing that their lead fundraiser of Noah's Ark Scan says. The people fundraising— Lauren is her name— said that the findings could force universities to rewrite their curricula and challenge Darwin's theory of evolution. Now, that claim is about consequences, not evidence. I'm— I want to see what all of the evidence actually has to say. And so, A, I'm all for digging. I'm all for finding it. I hope that we find parts of Noah's Ark someday in our lifetime.

I don't know if I said it on this show, but I believe we're living in a time, thanks to technology, where there is a controlled revelation based on technology, where God is using the stones to cry out that totally authenticate the word of God. It's the most exciting time ever to be a Christian.

Dude, it feels like legitimately, it feels like every 2 weeks there's some new thing.

And there is.

That's like a, like not even questionable, like a legitimate verification of some biblical fact.

I was with a pastor 2 days ago who had, third-generation pastor, like you. He had— but he had deconstructed his faith. He preached social justice, made fun of conservative, born-again, Bible-preaching Christians like us, until he went to the land of Israel, went to Capernaum, and saw that within Jesus's lifetime, on the walls of Capernaum, they're writing Christ, God's Son. And that changed the game for him. And now he's in Houston preaching, you know, fire-breathing Bible sermons. Wow, fantastic. And so that is the payoff of why we need to watch this whole episode, because I wanted to create a metric of when we hear about these things, because my kids are all into it. They're like, Dad, we— I heard from my class, we heard we found Noah's Ark. And I'm like, oh, that's a really interesting claim. How do we think about that? So I'm all for finding Noah's Ark. I think it's a— I think I commend them for doing that. I love it that a secular world is opening up to the truth claims of the Bible. But we got to ask some questions.

That's why we want you here.

We got to have discernment. I love this because the scriptures tell us, and I wrote this down in my my Bible. 1 Thessalonians 5:20 says, says, prove all things. And that is a message to us modern believers that we need to prove all things and we need to attach to what is good. And so here's what rises and falls with this, Pastor Josh. We want our testimony to be such that we don't sensationalize, that we don't exaggerate the evidence. I have ran into this with the Shroud. I never wanted to go beyond what the evidence said, or about the James Oshuary. I want to say— and then the way where I was trained—

We need to have him on to talk about the James He's going to bring it.

That's coming. I'm going to DNA test the bones of the half-brother of the Lord. Are you serious? If I get invited a 4th time, which would, you know— We'll consider it. For the correspondence, I'm going to DNA test. We'll think about it. That was in an article last week, so that's coming. Okay.

By the way, just for listeners, I don't want to get sidetracked on James Ossuary. The James Ossuary, that's the brother of Jesus, James. Yep. there are an increasing number of— an ossuary is, if you've ever seen a little picture, it's like a little stone bone box that they would bury, uh, particularly Jewish men in.

Exactly.

And for multiple reasons, there are people, and I think you're one of them, that are like, bro, no, that's legit.

100%. And not just me, the epigrapher who studies the incise marks, there's patina that goes back 2,000 years. This is just a preview for another Live Free, hopefully around Easter time, because we have the 2 greatest artifacts we have for Easter— the Shroud, outside of the Bible of course— are the Shroud of Turin and the James Ossuary. Because we have recovered 900 ossuaries from the Herodian period. This was Israel's subtle way to push back against the iron fist of Rome, that, hey, you may take our land, but you're not going to take how we bury our loved ones. And incised in it, in this, are 5 words, 55 characters, that say James, son of Joseph, brother of Yeshua. What? And according to a Jewish non-Christian scholar at the University of Tel Aviv, there is a 99% chance based on population of that time— because people will@ me, go ahead and@ me in the comments, hey, Yeshua was a common name, Joseph, Yaakov, Jacob, James, these are all common names— but to have those 3 together on an ossuary, 98% chance based from a secular peer-reviewed journal that it's Jesus of Nazareth.

Bro. Okay, so we didn't mean to talk about that, but that's another episode. Yes. Well, we got to do that at some point, and then I'll try to poke holes in it.

So I love this. So, but again, we tested those claims, won in an Israeli Supreme Court. It's hard to beat the government, and my guy Oded Golan beat the government. Wow. Because they were just basically— he wouldn't mind me saying this— just trying to steal the ossuary back from him, claiming forgery. They wanted it back because no ossuary has left the land land since 1978, I know where it is. It's in the United States right now. So, dude, so I'm all about this. I mean, this conversation is relevant to your people. It's real. I get— I was asked last night at church, are you sure about the Noah's Ark? I mean, I really need to know what you think about this. I mean, this is very exciting. Tell us, man. And they're asking, like, should I donate to this? I mean, these are great, fine Christians who want to know about it. And so that's the claim. That's the claim they're making. And it's It's an exciting claim. It looks like a boat. But here's some of the buts. And so the other night I was laying in bed. I often fall asleep with my laptop out.

My wife will tell you I love to write at night. That's when we get the 5 kids to bed. It's a hostage negotiation to get the triplets to bed. And then finally I can write. I'm not above threats and bribes. Oh, I do it all. No, go watch The Equalizer in the other room. We'll

do this.

And so I put together a scorecard of, of what I would— what the questions that I would ask if I could go to Darunapar. And by the way, if you want to invite me, Noah's Ark Scans, I'm very happy to go join you and see this because you have criticized me saying, well, why don't you come over here? I'm happy to. I've been to Turkey many times. I'm happy to.

We will pay for your flight. Okay. We will pay for— we will pay for Indiana Johnston's travel.

