The Heavens Declare the Glory of God
October 27, 2022
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (Psalm 191-6).
The starry universe and the firmament of earth are continually praising God by declaring His infinite power and wisdom and love for man. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the preeminent scientists of all times, observed, “This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” Newton studied the Bible with as much zeal as he studied science, and he saw no conflict between the two.
The stars are suns that God made on the fourth day of creation (“he made the stars also, Ge. 1:16). Our sun is only one of an estimated 100 billion of them in our Milky Way galaxy. By means of space telescopes, scientists estimate there are 400 billion galaxies, which, assuming each galaxy has 100 billion stars, would mean there are 40 billion trillion of them. Each star produces light and energy by means of nuclear reaction and is in a precise revolution that God designed. How God is to be praised for His great power and wisdom in making the heavens!
Consider the sun, which is the focus of Psalm 19 (“In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,” Ps. 19:4). Modern science is gaining a massive amount of new information about the sun through space probes. In December 2021, NASA’s spaceship Parker actually flew through the Sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, sampling particles and taking complex measurements. Though the research is largely interpreted through the lens of evolution, because of man’s rebellion to God, the scientific facts themselves refute evolution and point to intelligent design at an infinite level. The sun is a massive nuclear reactor that converts hydrogen into helium and provides, heat, energy, and gravity for our solar system. It is nearly a perfect sphere that would hold about a million earths. Its surface temperature is about 5,500 degrees Celsius (10,000 degrees F), and the interior temperature is about 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees F). “It has a diameter of 864,000 miles, but it is all gas. Two billion billion billion tons of gas. Over every square inch of the core there presses down a crushing weight of a million million pounds of matter. The only thing that keeps the sun’s core from collapsing is energy, inconceivable floods of energy that raise the sun’s internal temperature to twenty-five million degrees Fahrenheit. Consuming 657 million tons of hydrogen each second, the sun can still go on burning for another fifty billion years” (John Phillips). For life on earth, the sun is the right size, the right orbit, the right stability, and the right distance from the earth; it has the right amount of energy and gravity and magnetism; it is the right temperature; it emits the right type of radiation and visible light. “It produces 386 billion, billion megawatts of energy each second or 6.4 billion Horse Power (HP). However, of all that energy moving out into space, the earth captures only a small percentage of it (0.0000000462 of 1 percent). But this very tiny percentage, no more and no less, is ‘somehow’ exactly the right amount the earth needs to maintain the average temperatures that support all forms of life” (“The Young Sun,” creationstudies.org). “[The sun] is actually an ideal size to support life on earth. There would be little point in having a red supergiant star like Betelgeuse, because it is so huge that it would engulf all the inner planets! Nor would we want a star like the blue-white supergiant Rigel, 25,000 times as bright as the sun, and emitting too much high-frequency radiation. Conversely, a star much smaller than our sun would be too faint to support life” (“The Sun: Our Special Star,” creation.com). There is perfect harmony between the sun and the earth for the maintenance of life. “A related example of the unbelievable sun-earth harmony is the process of photosynthesis in green plants. Life on our planet depends on vegetation and the O2/CO2 cycle (animals breathe oxygen/plants ‘breathe’ carbon dioxide) for its existence. ‘Surprisingly,’ the sun contains the specific radiation wavelength needed to activate photosynthesis! The sun also provides the necessary amount of energy to evaporate water and keep the hydrological cycle operating, along with many other life cycles, so that resources that living organisms need are continually renewed. It has been said that the earth has the perfect surface to support life, but without the sun’s delicate interaction, it would be void and desolate. One can only logically conclude that the sun-earth relationship is the work of an amazingly wise and loving Creator” (“The Young Sun,” creationstudies.org).
Consider the size of the heavens. The heaven is immeasurable even with modern technology. Our Milky Way galaxy is is 100,000 light years across. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year (186,000 miles per second). The distance of one light year is about 6 trillion miles. Traveling at 18,000 miles per hour, which was the speed of the Space Shuttle, it would take 37,000 years to travel just one light year, so to travel across our galaxy would take about 37,000,000,000 years. Our sun is one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy. The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way is Andromeda, which is 2.2 million light years away. Modern science estimates that the currently observable universe is at least 93 billion light years across. Using the Hubble telescope and the European Space Agency’s infrared space observatory and other high-tech equipment, astronomers have estimated that there are 400 billion galaxies. Assuming there are 100 billion stars in each (the estimated number in our own galaxy), that would be 40 billion trillion stars. But this is only a vague estimate, as man, even with his vaunted modern science, cannot count the individual stars of the universe, even the “near universe.”
