00:00:00.000 - 00:00:45.360

[Music] [Music] The Spiritual Implications of the Cahootec Comet. A message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman.

00:00:45.360 - 00:01:24.160

[Music] As I drove to church this morning, I looked up and saw a blue sky filled with pink clouds and all above snow-covered mountains. It was a beautiful thing to behold. It caused me to think of the glories of God

00:01:24.160 - 00:01:45.280

as they are revealed in nature and of the perfection of God as we see it in nature. Those are the thoughts that I want to share with our people this morning and I'm grateful that you have chosen to be a part by listening to this tape. I hope that what I say and what power I am given by the Spirit because of the

00:01:45.280 - 00:02:08.080

prayers of my people will be a blessing to you right where you are at this time in your life. God bless you, my friend. The scripture reading of the morning is Psalm 8. I will ask you to be upstanding please for the reading of the Word of God.

00:02:08.080 - 00:02:33.520

[Pause] Psalm 8. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,

00:02:33.520 - 00:02:57.040

that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man that thou visitest him.

00:02:57.040 - 00:03:16.000

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of

00:03:16.000 - 00:03:35.280

the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth along the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.

00:03:35.280 - 00:03:56.000

And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Will you please be seated. Let us pray. Amen.

00:03:56.000 - 00:04:27.360

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. On March the 7th, 1973, Lubos Kahoutek, the noted Czech astronomer, discovered a comet, a comet which now bears his name.

00:04:27.360 - 00:04:51.200

He first saw it on a very sophisticated optical telescope in Hamburg, Germany. We can see it tonight with the naked eye if we know where to look and when to look and if the atmospheric conditions permit. The comet has, since the announcement of its coming and during the days of its

00:04:51.200 - 00:05:08.720

being here, attracted a great deal of attention to itself. Repeated articles in newspapers and magazines and many stories on our television sets. And there has been, in all of these references to the comet,

00:05:08.720 - 00:05:34.960

something of awe and mystery. The word comet is from the Greek "kometes" which means "hairy." The Greeks saw the comets as being hairy stars. This of course they are not. But we have really not learned a great deal more about comets than the Greeks knew. For example,

00:05:34.960 - 00:05:51.040

we do not know for sure where they come from. Some say they are portions of exploding stars. Some argue that they come from the distant regions of Neptune and Uranus. Others suggest that they come from the very

00:05:51.040 - 00:06:07.120

rim of the universe and are made of the raw stuff of which the universe is essentially made. But the whole subject is wrapped in mystery. We do not understand exactly what constitutes a comet. We know that the

00:06:07.120 - 00:06:31.040

Cahootec comet is 15 miles wide at its head, but we do not know what goes together to make the kernel, the nucleus, of this great celestial extravaganza. Most astronomers seem to think that a comet is made up of ice surrounded by dust and gases, but there are

00:06:31.040 - 00:06:50.640

many other theories also. The subject is wrapped in mystery. And so as the Cahootec comet circles our earth, we are studying it with every tool at our disposal. We establish certain exercise for the Skylab 3

00:06:50.640 - 00:07:09.200

astronauts to undertake with regard to the comet. We are exploring the comet 24 hours a day from two Venus unmanned space probes. We have sent balloons up to research the comet. We have equipped at least one airplane

00:07:09.200 - 00:07:27.840

with special devices to measure the effect of the comet. And just about every radar, radio, and optical telescope in the world is following the course of the Cahootec comet. For we understand that there's very little about comets

00:07:27.840 - 00:07:45.200

that we really know. Which might lead you to ask, "Why then do you bring the comet into the pulpit this morning?" Well, it is certainly not because I know any more about comets than anybody else knows.

00:07:45.200 - 00:08:08.800

And it is certainly not because I plan to rehearse for you some ancient superstitions which became associated with comets centuries ago. No, rather it is because I see in the coming of Cahootec certain moral implications of which we, as the people of God,

00:08:08.800 - 00:08:30.000

need to be reminded. The first of these implications is this. The comet reveals, it seems to me, the perfection of God, as this is demonstrated to us in natural law. We are able, you see, to chart the course

00:08:30.000 - 00:08:49.760

of this comet with some precision. We understand that it has been on its journey for two million miles. We know that it will pass within 75 million miles of the Earth. We know that it was closest to the sun on December the 28th

00:08:49.760 - 00:09:12.880

of last year. We know with certainty that it will not return again to circle about the Earth for another 75,000 years. These things we know, and we know these things because of the researches of men like Copernicus and Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Halley.

