The day when the sun will stand still
This Week’s Winner
Marietta R. Manza is a promotions manager at The Master’s Link Travel and Tours Company. She also writes and edits publications, and teaches part-time. She has a master’s in Management and Development Communication from UP Los Baños and was part of the team that wrote the book National Scientists of the
Even if I have read quite a number of books such as this one, my favorite book remains the same, the Bible. It “answers the questions of a child and mocks at the wisdom of the wise.” Archeology, engineering, botany, biology, sociology, psychology, medicine, mathematics, politics, law… name all areas or fields, my favorite book them all.
An all-time bestseller, my favorite book was written by 40 writers over a period of 16,000 years, translated by hundreds, and read by millions of people around the world.
One story goes that this book saved a soldier’s life twice. He was at the frontline and had to crawl alongside his fellow soldiers from trench to trench when he suddenly felt a hard blow on his chest and then a piercing pain. He had been hit by the enemy’s bullet but he sustained only a minor wound because the book he carried in his pocket prevented the bullet from piercing at his heart. He says of this event: “This bullet-pierced book saved my life twice; first, when it showed me the way to the Savior, and second, when it stopped the deadly bullet.”
The Bible is the only true and reliable guidebook for living this life as a preparation for eternity. Like that soldier who escaped death and was saved by the Bible, I also found life and salvation. The Bible throbs of a great love story, too: of God who continues to pursue His beloved (that’s us) and dying for us.
Martin Luther was right when he said, “The Bible is not antique, nor modern, it is eternal.” It tells not only about how all existence came into being, but also of events yet to come and things unforeseen. A lot of biblical prophecies have already happened and are happening now in our time.
Harold Hill, president of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland, and a consultant in the space program, relates what happened recently to astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland. “The space researchers, to make sure a satellite sent up in space will not bump into something later on in its orbits, were checking out where the positions of the sun, moon, and planets would be 100 years and 1,000 years from now. In the process, they were baffled when they found out there was a day missing in space in elapsed time.”
Finally, a Christian man on the team told them what he learned in Sunday school about the sun standing still. He showed them the story of how God assured Joshua of his victory in a battle by answering his prayer to make the sun stand still.
The scientists, still unbelieving, pointed out that the elapsed time missing back in Joshua’s day was 23 hours and 20 minutes, still not exactly a whole day. If they could not account for 40 minutes, the whole earth would still be in danger 1,000 years from now.
The Christian employee then remembered a story in the Bible about Hezekiah on his deathbed when the prophet Isaiah told him he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked as a sign that the shadow of the sun return backward 10 degrees. God brought the shadow as requested. Ten degrees backward; ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes.
A lot more amazing stories are written in this unique book — stories of love and adventure, of espionage, deception, sin, repentance and forgiveness. Time and again, there have been attempts to destroy the Bible. Copies of this book have been burned, thrown away and all sorts of efforts have been made to put this book into oblivion, yet it has survived and has remained the all-time bestseller.
Goethe once said, “If I were put in prison and would be allowed to take along with me but one book, I would choose the Bible.”
Many great men and women who have been imprisoned have found comfort in this book during their most trying times. Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian Jew who survived the Holocaust, hid pages of this book in the hem of her skirt during her imprisonment and overcame insurmountable ordeals under the Nazis. Ninoy Aquino also found inspiration and renewed strength in the pages of the Bible when he was jailed.
Charles Spurgeon, author of Morning and Evening, which is one of the books I read along with the Bible, said, “When reading it for the hundredth time, I found the Bible immensely more beautiful than the first time.”
Though I have read a certain passage several times, it always gives me fresh insights, new perspectives and added wisdom each time. I have several versions of the Bible that I compare when I encounter special passages. In earlier times, I used to write down specific dates and insights on the Bible’s edges until my Bible became worn out. Nowadays, I keep a separate journal where I record all the things I learn from my daily Bible reading.
In my passion to share what I learned from this book, I gave my tattered Bible to an old couple who lives abroad. I just regretted later that I could not retrieve those personal notes again. I give away Bibles especially to people who do not have easy access to it. I gave one copy to an expat friend knowing somehow that Bible distribution in his country was not allowed. I do not want people like him to miss what we enjoy and can easily acquire a copy of.
On his deathbed, Sir Walter Scott, a famous British writer, said to his oldest son: “Give me the book!” The son asked what book he meant. Scott answered, “There is but one book which could be called ‘The Book’—the Bible!”
I try to make a habit of reading the Bible early in the morning and before I sleep. I believe that despite man’s physical death, we will all live in eternity — God’s very own words in the Bible promise us as much.
