Tomorrow’s Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope shows us today’s universe as it has never been seen before. It is spectacular, but your Bible says tomorrow’s universe will be much more glorious. You can prove this!

“When you see Webb go into space, it’s the whole force of human creativity and all kinds of disciplines that push it there,” said nasa astrophysics chief Eric Smith. Such a remarkable project takes all the creativity that mankind can muster! The builders of this telescope achieved over 99 percent perfection. How impressive and encouraging.

Your Bible discusses planting the heavens. Maybe God is giving people a vision of this future by helping the Webb telescope successfully travel more than a million miles from Earth and send back breathtaking images. He must have a lot of love for mankind if He would prepare such a future for us—beautifying and ruling the whole universe!

During the World Tomorrow—the 1,000-year rule of Jesus Christ on Earth—our planet will flourish. “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God” (Isaiah 35:1-2).

There will be all kinds of planting in the Millennium. “I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together” (Isaiah 41:18-19).

This is only a type of what will happen in the entire universe! “And I have put my words in thy mouth, … that I may plant the heavens …” (Isaiah 51:16). God wants to get His Word into our minds and mouths so we can understand His goal for us: to plant the heavens! He is talking about the universe!

Laws of the Universe

Scientists had to obey all kinds of rules and laws to build and send out the James Webb Space Telescope. They call these laws the laws of nature, but really they are the laws that God established over the universe!

Here are some quotes about today’s universe:

“At the heart of all science lies the conviction that the universe is orderly.”
—John Lennox, mathematician

“Science arose only because the doctrine of the rational Creator of a rational universe made scientific inquiry plausible.”
—Rodney Stark, historian

“Men became scientific because they expected law in nature, and they expected law in nature because they believed in a Lawgiver.”
—C.S. Lewis, author

“Western science grew from the novel idea that the universe was rational; and that belief was given to us by Genesis, which set out the revolutionary proposition that the universe had a rational Creator.”
—Melanie Phillips, author

“The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.”
—Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winner for quantum electrodynamics

(For more on these quotes, read our article “Seeking the Message of the Universe” in the March 2022 Philadelphia Trumpet.)

The existence of laws in the universe is indeed a miracle! Who could possibly create all these laws to sustain the universe so there isn’t constant chaos out there?

God declares that He is the one supreme Lawgiver. He rules the universe. He allowed Lucifer to rebel and cause some damage out there, but the laws of the universe are still in effect. We can set our clocks by the consistent happenings of the universe because it is perfect in timing.

Lucifer’s rebellion is a lesson for us: that lawlessness always brings destruction. God wants us to understand the universe like the patriarch Abraham, who studied the stars and the planets and was an accomplished scientist.

“The God I believe in—the God that I know exists, because I can prove it!—is the God who created all things. He is the Creator not only of matter, but also of force, of energy, of all the laws that exist: the laws of chemistry, the laws of physics—spiritual laws as well as physical laws to regulate man’s life and man’s happiness,” wrote Herbert W. Armstrong (Plain Truth, February 1986).

Your happiness depends upon laws! Amazing excitement and thrills come from keeping God’s laws. God created laws for mankind just like He created laws for the universe. Without laws, there is chaos. Mankind has only chaos without God’s laws.

“The philosopher Anthony Flew progressed from being Britain’s most renowned atheist to a religious believer through a ‘pilgrimage of reason.’ … What he found particularly compelling was evidence of the fine-tuning of the universe. From this he concluded that the laws governing the universe had been crafted to move it toward the sustenance of life, and that all the arguments seeking to explain this away were hopelessly flawed,” wrote Melanie Phillips in The World Turned Upside Down.

God is trying to teach us that there are laws in everything! Chaos and danger fill the Earth because men don’t heed God’s warning.

Goldilocks Planet

“The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge—and would be total chaos if any one of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly,” said physicist Paul Davies.

Like Webb, the Earth and the universe are precise like we have never known before. So much of the universe is unknown to mankind, but God reveals to us from the Bible what it is all about.

Earth is called the Goldilocks planet because, like the children’s story, the conditions for life on Earth are just right. Our Awesome Universe Potential explains:

• It is the perfect distance from both sun and moon to have a stable, predictable orbit. Twenty-four-hour days ensure Earth’s entire surface is properly warmed and cooled every day.
• It is the perfect size and mass. If it were less dense, an atmosphere would not form and remain; if it were more dense, its atmosphere would be uninhabitable. As it is, our atmosphere allows just the right amount of radiation to keep us warm but not kill us.
• Earth’s metal core produces a magnetic field that protects the surface from radiation from space. Radioactive heat from the core, mantle and crust creates plate tectonics, necessary for life for several reasons.
• Humans need 27 elements, including carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, iron and copper, to live. Earth has just the right mix of them.
• Earth has just the right amount of water in the proper ratios of liquid, solid and gas. A little more, and the continents would be drowned. A little less, and the planet would probably be too hot to host life.

How to See God

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).

By looking at creation, we can see the invisible God behind it all! We can know about the Father and the Son and all they have created. Evolution could never in trillions of years accomplish what God has done!

Since the 1800s, humans have gotten away from God. Scientists used to examine the universe, meditate, and study a little, and they could easily understand that God had to create it. There is no other answer, and you can prove this!

The heavens declare God’s glory! (Psalm 19:1). They send us a message, if we will just bring God into the picture. After the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, nasa administrator Bill Nelson referenced this Bible passage, and described how “a shepherd grazing his sheep would look up at the night sky. He became a poet. And he penned the words, The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork. That shepherd, that poet, became king. And those immortal words in Psalm 19 encapsulate the expressions that we have today—the handiwork of God—as we peer back in time, over 13 billion years ago, [and] capture the light from the very beginning of the creation.”

King David also said, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). That is a dogmatic statement! He studied the universe and proved that God exists.

“For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak” (Hebrews 2:5). Angels failed to qualify to rule the universe, so God is re-creating Himself in mankind to rule under Him and Jesus Christ! This is tomorrow’s universe, which is preceded by the World Tomorrow.

“Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he [God] put all in subjection under him [man], he [God] left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him” (verse 8). The Moffatt translates all things in Hebrews 1:1-3 as the universe! Humans don’t rule the universe yet, but Christ is about to give us this opportunity. He is the heir of all things, and He wants to share the vast universe with us.

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation [all the suns, planets, stars and moon] was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21; Revised Standard Version).

Why is the universe now subject to futility and decay? Because Lucifer and the third of the angels under him wrecked the Earth, then wrecked much of the universe. Lucifer did not apply God’s laws, and destruction was the result.

The universe groans for us to repair and beautify it! (verse 22). We groan through trials and tests as we await this glorious future (verse 23).

This is the message of tomorrow’s universe. What a blessing to reap such a reward.