00:09:12.880 - 00:09:32.320

But these men came to the conclusions which are theirs because of their basic and fundamental dependence upon one thing, upon the fact that the universe is an ordered whole, that it moves in accordance with established laws,

00:09:32.320 - 00:09:54.160

that the course of every body which constitutes those called heavenly is predetermined and fixed, and that these bodies move in perfect orbit, never deviating from that orbit one jot or one tittle. And I submit to you that the perfection of that order

00:09:54.160 - 00:10:12.720

speaks to us of the perfection of God. This planet, like every other planet and every other body in space, orbits about another body. It orbits at such a precise speed that we can set our watches by it. The seasons follow one another in order. They did it last year,

00:10:12.720 - 00:10:36.160

they did it this year, they will do it next year. So on and on. The perfect steadiness, the perfect surety, the perfect certainty of God. Indeed God is so faithful, so perfect, so sure, so certain, so continuous that we have a tendency sometimes

00:10:36.160 - 00:10:57.200

to forget that he is behind it all. If we were God, I think we would make sure that people remembered us a little more regularly. We'd have a public relations committee. When we created a tree, we'd hang a sign on it that said

00:10:57.200 - 00:11:18.000

"This tree given by the courtesy of God." When we hung a star into the sky, we would make sure that everyone knew that we were the ones who put it there. And occasionally we would take the clouds in a sunset and write our name across the horizon so everyone could see. But not so God.

00:11:18.000 - 00:11:39.680

The faithfulness and, if you will, the humility of God is such that he continues the perfect order of his natural universe without ever so much as a syllable uttered about himself. And this becomes so steady and we become so dependent upon it that it is easy for us to forget that he

00:11:39.680 - 00:11:58.160

is behind it all. And then suddenly into our kin comes a soaring magnificent thing like the Kahootek comet, moving precisely on course, exactly to every detail, where it is to be, when it is to be there, functioning within that natural law.

00:11:58.160 - 00:12:15.200

And it brings home to us, I think, with power, the perfection of God. It leads us to say what the psalmist of long ago, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork." When we consider the sun

00:12:15.200 - 00:12:32.880

and the moon, the stars which he has made, what is man that God is mindful of him? There's a wonderful little story about an atheist physics professor who wrote on his blackboard one day, "God is nowhere."

00:12:32.880 - 00:12:50.240

The class was later adjourned for lunch and after lunch they returned to the same classroom and they discovered that some student had moved one letter in that sentence, "God is nowhere." He moved the W a little bit to the left so that it now read, "God is now here." And that's what it seems to me

00:12:50.240 - 00:13:09.920

Kahootek says to us. We become so dependent and so oblivious to our dependence upon the natural order of things that we are prone to say, and indeed some do say, "God is nowhere." But when a thing like Kahootek comes, so perfectly orbited,

00:13:09.920 - 00:13:30.800

it says to us graphically in flame, if you will, "God is here." The author of Genesis writes, "In the beginning God created, and he creates still." The psalmist suggests, "He counts the stars and calls them by name, and he's counting and calling still."

00:13:30.800 - 00:13:53.600

The author of Hebrews says, "He upholds all things by the word of his power, and he upholds all things still." Peter says, "He is the faithful creator, and he is faithful still." We live in a universe, the word "una" means one. One God created it all. One God fashioned it all. One God ordered it all so

00:13:53.600 - 00:14:18.800

perfectly, so precisely, so exactly, so without any deviation or error, so designed that not one beat has been skipped, not one moment has been mixed, so absolutely and infallibly ordered that we can predict today that 75,000 years from now that comet will come again, and it will.

00:14:18.800 - 00:14:41.280

If Jesus does not come first, I say to you that the galaxies are not but the sets in the rings on his fingers. There's another moral implication to the comet as well.

00:14:41.280 - 00:15:04.160

This comet, it seems to me, reminds us that this is not a good world to be bad in. What I'm suggesting by that is this. If this comet speaks to us of the perfection of God, then this perfection of God is applicable not only to the natural law

00:15:04.160 - 00:15:29.520

but to the moral law as well. Just as inevitably as that comet moves on the course God charted for it, so the moral dictates of our God will move inevitably upon the course which he has dictated for them. And it is just as foolish to try to get away with breaking the moral law of God

00:15:29.520 - 00:15:54.160

as it would be to stand up in front of that comet and say, "Halt!" and then turn left. There's just no way in which that will come to pass. Just as one cannot frustrate God's natural law, so one cannot frustrate God's moral law. For the same perfect, faultless, and

00:15:54.160 - 00:16:13.120

certain God established them both. Now immediately I hear objection. Some people say, "Why, people break the moral law every day. People sin, commit all kinds of iniquitous acts. The very moral foundations of our time are crumbling to nothing at our feet."

