Who Will Rule Space
Introduction
The conquest of Space, we are told, may well provide an answer to some of the earth’s biggest problems. We are told that the purpose of this vast program is to advance the sum of human knowledge for peaceful purposes. But every dollar spent and every feat accomplished accent the Militart and Political nature of this race.
Dr. Werner von Braun, former German rocket expert, working for the U. S. missile program, said: “Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a worldwide popularity contest with the Soviets …. I do not think we can dismiss this grim competition as a weight-lifting contest between rival rocket teams. When the whole world sits in the audience and the heavens are the stage, pride and prestige are real issues ….” “I am convinced, he who controls the open space around us is in a position to control the earth!”
CHAPTER 1: The Rude Awakening
On October 4, 1957, the world was suddenly shocked with the announcement that Russia had orbited its first satellite, Sputnik I. United States prestige immediately took a serious tumble. How could the seemingly backward, ponderously moving Russians, without the vast technical capacity or know-how (or so we thought) surpass the U. S. economic juggernaut.
Then Sputnik II, carrying a live dog, was sent up a month later. Military in impact, it meant Russia had the technology to send an intercontinental ballistic missile anywhere on earth!
The U. S. immediately went into frantic efforts to see where it had failed, where it had fallen behind. Only then did the U. S. technology gear itself all-out to catch up – the missile and Space Race was on in deadly earnest! Then in April, 1961, came the shocking announcement that Russia had put the first man in orbit and brought him back safely to earth. A month later, Commander Alan B. Shepard became the first American in Space, but he made only a sub orbital flight. The U. S., it seemed was always lagging behind. It wasn’t until February 20, 1962, that Lt. Col. John H. Glenn made his 3-orbital flight.
Dr. Werner von Braun, former German rocket expert, now working for the U. S. missile program, has said: “Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a worldwide popularity contest with the Soviets …. I do not think we can dismiss this grim competition as a weight-lifting contest between rival rocket teams. When the whole world sits in the audience and the heavens are the stage, pride and prestige are real issues ….I am convinced,” he also said, “that he who controls the open Space around us is in a position to control the earth.”
Vast space complexes have been built by both sides in a race to become the dominant leader in space technology. Billions of dollars of tracking and other installations have been spotted around the world.
One of the most awesome sights you could see is the immense hangar where the United States ’ Saturn-Apollo project was assembled. It is the largest building in the world – with half again the 77-million-cubic-foot volume of the Pentagon.
The assembly building has four huge chambers to simultaneously handle the construction of four rockets. This building is so cavernous that a weather-control system is necessary to prevent clouds from forming and raining inside the structure.
Box Score of Space Efforts
Dr. William Pickering, head of California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, gave this “box score” of space achievement at a meeting in early 1968: The United States has orbited 500 satellites, had 13 successful moon missions (and returned 100,000 lunar photographs), accumulated almost 2,000 hours of manned flight, including 12 hours outside of spacecraft, and made 3 successful planetary probe flights.
Russia launched 250 satellites, had 8 lunar successes (and returned 100 lunar photographs), accumulated about 530 hours of manned flight, including 20 minutes outside spacecraft, and landed one instrumented package on Venus after an estimated 19 planetary attempts. It is important to first note that the Soviet Union’s Space program like much of the United States’ is run wholly by military men, not civilians, with military objectives.
The Soviet program at first became an all-out effort to do things first. In rapid succession their Sputniks, Lunas, Vostoks and Cosmos spacecraft became the first to carry a man (and woman) into Space; to photograph the moon; to hit the moon; to orbit and soft-land on the moon. Nevertheless, U.S. technology caught up in the mid-1960’s with more refined and successful systems.
CHAPTER 2: Fantastic Future Space Weapons
In the meantime, gigantic new weapons are being developed – weapons fantastically more awesome and powerful than when the two great powers were first thrust into the Space Race!Then there was official concern about U. S. neglect in not pouring enough research into developing advanced Space-age weapons such as “gigaton” bombs, neutron bombs, death-ray weapons, antimatter weapons, plasma bombs, and doomsday machines.
The field of radically new weapons is virtually without limit for a first-class power that wants to make the effort! All these fantastic weapons would be additions to the already incomprehensible power of H-bomb weaponry. Today’s awesome facts must be faced!
The prospect of war in Space has moved out of the realm of fantasy into the realm of frightening possibility. Military planners envision men in reconnaissance vehicles, in satellite interceptors, in nuclear dreadnoughts able to destroy Earth targets.
What Happened to God
Meanwhile, with all this space flight reaching into outer space – reaching to heaven it might be well to ask, what’s happened to God? In this frantic race to control space, we never see any mention of God, who was supposed to control outer space.
Since the infusion of German rationalism into the educational bloodstream, all mention of God, or the Bible, or anything supernatural, is never mentioned. Never even considered.
CHAPTER 3: Long Hidden Knowledge
The world’s sum of knowledge has doubled in ten short years, yet the world’s troubles have doubled also in that same decade? What’s the answer to that frightening knowledge gap? Could it be hidden in vital passages overlooked by scholars, educators, clergymen? After all, even those who have professed the Christian religion, in the main, have used only fragmentary verses of the Bible, scattered here and there, and taken largely out of context. Biblical prophecy has been almost entirely ignored and unread. Yet an approximate third of that Book is devoted to it.
For example, in a major book of prophecy, Isaiah, a Personage is quoted, saying He is God. Now is this quote a fiction? Did it sprout only from the imagination of the human writer? What this God is quoted as saying is extremely challenging!
Who is this speaking? – a self-deceived human writer, or could it be the very Creator Himself? “I am the Eternal,” He is quoted, “and there is none else, there is no God beside me…Ask me of things to come…I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded … I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: … yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass: I have purposed it, I will also do it’. “ Isaiah 45:5, 11-12; 46:9-11.
This same Personage here quoted challenges the doubters. To them He says: “consider and agree that the Eternal’s hand has done it, that Israel’s Majesty has made it all. Now…‘Bring your case forward’. Now… ‘state your proofs.” Let us hear what happened in the past, that we may ponder it, or show me what is yet to be, that we may watch how it turns out; yes, let us hear what is coming, that we may be sure you are gods; come, do something or other that we may marvel at the sight … you are things of naught, you can do nothing at all!’” Isaiah 41:20-24, Moffatt translation.
Was this merely the human imagination of a writer named Isaiah? Or was it, in fact, the Great God speaking? This same Personage is quoted, in other writings of Isaiah and other prophets, foretelling in writings of 1900 to 2500 years ago, what was to happen to every major city of those days, and every nation. They were amazing prophecies that then seemed impossible of occurrence. Yet every one of those prophecies actually happened!
Knowledge Suppressed
Could it be, that the Book called the Bible is, in actual fact, the message of the real Creator God to mankind? Notice what this Book prophesied the educators, philosophers and scientists would do — in their thinking regarding the existence of God: He says it is revealed from heaven against those who hold back the truth from the people, “Though they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God nor given thanks to Him; they have turned to futile speculations till their ignorant minds grew dark. They claim to be wise, but they have become fools.” Romans 1:21 -22 -Moffatt translation.
Further: “… they have exchanged the truth of God for an untruth.” verse 25, their speculative theory of Evolution. Then again: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” verse 28. They, the scientists, the philosophers, the educators, have surrendered the truth (verse 18, r.s.v.), exchanged the truth for an untruth, turned to vain and futile speculations, their unproved and un provable theory of evolution and refused to retain God in the knowledge they disseminate in their system of education!
Incredible though it may seem to those who have fallen victim to this false education, the Bible paints the vivid and detailed picture of Today, in writings that described it 1900 to 2500 years IN ADVANCE!
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CHAPTER 4: The Rule of Space
You can prove, by the facts and definite laws of science, as well as by sound reason and the very fact of the existence of things, that God does exist! You can prove, by the very tools of science that the Holy Bible is the inspired Word of God. In your Bible is One – speaking in the first person -who claims to be the ruler of this entire world, and – the ruler of all space!
He says, “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance…All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” Isa. 40: 15-17. The Bible says “all nations before him are as nothing – “and reveals that it is He who guides and controls the course of the major nations on this earth!
Men, in their feeble efforts – concentrating on physical and material sciences – scurrying frantically here and there, searching for the acquisition of new material knowledge, are striving frantically to Rule Space! There is the challenge of your Creator, who gives you every breath of air you breathe – the Ruler of Space!
He says to puny man, “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things [all of the planets, and the limitless expanse of the unfathomable universe], that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails”! Isa. 40:26.
