Latest / Crosswalk / Can the Sun Stand Still? — Joshua 10:12–14

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Can the Sun Stand Still? — Joshua 10:12–14 · Crosswalk

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Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow
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Him. You're listening to Crosswalk with Pastor
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Steve Winnery. Crosswalk is the radio ministry
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of Calvary Chapel Tri -Cities and it is our aim
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to lead you to the cross through the teaching
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of God's Word. Okay, so we know that the sun
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doesn't revolve around the earth. Okay, so why
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do we say sunrise? Have you ever said sunrise?
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Did the sunrise this morning? What's the answer?
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If you want to get technical, no. The earth rotated,
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the earth's revolving, and so the earth moved,
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not the sun. Is the sun moving? Yes. The sun
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is moving through around the galaxy, right? And
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so we're a little bit less than two -thirds out
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from the center of the galaxy, and the sun is
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moving. And so it's got a relative motion of
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its own in the galaxy itself. And so you have
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a galaxy, it is rotating, and the sun is rotating
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through that galaxy like another solar system.
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So the sun's like a planet in a galactic solar
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system with lots of stars doing this stuff. So
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the sun is moving. But when we're talking about
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the situation in the solar system, we picture
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the sun as not moving and the planets are revolving
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around the sun. It's called relative motion.
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That's how we picture these things. You also
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have the same thing with the earth. We have the
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same thing with the Earth and the Moon and Mars
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and that kind of stuff. When they're doing orbital
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mechanics and they're going to shoot a probe
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out to Jupiter or they're going to shoot a probe
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out to Mars or they're going to shoot a probe
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or a rocket ship out to the Moon, they're not
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worried about the Copernican system. What they're
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doing is they're treating the solar system as
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if the Earth and Mars are the only things in
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it, and they're looking at the relative motion
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of the Earth and Mars. And you can go back and
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you could throw in the Sun and Venus and all
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this other stuff, but it's just the relative
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motion of those two. And the point that I'm making
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is, sunrise is a valid concept, because relative
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to a point on the Earth, the Sun is rising. So
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when I stand in one spot, I'm treating the spot
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that I'm standing as if it's not moving. Just
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like when you shoot a rocket, you're treating
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the earth as if it's not moving, it's not revolving,
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it's not doing anything like that. And you shoot
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a rocket off to the moon and you're shooting
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it to a place that it's going to be in a few
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days when it gets there. So again when you're
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looking at science doesn't go into all the relative
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motions of everything in the solar system When
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they're going to do any kind of rocketry or anything
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like that It's only the two objects that they're
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dealing with that they're looking at and they're
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looking at the relative motion of each other
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And there's this always the center because that's
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where the rocket's starting from and so first
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point that I'm making is This is not silly When
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Joshua is saying, asking for God to make the
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sun stand still, this is actually scientific.
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From the point of view of Joshua at Gibeon, what
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he wants is for the sun to stand still in the
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sky, and that's what he's asking for. By the
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way, that is exactly what I would be asking for
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if I wasn't in his place. If I was praying this
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prayer, I wouldn't say, Lord, can you please
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stop the relative motion of the earth as far
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as its revolution around its axis so that the
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sun, from my perspective, will look like it's
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not moving. I would never say that. What I would
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say is, Lord, can you make the sun stand still?
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And I know about all this stuff, right? Okay,
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so number one, that statement is not unscientific.
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It's absolutely scientific. It just depends on
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your relative position. And so not a problem
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with that. Okay, so what happened here? And so
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people come up with different ideas about what
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could have taken place. And some of them are
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trying to state that, some of the ideas are trying
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to state that nothing actually happened and that
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the sun didn't actually stand still. that there's
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an option in the Greek for it to be something
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along the lines of sun diminish or things like
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that. And I said the Greek in the Hebrew. And
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there's some options for that in the language.
