Years ago men thought the earth was held up by a great elephant, standing on the back of a huge turtle. Others thought there was a mythological god who balanced the starry sky on his shoulders. (They didn’t explain what the turtle or the god would stand on!) Scientists today laugh at those ideas, but still don’t understand how the earth, weighing six thousand million, million, million tons can “float” through space, or what keeps it in motion in its precisely kept schedules. But King Solomon knew the earth and heavens were created by the Lord God, and Job knew thousands of years ago that only God could “hang the earth upon nothing.”
Man has built airplanes that fly across the Atlantic Ocean at a speed of about 1,000 mph. But what is that compared to the speed you are traveling every moment of the day and night? Did you know that every 24 hours the earth makes a complete revolution on its axis and takes you on a 25,000 mile trip at more than 1,000 mph? Furthermore, that is only part of the journey you are on, for the earth also travels in its orbit around the sun at a speed of 66,000 mph. This makes 65 mph in a car seem rather slow, doesn’t it?
Even these figures don’t tell the whole story, for our entire galaxy of several billion stars is moving through space at 43,000 mph. Adding these figures together, we discover that at times we are racing through space at a speed of more than 100,000 mph! While we are doing this (without feeling any motion that makes us aware of such terrific speed), countless stars are passing through the heavens as well.
But, as the result of sin coming into the world, there is judgment coming when “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:1010But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10)). Thankfully, those who know Christ as Saviour will be taken from this world into the safety of heaven before this destruction takes place. It is said of Abraham and other faithful people of Bible times that they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” and that they looked for a better country - a heavenly country (Hebrews 11:13-1613These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. 15And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 16But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13‑16)). Heaven can be your place of safety too, if you will come to Christ who “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” (Hebrews 7:2525Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)).
MAY 7, 1995
ML-05/07/1995