Letters From Grandpa #499

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 499

Dearest grandchild,

Today’s letter will deal with Noah’s flood. It is common today for many to scoff at this story in the Bible and attempt to prove that it never happened. Lorence G. Collins, for example, has written an article titled Twenty-one Reasons Why Noah’s World Wide Flood Never Happened. The Apostle Peter warned about such men 2,000 years ago: “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. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 3:3-7) Rather than refute Collins, here are a few positive reasons to not deliberately forget the flood!

• The Bible tells us that there was a world wide flood. I believe the Bible is true and no archeological discovery has ever proved the Bible wrong!
• Over 200 different people groups from all over the world have traditions of a world wide flood.
• Whole books have been written about Chinese words that reflect Bible history. Their word for “flood,” for example, involves 3 different characters (1) the symbol for a vessel (2) the symbol for eight (3) the symbol for people.
• Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world and yet there are marine fossils on top of it!
• (FYI there were mountains before the flood (Genesis 7:20), but as the flood waters receded Mt. Everest apparently became taller and the Mariana Trench became deeper - Ps. 104:5-9).
• Those who deny the flood often believe in “Uniformitarianism”. This theory suggests that the earth reflects gradual changes over millions of years.
• “Catastrophism” is an alternative theory that proposes that the surface of the earth is better explained by cataclysmic events like earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions.
• Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park, for example, features multiple layers of petrified trees standing upright. Dr. William H. Holmes first reported on this phenomena in 1878. Signs in the park explained that these forests grew and were buried multiple times over tens of thousands of years. In other words, gradual change over long periods of time.
• In March of 1980, however, Mt. St. Helens erupted in Washington State and produced in a matter of hours what scholars previously assumed took millions of years.
• In was once believed, for example, that grooves in rock formations were formed gradually by the sliding of glaciers. Mt. St. Helens proved, however, that they can be formed by fast moving rocks propelled by the eruption of a volcano.
• With reference to petrified trees, on the 18th of May another blast occurred which created landslides and mud flows that ripped millions of trees out of the ground and dragged them down the mountain to Spirit Lake. These floating logs were vertical due to their heavy root systems and sank to the bottom of the lake. Within 30 years these trees in Spirit Lake were precisely like the petrified trees on Specimen Ridge. I am told that the signs in Yellowstone assuming the petrified trees were thousands of years old have been removed.
• Here is another example. The traditional explanation for the Grand Canyon is that is was formed by millions of years of gradual erosion from the Colorado River. Mt. St. Helens, however, created a little grand canyon in only a few hours. This “little canyon” is still an impressive 140 feet deep and 150 feet wide. Our observations prove that this canyon was not produced gradually by the little river flowing at the bottom of the canyon.
• Jon Albert, the director of the Grand Canyon Ministries from 2013 – 2020, gives three reasons why the Colorado River didn’t create the canyon. (1) It would have had to flow up hill to cut a channel through the Kaibab Plateau. (2) The tons of sediment from the canyon are not found it in the river bed but off the coast of Los Angeles. (3) The bottom of the river is still cluttered with debris washed from the mountains by flash floods. If the river cannot get rid of such small amounts of debris, how could it carry millions of times that amount hundreds of miles.
• The eruption of Mt. St. Helens is small by comparison to other eruptions. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79 was three times larger. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was 18 times larger. The eruption of Tambora in 1815 was 80 times larger. All of these eruptions, of course, pale into insignificance by comparison to the eruptions that occurred in the flood of Noah.
• Jesus warned that when He returns it will be like it was in the days of Noah: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:37-42)
• The flood waters came from two different sources: First, it came from the heavens in the form of rain. Before the flood of Noah it had never rained, but there came a mist from the ground that provided moisture for plant life (Genesis 2:5-7).
• Vast amounts of water can easily be stored in the heavens. The thermosphere above the mesosphere, for example, is warm and water stored there could easily supplement the water in the atmosphere below it. Further, such water saturated air could also filter out deadly solar radiation and enable man to live hundreds of years like Adam did. Remember! There were no seasons, storms, or rainbows until after the flood (Genesis 8:22 and 9:12-17).
• The second source of water was from under the ground. God not only caused it to rain, but also caused the springs of the great deep to burst forth (Genesis 7:11).
• On May 31, 1889 2,200 people drowned in the Johnston flood. In the days of Noah everybody on earth drowned except for the eight people that were on the ark!
• Please don’t be like the scoffers who deliberately deny the flood! The unbelievers in the days of Noah were surprised by the flood. Jesus is coming again! Please don’t let that surprise you!

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce