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What is happening in outer space?
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12/24/2008 5:24:21 PM
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Obsession with Outer Space
"Space, the final frontier!" While our fascination with space and the possibility of life on other planets began to take center stage back in the early 1050s, the ultimate obsession was started in the mid 1960s with the TV series Star Trek. This 80 episode TV series was produced from 1966 to 1969 and made captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy (Bones) familiar household terms. Even now, over 40 years later, kids still no who these folks were and what their mission was: "a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!"
Star Trek was created and aired in a period of time that was ripe with fascination about outer space. Nasa had started its
Apollo missions with the intent of landing a man on the moon. Hollywood was producing many new TV and movies shows about alien life and invaders from space.
Since that time, new technologies had increased this fascination via the advent of video games. While the first space video games were crude in graphical capabilities, games like Asteroids, Space Invaders and
Galaga help make video games a multimillion dollar industry. As technologies increased, so did the capabilities of video game player and the resulting video games industry took a bite out of the world's economy! By the year of the 2005, the video game industry sold a whopping $29 billion worth of game systems and software in just that year alone! Welcome to the 21st century! While not all of these games were space or alien related, a vast percentage of them were. (read more)
During the same generation, the movie companies were not to be out done! Movies released followed the same financial growth along with technological advances in graphics display and movie making! The first movies were the making of Star Trek into a movie series and the largest blockbuster series ever made: Star Wars! Additionally other great money making movies came on the scene such as the Alien series and Krul as well as comedies such as Mars Attacks, and Invasion of the Man Eating Tomatoes. Their was even one such movie that bridged the gap between pre 1950's horror movies and the new space invaders scenario. It brought the old Bella Lugosi favorite of Dracula into the the new space age format with the release of "Lifeforce". Basically, it was a "Dracula was from outer space" theory!
In the end of the 20th century, moviegoers' taste started to change to space tragedy movies not related to aliens. The biggest blockbuster of this type was Armageddon but there were others as well such as Asteroid. Armageddon alone had a total worldwide gross income of $553,709,788! (read more)
So why so much preoccupation with the universe? I will not even take time to discus how many people are obsessed with astrology. Maybe I will deal with that in a separate blog some time. But to why people are preoccupied with space and what is in it, the answer is simple! It is part of our human nature to investigate the world around us. And as that world gets ever smaller and frontiers are no longer unknown to us, we turn to the mega large and the mega small. Our hunger for more has let to many new discoveries into sub-atomic particles. We are always seeking for new information about what really goes on in the nucleus of an atom. Contrasted to that, we have a vast universe outside our planet. A universe full of questions and we thrive on the unknown! We are constantly expanding our knowledge of stars, galaxies, black holes, quasars and the like. And this curiosity is nothing new. Many past cultures and civilization have wondered about the night sky, planned their life's around astrological events and even worshiped celestial objects for millennium. And now that hunger for knowledge of things in space is greater than ever before. Could it be that we are programmed to seek out signs in the sky?
What the Bible says about Outer Space!
Throughout the life of mankind as recorded in the bible, God has used the heavens as giganuate billboard to inform us of the validity of His messages through the prophets of old. The bible records major astrological events such as the stopping of the earth's rotation, the tilting of the earth 15 degrees out of alignment of true north, and a comet or supernova to herald the birth of the Christ child. But God has reserved most of His messages in space for the generation of the last days! Let's look at these verses as they related to His messages both in the past and in the future.
Deuteronomy 4:19
And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.
Here God delivered His commandments to the nation of Israel through Moses shortly after delivering them from enslavery to Egypt. Moses had just delivered the Ten Commandments and now he is delivering the laws they are to live by as they go on to form a new country in the promised land: the country of Israel! Moses tells them in this setting to be very careful NOT to misunderstand the stars in the heavens. They are not gods nor I they to be worshiped as such. Instead, God makes it clear that they are a perpetual gift to mankind throughout the coming ages: "your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage". They new well that, in the beginning, God had created these celestial objects as a stage for His crowning creation: mankind.
Joshua 10:12-14
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
Joshua was chosen to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. But there was a big problem, or so it seemed, as the land was inhabited by kingdoms with well trained, and enormous in size, solders, and they had no intention of leaving their land! Joshua was leading the Jews into battle against these kings when word comes to him from one of his encampment that they were under attack. Apparently, "the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon" had united and were attacking. This was the biggest and most dangerous resistance to the children of Israel as they attempted to capture the land for their own. But God had planned this war and it was His will that the Jews win this war. (See Joshua 10:5)
God aided Joshua's army by slaying most of the enemy with giant hailstones which He threw down from heaven. While this could be explained as a natural phenomena, the next intervention of the Lord was nothing but miraculous! He literally stopped the earth from turning and in effect, the sun did not set and the moon did not rise for an entire day! Here is the first major astrological sign (miracle) that God used in dealing with mankind.
Isaiah 38:1-8
In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, and said, Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, Go and tell Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. And this is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken: 8 Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.
In this setting, God performs another astrological miracle by turning back time on a prophet's clock! At first glance, it appears that God is being cruel to His faithful servant Hezekiah. But actually God was using this event to first, warn him that he was dying in his present condition, then to inform him that not only would God heal his aliment by putting it into recession, but would also extend his life another 15 years! Hezekiah may not have believed that without a sign due to his sickness, or God may just wanted to display His Lordship over celestial objects, either way God turned back the earth from its normal rotation. It is this writer's belief that this is when the earth was tilted 15 degrees off its normal north - south alignment!
Luke 21:24-26
And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; mens hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Here we have Jesus answering the disciple's question of what will be the signs of His Return. This teaching is in (3) of the gospels of the New Testament. Jesus gave this topic allot of attention! You can read more about His teaching on the last days from these references: Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21
Revelation 13:11-15
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
While these verses tend to be a source of confusion for many people, they are easy to understand if you take them literally and try not to read things into them is is not there. Basically, this chapter talks about the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ will be a world leader who will gain control of the entire earth. He is pictured as a conqueror like Alexander the Great but he will be much larger in power and prestige in the Last Days. And, like most past world empires, will start his own religion. The person eluded to in these verses is that religious leader - the False Prophet! He will serve in capacity as a pope like leader of this new religion. Here we see that even he is granted power to, "performs great signs" such as "mak[ing] fire come down from heaven on the earth" and perform many other signs. These will not be trick or small events but large scale wonders that will be designed to "deceive those who dwell on the earth". He will even create a stature and bring it to life all with one purpose, gain the worlds worship! This is a plot to violate the laws of God as discussed above.
OK, so there is one more biblical reference I would like to give for your consideration. It is a reference to a large asteroid that will destroy a large continent on this planet. This is a "global killer" by
the movie Armageddon's standard! But you decide as I have already given my discussion of these verses in another blog.
Revelation 8:10-13
Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound! |
Summary
We are being
warned! God is showing us what His purpose for this
world entails. As we get closer and closer to the end,
the world has become more and more sinful! And
unfortunately, this condition will worsen till He
returns and redeems us from ourselves. Don't let sin,
self or Satan who has invaded our planet separate you
from the free gift of salvation that Jesus extends to
you in His invitation to be born-again:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not
perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send
His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes
in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:16-18)
Are You Ready? If not get ready, "Repent
for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand"!
Click to Read:
Luke 13:3;
Ephesians 2:8-9;
Romans 10:8-13;
Acts2:38
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