Tonight we continue in our series on “Is the Bible Believable?” and we come to the study of science and the Scripture, and I think this is such an exciting thing, because science is discovering what the Bible has been saying for centuries. And one of the great proofs, one of the great products of biblical inspiration is the fact that it is scientifically accurate. Aldous Huxley made this statement. He said, “Modern science makes it impossible to believe in a personal God.”  

Bertrand Russell, who was in the habit of making irresponsible statements, said, quote, “That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes, his fears, his loves and beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocation of atoms; that all the labors of the ages are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.” End quote. Christianity rejects all of that and has stood a lot longer than Bertrand Russell.

Others have said that as science finds explanations of natural phenomena, God becomes smaller and smaller. As science advances, and we realize that everything can be verified in a test tube and ultimately resolved to scientific fact, the necessity of God is eliminated; and once God was the Almighty, and now science is the almighty. You know, as Christians, I think we are constantly whipped this point. Believers are faced with a supposed conflict between science and the Scripture. We are told that Christianity is scientifically unrespected, that it doesn’t gain the respect of a scientific world, because it makes nonscientific statements and scientific blunders. And the worldlings say that you have to choose either science or religion. You can’t have both; either the facts of science or the fantasy of Scripture, but not both.

And, really, the clash goes on; and it’s based on the fact that both science and the Scripture claim total authority. There’s no question in our mind that the Bible claims that it is right, that it claims total authority, totalitarian authority. But science does too. G. H. Clark says, “The scientific method is the sole gateway to truth.”

A scientist demands that science have absolute authority, and faith comes along and demands that revelation have absolute authority. Science says, “You can only know truth as you discover it,” and the Christian says, “You can’t really discover ultimate truth on your own.” Romans 11:33, “How unsearchable are His judgments. His ways are past finding out.”

And so we say no man by empiricism can discover ultimate truth, it only comes when ultimate truth is revealed by God Himself. “You can’t trust experience. You can’t trust experiment. You can only really trust the Word of God,” says the Christian. And so there’s a basic dichotomy. Science says, “If it isn’t in the test tube, and if it can’t be done in experiment, and if it isn’t an empirical, proven thing, I can’t buy it. Only that which is observable to me, only that which is scientific can be acceptable.” The Christian says, “Only that which is revelatory can be acceptable,” because even your senses can fool you, right?

Now, there are some scientific facts that we accept, but not in contradistinction to the Scriptures. Now, let me hasten to add this thought. Science does not necessitate God. Science has figured out that everything came from a one-celled thing floating in a pond. Nobody knows where the pond came from or where the one-celled thing came from, but that’s how it all started. And that thing began to change. It divided, it split again, it split again continuously, continuously until here we are. You don’t need God in that kind of system. Christianity postulates a creator God. Both of them claim to be right; and, in that, the supposed conflict lies.

But let me hasten to add this. There is no real conflict between science and Scripture. There is none. R. N. Williams says, I quote, “A great difference exists between science and what may be called scientism, by which we mean the theories of a scientist who is wearing spectacles with philosophically-tinted lenses.” End quote.

There’s really no real conflict between the Bible and science. You can be a Christian and still be very, very capable as a scientist. For example, you have such Christians as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Pascal, and on and on.

It is true that the Bible doesn’t use scientific jargon, but that doesn’t make it nonscientific. The Bible talks in everyday language. We do not disparage the Word of God and say it’s nonscientific because it doesn’t use current scientific terminology. The fact is, there is no contradiction, there is no real conflict between science and Scripture. The conflict comes when science stops being science and starts being religion. You see, science, by its very definition, can only deal with that which is observable, that which is reproducible; and whenever it gets outside of reproducible, experimental fact and starts trying to talk about origins and destinies, it becomes religion, because it can’t be observed; and there the conflict lies.

You know, all this whole movement known as neo-orthodoxy, they’ve already bowed to this concept: the Bible’s full of scientific error. They’ve already given up. So the typical neo-orthodox statement is this: “The Bible is only authoritative when it speaks on spiritual matters. When it speaks on science matters, we have to handle it allegorically and spiritually, because it’s prone to error,” which means the God who wrote the Bible knew a lot about spiritual things, didn’t know anything about science, which is a very interesting thing if you believe the God who wrote the Bible also made everything.

You see, to say that the parts of the Bible that talk about spiritual things are true and the parts that talk about science are false is ridiculous for two reasons. Number one, it denies the inspiration of God in the Scripture. If God is God, then He knows as much about science as He does about spiritual things, right?

The second thing it denies is the inerrancy of Scripture, that is that it’s properly recorded. If God wrote this book, and if God wrote it correctly – that’s inspiration and inerrancy – then it’ll be just as right scientifically as it is spiritually. Right? Has to be. For God can only speak truth. The New Testament says, “God who cannot lie.” He knows equally the truth of salvation and the truth of science. There is no thing that He does not know.

When science sets itself against God’s revelation, it ceases to be science, it becomes ignorance. It becomes an ignorant religion; and there’s the conflict. You see, the scientist isn’t content to just observe what’s going on now, He’s got to extrapolate everything into the past and everything into the future, and discuss origins and destinies. But he can’t do that, because it isn’t science, because he can’t put it in a test tube, it isn’t reproducible.

Now, watch. Science can only observe the present, that’s all. The observable activity of a microscope or a telescope or a test tube, now is all he can deal with. And, of course, he’s got some past records of tests and experiments and so forth that he can lean on; but when you get into pre-history, when the scientist starts going back behind recorded history and starts telling us, “You got this think happening and that thing happening in evolutionary cycles, and such and such is happening, and such and such is happening,” that is not observable. There is no record of it ever written. It is not reproducible; therefore, it cannot be made a scientific test. Consequently, it becomes a matter of faith.

So the scientist speculates about prehistoric origin, and he speculates about eschatological futures; but neither of those things have any record of observation. Neither of those things are test tube items. Now, if you’re going to know anything about prehistoric fact and eschatological fact in the future, the only way you’re going to know is if somebody told it to us; and somebody did, and here it is; and if you deny this, you’ve got nothing else but just imagination.

The word “science” is simply the word “knowledge,” that’s all. It’s synonymous with the word knowledge. That’s how it’s used in Scripture. It can only deal with present things: natural present processes. When it attempts to interpret the past, prehistory, when it attempts to interpret the future, it can’t. It has to be faith.

Now, let me tell you how science works. Science basically has postulated a theory that we call “uniformity.” Now, the theory of uniformity says that everything going on in the present at the present rate has always gone on at the same rate, and will always continue to go on at the same rate. In other words, from the origins to the absolution, everything is an absolute uniform constant. That’s the theory of uniformity.

So the scientist goes through his little experiment of natural processes today, and he says, “It takes so-and-so long to do this, to do this. Therefore, if we go backwards, and it took the same, and the same, and the same,” and he extrapolates his uniformity way, way back; and, consequently, he’s gotten man millions of years ago. He’s got the earth billions of years ago, because he has postulated a theory called uniformity, that everything goes on at the same pace in the past and the future, that it’s going on now.

Does he know that? No, he doesn’t know that, because he has no information about it. He has absolutely zero information about it. There isn’t even anything written very much further back than the Old Testament period. And people were people then, not hanging in trees by their tails, or not in process of becoming people. There is nothing back there. There is no record. Man just takes the natural process of sequence today and extrapolates it into the past, and then keeps pushing it back and back and back at the same constant level that he observes it today.

Well, that’s fine if he wants to believe that. That’s defined in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 4. Here is the typical theory of uniformity. The false teachers taught it in Peter’s day, and they’re teaching it today. They say, “Where is the promise of His coming? You keep talking about Jesus is coming. Where is He? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Now, that is a statement of the theory of uniformity. Why, they’re extrapolating the present processes back from the beginning of creation: “Everything’s always gone along the same way”

Now, if a scientist wants to hold that theory, that’s fine, he can do that. He can actually hold that, and he can defend it. He can say, “You see? When I go back and I see the processes today, and I go back and I find a bunch of rocks, and I know how fast the changes take place, and I see the changes in the strata of the rock, I figure they’ve got to take this many million of years, and this many million more years, and this many million more years to make those changes when I calculate it off the basis of change that takes place in my observations today.”

And so he fits everything into this limitless past and limitless future. He’s figuring everything will always go like it’s going now; everything always has gone like it’s going now. That’s uniformity. And he puts everything into that: the evolution of life, the evolution of galaxies, the evolution of chemical elements, the evolution of everything. And you can’t really prove he’s wrong. I mean you can’t go up to the guy and say, “You’re wrong, fella. I want to prove to you you’re wrong.”

The reason you can’t is because those events are not reproducible. You can’t reproduce those things. There’s no way. They’re not subject to scientific checking. He only believes in uniformity, because he’s got the faith that that’s right, not because he can ever defend it. No way. It is simply a matter of faith that uniformity has been constantly true.

You say, “What’s the scriptural view?” Well, look at it here. Oh, they say in verse 4, “All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Oh, really? “For this they are willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water” – now watch – “by which the world that then was was overflowed with water and perished. The heavens and earth, which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

He says, “Those people who are saying all things continue as they were have forgotten that that’s not true. Have they forgotten the flood? And those people that think that all things are going to continue as they were at the same pace. Have they forgotten the fiery day of judgment?”

