By Walter L. Surbrook

      Scripture Reading: "Which removeth the mountains, and they know not; which overturneth them in his anger; which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble; which commandeth the Sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars; which alone spreadeth onto the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea." -- Job 9:5-8.

      Text: "All the foundations of the earth are (Margin, 'moved') out of course." -- Psa. 82:5.

      I. The earth before the flood.
      II. The earth during and following the flood.
      III. The renewed earth.

      I. THE EARTH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Let me say, at the very opening of this lecture, that I am a profound believer in the Genesis account of creation. I have no sympathy for Modernism or Evolution. The first question then for our consideration is to discover, if possible, when the foundations of the earth were moved out of course. It is very evident that this catastrophe did not take place at or during the Genesis account of creation. Divine inspiration tells us that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." We have positively no way of telling when this took place. We are so convinced that the creation did not leave the earth in the conditions described in Gen. 1:2, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Here we find the earth a desolate waste. Isaiah 45:18 tells us that "he created it not a waste" (Revised Version). If He did not create it "a waste" then we are forced to conclude that something must have occurred between creation and the condition in which we find the earth here in this second verse.

      G. H. Pember, in his splendid book entitled "Earth's Earliest Ages," page 27, renders the above mentioned text as follows, "And the earth became desolate and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." He further states, on page 28 of the same book, "It is thus clear that the second verse of Genesis describes the earth as a ruin; but there is no hint of the time which elapsed between creation and this ruin. Age after age may have rolled away . . . there is room for any length of time between the first and second verses of the Bible . . . God created the heavens and the earth perfect and beautiful in their beginning, and that at some subsequent period, how remote we cannot tell, the earth had passed into a state of utter desolation, and was void of all life. Not merely had its fruitful places become a wilderness, and all its cities been broken down; but the very light of its sun had been withdrawn; all the moisture of its atmosphere had sunk upon its surface; and the vast deep, at which God has set bounds that arc never transgressed save when wrath has gone forth from Him, had burst those limits; so that the ruined planet covered above its very mountain tops with the black floods of destruction, was rolling through space in a horror of great darkness." Some advocate that the earth was inhabited by a race of beings prior to the creation of Adam and Eve. It is further thought that this race fell so under the power of Satan, and wickedness and sin was so rampant that God, in order to destroy this wicked race at a stroke, destroyed the earth or threw it into the "void," darkened, chaotic state as described in the second verse of the Bible. Mr. Pember states, "We should naturally conclude that superior beings inhabited and ruled that former world, and, like Adam, transgressed the laws of their Creator."

      There are some hints in Scripture that might in a measure, bear out the above suggested theory. When we recall that God advised Adam and Eve to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," (Gen. 1:28) we wonder why He said "replenish." The prefix re means again, and the word plenish comes from the Latin "plenus", which means to fill so God literally told them, before they had fallen, to be fruitful and multiply and refill or repeople the earth. If the earth had never been peopled prior to this time, why did God say refill the earth? He used identically the same term here that He used to Noah after the flood. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." -- Gen. 9:1. We can see clearly why God used this expression to Noah, because the earth had been peopled and the race destroyed by the flood, but there is a question why He should use this term to Adam, unless the earth had been peopled prior to the creation of Adam and Eve. This tragic calamity, great as it was, does not yet fully explain our text, which necessitates a jarring or moving of the foundations, or axis of the earth, out of their course. A tremendous cataclysmic catastrophe only can fully explain the words of Job.

      Neither does the fall of man, as recorded in Genesis, ruinous as it was to the whole creation of God, contain any evidence that the foundations of the earth were moved out of place during this moral calamity. The fall of man resulted in the cursing of Satan (Gen. 3:14), then God also cursed the ground (Gen. 3:17, 18) causing it to bring forth thorns and thistles, and man was subjected to the task of servile manual labor all the days of this life, and his bread was to come only as the result of his work. Adam also died spiritually at a stroke, as God promised, for he was cut off at once from his vital and intimate spiritual contact and fellowship with God. He also became a dying being, which threw him in line for physical and eternal death. There is not a hint in Scripture that this deplorable and distressing event brought on any atmospheric change or had anything to do with the moving of "the foundations of the earth."

