Although the Bible is
not a science textbook, the science expressed in the text is remarkable. Today,
we begin to examine some of the scientific proof of the trustworthiness of
Scripture.
The Bible deals with Astronomy.
He stretches out
the north over empty space;
He hangs the earth
on nothing. (Job 26:7)
When
Job wrote those words, the learned believed the world was held up by
something. Ancient Greeks believed the
world rested on Atlas’ shoulders. The
Hindus taught that earth is on the back of a giant elephant and the elephant
stands on a gigantic turtle who swims in a cosmic ocean. Yet, Job gives an answer in accordance with
scientific fact. The earth rests on nothing!
You say
you have the answer: gravity holds the earth in its orbit. Well, what exactly is gravity and where does
it come from? We know what it does, but
not really what it is! It is a force, a
power. I can explain it this way: Jesus,
“who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and
upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb.1:3). The Lord has decreed it so, and so it is!
Jeremiah
tells us that the rising and setting of the sun, and the ebb and flow of the
tides, are fixed by the Creator—sunrise and sunset according to the tilt and
rotation of the earth, and high and low tide according to the gravitational forces
exerted by the Moon and Sun and earth’s rotation.
Thus says the
Lord,
Who gives the sun
for a light by day,
The ordinances of
the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the
sea,
And its waves roar
(The Lord of hosts
is His name):
“If those
ordinances depart
From before Me,
says the Lord,
Then the seed of
Israel shall also cease
From being a
nation before Me forever.” (Jer.31:35-36)
God
assures Israel of the faithfulness of His covenant promises with them by illustrating
with the faithfulness of His covenant with creation. Thus, we can calculate the precise time the
sun peeks over the horizon in the morning and when it slips beneath it at
night. Should you go to the beach this
summer on vacation, you can look up in advance when high tide and low tide are
reached. The prophet knew this
scientific fact, ordained by God.
Jeremiah
also points to the innumerable stars and sands to illustrate God’s intended
blessing on David’s descendants. "As the host of heaven cannot be numbered,
nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the descendants of David
My servant and the Levites who minister to Me." (33:26)
Have
you tried to count them? At first, men
could only see them with the naked eye and it was an impressive number, then
telescopes came along and we discovered more stars, now with space telescopes
we see even more. God knew they were
there all along. He even has a name for each one (just as He knows the location
of every grain of sand, and their total number)!
Here is what modern science says,
"In a typical
galaxy, if you measure its mass by looking at the rotation curve, about 90
percent of that is dark matter," David Kornreich, an assistant professor
at Ithaca College in New York, previously told Space.com.
Multiplying the
number of galaxies — which is about 2 trillion — by the 100 million stars in
the galaxy suggests there could be about 10 raised to the19th power stars in
the universe, Conselice says.
"But this
could easily be a factor of 10 higher," Conselice said.
In
other words—with all our technology and computing power—we don’t know!
We have discovered there is a great difference in the size and light from the stars—that they
differ one from another. The Apostle
Paul wrote about that in the first century, “There is one glory of the sun,
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.” (1
Cor.15:41).
In further
lessons, we will see what the Bible says about biology, geology, hydrology,
meteorology, paleontology, and physics. What
an amazing Book—the Bible!