You see what the Bible says? The Bible says you better believe in catastrophism. And you could explain all the strata, you can explain all the scientific facts and data and fit it beautifully into the system that God has set forth in His Word. So it boils down, folks, really to whether you want to believe in a uniformity theory that you can’t prove, or whether you want to believe in catastrophism, which the Bible defends.

Now do you see what I’m saying? There’s no conflict between science and the Bible, there’s only a conflict on a moral basis between a man and God. You can’t argue either case. You can’t argue catastrophism, because you can’t reproduce it. But you can argue that a man is really fighting against God.

I’ll tell you, the guy who is the uniformitarian, who’s got all that constant going, in my mind, he’s got greater faith than the man who believes the Bible, because he hasn’t got anything to believe. At least we have the Bible. The conflict then is not science and the Scripture, but scientism, philosophical science, science as religion, and the Word of God. One scientist said on the science newsletter that I read, he said, “I reject the idea of a transcendent God, so what other option do I have? That’s why I believe in it.”

And the final decision is moral. Henry Morris says, and I quote, “The Bible does provide a perfectly sound basis for understanding physical processes. It serves well as a textbook on science within which we can satisfactorily explain all the data of science and history. The issue is not, the issue is not between science and the Scripture. The issue is whether a man wants to submit to the Word of God or does not. And it boils down to Romans 1:28, which defines man in these terms: ‘They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.’ And so having dumped God, they had to come up with some explanation. Having rejected His revelation, they came up with the only other option: if God didn’t make it, then it just happened.”

You say, “Well, then there really is no conflict? What about all of the scientific things that we’ve learned? Does the Bible say those things? Aren’t there scientific errors in the Bible?” Let me show you some things in the Bible on the subject of science. Now, get in mind that the Bible’s ancient. And we’re going to be dealing in the book of Job, which goes way back; and we’re going to be dealing with some things that were spoken in the Word of God that are just astounding when you think about how late in man’s history man discovered them scientifically.

Now, let’s look at several things. First of all, the basic principles of science. Now, all scientists agree – and I say that somewhat hesitatingly, the majority of them do – that several things are necessary as basics. First of all, science must deal with things, and that is matter. Science, secondly, must deal with happenings; that is energy. And, thirdly, science must deal with a matrix in which those things happen; that is space-time, hyphenated. So the basics of science are matter, energy, and space-time.

That’s a fairly simple catalogue. Any respectable scientist would agree to that. The universe, in essence, then – now mark this – must be a continuum of space-time, matter, and energy. Science tells us that one of those cannot exist without the other. You cannot have matter existing without energy and existing without a place for it to exist. Do you see what I’m saying? All three have to be together. The continuum must have existed simultaneously from the beginning of life, says science.

You know something remarkable? In Genesis 1:1, you have it all right there. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,” includes all those things. It includes the space-time matrix, energy, and matter. The very first verse in the Bible has God creating the three basic dimensions of science simultaneously, and all scientists of respectable quality would agree that those three things are basically necessary.

Once the universe had been created, its processes, say scientists, were designed to operate in an orderly fashion. All the different phenomena of nature was ordered by and sustained by these forces; and science says the forces continue, and continue, and continue, and continue. No further creation was needed.

And, you know, that’s what the Bible says, too? You know, there is a block of matter and energy that is created; and it continues, and continues, and continues, and continues, and continues. It takes different form, but it continues. Energy is never totally lost. Matter is never totally lost. The same continuum goes on, and on, and on. There’s no need for later creations. And that’s exactly what it says in Genesis 2:2, “God ended His work which He had made.” God, in the right simultaneous beginning, put all the right things together; and when He put it together, He stopped; and creation ended right there. And science agrees that there was the initial beginning of these things; and then, out of that, came the cycle of reproduction; but energy and matter have continued.

The complete cessation of creative activity has been inadvertently recognized by modern science as the first law of thermal dynamics. It’s the law of the conservation of mass and energy, that the universe converses mass and energy. It is the most universal and the most certain of all scientific principles. Science has shown that there is nothing being created in the known universe now. There are things changing, and energy affecting matter, and matter affecting energy, and so forth and so on; but nothing is being created now. And the Bible says that when God ended His work, He ended it; and it fits the scientific fact.

Let me show you a couple of interesting verses. Isaiah 40:26, “Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things, who bringeth out their host by number. He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for He’s strong in power;” – listen to this – “not one faileth.” There is the law of the conservation of mass and energy. When God made it, He said, “It will not cease to exist. It will not cease to exist.” Conservation, the first law of thermodynamics.