      Isaiah 24:1 says, "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it up side down, (marginal rendering -- perverteth the face thereof) and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof." Isaiah intimates that something had happened which emptied the earth, changed its entire surface, and destroyed its inhabitants. Since this disaster did not take place at the fall of man, we must yet seek a time when this actually occurred.

      II. THE EARTH DURING AND FOLLOWING THE FLOOD. We shall postulate now or assume that this baleful and ruinous event took place at the time of the flood. For God to "remove the mountains" and overturn them in His anger," shaking the "earth out of her place," as recorded in Job 9:5-8, necessitates a tremendous cataclysmic catastrophe. This we shall refer to more fully later. According to Bishop Ussher's chronology, the period of time from the fall of man until the flood was 1,556 years. All of our records as contained in the Bible, geologic strata, and rocks of the earth, indicate that a most perfect and salubrious climate prevailed upon the earth. There is every indication that the earth enjoyed a most glorious tropical or semitropical climate during all these years. "For those acquainted with the geological facts, there is no need of presenting evidence in favor of the earth's having once enjoyed an ideal climate from pole to pole. The corals and the coal plants of the arctic region are objective evidence which tell a complete story that cannot be misunderstood. What a combination of circumstances it was which produced these conditions of an equable world-enveloping climate may be matter for study; but that such a condition existed can no more be doubted than can the existence of Nineveh and Carthage. As it is difficult to explain this equable arctic climate without postulating an ideal distribution and arrangement of land and water in order to bring about such a state of climate; just so the violent and sudden disturbance of this distribution of land and water could not fail to spoil this ideal climate, and probably change it suddenly and completely." ("The New Geology," by Price, pages 682, 683.)

      There are strong evidences contained in the flora and fauna of the fossiliferous deposits of the earth that the world during the fifteen and a half centuries above referred to enjoyed an excellent climate. "The best barometer we can use to test the character of a climate is the fauna and flora which lived while it prevailed. This is not only the best, but is virtually the duly barometer available when we inquire into the climate of past geological ages". ("The Glacial Nightmare," by Howorth, page 427.)

      Many of our most reliable geologists are perfectly agreed that the records of past ages, as contained in the fossils of both plants and animals, prove beyond dispute that the entire world enjoyed a "uniform" climate at one time. "And yet, when we examine the whole geological series from the Cambrian to the Pleistocene, we shall find, as A. R. Wallace well remarks, only 'one uniform climatic aspect of the fossils.' There is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world, as revealed by the plants and animals entombed in the rocks; and that climate was a mantle of spring-like loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the whole globe. Just how the world could have thus been warmed all over may be a matter of conjecture; that it was so warmed effectively and continuously is a matter of fact.

      "It would be quite useless to go through the whole fossiliferous series in order, for there is not a single system which does not have coral limestones or other evidence of a mild climate away tip north, most of the systems having such rocks in the lands which skirt the very pole itself. The limestones and coal beds of the Carboniferous are the nearest known rocks to the north pole. They crop out all around the polar basin; and from the dip of the beds, they must underlie the polar sea itself. But it is needless to go through the systems one after another, for they 'uniformly testify that a warm climate has in former times prevailed over the whole globe'. (A. R. Wallace.) . . . But the Miocene rocks are among the most abundant and the best known of any of the strata found in the arctic regions. In Greenland, Iceland, and Spitzbergen, they give us beeches, oaks, planes, poplars, walnuts, limes, magnolias, holly, log-wood, hawthorn, ivy, grapevines, 'and many evergreens, besides numerous conifers, among which was the Sequoia, allied to the gigantic Wellingtonia (Sequoia) of California.' (James Geikie.)"

      Since the fossils of tropical vegetation and animals have been found in abundance in the frigid zone, as well as the torrid, it would not be unreasonable to assume that these grew where they were found.

