DO YOU KNOW THAT EVERY SINGLE STAR IN THE UNIVERSE IS CATALOGED AND CARRIES A UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION MARK? WHO DID THIS AND HOW DO WE KNOW THAT FOR SURE?

 I’m Dennis Finnan, host and speaker on the World the Word & You! Broadcast and in a moment we’ll talk about STAR PRINTS something akin to fingerprints…

…History records that on a cold windy day in March 1787, in the little town of Strauberg , Bavaria , a special boy was born.  For the mother it was a joyous event, but for him, it was a sad thing.  You see the surroundings this boy was going to grow up in, offered little for him to find a life of hope and fulfillment.  His parents were frightfully poor and had little to nothing to offer him. Moreover, the world of this little one was cruel and harsh at that time.  Child labor was often utilized to help families make ends meet. It wasn't uncommon for children to work twelve hour days with hard labor, often seven days a week with no day off! 

Yes, this little tiny baby born that day - well, his life ahead seemed destined to be a hard one indeed.  Nonetheless, his proud parents, hoping the best for him, named him Joseph Von Fraunhofer.  However, before we follow this man's life, and find some interesting truths surrounding him and his discoveries, let's pause again for another moment of music, and following this, I'll unfold his story that needs to be told…

…Upon the birth of this poor little fellow in Bavaria , the years drearily went by for the Fraunhofer family. The poverty was bone chilling, and the living conditions matched it perfectly.  Young Joseph quickly grew up, and as soon as he was old enough, he was shipped off to the pottery factory to grind out his days laboring at a horribly hot glazing furnace.  Day after day, week after week the sweat from his forehead dripped endlessly into his tattered stained shirt, as he pushed the pottery jars into the ovens. 

While he did this, young Joseph dreamed of going to school and studying science. Alas, it was only a dream of course, for his family was so poor, that any formal schooling was out for him. Accordingly, he knew if nothing changed in his life, he would spend the rest of it in that awful sweat factory, pushing jars into the hot ovens that belched its heat and stench at him all day long.

Well, God's providence was kind and intervened in an unusual way.  One day as Joseph Fraunhofer was resting his aching body at home one night, when the poorly maintained and dilapidated apartment building his parents lived in, suddenly collapsed! Two stories fell to the ground and buried young Fraunhofer among other victims.

The police and townspeople rushed out, desperately trying to dig them out.  As it appeared from  the wreckage,  they had little hope of finding anyone alive.  People gathered everywhere to watch the workers dig and pray for survivors.  The streets became blocked to all traffic, as they frantically dug in the rubble in the hopes of finding someone alive.  Providentially, on the street  at the collapsed apartment site, a wealthy optician who owned the Utzschneider Optical Institute, found his carriage blocked by a digging workmen. Impatient as he was, he was curious enough to wait and see the outcome. This of course, was a lucky day for poor young Joseph Fraunhofer.

As the workmen were digging, they found the body of this young boy in the rubble.  One of the workers noticed the boy stirred - he was alive!

Frantically, the workmen persuaded the wealthy optician to use his carriage to carry the boy to the doctor and hospital. Thankfully he graciously volunteered. At the hospital, as the doctor examined the boy's seemingly lifeless body, Fraunhofer suddenly regained consciousness. Although he looked a mess, the physician concluded that Fraunhofer suffered no real injuries, and that all he needed was a good healthy meal and rest.  You see part of his terrible appearance was because he was emaciated. Joseph rarely ate well, since his family had so little to share.  However, it was at this time this wealthy optician's heart was moved. He took the boy to his home, a stately mansion, and nursed him back to health.  As the boy lived with the Optician, he talked regularly with him during the evening hours, and grew to like him very much. He noticed Joseph was a quick-witted bright young lad, fast to learn and willing to work at whatever was assigned.  Until this moment, Fraunhofer had no interest in astronomy or telescopes - yet this was the trade by which his benefactor made his living.

Fraunhofer inquisitively asked the optician all about his work. The Optician enjoyed this interest and carefully explained that an optician was one who designed and built optical instruments such as telescopes and spectroscopes to be used by astronomers. He told Joseph that recently they had found that stars temperatures could be measured by the colors that composed their light. For instance, a yellow star is probably the same temperature as our sun, because the sun is yellow too.  Red stars as seen by astronomer are probably cooler than the sun, while blue-white ones are hotter.

As time marched on, Fraunhofer was offered a job at the Optician's Institute. Joseph was assigned to help build telescopes.  At this time, great interest was spawned in the heart of this young man. He decided to learn everything he could about the great astronomers and their discoveries.  Sir Isaac Newton, a subject of previous broadcasts was one of his favorite, for Sir Isaac Newton while just a college student, had discovered that light is composed of many colors as seen through a prism.  Joseph Fraunhofer tried to duplicate this experiment. Using the skilled optical equipment of the Institute, he saw the prism refract the light. He was amazed to see the wonderful colors that made up sunlight.  Years later, when astronomers had better telescopes to collect enough light from distant stars, they also saw through prisms that sunlight yielded many different colors and intensities.  This convinced many, that stars were like our sun, but much dimmer and further away.