Johnston goes business class. So we'll

pay for part of your flight. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Okay, so here's a couple of things, um, that we're going to bring up on the screen. So I want to just update our audience that even though this is in the zeitgeist of today, even though it's all over our algorithms, this is not a new discovery. Mm-hmm. It goes back 67 years. As we've said, Darunapar is named after the captain that saw it. He went back in 1960 to Darunapar and studied it with geologists who concluded that it is a freak of nature. It is a natural geological formation, not Noah's Ark. And then 1987, 1980s, actually before that.

Do you know what made them think that?

Yeah, they studied all the soil, same exact things that you're saying, but they actually tested it in labs, independent laboratories, and they came back because this is in a valley. Let me— can I set the context? Please do. I don't know anything about it. If we could time travel or just get on a plane and instantly take our audience there. The mountains, as you very eruditely pointed out, that this is a mountain region. The Bible says it came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. That means as the waters are receding, which took 150 days for the mountains to recede, it does say it's actually a cognate of shalom. It's nuah. The, the, the boat comes to rest on the peaks of Ararat. So what is the elevation of that boat-looking picture, that is in a valley of the mountainous region. The elevation is somewhere between 6,400 feet and 6,500 feet. Here's the issue with that. It would've taken many weeks, if not months, for the water to recede from the peaks of Ararat, which are actually taller than the Rocky Mountains. Did you know that? I didn't know that. So Mount Ararat is 18 miles north, the peak of Mount Ararat.

And so if we're just thinking like scientists, then logically, if we were on, one of the 8 on the boat, we're not going to come to rest unless Noah had a fleet of ships, which I know of only one ark in Noah's Ark. It would have come to rest on a taller peak. Are you guys with me? Are you guys with me out there in YouTube land?

That's what I was wondering. Like, did it slide eventually with time?

No. How do you know? How do you know any of this? The scripture says right here, and I'm a Bible guy, the ark came to rest. That means it ceased movement. And that's where it's— why it's a cognate of shalom. It stopped right there. And that's where he begins to send out the ravens and the doves. And so my good friend Randall Price— and I'm infected with knowledge about these things— who is also an archaeologist, has made many trips to the peaks of Ararat looking for Noah's Ark at the 14,000-foot level, and he can't find it anywhere. Mm-hmm. So there's an elevation issue. So it is in a volcanic Here's the second thing, and I want to make sure our people know this. Archaeology is a full-contact sport, okay? Like, it is— What's that mean? What— it is so competitive. To get an archaeologist to agree with another archaeologist is a miracle. The one thing that 100% of credentialed archaeologists agree on is that Durunapar is not the site of Noah's Ark.

Seriously.

And I'm not exaggerating. Really? And not just conservative Christian ones, all archaeologists.

Based on?

Based on all the— based on my scorecard that I'm going to jump through. So we've gone through why it's called Durunapar. We've gone through the things that— and there seems to be with Durunapar claims before they're being tested, and then the claims totally collapse. And So what I would encourage is caution. Take all of your findings, by all means, have an independent group, an independent lab test it. If you think you've found fossilized gopher wood, test it by all means. And I will come on and say, wow, that score just changed. But I put together a scorecard of 10, and right now I'm at a -1, and we're not playing golf.

This ain't golf. So -1 ain't good. Now he's going to run through a scorecard, and then, man, Carlos We're gonna try to Uno reverse it and be like, prove him wrong.

That's right. So the one test that would help that has not been met is the test that really matters. It's not the soil, it's not radar, it is wood. Have they actually found fossilized or what we call mineralized gopher wood? Now the problem is—

Is this on your slide?

Gopher wood. Yeah. If you scroll down to, let's see here, the pad. And this is expandable, so please use this with a very free hand.

Can we put it up to where he can walk it visually so that people who are watching can see.

So if you hit 1, Trinity. Yeah. There you go. So if you scroll down and go to where 1 is.

Yep.

That's the, uh, keep going, keep going down. Uh, keep going. There you go. Wood at depth.

There you go. So if you expand these, what I've done for the benefit of our audience, because I know I get a lot of hate on this and that's fine, is I've also added all the sources there. So if you even plus sign that, you're gonna see the sources. So that's great. Here's the bottom line of what would change this to the 1 category. for me. Show me wood cell structure under, under a microscope from an independent lab, then we'll talk. I'm happy to change my mind.

Now, can I ask a question? Yeah. But I thought I had read that in the soil samples, they were like, hey man, there's increased some, something, right? They were like, this would be evidence of decomposed wood.

No. And that's where I want to caution people. Like, here in Texas, we have all kinds of weird stuff in the soil here in Texas as well. And That is the same in Turkey. That's the same anywhere you go. And so saying that we have unique things in dirt is not unique.

Yeah, Jeremiah, but you said they were drilling and at some point it hit something hard enough. So they—

couldn't it be? Yep. They— they— what about that? Yeah. So first, wood. Um, now here's the cores, number 2. This is disputed. This is the best— this is their best new point, and I'll grant that it is a very interesting claim. Okay. Jones, who leads Noah's Ark Scans, says that the core drilled at 17 locations and did not find what we call bedrock. Now here's what— and again,

why would that be significant for a layman?

That would be significant because if you found bedrock, that would just say, hey, this is a mountain. Um, you know, this is just a rock formation, naturally occurring rock. It's But here's the problem with, with Ararat, Mount Ararat. Mount— and again, this is interesting for me to agree with everyone, whether it be Answers in Genesis, ICR, uh, Hugh Ross, Reasons to Believe. These are Christians, okay? These are not skeptics. And again, this is where we got to get beyond the, the soundbite and get into the skeptics. These are Christian organizations. I mean, you can go see Noah's Ark at, at, at Ken Ham's place. Mm-hmm. And even he says it's his opinion and I give him all the credit, that this Mount Ararat is a volcano that formed after the flood from lava rock.