      Not only does the testimony of science clearly intimate that the earth enjoyed many centuries of perennial spring, but Divine inspiration so affords us much help in the acceptance of this theory. There is not a hint in Scripture which would lead anyone to suppose that the earth from the fall of man until the flood was ever troubled with storms. Since it did not rain at all during this long period, "but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (Gen. 2:6), and since there is no record that they ever had any winter, it is only natural to conclude that the earth enjoyed a beautiful tropical climate. There are some terms which God employed in speaking to Noah after the flood that are not found in the Bible before. Our attention is called to this fact in God's promise to Noah, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" -- Gen. 8:22. Since these terms have never been used before this, the intimation is that we now have a new order of things. The suggestion is offered that during this 1,556 years of tropical climate without any special seasons of heat or cold, no winter or summer, they could plant or sow their seed at any time of the year and reap it when it was ripe.

      Noah had carried over in his mind former practices along these lines from before the flood, and now since a new order was instituted, God instructed him that from then on there would be a time to sow, and a time to reap. There would be seasons when the atmosphere would be hot and these would he followed again with cold. The words "summer" and "winter" were new words now to Noah. The fact that seedtime and harvest, which would be synonymous with our spring and fall, and also winter and summer, came now immediately following the flood indicates that there has been a phenomenal atmospheric change introducing conditions as we now find them in the earth.

      Reasoning now from the evidences afforded us in science and the Scriptures, that this long period witnessed a tropical or semi-tropical climate, we would naturally expect that the vegetation on the earth during this period would experience a very prolific growth. We have in the sylvan or forest section of South America a faint picture of what the entire world would be like. In this section the timber, hanging vines, shrubbery, and vegetation are so dense and in such abundance that it is almost entirely impenetrable to man. Thousands of acres in South America have never been explored, because of the immensity of its vegetation and the treacherousness of wild animals. The vegetation here is in such abundance not because of the fertility of the soil, but as the result of atmospheric conditions that are conducive to growth. Not only is this near the equator, but there is a great deal of humidity in the atmosphere which in many respects resembles the atmosphere on the earth before the flood.

      Not only did vegetation grow in abundance during this "perpetual summer," but animal life also grew to an astonishing size and in unbelievable plenitude. It was during this period that many of the larger animals that are now extinct -- such as the dinosaur, mastodon, mammoth, and saber-tooth tiger -- roamed this globe. While the earth was abounding with these giant animals, as well as millions of species of smaller ones, and producing an abundance of vegetable life, the flood occurred. God tells us that as the devastating waters of the flood broke loose, "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows, (margin, 'flood gates') of heaven were opened." -- Gen. 7:11. "But suddenly an awful change took place. The exact details of how it occurred may still be somewhat uncertain; but that it was astonishingly sudden, and that it must have been a change affecting the entire world, seems as certain as man's own existence. As a well-known geologist remarks, this genial climate in which these animals lived was abruptly terminated. For carcasses of the Siberian elephants were frozen so suddenly and so completely at the change that the flesh has remained untainted' (Dana)." ("The New Geology," by Price, page 654.)

      The tearing open of the earth as God opened up the fountains of the great deep, overturning the mountains and hills in His anger, sealed up the stars to the human vision, and utterly uprooted the trees, destroying the vegetation and animals that had grown in such abundance. No animal or vegetable life could survive this tremendous upheaval of the earth. The waters rushing and roaring poured in on the earth for forty days and nights and continued rising until it was "fifteen cubits" above the highest mountain. This tremendous sea of water, hiding every speck of land, remained upon the earth one hundred and fifty days, "burying and, killing myriads of living creatures both in the ocean and on the land, churning them all up together until no one could estimate the quantity of stratigraphical work accomplished or the number and kinds of species which would be exterminated". ("The New Geology," by Price, Page 644.)

      Assuming that before the flood the mountains were as high as they are today, we can form an estimation of the depth of the water on the earth at the time of the flood. Since Mount Everest, which is the highest known mountain now in the world, is approximately six miles high, and the deepest place in the ocean, known to man, is six miles deep, if the waters were to rise fifteen cubits above the top of Mount Everest, we would have water over the earth varying all the way from fifteen cubits to twelve miles deep. In mean average, this would give us approximately six miles of water covering the entire globe.

