God’s Forgotten Promise

By Carla Estell November 2022

When Noah left the ark, God gave him the promise that He would never flood the entire world again.  This promise is used as evidence that Noah’s Flood was indeed a global flood, for there have been many local floods.  If Noah’s Flood was just a large local flood than what did God’s promise mean? God keeps his word, there will never be another global flood.

But, there is another promise which God gave to Noah that has been overlooked, forgotten. God promised Noah, as recorded in Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” In this time of paranoia over climate change, it is a promise that needs to be remembered.  We can trust God to keep his word.  God is the ultimate Sustainer and Provider. He has promised there will be cyclic seasons. Winter is His design as a cooling system for the earth that also purifies water and renews soil. 

God created winter by tilting the earth’s axis 23.5 degrees.  Without a tilt, the entire earth would receive 12 hours of sunlight followed by 12 hours of darkness every 24 hours. There would still be a temperature change depending upon the distance from the equator. The polar regions would receive angled not as intense heat from the sun and thereby stay cooler while the equator would receive direct, overhead, light and heat. It would be a gradient change without any extreme variations so there would be no storms, strong wind, or snow. The equator would constantly be hot during the day and cool off at night while the poles would be  cool but not freezing.

But, with the tilt one pole is in total darkness, while the other has total sunlight on a six month rotating basis.  Every year both poles experience winter followed by spring and summer, just as God promised. This polar summer sunlight however is angled, not directly overhead. But, it is constant without the cooling effect of night so the heat gradually builds and most of the ice and snow which accumulated over winter, melts by late summer.

Greenland, arctic sea ice, and Antarctica are the exceptions. Here the snow and ice accumulates. Although there is some melting during the summer as would be expected, most of it remains through the summer only to be added to the following winter.  Eight WWII planes, which made an emergency landing in Greenland in July 1942, testify to just how quickly the ice can accumulate.  50 years later the planes were found buried under 260 feet of ice. Interesting fact, the 260 feet of ice consisted of thin layers. So in just 50 years, 260 feet of Ice accumulated, but due to the layering it appear as if accumulation took place over thousands of years not just 50.

Another interesting fact, concerns a world map discovered in a Turkish palace in 1929. Drawn on gazelle skin and dated 1513, it shows the shoreline of Antarctica with detailed accuracy; a shoreline that today is hidden by ice. The map is the work of Piri Reis, a cartographer and admiral in the Turkish army. On the map he documented the 20 earlier maps he had used when making this compilation. It would appear that since the Flood, the ice on Antarctica has slowly accumulated until today the entire continent is buried under seven million cubic miles of ice.

But, there is no need to worry about melting ice causing the oceans to rise and earth’s coastline to flood. God has promised winter will follow summer. While ice melts at one pole, water freezes at the other. There is a balance in nature, because God put it there.