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But the problem is that it looks like the sun
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didn't go down for a whole day. And so that's
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pretty wild. So how do you do that? If the earth
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is revolving, then what you would have to do
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is stop the revolution of the earth. Okay, that's
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problematic because the earth is revolving. It's
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about 25 ,000 miles around the circumference
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at the equator and it revolves in 24 hours. That's
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about a thousand miles an hour at the equator
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that the earth is moving, right? That's pretty
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quick. And it's a large object doing this kind
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of stuff. And again, can God do that? He can
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do anything He wants. But once you start stopping
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the earth, you got stuff that's gonna happen.
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And some of the stuff that's going to happen
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is real big earthquakes, ocean sloshing, things
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like that. And so you don't want to just stop
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it really quickly. You don't want to just bam,
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stop the whole thing, because that can cause
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a huge problem. But you could slow it down. You
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could stop it slowly over time. We do this all
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the time with jets. You go fly in a jet, you're
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flying in a jet 700 miles an hour, right? It's
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like you're not sloshing around the cabin when
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you're landing. And so you can slow things down.
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You can do it in a way that might take care of
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that. That's a possibility. Maybe God just slowed
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down the rotation of the earth for a period of
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time, and then the sun stands still, and the
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moon stands still, the moon stands still. And
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so if the moon's in orbit around the earth, you'd
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have to not only stop the rotation of the earth,
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you'd have to stop the orbit of the moon. Because
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the moon would move, right? And so that's probably
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not the answer. And another thing that people
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come up with is refraction, light refraction.
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And so maybe God did something with the atmosphere
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so the light of the sun or light of the moon
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looked like it was staying in one place. He did
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something with the atmosphere and did that. And
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so that's a possibility too. Okay, and this is
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where all my goofy science stuff comes in. Because
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I picked up a book a long time ago and it's this
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one right here. And this is just for fun, you
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guys. I don't think that this is how it happened,
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necessarily. This is called The Long Day of Joshua
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and Six Other Catastrophes, and it's by three
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different guys, Donald Patton, Ronald Hatch,
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and Lauren C. Steinhauer. And these guys, actually,
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Steinhauer is a theorist for mathematical sciences
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at Northwest Incorporated. And he taught aerodynamics,
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orbital mechanics, applied mathematics at Harvard,
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MIT, and UW. Donald Patton was a geographer and
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a historian, obviously an author. And then Hatch
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is a mathematician and a physicist and an orbital
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analyst. And so what these guys did was they
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were intrigued by a number of things that took
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place in the Bible. And so they started coming
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up with. things that might be possible explanations
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for this. Oh, by the way, if you have a long
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day in Joshua, what are you gonna, or with Joshua
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in Israel, what are you gonna have across the
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planet? A long night. And so this is one of those
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things that we can go back in history and look
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at. And here is, are you guys familiar with maps
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like this? See the dark rise in this whole thing?
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This is nighttime at the very same time that
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this is daytime over here. Here's the Middle
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East. And so this is the Americas. We're on different
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right here and right here are on different sides
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of the globe. Can you get that? You see this
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when you're looking at things like orbits and
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when you're looking at eclipses and that kind
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of stuff. And so there are these stories of long
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nights. and really interesting. We have folk
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stories of a long day in Egypt, down in Ethiopia,
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in the area of Ethiopia, obviously in the area
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of Israel, we have it in India and we have it
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in China. They all have stories about a long
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day. And then when you talk about the Aztecs
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and some of these guys, the Aztecs, let me give
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you the list here, I've got it here somewhere.
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Oh, bummer. Anyway, we have a number of long
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night folk stories that come from the Aztecs,
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from the Incas, from the Mayas, from American
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Indians, and that's all of these guys over here.
