Dr. Bob Visits the Florida Everglades

A River of Grass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zc0xgkUDF8

Experience the River of Grass through Biblical eyes. Here resilient ecosystems proclaim the Creator’s design and the rocks beneath declare the truth of Noah’s Flood.

In the summer of 2020, we had the unforgettable opportunity to climb aboard an airboat and roar through the Florida Everglades with our good friends from Truth Seekers. That vast River of Grass teems with life. The wind in my face, the spray of shallow water, and the explosion of birds lifting off the sawgrass left me in awe. But this was not just a tourist adventure. It became a powerful object lesson in God’s Word, His creation, and the historical reality of the global Flood.

We love taking God’s Word as our starting point. When we do, the evidence around us comes alive with meaning. The Everglades is no exception. Here coastal ecosystems showcase the built-in adaptability of God’s creatures, while the very foundation of Florida testifies to the catastrophic year-long Flood described in Genesis 6-9. And in this unique corner of the world, we even see living reminders of the original vegetarian diet in Eden.

The Everglades Today: A Shallow River of Life

The Florida Everglades is often called a river of grass. It is a slow-moving sheet of water flowing south from Lake Okeechobee across a nearly flat landscape. Just inches deep in many places, this vast wetland supports an astonishing diversity of plants and animals. Mangroves line the coastal edges, cypress domes rise in the interior, and sawgrass stretches as far as the eye can see.

This productivity did not happen by accident. God designed these systems with remarkable resilience. Mangroves, for example, thrive in brackish and salty water where most trees would perish. Their specialized roots filter salt and trap sediment, literally building new land. Sawgrass and other wetland plants handle seasonal flooding and drought with equal ease. These features are not the products of millions of years of trial and error evolution. They reflect the wisdom of the Creator who spoke plants into existence on Day Three of Creation Week (Genesis 1:11-12) and equipped them to flourish in a post-Flood world of changing climates and coastlines.

Built-In Adaptability: Evidence of the Creator’s Forethought

Everywhere you look in the Everglades, you see God’s adaptation machine at work. This is the incredible variety and flexibility built into created kinds. Wading birds with long legs and specialized beaks, manatees grazing on aquatic plants, and snail kites depending on apple snails all point to designed relationships that allow life to thrive in challenging environments.

This adaptability is exactly what we would expect from creatures that disembarked from Noah’s Ark only a few thousand years ago. God created kinds with rich genetic potential so they could fill the earth and adapt to new conditions after the Flood. They did this without one kind ever turning into another. True science observes rapid, built-in variation, not molecules-to-man evolution.

The Geology Beneath: Clear Testimony to the Global Flood

What lies under all this beauty? The foundational rocks of Florida provide some of the clearest evidence for the Biblical Flood anywhere on earth.

During the early stages of the catastrophic Flood, massive erosion carved and deposited the base platform of the Florida peninsula. In the latter stages, as waters remained high but began to stabilize, limestone layers accumulated across that platform. Dissolved minerals and marine life washed over the area, rapidly forming thick carbonate deposits. As the Flood waters receded in the closing months of that year, parts of Florida emerged. In the immediate post-Flood period, warm shallow seas and thriving reefs built up the limestone bedrock that lies just beneath today’s surface.

You do not need millions of years for limestone to form. We observe rapid deposition today in places like the Bahamas. During the global Flood, with enormous volumes of water saturated with calcium carbonate and teeming with marine organisms, these layers formed quickly and catastrophically. The geology of Florida matches the Bible’s timeline perfectly: waters covering the earth (Genesis 7:19-20), then receding as God sent a wind (Genesis 8:1-3; Psalm 104:6-9).

This is not slow, uniformitarian accumulation. It is the signature of the year-long global Flood that reshaped our planet and left behind the habitable world we enjoy today.

Crocodiles and Alligators: Unique Overlap and a Reminder of Eden

One of the most fascinating facts about the Everglades is that it is the only place on earth where American alligators and American crocodiles share overlapping habitats. Alligators prefer fresher water, while crocodiles tolerate saltier conditions. Only in the brackish transition zones here do their ranges meet. This is another beautiful example of God’s design for biodiversity in a post-Flood world.

Alligators are often viewed as fierce predators, and they certainly can be. Yet they are also opportunistic feeders that consume vegetation. They have been documented eating watermelons, elderberries, wild grapes, and other fruits. This retained ability to digest plant material echoes the original created order.

In Genesis 1:29-30, God gave every green plant for food to both man and animals. Everything was vegetarian in the perfect Garden of Eden. After the Fall and especially after the Flood, many creatures became carnivorous as the world changed. But alligators still enjoy a slice of watermelon now and then. This is a living reminder of Eden in our post-Flood reality. One day, in the restored creation, the wolf will lie down with the lamb and all will return to harmony under the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 11:6-9).

A Call to See Clearly and Hope in Christ

As our airboat glided back to the dock in 2020, I was filled with gratitude. The Everglades is more than a beautiful wilderness. It is evidence of a powerful, loving Creator who designed adaptable creatures, judged the world with a global Flood exactly as recorded in Scripture, and offers hope through Jesus Christ.

The same God who covered the earth with water and then caused it to recede is the God who sent His Son to be our Ark of salvation. The judgment is real, but so is the mercy. God keeps His promises.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” (Psalm 24:1)

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