DWDP - Gen 8: 14-17 Go Out of the Ark

A sealed door. A silent pause. Then rain on a roof no one had ever heard before. We open with the stark drama of ark dark and follow Noah’s family from fear to freedom, tracing how God first invites people into rest and then sends them out with purpose. That rhythm—come in for refuge, go out for mission—becomes the thread that ties Genesis 8 to the words of Jesus and the everyday choices we face.

We walk through the text where God tells Noah’s family to leave the ark and fill the earth, echoing the original command to be fruitful and multiply. Along the way we face the tension between God’s design for abundance and the many moments in history when fear tried to choke growth—infanticide, genocidal regimes, and policies that treat children as liabilities. Drawing from Psalm 127, we make a countercultural case: children are gifts, not interruptions, and life is meant to be welcomed. That same mindset carries into spiritual formation. If the ark was an ark of rest, it was also a launchpad for impact.

From there we turn to disciple-making and why multiplication outpaces addition. Using Paul’s charge in 2 Timothy 2:2, we map a simple, repeatable chain: teach faithful people who teach others also. A penny-doubling illustration brings the math to life, but the heart remains pastoral: invest in one person for a year, repeat, and trust God with the compounding results. We also name the friction—people can be fickle, plans stall, and momentum fades. Still, obedience is the path forward: rest in Christ, step out in faith, and multiply what you’ve received.

If you’re hungry for a faith that moves from safety to sending, from scarcity to abundance, and from isolated effort to generational impact, this conversation will steady your steps. Listen, share with a friend, and tell us: who will you invest in next? If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Reading

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to More Than Medic, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, Dr. Robert Jackson. Papa, can you tell me a story?

