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Series Code: TIJ
Program Code: TIJ002124A
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00:28 This is a dangerous place. Some say the most dangerous place in 00:33 the world. Under the 35,000 ton concrete box or sarcophagus lies 00:40 a mass of radioactive nuclear material that gave off enough 00:44 radiation to kill a person one meter away in less than two 00:49 minutes. This is Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant located in 00:55 Ukraine. The worst manmade disaster in history happened 01:00 here on the 26th of April 1986. And its effects are still being 01:07 felt today. A routine test at the power plan went horribly 01:15 wrong and two massive explosions blew the 1000 ton roof off one 01:21 of the plant's reactors releasing 400 times more 01:24 radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World 01:29 War II. More than 50 tons of radioactive material were 01:35 released into the atmosphere and carried by air currents 01:39 across Europe contaminating millions of acres of forest and 01:43 farmland and even reaching as far as the Eastern United States 01:48 The explosions killed two workers instantly and within 01:53 days at least 28 more died from acute radiation exposure. 01:59 Ukraine's government declared in 1995 that 125,000 people had 02:07 died from the effects of Chernobyl radiation. Eventually 02:12 millions more would show signs of health effects including 02:16 cancer from the fallout. But its not all doom, gloom, and kaboom 02:22 here at Chernobyl. There is hope Wildlife has already made a 02:28 comeback. And they say that in the distant future people will 02:31 once again be able to live, work and play in this regioin that 02:36 has for the meantime been rendered completely useless to 02:41 the human race. So Chernobyl carries a special message for us 02:47 today. A message of hope. Stay with us to hear all about it 02:52 because it could bring you hope and happiness and make a real 02:57 difference to your life. 02:59 ♪ ♪ 03:34 Chernobyl is located in northern Ukraine just over 100 km. north 03:39 of Kiev the national capital. A small town, Pripyat, was 03:44 constructed a few kilometers from the site of the nuclear 03:48 plant to accommodate workers and their families. Construction of 03:52 the Chernobyl power plant began in 1970 when the country was 03:57 still part of the Soviet Union. By 1983 four reactors had been 04:03 completed, each capable of producing 1000 megawatts of 04:08 electric power. The addition of two more reactors was planned 04:12 in subsequent years. At 1:23 a.m. on the 26th of April 1986 04:20 a group of engineers began a routine exercise on the number 04:24 four reactor to test whether an emergency water cooling system 04:29 would work during a power loss. As part of their poorly designed 04:34 experiment the engineers disconnected the reactor's 04:38 emergency sensing system and its power regulating system even 04:44 though this was a violation of safety rules. As they were 04:50 their activities the reactor's power level suddenly plunged 04:55 due to a mistake by a computer operator. Now worried that the 05:00 core might overheat because of low output levels they removed 05:04 two-thirds of the safety rods from the core that were 05:08 specifically designed to slow down a nuclear reaction. Then 05:13 when warning lights told operators that the plant was 05:17 overheating earlier mistakes were compounded by others. 05:20 Within seconds the power level in the core skyrocketed to more 05:26 than 100 times the normal level causing pressure to build up 05:30 in reactor number four. There was a massive explosion that 05:36 triggered a large fireball that blasted the 1000 ton steel and 05:41 concrete roof off the reactor releasing streams of radiation 05:46 and chucks of burning radioactive debris. About two 05:50 to three seconds later a second explosion hurled out additional 05:56 fuel. A fire started at the roof of reactor number three risking 06:00 a breach of that facility. Automatic safety systems that 06:05 would normally have kicked into action did not because they had 06:09 been shut down prior to the test. Fire fighters arrived at 06:13 the scene within minutes and began to fight the blaze without 06:17 gear to protect them from radiation. Many of them would 06:21 soon number among the 28 killed by acute radiation exposure. 06:27 It wasn't until five a.m. the following day that reactor 06:34 number three was shut down. Some 24 hours later reactors numbers 06:40 one and two were also shut down. By the afternoon of the 26th of 06:45 April the Soviet government had mobilized troops to help fight 06:49 the blaze. Someone dropped on the rooftop of the reactor 06:53 to furiously shovel debris off the facility and spray water on 06:58 the exposed reactor to keep it cool. The workers were picked up 07:04 within in seconds to minimize their radiation exposure. It 07:07 would take nearly two weeks to extinguish all the fires using 07:12 sand, lead and nitrogen. Meanwhile life went on as usual 07:18 for almost a day in the neighboring town of Pripyat. 07:22 Aside from the sight of trucks cleaning the streets with foam 07:25 there were literally few signs of the disaster unfolding just a 07:31 few kilometers away. It wasn't until the next day, April 27, 07:37 that the government began evacuation of Pripyat's 50,000 07:42 residents. These residents were told they would be away for just 07:46 a few days so they took very little with them. Most would 07:51 never return to their homes. All this because careless 07:56 mistakes were made and warnings ignored. It's not the first time 08:03 that human beings have ignored clear warnings or made a deadly 08:08 mistake in the face of an impending crisis. The Bible 08:12 tells us that God carefully warned our first parents about 08:17 the consequences of stepping outside of the safety boundaries 08:21 he had provided. But they still did it. They chose to ignore the 08:26 warning light. The result was disastrous. Like a terrible 08:31 nuclear accident it left deadly residues that the human race 08:36 would suffer with for generations to come. It 08:41 literally unleashed the phenomenon of death on the 08:44 entire human race. Writing to the early church in the city of 08:48 Corinth the apostle Paul said that in Adam all of us die. You 08:55 see, when the human race chose to rebel against the word of a 08:58 loving heavenly Father it separated itself from the 09:03 creator and when you are cut off from the creator and sustainer 09:06 of life the end result is sickness, suffering and death. 