Counsels on Secular Worldview

Counsel #13 — A Creationist Explanation

Picture: Counsel #13 — A Creationist Explanation CSe 53.1

Let’s synthesize the information from Counsel #11 and #12. Although we weren’t there to witness the events and lack Noah’s notebook or a time machine, this is our best assessment of the Flood process. Imagine a preflood landscape with a shallow, life-filled ocean, bordered by an extensive warm wetland, ascending through diverse ecosystems to higher, cooler uplands. As the flood catastrophe begins, sediment is carried into the region, sweeping away animals and plants, systematically destroying and burying the landscape, starting with the ocean’s lowest parts. The flood deposits new sediment layers, progressively entombing fossils from deepest marine ecosystems to the shoreline and wetlands, and finally, the terrestrial ecosystems. This sequence will be further explored in Counsel #13.^[53] CSe 53.2

“’In seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will wipe off from the fertile land every living thing that I have made.’” Genesis 7:4 CEB CSe 53.3

“The terror of man and beast was beyond description…. Some of the people bound their children and themselves upon powerful animals, knowing that these were tenacious of life, and would climb to the highest points to escape the rising waters…. As the waters rose higher and higher, the people fled for refuge to the loftiest mountains. Often man and beast would struggle together for a foothold, until both were swept away.” Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 99, 100 CSe 53.4

Reflect: Every soul on Earth was extended a divine lifeline through Noah’s ark, a precursor to the ultimate offer of salvation extended to all humanity. Have you accepted that offer? CSe 53.5