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And even over in Africa, in Western Africa, we
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have stories about long nights. And so we do
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have this stuff, okay? Anyway. Back to what I
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was going to talk about. Steinhauer and Hatch
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and all these guys noticed that there were situations
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where there are biblical catastrophes and they
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seem to have a periodicity to them. There's a
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period of time in between these biblical catastrophes
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and that's one of the things that these guys
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were looking at. Another thing that they noticed
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and it's because they're into orbital mechanics
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is something that you may not know about the
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solar system. Check this out. This is a scale
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of the solar system, and I want you to notice
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this. This is Jupiter, and it's at about five,
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what are called five AUs. Those are, an AU is
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the distance of the earth to the sun, okay? And
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so Jupiter's sitting at about five AUs. You have
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Saturn sitting at a little less than 10 AUs.
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You have Uranus sitting at almost 20, and you
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have Neptune sitting at 30. Do you see the periodicity
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there? 5, 10, 20, 30. And Uranus is about twice
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as far out as Saturn is and Neptune is three
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times as far out as Saturn is. Well you have
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Saturn twice as far out as Jupiter is. That's
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called orbital resonance. And this is one of
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those things that when Newton came up with his
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theories of gravitation that scientists realized
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would be the case. with the solar system. And
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so when they went looking for Uranus, they looked
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in this area because they knew that the planet
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would be right about here, about 20 AUs out.
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And when they looked for Neptune, it was the
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same thing. They were looking for a planet in
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this area because of orbital resonance. And when
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you look at the inner planets, and I don't have
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a way to make this bigger for you, but you have
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an orbital resonance with the inner planets also.
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They're these spacings. I want you to notice
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that it goes, you know, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
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then you have this large space. This is about
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double the distance from the Sun as the Earth
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is, and so Earth to Mars is in about a one to
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two orbital resonance, and then it goes from
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there and jumps to five. And normally, the way
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that this would go is Mercury, Earth, Mars, then
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there should be something in here. This is where
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the asteroids are. There should be something
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in here, then it should go to Jupiter, and then
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all the rest of these are in normal spots as
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far as orbital resonance goes. And the reason
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this happens is because there's interactions
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between the gravitation of the planets. They
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force themselves in those places, right? So you
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have that. One of the things that we're subject
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to because of the stuff that we learn in school
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is a whole idea of uniformitarianism. And you
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know where astrophysicists think that the solar
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system came from? It's called the nebular hypothesis.
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And the idea behind that is that this whole area
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used to be a big cloud of gas and it was all
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moving in this direction and looking at it from
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the top. It was all moving in that direction
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and that over time you got the eddies in the
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gas and the eddies took the gas and began forming
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it into little particles. The particles became
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bigger and bigger and that's called accretion
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and then at certain points you had swirls in
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these areas and they became the planets. That's
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how all this stuff came together. There's huge
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problems with that in the first place. This theory
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came about in the 1700s by a guy named Kant.
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And so there's huge problems with it in the first
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place, and the huge problems have to do with
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gas laws. When you have a gas in a vacuum, guess
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what happens to it? Yeah, it disperses. Anything
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that you throw out into a vacuum, anything that
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doesn't have a body to it, basically, something
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where it's cohesive is going to spread out. That's
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what happens in a vacuum. That's what you have
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with a gas. And so you don't shoot. You can't
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take a tank of helium out into a vacuum and open
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it up and have a little bubble of helium going
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someplace. That's not what's going to happen.
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It's all going to spread out. That's what would
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happen with this too. And so there's a number
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of problems with it. One of the hugest problems
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with it is that the sun is being pictured here
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as really little because this is not the scale.
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The sun is huge in comparison. You could put
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a million Earths in the sun. So the sun is huge.
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It's got most of the volume. of the matter in
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the solar system. In fact, gosh, I think it's
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99 % of the matter in the solar system is contained
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in the sun, but it's only got 98 % of what's
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called the angular momentum, and this is what
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this means. All these planets are moving at a
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certain speed because they're out a certain distance
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from the sun, they're rotating around the sun,
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and the sun isn't spinning fast enough. When
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you're looking at it at the solar system, this
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is like taking a ball and putting it on the end
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of a string and whirling around the top of your
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head, okay? When you let the ball go, the string
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go out far, the whirling is gonna go slower.
