The Flat Earth and Holy Scripture

Does the Bible teach we live on a flat earth?

(First written 2016, revisited 2023)

Part One: Our Global Mentality

It’s Gone Global

From earliest childhood we have been surrounded by images of a globe earth: at school, in atlases, from the news media, in films, and now on the internet; see how many you come across in your daily lives: and see how many phrases you can think of containing the word ‘global’; you might be surprised to discover just how all pervasive this indoctrination has become. Subsequently we don’t ever stop to question the ‘fact’ that the earth is a globe, that it spins on it’s axis – at just over 1,000 miles an hour at the equator – orbits the sun, and that because ‘gravity’ miraculously cancels out the resultant centrifugal force, the inhabitants of the earth don’t shoot off into space.

But although we don’t question these things doesn’t mean that from time to time puzzling thoughts don’t arise in our minds; like, for instance, How is it that people in Australia don’t actually walk upside down? How come the waters of the seas and oceans don’t drain off the ball? And why, when we stand on the sea shore, does that great body of water in front of us look so flat? Furthermore, why is it that we don’t feel any motion under our feet? – in the UK we’re supposedly travelling at about 700 miles an hour even when standing still. Why do clouds drift along in all directions, often contrary to the direction of the ‘spin’? And why is it that we actually do see the sun, moon and stars move across the sky?

These are some of the questions that perhaps arise in our minds even from childhood; yet we instantly dismiss the obvious answers because we are assured by our teachers, the media, and ‘science’, that the earth is a globe and that because it is so big then somehow its vast size makes many of the apparent anomalies null and void. So we shrug our shoulders, go our way, and just accept things that we naturally perceive to be impossible.

But for all that, people in Australia, like everyone else on earth, do walk around upright (the blood never running to their heads) with the horizontal horizon constantly before them at eye level, and the sky resolutely above it. Strange phenomenon on a big ball!

There are of course other things we are taught from childhood which are ‘irrefutable facts’: like man’s evolution from ‘primates’; like the fact that the universe is billions of years old, and that therefore the Bible has been proven scientifically unreliable with its plain references to man being created as man – from the dust of the ground; that Adam was created right at “the beginning of the creation”, Mark 10:6 – and that, specifically, about six thousand years ago; that the earth was created before the sun, and that the days of Genesis chapter one seem to be what we recognise as ordinary twenty-four hour days, having evening and morning as we still do today. Oh, well, I suppose science must have the final say on all these things, mustn’t it, Christian?

Willingly Ignorant?

Now one of the reasons for this article is to acknowledge the fact that man has a natural antipathy to having early learnt ‘truths’ undermined in adulthood. We come into this world knowing nothing – except how to sin, of course; all that we know regarding facts, received truth and general attitudes is taught us by our parents, our education system, and, if we are exposed to religion, by our church leaders. And of course we believe these people: we trust them and have no reason to doubt them. When I was a little boy I apparently said, “My daddy knows everything, and my grandad can do anything!” (and my dad had painted large on my bedroom wall the sun and planets!) I heard someone say recently that he had been “an atheist from his mother’s knee.” It is a famous boast of the Jesuit priest: “Give me the education of a child till he is seven and his beliefs will stay with him for life.” Now I am not saying that our parents and teachers deliberately lie to us when they educate us about the things and way of the world: most of them are simply passing on to us what they’ve been taught themselves. Even so, who wants to come to their years of maturity and find that everything they’ve understood about a fundamental aspect of their existence is false? “Flat earth? Nonsense!”

Another reason for this article is to show therefore how liable, and indeed, willing we are actually to be brainwashed: our ready disbelief of a flat earth again being a fruit of that. Whereas we are made to believe that we have a liberal ‘education’ system, the fact is that it is not actually a system which encourages us independently to think, reason or expand our minds at all, but is rather one that very subtly indoctrinates us to perceive the world in which we live in accordance with the ‘politically correct’ spirit of the age. Absolute freedom of thought, of imagination, of enquiry is very carefully removed from young minds and replaced with an often uncomfortable passive acceptance of and conformity to received ‘wisdom’. Someone once asked this question: “What is the difference between a bright, inquisitive four year old, and a dull, shallow, disinterested sixteen year old? Answer: Twelve years of state education.”

Sound true? Look at the generality of today’s ‘youth’, absorbed in their social media, ‘pop’ culture, prevailing fashion, teenage angst; preoccupied with their concentrated absorption of facts to pass exams so that they can ‘make it’ in the world; and see how limited an outlook on life they have compared to your little ones full of life, imagination, and questioning. There is just no comparison. But when we have left school/college/university do we then revert to our four-year-old sense of wonder and inquisitiveness? No we don’t. For we have now been ‘programmed’ in the way of the world: what we must do, how we must exercise our minds to reach our goals and realise our ambitions to ‘achieve’. Subsequently we adults seem to have little or no imagination left, no real liberty of thought, of enquiry; because we are now bound to ‘the way of the world’, which has taught us how to think, how to reason, what to question, how to question, or not to question at all.

Do you notice that already I have substituted the word ‘education’ with ‘brainwashing’, ‘indoctrination’, ‘programming’, and ‘bondage’? This is deliberate. Whether we like it or not we are prisoners to the system. You simply do have to conform to ‘the course of this world’ to survive, which, in the Book of Revelation, is called wondering after the beast and receiving his mark. Man today is not free; we do not live in ‘the free West’; the mainstream press and media is not free, independent and impartial. Opinion, whether it be found on ‘the left’ or on ‘the right’, is not formed ‘from scratch’ by any one of us; and although you can discover verifiable ‘facts’, and from time to time you might come across ‘honesty’, there remains little ‘truth’ in the world.

Are you offended by that assertion? You will be if you have swallowed the lie that ‘democracy’ and modern liberal values have liberated us into being autonomous creatures, who think for ourselves and have control over our lives. What about our highly prized ‘freedom of speech’? of our ‘Western values’ of opportunity for all, open-mindedness and tolerance? Well, what about them? Don’t you realise how gradually words like ‘fundamentalist’, ‘extremist’, ‘bigot’, ‘absolutist’, ‘hard-liner’, ‘narrow-minded’ and ‘denier’, have taken on a sinister, anti-social dimension in our ‘tolerant’ society, one to be avoided by us at all costs? Yes, and who today would ever want to be called a “flat-earther”?! (Of course, secular humanism can be all of the above and still remain ‘reasonable’; such is its hypocrisy.)

Man is a social creature; generally speaking he doesn’t like being alone or to stand out; he doesn’t want to be mocked or derided because of any sincerely held beliefs, ideas or convictions he might have, and has a natural tendency to conform to his social environment by ‘going with the flow’. Generally he likes to agree with his peers, live peaceably with all men, submit safely to the way things are; and one of the sure ways to succeed in these things is simply not to think for yourself or ask too many questions.

The result of all this is that man has become such a shallow creature. The masses and the vast majority in academia, the media and politics (apart from those willingly participating in the latest Hegelian ruse) are just being swept along by the spirit of the age, blindly accepting or working within the general confines of what is deemed acceptable or expected. Some do, from time to time, seek to ‘break the mould’ or ‘step out of line’: thinking themselves innovative or ‘radical’, but it is more often than not out of a spirit of rebellion against ‘convention’, the desire to be different for the sake of it, or to be noticed, or because they are happy to take on the prescribed role of the ‘anti’, rather than having had an original thought: having come under conviction of something profound, or having come into knowledge of ‘the truth’.

So apart from fear, peer pressure, and a general desire for self-preservation, how else are we all kept in this way, in this general conformity? By diversion, which can be manifest in many ways. By ambition and drive to attain; by being constantly encouraged to fulfil the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, which often involves getting into financial debt – what a great ‘discipline’ that is! No, wait, think of it rather as “investing for the future”; there, that feels better. Then there is the preoccupation with political intrigue and current affairs: the sham system which is democracy – so devoid of truth, so full of deception.

Consider one of the greatest of modern tools for keeping people entranced: competition in all its various manifestations: not least in sport; but more subtly in business or academia, where perhaps you can become “an authority in your field”. And what about the all consuming diversion of entertainment and amusement: getting immersed in the moment: in the ‘here and now’. The arts are a great distraction, especially when man is continually prompted to read, hear or see the latest in literature, music, art, or theatre. Multitudes are absorbed in films and programmes and series: the latest box set; and with the lives and careers of those whose fame is won because their ‘work’ is play-acting: performing. Allied to this is the cult of celebrity: eagerly following the so often dissolute lives of the ‘stars’ of the day. Add to all this the endless must have, must do things which promise happiness, continued engagement, or fulfilment, and the vast majority will be content enough in their lives: in the things which stimulate them. But what a poor state to be in. Boiling it all down to the increasingly prevalent lowest common denominator, all you seem to need nowadays is a screen – of whatever size – a shallow commentary, and a ‘like’ button, and you’ll never need to think, reason, search, or exercise your minds again. ‘Life’ is provided for you, and it’s all continually and irritatingly instant!

Yes, ‘intelligent’ or ‘riff-raff’, we are all apt to fall into this mentality. And don’t imagine that the professing Christian church is untouched by it either. The basic principle that man no longer has to think for himself to survive in this world applies as equally to the church. Take this principle and apply it to your denominational mentality and see if it is not exactly the same. In your church you gather under the banner of “what we believe”, which is a set of doctrines which distinguishes your gathering from the one down the road. But that set of beliefs has most likely been in existence from before the time you joined the church – or were born into it – and is therefore probably a long settled and entrenched state to which you must continue to conform if you are to remain in it. Because of this, no original thought or questioning by you regarding what you believe is necessary or even permitted as the immovable monolith of your denominational tradition is not up for discussion: no further light is admissible; certainly no revelation from heaven is required; no new ideas need to be introduced to help maintain the ancient and steady ark: the one rule of continued membership is simply “conform or leave”.

So is the way of the world. Yes the world is different to the denomination in that it – the world – does not profess to accept the concept of absolutes (although even that foundation has begun to disappear from the majority of the churches) and so can change – ‘progress’ – with the latest ‘new thinking’; but in principle they are both the same: “conform or …” And who wants to be found in those dots?

So don’t think. Just don’t think. Don’t question, don’t raise your hand and ask, “Why…?” Or, “What if we’re wrong? Why does none of this make any sense? What if we’re being deceived?” Just don’t do it. Result? Peace, ah, peace. Peace and safety. Peace and security: ‘safe and sound’! Never mind the coming ‘sudden destruction’.

Now, what is behind all this: this spirit of the world – manifest equally in the modern church? Well, it is a spirit, an evil, malign spirit called by the apostle Paul, ‘the prince of the power of the air’: ‘the god of this world’: Satan, the Devil. And it would be tempting here to go into a substantial documentation of the personages in this world – of men and organisations long set up – who exist in high and secret places, who worship, serve, sacrifice to and obey the dictates of ‘Lucifer’ – as they call him – of this apparent ‘angel of light’, who promises them that they “shall be as gods” – whose wealth and power is so substantial that we are, to all intents and purposes, slaves to their political and social agenda of absolute world domination. But I’m not going to. If you have the inclination to look into these things and investigate what is commonly termed the New World Order, then you will discover that the world in which you live is not all that it seems; that it is not only the ‘state media’ of dictatorial regimes ‘out east’ which spew forth propaganda all day long, and your whole outlook on life will change. Guaranteed. Better still, just read Psalm 2 and Revelation 17.

The reason I’m not going to expose these things here – apart from the fact that the subject is far too big and all pervasive, there being thousands of websites, blogs, documentaries, documented records, and hundreds if not thousands of years of history to prove this great conspiracy against man – is because it is not actually these wicked men who are ultimately behind the deception, it is that great enemy of our souls himself working in these children of disobedience who is the real culprit.

Let us be clear: Satan hates God; and therefore Satan hates man who was created in the image of God. So is it not reasonable to conclude that he should take every opportunity to discredit God and his truth in the eyes of men? What was the first thing that the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden? “Yea, hath God said…?” Now if you believe that “the Bible is the Word of God”, then you must also accept that all it reveals regarding any given subject must be undeniably true. And yet, as we shall prove, at the very heart of a belief in a globe earth is a denial of the scriptural record.

So why do most Bible-believing Christians believe the earth to be a sphere, and scoff at the idea that it might be flat? And why do they not perceive more the working of Satan in the course of this world? Because of the fact that we have already established: they do not and cannot perceive these things because the system which they belong to – both religious and secular – has ‘educated’ them into seeing the world in a certain way, and because of our natural desire, and therefore propensity to believe lies over truth. Let me ask the Bible-believer this question: Why don’t you know that the earth is a plane which doesn’t spin or move at all? Your Bible tells you openly that your world is flat and stable. And what is your immediate reaction to that question? Incredulity? But why incredulity? Have you never stopped to think about it? No? Well, you have an opportunity to stop and think now. These things are more important to your ‘faith’ than you realise.

Red means ‘Go’

Before we continue I want you to imagine this scenario. From January 1^st next year the government has decreed that all traffic lights are to be turned upside down so that green will be on top with red at the bottom. However, the top colour will still mean ‘stop’ and the bottom ‘go’. Just imagine the effect upon the collective consciousness if this were to happen. We would have to start coming to terms with something so contrary to what we’d always understood to be ‘right’ and ‘true’ that society would probably undergo some sort of mass nervous breakdown. Why? Because we’ve always understood green to mean ‘go’, not the opposite; and because – this knowledge and perception being so ingrained in us – we don’t actually ever question the fact: we don’t have to, green does mean go. After all, when you ‘receive the green light’, you know that you can now move forward, right?

So when you’re driving towards a set of traffic lights and they turn red you automatically slow down and stop; you don’t look at the red light and think, “Oh, a red light; now this means stop; so I’d better stop”. No, you don’t think it because this knowledge is innate. But if the law was changed – even if the ‘stop’ light was still on top – you would become so troubled and unsettled in your mind that it would act as a kind of earthquake in the depths of your being. You might even go so far as to think that your whole world had been turned upside down, because such a naturally perceived and basic principle of life had been totally undermined.

Now this is more or less what happens to you when you come to realise the profound truth that the ground under your feet is a stable plane and not a spinning ball. The whole of your perception on the world in which you live is changed. And as we will go on to see, your whole understanding of the ‘universe’ of which you are a part alters dramatically, and ultimately the whole question of ‘the meaning of life’ comes into sharper and more profound focus. Some might think these to be over-dramatic assertions, but behind this whole question of the shape and position of the earth in relation to what we see and perceive in ‘the heavens’ above, is the realisation that it actually becomes a question of origins, of the history of time, of Creation, of God, and of a hundred other things: Is there a God? How did we get here? Was there really a Big Bang? Is the Bible actually true? etc. It’s not simply a question of science: of what we can ‘prove’ or otherwise, but is a question of Truth: Is God true? Is man wise? What drives ‘science’? What is truth?

You must realise that it is not merely a question of whether the earth is a ball or a flat plane; it’s a question of whether God created the earth unique – as Genesis 1:1 clearly implies – or ‘chance’ created a small insignificant lump of spinning rock in a vast infinite universe which just so happened to find itself in the right relationship to its nearest source of light and heat to allow ‘life’ to evolve upon it. That’s the issue. This is why – in the context of the mentality of the modern world – the flat earth is potentially such a devastating question to consider, and find an answer to. So let not the professed Christian, at least, dismiss this issue so lightly; and let him not fall into the mentality of the world which scoffs mindlessly at ‘the flat-earther’.

The Flat Earth and Today’s Church

Now it is not true to say that every one who propagates this idea that the earth is flat is a ‘Bible-believing Christian’, as a quick search of this subject online will show. Nevertheless there are some interesting observations to make regarding these people. Firstly many of them will readily turn to scripture to prove certain points of their theory; and secondly, a majority of them also conclude that if the earth is flat then of necessity the ‘big bang’ evolutionary model becomes redundant as an explanation for the origin of ‘the universe’. More often than not they conclude that there must be a ‘God’ who created all things – or at least an ‘intelligent designer’ – as opposed to the chance, random, chaos-to-order explanation used by most godless scientists. Actually there are few if any atheistic flat-earthers. This is most interesting, and should actually serve as a wake up call to the professed Christian who likes to boast that he “stands on the authority of the Bible”. Worldly men investigating the shape of the earth cannot help but conclude that your Book backs up their contention that the earth is a fixed plane and not a spinning ball!

