And He made the stars also... (Gen 1:16) Hubble's 21st B-Day

Hubble Telescope Pictures

It is apparently the Hubble Telescope's 21st anniversary.  It has been taking pictures of God's artistic craftsmanship now for 21 years.  I was blown away when I looked at these eleven pictures and really wanted to share them and some Bible passages that coincide with their beauty.

Psalm 8:3-4

 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
         The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; 
    What is man that You take thought of him,
         And the son of man that You care for him?

Psalm 136:8-9

The sun to rule by day,
         For His lovingkindness is everlasting, 
    The moon and stars to rule by night,
         For His lovingkindness is everlasting. 

Psalm 147:3-5

He heals the brokenhearted
         And binds up their wounds.
    He counts the number of the stars;
         He gives names to all of them.
    Great is our Lord and abundant in strength;
         His understanding is infinite.

Psalm 148:2-4

Praise Him, all His angels;
         Praise Him, all His hosts! 
    Praise Him, sun and moon;
         Praise Him, all stars of light! 
    Praise Him, highest heavens,
         And the waters that are above the heavens!

Isaiah 40:25-27

 "To whom then will you liken Me

         That I would be his equal?" says the Holy One. 
    Lift up your eyes on high
         And see who has created these stars,
         The One who leads forth their host by number,
         He calls them all by name;
         Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
         ^(F)Not one of them is missing. 
    Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
         "My way is hidden from the LORD,
         And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God"?

Isaiah 31:35

Thus says the LORD,
         Who gives the sun for light by day
         And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
         Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;
         The LORD of hosts is His name: 

Luke 21:25

There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves...

D. L. Moody and His Simple/Profoundness pt. 1

I wrote "part one" in the title because I am just now discovering how simple and wise this man was, and suppose I'll be writing more of him in the future.  He was nothing but a shoe salesman until God captured him.  Google this guy.  The Moody Bible Institute is a great school, but Dwight did much more than found MBI.  He did much more greater things.  It was under Dwight's preaching when he traveled to England that Oswald Chambers felt the Gospel call.  Here is an excerpt from D. L. Moody's sermon entitled "Shall We Meet Our Loved Ones Again?"

We shall not sink into annihilation. Christ rose from the dead to give us a pledge of our own rising. The resurrection is the great antidote for death. Nothing else can take its place. Riches, genius, worldly pleasures or pursuits, none can bring us consolation in the dying hour.

"All my possessions for a moment of time," cried Queen Elizabeth when dying.

"I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death, and now, alas! I am to die unprepared" were the last words of Cardinal Borgia.

Compare with these the last words of one of the early disciples: "I am weary. I will now go to sleep. Good night!" He had the sure hope of awaking in a brighter land.

At the Battle of Inkerman a soldier was just able to crawl to his tent after he was struck down. When found, he was lying upon his face, his open Bible before him, his hand glued fast to the page by his life blood which covered it.

When his hand was lifted, the letters of the printed page were clearly traced upon it; and with the ever-living promise in and on his hand, they laid him in a soldier's grave. The words were: "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

I want a religion that can comfort even in death, that can unite me with my loved ones. Oh, what gloom and darkness would settle upon this world if it were not for the glorious doctrine of the resurrection! Thank God, the glorious morning will soon break. For a little while God asks us to be the watchtower, faithful to Him and waiting for the summons. Soon our Lord will come to receive His own, whether they be living or dead.

Romans 1 and the Man on the Island

As the question goes:  "What about the man on the island who has never heard nor had the opportunity to hear the gospel of Christ?"

I will not pretend to know all of the answers.  However, in reading chapter one of Paul's letter to the Romans, I picked something up I have missed in all the other times of reading it (goes to prove we should continue to stay students of our Bibles).

In verse seventeen of chapter one, the ESV translation reads,

For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.  As it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith" (italics mine).

Thus, the righteousness of God indeed cannot be understood without faith, for it is revealed from faith.  In honesty, we cannot imagine a perfect being.  A being who is unable to sin, who does everything exactly perfect at any given moment, who loves perfectly despite not being compensated by anyone else's love (save the love of the Trinity, which is irrelevant for this argument).  So how can a human comprehend the righteousness of God?  the perfectness of God?  the holiness of God?  Answer:  "The righteous will live by faith."  One is surely on his way toward righteousness once he understands needing faith to understand God.

The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.  So after having established we need faith to comprehend God, we then come to realize this builds our faith, no matter how small (or nonexistent) it was.  Once we begin to confess a little faith, we may obtain the knowledge of God's righteousness, which will then lead to more faith.  You will never be able to do one hundred push-ups if you cannot first do fifty!

Now, about that man on the island.  Picking up in Romans 1:18...

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Paul argues, and I believe rightly so, that creation plainly begs a creator, or at least a deity(ies).  By faith, he believes God has made sure that what we can know about Him is plain, especially God's eternal power and divinity in the things that have been made!  Who can be without excuse then?  Even an atheist must have faith in something because he knows (so long as he uses his brain) that the way things are have not simply always been this way.  We as humans demand a beginning and an end.  That is perhaps something we all have in common.  Faith in something, be it God or Muhammad or Jesus or Artemis or the Unmoved Mover or Demiurge or Ourself.

The man on the island (based solely off Romans 1) seems to condemn himself.  Paul claims that all humans have some understanding of a big Something Else out there who is higher than we are, but we must honor Him as God and give thanks to Him.  I suppose that doing this, though one may not have any idea of Christ, will put the man on the island on his way toward salvation.  It is important to note that Jesus Christ is the only way for salvation, because Scripture is clear on this.  However, it takes faith to realize God is the one out there, and this brings about more faith!  And I am not so ignorant as to suppose God will not meet this man on the island with the appropriate means to be saved, because after all, salvation is something we do to ourselves.  It is God who saves, and I, being once lost, cannot superimpose the Savior in a box.  He will save as He will save, according to the Scriptures He has given us.  And He will not go against His Scripture, because He is good.

There is hope for the man on the island, for you, and for me.  It just takes a little faith to build faith.  Thanks be to God you are not on this island with this man.  We have Bibles.