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When you bring it in tighter, if you start pulling
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it in through your hand, it's gonna start going
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faster and faster, right? And so the sun should
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be moving in a way that's just radically fast,
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and it doesn't. You've got other problems with
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this whole thing and I won't go into every issue,
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but that's what we're trained with. We're trained
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with the idea that this was all naturalistic
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and that it came from swirls of gas and that
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kind of thing and that God wasn't involved in
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this. And that obviously is not something that
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the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches something
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radically different. Here's another thing that
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most people don't know is the Bible teaches that
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the calendar used to be 360 days. So we talked
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about this when we were going through the book
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of Genesis and in Genesis chapter 8 It talks
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about a period of time during the flood where
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it was five months and it was 150 days and You
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do the math on that you have five months of 30
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-day months, right and You do the math on that
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you go 30 times 12 and you get 360 days And this
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is another thing that a lot of people don't know.
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Every ancient calendar that we know about before
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701 BC had a 360 -day year and a 30 -day month.
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Every one of them did. And all of a sudden, when
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you get to the first millennium BC, that's right
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around 700 BC, when you get into the first millennium
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BC, all of the calendars are messed up and you
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have them going through and making actually adding
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days to the calendar the Roman Empire started
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about 750 BC and their calendar was messed up
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for a couple hundred years and when you have
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these nations Trying to come up with new calendars
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They realize that they needed to add five more
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days and actually they realized that it needed
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to be five and a quarter more days They knew
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that they had to add five days to the calendar
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and in all of their systems. They treat the days
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like they're extras like they don't actually
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belong to the year. And in fact, the Romans only
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paid their soldiers for 360 days because they
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considered the extra five days to be something
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that wasn't supposed to be in the year. I got
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a list here of all the ancient calendars that
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you can go to. The Mayan Empire, the Egyptian
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calendar, the Aztec Empire, India, Sumeria, Babylonia,
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Armenia, Greece. Rome, China, and obviously I
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already talked about the Bible, all have 360
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-day calendars. When you go to the Bible and
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you get to the book of Daniel, you find out that
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Daniel is using a 360 -day calendar. He's in
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the 500s, but he's still using a 360 -day calendar.
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When you get to the book of Revelation, it's
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a 360 -day calendar that's being used in the
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book of Revelation. This is something that I
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learned early on when I started studying the
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Bible. And what they used to call it was the
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prophetic year. And then as I studied more, I
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found out that it wasn't the prophetic year.
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It used to be the actual year. How many degrees
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in a circle? 360. Where do you think that came
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from? The Babylonians used the calendar as a
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measure for the circle. And so when you're talking
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about the zodiac and the divisions of the heavens,
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it's 360 degrees. It's not 365 and a quarter.
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It's 360 degrees because that's what the calendar
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used to be. And then again, what they ended up
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doing was adding days to the calendar. This is
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really interesting stuff to me. I know that I'm
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kind of getting off into the weeds here, but
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there's some cool stuff with this. When I started
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looking this stuff up, one of the things that
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people talked about was the fact that the Egyptians
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had a 365 day calendar for a very long time before
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all the other nations did and that kind of stuff.
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And then you find out that in 1550 BC, the Ebers
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Papyrus written during the reign of Pharaoh M
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in Office presents a 360 -day calendar on the
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reverse side of the first page of the 66 -foot
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-long scroll. And in the 1200s, Pharaoh Ramesses
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II had engraved an astronomical ceiling depicting
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a 360 -day year. And in none of these do they
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have the extra five days. So again, this is before
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701 BC and it's after that they began changing
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these things and I'm not gonna belabor that whole
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thing I could do a whole thing on this stuff,
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but you need to understand that it used to be
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360 day year and 30 day month and all the calendars
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say that and then something weird happened and
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the calendars change there's two events in the
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Bible that indicates something weird is going
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on and this is one of them in this event It looks
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like the Sun stands still for about a day And
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then the other event is later on in the book
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of Isaiah. And in that event, what happens is
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the sun goes backwards. There's a sundial. And
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Hezekiah is praying and asking for an answer
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from God. And when he prays and asks for an answer
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from God, God tells him, I'm gonna prove this
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to you. And what's gonna happen is the sundial
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is gonna go back 10 degrees. You start thinking
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about what that means. It's like you're looking
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up at the sun and what happens is the sun goes
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back 10 degrees. And now we have something that's
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really weird taking place. So either the earth's
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motion stops and actually turns backwards so
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you can get that going on or there's something
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else that's happening. And the other thing that
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can happen with this is what's called procession.