He thinks that specific formation is— or the—

The entire valley, including the peak, came post-flood because it is a volcano. It is not a mountain. It is a volcano. Therefore, this interesting geographical anomaly— and it is an interesting geographical anomaly— is formed over time after the through flowing lava. And that's the opinion of ICR, Institute of Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, and Henry Morris. I'm going to get to this. He spent 13 trips there. So in 1988, cores were found. They hit basalt solid rock 6 to 7 meters in the northern part of the boat shape. And that just simply came out that the data was wrong and it actually was solid rock.

What are cores, Jeremiah?

Cores would be they're hitting actual mountain, they're hitting solid rock. They're not hitting— they are not hitting wood. The smoking gun here is if you get wood, then we're going to have a conversation, a whole different level.

So that was honestly— would that— you're going to keep going through this, but would that— that would be— you're saying that would be one thing that changed things big for you? That'd be a game changer.

If they

find evidence of wood,

then we need to have a whole nother podcast because— and I will be the first to say, praise God, thank you for doing it the way that scholars do it. We don't go public before public The goal of archaeology is always publication, not sensationalism.

And I was going to connect the dots for the average person of why you're saying produce the wood or test it in an independent lab, is that if you're going to make claims based on a particular science, you have to play by the rules of that science, by that field. And a huge thing in this area is peer-reviewed and independent lab testing. Exactly. And so if you really believe what you have is legit, you would submit those to that. So basically what you're saying is if they're not doing that, it actually shows that it probably Or at least is possibly not legit.

And I'm going to take them at their word. Okay. And because one thing I learned in Oxford was you have to present your opposition in the best possible light. They are saying they're going to have it tested. Here's the issues. Some of the issues that I'm having is they're coming out with results before they actually have it tested. They're saying things like they are 100% not going to have to have a retraction. I wouldn't do that because, you know, you just don't know. Yeah, no, we're not omniscient. And so, so release the core logs hole by hole and put them next to the 1988 logs that are peer-reviewed. Again, my— our sources are here for our audience. And then tell me how they're different. All right. That will help me. And again, just to kind of help people remember, I was a huge skeptic of the Shroud of Turin until I read the 102 academic disciplines— physicists, scientists, rocket engineers— who published in peer-reviewed journals. And then and only then were we able to conclusively say the Shroud isn't man-made. Same with the pigraphers, with the James Oshoury. This is how archaeology works. So that's where I want to help believers and pastors and ever— and young men, young women who are watching, families.

These are the questions they're asking. So number 3, um, the big thing that we hear about is this radar. In fact, if you know, you can never—

Picture of the radar scan.

Yeah, we do.

So really cool what they've come up with.

Trinity, go photo number 2. So, uh, basically, and I was going to ask you about this, so they did these GPR, ground penetrating radar surveys, and they found these like straight lines, right angle intersections, structures and in their words, possible voids, which means that they interpret that as corridors, compartments, and multiple decks. So again, some of these like shifts in colors and these straight perpendicular lines is kind of what they're concluding. There's a, there's a boat in here.

Yeah. There's a—

Well, what about that?

Yeah. What about that, Jeremiah? Yeah.

Where is the freaking GPR? You haven't seen these. So here again, forgive me for being infected with knowledge. So GPR is notoriously erroneous. mountainous and mountain regions. I use GPR in the dry sands of Egypt and Oxyrhynchus if I'm going through a trash heap to find ancient biblical fragments or ancient fragments that have survived for 2,000 years. That's where GPR is really—

That's where I use it.

But, but GPR produces what most archaeologists think these are dikes or sink lines. And I'm quoting the Collins, which I brought all the receipts for you, Josh. I actually have the peer-reviewed journal journals from 1998 where Collins and his colleague who did believe in the Shroud— or excuse me, did believe in the Ark, thank you— did believe in the Ark, actually came back and under oath recanted based on the findings and said this is not Noah's Ark.

Wow.

So again, that's all in here.

So can I ask a follow-up question?

Yes, please.

So what are those things if it's not—

It is— you use the Keyword. All we can do with GPR is interpret it.

Yeah.

This is why we have to dig. Yeah. This is why we have to actually get down into the strata.

So that could be something where it's like, hey man, you're going, that proves nothing. But hey, you know, it might be interesting. Yeah. Might be not conclusive to anything.

Exactly. It's an interpretation. I would not base it on GPR. GPR is interesting. I might want to dig. Those might be the strata where to start digging because obviously there— those could be water lines, they could be sediment. We don't know. That's where you have to dig. Gotcha. And digging is not drilling, by the way, because that destroys the material culture. Digging is where you actually dig by hand, where I've— where we've done. So here's the bottom line. Hand the raw data to 3 independent geophysicists without telling them where it came from. If they draw a ship, I'm listening. So again, I'm not against this. Like, that, that's another, another phase. So, um, and then as I already mentioned, I have the Collins paper, a peer-reviewed lab work that is still unanswered. And this is where I would caution Noah's Ark Scans. They produced an 83 or an 87-page paper and never answered any of their interlocutors, never answered any of the peer-reviewed geologists who had already published. They just published their findings. And so, like, for the Shroud, every time something comes out, that doubts the Shroud, I'm always publishing back saying, well, here's how we interpret that, here's how it's actually not been reproduced.

