Genesis 6-9 – The Great Flood!

This Week’s Devotion Theme – God Created – and Destroyed!

Today’s Bible Reading – Genesis 15-16 and Matthew 8

This world is a wicked place.  We see evidence of that every day.  It is so wicked, that one day, God is going to destroy this world with fire.  But it will not be the first time that God has destroyed the Earth because of wickedness, or will it?

Sadly, many Christians think that the story of Noah’s flood is a myth, or at most was just a local flood, questioning the accuracy of scripture.

Let’s look at exactly what scripture says, and then take a look at real world evidence for a global flood.   

Genesis 6:6-7 – The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

Genesis 6:13 – So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

Genesis 6:18 – I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

Genesis 7:4 – Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

Genesis 7:23 – Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

These verses make it clear that it was more than just a local flood, declaring that humans and all animals on the face of the earth would be destroyed and the earth itself would be destroyed.

If that were not enough, in Genesis 9:11 God said, “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”  If Noah’s flood was just a local flood, then God has broken His promise, because we have had thousands of local floods that have taken life since that time.  But God is not a promise breaker.

Finally, both Peter and Jesus make reference to Noah’s flood as a historical event, thus tossing out the theory of it being a myth.

But what about real-world evidence?  Can we point to real world evidence that there actually was a world-wide flood that destroyed all life on the Earth?

As a famous creationist likes to say, “If there truly was a global flood, what would we expect to find?  Billions of dead things buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth.  And what do we find?  Billions of dead things buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth.”

You are probably all familiar with seeing rock layers like the ones below.

Many geologists claim these layers prove an old earth because they argue it should take a long time, millions of years in some cases for so many layers to build up. They also claim these layers are not evidence of a global flood (which has led many Christians to doubt the flood.)

But actually, the opposite is true.  What you typically observe is a clear delineation between layers.  If the layers took a very long time to accumulate, you should see evidence of erosion between the layers.  But that is not the case. 

The varied colors of layers indicate different types of sediment.  But there is no known justification for uniformity of sediment supposedly for millions of years and then switching to another type.  The truth is that these multiple layers were very obviously laid down quickly as a result of a large flood. 

All over the world are examples of a phenomenon called folded strata, seen below. 

Hard rock does not fold over like a blanket, it breaks instead.  The only explanation for multiple layers being folded together like this is that the multiple layers were still soft.  In other words, multiple layers were all laid down quickly, together, in order for them to all still be soft and pliable. 

Lastly, there is another phenomena called polystrate fossils, meaning many strata.  See below.

These are fossilized that stand upright through many rock layers.  But the tree would rot and collapse waiting millions of years for the layers to build up around it.  The only possibility is that the tree and all of the layers were quickly deposited together in short order. 

As for the billions of dead things, mentioned earlier, which would have resulted from the global flood, that is precisely what we find in the rock layers, whether it be plant and animal fossils, or fossil fuels that were once various living things.   

The fact that we find so many fossils is itself evidence of a great flood, because fossils are only able to be formed when an organism is quickly buried, before it has time to decay or be scavenged.  And in fact, any of the fossil beds found around the globe contain mixtures of many types of creatures all in one place, even mixtures of land and sea creatures.

There are many other objections to Noah’s flood such as the ark not being big enough to house and maintain the animals (research shows that it was) or that the ark wasn’t seaworthy (research again shows that it was).  Some also argue there isn’t enough water to cover the face of the earth, but researchers believe they have recently discovered a vast ocean 400 miles beneath our feet that could fill our oceans three times over.

I hope you are beginning to see a pattern this week.  What you read in scripture is reliable and is backed up by what we observe in the world around us.  None of the alternate ideas of origins are able to stand up under scrutiny.  And the great Biblical event of Noah’s flood, which should have left a lasting mark on our planet, actually did!  The evidence is all around us.

2 Peter 3:3-6 – Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

Don’t be a scoffer!

-Greg Landry

If anyone has any questions or comments they would like me to address on any of the devotions dealing with creation this week, please reach out to me at gregrlandry@gmail.com