00:16:13.120 - 00:16:26.320

I strenuously object to that kind of argument. Oh, I will not deny that there is evil on every hand. I will not deny that there are people who are giving themselves over to living which is exactly contrary to the will of God.

00:16:26.320 - 00:16:49.600

No thinking, reasonably observant person could deny that. But I would submit to you that what is breaking apart in our time is not the moral law of God, but societies that are trying to live contrary to the moral law of God. The moral foundations are not crumbling.

00:16:49.600 - 00:17:10.080

What is crumbling are the false foundations which men have built, turning away from what God has ordained and establishing that which is altogether unworthy and not to be called moral. When a man steps out of a 10-story window

00:17:10.080 - 00:17:29.600

and announces to you that he is going to break the law of gravity, he does not break the law of gravity. He splatters himself to smithereens, proving it. Just so, when a man turns, flaunts, ignores, demonstrates contempt for the moral law of God,

00:17:29.600 - 00:17:52.160

and announces that he's going to break it, pay no heed to that announcement, for he will not break it. He will simply break himself, smashing against it. God is not mocked. As a man sows, so he shall reap.

00:17:52.160 - 00:18:10.960

One of my favorite Old Testament stories is recorded in the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Judges. There it is recorded that an evil man named Sisera comes with a mighty army to defeat Israel. His army is strengthened with 900 chariots of iron,

00:18:10.960 - 00:18:28.560

and the Israelites had no weapons or equipment of that kind. The Israelites, moving in the strength and power of God, however, in accordance with his will and led by Deborah and Barak, go out to do battle against Sisera. They defeat his forces, and then as some of his forces are escaping in those

00:18:28.560 - 00:18:45.920

chariots, the river Kishon floods, and the waters wash the chariots away, so that everyone in the army is destroyed except one, Sisera, the commander-in-chief. He escapes. He slithers off through the shadows. After running for some distance, he comes to a tent.

00:18:45.920 - 00:19:00.640

There's an old woman living in the tent. Her name is Jael. She invites him to come in. He does not know it, but she recognizes him. She gives him food, and after he has eaten, she asks him if he would like to rest for a while. He says yes. She gives him the most comfortable bed in the tent.

00:19:00.640 - 00:19:19.040

He stretches out, and when he is asleep, she murders him. And with his death, the enemy army has been utterly destroyed. Later, Deborah sings a song about the victory which has been theirs, and the thesis of the song is this. When Sisera

00:19:19.040 - 00:19:36.800

and his mighty army set themselves against the law of God, set themselves against the will of the Almighty, they brought against themselves the whole moving course of the universe. For just as no heavenly body can be stopped in

00:19:36.800 - 00:19:55.520

its course, so the plan of God for men and for the children of men cannot be stopped in its course, and no law will stand against his law. And to typify that, she utters this line in her song. She says, "Why, the stars in their courses

00:19:55.520 - 00:20:15.520

fought against Sisera, while the friends of God stood mighty as the sun." A tremendous affirmation, you see, that to throw yourself against God's will is to throw yourself against the movement of everything that is. I am not suggesting to you

00:20:15.520 - 00:20:38.400

that every evil act is immediately paid off with some kind of moral punishment or collapse. No, no. God does not pay his bills every Friday afternoon at four, but God does always pay his bills. The mills of God grind slow,

00:20:38.400 - 00:21:04.480

but they grind exceeding fine. Sometimes Watergate is on earth, sometimes Watergate is in heaven, but Watergate trials always are, soon or late. There's a wonderful little TV show that was on a few years ago.

00:21:04.480 - 00:21:22.640

The scene was the world on the eve of the Third World War. The nations were poised, their nuclear warheads aimed at one another. A four-hour truce had been declared because an inventor had announced that he had produced the most sophisticated computer the world

00:21:22.640 - 00:21:36.320

had ever known. And he said that if the world's knowledge would be put into this computer, then the computer would produce the answer to the world's problems, and this war, which would undoubtedly bring civilization to an end,

00:21:36.320 - 00:21:57.840

would be averted. So in New York, the United Nations, all the world's scholars gathered, and one after another they presented their knowledge to this computer. They stepped forward, scientists, militarists, philosophers, theologians, artists, poets, musicians, all of them,

00:21:57.840 - 00:22:13.760

one after another, fed the distillation of the knowledge of their branch of study into that computer, and then they stood back waiting to see what the computer would produce in response. For a while there was nothing, and the whole world squirmed. The minutes were

00:22:13.760 - 00:22:31.680

ticking away. It was two hours from that time when the buttons would be pushed, which ended it all. And then there was a soft whirring noise, and a few lights flickered, and out of a little slot on one side of the computer came a sheet of paper. The inventor ran

00:22:31.680 - 00:22:48.000

over, tore it off, and came to read it to those that were there assembled. And there was an ominous hush, for they all wanted to hear this word, which would mean the salvation of the world. And this is what he read.