So you've got to deal with those that are objectors, what I would say. And their paper does not deal with it. It's a great fundraising paper, but it doesn't deal with any of this other. So if you just read that and weren't aware of the history of this interpretation, you know, and you say publicly bedrock, then, oh well, what is it? So which of Collins' thin sections is wrong? You have to answer that. So that is a peer review. Number 5, uh, peer-reviewed press releases and TV interviews only. That's all I'm hearing right now, okay? I'm hearing on every new major news channel, uh, everything. And, you know, we have to— again, we have to prove all things. 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Peer review is where a claim goes from being tested by people who don't need it to be true. They don't have a dog in the hunt. So this one hasn't gone there yet. Even sympathetic coverage notes that findings haven't been independently verified in a peer review. And just for the sake of our audience who's never published a boring academic paper, peer review is where I send in a document to an editorial board.

It may or may not even have my name on it. And an editorial board who are experts in the field read over it and say, hey, this smacks of authenticity, or no, this is way off. And then they choose to publish it in that journal. That's what it is. So publish it in a journal where reviewers don't know the author. That's exactly what Collins did when he came out and said this is a geographical formation. Okay, so number 6—

Wait, can I ask something?

Yeah, absolutely.

So like, do— have you already said this and it went over my head? Because Trini, can you show the formation one more time? The first picture. So Like, do you— maybe you're gonna get to this in a second. Like, what's the theory if, if you go the other way and you're like, hey man, naturally occurring formation? That's a weird naturally occurring formation. What's the theory on the other side? It's not the ark that would have caused that

because we have 11 more that look like it. Are you gonna get in the Valley of Ararat? Yeah, we have 11 more that look just like—

I never heard that. All right, let's keep going.

I have the, I have the journal that I all the pictures on it. So, so this is not the only boat-looking shape in the mountain region of Ararat.

It looks exactly like that?

They look very similar. They're all kind of this boat. And that's what lava does, friends. That's what, you know, volcanoes do. They have very weird— and when you look at this, I mean, it's grassy. And so what I would love to do, pick off one of those sides of the ship, the port, the bow, I don't care, and start digging and tell us what you're finding. So scientists ran those, uh, dates. They said they didn't show a ship, and right now I have to take them at their word. These are the peer-reviewed findings from 2023. So

let's keep going on his scorecard.

You, you brought up something really cool, um, about the cubits, okay? And I don't want to bore anything with the— bore people, but they— that we do need to be bothered by the footnotes. Cubits were not ubiquitous in the time of Noah. We have an Egyptian cubit that's up to 22 inches long. We have cubits that are 17 inches long. It's— it could be the size. And a cubit, just for the benefit of our audience, is the measurement from your elbow to your wrist. That is an ancient cubit. So we have different size lengths of arms. So are they going off the Egyptian cubits? Are they going off the Mesopotamian cubits?

Carlos's cubit is longer than mine.

Yeah, your cubit is longer than my cubit. Yeah, that's right. Literally. Yeah, yeah. And if you do that times 500 feet, you're gonna, you're gonna have a huge variance there. And so one of the issues is too with me is that the 300 cubits, it, it's well short of the formation that's roughly 164 feet. The width doesn't fit either. So it is wider, but as you said, it could have, you know, expanded over time. So that— but again, that's something we need to answer. The only way their measurement works is if you use the Egyptian cubit, which is the longest cubit available.

That's what I

read. So that's so the bottom line is Genesis describe oh the other big thing is this Hebrew word tabah tabah and I have that right there that's how you say it tabah or tabah tabah that means and this is kind of cool because we can get to this in the spiritual part that is used in only other one it's used a bunch in the flood account and used one other place in scripture you know where that term is used it means chest and that is the exact term that's used for Moses when he is put in a tabah Oh, wow. And passed down the Nile River. Isn't that interesting? An

ark of safety.

So it's chest. It is not a boat. And so we really don't know if it looked like a modern ship with curves. Again, what I am is a textualist. What I am is, you know, I know the languages.

Can I just skip ahead and say something? I'm going to get to this at the very end of the episode. So when we're done, I'm going to give 2, like, rock-solid proofs.

Yes.

that, you know, that confirm the Noahic flood story, bro. One of them— so I'm gonna give away some of my cards— is the existence of these flood stories in virtually every— Which is so compelling. There's 12 of them. Yeah, there's a minimum of 12 in cultures all around the world, right? And I'm gonna get to that at the end, bro. What's really interesting— I didn't know that, what you just said— one of the stories revolves around someone being saved in in a chest.

Yes.

That's very interesting.

It gives me chills.

It's very interesting.

Totally gives me chills.

You keep going.

One of a kind. The boat shape, uh, repeats in the same mudflows. So I've said this, you know, the Turkish Air Force released a photo showing 3 similar boat shapes in mudflow on the lower slopes near Lesser Mount Ararat. So we have others. Snelling reported this in 1992. Again, a geologist. I'm quoting geologists just like I was quoting physicists for the Shroud and epigraphers for the James Ossuary. We need geologists to speak to this who do this for a living. So, um, let's talk about the anchor stones though, because that was really an interesting thing. What about that? So again, I appealed— I, I source all my stuff because I get fact-checked and hated on every time. So Randall Price has seen all of the quote-unquote, uh, anchor stones, okay? And Fossild, who said that these were hung from the ark. But yet, when they actually looked at the lab reports, these were the first astronomical observatories that go far back. They were actually looking through those holes up into the sky and the stars.

Can you show those one more time?

These are not anchor stones. There is no sign of tension inside those eye holes that they would have somehow weighted down something with the weight. So

you're saying if those were anchor stones, when you say no sign of What he's saying is, man, if that was a legit anchor stone, you would see some sort of like rubbing at the very top of the eyelet.

Absolutely. 100%.

What about these little, uh, cross shapes etched into it? Were those original, or do those come later?

Those come later. Those are incised later. And so, and, and again, we have incised, and this isn't the only one. This is— there are some that are found close to Jarunapura, then there are some that are hundreds of miles away.