As astronomers studied the planets they usually left the stars alone. It was too much for them because of their remoteness.  Most hopelessly thought no one could ever learn anything of them.  Yet Joseph Fraunhofer, although never formally schooled, grew in knowledge and understanding of the variety of optical equipment and refracting light.  At the telescope factory, he was promoted many times. Finally, as a young man, he was put in charge of the entire factory.

One day, as he was checking the quality of an instrument known as a spectroscope, that was  ready to go to a scientific customer, he made an important discovery.  As the light refracted through this spectroscope, he saw something "new," never seen before. Along with the many different colors and intensities, he saw what look like lines, black lines spaced at irregular intervals. At first, he though the unit was defective, but by careful analysis, Joseph Fraunhofer found that these strange lines where actually in the sun's light spectrum. Fraunhofer excitedly look at starlight too, and found it also showed these unique patterns of lines.

He immediately wrote to scientists telling of his new discovery.  Sadly, most of them with poorer prisms couldn't see them and scoffed at this unlearned man's discovery. He had not been educated at their great universities; therefore, who was this mere upstart to suggest the scientists of the day had not understood or seen the fullness of what they studied?  They quickly rejected him and his findings. However, Fraunhofer was determined to show that these black lines in the spectrum of light, were important. From then on, Joseph Fraunhofer began attending every scientific meeting that came along, but still the scientists of the day refused to even let him speak. They wanted nothing to do with this "unlearned" man!

So alone Fraunhofer studied light on his own. Fraunhofer mapped more than 600 of the strange lines and kept accurate records of them.  In obscurity, he studied and lived. His life essentially passed and no use of his experiments were considered, until fifty years had passed.  Scientists who were now working with better quality prisms found that these lines did indeed exist and that every single element of the earth when heated and glowing with light, revealed a similar unique pattern of lines. In fact, no element was the same, but every object that contained the same element revealed the exact same pattern, when its light was read. 

Now, science learned that every substance of material in our universe has its own “fingerprint.”  Imagine this fantastic discovery ¾  all because of Fraunhofer's study of the light of stars.  Yes, Fraunhofer was the first to find what we call ¾ "Starprints."  For each star reveals that all the elements of the universe have unique identifying marks that are revealed in their individual light patterns, as if they are individually marked and cataloged. 

This was an amazing and powerful discovery! For now, a positive identification system could be used to identify matter itself.  Well, as further investigation went on, astronomers using Fraunhofer's discovery, found that our sun's light revealed an element unknown to them at that time ¾ an element never before found on the earth!  Yes, they named the new substance Helium. Interestingly, the word helium means "from the sun."  However, twenty-five years later geologists working at an oil well captured a strange gas. It was not hydrogen, however when scientists heated the gas, its light spectrum revealed the same exact lines produced by the helium gas seen on the sun's surface.  Indeed, Helium had now been discovered on earth!

Well what about Joseph Fraunhofer? He never did become a full-time astronomer, nor was he allowed to, but his discovery of lines in the spectrum of the stars opened the entire universe to scientific identification, a work used even to this day. Yes Joseph Fraunhofer's work even set the stage for the development of what we today call ¾ spectroscopy.

Nowadays, these dark absorption lines in the spectrum of the sun and stars radiation of light, are actually called Fraunhofer lines. This unknown and unrecognized scientist, by mapping more than 600 of these lines, devised a system of identification that is still largely used to this today.     

Now you might be thinking. That's an interesting story, but what does this have to do with the Bible, our world and me today?

Well my friend, it has plenty to do with all these things. Why, first of all, long ago almost 2000 years ago the Bible says that God is the originator of all identifying systems. Everything God has made, is either "numbered" or bears a "unique signature" of identification. Listen to these verses of scripture that speak about it,

Psalms 8:3-4   "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place {4}   what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

Matthew 10:29-31  " Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. {30} And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. {31} So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Amazingly, God tells us that the entire universe bears God’s personal signature, and that even you and I, we are carefully made and every part of our being is intricately "numbered" and identified by God.  Fraunhofer's discoveries bears this out, that every element of the universe bears a stamp of identification.

Secondly, this insignificant story of a relatively unknown man whose findings were at first rejected, shows us that science in any age, does not have all the answers, and what might be considered a present undeniable truth, may well be discovered as a gross error in the future.  Yes, millions of Americans, young and old alike, have placed science in the realm of "religious infallibility." Indeed, whatever a scientist says these days  - it must be true, right? Wrong!  Perhaps the greatest area of error that many refuse to acknowledge today, is their teaching of an "evolutionary godless" origin of our universe and our humanity.  Why, almost every textbook our children learn from in secular government schools openly teaches that science has "proven" evolution to be true.  Friend, this is a bold faced lie!  Why even, our news and entertainment media continue to reinforce this lie, that evolutionary origins, without any God who created all things, is long ago proven true. 

