7 Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible by Erwin W. Lutzer

Author:Erwin W. Lutzer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2015-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

HOW GOD PREPARED THE EARTH FOR MAN

The Bible teaches that God chose to create a stage upon which a drama would be enacted, and you and I are a part of the scene. The scientific data has helped all of us appreciate the uniqueness of our habitat. Here we see intelligence, purpose, and wisdom.

The Earth*

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:1–2). The earth is a speck in a vast universe, but it is uniquely designed for life in general, and human life in particular. It is a huge ball covered with water, rock, and soil, surrounded by air.

When we are driving a car, we know that we are moving because objects outside are whistling past us. But when we are standing on the earth, we have no sensation of movement, because everything that surrounds us comes with us on our speedy journey. And what a journey it is!

The earth is like a baseball hurtling along in an elliptical movement around the sun, but it is also spinning at the same time. In fact it is orbiting the sun at the enormous speed of 19 miles every second, or about 66,000 miles every hour. It makes this journey of 595 million miles every year; every 365 days, 6 hours, 9.54 seconds, to be precise. (We need an extra day every four years of leap year to account for the extra quarter day in the earth’s orbit. Without this correction the earth would be at a different point against the background of stars every January 1 and all successive dates.) These revolutions around the sun are punctual, never missing a second.

The axis of the earth (that imaginary line that connects the north and south poles) does not stick straight up in relation to the sun but actually tilts about 23.5 degrees; it is this tilt that causes the seasons. For example, the northern half of the earth tilts toward the sun in summer and away from the sun in winter, resulting in the four seasons.

While speeding through space at 66,000 miles an hour, the earth is also spinning at some 1,000 miles an hour at the equator, revolving on its axis every 24 hours. This spinning motion makes it appear to us that the sun moves from east to west, and it causes day and night on the earth.

If we ask what causes the earth, moon, and sun to be in such a predictable relationship, scientists say it is gravity; if it were not for this force, the heavenly bodies would all fly off into space. If we ask a scientist what gravity actually is, we are told that it is the result of the presence of matter warping the space-time continuum. The earth’s magnetic field results from electricity flowing within the earth’s inner core. But we still don’t totally understand gravity or the magnetic field.

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