*Following is the first in a series of Wednesday night messages I presented at my church.
Over the
next several weeks I will be sharing a group of studies I refer to as “My
Stories. Our Stories.”
My stories -
During the course of these studies I will be sharing some extraordinary things
which have occurred in my life. You’ve heard the claim that the age of miracles
is over. Well, don’t believe it. I plan to share just a few of many miracles to
which I have been exposed. Our stories, that is, Mankind’s stories. – During
the course of this study I plan to make you aware of some remarkable national
and/or international events.
In both
cases, my stories and our stories, my purpose is to bolster your faith in God
and the hereafter, and take you down the pathway of apologetics, if only a wee
bit. Apologetics, by the way, is all about proving the existence of the Supreme
Being. For you see, it is not enough to simply have faith. I could have faith
in a wooden chair, but a wooden chair has no power to save. I could have faith
that the bus I am about to board will take me to Cincinnati, but if the driver
forgot to change the placard on the front of the bus, I could end up in Boise,
Idaho. My stories. Our stories.
If you’re
inclined, you can turn with me to Hebrews Chapter 1
10“In
the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and
the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they
will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like
a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and
your years will never end.”
Tonight I
want to spend some time with what has been commonly known as “The Space Race,”
and more specifically with one particular spacecraft which was launched almost
twenty years after the advent of the Space Race.
And I might
say that by the time I conclude my message tonight, you should be able to grasp
why I would talk about such a seemingly secular topic behind this church
pulpit.
But let’s
step back in time a few decades, and allow me to share some personal and
national details which are relevant to our discussion.
I recall
sitting in Mr. Ball’s 6th grade class at Bartow Elementary School.
The year was 1961. (Interestingly enough, the famous evangelist, Billy Sunday,
preached a sermon on what is now the playground of this school; half a century
before I attended there). At any rate, on one particular day, Mr. Ball turned
on the black & white television in the classroom, pulled up the rabbit
ears, and turned the knob to one of the only four channels we had at the time. It
was inauguration day. President John F. Kennedy raised his right hand and took
the oath of office. Of course, we all remember that fateful day in November of
1963 when an assassin’s bullet took him from us. But some of you may recall
something he said during those 1000 days in which he served as the chief
executive of the United States.
“During this
decade is out, I propose that the United States build a rocket capable to
taking man to the moon and bringing him safely back to the earth.”
I can assure
you that such stuff fascinated me, and held my attention. No doubt you remember
“The Mercury 7” astronauts. The movie, “The Right Stuff” details the
competition surrounding and appointment of seven men who would be launched, one
by one, into orbit around the earth. My own distant cousin, Alan Shepard, was
the first American in space, and John Glenn followed closely behind him.
During my
late elementary years and throughout my teen and young adults years, I followed
the Space Race very carefully; throughout the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo
programs.
As an
adolescent, I visited Cape Canaveral a couple of times, and watched from a
nearby beach, as an unmanned version of the Saturn moon rocket lifted off, and
disappeared into the clouds. Just a couple of years ago I toured the space
center again. As a twenty year old, I sat in front of my television set, and
like many of you, watched that grainy black and white live video footage, as
Neil Armstrong dropped off the lunar landing module ladder onto the dusty gray
soil of our nearest neighbor, the moon.
But as I
previously inferred, I am more concerned this evening about one spacecraft, in
particular, referred to as Voyager 1, which lifted off from the east coast of
Florida in 1977. And as you might imagine, the purpose of this unmanned
spacecraft was the exploration of the universe, or at least our little portion
of the universe which we refer to as the “Milky Way.”
And also, as
you might well imagine, the Voyager 1 spacecraft was outfitted with a myriad of
instrumentation designed to not only take photographs of the planets in our
solar system, but to measure the composition of the rings of Saturn and
atmosphere of Jupiter, and to analyze the solar plasma of the sun, and the
fading intensity of its light, as its journey took it further from our nearest
star, the sun.
And of
course, our scientists would have been left completely unawares without the
capability to retrieve the information which Voyager 1 generated. As a result,
this spacecraft was outfitted with a radio transmitter, and over the next 40
years it has faithfully continued to transmit data to a team of full time
researchers who have faithfully analyzed the information they have received. At
this stage, the Voyager is 12 billion miles from earth, and its radio signal
takes 17 hours to reach our planet. And surprisingly, since the distance is so
great, and the signal so tiny, NASA currently uses dozens of radio telescopes
to concentrate the signal enough to make it intelligible, and to be able to
interpret it.