Joseph Fraunhofer like so many others stood against the known science of his day and in the end was proven true.  In the same manner, although the unsaved world will shout,  "there is no God, we can live as we please and answer to no one "--  well, one day every Christian and the Bible truths it teaches of a creative origin of all things, will finally be proven true.  And, the foolish idea, that one cannot believe the Bible and be an intelligent honest scientist, believed by millions these days will fall and be ground into the dust of historical ignorance. Yet, the words of a German born physicist, Max Born, who pioneered quantum mechanics and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 said - " those who say the study of science makes man an atheist are rather silly people."

I wonder where this broadcast finds you? Are you a skeptic? Or, an agnostic, that is one who doesn't deny God's existence and work, but has no room for a practicing belief in Him? Or, are you a confirmed evolutionary atheist, proudly flapping away with the corrupt wings of evolution?  In 1960, Time magazine declared God dead. Half the world seemed officially atheist and the rest were expected to soon join. But the tables have obviously turned. Now, only about 2.4 per cent of the world's population is considered atheist, according to the World Almanac, and the numbers are dwindling. Meanwhile, spirituality is experiencing a global resurgence.  Well, such a one who's life is lived with no meaning from beginning to end - one who drifts aimlessly through the few short years of life, denying the existence of God, will find in the end it was an exercise in futility and hopelessness. One jokester rightly said,

“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support – John Buchan

I tell it's better to believe the Bible and its message for life.  Jesus said it well.  Remember His words found in,

Matthew 10:29-31   Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. {30} And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. {31} So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.      

God has indeed numbered and given an identification system to all life and matter - but most important, of all He has given such an identification system to man himself.  Are you aware that we are God highest and most important creation?  As such, God is concerned for you and your future as all others too. Do you know God's Son, Jesus Christ personally? Have you understood God's clearly revealed plan to rescue you and all others, from this fallen sin laden world under judgement? Have you appropriated God's free gift of forgiveness and eternal life, that He offers to all who will come to His Son, by faith?

Yes, this is the GOOD NEWS the Bible teaches for all to hear. God loves us and all the world He created. As such, He has sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our lost and perilous condition.  God's Word says, we all need to know that we are sinners in thought, word and deed and as such, in and of ourselves we have no desire for God to rule us as His creatures. Instead, we all deeply want to be our "own gods."  Yet in doing this, we show how pitifully we are accomplishing it, do we not?  Let's be honest, our world, which we delight to run, is in a real mess, our own nation is faltering and rotting from within. Every year that goes by, we find more and more frustration and hopelessness and we know of no lasting cure or way out. 

Yes my friend, the crises conditions of our world, our nation and our cities ¾ all of it is a symptom of life that as a whole, has rejected Christ as its God and Savior. But, the answer still is, we all must come to Christ now, and not to wait for time and science, to prove the world was wrong.  

Friend, if you, right now, will ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and life, the Bible promises He will save you, forgive you all your sins, and grant you a new heart and life to enjoy and desire the things of God. And from there, you will longingly desire to seek a life of purity, holiness and grace - and in so doing, you find your full rest and assurance in Jesus Christ.

Scripture declares,

Hebrews 4:1-2 (NIV)  “Therefore, since the promise of entering his [God's] rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as the Jews did; but the message they heard was of no value to many of them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.”

Romans 10:17 (NIV)  “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

John 1:12 (NIV)  “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.."

Consequently, Jesus said,

Matthew 11:28 (NIV)  “”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Friend, the object of this broadcast and my messages week after week is that you might see God, and His wonderful truths and love that you might enter into His blessed rest and assurance of life eternal through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him now today wherever you are and God will receive you. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant you such a heart to seek, and a willing ear to hear and a surrendered will to say  - "Yes," to God right now, for Jesus sake. Amen….

…Joseph Fraunhofer is not a well known man of science, but his work cannot be passed by. This German physicist's work was rejected during his lifetime and thought not worthy to be considered, because it simply didn't agree with "popular opinions" of the day. Yet in time, he was proven right and his work vindicated.  Today the world rejects Jesus Christ who claims to be the Creator of the world, and what the Bible says He fully accomplished. Well, in the same way, one day He too will be vindicated and all those who stood against Him, who refused to hear God's Word and believe it, concerning our sinful state and God's plan of redemption, will find they are the losers for all eternity. However, today there is still time to reconsider God's rightful place in your life.  If you haven't received Christ, take Him today through a prayer of faith, as your Lord and Savior from sin. Then you can be sure that the truth of the Gospel found in the Scriptures will be your hope and future promise of life eternally with God in Christ. May truth prevail, and may your heart and life be a testimony to it.

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·         Radio talk #4605

·         Broadcast date: November 13, 2005

·         Speaker: Dennis L. Finnan, Commentator

·         Program: The World, the Word & You! Radio Broadcast

·         Address: P.O. Box 60033 Grand Junction, CO 81506

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The World, the Word & You! Broadcast is a non-denominational ministry based on the historic fundamental evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures. A copy of our doctrinal statement is available upon request. These weekly radio commentaries are not exhaustive studies of any particular subject due to the time limit of broadcasting. Actual broadcasts can be heard in selected areas around the nation, as funding provides. Dennis Finnan has been the speaker for over 25 years, and serves as General Director.

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