In Nehemiah 9:6, “Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, all things that are in it, the seas and all that is in them” – now watch – “and Thou preservest them all.” You see again the statement that the continuation of the existence of mass and energy is part and parcel of God’s creative work. Scientists, as I said, inadvertently thought they discovered the first law of thermodynamics; they really just discovered Isaiah 40, verse 26.

Let me give you another one. Back in the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes 1, verse 9, listen to this: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.” You get that? “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun.” Did you get it? There again is the continuation of all of this.

“Is there anything whereof it may be said, ‘See, this is new?’ It hath been already of old time which was before us.” That’s right. When God created the totality of mass and energy, and science says it was in a unit. Of course, they say it occurred evolutionary cycle as a unit. We say God made it.

But notice the agreement at that point. Ecclesiastes 3:14, “I know that whatsoever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been.” Isn’t that amazing? The Word of God is absolutely accurate in defending and defining the first law of thermodynamics: the conservation of mass and energy. Spontaneous generation can’t happen. It never has; it never will.

Then there’s the second law of thermodynamics, and this is the law of increasing disorder. It says that though there is never the loss of mass and energy, its ability to produce and to make productive contribution breaks down, and breaks down, and breaks down, and finally becomes random; disorder instead of order. All processes finally will cease, and the universe will be dead, science tells us.

You say, “Does that fit Scripture?” Sure does. Do you know God didn’t make the world with the second law of thermodynamics operating? God made the world, and He look at it and said, “It is” – what? – “it is good.” But when man sinned, the second law of thermodynamics came into being. Science has never been able to figure out how that law works or where it came from.

We know where it came from, it came from the fall of man. When man sinned and fell, Genesis 3:17, God said, “Cursed is the ground.” And that was simply the symbol of the curse that stretched everywhere. The heavens have even been cursed, and you know who runs around up there with all of His angels: Satan.

Let me show you something in Romans chapter 8 if you want a good explanation of where the second law of thermodynamics came from. It’s Romans 8:20. “The creation was made subject to vanity, not willing, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.” There we have basically that law, that the whole creation is in disorder, that it is breaking down. This is the law known as entropy: the breaking down of the productivity ability or capacity of matter and energy.

I hasten to add, however, folks, that because of that passage right there, it says the breakdown’s only temporary. You say, “What do you mean by that?” Well, the Lord’s going to come and create a new heaven and a new earth with no curse. Are you ready for that? No more curse, no more death, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain, no more regrets, no more exile, no more trouble, no more hurting, no more destruction, no more decay, no more unrighteousness, no more sea, no more temple, no more night, and no more sinners. A lot of no mores. God’s going to end the breaking down random disorderly character of the universe, and recreate a new heaven and new earth just like the one He made the first time before the fall, and it’ll have not operating in it the second law. But notice, the second law of thermodynamics is completely explained by the curse that came upon man. And from the very beginning, the fact of earth’s disorder and random and breaking down is clearly outlined in the 3rd chapter of Genesis. Amazing.

Let me give you another interesting area – and those were just generalities. Have you ever studied the area of hydrology? Well, I hadn’t, until I got out all the encyclopedias and started studying it, because there were some interesting Bible verses that I knew must be related to it. Hydrology is basically the science that deals with the waters of the earth. Water is evaporated up into the atmosphere, collected in the clouds, and then redeposited on the earth in the form of rain and snow. And then certain amount of it evaporates again and goes through the same cycle. Other of it flows into the runoff, into the lakes and the streams; winds up in the ocean, evaporates from the ocean; and the cycle just keeps going on, and on, and on. Part of the rain and show that falls seeps into the ground and, therefore, we have the water table that’s in the ground which provides water as well.

So this whole cycle of hydrology and the hydrological cycle of water being carried up and dropped back down, and so forth and so on, really puzzled the world until the 17th century. In fact, until the 17th century, people believed in subterranean reservoirs, that in the middle of the earth there were huge inexhaustible reservoirs of water, that that’s where springs came from – just kept bubbling and bubbling out of these reservoirs. They didn’t believe that water could seep through soil and create those reservoirs. They didn’t believe there was any way to replenish them, so they figured they must be mammoth things. Men like Mariotte and Perrault and Halley from England came along in the 17th century and opened up the modern concept of hydrology where water is taken up into the clouds, redeposited, seeps into the earth, creates the reservoirs of water in the ground, as well as runs off and fills the seas, et cetera, et cetera. Science had discovered and studied this evaporation, transportation, and precipitation, et cetera.

