The Gospel Herald -- Promoting the fundamentals of the 1888 message.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Did you know that the space program is busy trying to prove that what has been called "myth" in the Bible is true. Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland and a consultant in the space program, relates the following development.

I think one of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Greenbelt, Maryland. They were checking the position of the sun, moon and planets out in space. They wanted to know where they would be 100 years and 1000 years from now. We have to know this so we won't send a satellite up and have it bump into something later on in it’s orbits. We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite, and where the planets will be so the whole thing will not bog down.

They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal which meant that something was wrong, either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards. The service department was called in to check it out and they said, "What's wrong?"

Well, they found there is day missing in space in elapsed time. They scratched their heads and tore their hair. There was no answer.

Finally, a Christian man on the team said, "you know, one time I was in Sunday school and talked about the sun standing still". While they did not believe him, they did not have an answer either, so they said, "show us."

He got a Bible and went back to the book of Joshua where they found a pretty ridiculous statement for any one with "common sense." There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, "Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." Joshua was concerned because the enemy surrounded him and if darkness fell they would overpower them. So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still! That's right. "The sun stood still" and "the moon stayed and hasted not to go down about a whole day."

The astronauts and scientists said, "There is the missing day!" They checked the computers going back into the time the passage was written and found it was close but not close enough The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes—not a whole day. They read the Bible and there it was, "about" (approximately) a day".

These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes you will still be trouble 1,000 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits. As the Christian employee thought about it he remembered somewhere in the Bible it said that the sun went BACKWARDS. The scientist told him he was out of his mind, but they got out the Good Book and read these words in 2 Kings that told the following story: Hezekiah, on his death bed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah said, "Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?" Hezekiah said, "It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees". Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow 10 degrees BACKWARD. Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!

Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes plus 40 minutes in 2 Kings make up the missing day in the universe! Isn't it amazing?

REFERENCES: Joshua 10:8-13; 2 Kings 20:8-11

Read the account of Francis D. Nichol as he answers objections
to the question of the lost day as it relates to the Sabbath.

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