Think of it! God says He knows all of the stars, comets, planetoids, and astral bodies of all descriptions and calls them all by name! Man, still probing the un searchable heavens by the most powerful types of telescopes, is able only to arrive at a mere guess as to the number of the myriads of planets in the heavens. But God calls them all “by name”!
Yes, what’s happened to God? Apparently, carnal man has allowed no place for the possibility of the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful Creator, who has the power to intervene in the course of human affairs, and who is the present Ruler of Space! Instead, he is going about his own carnal pursuits, standing on the threshold of invading God’s own heavens, blindly and superstitiously assuming there is no God! What a shock is in store for puny man!
=Trying to Get to Heaven
Man, it seems, has always been trying to get to heaven. Following the Biblical account of the flood, we read of men building a city, and believing their culture should reach out into the heavens. They were of three basic races. They wanted to integrate, to prevent being spread around the world in geographical segregation. Originally, God had set the bounds of racial and national habitation. Acts 17:26. But they rebelled. So they amalgamated to pool their efforts in science. They set out to build an enormous tower as a symbol of getting up into the heavens of their pagan gods. To this day men like to build “skyscrapers,” and erect steeples on their cathedrals and houses of worship.
The account of this, found in Genesis 11:4, says: “Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Eternal came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built."
And the Eternal said, "… they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Eternal scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.” Gen.11:4-9 r.s.v.
So that was the end of the attempt to build the world’s first “skyscraper.” But did you notice, God is quoted as saying: “This is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” God knew the space race would have come centuries ago, had He permitted this plan to succeed.
But God observed the doings of man – his attempt at the amalgamation of the races, the cooperation in scientific effort, and said: “Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they began to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do”!
Can your mind begin to comprehend the all-inclusive meaning of these startling words? Notice – God said nothing would be restrained from man! Yes, man actually would be able to travel in Space, to manufacture spaceships, to journey to other planets if God would allow it!
God restrained man by confusing their language, and scattering them abroad upon the face of the Earth! Today, men are breaking down the language barrier. Today, instant worldwide communication and air travel eliminate space barriers. Man once again stands poised on the brink of Space!
CHAPTER 5: Fantastic Plans
Today, scientists are envisioning even the creation of a space-age noah’s ark! Fully realizing this Earth may become an incinerated relic in a few more years, as the result of an all-out atomic and hydrogen bomb war, scientists are fearfully planning the building of huge spaceships, or Space platforms to be put high above the Earth into orbit around it! Science actually envisions such craft being put into orbit around the sun — becoming a miniature planet, filled with people!
These Space-age Noah’s arks would be filled with all types of human beings, animals, various types of plants, and many scientific implements, equipment of all descriptions. Theoretically, these individuals would be in a self-contained world completely detached from our own, able to repopulate and re- people Space should the Earth blast itself out of existence! Can your mind comprehend it? Can you begin to understand what men are trying to do?
Will God Allow It
Will God allow man to trample all over His heavens above? This is the really big question the big "if”! Man has proved himself capable of startling scientific capacity! Today, he is concerning himself only with the problems of reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. He possesses the actual rocket thrust powerful enough to enable him to put into orbit satellites large enough to contain men!
So far, man’s orbital flights have been confined to the immediate Space around the Earth – but science now stands ready to start men on a long journey into Space itself. Startling though it may seem – there is no question that man could launch himself into outer space. God has revealed: “ You made him -man- a little lower or, for a little time lower- than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour, and did set him over the works of your hands.”
God has put into the hands of man the power to manipulate, refashion and reform, to devise and create from the physical material Earth under his feet. God goes on to reveal, “You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him.” Heb. 2:7-8. Did you get it? God says He has put all things in subjection under man! “But surely,” you might reason, “God doesn’t mean all, including even Space does He"? Yes, He does!
God says there is nothing that is not put under him – showing that man’s ultimate destiny is the rulership of all, with all that the word includes, which is totality, all-inclusive – everything! But notice the rest of this revealing scripture in the second chapter of Hebrews: “But now we see not yet all things put under him!”
Human beings were created to rule the universe. God reveals that goal as our ultimate destiny but we are not yet ready! Human nature drives us to attempt to achieve this goal without being qualified for it. Man is striving vainly to change or protect the human body to withstand the environment of Space. God’s Plan involves changing men’s minds, qualifying them to rule, then creating for them Spirit Bodies thoroughly equipped for Earth or Space.
