Is Genesis History?Sample

Lesson 5: What Did the Flood Do? (Is Genesis History?) 

What Did the Flood Do?

In 2010, Nashville suffered its worst flood in recorded history.  I remember tractor-trailers being carried along.  Entire houses were swallowed up.  The river overflowed its banks and flooded downtown Nashville.  It was awful. 

After the waters receded, there were layers of mud all around, especially in homes that had been flooded.  Until I saw it for myself, I didn’t realize how much stuff water can pick up, carry, then drop anywhere.

Yet that was a small regional flood.  I’ve seen videos of the tsunamis in the Pacific destroying entire islands where incredible mudflows obliterate everything in their paths.

But those are small compared to a global flood.  Such an event would totally transform the earth in ways impossible to imagine.  According to the Bible, however, there has only been one such event.  When it was over, God promised He would never do it again.

Today, a global flood is questioned by some theologians and scientists.  The former argue the text could be referring to a local flood; the latter say that they don’t see evidence for it.  

Hebrew expert Dr. Steve Boyd points out that the word “all” is used 35 times in the Flood account: all the livestock, all the high mountains, all flesh.  It seems that God is pretty specific about killing everything by covering everything with water.

After all, why would Noah need a gigantic ark to save some animals and birds from a local flood?  In local floods, many animals and birds flee to safety.  Furthermore, if God promised never to send a Flood again, wouldn’t He be breaking His promise every time we have a local flood somewhere in the earth?  

Jesus clearly knew the Flood was global.  That’s why He compares it to His second coming, the next global event.  Both are universal judgments that will affect everyone.

But what about the evidence around us?  When you realize there are enormous sequences of rock layers filled with fossils, each hundreds to thousands of feet thick, that stretch across the entire continent, you start to grasp what a global flood could do.  These are huge and they are everywhere.

Thankfully for us, rainbows can be seen everywhere, too.

Reflection:

When you see the layers of rock in the earth, do you think about God’s judgment?