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    The Flood

    Ellen White in connection with the flood account refers to ‘great changes’ that then took place. There are some important implications possible. Is it possible, for example, that these things found in the earth are being dated by scientists on the basis of entirely different conditions than those when they were put there? We believe so. She says that those trying to harmonize the Bible record with things found in the earth ‘have limited ideas of the size of men, animals, and trees before the flood, and of the great changes which then took place in the earth’ (Spiritual Gifts 3:92). She also writes of certain animals that did not survive the flood. She carries through the same thought almost word for word in Patriarchs and Prophets, 112.BSAE 13.1

    She notes that ‘wonderful things’ are found ‘in the earth as the result of the flood,’ ‘bones of human beings,’ ‘of animals,’ ‘instruments of warfare,’ ‘petrified wood,’ and ‘relics’ (Spiritual Gifts 3:93). But observe what she says men are inclined to do with such discoveries:BSAE 13.2

    God designed that the discovery of these things in the earth should establish the faith of men in inspired history. But men... fall into the same error as did the people before the flood—those things which God gave them as a benefit, they turned into a curse, by making a wrong use of them (Spiritual Gifts 3:95, 96).

    Neither the Bible nor the Spirit of Prophecy allow for a limited flood. The Bible says: ‘And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered... And all flesh died that moved upon the earth’ (Genesis 7:19, 20; emphasis supplied). Ellen White agrees: ‘The waters rose to the highest points of land, and the unbelieving antediluvians perished for their great wickedness in the waters of the flood’ (That I May Know Him, 146).BSAE 13.3

    Ellen White states several facts about the Flood that should be observed:BSAE 13.4

    1. We have already noted there were ‘great changes’ (Patriarchs and Prophets, 112). These could affect dating methods and the appearance of age, to mention only two possibilities.

    2. ‘The entire surface of the earth was changed at the flood’ (Patriarchs and Prophets, 107). It was a universal, cataclysmic flood, with no part of the earth spared.

    3. ‘A violent wind which was caused to blow for the purpose of drying up the waters, moved them with great force; in some instances even carrying away the tops of the mountains, and heaping up trees, rocks, and earth above the bodies of the dead’ (Patriarchs and Prophets, 108). The wind also buried ‘gold and silver,’ ‘Choice wood and precious stones’ (Ibid). This wind with its power to pile up rock and earth surely was greater than any we know today.

    4. ‘Violent action of the waters’ piled ‘earth and rocks upon these treasures, (gold and silver, etc.) and in some cases even forming mountains above them’ (Ibid). The water action, too, seems beyond any we experience today.

    5. Some countries ‘were not inhabited’ before the Flood, and ‘in those where there had been the least crime, the curse rested more lightly’ (Ibid). This surely accounts for great concentrations of fossils and other artifacts in some areas, and the more desolate places of the earth that we know today.

    The Creator did several things in an unnatural or miraculous way when He: (1) created this world and all that is in it, and (2) destroyed the ancient world by a flood. In the future, He (1) will destroy the world as we know it by fire, and (2) will restore it to even greater beauty than in the beginning. These are also unnatural occurrences. They illustrate that God sometimes intervenes in the natural world and that He controls nature.BSAE 14.1

    He can also: (1) speed up nature’s processes as He did when He multiplied the loaves and fishes for the five thousand (Matthew 14:19, 20). He can (2) slow things down in nature also, even stopping the sun and moon, as with Joshua’s long day (Joshua 10:13), and the turning of the sun dial backward (2 Kings 20:11). The exact process He used in all of these cases is not important. What is important is that He did it. Ellen White speaks clearly about the relation of God to nature:BSAE 14.2

    In Noah’s day, philosophers declared that it was impossible for the world to be destroyed by water; so now there are men of science who endeavor to show that the world cannot be destroyed by fire,—that this would be inconsistent with the laws of nature. But the God of nature, the maker and controller of her laws, can use the works of His hands to serve His own purposes (Patriarchs and Prophets, 103).

    Surely, these subjects deserve some further study by those of us who believe in the creation story and short age of the earth from the Bible record.BSAE 14.3

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