Submitted by Donna on 2009-06-02:
Question: Years ago I read in the Bible about where the Genesis flood waters went. I can’t seem to find that verse. Will you help me please?
Answer: There is a wonderful statement in the great “nature Psalm,” Psalm 104, which tells us that when the flood in Noah’s day covered the whole world, something special happened that was very rapid.
It says, "The waters were standing above the mountains" (v. 6b; that’s the mountain-covering flood of Noah’s day; cf. Gen. 6-9).
Now watch the words: “At Your rebuke they fled, At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away” (v. 7).
Well, where did they flee to? Where did those mountain-covering waters go? Answer: “The mountains rose; the valleys (or basins) sank down to the place which You established for them" (v. 8).
In other words, there was a drastic change of topography at the end of the flood.
So where did the waters go?
Notice, “To the place which You established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over, So that they will not return to cover the earth” (v. 8b, 9).
Ocean basins today are the repositories into which post-flood waters sank. Thousands of feet down are basins, reservoirs, for both of the oceans which were divided from each other before the flood by the firmament, the expanse.
Isn't Psalm 104:6-9 an amazing, brief and beautifully stated answer to that question?
(Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. [www.Lockman.org])

Submitted by Dave on 2009-06-06:
Question: I am a youth pastor and one of my students asked me, "Why did God choose to take six days to create the world? Why not just do it all at once?" I was just wondering how you would respond.
Answer: That is a fascinating question, because it is obvious that God did not need six days. Normally Jesus, the creator of the world, demonstrated in His public ministry that He could do things instantly – as when He calmed the storm, healed the sick or raised the dead – and that raises a question. Why did God use six days of creation, plus one to rest?
He did not need the six days to work – He could have done it instantly. He did not need one day to recuperate, to rest, because He never gets weary.
So what is taught in Genesis 1 is that God deliberately stretched out the work of creation over six days and rested one day to provide a model for the cycle of work and rest for Israel.
God is not only powerful, He is gracious and merciful. He said to His people Israel, as you read in Ex. 20:9, 11: “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (KJV).
That is a model, you see, so that God says to Israel, “I am not cruel or unreasonable. I do not tell you to do your work instantly and never rest. No, let’s walk together through life. I will stretch out My work to provide a model for your cycle of work and rest, so we can walk together through this world.”
God is a God of grace and mercy, as well as a God of power.

Submitted by Jerry on 2009-06-06:
Question: How long after Eve was created did Satan tempt her?
Answer: Things happened amazingly at the beginning of the world in terms of the timing, the duration, of events, with the whole universe created in six 24-hour days.
It took Adam only one day to taxonomically classify all the animals and mammals and birds in the world.
So how long did it take for Eve to be tempted after she was created? A very short time. Why? Think with me of at least three reasons.
First, God created Adam and Eve to have deep, genuine fellowship with Him - to worship Him in Spirit and in truth. That could not happen unless they had a choice. You cannot really love someone unless you have an alternative to choose from. God did not create robots, He created humans in His image and likeness. They made a choice. He said, “Here’s your choice. Of all the trees in the garden, you may freely eat, except that one.” No choice could have been easier, but Eve fell into Satan’s trap, and, therefore, the world fell into sin.
Now of course, the point is this – why would God wait for months and months to give them that choice?
Secondly, the night that Adam and Eve were created as a couple, God commanded them, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.”
Question: under those conditions – a genetically, physically perfect couple in harmony with God – why would it take months for her to conceive a child? The point is that the first child they conceived, Cain, was conceived of a fallen mother who had a sin nature by then.
David stated regarding his own mother: “In sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5, KJV). That is not a critique of his mother or a judgment on her.
The point is that he inherited his sin nature from a mother who had a sin nature. And so, when Cain was conceived, his mother had already fallen into sin.
The third reason that is was not a long time is that Eve was tempted so soon after she was created that she had not even had time yet to learn that animals do not talk. Satan knew that and talked to her through the mouth of a serpent. If Adam had been approached that way, he would have said, doubtless: “Who is in the bushes back there? Come out of there! Animals do not talk.”
I take these three reasons to be a clue, a little hint, that perhaps only a few days had elapsed after they were created before Eve and then Adam fell into sin against the Lord.

Submitted by Peter on 2009-06-06:
Question: Why isn’t creation science taught in any major United States university?
Answer: Well, let’s think of that in a bigger picture.
What is God’s purpose for the church? What is His strategy, His plan? Is it gigantic, well-endowed, multi-billion dollar university campuses like the one I attended, namely Princeton University, in the early 1940s?
No! In the early church, when the church was at its best, you had solid little congregations of people meeting in homes, house churches we call them, just like in mainland China today. That was a powerful means to reach out to neighbors, friends, family and the whole culture. But a gigantic institution – no. That kind of a system almost invites corruption of doctrine, of truth, where there is no longer the accountability to the Spirit of God for how we maintain, perpetuate the truth of God. It’s almost biblically impossible to imagine gigantic universities teaching the distinctives of the Bible.
Now, of course, 200 years before I came to Princeton University, which was back in 1942, Jonathan Edwards was the president. Well, of course, at that time it was a small school. It was called The College of New Jersey. It was under the tremendous authority, influence and control of God-honoring, Bible-believing churches. That was also true of Harvard and Yale Universities. They were built to train pastors and other ministers of the gospel.
But you see, all that is gone now. And I say that in almost no case (I may be wrong, I hope there are some exceptions) in the whole world today do you find reputable, endowed, respected schools of higher academic learning where God’s precious infallible Word is honored from Genesis to Revelation.
That is because that is not God’s strategy. His strategy involves more one-on-one and local house church-influences, small group things, where there is more accountability, more personal relationship with each other and with God.
Those are thoughts that I say I hope there are exceptions for, but may God give us wisdom and real caution about institutionalizing the church of our Lord Jesus Christ in this generation.

