Publisher’s Pen: No Comparison

As a 2X-size man, I’m used to “living large.” When I was in junior high, my mom would kindly describe her fun-loving middle son (me) as “big boned.” But in the big view of God’s extra-large creatures, I like knowing that I would be considered extra extra extra small.

This issue of Answers includes some very cool facts about massive modern-day animals: blue whales, African elephants, and even those odd-looking ostriches. They are the biggest of their kind, and they tend to be used as popular examples of the Creator’s handiwork.

illustration by Viktor Miller-Gausa

Dale Mason
Publisher

But just imagine what it must have been like to interact directly with the giant creatures that lived before the flood! The fossil record reveals that even today’s biggest animals don’t come close to the size of those that roamed the earth before—and, for a time, after—that unparalleled cataclysm. The pre-flood world reflected God’s perfect creation. But we know from Genesis 9 that after Noah, his family, and their divinely protected cargo departed the ark, the original relationship between man and beast changed, and “the fear of man” descended upon every animal on the earth.

Noah and his family experienced both the pre- and post-flood worlds. They had known a degree of freedom and probably enjoyed a frolicking fellowship with some of the animals that their children’s children—and all of us who have come after—have never experienced.

I can only begin to imagine the heaviness of heart that intruded the memories of the eight human survivors as they peered out upon an unrecognizable landscape at their new reality and heard God’s gentle caution: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered” (Genesis 9:2).

Animal kinds that had been created to enjoy their human caretakers would now survive in fear. And that fear would awaken a sense of their need to avoid humans and to lash out against humans if that fear became too intense. While the world today is beautiful in many ways, it is a broken and dim reflection of God’s original design.

Enjoy learning about the extra-large animals described in “Living Large” at page 44. But as you read, pause and imagine the restored relationships that the new heavens and earth will hold for all who receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior!