The universe
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
When Jesus was born, God drew shepherds and wise men to His birthplace through a spectacular star set in the night sky.
Though that was a one-of-a-kind moment in time, the vast majesty of the universe still “shows off” his glory and points people to God.
The expanse of God’s creativity in the universe defies human imagination.
Louie Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta and co-author of the book, “Indescribable,” said, “If we were to count stars in the Milky Way, one star per second, it
would take 2,500 years to count all the stars in our galaxy alone.”
And there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the known universe.
Just as the heavens declare the glory of God, his significance and greatness, the Bible teaches that this magnificent Creator God knows us, loves us and invites us into
a relationship with Him that will never end.
Though we are a speck in a vast universe, we are significant to Him.
Southeast member Randy Baker, a meteorologist who has studied the universe, sees God’s hand in its precision.
“We can now measure to a precision of 1 part in 10 to the 23rd power (1 followed by 23 zeroes) with a gravity wave telescope,” he said. “Some of the fine-tuning in the
universe indicates a precision of 1 part in 10 to the 60th power. That’s engineering at least 10 trillion trillion trillion times more precise than anything a human engineer
has devised.”
Physicist Hugh Ross, founder of a ministry devoted to integrating faith and science, has identified more than 90 characteristics of the universe that must be precisely
balanced for life to exist (www.reasons.org/fine-tuning-life-universe-aug-2006).
Even some scientists who don’t believe in God admit that the design of the universe points to a Creator.
In a Physics Today interview, Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, put it this way: “The statistical probability that organic structure and the most precisely
harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident is zero.”
In “Life, the Universe and Everything,” Dr. Paul Davies, an author and professor of theoretical physics at The University of Adelaide, said, “The really amazing thing is not
that life on Earth is balanced on a knife edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural constants were off
even slightly.”
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a self-proclaimed atheist, said in his book “A Brief History in Time,” “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should
have begun this way, except as an act of God who intended to create beings like us.”
Giglio said the precision of the universe points to a masterpiece, but it also points to a message.
“While it’s stunning that we can glimpse a solar burst some 13 billion light-years away, it’s far more incredible that the One who fashioned that star and our own galaxy,
and everything seen and unseen through the universe, would step onto planet Earth on a rescue mission that defies odds. They are the exquisite proclamation of an
unfathomable God. As we lift our eyes, these wonders light up our hearts and pour fuel on the fire of our praise. Every worshiper, indeed, every soul, needs time to simply
stop and consider.”
The universe is vast.
On a clear night, you can see about 2,000 stars, but that’s only a small fraction of our vast universe. In 2003, researchers at Australian National University estimated that
there are about 1,000 sextillion stars in the universe.
Researchers have estimated that there are 1 billion galaxies in the universe.
The universe is precise.
The Earth is located at exactly the right distance from the sun to get the right amount of heat and radiation. If the earth were closer than 93 million miles from the sun,
humans could not survive the heat or atmospheric pressure. If the earth were positioned 10 percent closer to the sun (about 10 million miles), there would be too much
radiation and heat. If the earth were 10 percent further away from the sun, there would be too little heat. Either scenario would end life on Earth.
The ozone layer, which is located some 12 to 18 miles above the earth’s surface, filters out most of the ultraviolet rays from the sun that would be harmful or fatal in larger
amounts.
The sun is the center of our solar system.
The sun is a raging ball of fire, a powerful star that rotates on its axis about once every 26 days.
According to published research, the sun converts 4.7 million tons of matter into energy every single second, and has an interior temperature of more than 15.7 million
degrees Celsius. To put that in perspective, in the book “The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty,” K.C. Cole writes that “A pinhead heated to the temperature of the center of
the sun would kill anyone who ventured within a thousand miles of it.” Yet it is set in the universe in a specific place that supports life on Earth.
The Earth’s orbit and speed are perfect.
The Earth rotates on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator and moves around the sun at 70,000 miles per hour (approximately 19 miles per second), while the
sun moves through space at a speed of 600,000 miles per hour. The sun’s orbit is so large it would take more than 1.2 billion years just to complete one time. The
Earth’s rotation gives us day and night, and if the earth turned slower, the days and nights would be too hot or cold to sustain life.
The earth completes its orbit roughly once every 365.25 days, or once a year. This orbit, along with the fact that the earth is tilted on its axis, gives us seasons.
As the earth moves in its orbit around the sun, it deviates from a straight line by 1/9 of an inch every 18 miles. According to a Science Digest report, if the earth moved 1/8
of an inch, we would come so close to the sun that we would be incinerated. If it departed by 1/10 of an inch, we would find ourselves so far from the sun that we would
freeze to death.
The earth is tilted on its axis at exactly 23.5 degrees. If it were not tilted, there would be no seasons, the tropics would be hotter and the deserts would get bigger. If the
Earth were tilted 90 degrees, much of the earth would switch between very cold winters and very hot summers.
The moon is the perfect size and is set in the perfect place in the sky.
The Earth is set in space some 240,000 miles from the moon. The size and distance of the moon is just right. If the moon were significantly closer to the Earth, the tides
would be so enormous that they would reach 35 to 50 feet over most of the earth.