And how How old are these?

Oh, they go back to right after the flood. These are people that are doing astronomy, astrology. They're looking to the stars through the— they're like the first observatories.

What about the telephone pole? Is that original?

Yeah, I think so. I think they may have had Twitter back then too. And again, my site is Randall Price, who is— I mean, you know, he found one of the Qumran caves. So I mean, again, I'm quoting archaeologists here. The whole show, Nowhere from no wear marks from ropes, and the stones could not support their own weight if used as anchors. That's another key. So they're not anchor stones. They're not. But you put that together, you put this together, and it seems like, oh wow, we're on to something here. And again, here's where— okay, I've got to say something, and this, this will get your comments going. Okay, the man that made this site famous—

Can I— okay, here's what I actually want people to do legitimately. If you're reading stuff and you're like, hey, but what about? Or, hey, but what about? I legitimately want you to put it in the comments.

I will go through and answer them too, by the way.

Oh, whoa. That's a commitment.

Hey bro, we get thousands of comments.

I know.

Just hope you know what you signed up for.

Okay. So Jeremiah will— okay. So if you're seeing stuff, you're like, but what about? Or I read, put it in the comments.

They're already doing it too.

At YouTube. And then we'll try to respond to what we can and crowdsource. All right, so keep going.

The fullest study of these holed stones by an Armenian from 1994 to 1997— again, we've known about these for years— concluded the holes were for looking at the sky. And I'm happy to put all of the sources in there. So they'll say the others lack the same internal features. Fine, then the shape proves nothing, and the internal features are the weakest evidence, but they don't simply have the weight to be actual anchors. So that's a key. All right. So again, not met. So this is where I'm still 0 for 10 right now. And this is how I want believers to think about this. Notice I'm— as Christians, I can appeal to the scientists to corroborate the biblical record. And we see that in so many other great discoveries that we've found. So what about results others can reproduce? This is number 9. The original radar couldn't be repeated. So we— this is not the first GPR renderings that we have of air rat, even though it sounds like it in the news. This sounds— and by the way, they're using what they call a proprietary— we don't really know. They're calling it proprietary. It's all very secretive.

And that is not how science is done. That's not how we use normal methods. We're very clear about the methods that we use. We— and we give credit to these wonderful— you know, I'm right now University of Kentucky. I was just there. There's a computer—

The Wildcats.

Hey, man, I was there. I got my— I got my Wildcat shirt and mug. But there is a computer scientist professor there who is reading the scrolls from Herculaneum that were destroyed during the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii. Yeah. And he's actually able to read those scrolls. He's not a Bible scholar. He doesn't have a theological, you know, ax to grind, but he's able to use technology to read what's inside these amazing scrolls from Herculaneum. 60 Minutes did a story on it. And so when I say that there's a controlled— but we know who he is, we know his methodology. But Noah's Ark Scans is saying, we have this proprietary GPR, we're not going to tell you what it is, and get ready because it's going to be exciting.

So do you— and like, you know, I— we're— I'm not a, uh, I don't like doing character hits, but I kind of— you kind of have to ask this question. Like, I don't know anything about these people. Like, who are the Noah's Ark Scans people? Like, what's their deal?

I want to give them the benefit of every doubt. I don't even know if they're believers. I hope they are. I know that there is a massive fundraising campaign, which is why I gave it a negative 1, which I'm going to talk about here in a minute. But if I can finish this, Pastor Josh. So they haven't released any raw data. So science is all about repeating the scientific method to make, to make sure it's repeatable. So when we study the blood on the shroud, sorry to keep going back to that, but again, scientists, hematologists are involved. We can study the blood. We can study patina from epigraphers in the James Ossuary to show that it's not fraudulent. And so I don't like when I hear, now this is our proprietary secret GPR rendering. And so that gives me caution. And so I want to see you repeat the scans that Tom Fenner did in 1987 where he tried to reproduce what Ron Wyatt said. So we have to use this And, and Ron Wyatt has a cult following. Ron Wyatt made this site very famous because he said he had found Noah's Ark. He also said he had found the Ark of the Covenant.

Oh, wow.

He said that he had found—

The Ethiopia thing?

No, in Jerusalem. He claimed— the Ethiopia thing's interesting, but he claimed that he found— Yeah.

Can I ask what you— we kind of sidetracked. What do you think about that?

Absolutely not.

You don't think so? The Ethiopia thing? We'll never Well, have you— you don't know about this?

There's a—

there's a— is it a tribe? There's a

group of people in Ethiopia, Coptic Christians, which I love. They go way back. These are Coptic.

I mean, and those— yeah, they go back thousands

of years, literally to the book of Acts, probably Acts 10, the Ethiopian eunuch.

They claim that the Ark was carried to their area. I'll get the details wrong here, many years ago. And they claim— actually, I think this is true— that they have a group of people that's almost like— it's like their version of the Knights Templar.

Yeah, it's like a Skull and Bones society.

It's like, bro, super secret. Super secret.

They claim they have the Ark.

They claim they have the Ark. And dude, from what I understand, we didn't plan to talk about this. From what I understand, there's like one guy whose job in every generation is to personally visually oversee see the Ark until he dies. And from what I understand, people who have gone over there and talked to the one guy— I never talk about this stuff because I'm like Jeremiah, I don't like talking about stuff that gets believers like all hyped. Yeah. And actually we look like morons, right? Because we look sensational. So I don't like talking about this stuff.

But we should do— you're here, so I want to ask you. We should do— I get asked about the Ark all the time.

