Response to comments on Geocentricity

My last blog post elicited 2 comments for which I am responding below.
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To “Carl Vehse”:

I knew that you would want to comment on this subject… I have known that you proclaim me as a “Geocentrist”.  And I have seen your comments elsewhere that flatly deny Geocentricity with scientific (and other) arguments.  I had planned to forewarn readers that I will not publish comments from those who deny Geocentricity.  But I was remiss in getting this warning stated in my first blog post, so I have published your 2 initial comments on my previous post – without commenting on them there.

But let all who would want to deny Geocentricity know that it was first an ELCA “Lutheran” pastor who first responded to me … in private… not by a public comment, but private email.  And it ended with several uninvited private messages invoking NASA and casting slurs such as “Franzie baby” at me.  I take particular pride in his invectives, just as Pieper took pride in being described as in “theological diapers”.  There is NO doubt that anyone today who would believe that Joshua’s Long Day actually physically happened as described in the Bible will receive the same ridicule.
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But this series is not intended as primarily a response to “Carl Vehse” or the ELCA pastor, but rather another person, which will become clearer later.  And so it will not be interrupted by negative comments.

So let me repeat:
All further comments which deny Geocentricity will not be published on this blog and they will not be read by me.  Other comments may be considered.

Walther for troubled Christians today; Sun's orbit

     This blog post repeats a portion of a sermon C.F.W. Walther delivered for the 7th Sunday after Trinity and was published in his book of sermons Gnadenjahr or Year of Grace.  My purpose for bringing this will become clear in an upcoming series.  But more about that soon...
     The whole sermon may be found here (beginning on page 230) or read directly here (see last 2 paragraphs on page 233).  What follows below is only an excerpt (from Pastor Donald E. Heck's translation)... for a reason.

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     HOW GOD YEAR AFTER YEAR PERFORMS THE. MIRACLE OF MAKING MUCH OUT OF LITTLE

     He who believes that God only idly watches the course of the world, who therefore lacks the confidence that there is a divinely wise, righteous, and gracious Providence who rules and regulates everything in the world, who therefore supposes that animate and inanimate creatures and hence he himself also are the playthings of a blind chance, such a faithless person is certainly most unfortunate.
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     ... For if the sun would not hold just that position which it has held for almost six thousand years, and if it would not have just that orbit which it has, it would destroy more than it gives life to. If the sun would have been closer to us, it would have in a short time burned the earth into a huge brick; on the other hand, if its orbit would be further away, the earth would soon freeze solid in an eternal winter.
     Now how does it happen that for the past six thousand years the sun has never wandered away from its boundless path? how does it happen that sometimes it rises higher, sometimes, goes lower, but at a definite point regularly turns about, so that the necessary change of seasons takes place upon our earth?

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     I would encourage the Christian reader who could use some Christian comfort to read this sermon in its entirety... I did.  No Reformed preacher (and certainly not C.S. Lewis) could match Walther when preaching or speaking on The Providence of God.
     Ah, but what was one of the examples Walther used in this sermon? ... reading the section in bold above, Walther preached on the movement of the Sun in its orbit about the Earth.  What?  ... I thought... oh, well, you know... what today's "science" teaches as objective truth on the movement of the Earth about the Sun... or whatever.  But will any Lutheran preacher today use the same example as Walther did?... hmmm —
     So why bring this specific sermon to the fore today?  The last part of the excerpt above gives the clue, for this is an introduction to a series of blog posts on...