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Consider the
Heavens
Psalm 8:3 When I consider thy heavens,
the works of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which thou has ordained,
what is man that thou art mindful of
him...?
many people see the vastness of space and
wonder if there is a God, and, if He is
there, why He should care about us
is there evidence in the heavens of
a providential, caring God?
or is this all just a vast,
dead, space without
a hint of the love
and care of the
God of the Bible?
we will consider the creation from
the first heaven
(our atmosphere)...
to the farthest reaches of the second
heaven (the cosmos)...
...and see just how “mindful of us” He
really is...
Consider the
Atmosphere...
our mass is just enough to keep this
thin layer of gases above us
any more mass ( more gravity)
means a heavier, more destructive
atmosphere with more deadly gases
staying here
less mass (less gravity)
and we can’t hold onto oxygen and
other life-support gases
our atmosphere is 20% oxygen
any less?
humans aren’t here
any more?
everything burns a
lot faster, and our
bodies age quicker
the thin invisible ozone layer
keeps us alive by absorbing
nasty radiation from space
less ozone
and we roast in ultraviolet
light from the sun
any more
and we don’t get
enough of the sun’s
life-giving energy
through to the
surface
carbon dioxide in our atmosphere
acts like a blanket and keeps us
warm
any less,
we freeze and
plant life
dies out
any more,
we fry in a
runaway
greenhouse
effect
lightning strikes about once a second
on this planet
more often?
too many fires
less often?
not enough
nitrogen would
get “fixed”
into a form
useful
for life
water vapor permeates through the
atmosphere, delivering rain & keeping us
warm.
want more?
we get a runaway
greenhouse effect
which will fry the planet
less?
life on land would suffer
from meager to no rainfall
our slow 24-hour rotation keeps our
winds perfect - even hurricane force is
low - & our temps nice
faster or slower and life is possible,
but it’s no Eden
our liquid center gives us a magnetic field
which protects us from the deadly solar
winds...
some solar wind can sneak in at the poles
and give us the aurorae...
a constant, visible, & beautiful reminder of
our magnetic field’s protective purpose.
it appears we have a
perfect atmosphere
Consider the Moon...
the Moon has slowed us,
kept us steady,
given us tides,
stabilized our orbit
without it,
life could not exist
Consider our Neighbors
Venus, closer to the sun, has...
an atmosphere so heavy with
carbon dioxide it’s like being
under a kilometer of water
a surface temp around 900°F
a cloud cover of sulfuric acid
no water
not a shopping mall in sight
Mars, smaller & farther out,
has almost no atmosphere or plate
tectonics, and its water reservoirs are
essentially frozen, so there is no lifegiving water cycle
but it’s a happy planet!
apparently we are
not too close,
not too far,
but just the perfect
distance from
the sun for life
Consider Jupiter & Saturn
Jupiter and Saturn are at the
perfect distance to:
leave our sensitive orbit alone, but
protect us from nasty, earthbound
comets and asteroids...
for example, in 1994, Jupiter captured
an incoming comet and ate it like it
has done many, many times before.
these dark plumes
where the comet fragments struck
are bigger than the Earth!
big rock,
bad day
we still get hit by
the big ones
occasionally, but
not nearly as
often and always
at the perfect
time.
apparently,
we have the
perfect big
brothers out
there
Consider the Sun
our sun is the perfect
age,
mass,
brightness,
& generation
for life
anything else, we’re not
here
the faint sun paradox says that
through an amazingly complex list
of “coincidences,” the sun
increased in luminosity at the same
rate the greenhouse gases were
removed from our atmosphere so
Earth could maintain a life-friendly
constant temp
for 4 billion years
our sun is a bachelor, a single star;
most stars have at least one other
companion
of course, having no star
means a bad day, but…
if the sun had a buddy,
our orbit would destabilize
and we would not be here
Consider Other Stars
our sun wasn’t born near other big
and destructive stars like these
four here in the Orion Nebula, the
Trapezium Cluster
the Trapezium Cluster are clearing
away planet-making material from
their siblings
no planet-making material, no planets
no planets, no TV
no TV, no life
sun-sized stars
eventually go out in a
blaze of glory
the sun will, too, a long
time from now...
but humans were put here at
exactly the right time to
completely avoid
this inevitable
scenario.
it’s as if we got stuck on a
perfect planet
circling a
life-giving star
which has the
perfect life-cycle
betelgeuse
many stars, like
Betelgeuse in
Orion, are bigger
than our sun they live much
faster and
violently and die
much younger
and when they die, they scour clean
everything within hundreds of trillions
of miles.
we have no big starry life-threatening
neighbors
as to these explosions
called supernovae:
closer to us?
life is exterminated
farther?
not enough
planet-building debris
more frequent?
life goes bye-bye
more infrequent?
no planets
Consider our Galaxy
we live on the only street in our galaxy
which allows life, about 2/3 out...
closer to the nucleus,
we get supernovaed,
radiated to death,
and thrown out of
a stable orbit
by other stars
farther,
no planet-building material
we live in the perfect type of galaxy for
life, the spiral
spiral is perfect for life
elliptical not so
FYI FACT!
our Mormon friends claim that we
came from Kolob, a planet
in the center of the galaxy
no can do! there’s a
supermassive
black hole there!
nothing survives
this place
it appears we are located in the perfect
place within the perfect type of galaxy
can things get any better?!
Consider the Universe
we live in a cluster of galaxies like this,
but at the safest place - the edge!...
at the edge, spirals survive - how?
living in the nasty inner places
leads to...
collisions!!!
or...
cannibalism, in which one galaxy
consumes another
either way,
no life
worse! clusters can collide with clusters
to produce the most massive things
ever seen!
it’s as if we live in the perfect galaxy in
the perfect part of a perfect cluster
in the perfect part of the universe.
Considering Everything
considering...
our atmosphere,
our Moon,
our neighbors,
our Sun,
our Galaxy,
our place in the universe,
and many other things not even
mentioned...
many scientists are seeing for the first
time that Somebody must
be behind it all
and because many
scientists are seeing
design everywhere
they look...
some are
seeing
a Designer
and are being drawn into the Third
Heaven - the presence of God
Consider the Third Heaven
if this whole universe is flooded with
design, then maybe the Bible is
correct, they say
if the Bible is correct, so are His
promises to take care of us and fill us
with abundant life
if He has so meticulously taken care of
this Whole Place, how much more will
He take care of you, for whom He
sacrificed Himself?
what’s better than
Him taking care
of us now?
some day we will be
caught up into
the other dimensions
of the Third Heaven,
into a New Creation,
a place He’s prepared for us,
to spend eternity with Him