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62
The Beginning of the End
the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move upon the earth,
and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every
moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all
things, even as the green herbs.” Before this time God had not given
permission to eat animals for food; but now that every green thing
had been destroyed, He allowed them to eat the flesh of the clean
animals that had been preserved in the ark.
The entire surface of the earth was changed at the Flood. Dead
bodies lay on the ground everywhere. The Lord would not permit
these to remain to decompose and pollute the air. A violent wind,
which was caused to dry up the waters, moved them with great force.,
In some instances it even carried away the tops of mountains and
heaped up trees, rocks, and earth above the bodies of the dead. By the
same means the silver and gold, choice wood and precious stones,
which had enriched the world before the Flood, were concealed.
The violent action of the waters piled earth and rocks upon these
treasures and even formed mountains above them. God saw that
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the more He enriched and prospered sinners, the more they would
corrupt their ways before Him.
The mountains, once beautiful, had become broken and irregular.
Ledges and ragged rocks were now scattered on the surface of the
earth. Where once earth’s richest treasures of gold, silver, and
precious stones had been, the heaviest marks of the curse were seen.
And on countries not inhabited and those where there had been the
least crime, the curse rested more lightly.
More terrible manifestations than the world has yet seen will be
witnessed at the second coming of Christ. As lightnings from heaven
unite with the fire in the earth, the mountains will burn like a furnace
and pour forth terrific streams of lava, overwhelming gardens and
fields, villages and cities. Dreadful earthquakes and eruptions will
be everywhere.
So God will destroy the wicked from off the earth, but the righ-
teous will be preserved, as Noah was preserved in the ark. Says the
psalmist: “Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even
the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you” (
Psalm
91:9, 10
; see also verse 14 and
Psalm 27:5
).
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