The “little
spacecraft that could” reached an important milestone five years ago. After a
35 year journey, Voyager 1 left our solar system, and journeyed into what is
referred to as interstellar space. Take a moment to consider it. Our solar
system, though vast, is just a speck in the Milky Way galaxy; one of billions
of similar galaxies in our continually expanding universe. Consider it, if our
little spacecraft had the capability to move at the speed of light, 186,000
miles per second, (and it doesn’t) it would take four years to travel to the
nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
It is
estimated that in three years our little Voyager will be too distant for
scientists to receive its signal, but its mission will have only begun.
For you see, on board the one ton robot is a
gold record containing sounds and
images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and
which are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, who may find
them. Interestingly enough, given the vacuum of space, this record is expected
to outlast the estimated two million years left in the lifespan of our solar
system, and will still be able to be deciphered a billion years from today.
Please turn to John
Chapter 1, Verse 1-9
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through
him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In
him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He
came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all
might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as
a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone coming into the
world.
He
lights every man, woman, boy and girl who has lives on the earth, or who has
ever lived on the earth.
I
think the implications of this verse are enormous. And while I have never heard
this verse preached, at least not in this manner, it occurs to me that this
sentence is all about Christ’ entire ministry towards the population of Planet
Earth; including his death on the cross, and His resurrection from the grave.
However,
the gold record designed to notify someone out there that billions of
intelligent individuals exist, or once existed on a little blue marble called
Earth will never be retrieved, nor viewed by someone in a distant civilization
in this universe. For you see, there’s simply no one else out there. We are it.
There are no other intelligent beings in the universe.
For
you see, if there were we can be sure that the angelic being referred to as
Satan would have tempted them, as he did Adam and Eve. And it would have been
necessary for Christ to have also died a substitutionary death for that civilization,
as He did for our own. But 1st Peter 3:18 tells us that “Christ
suffered once for all sin.”
And
if He suffered once, we can be sure that He did not suffer twice or three
times, and thus He never visited another intelligent civilization for the
purpose of dying for them. You see, Voyager 1 is the single most intelligent
creation in interstellar space. It is out there “all by its lonely.” Since the
spacecraft was created by man, and man was created by God, that little metal
flying robot might, in essence, be referred to as, “God’s Grandchild.”
At
least the lack of another intelligent civilization in this universe is my
theory. And I believe I just finished adequately supporting it. Christ suffered
once, and only once for the only populated planet in this universe.
Sometime ago, it was decided that the
Voyager 1 spacecraft would turn its camera towards Planet Earth, and take the
longest distance ‘selfie’ ever taken; for the elements of which it was formed
originated on this planet. As a matter of fact, each of our eight or nine
planets, depending on how you count them, ‘posed’ for a photograph that day.
Recently, I was watching a documentary
about Voyager 1, and an image of that photo was flashed onto the screen. There
in a band of light and debris, you can just make out a tiny speck of light. And
as that photo appeared, the narrator spoke.
“From such a vast distance, you can
just make it out. A small, blue marble containing earth and seas, and eight
billion souls, and the only home that every man, woman, boy and girl ever given
the privilege of life would inhabit.”
And my friends, with this, an
involuntary sob rose up on my throat, and tears sprang to my eyes. Perhaps you
would have had to have been there. But the tiny point of light that is our earth,
and the insightful descriptiveness of the narrator just overwhelmed me at that
moment.
My friends,
we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and the innate abilities which God gave
us to do the most magnificent things is nothing short of remarkable. We have
been created by an awesome Creator, and have been made in His likeness. And He
has bestowed the most remarkable intelligence and abilities upon us, and will
to create within us. The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a prime example.
In Psalm 8, we read,
In
conclusion, let us say, for the sake of argument, that a billion years from
now, when our sun and planetary system no longer exist, as we know it, that
some alien scientist manages to retrieve that ‘little spacecraft that could,’
and manages to decipher that golden record on board the craft.
And as he or
she or it, as the case may be, views photographs depicting the high surf of
Hawaii’s Sunset Beach, and the glorious mountain peaks of Scotland’s Isle of
Skye, and the ancient Redwood trees of California, and he goes on to listen to
the musical strains of Glenn Miller’s orchestra, and the contralto voice of
Frances Langford, (a distant cousin of mine), and he marvels at the architectural wonder which is the new
World Trade Center, and he acknowledges the Omnipotence which produced passages
such as Genesis 1 and Psalm 23 and John 3:16, perhaps that golden record will
serve as a sort of a witness to the glory of the unseen God, and His love for
the work of His hands.
(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 66. By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending.
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