David and Solomon
The story of Job is merely one of the accounts in the Bible of engineering genius and great ability. David and Solomon, who were instrumental in the construction of the Temple of God in ancient times, were very knowledgeable in the fields of architecture and engineering. The Temple was to be "exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries" (I Chron. 22:5).
David himself prepared for the Temple 100,000 talents of gold and one million talents of silver. On today's market gold is valued at $35 an ounce. Therefore, David provided about $7.4 billion worth of gold for the Temple of God. The silver he contributed would today be worth about $2.5 billion. Staggering as it may sound to our "sophisticated" ears, David himself put in the neighborhood of $10 billion worth of silver and gold alone into the Temple! This was truly the most magnificent, expensive, beautiful building EVER BUILT! (See I Chron. 22:14)
The Temple was built of great stones, cedar beams and boards, overlaid within with gold (I Kings 6:14-22; 7:9- 12). Today, such a building would probably cost, by the time you figure in the labor, many multiple billions of dollars — probably about $20 billion, at least! Remember, to construct the magnificent edifice, Solomon had 30,000 men of Israel and 150,000 Canaanites working on the Temple, hewing timber and magnificent stones, and bearing burdens (I Kings 5:13-16; II Chron. 2:17-18; 8:7-9). Actual construction took seven years (I Kings 6:38). If Solomon had paid all these men at today's wages, his labor costs alone would easily have soared to the neighborhood of $8-10 billion — plus transportation and shipping expenses!
The construction of the Temple was so precise that the ancient chronicler recorded: "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building" (I Kings 6:7).
Every part was carefully and precisely prepared at some distance from the building site. But when each part, each timber and stone, was laid, it fit perfectly! Can you imagine what a gigantic headache such a building job would give contractors today???
It is time skeptics, scholars, and everyone admitted that the men of the Bible were not ignorant shepherds, itinerant nomads, unskilled, unlearned, untutored barbarians! Nothing could be further from the truth!
Far from being ignorant shepherds, David and Solomon were WEALTHY KINGS. The net worth of either of them was far more than the wealthiest businessmen alive today — including J. Paul Getty, Howard Hughes, and all the Mellons and Rockefellers combined. David himself was a multibillionaire by today's standards, and Solomon was wealthier than David!
In the heyday of Solomon silver was "not anything accounted of" (II Chron. 9:20). We read, "And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycamore trees that are in the low plains in abundance" (v. 27). Solomon had his own personal fleets and dominated world trade. "And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom" (v. 22).
King Solomon himself may have had more gold than the United States Treasury at Fort Knox. (Of course, the balance of payments problem has depleted U. S. gold reserves. They have shrunk from over $22 billion in 1957 to about $11 billion today) He was a powerful king who would have made today's crop of billionaires look like so many peons by comparison!
Way for the Thunderbolt
In Job 28:26 we read, "When he [God] made a decree for the rain, and a WAY for the lightning of the thunder."
Lightning kills more people yearly than any other natural disaster — about 400. It destroys $37 million worth of property annually, plus the losses due to 8,000 annual forest fires started by lightning.
How are lightning bolts formed? The story is fascinating. Inside enormous thunderclouds are so-called chimney currents — a column of air rising upward with gale force. Within this turbulence near the top small hailstones become positively charged, while raindrops in the lower portion are charged negatively. Below on the earth there is another positive charge buildup, following the drifting cloud.
Tremendous differences of electric potential are created between the top and bottom of the thundercloud, and the earth's surface.
At this point, a gaseous arc reaches down from the cloud for perhaps fifty feet, hanging there, building up, growing. Meanwhile, positive particles on the earth below streak upward as high as fifty feet, called "St. Elmo's fire." When one of these earth "streamers" meets one of the cloud's dangling gaseous arcs, called "leaders," suddenly A PATH IS FORMED BETWEEN THE THUNDERCLOUD AND THE EARTH!
This is where the darting, flickering BOLT OF LIGHTNING hurtles through the air, starting at the point of contact between negative and positive charges of electricity, ripping up to the cloud along the gaseous arc path already formed. The lightning actually travels upward, and the fact that it appears to travel downward is an optical illusion.