Now although the scriptures don’t require man’s ‘belief’ in them to make them true, it is certainly interesting when one discovers non-Christians arguing for the validity of scripture on certain points, while at the same time ‘Christians’ remain ignorant or even outright unbelieving of those same scriptures when they evidently prove that a widely held perception is actually false. To me all this just shows how dull the modern profession of Christianity has become: how apathetic, ‘past feeling’, Ephesians 4:19, how mindless and careless it is when it comes to the spirit of enquiry, with its general unwillingness to seek anything out for itself: remaining quite happy to believe just about anything it is told – fed – from ‘the pulpit’.

But why is it like this? Because the modern church – almost totally – exists and functions quite happily without ‘revelation’. True saving knowledge comes only by “revelation of the Father”, see Matthew 16:13-17; and because today’s church – in whatever denominated form it appears – survives without ever having had to receive this revelation – although it receives plenty of what it professes to believe by “the revelation of flesh and blood”, i.e. natural learning – then its members, when faced with any truth which goes against, or strays outside the comfort zone of their ‘beliefs’, are much less likely to stop, think and question what they do believe, why they believe it, and seek that testimony from God himself – by revelation – as to what the truth actually is.

Now I am not saying here that only those who believe the earth to be a fixed plane can be saved. But what I am saying is that those who are truly saved – because of the profound work which God has wrought in them by revealing the truth to them – are much more likely to realise that their natural understanding remains darkened until God enlightens it; that the world and everything that emanates from ‘the wisdom of this world’ invariably proves to be ‘foolishness’; that, therefore, all that the world teaches as ‘truth’ must be counted as highly suspicious; and that because ‘the whole world lieth in wickedness’ then everything it propounds as ‘science’ – knowledge – is likely a lie, especially when it concludes against the truth, person, work and revelation of God. And yet here we are arguing for the truth that the earth upon which we all live is a stable plane and most if not all the Christian readers will already have dismissed the very thought as being ridiculous. But why will they rightly reject the theory of evolution – and use scripture to do so – but will not even consider the proposition that the earth is flat? There is an obvious inconsistency in professing Christendom in this.

There are, at the time of writing (Summer 2016), some very famous Creation apologists who show no sign or even willingness to address this question of the flat earth, even from scripture, while spending all their energies proving from scripture that evolution is a lie! But why not use the same principles of enquiry to investigate this question as they do the question of evolution? Non-Christians prove from scripture the earth to be flat, why not these “stout defenders of scriptural truth”? Well, only time will tell whether or not these creationists will catch up with the ‘honest’ non-believers as regarding the truth of their scriptures on this point.

Part Two: The Flat Earth Reality

The Motionless Earth

So let us turn to scripture and ask, first: Can we find any testimony therein to a spinning earth? About a year ago [2015] I was pondering the subject of ‘the beginning’ in Genesis chapter one – ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ – and it struck me how unique the earth is in the creation of God. That first chapter reads in effect, In the beginning God created the earth, and everything else which is not the earth; that’s how it reads. So immediately we see that the earth was created before the sun, which, as we are about to see, is totally contrary to the spinning ball model. As we read on we see that the sun, moon and stars – not created until the fourth day – were actually created to serve the earth: not only as lights but ‘for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years’, verse 14.

All this, of course, is clean contrary to the big bang, billions of years, evolutionary theory, in which the sun is the centre of our ‘solar’ system having come into existence long before the earth was formed; the earth then becoming in effect subordinate to the sun because of the workings of Newton’s conveniently ‘discovered’ law of gravitation. According to this theory the earth could not even have existed without the sun, for the earth was formed as the result of dust particles caught in the sun’s gravitational orbit gradually coalescing into a ball. Yet in Genesis we find that not only the earth but the heaven, the firmament, the seas, the dry land, and all the plant kinds on the earth came into being before this so-called giver of life, the Sun, was even created. Therefore the ‘sun first’ model which has issued in the spinning ball-earth theory – and has actually been born out of nothing less than pagan sun worship – has totally reversed the order of Genesis 1.

Be very clear on this. The spinning ball can only exist as part of the big bang, billions of years, evolutionary, gravity holding it all together theory. Only. Therefore if you believe the testimony of Genesis 1 – even from the very first verse – you cannot believe in a spinning ball.

Anyway, as I continued my meditation on this beginning in Genesis and the special position of the earth in God’s creation, I began to notice in references throughout scripture that all the language which relates to the earth is the language of stability: that the earth is motionless; while all the language descriptive of the sun, moon and stars is that of movement. But that is as far as I got. When I mentioned this to my brother he replied, “Well, you know the earth is flat!” What?! I can still recall the feeling I had when he said it: Absolute nonsense! It is one of the fundamental facts of life, like “death and taxes”, that the earth is a spinning globe! How offended I was at my brother’s words. Yes, offended: the sky is blue, red does mean stop, and the earth is a big ball orbiting the sun; we all ‘know’ these things to be true.

But it started me upon a quest to see if what he said was true, although I should have begun to conclude this myself from scripture. For verily the language of scripture regarding the earth really is everywhere the language of stability. We read that it has foundations and is built upon pillars; that it can be shaken, and that it can tremble: possibly figurative language but a meaningless figure if the earth already has natural movement. But when we read a verse like Job 9:6 we see that God “shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble”. There the earth is indeed said to have a ‘place’: by implication a set place, and that its pillars are usually stable – indeed what use are pillars otherwise?

Now I do realise that there are some phrases in scripture which can be seen as being figurative only: for example, although “God is a Spirit”, John 4:24, yet he is said to have ‘eyes’, ‘ears’, a ‘mouth’, and ‘hands’; but a spirit by definition cannot have physical properties. But does this mean that he cannot still ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘speak’, and ‘do’? It does not. God is also said to have a heart and a mind, he can think, feel, be grieved, can love, and hate, can be angry: only a sentient Person can manifest these things.

In the light of this then perhaps these foundations, pillars and, as we shall see, the earth’s establishment “that it cannot be moved” is all merely figurative language that is not supposed to be taken literally. Let us see. Psalm 93:1, just quoted, is a common verse referenced by flat earth proponents to prove the motionless earth: Young’s literal translation of the Hebrew is very terse: “Also – established is the world, unmoved.” Now the first thing to note here is that the psalmist doesn’t use the word ‘earth’ but ‘world’. Is this important? Is there a difference between the two? In this verse there is no real difference. Generally speaking in the Old Testament the word translated earth, as in Genesis 1:1 and 1:10, is simply ‘the ground’ as opposed to ‘the sea’; whereas the word ‘world’, although it does have a more varied application in scripture, is usually the word for ‘the habitable part of the earth’; and that is the word used here in Psalm 93:1. So it is fair to say that the world in this verse can to all intents and purposes be understood as being ‘the earth’ – cp. also Psalms 50:12 and 24:1.

But for all that I still can’t quite apply this verse as literally as others do to ‘prove’ a stable earth. The simple reason being that a principle can be ‘established’, and a principle is not a physical entity. The earth therefore can be described as having been established in that it has been made by God, and that unless or until he destroys it, it ‘cannot be moved’. So although this phrase can hint at a motionless earth it cannot really be taken on its own to prove it.

I suppose the same could be said of the ‘foundations’ and the ‘pillars’ of the earth. But these words do also suggest a more physical application along with the admitted ‘principle’ interpretation. As the ‘establishment’ of something can exist solely in the realm of principle, the words ‘foundation’ and, perhaps to a lesser degree, ‘pillars’ can also be applied to the physical. If you’re not convinced then consider the following verses: “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed…”, Psalm 102:25,26. Now no-one reading those verses can fail to see that the psalmist is speaking of the physical creation bound by time: of the physical world in which he lived and of the physical heavens which he saw above his head. Therefore there is no reason to believe that the ‘foundations’ are not physical also.

Look also at Job 38:4 where the LORD asks Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” – he then going on in chapters 38 and 39 to make reference to many other physical properties of creation. Psalm 104 also speaks of the foundations of the earth in the context of the literal physical creation, and with probable reference to the Flood in Noah’s day – another literal physical occurrence, verses 5-9. In fact it is interesting to note in verse 5 that the marginal reading gives the literal Hebrew: ‘He hath founded the earth upon her bases.’ We know from Genesis 1:1 that ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’, obviously a physical earth: so why not built upon actual foundations or bases?