     Well, you know, if they’d just read Isaiah 55, they’d had the whole thing. They didn’t need to wait until 17th century. Listen to Isaiah 55:10. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth.” Now wait a minute. It says, “They do not return there.” There’s the cycle, isn’t it? They don’t return there until they’ve done their job. God deposits the rain, it saturates the earth. It’s recollected, evaporated, and brought up from the seas and from the dry land, and cycled back to the clouds again.

So he says, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and they don’t return without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout and furnish seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall My Word be which goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” He says, “The Word is going to have the same kind of seed-bearing cycle that rain does before it’s talked back up into the clouds.” Scientifically accurate.

Ecclesiastes 1, verse 6: “The wind goes toward the south, turns about unto the north; it whirls continually, and the wind returns again according to its circuits; and all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.” Isn’t that amazing? Do you know why all the rivers keep running into the sea, and the sea isn’t full? Because it’s the same water, just keeps going around and around and around. It’s the same water. There’s really no loss, ultimately, of the mass or the energy. The same cycle is going on. Ecclesiastes, Solomon said it. Nobody picked up on Solomon for a long time.

In Job, the first book ever written in Scripture, Job 36:27-28 says this: “For He draws up the drops of water; they distill rain from the mist, which the clouds pour down, and the drip upon man abundantly.” The oldest book in the Bible described the process of evaporation and precipitation.

Psalm 135, verse 7, “He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightnings for the rain.” Vapor goes up and rain comes down. So the Scripture gives the hydrological cycle and the features of evaporation. You can read Job 26:8 and find about condensation. You can read Job 28:10 and find about runoff. You could read Psalm 33:7 and find about the ocean reservoirs.

Job 38:22 says, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?” Clouds store those things, said Job, something that man in his own day really never understood. You see, God made the whole hydrological cycle. He could explain it, couldn’t He? There’s no conflict with science there. Absolute accuracy.

Let me give you another one: astronomy. Astronomy’s fascinating I guess because we can all look at it, and we all see the wonder of it, it’s just staggering. But modern astronomy, which is the study of the solar systems, didn’t even begin to replace the old ideas until the 17th century or so. You remember the old idea that the earth was a flat disk like a record? It was a flat thing, and it was surrounded by the world river called Oceanus, and they used to say that, “If you’re dumb enough to sail through the gates of Pericles” – which is the Rock of Gibraltar – “you’ll fall off into nothingness.” And then some people sailed around the Cape of Good Hope on South Africa, and all the way up the coast of Africa, and that theory was on shaky ground. Well, you know, that idea of a flat disk-shaped earth just sitting there and the whole solar system’s stellar – heaven’s going around, and around, and around, while this flat disk just watched it go; that particular view lasted a long time.

In the Ptolemaic view – which of course, was the famous view until the Copernican theory came along – the Ptolemaic view was that the Greek philosopher said that the earth is a flat thing and it’s in a hollow globe; it’s like the inside of a big bubble, a big ball. Of course, they never got into the question of, “What’s outside the bubble?” which is a tough question.

But, anyway, they had this hollow globe, and the stars were stuck in the inside of the globe like little jewels; and the globe just kept going around, and the flat earth just watched it go around. That was the whole ballgame right there. The sky was supported, you see, because there was a stick, a big one, that was stuck clear through the big ball sky; and right through the little flat disk, earth, like that. And the whole sky was able to revolve on this stick. Boy, don’t think about that too long. But, believe me, that was popular until 1472 to 1543 when Copernicus lived. He came along and presented the fact that the earth was in motion, they thought he was out of his mind.

Then came men like Brahe, Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo in the 17th century, and they really gave birth to modern astronomy. The most amazing fact of modern astronomy is the essentially infinite size and variety of the physical universe. The thing that they discovered was that there’s no end to it, that it isn’t a little ball with a bunch of things stuck on the inside of it, that it is endless. This is the staggering thing about modern astronomy.

Well, you know, Isaiah 55:9 said that? Do you know Job 22:12, the oldest book in the Bible, Job says, “Is not God in the height of Heaven? Look also to the distant stars how high they are!” The recognition that it’s far off.

Jeremiah made such allusions himself to the fact that the solar system was a vast and distant thing. In Jeremiah, let’s see, I think it’s 31:37, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘If heaven above can be measured and the foundation of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,’ saith the Lord.” Oh, I like that verse for two reasons. It tells me that Heaven can’t be measured. It also tells me that Israel can’t be cast off.

And when somebody comes along and says, “You know, I’m not too sure about Israel. I believe in sort of a covenant position, and I think Israel’s been set aside permanently,” I say, “Oh, really? Well, then tell me how big the heavens are, because the day you measure the heavens is the day God sets aside Israel.”

