73 lines
3.8 KiB
Standard ML
73 lines
3.8 KiB
Standard ML
The Longest Day
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Few of God's miracles cause protests in the "scientific" community like the
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account of Joshua's long day - when God made the sun and moon to stand still.
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But science and modern technology have done more to verify this phenominal
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biblical fact than they have to refute it.
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Common sense would say it is impossible for such a major disruption to occur
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and not totally destroy the precise, perfect balance in the solar system. But
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given a God, who created the heavens and the earth, who established the
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rotation of the planets and stars to the fraction of a second, making the earth
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stop rotating for 24 hours is not such a difficult task. Yet, computer
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scientists in the space program and mathematicians - one a former professor at
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Yale University - have discovered that a whole day has been unaccountably added
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in time.
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The positions of the moon, sun, and planets have to be calculated precisely for
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all space shots to avoid problems in establishing the satellite's orbit. The
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orbit has to be calculated for the life of the satellite to avoid its running
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into something else in space.
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Using computers, scientists can tell the exact location of the planets and
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their moons for years into the future. By the same means, they have been able
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to backtrack and determine these specific locations in the past. It was during
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one such search that the extra day appeared.
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From various accounts of the incident, it appears that something "did not
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compute." The extra day was just there. There was no computer malfunction;
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there was no explanation for the interruption of normal time patterns.
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When this apparent error appeared and no explanation was forthcoming, one of
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the scientists related that he had studied in Sunday School about time standing
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still. A preposterous idea to scientists, but faced with no other explanation,
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they asked him to show them the story.
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In the story in the tenth chapter of the book of Joshua, Joshua had asked God
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to make the sun and moon stand still to enable Joshua to defeat his enemies.
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Joshua 10:13 says, "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the
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people had avenged themselves upon their enemies... So the sun stood still in
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the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day."
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There was the extra day that science couldn't account for. But scientists are
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more exact than that. The term, "about a whole day" was not close enough for
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them.
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They rechecked their computers, going back to the time when the story was
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written. Their calculations showed that the time the sun stood still was 23
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hours and 20 minutes. It was not a whole day. This forty minutes was
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significant to the computer experts with their penchant for precision. A
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missing forty minutes would throw things off for years into the future.
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The former Sunday School pupil piped up again, saying he knew of another Bible
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story where the sun traveled backward. This possibility was even more bizarre
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than the sun standing still, said his skeptical, fellow scientists. But they
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agreed to hear him out, even if only to prove him wrong.
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They got out the Book again and turned to II Kings 20 and read about Hezekiah
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on his death bed. The prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah he would not die, but
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Hezekiah required a sign from God. So, Isaiah proposed to have God move the
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sun forward 10 degrees.
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In verse 10, Hezekiah says, "It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten
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degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees."
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Isaiah called upon God and the shadow on the sun dial moved back 10 degrees.
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Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes. These 40 minutes in II Kings, combined with
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the 23 hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, account forn the extra day - the 24 God
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given hours that space travelers will have to include in their calculations.
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From - Christian Science Monitor & The Evangelist
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