When on trial before the Roman Catholic Church for teaching biblical truth, Martin Luther was asked to recant. He famously stated: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” Much to my surprise, I find myself in a similar position today regarding the doctrine of the shape of the earth. What once was commonly understood by the church, now has become the subject of intense debate and controversy.
The church has backslidden into gross idolatry, having elevated what is falsely called science above God’s Word.
Some think that I have embraced deception because I believe in the literal accuracy of Genesis Chapter One and other scriptures that describe the earth and heavens quite differently from what now is generally accepted as being true. While it disturbs me that I am considered to be a scientific heretic and a misinterpreter of the Bible, I take heart that my belief agrees with Luther’s, Calvin’s, and the authors of the Bible.
About the same time God restored the primacy of God’s Word and the wonderful truth of justification by faith during the Protestant Reformation, Satan counterattacked, introducing one of his most mind numbing deceptions – heliocentrism – with its corollary, the spherical earth. Copernicus theorized that the earth revolved around Helios, the sun (god), which became the center and ruling power of the “solar system,” instead of the earth’s being the stationary center of God’s creation over which the sun, moon, and stars run their “circuits.” (Psalm 19:6)
Here is what Copernicus wrote. Judge for yourself whether it is empirical science or an occult religion dressed up in scientific garb.
In the middle of all sits Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful temple could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe: Hermes Trismegistus names him the Visible God, Sophocles’ Electra calls him the All-seeing. So the Sun sits as upon a royal throne ruling his children the planets which circle round him. The Earth has the Moon at her service. As Aristotle says, in his On Animals, the Moon has the closest relationship with the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth conceives by the Sun, and becomes pregnant with an annual rebirth. —Nicolaus Copernicus , De Revolutionibus, Of the Order of the Heavenly Bodies
Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian sun worshiper and originator of the occult practice of hermetics or alchemy, something to which both Copernicus and Isaac Newton subscribed.
Heliocentrism is a clear example of Satan’s countering God’s truth with an audacious lie, the purpose being to turn people away from belief in the Bible and faith in God.
When Copernicus introduced his novel ideas about the solar system, the reformers were quick to condemn him. Here are the words of Martin Luther.
The error of Copernicus’ declaration that the earth revolved around the sun was evident to those men who held that the Scripture was the sole foundation of faith and truth.
John Calvin, a preeminent Reformation theologian, asked this question to which modern heliocentric Christians should pay heed.
Luther referred to Joshua’s command to the sun to stand still as an elegantly simple refutation of Copernicus’ error, but, today, many Christians merely shrug off this important text by nonsensically replying that God can do anything. I have heard it said that God could stop the earth from rotating and the moon from revolving around the earth without killing everyone by massive tsunamis and the force of the sudden stop from a 1039 mph rotation. Satan truly makes us into fools when we abandon the simple truth of God’s words, even though we imagine that we are incredibly wise. I cannot condemn such answers. I too formerly threw up my hands when faced with the supposed conundrum of trying to reconcile Bible truth with what I thought was proven science. When we wake up to the simple fact that anything that contradicts the Bible is by definition false?
The heliocentric model of the universe stands in absolute contradiction to God’s Word. It suppresses the truth about the creation and God himself, who is revealed through an accurate apprehension of what he made. (Psalm 19:1-2)
The Bible warns us that the truth will be suppressed in the Last Days (Romans 1:18), leading to wholesale delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:11). We have arrived.
The heliocentric lie, coupled with the Big Bang expanding universe, fundamentally changed how humanity viewed the cosmos, God, the Bible, and ourselves.
Instead of there being a benevolent Creator who fashioned an earth protected from outside threats by the firmament, Copernicus launched us into the dark and hostile void of “outer space,” without any sort of tether or protection at all. Heaven became lost in space, an amorphous spiritual place instead of an actual location atop the firmament. This monumental deception gave birth to a whole host of derivative lies.
- Deism – An impersonal God created the world and left us to our own devices.
- Atheism – The earth sprang out of nothing through mechanistic processes.
- Evolution – All life evolved from nothing by random processes. There is no Creator.
- Moral Relativism – Since there is no God and we evolved, there is no such thing as absolute truth or right and wrong.
- Meaninglessness – Life is a meaningless existential pursuit of pleasure and power, leading to totalitarianism, hedonism, and despair.
- A Culture of Sexual Perversion, Abuse, and Suicide since there is no God and Judge, no absolute truth, and no inherent value to life.
- Living in fear from any number of internal and external threats – viruses, global warming, aliens, and asteroids – which fear allows the powers that be to enslave us.
When we realize that the earth is a stationary plane enclosed by the firmament, above which is God’s throne, our eyes are opened to the truth about the God of the Bible and the accuracy of his Word.
I have listened to testimonies of people coming to believe in the Creator and Jesus as a result of finally understanding that the earth is just as describe in the Bible. I have collected some of these on my resource page.
Making a stand for God’s truth is always controversial.
Jesus caused division wherever he went because truth divides those who receive it from those who reject or suppress it. (John 7:43) Several early Bible translators, such as John Hus and William Tyndale, gave up their lives in order to provide us with access to the Scripture in our own language. The early reformers faced the very real threat of death for adhering to such basic truths as justification by faith and believer baptism. The doctrine of the baptism and gifts of the Spirit still is being resisted to this day. Arguments are made by those who do not value the gifts of the Spirit that, since the gifts are not a salvation issue, we should keep quiet about them in order to preserve unity. Some churches do not allow people to operate in the spiritual gifts in order to maintain cohesiveness.
I do not think we should participate in suppressing biblical truth in order to maintain a superficial unity. Nor do I believe that we should try to force our views on others.
As long as freedom of conscience and expression are allowed, we should tolerate divergent opinions, unless such a position clearly violates God’s Word. Then the church must erect some sort of barrier to preserve truth.
A primary reason that I left the Roman Catholic Church after being born again was because I could not remain in unity with false doctrine, nor was it proper for me to be a source of disunity within their ranks by teaching doctrine that is contrary to the official church position.
We should always strive to maintain a balance between making a stand for God’s truth and being lovingly patient with those who do not see it yet.
As we press forward into God’s truth, I believe it is wise to keep in mind the following saying.
I realize that the doctrine of the shape of the earth is a “non-essential” doctrine in the sense that one does not need to believe it to get to heaven. However, I believe it is a vastly important doctrine which needs to be taught because it strikes a blow at one of Satan’s biggest lies.
