Once
Everybody must get stoned?
The latest, greatest scientific brouhaha to hit the news inevitably makes me shake my head in wonder as I flash yet another Cheshire grin. Why do I vacillate between disgust and amusement? Because it’s all once and future news to me. Here’s why.
The world was once abuzz that the shocking news that the earth was indeed round, not flat. Of course, any sailor who ever sailed over a horizon could have told them that. Still, modern day skeptics, save for those diehard members of the Flat Earth Society, claim that the Bible teaches that the Earth is indeed flat and use this misinformation to snidely dismiss God’s Word.
Actually, in 760 BC, long before man got a bird’s eye view of our planet, the Bible said, in Isaiah 40:22, “He (God) sits enthroned above the circle [also translatable as "vaulted arch, or sphere"] of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers.” And in the Book of Job, considered by many scholars to be the first book of the Bible ever written, states in Job 26:10, “He marks out a circle on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.” Any first year geometry student can decipher this word problem. The earth is a circle!
Consider this nautical wonder. There are paths through the seas that were discovered by a man named Fontaine Maury. Actually, he derived his novel idea not from the scientific method, but from a Bible passage, Psalm 8:8 specifically, which speaks of, “The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.” Sure enough, the maritime community was both amazed and revolutionized by his discovery. Maury figured that if the Bible said they were there, then these “paths through the seas” must exist!
How about some astrophysics gleaned from Job 26:7? “He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing” Whew! So how did Job know 3000 years ago that there is really a place in the North where no stars exist? Such knowledge could not be discerned by the naked eye.
To further press the point, the same verse declares that the earth is hung on “nothing.” Viewing our planet from space, it’s a good description. How did Job know that our planet was held in place by an unseen force, namely gravitation? Ancient Greeks believed the earth rested on the shoulders of a giant named Atlas. Duh! So why does faulty Greek thinking permeate modern society while the Hebrew prophets are scorned?
One of the darlings of modern physics is the belief in a Unified Field Theory - the idea that states there is actually only one comprehensive force that makes all things work, that holds all things together. Can you believe the Bible delivered this understanding with a preemptive strike over 2000 years ago? Hebrews 1:3 speaks of Jesus who is said to be, “Upholding all things by the word of His power!”
Need more proof? Consider the Hydrologic Cycle. The Bible gives a great definition of these global air movements and water cycles in Ecclesiastes 1:6-7. “The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” It wasn’t until modern times that science confirmed this amazing description of hydrology to be accurate.
How about some future news? According to many nervous scientists, there is an asteroid headed towards earth, which is expected to arrive in October 2028. Designated 1997 XF11, it is reported to be about a mile in width. If it hits the water, tsunamis of unspeakable size will wipe out coastal cities with one smashing belly flop! If it hits land, it would unleash the power of a couple million atomic bombs. It’s going to come very close to earth.
One modern theory of the month states that it was an asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. Some people believe that a family of plesiosaurus survived the ancient past as it living the high life in Loch Ness in Scotland. Well, if 1977 XF11 hits the earth, this time all dinosaurs will be extinct, along with pretty much everything else. Of course, if is misses, there are still 109 other potentially dangerous asteroids, at least ones that we know of, being tracked.
Not surprisingly, the Bible does indeed speak of a future asteroid strike coming to planet earth! Revelation 8:10-12, “Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.”
I would like to think of this prophetic scenario as not David verses Goliath, but the Jesus, the greater Son of David verses the real Goliath, the devil. One hurled stone was all it took to take the first giant down, so why not a second?
May I live to the see the day when CNN is first referencing the Bible to see what is coming next! It’s all just once and future news anyway. In the words of the late geologist Louis Agassiz (1807 - 1873), “Every scientific truth goes through three states: first, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it.”
Bryan Hupperts © 2002 -2009
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SheepTrax Xpress: It’s not the News, It’s the Truth!