Consider the complexity of the heavens. The movement of the stars and planets and other celestial bodies is incredibly precise. The study of this is called astrometry. With modern technology, man has mapped the movement of over one billion stellar objects (the USNO-BI.0 catalog). These include the movement of the sun and its planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) in our small part of the galaxy, which is called our solar system. Our Milky Way galaxy itself is moving (22,320 miles per hour) and everything within it is moving; our sun is moving in an elliptical revolution around the center of the galaxy (at 514,000 miles per hour); the planets are moving around the sun at various speeds (the earth, at 66,660 miles per hour); moons are moving around planets. The precision of the celestial bodies is called “clock like,” and it is a precision before which man can only stand amazed. We set earth’s calendars and clocks to God’s heavenly clock. The Hubble Space Telescope has examined the precision of the heavens to a new degree of accuracy. “If we imagine a human on the moon, Hubble’s precision would allow us to determine the speed at which the person’s hair grows” (Roeland van der Marel, Space Telescope Science Institute, “Hubble Measures Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud,” NASA, Feb. 18, 2014). The precision of God’s universe is measured by atomic clocks. In 2019, the most accurate was a clock operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, and it is accurate to one second in 33 billion years. That is man’s witness to the complex precision of God’s universe.
Consider the energy of the heavens. “Every star, every galaxy, every burning orb in space, is an object lesson in sheer physical energy. Take our sun, for instance, a ball of fire that astronomers classify as a moderate star, neither small nor large on the stellar scale. It has a diameter of 864,000 miles, but it is all gas. Two billion billion billion tons of gas. Over every square inch of the core there presses down a crushing weight of a million million pounds of matter. The only thing that keeps the sun’s core from collapsing is energy, inconceivable floods of energy that raise the sun’s internal temperature to twenty-five million degrees Fahrenheit. Consuming 657 million tons of hydrogen each second, the sun can still go on burning for another fifty billion years. And that’s just one moderate star. The amount of energy being put out by all the suns and stars of space is beyond human computation” (John Phillips). The incomputable energy of the universe was charged from God’s infinite power!
The starry universe and the firmament of earth are continually praising God by declaring His infinite power and wisdom and love for man. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the preeminent scientists of all times, observed, “This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” Newton studied the Bible with as much zeal as he studied science, and he saw no conflict between the two.
The stars are suns that God made on the fourth day of creation (“he made the stars also, Ge. 1:16). Our sun is only one of an estimated 100 billion of them in our Milky Way galaxy. By means of space telescopes, scientists estimate there are 400 billion galaxies, which, assuming each galaxy has 100 billion stars, would mean there are 40 billion trillion of them. Each star produces light and energy by means of nuclear reaction and is in a precise revolution that God designed. How God is to be praised for His great power and wisdom in making the heavens!
Consider the sun, which is the focus of Psalm 19 (“In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,” Ps. 19:4). Modern science is gaining a massive amount of new information about the sun through space probes. In December 2021, NASA’s spaceship Parker actually flew through the Sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, sampling particles and taking complex measurements. Though the research is largely interpreted through the lens of evolution, because of man’s rebellion to God, the scientific facts themselves refute evolution and point to intelligent design at an infinite level. The sun is a massive nuclear reactor that converts hydrogen into helium and provides, heat, energy, and gravity for our solar system. It is nearly a perfect sphere that would hold about a million earths. Its surface temperature is about 5,500 degrees Celsius (10,000 degrees F), and the interior temperature is about 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees F). “It has a diameter of 864,000 miles, but it is all gas. Two billion billion billion tons of gas. Over every square inch of the core there presses down a crushing weight of a million million pounds of matter. The only thing that keeps the sun’s core from collapsing is energy, inconceivable floods of energy that raise the sun’s internal temperature to twenty-five million degrees Fahrenheit. Consuming 657 million tons of hydrogen each second, the sun can still go on burning for another fifty billion years” (John Phillips). For life on earth, the sun is the right size, the right orbit, the right stability, and the right distance from the earth; it has the right amount of energy and gravity and magnetism; it is the right temperature; it emits the right type of radiation and visible light. “It produces 386 billion, billion megawatts of energy each second or 6.4 billion Horse Power (HP). However, of all that energy moving out into space, the earth captures only a small percentage of it (0.0000000462 of 1 