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Okay, so when these guys went to the Bible, one
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of the things that they noticed was that there
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was a periodicity about certain events. And so
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when you look at the flood of Noah, It's right
20:57
around the middle of the third millennium. And
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you look at the Tower of Babel, it's right around
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the beginning of the second millennium. Or actually,
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yeah, that would be the second millennium. Sodom
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and Gomorrah is also in the second millennium.
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You have the Exodus from Egypt. You have the
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long day of Joshua. You have Sisera's defeat.
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And they go through and look at this stuff. And
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what they found out was that each one of those
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events took place in the fall or in the spring
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of every single year. And in fact, some of the
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major events that you have taking place in the
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Bible happen right around Passover time. That's
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what's happening in the Bible here. It was right
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at Passover time that Jericho was taken. And
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then this battle probably takes place in the
21:45
fall of that year. And so they found this periodicity.
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And so it's October, March, October, March, October,
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March, October, March, all the way through. And
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it also had a periodicity of years. And it was
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a multiple of 108, or something that 108 was
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divisible by, 54 years or 108 years. And it looked
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like there was a whole thing going on there.
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And so what they did was they started looking
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at what could cause something like that. And
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here's something that you have. And this is a
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real, not to scale, but it gives you a picture
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of what Mars' orbit looks like in comparison
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to the Earth's. So Venus has an orbit that's
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almost circular. Earth has an orbit that changes
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by about three million miles. When you're looking
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at the Earth right now, you have what's called
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perihelion and aphelion. One is the closest approach
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to the sun, and the other one is the furthest
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away from the sun. And so in our summer, we are
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the furthest away from the sun at 93 .7 million
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miles. And in the winter, we're closest to the
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sun at about 90 .7 million miles. So there's
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about a three million mile difference. Right
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now, when you're talking about the orbit of Mars,
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the orbit of Mars goes from 128 million miles
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away from the sun to 154 million miles. That's
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a 26 million mile difference. And that's what's
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being shown here. It's highly elliptical, right?
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And so the Mars comes in pretty close to the
23:26
Earth here and gets further away. This is why
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when they're talking about firing rockets to
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Mars, they're talking about doing it every two
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years because we're almost on a resonant orbit
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in the sense that Mars circles the Solar system
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one time when the earth goes around it twice
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Okay, and so right now it's 365 and a quarter
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days for the earth. It's 687 days for Mars. It's
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almost two to one and What these guys? Thought
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up was maybe it used to be two to one because
24:00
that would be normal for a resonant orbit You've
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been listening to crosswalk with pastor Steve
24:07
Winnery crosswalk is the radio ministry of Calvary
24:09
Chapel Tri -Cities in Kennewick, Washington If
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24:13
to follow Christ, then please contact our church
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office by phone at 509 -736 -2086. You can also
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look us up online at calvary -tricities .org.
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Calvary Chapel Tri -Cities is offering two in
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-person training courses for those seeking to
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serve in missions or ministry. The School of
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Missions starts with 12 weeks of classroom -style
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learning and local outreach in the Tri -Cities,
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Washington, followed by a 10 -week cross -cultural
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mission outreach. The School of Ministry, this
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course is 18 weeks of in -person learning environment
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followed by a four -week mission trip. Find out
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more at calvarytrainingcenternw .com.