The Ultimate End of Things

This week, Nancy and I have been camping on the slopes of Medicine Bow Peak in the Snowy Range of southwest Wyoming near timberline. The place is the most beautiful spot I have ever seen with its mountains, trees, lakes, wild flowers, and wild animals. One of the most beautiful parts of this experience was looking up at the sky late at night. It was a clear, cloudless, moonless night. The stars were bright, large, and seemed very near. The Milky Way was spread across the sky like a huge banner. The sight was spectacular! I stood there in wonder and amazement, as men have done again and again for hundreds of years, just looking at this marvelous handiwork.

Those stars! Stars are whirling globs of super-heated gas, finally reaching temperatures of 27,000,000° F, giving off radio waves and other kinds of radiation. Scientists tell us that new stars are being produced in stellar nebular nurseries and dying after billions of years of existence—but all of them aging and gradually dying off. This temporal universe is aging; and someday, if God does not intervene, the last star will blink out.

Of course, I do not know what will become of mankind before this predicted end of the universe, but if there might be any man left watching when the old universe finally gives out of light and energy, can he help asking himself this question: “Where did it all come from? What was the meaning of all this? Was it really something that came into being without a cause? Or…Who was behind all this?”

Things that end all had a beginning—they are called “effects,” and they all have causes. Our universe had a Cause: It was a Who, not a What. That Great WHO is watching; and He is the God of order and rightness. It is He who defines good and bad, right and wrong. It is He who gave us morals and a Savior from the bad things we do. Look at the stars from Medicine Bow Peak and think about all this.