Psalm 24:2 says that the earth upon which we live has been “founded upon the seas, and established upon the floods”. This can be clearly seen in the account of creation in Genesis 1. At the beginning the earth was covered with water, no land could be seen. It wasn’t until the third day that ‘dry land appeared’ above the water, verse 9. Peter says that people are willingly ignorant of the fact ‘that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water’, 2 Peter 3:5, therefore the earth can be said to have its “foundation upon the seas”. So it is reasonable to conclude from these references that the material earth upon which we live is built upon actual foundations: hence the distinct probability, from the testimony of scripture, that the earth is motionless.

As to the pillars of the earth: the only references I can find in our present context are in Job 9:6 quoted above and in Hannah’s words in 1 Samuel 2:8, where she says of the pillars of the earth that the LORD hath set the world upon them. Now the reason I said earlier that these pillars are ‘to a lesser degree’ a proof of the motionless earth is that this reference could have merely a spiritual application. In Galatians 2:9 Paul refers to James, Cephas and John as being ‘pillars’ in the church; and it may be that Hannah’s ‘pillars’ are the people of God upon the earth, immediately referred to as ‘the poor’, ‘the beggar’ and ‘his saints’. In that she said that the LORD “hath set the world upon them”, it may mean that the world is upheld because of the continued presence of the people of God upon earth – they are, after all, “the salt of the earth”, and “the light of the world”, Matthew 5:13,14. So perhaps Hannah’s reference to pillars here is not literal. Nonetheless like ‘established’ this word does seem to add to the scriptures’ accumulative testimony to the ‘stability’ of the earth.

Now if you investigate further what the flat-earthers in the world say in regard to the movement or stability of the earth you will discover that they can prove scientifically – without, though not contrary to, scripture – that the earth is motionless. I must confess that I have never had a scientific bent and do not pretend to understand all the scientific proofs of the subject at hand, but, as I said, a lot of serious research has been done, and there is a lot of repeatable experimental evidence out there for a motionless earth which will stimulate and perhaps surprise the scientifically minded reader; as all these researchers seem to say: “Don’t just believe me, do your own research”. So try looking up the Michelson-Morley experiment; the Michelson-Gale experiment; Airy’s Failure; and Sagnac’s experiment, and see what you discover.

Check Your Flights

Now although my main point of reference in this article is the scriptures, I would like to mention one or two interesting occurrences from general observation which have sparked my imagination, and which provide extra proof, to me at least, that the earth doesn’t spin.

According to the rotating earth theory the globe is spinning from west to east. That would mean that if you were flying west your destination would be spinning towards you as soon as your plane left the ground. So, for instance, when I used to fly from London to Edmonton in the west of Canada, the rotation of the earth should have brought my destination towards me at a speed of about 700 miles an hour making my journey relatively short even though Edmonton is seven hours behind London. So in practice my plane should have taken off from Heathrow and flown west for three or four hours before happily landing at our newly arrived destination. But we never did. The flight was always a good eight hours or more: we literally had to fly across seven time zones to get there. Also consider a much shorter flight, say, from London to Bristol. Surely all you’d need to do is ascend from the runway and hover for the few minutes it took for Bristol to appear below you. But again you actually do have to fly the hundred miles or so west to get to Lulsgate airport. These flights are only necessary over a motionless earth.

Likewise, if you were flying three time zones east from London to Moscow, as soon as you took off from Heathrow the earth beneath you would be spinning ahead of you at seven hundred miles an hour. Therefore your plane would have to be flying at 700 mph just to keep you positioned over London; you would never get to Moscow unless you flew significantly faster than the spin, and I am not aware of any passenger airliner today which flies at such speeds to enable you to get to Moscow in the three and a half hours or so that it actually does take. Why not look up the flight times, plane speeds, etc. yourselves and see what you discover. Interestingly what you will find is that flights east and flights west to and from the same two destinations are always more or less equal in journey time – impossible on a spinning earth.

Again, if you were flying due south, say from London to Lisbon – which is about a thousand miles and a two-and-a-half hour flight over the motionless earth – you would have to travel much further and in a south-easterly direction to follow and catch up with Lisbon because of the spin of the earth; but it just doesn’t happen.

One more observation. If the earth was a globe – spinning or not – then, regardless of which direction planes were flying, the pilots would have to be continually ‘diving’ to keep parallel with the ground. Once they had reached ‘35,000 feet’, to maintain their height of seven miles above the earth they would, if they were travelling at about 500 miles per hour, continually have to ‘descend’ just over half a mile – about 2,800 ft – every minute. If they set their course at cruising speed and ‘just kept flying straight ahead’ – which is what they do do – they would soon ‘fly off into space’ getting ever further from the ball earth dipping round the curve below them. But of course that just doesn’t happen. If you know any pilots ask them about these things: just ask them if they ever have to make allowance for the curvature or spin of the earth. (Actually, I recently had an opportunity to ask a pilot just that: he dodged the question completely with a dismissive “Oh, the plane does all that.” Of course, what he meant was that he’d never thought about it and, anyway, we all know the earth is a ball, you can see the curve at 35,000ft! (Never mind the curvy windows!) And never mind the fact that amateur weather balloon footage at 120,000ft still shows the horizon to be level – NASA having utilised their fisheye lens way before then.)

“From the rising of the sun…”

Now if we look up to the heavens we discover that the constant language of scripture to describe sun, moon and stars is the language of movement. Immediately some will say that of course the lights in the sky seem to move from our perspective because it is actually we who are spinning, making it appear to our senses that the lights are moving, when in fact they are stable. ‘In fact’? Oh, and who came up with that ‘fact’? Not scripture. In the days of Joshua we do not read that the earth stopped spinning but that ‘the sun stood still, and the moon stayed’, Joshua 10:12-14. Now those words are so specific and deliberate, that they must prove to be misleading and, indeed, untrue if what in actual fact happened was that ‘the earth stood still’. The words ‘the earth stood still’ could so easily have been written without detriment to truth or the power of God, if indeed the earth had stood still. But no. Scripture clearly records Joshua before the LORD calling upon the sun and moon to cease their movement; not the earth its. Again in the days of Hezekiah we definitely read that ‘the sun returned ten degrees’, not that ‘the earth spun back ten degrees’, Isaiah 38:8, see also 2 Kings 20:9-11.

Again there are numerous references to the movement of the heavenly bodies: especially of the sun: “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised”, Psalm 113:3. Poetical language only? Well it is poetical, but the psalmist could just as easily have sung, “From the dawning of the day to the fading shades of light…”, but here he chose to describe the beginning and ending of the day from what he observed in the sky above him. In fact throughout scripture the sun is constantly being referred to as ‘rising’, and ‘going down’. In Ecclesiastes 1:5-7 the wise man speaks of the movement of the sun: ‘The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose’, as he does the winds and the rivers; but why is it only the movement of the sun in this passage which is thought to be merely an illusion?

In Psalm 19 we have the sun “as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race”, of his “going forth” and of his “circuit”: movement, movement, movement. We will come back to this psalm later. The Lord Jesus taught his disciples that the Father “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good”, Matthew 5:45; and Paul in Ephesians 4:26 exhorts the saints: ‘let not the sun go down upon your wrath’. They each wrote and spoke of what we see every day! The sun rises, moves across the sky, and then sets.

As to the moon, it is said to be ‘walking’ in Job 31:26, and ‘withdrawing itself’ in Isaiah 60:20; while Habakkuk 3:11 confirms that ‘the sun and the moon stood still in their habitation.’ The stars also are said to have ‘courses’, or ‘paths’ as it says in the margin of Judges 5:20. It is all the language of movement. There is no doubt from the testimony of scripture that these lights move across the sky above us, not that we spin around below them.

