As you know, we here at Good Heavens! can't stop talking about the heavens. So when a beautiful picture book comes out with the title The Heavens, how can we not talk about it!  The heavens declare the glory of God. They are His creation, attesting to His invisible attributes of faithfulness, wisdom, love, power, and glory.  Come and see the wonders of the heavens in a magnificent new pictorial book from astronomer Dr. Danny Faulkner of Answers in Genesis along with two backyard astrophotographers Glen Fountain and Jim Bonser (I mispronounced his name in the podcast, my apologies!).  From the sun and moon to way out in deep space where beauteous nebulae and galaxies, this book not only showcases stunning, high quality images of the cosmos, all taken by Danny, Glen, or Jim, but also combines science and Scripture in a meaningful, down-to-earth, and encouraging way.  The video of this program shows beautiful photography and gives a great introduction to observational astronomy.  To watch the video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73iGfxGFvIc Dr. Danny Faulkner holds an MS in Physics from Clemson University and an MA and PhD in Astronomy from Indiana University and taught at the University of South Carolina Lancaster for over 26 years. He serves as editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly and has published over 100 papers in various journals. He now works as a researcher, author, and speaker for Answers in Genesis. To get a copy of Danny's book.   To get a copy of The Story of the Cosmos   More on Danny Faulkner   Visit our ministry's website for resources on apologetics, other religions, cults, and non-Christian worldviews. https://www.watchman.org.    The views expressed by Dr. Faulkner do not necessarily represent those of Watchman Fellowship, Inc. We hope to present a balanced perspective on the questions of the age of the universe. Watchman Fellowship does not openly or publicly endorse one side or the other in the age debate. Image is from the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. Licensed from ESO and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  Image was cropped and resized. Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Spoiler Alert!  On this episode Wayne and Dan debunk the "ancient alien" idea!  What are some modern prejudices we hold about the ancient past? Were ancient people not as smart as we are? Did their civilizations require the intervention of highly advanced alien beings? Has modern scientific knowledge fully debunked the idea of God? Is God just a myth created out of the ignorance of our ancestors?  We tackle these questions and a lot more, including how belief in UFOs and aliens often does lead into the occult and cult-like practices and beliefs.  Watchman Fellowship https://www.watchman.org Wayne's article on ancient aliens: https://creationanswers.net/reviews/ancientaliens_pseudoarch.htm Ancient Aliens Debunked (Video by Chris White. 3 hrs, 10 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9w-i5oZqaQ Website by Chris White.  Has some references related to topics in the video above. https://www.ancientaliensdebunked.com Bible scholar Michael Heiser - Ancient Aliens Debunked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dER45rkGk See also this website by Michael Heiser. http://SitchinIsWrong.com Watchman Fellowship profiles on alien cults:  Heaven's Gate https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/heavensgateprofile.pdf Raelians  https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/raelianprofile.pdf Previous episodes with Gary Bates on UFOs Part One: https://goodheavens.podbean.com/e/aliens-ufos-and-the-bible-part-1-with-gary-bates/ Part Two: https://goodheavens.podbean.com/e/aliens-ufos-and-the-bible-part-2-with-gary-bates/   Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

Was there a first star? If so, how did it form? Believe it or not, the secular material sciences have no real evidence to support theoretical models of how the first stars came to be or how the stars we see today came into existence.  How then should we as Christians best understand naturalist models of the cosmos that take no account for God's glory?  On this special episode of Good Heavens! Dan offers some reflections about the nature of scientific models and Christian theology.  Book mentioned by Dr. Emma Chapman  Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

This is a special combined Christmas episode with our sister podcast Apologetics Profile.  The wondrous gift is giv’n! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in. How silently, how silently, You have likely heard or sung these very lines over the course of the last few weeks. They are a verse from Philip Brooks' 1868 Christmas hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem.  Bethlehem means "house of bread." It is called the "city of David" and is the birthplace of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, prophesied as Immanuel, God with us, the star of Jacob, the sun of righteousness. Bethlehem is a fitting name for the place where the very bread of life Himself would come into the world as an infant, as a man, for man. The One who made the stars with the breath of His mouth drew his first infant breath under the starry skies of a lowly Judean province. As Charles Wesley's famous 1739 Christmas hymn proclaims: Mild He lays His glory by Born that man no more may die Hark! The herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King! On part two of our discussion about the star of Bethlehem, we discuss more of the Scripture, background and history of what the star the Magi saw in the east may have been. Though another Christmas has come and gone so quickly, let us never forget that the real star of Bethlehem was not the star itself, but the bright and morning star (Rev. 22:16, the star of Jacob (Num. 24:17), the Creator of the stars and the entire cosmos (Gen. 1:1,14; Col. 1:16-20; John 1:1-14), incarnate as a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger (Luke 2). Wayne Spencer's article on The Star of Bethlehem.  Brady Blevins' profile on Zoroastrianism.  If you like Good Heavens! be sure to check out our sister podcast Apologetics Profile, also produced and hosted by Dan.  Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

The ancient way of understanding creation included a harmonious relationship between man and the cosmos we inhabit. This included the wonderful notion of creation being able to “sing” and declare the glory and radiant praise of the One who created everything, the Lord Jesus Christ. Music and song are as much an integral part of creation as are the air we breathe and the food we eat.  But this enchanted and sacred way of understanding the cosmos is largely lost to our culture today. How might we recapture it? On this special Christmas edition of Good Heavens! we talk with musicologist Christina George about music, song, creation and how they all point us to Christ Jesus our Lord. Dr. Christie George is a pianist and musicologist from the Pacific Northwest. Her research centers around music’s place within the academy and changing conceptions of good taste insofar as taste relates to the nature of the self and one’s apprehension and perception of beauty. She has written and presented on topics including taste and the philosophy of art, German Idealism, the role of the self in contemporary worship music, and the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion at conferences in the U.S. and Europe. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Sterling College where she teaches courses in Applied Piano, Aural Skills, Music History, and Music Theory. https://cjgeorge.com/ Antiphons mentioned in this broadcast.  Ad Missam in Vigilia, Gradual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l68I7zAuhU J.A.C. Redford, "O Oriens": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5OppzQgMZI Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

This is a special combined Christmas episode with our sister podcast Apologetics Profile.   When we think of stars today, the first thing that may often come to mind are celebrities, Hollywood stars. If one evening you found yourself underneath the glowing industrial-scale light pollution of Los Angeles, you're probably more likely to see a famous celebrity than any single star in the sky. We are more likely to follow celebrities nowadays than we are stars in the sky. If you happen to be a professional or amateur astronomer, however, perhaps your interests lie in knowing what stars are made of, their colors, distance from Earth, age, radius, in what constellation they may be found, or if they have a companion. But why are there any stars in the sky to begin with? Are the uncountable multitude of celestial diadems just a freak accident of nature? Is that just the way the universe is? Is there any deeper purpose or meaning to them beyond just their quantitative, scientific aspects? Modern science cannot answer such questions. Some secular scientists even suggest asking these questions is a waste of time and a fool's errand. One interpretation of the stars suggests there is no greater meaning than their physical nature. They just exist and that's it. Modern science suggests the atoms in our bodies actually came from the stars and by studying them we can know more about our origins, existence, and future. Another interpretation is that the stars and constellations hold secrets about our births, our respective personalities and our future, our fate. Biblically, the stars are creations of Christ. They don't tell us our future. They don't tell us more about ourselves, our personalities, or about what we ought to do with our lives or who we should marry. They are not finally about us. Stars, and the heavens in which they reside, all declare the glory of God. They were created for signs and for seasons and for days and years. They were created through Christ Jesus and for Him. They are numbered and named by God Himself. They are silent messengers of divine glory. The LORD Himself told Abram that his descendants would be as the multitude of the stars in the sky. And in Revelation 22:16 Jesus identifies Himself as the "bright and morning Star." So then it is no surprise that we find reference to a star in Matthew's gospel. A single, silent, enigmatic sign that led wise men, the Magi, to Jerusalem to inquire about He who had been born King of the Jews. But what was the star? What exactly did the Magi see? Was it an actual astronomical phenomena or a miraculous manifestation of light? On this special two-part combined Christmas episode of Apologetics Profile and our sister podcast Good Heavens! we discuss the many ideas that have been proposed for what Matthew's star may have been. But more importantly, we offer a reminder of who the star is really all about. So like the Magi and the shepherds did, come and lift your eyes up on high and see what the star and the angels proclaimed long ago. Come and see wonders await you in discovering Immanuel, God with us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Wayne Spencer's article on The Star of Bethlehem.  Brady Blevins'' profile on Zoroastrianism.  If you like Good Heavens! be sure to check out our sister podcast Apologetics Profile, also produced and hosted by Dan.   Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

The sun is blinding and deadly (if we got too close to it) yet it is also life-giving and sustains the planets in their orbits. How can something so lethal to our existence also be so necessary for our existence?  The sun reminds us of God's attributes in this regard. God is holy and dwells in unapproachable light. No human being can look upon or be in the presence of God's unmitigated holiness and not perish. But God is also absolutely necessary for the existence of the universe, our solar system, our sun, and our very lives. We cannot look upon His face and live and yet He upholds the universe by the word of His power, sending rain and sunshine on the just and unjust alike.  In the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we can come into His presence. Our God is both a sun and shield. At once holy and lethal but also our protector and advocate in Jesus.  On part two of our episodes on the sun, we discuss some of the fascinating and God-glorifying aspects of the sun, everything from coronal mass ejections, helium, hydrogen, Fraunhofer lines, to how it will one day be no more.  From it's creation to its darkening at the cross to the end of its days when the Lord Jesus returns and recreates the heavens and the earth, the sun, like a good and faithful servant, has declared the glory of God. So come and see (but wear eye protection and don't look at the sun directly!)  We hope these episodes will edify and encourage you in your walk with Christ. And if you're not a believer, we hope they give you some light into the nature of who Jesus is. 1 Cor. 10:31.  Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

How does our sun point us to the glory of God? It's massive! It would take 109 planet Earths to cover the 864,000-mile diameter of the sun. It's blinding, powerful, and according to modern science, the sun sits on an invisible, fireproof canvass of space-time fabric!  It is truly a wonder to behold. As long as man has lived and moved upon the Earth, humans have studied our nearest star, worshiped it, sweated underneath its heat, performed rituals by it, kept time with it, raised crops with it, and sent satellites and telescopes up into the heavens to observe it more closely.  And for everything we do know about it, there remains much mystery.  So come along with Wayne and Dan and see the sun as a marvelous creation of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Bible describes God as a "sun and shield" in Psalm 84:11.  The sun and all stars give Him praise (Ps. 148:1-3).    Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.

You may have mistaken them for the Little Dipper - a small little bluish-white cluster of stars that look like a cart, a plough, or to some even a question mark. It is the asterism (stars that are not a constellation but a smaller group of stars within a larger constellation) of Taurus the Bull, visible in the early fall mornings and clear wintry nights.  Poems, stories, songs and myths surround this beauteous gem of the night skies. A Japanese auto manufacturer even features them as their main logo. The nineteenth-century English poet Alfred Lloyd Tennyson penned these famous lines about them:  Many a night I saw the Pleiades rising thro’ the mellow shade, Glittering like a swarm of fireflies, tangled in a silver braid. They have been useful to many cultures for keeping time, knowing directions, and as an aid in knowing when to plant and harvest crops. They are recorded in the Old Testament, and in the ancient Greek poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and Aratus. They are M-45 in the famous catalogue of 18th-century astronomer Charles Messier.  Just as Jesus intended them to be.  And, by the way, all of that is just a sampling of how the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God!  So come along with Wayne and Dan as they explore the wonder, stories, and science behind an ancient and wondrous little cluster of stars we call the Pleiades. To see a great picture of the Pleiades and read more see Wayne's Blog article below: https://creationanswers.net/answersblog Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible. Photo credit:  NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar Observatory

If God does not exist, then why does the universe exist? Why is there something rather than nothing?  Any naturalistic theory about the existence of our universe inevitably finds itself addressing the concepts of infinity and eternity. It's unavoidable. You cannot explain the existence of the cosmos without invoking eternality.  This is precisely the meaning of Romans 1:18-20. Through what God has made, all mankind has clearly seen God's invisible attributes, which would include His timeless and eternal nature.  Discovered in the late 1970s and early 80s, the mathematical universe of fractals known as the Mandelbrot Set remind us of God's infinite nature - His infinite wisdom, beauty, creativity, intelligence, power, and glory. No one had anticipated that such a small equation, Z squared plus C, run through computers, would yield such a dazzling array of shapes and patters known as fractals.  An infinite universe of complexity, wonder, and amazing design await you! So come and see what more the fractals of the Mandelbrot Set have to tell us about the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ. YouTube link for Part 1 https://youtu.be/_dACmhvSsTo YouTube link for Part 2 https://youtu.be/ztXawHYORzI For more on Dr. Lisle's work:  https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/dr-lisle/ Fractals - The Secret Code of Creation:  https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/product/fractals/ Podbean enables our podcast to be on Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.  To support Good Heavens! on Podbean as a patron, you can use the Podbean app, or go to https://patron.podbean.com/goodheavens.  This goes to Wayne Spencer. If you would like to give to the ministry of Watchman Fellowship or to Daniel Ray, you can donate at https://www.watchman.org/daniel. Donations to Watchman are tax deductible.