“Oh, really?” That’s what it says. Jeremiah 33:22, interesting to deal with that. “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David, My servant.” And, again, you have the idea that there’s no way to number the stars. There’s no way. It’s vast; it’s innumerable.

But, you know, before the telescope was invented in the 17th century, Hipparchus said, “There are a 1,022 stars; final.” Ptolemy said, “You’re wrong. There are a 1,056.” Today our scientists tell us there are over 100 billion in our galaxy. And how many billion galaxies are there? The Bible knew all that. You can’t measure them, they’re innumerable. They’re more innumerable than the sands of the sea. Imagine how many sands you could gather from all the seas of all the globe, and you don’t have the number of how many stars there are. It’s a long way out there. Can’t be measured, can’t be measured. The Bible said it couldn’t be measured, couldn’t be counted.

And, you know, science has recently discovered that stars are all different, too. There are tremendous varieties of them, that they’re not all the same. The early scientists believed they were all the same thing. Whatever they were, it was the same thing. They found today that there are infinite numbers of varieties and sizes; and scientists are busy today cataloging these sizes and varieties. Do you realize 1 Corinthians 15:41 said that? First Corinthians 15:41 says, “There’s one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars;” – listen to this – “for star differs from star.”

Now, all the Bible had to do was one time say, “All stars are the same,” and you could throw it away, right? It would’ve been wrong; it doesn’t say that. It never makes a mistake. See, God knows as much about stars as He does about salvation.

Another thing that’s interesting is orbits. It always fascinated me. I remember I was a little kid in classes, teacher had some big ball with a bunch of little balls going around it, you know; and, boy, I used to think that’s amazing stuff. And then when you stop and realize that everything is in orbit around something, and everything is in orbit in the whole universe, and the whole thing is going around in a mad panicky thing, it’s staggering. Everything in the universe is going somewhere. Amazing.

Science has charted that these orbits are so absolute that they can predict them to the very hour. You know that? They can predict an eclipse, can’t they, to the very hour. You know why they can do that? Because the orbits of those planets are absolutely constant.

Science was staggered when it realized this. Oh, it shouldn’t be. Jeremiah 31:35 and 36, “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun or light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and stars for light by night;” – listen – “if this fixed order departs from Me, then the offspring of Israel shall cease from being a nation before Me.” The fixed order of the stars; and God says it won’t change.

I’m telling you, folks, you can measure that stuff, because God is upholding all of those things at an absolutely perfect pace so that they can be charted mathematically. Staggering. It’s all there in Jeremiah. They should’ve known there was a fixed orbit for everything. You say, “Did Jeremiah understand what he was saying?” Of course, he didn’t know all that he was saying. But, boy, what a vindication of Scripture. Hmm.

Here’s an interesting one, just comes to mind: Psalm 19:6. Scientists used to have kind of a little fun with this one, laughing. It’s talking about the sun. Regarding the sun, it says in verse 6, “His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit unto the ends of it. There’s nothing hidden from the heat thereof.” The old view, of course, the old false view was that the sun revolved around the earth. Remember that? That was the old view; the sun was going around the earth. And they say, “See, look at this Bible statement. His going forth from the end of heaven, His circuit to the ends of it, nothing.” They’ve got the sun going in a circuit around the globe, and they used to laugh, “Ha-ha, isn’t it funny, the sun’s going around the earth.”

But the psalmist’s word took on some new meaning, because you know what science has discovered in recent years? They have discovered that the sun – watch this – with our entire solar system actually does move through space in orbit. It says there that it’s going forth is from one end of heaven to the other. Science has calculated that our entire solar system dragged along by the sun is going at 72,000 miles an hour in a gigantic orbit that takes 2 million centuries to complete. Folks, we are moving from one end of heaven to the other at 72,000 miles an hour, as well as spinning on the way and rotating around the sun.

You know, not many years ago, scientists believed that the moon was a great luminous body. They actually taught that the moon was a luminous body. Centuries ago, Job said in Job 25:5, “Look to the moon; it shineth not.” Years ago, Job knew the moon wasn’t a luminous body. So, you see, the Bible is right in its general principles; it’s right in it’s astronomy; it’s right in its hydrology.

Let me give you another one: geology. When the Bible talks about scientific things regarding geology - incidentally, geology is the science of the earth, and I can talk a lot about this. There’s all different kinds of things: geophysics, geochemistry, and everything else.