The Flat Earth

So we come to the actual shape of the earth – this beautiful plane upon which we live! Firstly we must look at the most commonly quoted ‘proof-text’ given from scripture for a ball earth: Isaiah 40:22 and ‘the circle of the earth’. Surely the prophet is telling us here that the earth is round? Well we are told that it is, or has, a circle, yes, but not that it is a sphere. Hair-splitting? All right, if you want it to say ’round’ then yes, a ball can be described as being round, as can your dinner plate or a compact disc. CDs are round – circular – while remaining as flat as a pancake! This is also why you can sail ’round’ – or circle – the earth without it necessarily being a ball. But anyway, as this verse doesn’t actually describe the earth as ‘round’, but rather as having a ‘circle’, and as a circle is a two, not a three dimensional shape, then Isaiah 40:22 cannot be used to prove, and does not prove, the earth to be a globe.

For me there is one cast iron proof from both scripture and nature which clearly testifies to the flat earth: the movement and settled state of water. You don’t have to be a scientist to know that water flows down – not up – to find a resting place (after all, waterfalls); and that an undisturbed body of water always maintains a level surface; and that holds true whether it be a small puddle, an inland lake or the Pacific Ocean. The very nature of water dictates this to be an absolute verity – except on your globe, where rivers like the Nile flow up. Now as all the oceans of the earth are connected – one can “sail the seven seas”, circumnavigating the earth without touching land – then it must follow that all the water of the oceans is on the same level – sea level? – making the earth of necessity a horizontal plane. [Mention again of the horizontal reminds us that spirit levels work the world over – ask a builder, the bubble never lies!]

The scriptural testimony of this is found right at the beginning: Genesis 1:9 says, ‘And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good’, verse 10. As the waters were ‘gathered together unto one place’, the surface level of those waters would have been uniform. Notice also that God called that one body of waters Seas, not just ‘the sea’: so all the waters upon the face of the earth were on one level even though they existed in various places across the plane as seas.

Now a question immediately arises: How is it then that the water doesn’t drain off the edge of the flat earth? The answer is because there is a big wall keeping them in, as Job 26:10 says, “He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.” Now again that verse is very specific; it definitely says that the waters are compassed with bounds, not that the land is bound by the waters. On a ball earth it is the land only which is everywhere closed in by the seas, but here we have the sees themselves closed in: and as you can indeed sail round the earth on water without touching land then on a globe the seas cannot be said to be closed in – “compassed with bounds”.

So what and where are these bounds? On the flat earth Antarctica serves as the bounds for all the waters of the earth. The great body of water upon the face of the earth which we call seas and oceans cannot drain off the edge because of the great wall of ice surrounding them. It’s quite simple really. In our deceiving atlases Antarctica is always shown as a roundish continent ‘at the bottom of the world’ surrounding what we are told is ‘the south pole’; but on the flat plane Antarctica becomes the boundary wall of ice which surrounds the whole earth. Again this could be what the LORD is referring to in Job 38:8-11, when he speaks of the sea having “a swaddlingband of thick darkness”; of having “bars and doors”, saying to it, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed”. Notice again that it is the sea which has ‘a band’ around it. Read the passage for yourself, and see what it suggests to you.

Does this mean then that there is no south pole? It does*. There is 90° south, just as we are told, but there must also be 91° south, and 92° south; and how far further south we don’t know. In fact ‘south’ is the direction from what we call the north pole: but really, on the flat plane, ‘north’ is actually the centre of the circle of the earth, ‘south’ more accurately being the direction ‘away’ from that centre. Therefore the lines of latitude actually radiate out, not ‘down’, from the centre; across the plane away towards ‘the ends of the earth’; while the lines of longitude, which all converge at the centre point – the ‘north pole’ – in reality continue to diverge and not converge beyond the ‘equator’, making the land masses ‘south’, or outside, of the equator much larger in reality than our globes show, while likewise making the land masses ‘north’, or inside the equator smaller.

*[Photographs of a circle of flags planted in the snow are no proof of a south pole existing. If you’ve seen Michael Palin’s travel adventure ‘Pole to Pole’ from the early 1990s you will remember that he started at the north pole and followed 30° east longitude till he got to South Africa. There the narrative was that he was hoping to join a supply ship to Antarctica and so get to the pole that way; but there were no free spaces for him and the film crew, so to complete the series in accordance with its title they ‘had to’ fly to Punta Arenas in southern Chile and fly in to Antarctica from there. But knowing what we know now we can see that the designated place for the pole on the ring which is 90° ‘south’ is nearer to southern Chile than South Africa, from where, in reality, there is no access. A clever dramatic twist to the end of the show to hide an aspect of flat earth truth.

Now the reader might find the subject of Antarctica interesting to investigate. Try researching ‘The Antarctic Treaty’ of 1959, and the amazing – unprecedented – level of political agreement which holds it together. Discover how this great mass of ice is totally off limits to independent explorers: that no-one can go beyond or outside of 60° ‘south’ without ‘official’ permission; and ask yourself why it is that although there are over 20 bases dotted around Antarctica, there are none situated between New Zealand and South America. And if the airline flights section above sparked your imagination then try and find out why there are no flight paths over or near Antarctica: certainly there has never been, and can never be a north-south-north circumnavigation of the earth. Search for direct flights from one ‘southern hemisphere’* city to another over two continents – say from Cape Town to Sydney, or Auckland to Buenos Aires – and see what you find. Anyway, I find this a most interesting and indeed exciting discovery. Exciting because what you find will add to the evidence that the earth is a plane and not a ball; which knowledge seems to come with a surprising degree of liberty.

*[‘Hemisphere’ is now definitely a ball earth word only!]

My ‘Revelation’ Moment

Before we continue I want to interject here a relation of the moment when I actually ‘saw’ flat earth in experience although I already knew it to be true. It had been wonderful to see this truth from argument, logic, and especially from scripture, but I also received an actual ‘revelation’ of this truth which, as it were, sealed it. It was that moment when I could say assuredly “I know, because I have seen.” (Cp. John 3:11, 1 John 1:1-3.) Again, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe it before, or that I was still wavering due to a little residue doubt, and still needed that hitherto illusive bit of proof to make absolutely sure: I would still believe the earth to be flat and stationary if I hadn’t received it: but it is wonderful when you actually do see something for yourself in experience without any outside influence.

I relate this here in the light of what I have just been writing above regarding ‘north’ and ‘south’ being not ‘up’ and ‘down’ but being closer to or further away from the centre across the plane. We are so used to using phrases like “up country” and “down south” that, with this globe mentality, we subconsciously really do think that north is up and south is down. But in experience it just isn’t so! In April 2016 we were driving ‘north’ on the M5 motorway between Bristol and Gloucester and, as you so often do on a long journey, you muse about the road ahead and where you might end up if you remained on it (we were due to turn off after about an hour). As you may know the M5 runs into the M6 in Birmingham which takes you “way up north” towards Scotland. I was remembering our childhood holidays up to the north of Scotland when suddenly it happened: and it was that word “up”. But we weren’t driving ‘up’ at all! We were driving straight ahead. With the exception of some necessary gradual gradients due to passing through higher countryside, road builders, as well as railway engineers, build roads and track as much as possible on the horizontal, for obvious reasons; (think tunnels, bridges, and also canals, the planners and builders of which make no account for curvature). And so when we drive on a journey of hundreds of miles we remain more or less on a horizontal path. We were continually driving straight ahead not up! The north was constantly before us across the plane not above us. It’s a plane in all directions this earth, a plane, a plane, not a ball!! That’s when I saw it. And it was exhilarating – which it still is!

The Stretched Out Planes

So we come now to look at the language scripture uses to describe the related planes of the heavens, the earth, and the waters which are ‘under the earth’. As we do the ball-earth theory will recede further from our minds. Jeremiah 51:15 says that the LORD ‘…hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding’, see also 10:12 of the same book. Psalm 136 says, “O give thanks unto the LORD… [for he hath] stretched out the earth above the waters”, verse 6; and Job 38:4 and 5, referenced earlier, declare plainly that the LORD has not only measured the foundations of the earth but has “stretched the line upon it.” Again, any good builder would immediately see the word ‘horizontal’ there. The earth is said to be ‘spread forth’ according to Isaiah 42:5 – which verse also speaks of the heavens as having been ‘stretched out’. And these heavens are always described in scripture as being ‘above the earth’, never ’round about’ it, cp. Psalm 103:11, Isaiah 55:9, etc. Look also at Deuteronomy 5:8 where we read “in heaven above… in the earth beneath… [and] …in the waters beneath the earth”. Paul in Philippians 2:10 also testifies ‘…of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth…’ This use of language clearly describes the heavens, the earth, and under the earth existing as a series of planes, one, obviously, on top of, or parallel to the other: nothing spherical can be deduced from these verses.

