Camping with the grandkids...

Grandad!!  Look at all the stars!...and there's the Milky Way! 

Where’s the Southern Cross, Grandad?

See those bright stars above us – they point to the Cross, and see…the bottom of the Cross points to South. Like our blog 'Down-under 'n' lost' says, we can use it to find direction and even tell roughly what time it is – if clouds aren’t in the way. 

Really?? That’s clever!  So why are there stars in the sky?

The Bible tells us that they are there for 'signs and seasons'.

I can't see any signs up there - just dots.

When God first made the Earth He put what was called 'a firmament' up there - sort of a shell around the Earth to protect us. It was possibly made of compressed hydrogen which would have made the stars glow like your computer screen does.

Wow! What happened to the shell?

It broke! Apparently there was no rain, just mist, for the first 1656 years until Noah and his family were safely in the ark with all those animals. Then God broke up the ‘fountains of the great deep’ and opened the ‘windows of heaven’ because He’d had enough of Man’s wickedness.

So how many stars are there anyway?

Only God knows how many there are because He has counted them and named them all but astronomers tell us there are more stars than grains of sand on Earth.

Wow! God must have the biggest computer ever! 

Tragedy in Tuncurry, NSW

So did they all get scattered up there by the Big Bang?

Big Bang??  Did you hear about the house exploding in Tuncurry the other day?...all it left was a big mess - it didn't create life, it killed the owner.  

The Bible tells us that the Big Bang comes at the end of the universe.

So how did the stars get up there then?

God made them all on the 4^th day about 6000 years ago, putting them all in their place.

But stars are so far away, their light takes a lot longer than 6000 years to get here. Even sunlight takes over 8 minutes to get here.

We forget that God tells us about 10 times in the Bible how He did it – by stretching out the heavens like a tent, just like we erected our tent just now.

That’s just fantastic! I can’t get my head around that.  So how are we supposed to read the star signs?...Is that what the star page in the newspaper is for?

No way! Those notions are based on someone’s imagination and the signs are out by about a month anyway.                                                              

Now then, do you realize we are doing exactly what David in the Bible did when he was looking after his dad’s sheep?...admiring God’s handiwork in the stars.

How do you know that?

He tells us all about it in Psalm 19 – even telling us there’s a line up there around the whole Earth - with words!

Aw Grandad!...there’s no line up there with words on it!

Well the apostle Paul said that the words up there were the gospel about the Lord Jesus and that ‘their sound went into all the earth’ – ‘their words to the ends of the world’.

But isn’t that talking about missionaries taking the Good News about Jesus to all the countries of the world?

When Paul wrote that to the people in Rome there was no global travel in airliners, or internet, or satellite television – not even telephones. Paul hadn’t even been to Rome himself.  

Tell me…how could you possibly send a message all over the world to people who spoke different languages, without modern technology?

Sometimes people send messages in bottles in the ocean but that would be a bit slow.  I suppose the only way would be by using signwriting in the sky.

Just like God said!...signs in the firmament.                                                           

How about we talk some more in the morning.

NEXT:   'Brekkie 'round the campfire...'
 

http://discoveryiopna.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/brekkie-round-campfire.html

 

Image credits:                                                                               

stargazing/site.escapadedirect.com                                                                          

Tuncurry/Facebook.com                                                                                     

David/sonshineofmylife.com