      Scientists tell us that the tides, which are produced by the attraction of the sun and moon and the effect of the earth's rotation on her axis, vary all the way from a few inches to fifty feet on various parts of the globe. If the small amount of water that is now on the earth under its present movements can produce a tide which will rise fifty feet, who can estimate how great a tide will be produced if the water is multiplied several millionfold? "In the meantime, the surface of the earth would be shattered and dislocated beyond all description and twice each day the oceans would sweep a mighty tidal wave around the world, attaining a maximum, every one hundred and fifty day of about six miles in height at the equator." (Twisden.) This mighty surging of earth's waters and rolling giant tidal waves will mix and pile vegetable and animal life hither and thither into conglomerate masses. The timber interspersed with this mass will pile and lodge against the sides of overturned mountains in great jams, and as the waters begin to settle or "assuage" front off the earth, this mass settles down toward the earth, and as the water is quieting and depositing its load of millions of toils of earth and rock which it has been carrying around the world, these beds of timber will be buried. Other masses will lodge on top of this to, in turn, be buried again and remain sealed in mother earth, unexposed to the atmosphere for over a score of centuries. Men in modern times, digging into the sides of hills and mountains, have discovered a black, combustible substance. It has been discovered that this is filled with fossils of almost every kind of plant and animal life. This black substance is now called coal. Not only has almost every kind of fossil been found in the beds of coal, but fishes and animals have been found buried in various sections of the world.

      Mr. Price proceeds to show that modern animal life is not now being buried in such spectacular abundance as was the ancient, and he goes on to say: "In very notable contrast with these modern conditions are the fossil fishes found in many of the ancient deposits; for here we find them entombed in whole shoals, constituting beds many feet in thickness and sometimes extending miles in area, the fish often so close together as to touch one another, and all so astonishingly preserved that we can make out the full outline and often many of the delicate tissues . . . In many other instances, where the remains of fish are not thus packed in on top of one another, the shales are so saturated with organic oil that they will burn almost like coal. In many of the Devonian rocks, the remains of fish 'are often found in masses, as if they had been suddenly entombed in living shoals fly the sediment which now contains them.' (David Page.) Describing the rocks of this system in Scotland, where they cover a large part of the country, Hugh Miller remarks with amazement that 'conjecture lacks footing in grappling with the enigma' as to how the 'innumerable existences of an area perhaps ten thousand square miles in extent' could be 'annihilated at once', as they evidently were, for they seem to have been buried alive, though the water was evidently deep and comparatively undisturbed.

      "We have not the space to speak of the abundant remains of amphibians and reptiles, which have been found in myriad in many localities, packed together as if in natural graveyards. Many kinds of the larger mammals occur in similar abundance in various parts of the globe. For instance, the remains of the mammoth are found in such profusion in different parts of Northern Siberia that the soil 'is said to consist only of sand and ice with such quantities of mammoth bones as almost to comprise its chief substance' (Lydekker.) In some of the warmer parts of the same country, and also in Alaska, the black carbonaceous soil, when freshly opened, has the rank, strong smell characteristic of a disturbed grave . . . Devonian rocks in general are often exquisitely preserved.

      Some of them even show traces of color upon their skin, which is evidence 'that they were entombed before decomposition of their soft parts took place' (Buckland)."

      At this period in our history, some terrible catastrophe involved in sudden destruction the fish of an area at least a hundred miles from boundary to boundary, perhaps more. The same platform at Orkney as at Cromarty is strewed thick with remains which exhibit, unequivocally, the marks of violent death. The figures are contorted, contracted, curved; the tail in many instances is bent round to the head; the spines stick out; the fins are spread to the full, as in fish that die in convulsions." (Hugh Miller.)

      Not only were the fish buried suddenly in abundance, having been trapped by the settling sediments of the flood's waters, but all kinds of animals, both of the sea and the laud, are now found as fossils, having been buried suddenly. In reference to the dinosaurs, Professor Lull says, "One of the most inexplicable of events is the dramatic extinction of this mighty race." Professor Price tells us that at the same time the dinosaurs became extinct, great numbers of elephants, rhinoceroses) camels, mastodons, and megatheriums also became extinct. This sudden destruction of life could not have occurred but for the outpoured wrath of God.

      In comparing the ancient fossils with the modern species, Professor Price states that "the strikingly larger dimensions of the fossil forms are recognized by almost every schoolboy who has visited any of our larger museums . . . This peculiarity of large size is characteristic of all the fossils taken as a whole; and that when we cross over into our modern world the change in the character of the fossils is just as sudden and just as noticeable as is the change in climate. Practically all our modern animals and plants, whether terrestrial or marine, are degenerate dwarfs." (Page 656.)

