“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding”. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?” (Job 38:4-5). This is a question God asks man. The knowledge of man is nothing before the infinite wisdom of God. Yet man believes science more than God! They would gladly accept anything attested by science. But when we say that greater truths about this universe were revealed to us through Scriptures long before science even started to think of them, it raises many eyebrows.
The structure of the core of the earth was unknown to science till very recently. Now we know that it is a place where metals (mainly iron and nickel) are boiling at a temperature above 5000 degree celsius. But it is written in the Bible some two thousand five hundred years ago about what the core of the earth would look like; ‘As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire’ (Job 28:5).
We read in Job 26:7 that ‘God stretches out Zaphon over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.’ Scientists discovered after two millennia that the earth is orbiting around the sun without any external support and that it stands in space because of its gravitational pull.
Ptolemy estimated that the total number of stars in the sky at around three thousand. It was in the second century BC. But long before it, the Bible has stated at many places that the number of stars in the sky cannot be counted by man. Genesis 15:5 says, ‘Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ Jeremiah 33:22 reads: ‘Just as the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will increase the offspring of my servant David……’ Scientists now confess that even the numbers they propose are based on assumptions only.
Similarly the fact that our earth is spherical in shape was mentioned in the books of Isaiah (8th century BC) and Job (5-7 centuries). The verse, ‘it is he who sits above the circle of the earth’ (Isa 40:22) points to earth’s spherical shape. Job 26:10 reads; ‘He has described a circle on the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness’. Here also the mention of a circle points to the fact that the object under reference (earth) was spherical in shape. Some old translations of the Bible use the words sphere or globe instead of circle.
Today we know that a nuclear winter is a real possibility that would affect us in the event of a large-scale nuclear war. It could bring the temperature down by roughly eight degrees across the globe. But it was the Holy Bible that first warned of such a scenario. It is not a mere possibility but something that must be fulfilled in future, says the Bible. ‘Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?’ (Job 38:22-23). It is interesting to note that God has preserved them for a period of trouble, battle, and war!
Job 38:18 reads: ‘Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this’. Much before man acquired some elementary idea about the vastness of the earth, the Bible has mentioned about a place called ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ that would appear at the end of time. Let us read it from the book of Revelation. ‘The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia; its length and width and height are equal’(Rev 21:16). Calculating the surface area of Heavenly Jerusalem with this measurement will definitely surprise us. It is 1% of the total surface area of earth as calculated using modern scientific methods. Again its total volume is equal to 1% of the total volume of the earth.
And the person who wrote the book of Revelation was no astronomer or scientist or philosopher, but John, an ‘uneducated and ordinary man’ ( Rev 4:13) who was spending days in exile on an island! (Rev 1:9).
We know that the celestial bodies and the objects on earth move in accordance with the same set of laws, but they do so in different ways. The Bible says it plainly. ‘Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?’ (Job 38:33). The rules of celestial bodies are different from the rules that control the movement of objects on earth, though essentially both obey the basic laws of motion.
It is difficult for us to believe that ’the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Heb 4:12). But we have no problem believing that the high frequency sound waves (remember the word ‘Word’) in ultrasound sonography could enter our body and make the images of our internal organs!
We are pretty sure that ‘before him (God) no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account (Heb 4:13). Yet we would try to hide our wrongs from him. At the same time we know that we cannot hide anything from an x-ray, or scanning machine that makes everything in our body ‘naked and laid bare’ before them.
Experiments have found out that an energy that defies explanations, goes out of the body at the time of death. The only problem is that we fail to identify it as soul!
For many, the devil is just an imaginary character. They do not believe in his real existence. They do not believe that the devil is active in this world and that his aim is to control us. But they gladly accept the theories of modern scientists who believe that there is life outside earth and that aliens more intelligent than us are trying to control us.
A time is coming when the time as we know it, would cease to exist. But many on earth do not believe it. They would laugh at Peter who wrote: ‘But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day’ (2 Peter 3:8). Yet they are comfortable with Einstein’s finding that time is relative!
It is almost certain that the earth will be destroyed by fire or extreme heat. This view is supported by science also. Our problem is that we believe it only when science confirms it. But the destiny of our earth is already prophesied in the Bible. ‘… the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed’ (2 Peter 3:10).
Hesitant to believe that God is omniscient and omnipotent but happy to accept the powers of a super computer! Nobody will dispute the fact that AI could answer all our queries! When we read in the Bible that God will reward each man according to his deeds, skeptics would ask; ‘How is it possible for God to keep a record of billions of people living on this earth? They forget that a modern chip consists of millions of transistors and they are capable of handling trillions of calculations in a second. Then is it such a big task for God to keep records of a few billion people?
Who believes that it is possible to ‘give breath to the image of a beast so that the image of the beast could even speak..?’ (Rev 13:15). But the unbelievers believe that AI is capable of making images of persons and making them speak without their real presence. They deny the existence of angels and the narrations in the Bible about angels talking to men. But they cannot deny the scientific truth that today’s holographic technology makes it possible to present pictures in the air without a tangible screen.
Then where does the real problem lie? It is the lack of faith, because it is the faith that helps us to understand the divine truths revealed in the Bible. And this faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. John 16:13 reads: ‘When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.’ For those who lack this faith ‘all these would seem to be jesting’ (Gen 19:14).
Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to enlighten our mind to understand the eternal truths revealed to us through the Holy Bible.
(www.v-catholic.com)