So supposedly there's one guy who— that's his, his job. And from what I understand, people who have gone over there, whoever that one guy is, there's always like some sort of cancer or cataract on his eyes. And this is a legit— I watched it just the other day— that what that guy says is because it is an object of fire. And that— so I never talk about it because I'm like, ah, seems comic booky to me. What do you think about it?

I think Nebuchadnezzar took it in 586 BC, and I think he melted it down and used it for gold. I don't think we'll ever find— you can, you can quote me on that— we'll never find the Ark of the Covenant.

I don't think we will either.

Yeah.

And I saw— I mean, Herod couldn't. So, all right, so we don't— so science that can't be repeated isn't evidence yet, it is a claim. So what we're hearing right now from Noah's Ark scans are a lot of exciting claims, and I give them benefit, maybe too much for that, but I'm not seeing the scientific method played out where we can say we have found Noah's Ark, therefore dot dot dot dot dot. So not Number 10, surviving the experts who already checked it. Believers tested it and walked away. This is a really interesting point that I just learned this week. The great Henry Morris founded ICR, which is now based in Dallas, in the Dallas Metroplex, Institute of Creation Research. His son is a geologist engineer, so he has his doctorate, his PhD in geological engineering. So this is his jam. Yeah. This is his expertise. And John Morris visited Ararat 13 times at his own expense and said Durunapar is not the site. And this is a great Bible-believing Christian, okay? So that's something to be said. In 2008, a review in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism, another geologist by the name of Snelling— and we cite all this on here— concluded that Durunapar, quote, has now been debunked as the site of the Ark quite thoroughly by not theologians, not by influencers, by geologists.

Because they, they were saying the geologists— It's in that formation. Yes.

And they're just saying this is lava. Ararat probably didn't even exist the way it does now after the flood because it's a volcano. And then the Turkish government, which again, they may have had some bias, we all do, in 2022 published a paper explaining the formation is from a landslide from lava. So again, to change my mind, or the bottom line is young earth creationists who want the ark to be real looked at this and said no.

Okay,

that should tell us something.

Yeah.

Now, so before— and now we're going to finish. I want Carlos, I want you to rapid fire the but whatabouts.

Okay, the penalty though of why I said negative 1. Yes. And bring all the hate to me, not Live Free. Okay, no, we never

get— okay,

ever. All

right, hey, my superpower is hate and rejection doesn't bother me at all. So Noah's Ark scans right now on every page of their website has a donate button, okay? And they are selling 3, 5, and 12-day tours to the site for thousands of dollars per adult, trips in July, August, October 2026 while the excavation is still going. That is not how we do archaeology. We don't sell it. Now, we get volunteers that get up at 3:30 in the morning and work their tails off till about 2 in the afternoon, but we don't sell trips to it. And we're not trying to raise— they're trying to raise $600 grand right now. So I'm not questioning their sincerity. I'm asking for independent verification. That's the standard that I hold myself to. When I went to check out the Shroud, man, I did it all on my own dime. When the 33 scientists went to check out the Shroud, physicists in 1978, they did it on their own dime. Okay.

Yeah, I have a friend who is from Argentina who went. And

what did he see? The Ark?

Uh, he went to the, to the site and he told me—

did he find the Ark?

He did not find it, but he did say there was nobody there. And so it was like just a little, little house that, you know, when people show up, but you can barely tell it's like a quote quote tourist site.

It's, uh, it was probably paid thousands of dollars to do that. So that's why I gave it a negative one. It's like, stop selling, you know,

feels scammy.

Yeah, it feels like Noah's Ark scams.

So before Carlos— because I'll be honest, dude, I want it to be the thing. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And there's some stuff that we haven't talked about.

Bring it all to me. Yeah, bring the pottery.

So before we do this, before we do this, where are you? Which of these 3 categories would you say? And one of them we know is not you, but which of these 3. Are you in the, this has been totally proven untrue, this has neither been proven true nor untrue, or no, that's it, it's been proven true? I know you're not number 3. Are you 1 or 2? Proven untrue.

I am between 1 and 2 because again, based on geologists— I'm not one, I don't pretend to be, but I read peer-reviewed journals— based on all of science of Bible-believing Christians, this is not the site of Noah's Ark. It's too low. However, I'm happy to be proven wrong if, if they peer review it and find wood. The big thing is you got to find wood. You got to find some kind of gopher wood that, you know, looks like a, you know, looks like a boat on the side. But is that just lava rock?

All right, Carlos.

Yeah, real quick.

That's a sink line.

Let's rapid fire these.

You, uh, you addressed most of these. So real quick, uh, a 2024 soil survey, Jeremiah, found about 3 times more organic matter inside the formation versus outside of it. What about that?

People hanging out there doing things.

What about that?

Yeah, I mean, people, people litter. People hang out and do things. I mean, a lot of litter. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, it's not that a lot of litter. 6,500 feet. I mean, this, this is, this is, you know, again, India, Armenia, these were travel routes. Again, it's like saying we have a lot of, we have a lot of, uh, foot traffic here at Lake Point, you know. Is the Noah's Ark out here in the parking lot? We, we just don't know. I mean, that doesn't say anything to me.

Okay, they found some samples that were analyzed in 2023 that were dated back to 3,500 to 5,000 years old, which coincides with the time of Noah's Ark.

2348 is my date of the Ark. Okay. So it's actually much older than that.

Hmm. What's the difference in the 2 datings?

So that is— well, first, they're giving us nearly 2,000 years of human history saying that they have found— did you say Pottery?

It says samples. Samples.

Okay, so unclear. So people lived before the ark, before the global flood, and we have some evidence of that.

Yeah. Okay, but they've also found pottery, right? And actually, we have a photo. So I think it's 13, Trinity.

