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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

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The unmanned Voyager 2 space probe visited several of the planets with spectacular flybys.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about realistic plans to travel beyond Earth's satellite system.

Travel beyond earth satellite system hello this is joe cruz of the amazing fact broadcast facts which affect you You know the moon is the nearest body in the heavens to this earth and man has taken the giant step of mastering the lunar space travel problems.

But then we realize that the other heavenly bodies are much, much farther away and tremendous new problems appear as we contemplate traveling to the planets.

How can there be any hope of ever reaching the more distant planets or worlds much farther away than the moon?

Voyager 2 did it of course, but is there any hope for manned space ships to reach those distant planets.

Our present satellites travel in orbits at speeds of around 18, 000 miles an hour.

And of course Voyager 2, when it flung out there into space away from the gravity of the Earth, was traveling about 36, 000 miles per hour.

To reach Venus, the nearest planet, which is some 27 million miles away, when it's the closest to us, it would take 1, 500 hours or about 2 months.

Now this poses the problems of providing food and oxygen and man's other needs over that long period, and then doubling the supplies in order to allow for the return journey.

And Mars is nearly twice as far away as Venus.

But if we were to think of going to the next major planet, Jupiter, we should, depending on where it was in orbit, of course, have perhaps 391 million miles to go, a journey of 2 and a half years.

By now the problem would seem to have increased beyond any conceivable possibility of solution.

Suppose we step up the speed of our spaceship now to 100, 000 miles an hour.

Such speeds are said to be in the range of possibility, since once a ship has cleared the Earth's atmosphere it can keep on increasing its speed as long as it can keep on burning fuel.

However, on reaching our destination, supposedly a world about the size of ours, it would require the same amount of fuel to slow us down that it took to speed us up.

And furthermore, to get off the ground on our way home and to decelerate again on reaching the Earth, it would double that amount.

In other words, a journey to Mars could be made in about 3 weeks with a ship traveling at a hundred thousand miles an hour, but think of the fuel necessary to operate it.

A trip to Jupiter would take more than 5 months and landing there would be a much greater problem because of the tremendous gravitational pull of that planet, which has more than 10 times the diameter of the Earth.

This means that if the average density were the same as our Earth's, the gravitational pull would be a thousand times as great, and landing there would indeed be a problem.

Suppose we succeed in arriving at Pluto, the farthest out of all the planets, an average of 3, 577 million miles from us.

That would take about 4 years, and then, when we reach the outer limits of our solar system, where would we be?

The gap between Pluto and Alpha Centauri, the nearest fixed star, takes light traveling 186, 000 miles a second, 4 and a half years to bridge the gap.

And our ship, even at 100, 000 miles an hour, would take 680 years.

Is there any need to go further or say any more, friends?

It's evident that space travel, if ever achieved, will be extremely limited in terms of celestial distances.

Furthermore, would God allow sinful man to introduce himself and his inventions among the inhabitants of other worlds who have never known sin.

For 1, I am content to wait till the Creator Himself comes to take me on the great space journey that He has promised.

I trust His power, friends, but I have little confidence in man's attempts to conquer outer space.

So we can't get out of this world by our own power, but only by the power of God.

Therefore we want to consider 3 easy steps today by which we can reach heaven.

That heaven, of course, which is far out beyond the Earth's own satellite system.

Throughout all the ages men have been seeking for some sure way into a blissful hereafter.

But the Bible alone really shows us the way.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway." Believe me, in this dark world we need the Bible, friends.

Somehow the world must be drawn back to the Bible.

Almost every home has 1, but it's not read much or studied.

And often people say, I can't understand the Bible.

Have you ever been in a dark woods at night and had your light go out?

And as you tried to find your way in the dark, you stumbled over logs and stones and so forth?

If that has ever happened to you, you can realize what the Bible means when it says the Word of God is a light to our feet.

We're in a dark world now, a world that's lost, that's troubled.

Most of us are getting homesick for heaven.

I want to live in that land of peace someday, friends, don't you?

And there's only 1 way that we can get there, and that is by faith in Jesus.

In Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 we read, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

In other words, we can't buy our way to heaven, we can't build any kind of machine that will take us there.

Only in Jesus Christ can we have salvation.

And some people may think they can do some meritorious deeds of their own that will sort of help them get along on their way to heaven.

But if that were so, they'd actually be buying their way there, and nobody in heaven will be able to do that.

All our righteousness is like filthy rags, Isaiah tells us.

By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God.

It's only in Jesus, only in the cross that we can ever find true justification.

The first step toward heaven is to experience pardon and cleansing from sin.

Revelation says, There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

In other words, there will be no sin in heaven.

That's the only thing that defiles in God's sight.

We cannot take any sin to heaven with us.

We must confess them here and have victory over those sins now.

We must have victory and by the grace of God and by the help of God we may be cleansed of sin.

There will be no evil sinful thing in heaven.

Those who enter into the City of God will be pure, holy, cleansed.

Be no swearing there, no whiskey stores there, no brothels there, no blasphemy, no unclean habits, no tobacco chewing, no snuff dipping, no cigarettes, none of these evil habits will be there.

So the first step toward heaven is a work of cleansing, for the Bible says there will be no unclean thing that defile it there.

In addition to obtaining pardon for all our sins through Christ's blood, we must also be born again.

Jesus said to the Pharisees who came to Him by night, or rather the 1 Pharisee, Nicodemus, he was inquiring the way of life, and Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now Jesus, of course, is talking about the spiritual birth, and He made it very clear to Nicodemus.

He wasn't talking about the natural birth, but about a new birth of the mind and heart.

The first step in the way to heaven, then, is that we must be cleansed of defilement.

The second step is, ye must be born again.

All right, step number 3, after being pardoned and born again, we must be obedient to the Lord's commandments each day.

In Hebrews 5, 9 we read, And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.

Again 1 John 3, verse 24, and he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him.

And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us.

So we must be obedient to the Lord every day.

Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him.

Jesus doesn't say that he became the author of salvation to those who belong to a church.

Some might think that that's all that's necessary, to just belong to a church in order to be saved.

But the Bible doesn't say that if we give good gifts or perform some outstanding deeds we'll be saved.

But unto them that obey him, and any man who says that he has been saved by grace and doesn't obey God has really not been saved by grace at all.

Those who are unwilling to obey God are still in the flesh.

They're carnal, they're in open rebellion, holding out against Him.

First John 3, 24, He that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and he in him.

Some say Jesus is in them, and that they have received him by faith and been born again, and yet these individuals don't obey God.

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