Download Star Light, Star Bright

In Genesis 1:16 we read, “And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern
the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; the stars also.” I love those last three
words: God made “the stars also.” God’s creation of the stars out of nothing is
mentioned in the creation account almost in passing. It is mentioned almost as if it were
nothing for God to make the stars. And, in a sense, it was nothing for God to make
them! But it is everything to us that He did make them!
If you were to go out into the country 50 miles from the nearest city on a night that was
cloudless and on which no moon shone, perhaps you could see with the naked eye 2000
stars. That’s a lot. But there are many more!
The following material is quoted from Ron Carlson and Ed Decker in their book Fast
Facts on False Teachings. Pardon me for not being original in this article. I have read
these words over and over again and as I do so I am more and more amazed,
impressed, awed and dumbfounded by the unsearchable greatness of the God I serve. I
quote it because I can’t say it better and it needs to be said. Join me in worshiping the
God who is able to create the way God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ did. Be
amazed and stand in awe of God’s greatness as you read on.
“Have you ever truly thought about how great God is? Have you ever imagined what the
magnitude of the cosmos really is? The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. In
one second, light can travel around the earth at the equator 7.5 times!
If you go outside on a clear night, you can see a band going across the sky which
appears as dense clouds across the center of the sky. Actually that is the rim of what
we earthlings call the Milky Way. What you are seeing are not clouds but stars, so many
billions of stars that it appears to us to be clouds. If you were traveling at the speed lf
light, it would take you 4.5 years just to reach the nearest star you can see at night!
A light year is how far light travels in one year. In one year light will travel 6 trillion miles.
The nearest star is Alpha Centauri, 4.5 light years away, which means that the nearest
star that you can see at night is something like 27 trillion miles away! And that is just the
nearest star in our galaxy. There are over 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy!
As huge as this sounds, ours is one of the smallest galaxies in the universe! In fact,
astronomers with the 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar in California estimate that as
they look out through the cup of the Big Dipper constellation they can see over one
million galaxies the size of our Milky Way or bigger!
At the speed of light it would take us a hundred thousand light-years to cross the Milky
Way galaxy. This means that our small galaxy is six hundred thousand trillion miles
across. And astronomers can see over one million galaxies that size or bigger just in the
cup of the Big Dipper. Think of the magnitude of what we are saying!
Leaving the Milky Way galaxy, the farthest thing that astronomers can see or hear with
their most sophisticated equipment is a quasar, which is 15 billion light-years away,
which means it is 90 billion trillion miles away.
We have no idea what is beyond that, but astronomers estimate that this quasar 90
billion trillion miles away emits enough energy in one second to supply all the electrical
needs of the earth for one million years. That’s just one quasar, and there are millions
of quasars in the universe. Do you begin to get the picture? The Bible says that the
God who created all this holds it together by the power of His hand. And some people
wonder if God is really big enough to solve their problems?
God is far bigger that our finite minds can hope to comprehend. Yet the God whose
energy transcends all the energy in the universe by infinity nevertheless loves each one
of us. That God is concerned about you personally.
The Bible says that God considers you more important than all those galaxies put
together. What a tremendous truth! As you begin to get a glimpse of what God is really
like, it will change the way you pray. When you come into the presence of the Almighty
Creator, it becomes an awe-inspiring thing. It becomes a thing of wonderment.”
What is your response to this incredible God who infinitely transcends His galaxies? In
some of our traditions we would say, “Lord, have mercy.” Others of us would say,
“Amen!” Whatever our tradition, let us consider the billions of trillions of stars and
together with Thomas of the Bible say with great fear and trembling, “My Lord and my
God!”
Pastor Bob Brandhagen
First Baptist Church, Reedsburg