Entering The Ark: Rest And Safety

Come In, Then Go Out

Be Fruitful And Multiply

From Ararat To All Nations

Addition Vs Multiplication

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Do you really want me to tell you a story? Well, you go get your brother and your sisters, and I will tell you a story. Welcome to Devotions with Dr. Papa. Gather round, grab your Bibles, and let us look into the written word which reveals to us the living word who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we're in Genesis chapter eight, verses fourteen to seventeen. In the second month, on the twenty seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons, and your sons wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. May God add his blessing to the reading of God's word. If you will recall, in Genesis chapter seven and verse one, God spoke to Moses, telling him to enter the ark, you and your household. Enter the ark. Furthermore, verse sixteen of chapter seven tells us that they entered as God commanded him, and the Lord closed it behind him, meaning God closed the door behind him. Can you imagine them standing in a circle holding hands? Eight of them, Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives standing in a circle holding hands as the door of the ark closed, seemingly by itself. One of the daughters in law says Who? Who closed that door? Suddenly they are plunged into total darkness. I call it Ark Dark. Then as they are shivering in the ark dark, they hear the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof of the ark, a sound they have never heard before in their entire lives. Noah lights an oil lamp, and they all rush up the stairs to the upper layer level to look out the window and behold rain now coming down in a steady drum on the roof of the ark. Then they see geysers all around them as the fountains of the deep are broken up, releasing the subterranean cisterns. In short order, the outside world was a furious cauldron of rushing flood waters, carrying people, animals and structures to a watery grave. Before long the ark is the arc of safety began to rock back and forth. Then it floats. It floated free on a raging torrent of flood waters. But Noah's family and all the critters were safe inside. Three hundred and seventy one days later, God speaks again to Noah, and in chapter eight and verse sixteen he says go out. Previously he said come in, now he's saying go out. Go out of the ark. Does that remind you of anything? At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus bade his disciples to come, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew eleven twenty eight. Did you know that rest was the prophetic name, the prophetic meaning of Noah's name? The Ark of Safety is also the Ark of Rest, and all the animals in Noah's family rested in the ark for three hundred and seventy one days. God commanded Noah and his family to go into the Ark of Safety, the Ark of Rest, the Ark of Refuge. And then Jesus bids you and me to come into him, who is our good shepherd, and provides for us safety. He provides for us rest and refuge. God provided a door into the ark, through which Noah and his family could enter into safety and rest. By the same token, Jesus is the door of the sheepfold, and informs us plainly that we must enter through him, who is the door. He tells us that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father but through Him, through Him who is the door. He is the door, He is the way to eternal life, eternal safety and security, and He invites all who will to come. In Genesis chapter eight and verse sixteen, three hundred and seventy one days later God spoke to Noah again and said in verse sixteen, go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons wives with you. At the first he commanded them to come into the ark, with his family and all of the creatures. Now he is commanding them to go out of the ark with his family and all the creatures, in like manner after his resurrection, Jesus commanded those that he had invited to come unto him, now he's saying to them to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. There was safety and rest in the ark. There's safety and rest in our Lord Jesus' presence. But there came a time to leave the ark, and as God told Noah in verse seventeen, to breed abundantly on the earth and to be fruitful and multiply on the earth. This is the second time that he gave this command to be fruitful and multiply. If you remember in the first chapters of Genesis, he told Adam and Eve to do the very same thing, and to fill the earth. And that was God's plan. Filling the earth is God's plan. Restricting growth, restricting multiplication, restricting reproduction is Satan's plan. And when men on the earth try to restrict multiplication and reproduction, they fall into the snare and the plan of Satan. If you remember Satan tried to kill all the Hebrew boys in Egypt land. He tried to kill all the male children under two years of age at Jesus' birth at the hands of Herod. He tried to kill all the Jews under Hitler's under Hitler's and Stalin's regime. And now today Satan tries to kill all newborns and accomplish zero population growth by abortion or the one child per family plan in China. That's Satan's plan. God's plan and his command is to be fruitful and multiply. He has never rescinded that command. People of faith value children and believe God's plan when he says that children are a blessing from God. Indeed, the Psalmist says in Psalms one hundred twenty seven verse three through six, Behold children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them? They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate. Either we believe that or we don't. Either we obey God's plan or we follow Satan's plan. Either we love, value, and embrace children or we don't. God told Noah's family and the animals to be fruitful, to multiply, and fill the earth. Think about it. Every person on planet Earth is descended from Noah's three sons and their wives. Every creature on earth is descended from the creatures that walked or flew off the ark on day three hundred seventy one. As I told you before, Ararat is located central to two thirds of the Earth's current land mass. After departing the ark, the people and the animals on the just they all increased in number and migrated east or west or south from Ararat into the rest of the world. Now go back to what Jesus said. He said go into all of the earth and to all the nations and make disciples. Now we can do that by addition or multiplication. We can add one new convert at a time, which is fine, or by practicing Second Timothy two, which says in the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who will teach others also. You see, in this verse Paul is speaking to Timothy, his disciple, and he's teaching Timothy to take the things that Paul taught Timothy and teach it to faithful men multiple, who will turn around and teach it to other faithful men. There are four generations there. Paul discipling Timothy, who discipled faithful men, who then discipled other men, four generations of men discipling other men. Now, you've heard this illustration before, but let me repeat it to you. If I were to pay you a thousand dollars a day for thirty days, would you work for me? Well, most folks would say yes, of course. But then I said, Well, let me offer you an alternative. What if I paid you a penny a day and I doubled it every day for thirty days? Would you work for me? Now some folks would scratch their head and say, Well, I'm not so sure. But others who understand the power of multiplication would immediately say, I'll take the penny a day doubled every day for thirty days. Because you see the power of multiplication is such that a penny doubled every day for thirty days is more than ten million. Now think about this. What if I were to work with you and I would disciple you for a year? And then at the end of that year both of us would take another new believer and disciple them for a year. And then at the end of that second year, you and me and the two men that we discipled turn around all four of us would disciple another one for another year. Well, before thirty years had gone by, all of us would have reached many millions of people. And you see, that's better than reaching a thousand per day. It's the power of multiplication. Now I know what you're asking. You're saying, well, if that's so good, Doc, how come we haven't already reached the world with the power of multiplying disciples? Well, you already know the answer. It's because we're dealing with people. And people are fickle. People aren't always faithful. But just because some people are not faithful, you and I should not be obedient. We should not be obedient to God's command for us to go into all the world and make disciples. When God says be faithful and multiply, whether it's making babies or making disciples, don't be afraid, just be obedient and trust God. You're listening to devotions with Dr. Papa. I hope you like what you hear, and if you do, share it with your friends. Follow, like and share, or download. And we'll be back again next week. And until then, remember your doctor loves you and Jesus loves you. May the Lord bless you real good.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Dr. Family Medicine or the schedule of speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, Instagram, or web page at Dr. Family Medicine dot com.