So firstly we have the psalmist declaring, “As the heaven is high above the earth…” (on the underside of a ball the heavens would be below the earth as viewed from ‘outer space’); secondly we are found living ‘under the heaven’, cp. Ecclesiastes 3:1, ‘in’ the earth – I live ‘in’ Britain; and thirdly there are those things which are ‘under the earth’: the waters – as well as the pit – which exist on the other side of the earth to the heavens. Distinct planes. This latter place is brought out definitely, not to say shockingly, in Numbers 16 where we read of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: ‘…the ground clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up… [and] they went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them…’, verses 31-33. Now if we read those words simply as written, what are they saying? They are telling us that the men were literally swallowed down through the earth into the pit below. Their entrance into this pit is not described in spiritual terms: we are not told that their ‘souls’ descended into the pit (cp. Revelation 20:4), but that they themselves, the men, went down alive into the pit. So this was a physical descent into an actual place ‘under the earth’. I found that most striking when I read it in this context.

Remember again that in Noah’s day we read of the waters of the great deep whose fountains were broken up at the beginning of the Flood, Genesis 7:11. These fountains and waters obviously came up from under the earth as in the same verse we read of ‘the windows of heaven’ being opened above the earth. And as we just saw in Deuteronomy 5, the ‘water under the earth’ is referenced again in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:4, where we read, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’ Now some might say that this is just a reference to the water of the sea; but in Revelation 5:13 we have a distinction made between the two: ‘And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea…’ There we find those which are ‘under the earth’ existing in a different place to those which are ‘in the sea’.

The Firmament of Heaven

Which brings us to consider ‘the firmament’ of Genesis 1:6-8. When created this firmament ‘divided the waters which are under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament’. Now modern astronomy tells us that the sky above us is limitless: beyond the blue – beyond the earth’s atmosphere – is the infinite vacuum of space. But Genesis 1 clearly states that there is this firmament, which is a solid, material structure: a “glass ceiling” if you will, indicating that “the sky’s the limit” indeed! (These phrases haven’t come out of nowhere, you know; someone ‘in the know’ has introduced them into the language.)

Read again what Genesis says: the firmament divides ‘the waters which are under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament’. Now as waters are physical, they exist as matter, then anything which divides them must itself be an actual physical barrier. When the Flood came upon Noah’s world we read that ‘the windows of heaven were opened’ releasing waters from above the firmament for a time before they were ‘stopped’. Now for some reason I used to think that all the water which was above the firmament drained out at the Flood, but no; Psalm 148:4, written centuries later, states that there are waters above the heavens still; this answers to the windows being ‘stopped’ in Genesis 8:2, indicating that they hadn’t all run out, there is still water up there.

Now here ‘the plot thickens’! For a common reason given to explain the great ages of people who lived before the Flood was because the waters above the firmament acted as a shield or filter which kept the inhabitants of the earth safe from the sun’s more harmful rays. But if you read Genesis 1 you will discover that the sun was definitely placed ‘in’, or within, not ‘above’ the firmament, verses 14-17, so these waters were always above – the other side of – the sun, and could not have acted as a shield. This means that you had the earth with the expanse of heaven, or sky, above it, in which were found the sun, moon and stars, all topped by the barrier of the firmament which separated the waters which were above the firmament from those which were below it upon the earth and in the atmosphere.

But if we stay a little longer on the event of the Flood in this context we will discover that the waters which were above the firmament, which poured out through the windows of heaven, must have washed past, as it were, both the sun and moon as they flooded the earth. This may furnish us with an explanation of something which has long puzzled me: Why does the moon sometimes appear in the daytime? Originally this lesser light was created to rule the night, it should only ever come out at night, Genesis 1:16, therefore it must now be ‘out of sync’. Perhaps the moon – as well as the sun – was jarred out of its course by these waters flowing down at the time of the Flood. Just a thought.

I now think that this firmament of Genesis 1 is what is being referred to by NASA as the Van Allen radiation belts through which we cannot pass; or the ionosphere off of which they can and do bounce signals, waves, etc. There is something solid and impassable up there: and your Bible calls it the firmament!

Now what about the shape of this firmament? One possibility is that it exists as a dome over the earth: that we live in a giant enclosed structure where the edges of the dome come down to ‘the ends of the earth’ somewhere beyond 90° ‘south’, where none of us have ever been: think of those little snow-globes we used to shake as children. If this is the case then it might explain why Antarctica is said to be the windiest continent on earth – the winds constantly rebounding off the sides of the dome. It would also explain how Earth’s water cycle of evaporation, precipitation, and run-off is able to continue: being enclosed under/within the firmament. We know that vegetation can thrive indefinitely within a closed terrarium as long as it has enough moisture introduced at the time of planting, so why cannot our system be the same? Realising this I now believe that there hasn’t actually needed to be any new water added to our enclosed system for life to continue and thrive. Remember that the Flood was an intrusive judgment upon the earth, so the introduced water from above the firmament wasn’t a necessary introduction to ‘top up’ any lost moisture, but was poured down to destroy – saturate – a creation which had been at the beginning ‘very good’. Again, a judgment. How contrary to the needs of the original creation – which must have had more habitable land than now – that overwhelming outpouring was!

An alternative to the firmament being an enclosing dome is that as the heavens have been ‘stretched out’ it may be, as we have seen, another plane existing parallel to the earth, likely held up at ‘the four corners of the earth’ – again well out of our sight – by ‘the pillars of heaven’, see Job 26:11. Indeed the base of the word translated ‘firmament’ in the Hebrew is the word for ‘beaten out’, as a piece of metal might be beaten out into a sheet. Furthermore, Revelation 6:14 refers to the heaven as being like a scroll, and scrolls when they are spread out are usually flat. Also in Psalm 104:2 the psalmist declares that the LORD “stretchest out the heavens like a curtain”, while Isaiah 40:22, repeating that phrase, adds ‘…and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.’ More ‘spreading out’ but this time using the word ‘tent’ in the description, which would seem to indicate something closer to a dome – enclosing – shape. Either way it must be a fact that the earth does indeed have an edge, or ‘ends’; being a material plane it cannot be infinite as some flat earth proponents seem to argue.

Perhaps the Antarctic Treaty was brought into being because explorers in the early to mid 20^th Century, like Richard E. Byrd, actually did ‘find the edge’, and the ruling elite of this world, who by then may also have discovered the solid firmament, were determined to keep the fact of the finite flat plane of earth from the knowledge of the general population. Why? Because they’d been sold the ball-earth, big bang, billions of years, evolution, no creator God theory. That’s why. This may also explain why the ‘space race’ was presently introduced, which culminated in Neil Armstrong’s ‘iconic’ “One small step on a movie set, one giant leap for the imagination.” What better proof of a ball earth than ‘photos from space’?! Believe the moon landings if you like: I no longer do. [Again recently I had a conversation with someone who doesn’t buy the agenda being foisted upon us – especially since 2020 – and when I told him that Flat Earth was “the big one” amongst conspiracy realists – even bigger than the last three years – he said, “Are you a flat-earther? I’ve never met one of them!” “You have now!” I said. To which he immediately replied, “I don’t believe we went to the moon anyway.” That was his response to flat earth, even though I hadn’t even mentioned the moon landings. It is amazing how often you get that response! You see, flat earth doesn’t stand alone; when you see it, not only the spinning ball deflates, but lots of other ‘givens’ begin to fall as well.]

By the way, all this means that when the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he went up into the sky – ‘the heaven’ – ‘a cloud receiving him out of their sight’ (Acts 1:9,10), past the sun, moon and stars, through the sold structure of the firmament – perhaps through one of the ‘windows’ – through the remaining waters which are above the firmament, and into heaven itself. All Bible-believing Christians acknowledge Christ’s resurrection and ascension to have been physical and literal: an actual body of flesh and bones walked out from the sepulchre and was taken up into heaven. And it is also accepted that “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven”, Acts 1:11. Therefore it must be true that ‘the man Christ Jesus’ passed through a literal firmament and literal waters above the firmament. And why not? The physical, resurrected Jesus had already appeared to the disciples when they were ‘within… the doors being shut’, John 20:19-29. (Consider also Elijah’s ‘taking up’ in this context, 2 Kings 2:9-11.)

