George Maxwell
Genesis 7:24,“And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.”
Moses is describing the rising of the waters upon the face of the Earth after forty days of downpour, for one-hundred and fifty days. The Flood waters are described as prevailing over the entire Earth. The word prevailed in Hebrew is “gabar.” This word in the original language brings to mind the idea of a mighty warrior prevailing powerfully against his foe. The Flood waters were like a warrior assaulting his enemy. These waters rose and crashed with immense speed onto the continents. As layer upon layer of sediment was piled upon the continents in great mega-sequences (multi-strata segments laid down at once), the sediment was soft and not yet hardened into rock.
The image above is of rippled sandstone at Logan’s Pass in Glacier National Park, Montana. As layer upon layer was deposited, powerful waters prevailed upon Montana and left their imprint upon the softened sedimentary layers. A comparable geologic process is seen when waves roll up upon the seashore to produce sand ripples. On the beach, with one wave ripples are formed and with another they disappear. This simple process refutes evolutionary geology. The evolutionist believes a stream deposited mud onto a bed and formed these ripples. However, they do not take into account the continuing presence of the stream, moving to and fro.
How does a Creationist explain this feature and does it provide evidence of Noah’s Flood? Indeed! The Creationist notices that powerful currents caused ripples to be formed on the soft sedimentary rock. The Flood must rapidly deposit another layer (mudstone) upon the sandstone to protect the delicate ripple formation. Without depositing another layer quickly, the ripples will be erased by water. This amazing formation provides amazing evidence of rapid deposition of multiple layers without millions of years of deep time between each layer. For ripples to be captured in stone, the sediment must be soft for the ripples to be formed and another layer to be rapidly deposited to protect the ripples. Noah’s Flood alone produces soft sediment and deposits them quickly.
With this incredible evidence, let’s remember the Flood is a true, literal event, which is corroborated by Science. God’s Word is truth and it’s veracity is seen in these ripples. However, let us recall that Noah’s Flood was a punishment for man’s sin, or opposition to Almighty God. These ripples are a picture of God’s hate of sin and the immense scourge of man’s disobedience. Our sins are like the sediments, crushed and broken, but the washing of the blood of Christ, as the torrential waters of the Flood, shall produce in us the rippling effect of Jesus’ righteousness.
Revelation 1:5, “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”
Brown, Walt (2008). In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation. {Though the author is citing this source for information on ripples, he disagrees with Brown’s Hydroplate Theory, but instead accepts the theory of Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT).}
