Havana and Sao Paulo, the boundaries of the Sun

This Saturday morning, September 22nd, at 10:49 a.m. the Sun will once again slip past the Equator and continue to head south towards Sao Paulo, Brazil. The angle of the Sun’s light will decrease in intensity in areas north of the Equator. As the sunlight falls away to the south, the leaves will change color and fall away to the ground. This absence of the Sun’s most direct light will energize climatic forces that produce the cold, fierce storms of the winter ahead. Indeed, if the hand of God does not stop the Sun when it reaches Sao Paulo and turn it north towards Havana, Cuba on December 21st, the entire Northern Hemisphere would be plunged into an unprecedented season of cold, bitter devastation.  The Southern Hemisphere would be ravaged by scorching heat unlike anything it has ever known.

Havana and Sao Paulo, are two points along two lines visible only on maps made by men.  Yet, these two lines of latitude represent boundaries of how far the direct light of the Sun may travel each year. God set these boundary lines. He titled our planet at an angel of 23.5 degrees in relation to the Sun. What we call the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are each 23.5 degrees latitude distant from the equator. This is how God set the boundary lines for the Sun. So each year the Sun travels between Sao Paulo and Havana and back again. Each year, because of these divine boundaries, we are blessed with 4 seasons. Thus, as Psalm 19:6 teaches, no place on earth is deprived of the Sun’s warmth.

The changes in seasons are not merely astronomical observations; they are the obedient response of the creation to God’s covenant promise that cold and heat will endure as long as the earth. The seasons occur because the course of the Sun above is bounded by Sao Paulo and Havana. Tell your children that  God delights to keep his promise.

“As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night

will never cease. Genesis 8:22

Shepherd Press