Ostraca is what we call it.

So these are 2— not that one, the one above. 11. There you go. So these are 2 researchers examining the pottery fragments that were found in some of these materials at the site in 2026.

One foot down. Look at

that guy's motorcycle.

I know. I've got my motorcycle endorsement, by the way. Neither here nor there. So they actually found pottery in 2 spots, one on the road near Durunapar, and then they did find some pottery at the site itself. So, Pastor Josh, if I'm going to dig up in your backyard and I found this— you guys make the best Americanos here at Live Free. Thank you. Thank

you.

Um, and I find this in your backyard. Should I assume that you have a roastery at your house, that you make coffee at your house?

I mean, I do make coffee, but I don't have a roastery.

You know what I mean? Like, that's the logic. Like, if you find a Coke bottle in the, in the dumpster here that's, you know, 2,000 years, a great artifact because it was in your dumpster of your church, does that mean you were making Coca-Cola here? That's the logic. So I want to again help people, finding pottery means really nothing to me. And then if you get like Scott Stripling, my man, here we have ostraca. That's pottery everywhere. It was like the Styrofoam of the ancient world. It was, it was paper plates. So, we have that all over the ancient world. So, because you have pottery does not mean you have an ark. Okay. It means you have humanity.

All right.

Does that help?

Thank you, Dr. Jeremiah Johnson.

So,

yeah, that's all we got. He addressed those Can

I just give a thought on it? You're about to tell us why we can trust it. Can I just give maybe a pastoral thought? Because you've done such a great job at basically telling people, be very slow. Don't immediately believe everything you hear and see. And I just want to give a pastoral word, especially for those who are on social media, not only to be careful not to immediately believe everything you hear and see, but also be careful not to immediately share it. And here's why. Here's what's not at stake in this conversation is the trustworthiness of the Bible. Oh, no, not at all. a second. So what's not at stake in this is the trustworthiness of the Bible, but what is at stake is your trustworthiness as a witness to the Bible. That's good.

That is really your credibility.

Your credibility. So that if you're always sharing all these things you've seen, you just immediately share it, but that if then it is later disproven, man, the people that are on your feed that are unbelievers, they're going to come to not believe you because you're the boy who cries wolf. So that's why I would just give a pastoral warning to just be careful not to immediately share stuff you see, because again, what's at stake is not the trustworthiness of the Bible, it's your trustworthiness as a witness. That's just the one word I wanted to give.

I'll just add a few other kind of like gas on the fire. Captain Derunapar himself on the team gets 4 words, hardly worth mentioning. I guess that's 3 words that he said, hardly worth mentioning, after he studied it in 1960. So again, the bottom line to change my mind, a case that skips the strongest evidence against it isn't a critical review. It is a brief for the defense. Answer Collins. And this is my, my shout out to Noah's Ark Scans. Answer Collins. Answer Fenner. Answer the 1988 core samples. And then you might change my mind.

Okay, good. Now I want to finish with, uh, with, uh, actually what is very interesting.

Yes,

proof for the event of the Noahic flood. So I want to do 2 things. First of all, an encouragement, and then I want to do a very interesting proof. Okay. First of all, encouragement. There's one little— you guys may have seen this before. There's a little detail about the Noah's Ark, a little mystery, honestly, about the Noah's Ark narrative that when most people read that passage, they just totally miss it. So I used to, when I would look at it, I used to think Noah was safe in the Ark because of stuff like, oh, it's the strength of the gopher wood, or is the architecture plans that God gave, or this pitch that God told him to use to keep the water. Right, that's right. Okay, uh, but everybody misses— it's Genesis 7:16. Watch, it says this: the animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God commanded Noah. And then one translation says it like this: then God shut him in. Now, now watch, watch, watch, don't sleep on this. Even after Noah built the ark. It was the very hand of God himself that shut him in, in order to shut out the waters of the flood.

So there's one translation says like this, it says, the Lord sealed them inside.

Yes.

Now, let me apply it. Listen, do your job, but from heaven's perspective, it's not the fact that you locked your front door that kept you safe last night. It's not the surgeon's hand that keeps you through the procedure. It's not the perfect planning that protects you from financial ruin. Listen, only Only God can shut you in and shut out the enemy trying to steal, kill, and destroy you. Unless the Lord builds the house or seals us in, they labor in vain who build it. There's just an encouragement there. The Lord sealed them in.

Can I add one more pastoral thought, a faith lesson from this? I love this. When, when God gives him the dimensions of the ark, he says there's one door in. There was only one door in, and he would shut that door and seal it. And he kept the door open 7 more days. And I want to remind people, what is the gospel? God brought judgment on evil humanity, but he still provided a way of escape through one door. And so let's make sure that we think about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I actually, I actually paginated this because I want to read a passage in John 10. What did Jesus say? I am the door.

That's right.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. I get chills when I read that. And then when I read here, too, that he was put— this is because the Noah narrative plays a prominent role. Noah's in the Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11, but I love 1 Peter 3. He was put to death in the flesh. He was made alive by the Spirit. This is the resurrection in which he also went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison who in the past were disobedient when God patiently Waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. That's right, dude. And again, Jesus brings it up in Matthew 24 as well. I'm

gonna quote that in a second.

Yeah.

Yes.

To add to that, you know, a lot of people, when they hear the story of Noah, they're like, oh man, how could God do something so awful? Such a barbaric story. And they'll see this story as something pejorative or negative about God. And like you said, Jeremiah, this is a story about the Totally. Like, ultimately, one door, uh, at— in the ark, God's judgment was avoided through the ark that God provided. At the cross, God's judgment was absorbed through the cross that Jesus, uh, was in. Um, in the ark, God saved Noah and his family by trusting in the wooden ark. And at the cross, God saves all today who put their faith in Jesus, who died on a wooden cross.

