The Florida Everglades

Dr Bob
Apr 30
5 min read

Updated: Aug 3

Application

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

In This Lesson

In the summer of 2020 Dr. Bob joined friends from Truth Seekers for an airboat tour through the Florida Everglades. The roar of the fan, the spray of shallow water, and the explosion of life on every side became a living classroom. Coastal ecosystems display the built-in adaptability God placed in His creatures. The limestone foundation of Florida records the year-long global Flood of Genesis 6–9. And in this unique place we even find living reminders of the original vegetarian order of Eden

https://youtu.be/7Zc0xgkUDF8

Supplemental Information

The Everglades is often called the river of grass. Water from Lake Okeechobee flows south in a broad, slow-moving sheet only inches deep across a nearly flat landscape. This shallow river supports one of the most productive ecosystems on earth. Roseate spoonbills, great blue herons, wood storks, and alligators sunning on the banks fill the scene with life. God designed these systems to be resilient.

After the Flood the world was brand new and radically different. The incredible adaptability the Creator built into every kind allowed plants and animals to thrive in a post-Flood environment of changing climates and coastlines. The plants we see (sawgrass, mangroves, and cypress) are masters of survival. Mangroves filter salt and grow in brackish zones where most trees would perish. Their specialized roots trap sediment and literally build new land. This is not random chance. It is engineering by the Master Designer who knew exactly what the planet would need after the floodwaters receded.

Genesis 1:11 records that God spoke the plants into existence on Day Three of Creation Week and declared them good. That same creative power equipped them to handle the dramatic shifts that followed the Flood. Everywhere we look we see evidence of rapid, built-in adaptation. This is exactly what we would expect from creatures that left the Ark only a few thousand years ago. Wading birds with long legs and specialized beaks, manatees that graze on aquatic vegetation, and the apple snails that sustain snail kites all display designed relationships. These interdependencies were not cobbled together over millions of years. They were prepared by a wise Creator who foresaw the challenges of the post-Flood world.

The rocks beneath the Everglades tell the true history of the global Flood. During the early stages of that catastrophic year, massive erosion and sediment transport laid down the foundational platform of the Florida Peninsula. In the later stages, while the waters were still high but beginning to calm, limestone layers accumulated across that platform as floodwaters washed over it, carrying dissolved minerals and marine organisms. After the Ark came to rest and the waters retreated, Florida was partially exposed. In the immediate post-Flood period warm, shallow seas and thriving reefs built the thick limestone layer that lies just beneath the surface today. That limestone is the very rock that makes the Everglades possible.

Limestone does not require millions of years to form. Rapid carbonate deposition is observed today in places such as the Bahamas. During the Flood, with enormous volumes of water saturated with calcium carbonate and teeming with marine life, those layers formed quickly and catastrophically. The geology of Florida matches the biblical timeline: waters covering the high mountains under the entire heavens, then God causing a wind to pass over the earth so that the waters receded. This is the clear signature of the year-long global Flood that reshaped the planet and left us the habitable world we enjoy.

One of the most striking features of the Everglades is unique on earth. It is the only place where American alligators and American crocodiles live together in overlapping habitats. Alligators prefer fresher water while crocodiles tolerate saltier conditions. Only in the brackish transition zones of the Everglades do their ranges meet. This is another testimony to God’s design for biodiversity in the post-Flood world.

Alligators are often viewed solely as fierce predators, yet they are opportunistic feeders that also consume vegetation. They have been documented eating watermelons, elderberries, wild grapes, and even mangoes. They retain the ability to digest plant material. This is a living reminder of 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, but they did not lose their original design. An alligator enjoying a piece of fruit is a living echo of Eden in the middle of a post-Flood world. 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.

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.

Scripture References

Genesis 1:11 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

Genesis 1:29-30 “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 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.”

Genesis 7:19-20 “And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.”

Genesis 8:1-3 “And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.”

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”

Isaiah 11:6-9 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”