What a terrific experience we had in chapel this week! We watched the DVD called, “The Call of the Cosmos”. It vibrantly and colorfully displays the vastness of the universe and the majestic greatness of God. We put together some Bible verses and photos to share a small picture of this incredible God and his incomparable power, incomprehensible wisdom, and inconceivable love.
Isaiah 40:12
Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
Who else knows the weight of the earth
or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
Isaiah 40:21-22
Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand?
Are you deaf to the words of God—the words he gave before the world began? Are you so ignorant?
God sits above the circle of the earth.
The people below seem like grasshoppers to him.
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them.
A Big Universe, An Even Bigger God
It is 270,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles to the edge of the visible universe and, traveling the speed of light, it would take 45,000,000,000 years to reach the outer limits of our discovery! Traveling the speed of light, it would take 1.3 seconds to reach the moon, 4 ½ minutes to reach Mars, and 5 hours and 20 minutes to reach the outer edges of our solar system. To reach our closest star, Alpha Centauri, it would take 5 years, 4 months and 19 days. That is only 26,000,000,000000 miles away. Traveling 10 light years we would reach the next star system, Tao Ceti. In 100 light years you would reach the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy (comprised of 40 galaxies) and in 1000 light years you would reach the spiral shape of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Psalm 147:4-5
4 He counts the stars
and calls them all by name.
5 How great is our Lord! His power is absolute!
His understanding is beyond comprehension!
An estimate of the number of stars just in the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000,000,000 to 400,000,000,000. With more than 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies contained in the visible universe, there are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand in the ocean and deserts in the entire planet.
Now to obtain an estimate of the number of stars in the universe, let’s multiply the number of stars in a galaxy by the number of galaxies in the visible universe. A low estimate of the number of stars in the universe is 100 billion galaxies times 10 billion stars per galaxies equaling 1 billion trillion stars or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in our visible universe.
Isaiah 40:25-26
“To whom will you compare me?
Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.
Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
Now, let’s compare the number of stars in the visible universe to the number of grains of sand on the seashores and all the deserts of the world. There are 135,000 grains of sand in one cubic inch. Expand that to one cubic foot and there are 235 million grains of sand. With an estimated 220,000 miles of coastline on the earth and approximately six million square miles of desert that makes for 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand on the earth. Given this is a low estimate you can round this up to 7.5 x 1019 grains of sand and this is still only a fraction of the total numbers of stars in our visible universe.
Stars: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Grains of sand: 75,000,000,000,000,000,000
A 10:1 ratio of Stars:Sand
An astonishing discovery is to look at a single grain of sand. Barely 4/100 of an inch in diameter, one single grain of sand is made of 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. That number of atoms in one grain of sand is more than the grains of sand on the entire planet.
Isaiah 40:15
…for all the nations of the world
are but a drop in the bucket.
They are nothing more
than dust on the scales.
He picks up the whole earth
as though it were a grain of sand.
Furthermore, an even more incredible discovery is when you examine a single drop of water. A single drop of water contains 1.7 billion trillion or 1,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 H2O water molecules. That means there are more water molecules in a one drop of water than the number of stars in the entire known universe.
The Creator of All You Can See or Imagine
Isaiah 40:12-31
12-17 Who has scooped up the ocean
in his two hands,
or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger,
Who has put all the earth’s dirt in one of his baskets,
weighed each mountain and hill?
Who could ever have told God what to do
or taught him his business?
What expert would he have gone to for advice,
what school would he attend to learn justice?
What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows,
showed him how things work?
Why, the nations are but a drop in a bucket,
a mere smudge on a window.
Watch him sweep up the islands
like so much dust off the floor!
There aren’t enough trees in Lebanon
nor enough animals in those vast forests
to furnish adequate fuel and offerings for his worship.
All the nations add up to simply nothing before him—
less than nothing is more like it. A minus.
So who even comes close to being like God?
To whom or what can you compare him?
Some no-god idol? Ridiculous!
It’s made in a workshop, cast in bronze,
Given a thin veneer of gold,
and draped with silver filigree.
Or, perhaps someone will select a fine wood—
olive wood, say—that won’t rot,
Then hire a woodcarver to make a no-god,
giving special care to its base so it won’t tip over!
21-24 Have you not been paying attention?
Have you not been listening?
Haven’t you heard these stories all your life?
Don’t you understand the foundation of all things?
God sits high above the round ball of earth.
The people look like mere ants.
He stretches out the skies like a canvas—
yes, like a tent canvas to live under.
He ignores what all the princes say and do.
The rulers of the earth count for nothing.
Princes and rulers don’t amount to much.
Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted,
They shrivel when God blows on them.
Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind.
25-26 “So—who is like me?
Who holds a candle to me?” says The Holy.
Look at the night skies:
Who do you think made all this?
Who marches this army of stars out each night,
counts them off, calls each by name
—so magnificent! so powerful!—
and never overlooks a single one?
27-31 Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind.
