By Elizabeth Prata
With the Hubble Telescope’s 30-year anniversary back in the news I thought I’d reshare my thoughts from April 2010 on the same subject
First, new thoughts on Saturn. Thanks to Hubble, scientists are still perplexed that some of their theories of how the universe was created don’t flesh out when confronted with the physical reality of it- CNN Continue reading “Ode to Hubble?”
Some good stuff:
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| John Martin – The Great Day of Divine Wrath |
I’m big on wrath. What are we “saved” from, if we never teach, witness about, or preach the wrath? How can we understand the majesty, depth, and generosity of His love if we do not first understand the wrath? This article appeared at Ligonier and is written by one of the preachers I enjoy most, Steven Lawson:
Is It Necessary to Preach Divine Wrath?
The Genevan Reformer John Calvin said, “Preaching is the public exposition of Scripture by the man sent from God, in which God Himself is present in judgment and in grace.” Faithful pulpit ministry requires the declaration of both judgment and grace. The Word of God is a sharp, two-edged sword that softens and hardens, comforts and afflicts, saves and damns.
1 Corinthians 9 is a tremendous chapter, embedded as it is between 8 and 10, where Paul lengthily expounds about eating meat sacrificed to idols. In reading the passage, I found some parts of chapter 9 difficult to understand. My puny mind and all. I turned to another of my favorite preachers, S. Lewis Johnson, after I’d read the particular passage. He expounded on it in a tremendous way. In one part of the sermon, he took a little side trip. Oh, our beloved preachers and their rabbit trails, lol. Here is the side trip down tithing lane in his sermon “Paul’s Right to Compensation“:
Now, we know that of course in the Old Testament, the Levitical priests carried out the ministry, and they were supported by the children of Israel, the other tribes. They were supported by the tithe. The tithe was not a gift. The tithe was income tax. They had to pay a tenth to the support of the priests, and so the priests carried on the work of the Lord, and they were supported by the children of Israel because they were taxed, ten percent. Clinton hasn’t brought that up yet. But nevertheless, in the Old Testament that’s the way it was done. The Old Testament speaks of tithes and offerings. Offerings were in addition to the tithe. Tithe was income tax. It’s so amazing to me, so amazing to me that we can hear ministry to the effect that we ought to give tithes. Tithes are the big thing in most of our churches, tithes. If you’ll just simply take your Concordance out and look at the New Testament and look up the term “tithe,” and you’ll see that it is never used of anything other than something that happened as history, as history, not now.
I remember my father, when the church in Charleston was putting up a new addition, First Presbyterian Church there, the Old Scots Church. And it was later on, I had been a minister of the gospel for a good time, and we had a number of talks. He was an elder in the church, and he handed me the literature. And he said, “Well, what do you think about this? Do you think — what do you think he was implying what I thought he should give? Well, I wasn’t going to give him any advice at all, but I read the material. And it was an appeal to the members of the First Presbyterian Church of Charleston to give for the new addition. Tithes was mentioned I don’t know how many times. I may still have that in my — in my notes somewhere. I thought it was a good illustration. I could use it in preaching.
But tithes, tithes were mentioned, and I had an opportunity to mention to my father that, as far as the tithe is concerned, the tithe is an Old Testament income tax. And I do know that he happened to give an offering. He told me later, he had given an offering. But we just, I feel, after all these years as old as I am, the biggest mistake made in a local church is failure to read the Bible, failure to read the Bible. The elders, deacons, and members, failure to read the Bible. Expect others to do it for us. Let Dr. Johnson tell us what the Bible has to say. No. If it depended on me, somewhere you’d go wrong because I’d go wrong somewhere. But read the Bible.
So, no, tithing was a national tax in the OT, rendered to support the temple upkeep and support the priests. It is not a NT mandate. Don’t let anyone pressure you otherwise.
Another little gem from SL Johnson’s sermon,
Lord Bacon, who was not a religious man to my knowledge, authored an aphorism regarding the interpretation of legal documents that bears directly on the interpretation of the Biblical records as well. He said, “Interpretation that departs from the letter of the text is not interpretation but divination.” That’s precisely what it is. It’s you adding things to the text as if you are an authority like the Lord God in heaven, the divine being.
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| EPrata photo |
I really enjoyed this article from Answers in Genesis about the reality of spiritual warfare. If one peeve of mine is that the wrath is hardly preached, the reality of the spiritual war is even less so.