While it is in God’s intent and purpose to eventually put all under the feet of man, allowing him even to rule over other planets in the entirety of the universe. God has decreed that it is not yet time for such all-encompassing powers to be given into the hands of man. At this present time, God has restrained man, placed definite limits and boundaries upon him and made man a distinctly Earthbound creature!
Return to ChaptersCHAPTER 6: The Main Barrier — Man Himself
Inside the atmosphere of the Earth man finds comfort, even luxury. Here he has protection from the known dangers of Space — cosmic radiation, meteorites, extremes of heat and cold. And it is admitted there are many dangers not yet fully realized in the awesome vacuum of Space.
Though generally taken for granted, the food man eats, the water he drinks, the air he breathes are in a precarious life-giving balance on earth. Gravity holds him down and gives him orientation without which he would soon lose physical and even mental balance. But Space is a hostile and devastating environment to the life we take for granted.
Yes, the greatest barrier to Space flight is man himself. He is flesh, blood and bone – made of 16 elements of this Earth’s matter. He is fragile in the face of the soul-freezing obstacles that are known to await him in prolonged Space flight. If man is to conquer Space he must figure out how to take a piece of his Earthly environment with him wherever he goes.
Yes, startling though it may seem, God has decreed He will not allow man to rule space in his present carnal, physical, God-rejecting condition! And does man really “rule” space, simply because he is able to intrude, briefly, into it? Does he rule Mt.Everest? He has climbed it, to be sure, but today the thunderous storms lash its heights, just as they have for thousands of years!
Interstellar Space has been likened to a cubic inch of water, vaporized into steam and spread through 40 trillion cubic miles of Space! Each tiny, microscopic globule of mist would represent the comparative size of the vast super giants, stars immensely larger than our sun – and the almost limitless space between would represent the true distance from one such star to another!
Conquer Space? Ridiculous
No, man will never rule Space – but he can intrude into it! Actually – the very fact of man’s almost daily new discoveries in the realm of science is a thundering, ominous warning that the end of man’s self-governing society upon this Earth is drawing rapidly near!
Then who WILL rule Space? God has decreed: “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Eternal’s: but the earth he has given to the children of men”! Psalm 115:16. How much dominion has the Ruler of the universe given to man? He reveals it in the very first chapter of His Instruction—Book for mankind: To man, He says: “Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28.
Man is given dominion over the earth. The earth is composed of matter. Matter is present in three states, solid, liquid, gases. Take H20 – water below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it is solid ice. Between 32 and 212 degrees it is liquid. Above 212 it is converted into steam.
The air above the solid and water surface of the earth is part of the earth, in the gaseous state. Webster describes it as the invisible, odorless, and tasteless mixture of gases which surrounds the earth – that is, its solid and liquid surface. It is composed mostly of two very common elements – nitrogen and oxygen. As altitudes become higher, the air becomes thinner, containing less oxygen.
God has assigned this earth to man – in man’s present human state. God has decreed the heavens belong to Him! God has placed a “reserved” sign in the heavens, and has decreed there is “no trespassing” there!
But why, then, do the heavens even exist? Why do planets, so far out in the distant reaches of outer Space that they just barely appear as a faint flicker on the most powerful telescopes, even exist? Certainly, they have nothing directly to do with the atmosphere of the Earth! They have no direct effect, as such, on life here on this Earth! It is only within our own peculiar solar system that there is any real effect upon man.
Is there a purpose in the creation of these things? That source is your Bible! God reveals there is a purpose being worked out here below! He is the supreme Ruler, on His throne in the vast realm of the heavens, ruling the entirety of the universe! And God has a purpose in the existence of all things, including Space!
The real reason for human life, and man’s ultimate destiny is so fantastic, so awesome, so over powering, that it literally staggers the imagination! God is reproducing Himself! Man was made to become a very son of God! Jesus Christ, who is the first born of God, is said to be the “first born among many …”! Rom. 8:29.
Carnal human beings, through total repentance, baptism in water for the remission of their sins, and the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit, are to live lives of growing in grace and knowledge, overcoming daily by the power of God’s Spirit within them, finally to be born of God! Jesus said, “You must be born again”! How far human beings misunderstand this awesome and remarkable scripture!