00:22:48.000 - 00:23:18.880

"Thus says the Lord your God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false witness."

00:23:18.880 - 00:23:44.160

That is the ultimate and the perfect moral law. That is the moral law which is as inevitable in its course as the comet which now hurtles above our heads. And it is only in the recognition of and in obedience to that law that man will know what God has made man for.

00:23:44.160 - 00:24:09.840

And the Kahootek comet reminds me of that. This is not a good world to be bad in, for the stars in their courses fight against those who would frustrate the will of God. But there is one last implication, which is a more positive one.

00:24:09.840 - 00:24:29.680

If it is true that this is not a good world to be bad in, it's equally true that this is a good world to be good in. That is to say, if the coming of the comet demonstrates the directive power of God in natural law and the detective power of God in the

00:24:29.680 - 00:24:46.720

moral law, it also speaks to us of the protective power of God in the moral law. For it asserts that when we do move in accordance with the will of God, then the stars will not be fighting against us. They will be fighting for us, for we will

00:24:46.720 - 00:25:03.360

be moving in harmony with the maker and the sustainer of everything that is. The majesty and the magnificence that belong to the comet belong to it because it moves in obedience to the plan of God. When a man moves in

00:25:03.360 - 00:25:22.000

that same obedience, that same splendor belongs to him. There's a great scene in Rudyard Kipling's Kim, in which a little boy is being taught to be an agent of the British Secret Service. He's taken to a man named Lungar Saib in

00:25:22.000 - 00:25:37.280

India, and this man is trying to hypnotize him. He takes a jar and he throws it on the ground and smashes it to smithereens. He's trying to hypnotize the boy to believe that the pieces have come together again. Kim is looking at the shattered pieces

00:25:37.280 - 00:25:54.400

on the ground, and the man says to him, "You are feeling sleepy. You are seeing a mist settle over things." Kim suddenly recognizes that the only way he's going to be able to avert going under the hypnotic trance is to fasten his mind on something that he

00:25:54.400 - 00:26:10.560

knows for sure. So he begins to recite to himself the multiplication table. Three times three is nine. Four times three is twelve. Five times three is fifteen. Your eyes are getting heavier and heavier. You're seeing that six times three is eighteen. Seven times

00:26:10.560 - 00:26:28.560

three is twenty-one. Eight, the pieces are beginning to come together, and now the jar is complete. Nine times three is twenty-seven. Ten times three is thirty. No, it's not complete. It's still smashed. He was able to keep his grip on reality

00:26:28.560 - 00:26:48.320

because he fastened on that which he knew certainly. Just so, when a man fastens on the will of God, makes the fulfillment of God's moral law the goal of his life, when he builds the foundation of his experience on that certainty and that surety, he can

00:26:48.320 - 00:27:14.000

resist every hypnotic entrancement which is thrown at him by evil in the world, and he can stand fast. [silence] You've had the experience of knowing perhaps a family and they have a

00:27:14.000 - 00:27:27.680

teenage boy, and he's very uncommunicative with his parents. Spends most of his time in his room with the door locked playing music so loud you can hardly stand to even have it in the house. Every once in a while he comes downstairs,

00:27:27.680 - 00:27:46.080

jumps on his motorcycle, and roars off to meet a group on the corner, and as he roars off he looks very much like an unkempt, uncut, and unwashed dog. Now, fifteen years later, you meet the same boy. You have to be introduced because you'd

00:27:46.080 - 00:28:04.880

never recognize him. He stands tall and straight. His attire is neat and ordered. He articulates his ideas with fluency and with skill. What has happened between the first encounter and the second encounter? This boy has gone to work. He has become a

00:28:04.880 - 00:28:19.360

part of a business. There are certain goals and steps of success outlined in this business. He wants to succeed. He wants to reach those offices. He wants to reach those positions of power and affluence and success, and so he gives himself to the

00:28:19.360 - 00:28:40.000

disciplines that are necessary to accomplish these goals. Now, fifteen more years go by, and you encounter this person again. He's not returned to his second childhood, but he has returned to his second adolescence. He's sloppy in his appearance. His eyes

00:28:40.000 - 00:29:00.720

are rather bleary. He doesn't communicate much that has much sense to it anymore. He jumps into his Cadillac and roars off to meet the group at the country club. His parents don't worry about him anymore. They're dead a long time ago, but his wife worries a lot about him now.

