The Heavens Declare God's Glory
by Mary Jo Nutting

Have you ever been struck with awe and wonder on a clear, starlit night? There is something special about the stars that lifts our eyes heavenward and our thoughts beyond everyday cares. Somehow, in a very real way, God reveals His Glory in the heavens.

In our modern world of cities, smog, and electric lights, we can often go for weeks without gazing at the stars; but I suspect it wasn’t that way in times past. For settlers scattered on the plains of the American west, sailors on the far reaches of the sea, or shepherds on the hills of Judea, the stars were constant companions and a continual source of comfort, wonder, and awe. Unfortunately, as the hearts of men turned from God, they began to worship the stars rather than their Creator. Yet, God says, the heavens declare His Glory (Ps 19:1)!

The word translated “glory” in this passage comes from a Hebrew word meaning heavy or weighty. It carries with it the sense of numerous, richness, splendor, or honor. Certainly the sheer magnitude of stars in the heavens boggles the imagination. Billions of galaxies each contain billions of individual stars. If even the relatively small number of stars visible to the naked eye caused the psalmist to marvel, how much more should we as modern technology reveals the vastness of the universe! The psalmist seems to be seeing more than just numbers of stars. He says, the heavens declare the glory of God. Yes, there is glory in the heavens — Scripture says that stars differ in glory — but David speaks of the glory of God.

So how do the heavens declare the glory of God? Here are just a few things I thought as I meditated on these words. The magnitude of stars reminds me of the numerous facets of God’s character — His wonderful goodness, abundant kindness, and infinite care for variety and details. The sky full of sparkling jewels reveals His extravagance, His showering of blessings on His beloved children, and the unfathomable richness of His grace. The regularity of the movements of stars in the heavens reveals His wonderful faithfulness and unchanging character. The vastness of the heavens reveals His power and creativity.

Yet despite seeing this glory, Moses wanted to know God in a much deeper way. He begged God, “Show me Thy glory” (Ex 33:18). In reply, God hid him in the cleft of the rock and caused His goodness to pass before him and proclaimed the name of the Lord — “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” Moses was allowed to see only God’s back, not His face. What did he see? Was it the stripes He took on our behalf? Was it a vision of the time when, centuries later, God would reveal so much more in the person of His Son? John 1:14 says, “We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” The glory of God — declared by the heavens, but beheld in the Son; Jesus Christ, the glory of God — full of grace and truth; Jesus Christ — the riches of God, the manifold wisdom of God, the fullness of deity in human flesh. What a treasure!

Now we can know the glory of God, not just declared by the heavens, as wonderful as they are, but revealed in the face of Christ Jesus (II Cor 4:6). May we respond as Moses and worship our great Creator, Redeemer, and Lord.

Our Place Among the Stars

THE UNIVERSE...
• stretches across 30 billion light years (One light year = 6 trillion miles).
• contains 1022 (10 billion trillion) stars, filling 100 billion galaxies. Every star appears unique in size, temperature, color, brightness, and elemental composition. The Milky Way, our galaxy, contains 100 billion stars.

THE SUN...
• can contain 1 million earth-size planets.
• contradicts Big Bang predictions. It has approximately 99% of the total mass of the solar system, but only 1% of the angular momentum.
• leaves atheists scratching their heads. It is composed of 98% hydrogen and helium but these elements make up less than 1% of the sun’s closest planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
• is shrinking. Even the most conservative rates shoot down evolutionary time scales.

THE PLANETS...
• vary in size, temperature range, orbital velocities and atmospheric conditions. Volcanoes, canyons, gaseous rings, and moons make each planet unique.
• should all rotate in the same direction if they developed from a spinning gas cloud. However, Venus and Uranus spin backward.
• should have moons orbiting the same
direction if the Big Bang is true, but several moons circle in reverse. Even more wondrous, the moons of Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter course in both directions!

THE MOON...
• causes tides which oxygenate the oceans.
• is just the right distance from the earth —if too close, tides would wash across the continents twice a day; if too far, the oceans would stagnate.

THE EARTH...
• is strategically placed 93 million miles from the sun. If it was closer, ocean water would boil! If it was farther, the oceans would freeze!
• encircles the sun at 66,000 mph.
• transports a person living 70 years, 40 billion miles through space.

The Apparent Age of the Stars and a Young Earth
by Dennis Haimerl

The Bible indicates the universe is young but why does it appear so old? Physicist, Dr. Russell Humphreys studied this problem for about 12 years. His professional career as a scientist at Sandia Laboratories includes investigating various aspects of nuclear energy which requires a thorough understanding of relativity theory. His answer to the problem is based upon Einstein’s prediction that clocks run at different rates. The rate that a clock records time has been shown experimentally to depend upon how fast the clock is traveling and the strength of the gravitational field near the clock. This is referred to as time dilation.



Dr. Humphreys dedicated much time studying the Bible to understand how God may have placed the stars in the heavens. Genesis 1:2 speaks of the creation beginning as something referred to as “the deep” which was made of water. God speaks of separating this water into the “waters above” and the “waters below,” creating an “expanse” as stated in Genesis 1:7. Several other scriptures such as Isaiah 40:22 and Jeremiah 10:12 says God stretched out the heavens. It appears that a good scriptural argument can be made that places the “waters above” as a boundary to our universe and the “stretching out” to create an expanse or space for galaxies, stars and our solar system. In Genesis 1:14, 15, God says He placed lights in this expanse to mark seasons and to give light on the earth.

Dr. Humphreys developed a model based on the assumption that the universe has a boundary and that the earth is located near its center. These two assumptions are quite different than those used in the popular Big Bang theory that assumes the universe has no boundary and no unique center. Although Humphreys uses the same physics and mathematical equations that were used to develop the big bang theory, his results are drastically different due to the starting assumptions. If the boundary of the universe was much smaller when originally created, a clock located near the center of the universe would advance much slower than a clock placed near the boundary. Dr. Humphreys’ calculations show the clock placed near the boundary would record a time of as much as 20 billion years while the clock located near the center would record only three or four days. After as little as four days of time passed as recorded by the clock near the center, the universe would have expanded beyond a critical size. Time dilation would then subside and clocks would begin to advance at similar rates throughout most of the universe.



According to the Big Bang theory galaxies should be uniformly distributed throughout the universe. However, they are not. Observational evidence shows that galaxies are less plentiful the farther they are from earth regardless of the direction of the observation. This certainly could suggest that the earth is near the center of the universe. If this is true, then our region of the universe would show the greatest time dilation. Earth time could indeed be measured in thousands of years while time appears to be measured in billions of years elsewhere.

Humphrey’s theory of cosmology has been the first theory using Einstein’s general relativity that presents a plausible scientific model for the creation of the universe and which coincides with a literal interpretation of the Bible. Hopefully, this will now be studied by others and refined or spawn even better models that will correlate modern cosmology and young earth creation ideas.

[Editor’s note: The author of this article is a local creationist. Publishing this article is meant to open discussion on a difficult subject. Remember, Dennis is writing about theories that are historical in nature and are not to be taken as fact. Also remember Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We will never know exactly how He created it all until we see God’s instant replay video.— Dave Nutting]