Jesus revealed a family relationship between Himself and the Father. The Church is likened as the bride of Christ, and, on other occasions, as the “mother of us all”! Those are terms denoting FAMILY relationship! The Bible reveals the startling, truth that human kind can, through the Master Plan God is working out, can become God kind!
made a member of God’s own Family!
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CHAPTER 7: Man’s Destiny
How deceived mankind has been to the purpose of his destiny! The “Christian Religion” is supposed to have come from the Bible – to be based on this Book which is the world’s best seller. Yet this very Book says the many would be deceived! It says all nations are deceived!
Why do not professing Christians understand what their Bible says about their ‘salvation’? It says Jesus Christ was made a Son of God by a resurrection from the dead. It says He was ‘glorified’ now composed of Spirit, not of physical matter. It reveals His appearance in this state, with eyes like flames of fire, His face shining like the sun in full strength! Rev. 1:13-16.
It says true Christians, begotten of God by having received His Spirit- Rom. 8:9, will, also, as Jesus was, be converted from mortal to immortal – from human composed of physical matter to divine, composed of spirit, IF God’s Holy Spirit dwells in them. Rom. 8:11. And it says they are not Christ’s – not truly Christians -unless God’s Spirit has been received and dwells within them. Rom. 8:9.
But, further, it says that IF God’s Spirit which is God’s life, God’s attitude of mind, God’s love and power is leading them – IF they are following in this way which is obedience to God’s Law, then they are already now sons of God. They are now heirs of God – not yet inheritors, but heirs (verses 16-17) and that we shall be at the time of resurrection made Spirit, even as Jesus Christ has been glorified.
Even as Jesus Christ was made a Son of God by a resurrection from mortal to immortality. Rom. 1:4. He was the first- born of “many brethren” Rom. 8:29. And, at the time of resurrection for those who actually are Christ’s, our flesh and blood physical human bodies will be changed, and made like Christ’s body, composed of spirit. Philippians 3:20-21
The New Testament is full of this wonderful truth. It is supported in the Old Testament. Why have nations been so deceived they are blinded to man’s true potential – his real destiny? Man is not ready to rule space – untiltwo things are accomplished.
1. He must master, rule, and overcome human nature! Human nature is a pull toward vanity, self-centeredness, lust, greed, envy, hatred, hostility toward God and God’s authority over him. It pulls man in the way that produces unhappiness, pain, suffering, evils. He must have this nature replaced by God’s nature, the attitude of humility, living faith in God, obedience to God, love for -outgoing concern- for neighbor – the desire to serve, help, share, not to take, concerned only for self. In man’s present state he produces only unhappiness and evils. He is not competent to rule space, when he has not learned properly to rule his own self!
2. He must be converted, changed from mortal to immortal, from physical human flesh and blood to spiritual composition. Then he shall have self-sustaining LIFE. Then he shall not be dependent on breathing this earth’s air for his existence. Then he shall not be dependent on food and water from this earth for continued life. He shall not be affected by extremes of heat and cold. Then he shall be equipped, within himself, to rule under God under the administration of God’s Government – the whole of the vast universe!
There is a reason why the stars, galaxies and astral bodies are placed in outer space! There is a purpose to this, and to human life upon this planet earth! There is a master PLAN working out that purpose here below. And it will be accomplished!
When that is accomplished, when the last, final human being has had opportunity to CHOOSE which way they will go, when God has increased His own family by millions and millions, the apostle Paul reveals “then cometh the end [the total end of man’s way of life, of his organized society on this Earth], when he [Christ] shall have delivered the kingdom to God the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power”! I Cor.15:24.
Then comes the inspiring voice of the Great Creator of all things who says, “… I make all things new …He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son”! Rev. 21:5-7.Can you comprehend it?
Can you now begin to understand? God is offering YOU, not through the promises of science, not by travel in a Spaceship, not by military, political or man-made means, but by the very power of God, through being born as His own Sons, rulership over space!
It is the reborn Sons of God, who are going to rule the entirety of the universe under God, the great Ruler over all! We shall be no longer mortal, material – but born Spirit beings! Don’t be caught up in the excitement of man’s feeble physical effort to conquer Space. Man’s effort is only another Military and Political plan to extend his power without right knowledge.
Learn God’s Truth. Begin to equip yourself God’s way and you will be “more than conquerors”! Rom. 8:3.7. God wants You to rule Space! But we must first learn to rule ourselves according to the Maker’s Instruction Book.
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Summary , Herbert Armstrong, Free Library Copy
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