This immediately raises another interesting question: How far above us then is this firmament? Surely the sun is 93 million miles away, isn’t it? Is it? Who says? ‘Science’ says. Oh yes, that same science which teaches the globe earth, evolution as ‘fact’, and a lot of nonsense recently surrounding the phrase “safe and effective”. ‘Trustworthy’ isn’t the word. Actually numerous calculations have been made using sextants and plane trigonometry which measure both the sun and moon to be about 3,000 miles above the earth with each being about 32 miles in diameter. If that is the case then the physical resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus is situated perhaps little more than 3,000 miles above your head. Forget ‘science’ and read the testimony of scripture regarding these things and see what you find. There aren’t millions of miles, as there haven’t been millions of years.

Again in this context consider Saul on the road to Damascus. There a light shined round about him from heaven above the brightness of the near sun and Jesus of Nazareth spoke to him, saying, not shouting – from more than 93 million miles away? Both Luke’s telling and Paul’s recounting of the incident indicate something much more immediate, more intimate than a distant communication from ‘across the vast tracts of space’; cp. also Stephen in Acts 7:55,56.

Then here’s another interesting thought in this context. In Genesis 11 we read of the building of the city and tower of Babel: hear what the people actually said: “Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven”, not just ‘into the heavens’ as in ‘high up in the sky’, but they intended to build a tower whose top would literally reach unto heaven itself, that is what they said. This was a great act of rebellion – “let us make us a name” – clearly of the same nature and character as Lucifer’s in Isaiah 14:12-14 – “I will ascend into heaven… I will be like the most High.” Whereas theirs was a physical and his primarily a spiritual attempt, yet both were literal: they both thought they could actually reach unto heaven. The ancients obviously knew, then, that the physical dwelling-place of God was reachable – near enough at least to try anyway. Again, a realisation of the earth being flat with a near firmament gives this account an added edge, and perhaps makes it a bit more understandable.

Psalm 19

But I want to come to Psalm 19 which we briefly referred to earlier. David’s subject at the beginning of this psalm is “the heavens”, and “the firmament”: “in them”, verse 4, “hath [God] set a tabernacle – a dwelling-place – for the sun”. Again the sun is said to be ‘in’ not above the firmament. This sun, as we have seen, “is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race”, verse 5. Moving across the sky “his going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”

In the context of all that we have seen thus far, this circuit – circle – of the sun’s movement in the heavens, within the firmament, is solely above the earth and compasses one end of heaven to the other. If you imagine the flat circle of the earth – well, you don’t have to imagine it, the United Nations flag shows you what the flat earth looks like: they do know – place the sun just above its surface, and see it circling over the earth once every twenty-four hours. The sun, as well as the moon, both circle above the earth in ever decreasing or expanding circles, depending on what time of year it is. In Britain the circuit of the sun is more ‘northerly’, or nearer the centre of the earth – and is therefore a tighter circle – in summer than in winter when it has moved out and away from the centre in ever increasing circles towards the ‘southern’ or outer regions of the circle of the earth. But even then the sun still completes its circuit once every twenty-four hours, so is therefore moving faster the more ‘southerly’ it goes.

In the light of that consider the difference between, say, 70° south and 70° north – or even 50° in both – in relation to the character and nature of dawn and dusk at these latitudes; of the amount of plant and animal life which lives and can thrive – or not – at each, and see what interesting anomalies you find – anomalies indeed on a ball earth, but only to be expected on a flat plane. (By the way, the map of the world presented on the UN flag is known officially as the ‘Azimuthal Equidistant Polar Projection’; I’ve got one in my ‘Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas’ of 1969, page 125: they know as well.)

But back to Psalm 19 and specifically to the words at the end of verse six: “…and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” This is saying that there is nothing in the heavens, in the firmament, which is hidden from the heat of the sun. Now just think of that; what does it suggest to you? Well, does it need to be suggestive of anything, or does it just mean what it says? It says that there is no place in the heaven, in the firmament, which is hidden from the heat of the sun. This means that all areas of the expanse of the firmament of heaven at one time or another feel the heat of the sun. Therefore as the sun is not 93 million miles away from the earth, and is not light years away from the stars, but is relatively close to the earth, being within – this side of – the near firmament, then the firmament itself, and the space between the earth and the firmament, must actually be very compact in comparison to ‘the vast emptiness of outer space’, which modern science and the film industry assures us exist. As the sun makes its daily and yearly circuit above the earth, the whole of the firmament – that solid structure, the roof of the sky – feels the heat of the sun: that is what Psalm 19:6 clearly says.

Also consider this. If the earth is indeed a stretched out plane, and is about 25,000 miles circumference at the equator – the middle line, or circle of latitude between the centre of the earth and 90° ‘south’ – then it follows that the sun cannot be 93 million miles away simply because if it was then the whole of the plane would be in daylight all the time. But if the sun and moon were only about 3,000 miles above the earth then you would indeed get day and night on earth at the same time because the lights would always be relatively ‘local’ at any given time. You can see this in your own living room in the evening. Turn the main light on and the whole of the floor space is lit because the light is high above the floor, on the ceiling. But now turn off the light, get a torch and shine it down a few inches above the carpet and move it round in a circle above the floor and see ‘day and night’ appear!

‘The ends of the earth’

Now what about ‘the ends of the earth’ which we have already mentioned a few times in passing? This is again an interesting phrase if it is thought of as merely figurative language; for the writers could just as easily have used a phrase like ‘around the earth’, or ‘all over the earth’ instead, but they didn’t. Many of the places in scripture which use this phrase are obviously referring to all the peoples of the earth found out and away from the place the writer was dwelling. In Psalm 67, for instance, the psalmist continually speaks of ‘us’, the immediate people of God that dwelt in the land, and also of ‘all nations’, concluding with “God shall bless us: and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.” Psalm 98:3 likewise declares that the LORD “hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

Another wonderful passage containing this phrase is found in Proverbs 30:4, which now takes on a sharper meaning in light of the understanding we have gained thus far: “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, or what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?” Can you see it? See also Isaiah 41:5, 43:4-7, 52:10, etc., in our context.

Whereas the phrase ‘the ends of the earth’ in and of itself – just like the earth having been “established that it cannot be moved” in and of itself – cannot be used as an absolute proof text for a flat earth, it does however feed into the general realisation from scripture that the earth is indeed a stable plane which has outer limits – a ball earth cannot have literal ‘ends’.

Another phrase used frequently by the scriptural writers is ‘the face of the earth’: already in Genesis 1:2 we have ‘the face of the deep’ and ‘the face of the waters’. Now we know the word face to refer to the front side of something – like your head; or the flat side of an object – like on a clock; but I am not aware of the whole surface of a ball or sphere being described as ‘the face’. The face of something is always describing a particular aspect. So as the earth is said to have a face, does that phrase make more sense on a flat plane or on a spherical earth? Just another interesting element to the subject under consideration, don’t you think?!

Conclusion

Now it is very probable that if you have read this far then numerous questions will have arisen in your minds which I haven’t addressed: “Well, if that’s the case, then what about…?” Hopefully your interest, or annoyance, will have been sufficiently stimulated to search out the answers for yourself; either to satisfy you that my assertions are valid, or to disprove them. Whichever it is, enjoy your investigations, keep an open mind, and be prepared for surprises! As one flat-earther said, “We’re not crazy people, we’re just sick of the lies.”

Having looked into these things over the last year or so [since 2015], and after my journey on the M5, I cannot help but come to the firm conclusion – and I am one hundred percent sure of this, totally convinced – that the earth is flat: it is a plane; it does not move, or spin on an axis; it does not orbit the sun, and it is at the centre – is the ground – of this small concentrated ‘universe’ – a word which has been coined to give us the impression of limitless vastness, but a word you will not find in scripture. According to the testimony of holy scripture – all of which has been given by inspiration of God – the earth upon which we live is the most important, the central part of the creation of God, and it is the only material plane there is – the lights in the sky being just that, lights: mere servants of the earth.

