Genesis 7:17-20

"And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth; And the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered."

"The waters increased, and bare up the ark..." "The waters prevailed and increased..." "The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth..."

This threefold multiplication of the flood waters upon the earth is a most impressive superlative, culminating at last in the inundation of all the high mountains under heaven. Natural man has a rough time with this; it is totally beyond his capacity to believe or accept it, resulting in the response: "It has lost contact with history entirely!"[16] There are simply too many things in this that men cannot explain for some of them to believe it, but, we might add, such men are exactly like Noah's generation who also could not conceive of such a thing. Did it really happen? Of course it did! Every nation under the heaven, in all continents, testifies to the truth of this report by its myths and legends, which are nothing but distorted and perverted tales of the same event, but this account is different. It is accurately and precisely dated; it is embedded in the matrix of a moral theology that assigns plausible and accurate moral reasons for the catastrophe. Both the judgment and the mercy inherent in the event are fully in character with the nature of God, as revealed in both Testaments.

Geologists who seek in vain for the confirmation of the Flood in the present structure of the earth are overlooking the catastrophic changes which we know have occurred since the events recorded here. Human conceit being what it is, it is very difficult for unregenerated man to believe anything that he does not think he can explain! Well, there is no way to explain all of this Deluge. Just as that event was a moral test for Noah's generation, it is still a moral test for our own generation. Faith in what is written here cannot be produced by intellectual understanding of it. As always, faith in God is not an intellectual but a moral decision (John 3:19). A scientific community that has no explanation whatever of how marine fossils are found at elevations above the snowline in the Cordilleras and the Himalayas[17] are not at all convincing in their shouted denials that what is recorded here is a record of what really happened. However, it should be noted that faith in the Bible is confidently affirmed by some of the greatest scientists. It is only those who are drunk upon a little learning who brashly deny the Bible!