But just to pinpoint a couple of things; I got an interesting study. I was reading Encyclopedia Britannica. I got into the study of something called isostasy; and this is the study of the balance of the earth, and this whole study really never came into full understanding until 1959. But it deals with the fact that the earth is perfectly balanced, that there is equal weight to support land mass and mountains and valleys and water, that the whole thing is perfectly balanced, that its equilibrium is astounding; and they came up with this as the foundation of geophysics. Do you know that the water in the oceans exerts a pressure against the shore that keeps the mountains up? It’s a staggering thing, and the earth has different weights of rocks at different places to balance it out. Amazing.

Listen. What’s amazing? Isaiah 40, verse 12: “Behold the Lord God, who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, marked off the heavens with the span,” – that’s half a cubit – “and” – listen – “calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills with a pair of scales.”

Now listen to Psalm 104. “He established the earth on its foundation so that it will not totter.” Isn’t that fantastic? “He established the earth on its foundation so it will not totter. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them.” God said in the Old Testament that, “I’ve made the earth so that it’s balanced.”

I’m telling you, folks, the Bible doesn’t make mistakes scientifically. There’s no contradiction between science and the Bible. The same God who wrote the Bible is the God who made the world and all the worlds in the universe.

Geology has a sub-science called geodesy, and this is the study of the shape of the earth. And it is clear that the earth is spherical, that it is basically round. Now the ancients taught that it was – what? – flat. They said, as I told you, if you sail far enough, you’ll plunk off into nothingness. That was really dumb, because Isaiah told them what it was. Isaiah 40:22, I just love it. It says, “It is He that sits on the circle of the earth.” Can you believe it? Chug, C-H-U-G, translated is a Hebrew word, means sphere.

And Job 38, the oldest book, in verse 14 says, “The earth is turned as clay to the seal.” What does that mean? It refers to small clay cylinders the ancients used to write. While they were still soft they ran a stick through them, and they would roll them across the impression like that. Job said it rotates on an axis. Isaiah said it’s a sphere. Everybody thought it was flat.

You take, for example, gravity – dealing again with geology. Take gravity. It wasn’t till Newton in the 17th century that the gravitational laws were really finalized. And Job said in Job 26:7, “He hangeth the earth on nothing.” There’s gravity. Well, there are other things we could talk about. But, you see, that generally in the area of specifics like hydrology and astronomy and geology, the Bible is accurate.

Let me give you another thought: meteorology. This is amazing. The basic principle of meteorology is the circulation of the atmosphere. Galileo discovered, in the 17th century, that wind had circuits. He discovered that winds go in a circuitous pattern. If he’d have read Ecclesiastes 1:6, he’d have read this: “The wind goes toward the south, turns about to the north, whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to its circuits.”

You see, the Bible knew what it took meteorologists a long time to find out. Do you realize that before Galileo, no scientist ever knew that air had weight? That wasn’t until Galileo that it was determined that air had weight. Job 28:25 says, “He imparted weight to the air.” Again, accuracy.

Let me give you one other thought: physiology. And you could really go on and on about this. But just take the science of physiology; the Bible is so accurate on that. It wasn’t until William Harvey, 1628, discovered the circulatory system as the key to life, that man really understood that blood was recognized as the thing that kept you alive. Before that, whenever you got sick, they took your blood out. Remember? They bleed you.

Now when somebody gets sick, we give them blood. We know that makes for life. It took until 1628 for William Harvey to get it straight. Leviticus 17:11 says, “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” You say, “Oh, that’s a spiritual saying.” You’re right. “It’s a sacrificial saying.” You’re right. It’s also scientifically correct, isn’t it? Bible doesn’t make mistakes.

In 1953, a medical book came out entitled Personality Manifestations in Psychosomatic Illness. It really became an important book. And today we know a lot about psychosomatic illness. And this book discussed how emotions can cause debilitating, and even fatal illness. And the book had diagrams in it of the emotional center of the brain from which nerve fibers descend to every area of the body; and because of these intricate connections with that emotional center of the brain sending out all those nervous impulses through that system, it is understandable that any emotional trauma, any emotional stress, any turmoil in that emotional center can send out impulses through the fibers of the nervous system, can cause anything from headaches to foot itch and on into serious things.

The book recorded – and it’s, of course, a recognized accurate book – that the emotional center produces illness in three ways. Number one, changes the amount of blood flow. And you can get a good illustration of it by somebody who gets mad. Automatically, the blood rushes to his face. In many cases, he gets red. Or he gets embarrassed, and he gets red. Emotional stress can increase the amount or decrease the amount of blood flow and, consequently, cause disease.

