The following story has been called to our attention from many sources. Several readers have sent us clippings from other newspapers. It has received far flung attention and by now you may have seen it. However, the wonder of it is too much for us to neglect. Here is the story of "The Missing Day in Time" as retold by the Jayton Chronicle.
This incident happened while our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland, were checking the position of the sun, moon, and the planets out in space where they would be 100 years and 1000 years from now. This is most important in order to keep the satellite from colliding with another object in one of its orbits.
The necessary information was fed into the computer and it ran the measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. The red light came on and the computer stopped.
The information was rechecked and refed into the computer. The information was correct: something must have been wrong with the computer. The service man was called. The computer was checked. "It is perfect," he said. The head of operations asked, "What's wrong?" The reply was, "We have found there is a day missing in space in elasped [sic] time." Our space program had bogged down. There was no answer! One of the men on the team spoke up, "You know, one time when I was in Sunday School and we talked about the sun standing still." He took his Bible and turned to Joshua where the Lord said to Joshua, "Fear them not. I have delivered them into they hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." Joshua and his men were surrounded by the enemy and if darkness fell they would be slaughtered. Joshua petitioned the Lord that the sun stand still. What was the result? "The sun stood still and the moon stayed--and hasted not to go down about a whole day." The space men queried, "That might be our missing day. Let's check the computer and see." They checked the suns [sic] position in Joshua's day and found that it was close but not close enough. The time elasped [sic] in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes--not a whole day. They read the Bible and there it was--"about a day," that is approximately.
These little words in the Bible were so important to our spacemen. But they were still in trouble because if yor [sic] cannot account for 40 minutes, you will still be in trouble 1000 years from now. "Somewhere in the Bible it speaks of the sun moving backwards," said the space scientist. They got out the Bible and read the words in II Kings 20:9-11: "Hezekiah, on his deathbed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah, who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah asked, "Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?" Hezekiah said, "It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees." Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees backward. Ten degrees backward is exactly 40 minutes.
Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua 10, plus 40 minutes in II Kings 20 making the missing 24 hours the spacemen had to log in the logbook as being the missing day in the universe!
What more can we add? "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth;
but
the word of our God shall stand forever (Is. 40:8).