Submitted by Zoe on 2009-06-06:
Question: Why did God make animals?
Answer: Animals were created for human beings. They are among God's spectacular gifts to us.
Men are not animals - and never were!
Only people have the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26; 9:6). Nevertheless, we learn from the animal kingdom something of the wisdom and power of our Lord Jesus Christ (by Whom "all things were made" and without Whom "was not anything made that was made" [John 1:3; cf. Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:2]).
It was by His mere spoken Word that they were created (Gen.1:20,24; Ps. 33:6-9), and it is by His continuing power that they continue to exist (Job 12:7-10; 34:14-15; Ps. 104:29; Col. 1:17).

Submitted by Jennifer on 2009-06-05:
Question: How could Noah and his family survive with all of those animals on the ark?
Answer: During the year of the Genesis flood, the curse on animals was suspended.
The two lions that entered the ark were no threat to Noah and his family, nor to the other animals with them. And they remained harmless throughout the entire year of the flood - even though they were still lions!
The key word here is "remembered."
"God remembered Noah, and every living thing, ...in the ark" (Gen. 8:1). This verb, with God as the subject, means that God took special care, and provided every need. (The same word was used by the believing thief on the cross next to Jesus: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom" [Luke 23:42]).
Since all people in the world were now believers - all others outside the ark were dead - the curse on animals was suspended, as it will be when the Millennial Kingdom comes, because all who enter that Kingdom will be believers (Isa. 11:9; Jer. 31:34; Matt. 13:36-43; 25:31-34).
Thus, the Bible teaches us that there is a highly significant connection between the function of animals and the relationship of mankind to God.

Submitted by Boyd on 2009-06-05:
Question: What was the world like before the fall of man into sin and the resulting curse?
Answer: A greater contrast between what we see now in the living world, and what was originally created, can hardly be imagined.
Before the fall of man, and the resulting curse of God, there was no bloodshed in the animal kingdom.
Adam and Eve were vegetarians (Gen. 1:29), and so were all the animals! They were completely and exclusively herbivorous: "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so" (Gen. 1:30).
Later revelation in both the Old Testament and the New Testament sheds very important light upon the reality of original perfection as depicted in Gen. 1 and 2.
Isa. 11:6-9, for example, anticipates the perfection of the coming 1,000-year Kingdom of Christ on earth (for which He taught us to pray - Matt. 6:10), when "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain (kingdom): for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (v. 9).
This global absence of destruction includes the animal kingdom, for even wolves, leopards, young lions, bears and snakes will be completely harmless in the presence of lambs, kids (baby goats), calves, cows and little children.
Of special interest is the amazing fact that "the lion shall eat straw like the ox" (Isa. 11:7).

Submitted by Molly on 2009-06-05:
Question: Can evolutionary teaching ever be reconciled with the Bible?
Answer: No! The only Book God ever wrote - the Bible - gives the opposite picture from the evolutionism I was taught in my youth and at Princeton University.
The personal, living God, Who cannot lie (Titus 1:2; cf. Num. 23:19; Heb. 6:18), Who was the only One there when life began on this planet (Isa. 45:18; Jer. 10:10-12), Who was the only One Who could design and create almost infinitely complex living organisms (Job 12:7-10), is also the One Who wrote the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). This Book informs us clearly and repeatedly that the world we presently experience is not the end-product of mindless evolution through billions of years.
Instead, it is the result of an originally perfect design (Gen. 1:31 - "very good"; cf. Deut. 32:4 - "perfect"), which was drastically distorted - through God's curse - because of man's rebellion against His wise and gracious plan for our lives (Gen. 3:17-19).

Submitted by Carolyn on 2009-06-03:
Question: Dr. Whitcomb, my question concerns how mankind was dispersed all over the world on every continent. After the flood, there were eight people in one place. How did they get to places far beyond their boundaries? Before the flood was the earth one landmass that became separated by the flood waters?
Answer: Of course, when the flood ended there were only eight people in the world – Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives.
But what happened when the flood ended? Gen 9:1 states: “So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth'” (NKJV).
He wanted them to multiply and to repopulate the post-flood world. By what means, we do not know exactly. There were, of course, land bridges by which people could migrate from Asia across to Alaska, and there were land bridges down to Australia. We know that people had boats available to use in migrating, to disperse to the various islands of the world such as the Hawaiian Islands – the most remote landmass in the world from major continents, by the way.
The amazing thing is, of course, that human beings have done that in spite of an original rebellion against God’s command on the part of people who decided, “No, we are just going to settle in Mesopotamia and Shinar and build a tower whose top represents heaven – a ziggurat, a worship center.”
You see, God had to disperse people from there by supernaturally creating language barriers between the workers – by which they became deeply frustrated and took their families and moved away.
And then it was by God’s judgment and the implementation of that Gen. 9:1 command that people began to migrate across the entire world where we see them today.
The manner in which that happened is an amazing story, of course, of the versatility of the mind of man to get where he wants to go, no matter what barriers of oceans, mountains or climate might loom before him.
God implemented His own plan in Gen. 9:1 by the judgment of Genesis chapter 11 at the Tower of Babel.
"So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth" (Gen. 11:8, 9, NKJV).

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