Secondly, emotional stress at the center of the nervous system can affect secretions of certain glands. Have you ever been very nervous before you were to give a speech and have your mouth dry up? The very emotional thing that’s going on in your brain sends certain impulses through your nervous system that dries up the glands that provide the fluid in your mouth. Now what happens is, for example, when you get an excess pressure on the emotional stress, for example, excess thyroxin is produced by emotion. It is poured into the bloodstream. It produces goiter and even fatal heart disease, all as a matter of emotion. Not only that, the third way that emotion changes physical health is by creating muscle tension. The nerves affect the muscles, and the muscles tighten up and become tense.

You say, “Well, that’s nice that they discovered all that. What does it have to do with what you’re talking about?” Well, I want you to know the Bible anticipated all of that. The Bible knew that your emotions were very, very important in terms of your health.

Listen to Proverbs 16:24, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,” – now listen, beautiful – “sweet to the soul,” – are you ready? – “health to the bones.” You see, God knew that emotional stress – that anger, that criticism, that whatever it is that were the sour words – could affect physical health; and that’s right there. There’s no way those people could’ve clinically discovered that. God revealed it.

Proverbs 17:22, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” Yeah, a happy person is a healthy person, right? An unhappy one is an unhealthy one.

I’ll tell you, let me add something just in conclusion. The little book that McMillen has written called None of These Diseases had some interesting things. I’m just going to read you a thought or two here. Listen: “For many hundreds of years, the dreaded disease leprosy had killed countless millions of people in Europe.”

The extent of the horrible malady among Europeans is given by Dr. George Rosen, Columbia University Professor of Public Health. Quote: “Leprosy cast the greatest blight that threw its shadow on the daily life of medieval humanity. Fear of all other diseases taken together can hardly be compared to the terror spread by leprosy. Not even the Black Death in the 14th century or the appearance of syphilis toward the end of the 15th century produced a similar state of fright.”

Early in the Middle Ages, during the 6th and 7th centuries, it began to spread more widely, and Europe became a serious social and health problem. It was endemic, particularly among the poor, and reached a terrifying peak in the 13th and 14th centuries. What did the physicians offer to stop the ever-increasing ravages of leprosy? Some taught that it was brought on by eating hot food, pepper, garlic, and the meat of diseased hogs. Other physicians said it was caused by malign conjunction of the planets. Naturally, their suggestions for prevention were utterly worthless.

“Another plague that made the Dark Ages really dark was the Black Death. In the 14th century alone, this killer took the lives of one out of every four persons – an estimated total of 60 million. It was the greatest disaster ever recorded in human history. Sweeping everything before it, this plague brought panic and confusion in its train. The dead were hurled pell-mell into huge pits hastily dug for the purpose, and putrefying bodies lay about everywhere in the houses and streets. The sexton and the physician were cast into the same deep and wide grave. The testator and his heirs and executors were hurled into the same cart, into the same hole together.

What brought the major plagues of the Dark Ages under control?” George Rosen gives the answer: “Leadership was taken by the church, as the physicians had nothing to offer. The church took as its guiding principle the concept of contagion as embodied in the Old Testament. This idea and its practical consequences are defined with great clarity in the book of Leviticus. Once the condition of leprosy had been established, the patient was segregated and excluded from the community. Following the precepts laid down in Leviticus, the church undertook the task of combating leprosy.”

It accomplished the great feat in methodical eradication of disease. The procedure came from Leviticus 13:46. Quote: “All the days wherein the plague shall be in him. He shall be defiled; he is unclean. He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.”

Other historians credit the Bible for the dawning of a new era in the effective control of disease. “The laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of a sanitary legislation.” That’s a quote from Arturo Castiglioni, who has written The History of Medicine. You see, the Bible knew the solution to those problems. There are other problems physiologically that the Bible solves. If you’re to read that little book None of These Diseases, you can read more and more of them.

Just some samples for tonight. We could add biology, archeology, anthropology, et cetera; and again we would find that every time the Bible touches on these things, it is absolutely accurate. Friends, there is only one way this truth could have been known, and that is the God who made the world revealed it. Is the Bible believable? My friends, science tells me that it is. Science has never yet refuted the Scripture, but rather confirmed it.

In the final analysis, I submit the truth is won and Jesus said this: “Thy Word is truth.” It’s true on any subject it ever touches. Therein lies the product of its inspiration.

Our Father, we are thankful tonight for just the joy and the privilege of being able to share, and just have our hearts lifted to a new and a fresh confidence in Your Word. O Father, how grateful we are for the fact that the more science discovers fact, the more that it charts the present processes, the more the Word of God is vindicated. In this Book is Your truth. God, give us a fresh new confidence, a fresh new boldness to stand for the Book. We’ll praise You in Jesus’ name. Amen.