FOUNTAINS OF THE DEEP

(Part 3 - End) The vast oceans of water beneath the Earth’s crust is precisely what the Bible describes in the first book of Genesis. In fact, prior to the flood of Noah’s day, it had never rained. The waters from the fountains of the deep, the water reservoirs beneath the Earth’s crust provided water: "And no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground."(Genesis 2:5-6)

This was the state of the Earth until the days of the flood judgment. And it would be two-fold: water came from the sky in torrential rain, and from the ground, as The Lord caused the huge oceans of subterranean water to burst forth and shoot onto the surface. "And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the sixth hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month - on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened". (Genesis 7:10-11)

At the end of the flood, the Bible again accounts for the fountains of the deep being ‘stopped’ and the water returning back into the ground: "But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and He sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seven month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible". (Genesis 8:1-5)

When The Lord gave the Ten Commandments to Moses he also referenced this underground water source: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." (Exodus 20:4)

The Israelites had just come from Egypt, a land of many idols and gods. Because each god represented a different aspect of life, it was common to worship many gods in order to get the maximum number of blessings. When God told His people to worship and believe in Him, that wasn't so hard for them - He was just one more god to add to the list. But when He said, 'You shall have no other gods before me,' that was difficult for the people to accept. But if they didn't learn that the God who led them out of Egypt was the only true God, they could not be His people - no matter how faithfully they kept the other nine commandments. Thus, God made this His first commandment.Today we allow many things to become gods to us. Money, fame, work or pleasure can become gods when we concentrate too much on them for personal identity, meaning and security. While it is true that no one sets out with the intention of worshiping these things, but by the amount of time we devote to them, they can grow into gods that ultimately control our thoughts and energies.