      Ever since the sudden and phenomenal change which took place on the earth at the time of the flood, we have been visited by sudden storms, typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones, sudden changes of heat and cold, because "the foundations of the earth" have been "moved out of their course." This very fact is a clear indication that a tremendous and titanic atmospheric change was experienced upon the earth at the time of the flood, as well as a stupendous geologic change. The fact that seedtime and harvest, winter and summer, were not introduced until after the flood evidences the fact that at this time the seasons began. When the earth's axis was perpendicular to the plane of its orbit there were no seasons, and the very fact that we now have these is a strong evidence that seasons began at the time of the flood. We now know that the earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, but is inclined twenty-three and one half degrees from the perpendicular, north, and that the earth rolls around the sun constantly, maintaining this inclined position.

      Astronomers tell us that the constantly inclined position of the earth in traveling around the sun produces our seasons. We have our six months of night in the north, at the same time we have our long winter, which is the result of the northern part of the earth being tipped away from the light and heat rays of the sun. As the earth travels in its orbit around the sun, coming back southward, the rays of heat and light reach the earth more directly, and spring comes on; then as the earth reaches the opposite end of its orbit, the northern part of the world enjoys its summer and six months of daylight. Thus the inclined position of the earth is responsible for our seasons. Since there were no winter and summer, seedtime and harvest, before the flood, and immediately following it these were instituted, and since the seasons are the result of the inclination of the earth, we are forced to conclude that the wrath of God being poured out at the time of the flood jarred it from its perpendicular position.

      "The only astronomical cause which we can readily imagine as competent to bring about such results would be something of the nature of a jarring or a shock from the outside." (Price, page 682.)

      The words of our text are very appropriate here, for it is quite evident that at the end of the flood "all the foundations of the earth were moved out of course." There is a seedtime and harvest now in every country and climate of the world because we have seasons; but when these seasons become a thing of the past, seedtime and harvest, winter and summer, will also disappear.

      There is one other fact in connection with Noah which makes it positively clear that the earth experienced an atmospheric change at the time of the flood. Before the deluge Noah raised grapes, made wine in abundance, and drank freely from the same. It was not intoxicating and there is no record that he ever got drunk before the flood; but as soon as the flood was over, he planted a vineyard and made wine. It is quite evident that he made a quantity of it as he had done prior to the flood, and having now partaken freely of the same became drunk. God did not condemn Noah for this, because he seems to have been in ignorance as to what had happened. The wine before the flood did not ferment, but bacterial action has set in here and this wine is now intoxicating. This seems to evidence the fact that bacteria, or at least its power to ferment wine, was released after the flood.

      The appearance of the rainbow at this time is very significant. The rainbow did not appear until the flood, as it comes only at the time of rain. The rainbow is produced by the reflection and refraction of the sun's rays on the drops of water. There are seven colors in the rainbow, three major colors -- red, yellow, blue and four minor colors -- violet, indigo, green, and orange. But three is the Divine number, representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Four is the world number, representing humanity; and as these minor colors come from the major, so humanity is represented as being inferior to Deity. The sum of these three major colors and four minor colors equals seven. Seven is a perfect number. In this rainbow God is entering into a perfect agreement with humanity, promising them that He will never again destroy the earth by water.

      III. THE RENEWED EARTH. Reasoning from the above facts, we conclude that at the time of the flood the wrath of God jarred the earth out of its perpendicular position, and this greatly enhanced and deepened the effects of the curse. But at the opening of the Millennium He will not only lift the curse, but will jar or "shake" the earth back into its original position. The world will then again produce in abundance as before the deluge. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing." -- Isa. 35:1,2.

      The Apostle warns us not to turn a deaf ear to God, for His voice "shook the earth" at the time of the flood, and those who turned away from Noah did not escape. He then states that God will again shake not only the earth, but also heaven. "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him (Noah) that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." -- Heb. 12:25-28.

      This final shaking will no doubt take place when the "stone" that was cut out of the mountain smites the image (world governments) on the feet (at His revelation) and His kingdom will then fill the whole world. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus