No one in the observatory on that increasingly foggy London evening had even imagined they were all about to be a part of an unexpected discovery of a supernova. But as students were munching away at their pizza, they decided to aim their telescope at a target near the Big Dipper  Boom.  That's when they saw it.  You just never know. While most of us will likely never be the first to discover a supernova, if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no end to the surprises and wonders He can and will do for us. The universe is filled with His stars. He created them, for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. He knows their names, He numbers all of them, not one of them is missing. He knows their days and their place.  If God cares for the stars in such detail, how much more so will He care for you? (Isaiah 40:26ff).  God can and will do exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask or imagine, for His glory.  So in the midst of your daily routines, God can break in like a supernova and answer your prayers beyond anything you might have been expecting.  Come along with Wayne and me as we talk about the numinous wonders of supernovae and how they can be a reminder to us of God's glory and His care for us.  SN1987A from Hubble, NASA, and the ESA. https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2017/news-2017-08.html.  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.

God's fireworks! Stars that explode. What could be more exciting? What are supernovae? Why do stars explode? And how do such wonders point us to God's glory? Find out on the next two episodes of Good Heavens!  Wayne's article on supernovae.  https://creationanswers.net/answersblog/2022/05/02/stellar-fireworks/ Some spectacular supernovae What is a supernova? https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-supernova/ SN1987A (the views expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Watchman.org or Good Heavens) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/30-year-anniversary-supernova-1987a https://earthsky.org/space/supernova-1987a-closest-brightest-supernova-star-death/ 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.

From now through the beginning of June, you can see four planets closely aligned - Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn.  On this special episode, we give you some pointers about how you can see these celestial diadems just before sunrise and we offer some thoughts about how they remind us of God's glory.  One may not agree with Lewis's use of medieval symbol and pagan mythology as imaginative symbols pointing to Christ. We are not suggesting it is an appropriate apologetic approach for everyone. Certainly Christianity teaches the rejection of pagan idolatry in both the Old and New Testaments. Yet it was the apostle Paul himself who took ideas from pagan Greek poetry about the gods and related it to Jesus to the philosophers and stoics gathered atop Mars Hill in Athens (see Acts 17 and an episode on our sister podcast Apologetics Profile about Paul on Mars Hill here).  For any questions or concerns, drop us a line at Psalm1968@gmail.com.  Books mentioned on this episode:  Planet Narnia - The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis   Nightwatch   Living The Sky - The Cosmos of the American Indian   Our book The Story of the Cosmos - How the Heavens Declare the Glory of God     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.

No, we aren't talking about the Internet! But about the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), now roaming about the heavens a million miles from planet Earth.  It was launched Christmas morning, December 25, 2021 from a European spaceport in French Guiana, in South America. A brand-new, ten-billion-dollar telescope venture, the James Webb Space Telescope is an infrared telescope and will be able to pick up some of the faintest light in the most distant regions of the cosmos. The James Webb telescope supercedes the Spitzer Space Telescope that went before it.  Spitzer was also an Infrared telescope.  Come and find out about where the James Webb telescope is located and why astronomers are so excited about it.     Every time we build a bigger telescope, our understanding of the cosmos is radically changed. What wonders await us? Whatever Webb uncovers it is exciting to consider that no eye has ever seen the things God is about to reveal to us through the honey-combed mirrors of this new telescope.  Come along with Wayne and Dan as they ponder how telescopes have changed our understanding of the universe we inhabit and how it all might point to the glory of God in Christ.  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. Image:  The picture is an infrared colored image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, produced by NASA (cropped and resized for this). 

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.