The importance and uniqueness of the earth in God’s creation is seen throughout scripture from the very beginning of Genesis. Nowhere in the Book do we get even the merest hint that the LORD God Almighty has bestowed his attention, the fruits of his purpose, or wrought anything savingly or graciously but upon this earth. Nowhere in scripture are we led to believe that the Lord Jesus visited any other world in ‘the universe’ but this one: indeed, the suggestion that he did would be thought blasphemous. Christ is the eternally begotten Son of the Father, who became incarnate once, here; and the sole purpose of his being made man was to do the will of the Father, and to finish the work which he had given him to do; which was to save his people from their sins, and then to return to heaven to sit down at the Father’s right hand. The work of God in time, in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is a work wrought uniquely upon this earth, and when all that work is completed the end of this time state will come; and God will destroy this earth, the sun, moon and stars, and the firmament, and create a new heavens and a new earth. This is the clear and abundant testimony of holy scripture.

Therefore there is nothing in scripture which hints at or suggests that there is life ‘out there’ in the heavens, on other ‘worlds’, be it human or ‘alien’. The concept of advanced intelligent life on distant worlds which may, or may not, have been our progenitors, is solely born out of a belief in evolution and a complete dismissal of the biblical record. And as that alien life always seems to be described as “advanced”, it serves further to belittle our view of man here as being insignificant or nothing in the context of the whole; and causes us once again to forget that man was created in the image of God.

Just think of the absurdity of this earth being little more than a speck of dust in a vast limitless universe; of our sun being a relatively insignificant star among trillions of others, and that here, and nowhere else, Almighty God decided to put human life and concentrate all his attention, as though he had billions of other worlds in the universe to choose from. No, but rather see this world as the only habitable plane there is with the whole of the heavens stretched out above it, of similar length and breadth, and the supreme importance of this earth in the creation, and of our existence upon it, comes into view. Read Genesis 1 again… and again… until you grasp this. We are no longer merely the result of a chance evolutionary processes over millions of years, who must just make the best of the here and now in a self-centred, materialistic, soulless, fatalistic few years of nigh on meaningless existence before we go the way of all flesh: the earth upon which we live having already been here for millions of years before us, with untold millions more to come.

If you read scripture with an open and honest mind you must surely get the impression that this earth is unique in the creation of God. But it has an end. When God’s purpose for the earth is completed, which is to call all those for whom Christ died, separate them unto his Son, and prepare them for his coming, the end of the world will come. And how does the scriptural record describe this end? Read Revelation 6:12-17. ‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth…’, without destroying it, by the way, so they must be what they appear to be, small pricks of light and not enormous suns, ‘…and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.’

And then what? The passage goes on to tell you:

‘And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’ Who indeed?

So who is this Lamb that will appear? It is Jesus Christ the Son of God. He who was slain for his people; who was made sin for them; who bore their sins in his own body upon the tree; who died for them, ‘the just for the unjust’; and who rose again. His blood justifies them, and they are consequently called “the congregation of the righteous”, Psalm 1:5, and they alone will “stand” in that day.

Here is “this same Jesus whom ye have seen go up into heaven”; he is the one about whom heaven declares, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever”, Revelation 5:12,13. ‘For God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’, Philippians 2:9-11. ‘The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ’, 2 Thessalonians 1:7,8.

These are all events which are soon to take place at the end of this brief history of time. Everything you are taught in this world by science: by astronomy, biology and physics, as well as by geology, history, and corrupted ‘religion’, regarding the origins and age of the earth, of time, of life, and of man, which contradicts the teaching of holy scripture; and by NASA and Hollywood, regarding moon landings, Mars probes, space travel and exploration, light years and everything to do with ‘outer space’, are just so many lies and fabrications. How is it that people can go to the cinema and watch the latest Star Wars film and gasp at the amazing special effects, and then go home, turn on the television and see a news item about the latest shenanigans on the International Space Station [and they’re still at it!] and think, “They’re really there!”? They can only do so if they have suspended any speck of God-given common sense they might once have had, and have been given over to believing lies. Please do stop and think about these things.

Contrary to the ‘knowledge’ which godless men like to propagate, the holy scriptures give a truthful account of the history of our world from the first verse of Genesis: of the fall of man into sin because of rebellion against his Creator; of the only remedy for sinners through the blood of the Lamb; of how God by his Spirit works his salvation in his people, and of how our world is soon to be brought to a fiery conclusion at the end of time, by God, by Jesus Christ, and the day of judgment.

In light of the scriptural evidence – at least – detailed in this article it would be foolish to go on in our apathy. The truth of the flat earth is not an interesting sideline to ‘belief’: a quirky optional extra to be held at arms length, or downright scorned, while still retaining some sort of ‘belief in Jesus’. He is the one who created this world, and man in it as man from the very beginning; and who presently upholds all things by the word of his power; and the clear testimony of his scriptures is that he made this earth a stable plane: so important a truth because it does away absolutely with the alternative theory. Whom do you believe, Almighty God or godless science? If you are a professing Christian can you lightly let this subject go as unimportant or will you turn to your Creator and seek out his truth?

Professed Christian or not, I believe these things are true whether you believe them or not. The truth of God does not require the belief of man to validate it. Ignorance is not bliss; we are accountable for willing ignorance in the light of revealed truth. But while there is life there is hope; there is still time to seek out the truth; not only about the flat earth – as we have already said, believing in the flat earth in itself will not deliver you from the wrath to come – but about why we are here, and what the meaning and purpose of life really is. Is there a God? What is he really like? What is man? Why are we here? What is sin in its very essence? What is true faith? What is salvation? Is ‘religion’ saving? Well, hear the commandment of the only true and living God, your Creator: for there is a God and he does command; and ask him to lead you into the truth of the fulness of the meaning of the following statements, which will lead inevitably to the answers of the above questions:

“God… now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31)

‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’ (Romans 1:18-20)

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Post Script

Since writing the original article back in 2016 things have changed quiet dramatically online regarding access to good flat earth information. Back then if you searched phrases like ‘flat earth truth’, or ‘is the earth flat’, the top listings would have been sites, blogs, and video presentations proving the earth to be flat, which is what you would expect to find from the search terms used. But not now! Seven years later and places like Google, Bing, Microsoft Edge, and YouTube, have been pretty well stripped of any meaningful flat earth content; you really do have to scroll down a good way further than most people are prepared to do to get any serious results. It’s called internet censorship, plain and simple.

Flat Earth is true, and they know it.

It is the same on Twitter. The ‘hay day’ of flat earth on Twitter was 2016-2019, since which many flat earth – as well as other truther – accounts have either disappeared or been suspended, only to be replaced by what seem to me to be a number of ‘pretend’ or overly promoted FE accounts – I think they’re known as shills. In these accounts (which rarely, if ever, interact like a real person would) you will still find a lot of genuine flat earth proof, but mixed in with some ridiculous nonsense ‘proof’, which is just designed to put any serious searcher off the subject and send them back to the mainstream spinning ball: The Flat Earth Society is another such spoof organisation: no genuine flat-earther takes them seriously.

I remember the good old days of 2017 when FE was alive on Twitter. Although mine was a minor account which never quite got to six hundred followers, I could still post a flat earth tweet and get thousands of views through retweets, comments and conversations. But now I barely get a hundred! It’s dead, really. Also if I look back on my page to that time I see that most of the conversations I had were with now suspended accounts. But today the place is awash with trolls – accounts specially set up, probably by the Intelligence agencies, deliberately to counter and argue and disrupt any genuine FE content; in fact the FE hash #flatearth is now mostly populated by them. So my more recent ‘conversations’ have been with accounts that I’ve muted or blocked.

All this goes to prove that the flat earth realisation which re-emerged in the mid part of the last decade has been deliberately hijacked by the authorities online because this truth was growing so big. Yes, it really is that big! One of the slurs these trolls used against us is that “Oh, yes, a ten minute YouTube video by some ignorant flat earth crank and now you believe in flat earth?” To which I would always reply, “I don’t need YouTube to prove flat earth… just my eyes, experience, and common sense.” And if the person was a professed Christian I would point them to the testimony of their Book, too – as above.

And that really is all you need to this day. You don’t actually need the internet or even ‘science’ to prove flat earth: all you need is your natural (God-given) gifts of observation, perception, the ability to think, and to credit God’s holy scriptures. Utilise those gifts and you will ‘see’ flat earth. And then… look out!

Andrew Dibble, December 2023