percent). But this very tiny percentage, no more and no less, is ‘somehow’ exactly the right amount the earth needs to maintain the average temperatures that support all forms of life” (“The Young Sun,” creationstudies.org). “[The sun] is actually an ideal size to support life on earth. There would be little point in having a red supergiant star like Betelgeuse, because it is so huge that it would engulf all the inner planets! Nor would we want a star like the blue-white supergiant Rigel, 25,000 times as bright as the sun, and emitting too much high-frequency radiation. Conversely, a star much smaller than our sun would be too faint to support life” (“The Sun: Our Special Star,” creation.com). There is perfect harmony between the sun and the earth for the maintenance of life. “A related example of the unbelievable sun-earth harmony is the process of photosynthesis in green plants. Life on our planet depends on vegetation and the O2/CO2 cycle (animals breathe oxygen/plants ‘breathe’ carbon dioxide) for its existence. ‘Surprisingly,’ the sun contains the specific radiation wavelength needed to activate photosynthesis! The sun also provides the necessary amount of energy to evaporate water and keep the hydrological cycle operating, along with many other life cycles, so that resources that living organisms need are continually renewed. It has been said that the earth has the perfect surface to support life, but without the sun’s delicate interaction, it would be void and desolate. One can only logically conclude that the sun-earth relationship is the work of an amazingly wise and loving Creator” (“The Young Sun,” creationstudies.org).
Consider the size of the heavens. The heaven is immeasurable even with modern technology. Our Milky Way galaxy is is 100,000 light years across. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year (186,000 miles per second). The distance of one light year is about 6 trillion miles. Traveling at 18,000 miles per hour, which was the speed of the Space Shuttle, it would take 37,000 years to travel just one light year, so to travel across our galaxy would take about 37,000,000,000 years. Our sun is one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy. The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way is Andromeda, which is 2.2 million light years away. Modern science estimates that the currently observable universe is at least 93 billion light years across. Using the Hubble telescope and the European Space Agency’s infrared space observatory and other high-tech equipment, astronomers have estimated that there are 400 billion galaxies. Assuming there are 100 billion stars in each (the estimated number in our own galaxy), that would be 40 billion trillion stars. But this is only a vague estimate, as man, even with his vaunted modern science, cannot count the individual stars of the universe, even the “near universe.”
Consider the complexity of the heavens. The movement of the stars and planets and other celestial bodies is incredibly precise. The study of this is called astrometry. With modern technology, man has mapped the movement of over one billion stellar objects (the USNO-BI.0 catalog). These include the movement of the sun and its planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) in our small part of the galaxy, which is called our solar system. Our Milky Way galaxy itself is moving (22,320 miles per hour) and everything within it is moving; our sun is moving in an elliptical revolution around the center of the galaxy (at 514,000 miles per hour); the planets are moving around the sun at various speeds (the earth, at 66,660 miles per hour); moons are moving around planets. The precision of the celestial bodies is called “clock like,” and it is a precision before which man can only stand amazed. We set earth’s calendars and clocks to God’s heavenly clock. The Hubble Space Telescope has examined the precision of the heavens to a new degree of accuracy. “If we imagine a human on the moon, Hubble’s precision would allow us to determine the speed at which the person’s hair grows” (Roeland van der Marel, Space Telescope Science Institute, “Hubble Measures Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud,” NASA, Feb. 18, 2014). The precision of God’s universe is measured by atomic clocks. In 2019, the most accurate was a clock operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, and it is accurate to one second in 33 billion years. That is man’s witness to the complex precision of God’s universe.
Consider the energy of the heavens. “Every star, every galaxy, every burning orb in space, is an object lesson in sheer physical energy. Take our sun, for instance, a ball of fire that astronomers classify as a moderate star, neither small nor large on the stellar scale. It has a diameter of 864,000 miles, but it is all gas. Two billion billion billion tons of gas. Over every square inch of the core there presses down a crushing weight of a million million pounds of matter. The only thing that keeps the sun’s core from collapsing is energy, inconceivable floods of energy that raise the sun’s internal temperature to twenty-five million degrees Fahrenheit. Consuming 657 million tons of hydrogen each second, the sun can still go on burning for another fifty billion years. And that’s just one moderate star. The amount of energy being put out by all the suns and stars of space is beyond human computation” (John Phillips). The incomputable energy of the universe was charged from God’s infinite power!
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