The Reality of Spiritual Warfare in the Home
by Dr. Robert H. Carpenter on December 13, 2007
One of the sad realities within the local church today centers on the fact that numerous born-again Christians have little or no knowledge of the spiritual warfare that takes place all around us. The Bible is crystal clear in proclaiming that there is a battle raging in the heavenlies as the forces of evil continue to wage war against not only the Creator, but also against all who trust in Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Look at what our Creator has done! Just look at it!
Visit Hubble’s 25th anniversary website to see the curated collection of Hubble’s anniversary images. In contrast, this Flickr set contains one image from each year that Hubble has been in orbit.
Explore beautiful Hubble Space Telescope images from each year the telescope has been in orbit
“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all”. (1 Chronicles 29:11)
God is so amazing! I see this article in io9 and look the animals below. Just think, He made all the universe in ONE DAY, named all the stars! And He made all the animals in one day!
This galaxy is so large, so fully-formed, astronomers say it shouldn’t exist at all. It’s called a “grand-design” spiral galaxy, and unlike most galaxies of its kind, this one is old. Like, really, really old. According to a new study conducted by researchers using NASA’s Hubble Telescope, it dates back roughly 10.7-billion years — and that makes it the most ancient spiral galaxy we’ve ever discovered. “The vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks,” said UCLA astrophysicist Alice Shapley in a press release. “Our first thought was, why is this one so different, and so beautiful?”
Well I beg to disagree with the 10 billion years old thing, but God creating a beautiful galaxy is awe-inspiring. That’s our God!! Consider the verse in Genesis 1:16:
“God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.”
LOL, LOL! The verse describes the sun and moon, and why He made them. The verse ends with an offhand ‘Oh, yah, He made all the stars too.’
Isaiah 40:26 says, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”
The scientists are awed. We are awed too, but for a different reason.
“The fact that this galaxy exists is astounding,” said University of Toronto’s David Law, lead author of the study. “Current wisdom holds that such ‘grand-design’ spiral galaxies simply didn’t exist at such an early time in the history of the universe.”
That means that though Hubble has “just discovered” the beautiful galaxy, God always knew it was there, and knows the names of each stars, too. Oh, How mighty and how creative He is. Look below at these animals:
Among the many weird and fascinating amphibians on our planet, very special are the Glass Frogs. This amazing frog family has a transparent skin, allowing you to view inside its small body. They are so transparent that it almost looks as if they melt into the leaves and become one with them.
Transparent Head Fish
NatGeo, 2009:
“With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes–topped by green, orblike lenses–in a picture released today but taken in 2004. The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California’s central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. The 6-inch (15-centimeter) barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939–but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.’
The wings are translucent, with a wingspan of 2.2 to 2.4 in. Its most common English name is glasswinged butterfly, and its Spanish name is “espejitos”, which means “little mirrors.” Indeed, the tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass, as it lacks the colored scales found in other butterflies.The opaque borders of its wings are dark brown sometimes tinted with red or orange, and its body is dark in color.
Transparent squid
“Found on the southern hemisphere’s oceans, the Glass Squid (Teuthowenia pellucida) has light organs on its eyes and possesses the ability to roll into a ball, like an aquatic hedgehog. It is prey of many deep-sea fish (eg goblin sharks) as well as whales and oceanic seabirds. (Photo by Peter Batson)”
In this nicely written article, the scientists behind the Hubble Telescope and the ingenuity of the scientists are extolled. More on the point of the blog entry in a moment, but first, information about the photo from Hubble Site: “This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” or a Dr. Seuss book, depending on your imagination. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The image celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble’s launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth.”
“NASA’s best-recognized, longest-lived, and most prolific space observatory zooms past a threshold of 20 years of operation this month. On April 24, 1990, the space shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope into a low Earth orbit. What followed was one of the most remarkable sagas of the space age. Hubble’s unprecedented capabilities made it one of the most powerful science instruments ever conceived by humans, and certainly the one most embraced by the public. Hubble discoveries revolutionized nearly all areas of current astronomical research, from planetary science to cosmology. And, its pictures were unmistakably out of this world.”
“At times Hubble’s starry odyssey played out like a space soap opera, with broken equipment, a bleary-eyed primary mirror, and even a space shuttle rescue/repair mission cancellation. But the ingenuity and dedication of Hubble scientists, engineers, and NASA astronauts have allowed the observatory to rebound time and time again. Its crisp vision continues to challenge scientists with exciting new surprises and to enthrall the public with ever more evocative color images.”
It says in 2 Timothy 3:2 that at the time of the end, “… men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy”. I find it interesting – and sad – that this article extols the virtues of the scientists who made the device that reveals the universe, while failing to boast about the God who created it. The photo shows it’s not an ode to the Hubble Telescope, it is an Ode to God.
the-end-time.org 