That's right.

And so the whole story screams the gospel. Amen.

Totally. And that's the point of all of this. I mean, we're not doubting the flood, we're not doubting the narrative, we're actually enriching it through this Bible study.

All right, so Let's finish, let's finish with— because this is, it is honestly, it's really interesting. It's one of the most interesting extra-biblical things about the whole Noah story. So I'm just, I'll just go on record. I got 2 proofs that Noah's flood actually happened. Okay, one of them is in that book right there. That's the most important one.

I agree.

It's in that book right there. Boom. Here's the other one that honestly, dude, if you're not a Christian, I don't know what you do with it. Okay, this is very interesting. There are actually 12 examples. I'm only gonna give a few. In virtually every ancient culture that exists, there is some— they call it a myth, they may call it a legend— there is some story about a catastrophic flood that generally the god or gods warn one dude or one family about. Right. That person is saved through some form of a boat or a chest or something that floats, and that person is then used to repopulate the earth. By the way, oh, by the way, usually as a result of judgment on moral degradation.

Exactly.

Bro, just if you're listening, I want you to think about this. 12 different ancient cultures all have this one little thread. I'm gonna give you some examples. So you got, uh, the story, and I'll get— I'll butcher the names, but I'm gonna do it anyway. You got this story of— I'm gonna do Sanatana Dharma is what they call it. Uh, the story of Manu and Matsya. Matsya warns Manu about— listen to the, the similarities— about a catastrophic flood. He builds a boat, saves human life, repopulates the Earth. Number 2, you had to read it in high school. Mesopotamian culture, the Epic of Gilgamesh. I'm gonna do my very best. Uh, Napishtim.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

Is warned by the gods of a coming flood, builds a huge boat, loads his family and animals into it.

Cocked it with pitch as well.

Cocked it with pitch, releases a— this is insane— releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, the boat comes to rest on a mountain. Nisir. That's how you say it. There you go. Ancient Chinese culture, there's a story of Yu the Great that saves humanity from a catastrophic flood. In ancient Grecian culture, the story of— I'll get the— I'll butcher the name— Deucalion, Deucalion and Pyrrha. Zeus sends a flood to cleanse the world. Prometheus warns Deucalion, who survives with his wife in a chest— we hit that earlier— that comes to rest on a mountain. They repopulate the earth. I'll even do another one. You go all the way over here to the Western Hemisphere, indigenous tribes in both the Americas and the Pacific.

Preach.

Multiple traditions describe floods destroying a previous world, survivors on boats, survivors on mountains. Now watch, here's what unbelieving people do. They look at that and they go, oh, you dumb Christians, don't you know all the Book of Genesis is? Is there just reshaping all these ancient myths? That's all Genesis is. I, I would just pause and say this. Or if a flood actually did happen, that was judgment on the earth, and God preserved humanity out of his great love for humankind by saving one family through a boat that he prescribed, and that family was saved on a mountain and repopulated the earth. If that actually happened, guess what you would find all over the world?

Yeah.

would find is that every single human culture, which, oh, by the way, all of them would have to descend from that one family whose parents told the kids, who told the grandkids, who told the great-grandkids, the great-great-great, all the way down. What you would find is you would find oral traditions.

Yes.

Of that story that would be in every human culture on earth. That's what we're going to find. And they would be a little memory trace of the actual event that actually happened. And oh, by the way, that is exactly what we have.

Yes.

So let me just point this out, y'all. The Bible actually happened.

That's right.

The real Jesus died on a real cross for the real you. And if you give him your life, he can really change you forever. And I'll finish with a warning, because just like you pointed this out earlier, the warning is Jesus told us exactly about this. And he said in the book of Matthew, just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking and marrying up until the day that the rain came and took them all away. So it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. Be prepared.

I love that.

Be prepared.

Good man.

Indiana Johnston, will you pray for us, please?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Lord, thank you for your grace that we see the silver lining in this amazing conversation. Lord, I've been so fired up by it. God, thank you that your word is true. Your word is enduring. All these other stories we know are dependent on the truth of scripture, Lord God. We thank you, Father, for the privilege that it's been to have this discussion and to do it with critical eyes, but also through the eyes of faith. I pray, as, as Paul pointed out, Lord, that we would not be given to sensationalism, that we would be careful with our testimonies, we'd be cautious with our testimonies. And God, I do pray that we would major on the majors. I pray that all the people getting worked up right now about the Noah's Ark scans would be far more worked up to give the gospel to their neighbor and bring them to Lake Point Church this weekend rather than argue about something that we are really not for sure about. Lord, help us to major on the majors and not get distracted. But thank you, God, for the opportunities that the Bible's greatest friend is archaeology, that we can have these discussions that other religions cannot, that prove again and again the veracity of your Word.

And Lord, we do pray if there is anyone here who has not walked through that door of salvation, Jesus said— Yes. I am the door. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. And Lord, sometimes we forget to read the, the next part: no one comes to the Father except through me. I pray that people even in the comments now would be saying yes to Jesus. I want to go through the door of grace. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Jeremiah, thank you very much.

It's been awesome today. Thank you, dudes. More to come.

Well, hey, thanks so much for listening. Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all peoples to know Christ, live free, and change world for God's glory. If you're already a member of a local church, we want you giving there, but if you'd like to make a donation to help this message go further, faster, it genuinely helps us boost getting out to more people. Um, if you'd like to make a donation, you can text the word give to the number 20411 and then just choose Church Online from that dropdown menu. To find out more about Lake Pointe, you can visit lakepointe.church.