But this is beside the point. The point of this fascinating story is — HOW DID JOB KNOW? Yes, how could he have ever known that there is "A WAY for the lightning of the thunder"?
Can there be any doubt?
Science did not discover the secret of this phenomenon until very recent times. But God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, revealed it to Job and inspired him to write of it over 3,700 years ago!
Imagine that!
Secrets of Geology
What about the earth science of geology? Does the Bible have anything to say about it? It certainly does!
Again, the book of Job contains the answers. We read of the process of erosion in Job 14:19 — "The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth . . ."
Notice, also, Job 28:10 — "He cutteth out rivers among the rocks." Ever stop and notice the majesty of the Grand Canyon? Geologists say that enormous canyon was formed by cutting action of the Colorado River, gouging out a pathway through the rock.
More examples of geology could be noted, but we have no space in this article. But the whole point of the science recorded in the Bible is given in the book of Job. Here is revealed the SUPREME LESSON that science itself teaches, if men only have the wit to see it!
"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: or speak to the EARTH, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the HAND OF THE LORD HATH WROUGHT THIS?" (Job 12:7-9)
GOD is the Creator! This is the supreme lesson and teaching of ALL true science, and the science of the Bible!
Have YOU yet learned that mighty lesson?
TRUE Science
Stop and think, for a moment. The pagans worshipped the heavenly bodies. Christians worship the Almighty One who put them there!
Pagans believed in astrology and worshipped the sun, moon and stars. But, in the pages of the Bible, God expressly CONDEMNS such worship. He tells us the purpose of the creation of the heavenly bodies: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for SEASONS, and for days and YEARS" (Gen. 1:14).
Did you know that time is based on the motion of the heavenly bodies? The earth rotates at a constant speed, giving us day and night; it revolves around the sun at a constant speed, taking one year per revolution. The moon revolves around the earth, giving us the lunar month. Every watch and clock is kept accurate by timing them with the most precise Clock ever invented — the solar system and the stars!
Time is kept accurate by basing time calculations and computations on the precise movements of the stars and the positions of the fixed stars. The master clock in the United States is at the Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. By measuring time by the stars, the Naval Observatory keeps track of time to the tiniest fraction of a second.
By knowing the exact movements of the heavenly bodies, solar and lunar eclipses can be PREDICTED thousands of years in advance!
God inspired David to write, "He made the moon for fixed times; the sun knows its time of setting" (Psalm 104:19, Goodspeed). Or, as the Amplified has it, "the sun knows the EXACT TIME of its setting."
Take a look at your watch — a manmade instrument for telling time. You know that a watchmaker made your watch. It didn't just somehow decide to put itself together! Great painstaking workmanship went into it, most likely, and its delicate parts we're made with great precision. The more money you paid for your watch, the better it probably is. But you know that if you don't wind it up regularly, it will soon run down, and stop. From time to time, it needs repair.
But you know that your watch did not just EVOLVE!
The universe is a Great Master Clock. It has been running smoothly, accurately, for millions — if not billions — of years. It is still accurate — in fine working order. Its parts still move with age-old, timeless precision!
You admit your own watch didn't evolve. What about the Great Master Clock in the skies — so much more perfect than your watch, so much grander in its execution and operation — do you think it evolved?
You keep your watch running by winding it up. Who keeps the Great Clock of the universe operating? Who SUSTAINS it?
TRUE SCIENCE admits the existence of the original "Clock Maker" — Almighty God. True science admits GOD made the heavens and the earth. True science also reveals God as the SUSTAINER of the universe!
True science sees the hand of God in the universe — and in the writing and preservation of The Holy Bible!
But evolutionary science, God-rejecting science is NOT true science. It is "science FALSELY SO-CALLED" (I Tim. 6:20).
True science harmonizes with the Bible. False science has put itself in the place of God, virtually claims to be God, and has become a false savior of mankind — a FALSE MESSIAH!
Will you put your hopes in the words of false science which rejects God? Or will you depend on the SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE Word of the living God for salvation?
The choice is entirely up to you!