00:29:00.720 - 00:29:17.120

What's happened? Well, you see, he's achieved every goal he set for himself. He's held every one of those offices. He's made every one of those salary increments. He's had every success that he aimed for in life, so that now he has come to the place in life again where he has no farther

00:29:17.120 - 00:29:34.160

goal, no more noble purpose. He is no star that he is shooting for that is beyond what he has accomplished, and so his life deteriorates about him again. But when a man sets as the goal of his life obedience to the perfect moral law of God, when a man makes as the standard

00:29:34.160 - 00:29:52.720

about which he builds his character that flawless, that flawless, perfect institution of moral instruction which God gives us in his word and in the example of his son, when a man sets that as the target, that is the star, he never reaches it. And so there is in him always that which

00:29:52.720 - 00:30:11.520

is striving, and in that striving is discipline. He is marching in league with God, and in that march there is power, and that's what makes a man into a man. What God would have him be. He's moving in accord with the whole power

00:30:11.520 - 00:30:29.840

of the universe. Nothing can finally stop that kind of person. In 1910, when Halley's Comet came, they sold pills so you wouldn't get sick from the dust from its tail.

00:30:29.840 - 00:30:42.400

Some people climbed up in trees to be saved, and other people went down into mine shafts to be saved, which is an interesting contradiction when you think about it. And it was suggested by others that when the earth went through the tail of the

00:30:42.400 - 00:30:58.000

comet it would be immersed in hydrogen and there would be one great flash of flame and everything would be gone. There was a little boy living then by the name of Howard Thurman. He grew up to become the greatest black preacher of our generation.

00:30:58.000 - 00:31:11.920

And he wrote a couple of years ago in a book called "Jesus the Disinherited" about what happened to him when he was a boy and the comet came. He heard other people talking about it, but he had to go to bed at sundown every night so he didn't get

00:31:11.920 - 00:31:28.000

a chance to see it until one night his mother came in and wakened him. She said, "Get your clothes on and come out to the backyard." And he went out there with her, and he stood and he looked up at the comet. And as one of our ladies told me after the first service this morning who did

00:31:28.000 - 00:31:48.800

the same thing and stood and looked at Halley's comet in 1910, the tail fanned across all the sky and he stood there in absolute awe of it. And then he said to his mother who was standing right behind him with her hand on his shoulder, "Mother, what will happen if the comet

00:31:48.800 - 00:32:04.240

falls out of the sky?" And his mother didn't answer. So that after a moment he looked away from the comet to the face of his mother, and he saw upon her face what he had seen only once before.

00:32:04.240 - 00:32:26.400

And that was a time when by mistake he had interrupted her when she was at prayer. There was a radiance and a light there. And she said to him, "Do not fear, Howard, for God will take care of us." And Thurman goes on to comment that in the course of his life when he suffered

00:32:26.400 - 00:32:43.680

much because he was black, and when he suffered much because he was Christian, the thing that held him to the mark, the thing that kept him moving toward the fulfillment of God's will in his life, the thing that built into his character

00:32:43.680 - 00:33:05.920

those fibers and those tendons of strength which kept him true was the knowledge that what his mother said was right when you move in accordance with the will of God you have nothing to fear. He will take care of you. Jesus is the

00:33:05.920 - 00:33:32.080

supreme illustration of that. The world cried out, "Give us Barabbas!" But Jesus, always facing toward his father, heard his father say, "But I choose you." The world knelt at the feet of Pilate, but God said to Jesus, "I choose you."

00:33:32.080 - 00:33:55.760

The world hurled a cross into the face of God and then thought they had done with him. But as always, God had the last laugh. God had the last word, and that word was resurrection, and that word was victory, and that word was power,

00:33:55.760 - 00:34:18.640

and that's the word God has for every man who seeks always to live, to move, to have his very being in the pursuit of that moral perfection which he sees in his creator.

00:34:19.760 - 00:34:42.640

So tonight, go out about sunset and look in the direction of the setting sun, and a little below it and to the left, you will see the Cahootek Comet. This is the night in which it will be at its brightest,

00:34:42.640 - 00:35:06.480

and as you look at it, think of this. Think that it speaks to us of the perfection of God. Think that it announces to us that it is folly to seek, to frustrate that perfection.

00:35:06.480 - 00:35:15.360

And think that it also says to us in all its splendor,