The Flood Part 1 Series

So we come to Chapter 7 - the Flood

This is the single greatest judgment ever to hit planet earth - so far. This and chapter 8 are also one of the hardest for us humans to swallow.

Four things we need to keep in mind about the Flood:

" It really happened (New Testament quotes it four times)

" It was supernatural (God performed a miracle to bring this about, it wasn’t "natural")

" It was judgmental (God decided that sin had gone on long enough - He didn’t get mad and throw a tantrum)

" It was universal

(courtesy of Rick Booye, Trail Christian Fellowship)

Vs 1 - 5

It says that Noah took of every "kind" of animal and bird. He didn’t have to take every species - one "cat-like" animal could evolve into other cats. The Bible doesn’t preclude evolution - just a frog changing into a human - but within "kinds" there can be changes and we actually see that in our world around us.

We in our rationalistic mind want to think that because God doesn’t explain something it means that it is false - but God chose which things to tell us and which to leave out - that doesn’t mean this didn’t happen, it just means God didn’t tell us everything.

Follow the track of the passage - God is judging and God is saving.

Vs 6 - 12

The flood was really two things - rain from heaven, and waters from underneath the earth. If you recall from our study in Genesis 1 - it’s quite possible that a water canopy existed - suspended between space and earth that formed a barrier for cosmic radiation and may have been why men from Noah back lived so long. At the flood, God sent this water canopy crashing to the earth. Dr. Larry Vardiman suggests that the "water canopy" was actually ice crystals circling the equator as seen around Venus. (L. Vardiman and K. Bousselot, "Sensitivity Studies on Vapor Canopy Temperature Profiles," Proc. Fourth ICC, 1998, pp. 607-618.)

At the same time "springs of the great deep" broke open. We know that a great amount of water exists underneath our feet. There is in fact an argument called the "Hydroplate Theory."

This theory suggests that a thin layer of water existed under the crust - at the flood a crack developed around the globe in 2-3 hours, causing cataclysms of an unparalleled nature - See www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ210.htm.

Scientists may scoff at this, but recently in Discover Magazine, Michael Drake, Director of the University of Arizona’s Lunar & Planetary Laboratory said that while 70% of Earth’s surface is covered in water, another 10 times that amount is locked up deep inside the earth.

By the way - one of the arguments against a universal flood is that it couldn’t have covered Mt. Everest. It is quite possible that the mountain ranges were quite a bit lower in that day - the flood itself could have caused the high mountains to rise up (see chart below).

This is so interesting that I want to walk through the rest of the chapter using this theory:

Biblical Chronology Hydroplate Theory

Day 2 of Creation Week: The earth was covered by water. (Gen 1:2) Then "a raqia" separated liquid water above from liquid water below. (Gen 1:6-7) One Initial Condition Established: A layer of water is placed below the earth’s crust (a raqia, or pressed-out solid). [See the yellow sidebar on page 294 for further details.]

Day 3 of Creation Week: The waters below the heavens are gathered into one place, and the dry land appears. (Gen 1:9) A rock crust, resting on a layer of water, will automatically deform. Portions will subside to the subterranean chamber floor and resemble tapered pillars; other portions will bend upward. [See pages 282-285.] Water above the crust drains into the depressions and dry land appears.

The flood begins suddenly with all the fountains of the great deep bursting open on one day. "Geshem rain" begins. (Gen 7:11) Rupture Phase: A crack propagates around the earth in 2-3 hours, releasing subterranean water. Fountains of muddy water jet high above the earth. Mammoths are frozen in supercold, muddy hail falling from above the atmosphere. The highest velocity water escapes earth and forms comets. Launched rocks become asteroids and meteoroids. [See pages 168-242.]

40 days and 40 nights of "geshem rain" ends. (Gen 7:4,12) Flood Phase: Rising flood waters blanket and suppress the high jetting of the fountains of the great deep. Animals and plants are buried in sediments from the muddy water.

Flood waters rose until the 150th day, when they covered all preflood mountains. (Gen 7:19-24) High-pressure water continues to gush up into the flood waters. Liquefaction sorts sediments and dead plants and animals. Salt domes, coal, and oil begin forming.