We say the sun is rising and setting, but is this really correct? It wasn’t so far back in history when people thought the world was flat, and they were afraid to go in boats on the ocean for fear they would fall off the edge! Many thought the earth was the center of the universe and that all the stars, including the sun, traveled around it.
Now we know the earth is round, and by its revolving every 24 hours, the sun comes into view in the morning and disappears at night. Actually, it isn’t sunrise and sunset after all, but what might be more accurate would be “earthrise” and “earthset.” We also now know that the earth is not the center of everything but just a speck in God’s universe.
Perhaps you have thought that the stars only “come out” at night. Actually they are there day and night and don’t actually “come out.” Of course, we only see them at night when the brightness of the sun and city lights are gone and when there are no clouds to block the view.
When looking into a starry sky, you might think that they are very close together. Yet, astronomers know that most of them are trillions of miles apart. No one but the Creator knows the actual number of stars, but it is estimated there are more than 100 sextillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)! Man’s mind cannot begin to understand such numbers, but the Bible tells us, “He [the Lord] telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names” (Psalm 147:44He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. (Psalm 147:4)). Compared to the billions of stars, our earth is very small. The diameter of the sun is 100 times greater than the earth, and yet one of the really great stars, Antares, is 330 times larger than the sun! It is so huge that, if it were hollow, most of our solar system could orbit inside Antares! The sun is the nearest star to us—93 million miles away. The next nearest is Proxima Centauri, 25 trillion miles away. If you could travel 1000 miles per second, it would take 790 years to reach Proxima Centauri.
Yet, in spite of our smallness in God’s vast universe, it was on this planet that we call Earth, and in no other place, that He placed man and other forms of life. And it was to this world, when men rebelled against their Creator, that God sent His beloved Son to die on Calvary’s cross. There He was punished for the sins of those who would accept Him as their Saviour. Now, because of what He has done, those who know Him as their Saviour have forgiveness for their sins and the wonderful gift of everlasting life in the splendor of heaven.
ML-02/24/2013