09:11 That's the reason we life with the pain and heartache that 09:16 comes with life on a tired old planet. In essence, we've told 09:21 God that we don't want to live life his way. We would rather 09:25 take matters into our own hands and try things our own way. 09:30 That's a little like the Chernobyl employees deciding 09:34 that they would ignore clear safety measures and try things 09:38 their own way. The end result was a nuclear disaster that 09:43 spewed many times more lethal radiation into the atmosphere 09:47 than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Right 09:54 after the explosion the reactor was churning out between 30 and 09:59 300 times as much radiation as it takes to kill a man. It was a 10:05 problem no human being could possibly hope to fix. A strange 10:11 eerie glow radiated from the depths of the ruined core and 10:15 scientists knew that they had a massive problem on their hands. 10:19 How do you put out a fire in a nuclear reactor? Instead of 10:24 abandoning the plant hundreds of brave employees tried to fight 10:29 the fire with common hoses, but of course to no avail. Their 10:34 equipment was woefully inadequate and to make matters 10:37 worse they didn't have appropriate protective clothing 10:41 to shield them from radiation poisoning. They didn't even have 10:46 basic firefighting equipment like respirators. The fire was a 10:50 much bigger problem than anyone could hope to solve. The 10:55 decision was made that the problem had to be buried. 10:59 Helicopters began to dump loads of sand, clay, and lead into the 11:06 reactors roof in a desperate attempt to cover the fires with 11:10 enough material to put them out. The fire crews worked for two 11:15 weeks and after 5000 tons of debris had been dumped on the 11:21 core the fire finally went out. You know a lot of people have 11:29 tried to deal with their own spiritual problems in the same 11:33 way. They try to drown them out with a sea of drugs or alcohol 11:37 inappropriate sexual relationships or even never 11:41 ending entertainment. They reason that if they could only 11:46 numb themselves of the realities if life or forget their haunting 11:51 past everything will get better. But in the long run no matter how 11:56 many loads of debris they drop on the problem it just won't go 12:00 away. They can't silence the skeletons in the closet or cover 12:05 up the lingering guilt that plagues them day and night. 12:08 They're like the man we find in the Bible book of Isaiah who 12:13 tried to find rest by building himself a bed but when he 12:17 finally climbed into the solution of his own making he 12:21 discovered he couldn't sleep a wink. Here's what it says in 12:25 Isaiah chapter 28 and verse 20. 12:36 I don't know if you've ever been forced to spend a night in a bed 12:42 that doesn't fit, but it can be a pretty frustrating experience. 12:47 Maybe you know what it's like to sleep on a couch that's a 12:51 little too short for your body with a blanket that just doesn't 12:55 cover you up. Either your legs hang out the one end or your 12:59 head hangs off the other. And no matter how you try to curl up 13:03 inside a tiny blanket you just can't get warm. And all night 13:09 long even though you might drift in and out of slumber you can't 13:13 get the rest and peace you need. Well that's exactly what we do 13:18 when we try to provide manmade solutions to a spiritual problem 13:23 We fail to recognize how big the crisis really is and no matter 13:28 how hard we work at it we find that our solution either comes 13:32 up too short or too narrow and the problem never goes away. 13:38 Even after the core had been covered by tons of debris the 13:43 problem at Chernobyl was far from over. A deadly cloud of 13:49 radiation was unleashed above clouds to be picked up by winds 13:53 and delivered all over the European continent. It wasn't 14:04 until six days after the accident that the village 14:07 around Chernobyl itself were finally evacuated. In the end 14:12 over 160 communities had to be abandoned forcing something like 14:18 350,000 people out of their homes. But homelessness was not 14:25 the worst of the problem. Thousands of people had been 14:28 exposed to massive doses of radiation and were at risk of 14:33 contracting deadly diseases like leukemia. Within a couple of 14:37 years more than 30 people had died and hundreds were seriously 14:43 ill. Serious birth defects became common place. Less than a 14:47 decade after the disaster the government of Ukraine stated 14:51 that 125,000 had died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster 14:57 and to make matters worse radiation from the catastrophe 15:01 was discovered as far away as the United States and the 15:05 Philippines. In the end millions of people might be affected by 15:10 the mistakes of a handful of people. Just like sin, the 15:16 problem grew to be much bigger than most people realized 15:19 blasting its way into almost every facet of life. Precious 15:25 farm land had been contaminated and a lot of traditional sources 15:29 of food had been rendered unsafe to eat. The level of 15:35 contamination proved to be much higher than anybody could ever 15:40 guess. If you take a close look at the Bible you'll discover 15:46 that the same is true of the sin problem. It has filtered down 15:51 into almost every area of life even affecting nature itself. 15:56 At one time death was unheard of and man lived in perfect harmony 16:01 with his surroundings. But after sin everything changed. Our life 16:08 spans were dramatically shortened in just a few 16:11 generations. Where food had once been easily accessible it was 16:16 choked out by thorns and weeds and man had to work very hard to 16:21 put a meal on the table. The animal kingdom became hostile 16:25 and unsafe and a justifiable fear of the human race spread 16:30 through the natural world. Disease became a problem and so 16:35 did hatred, loneliness and heartache. Every corner of human 16:40 existence was tragically affected. And we still live with 16:43 the results today. And while it may take decades for the 16:48 problems of Chernobyl to subside the problems of sin will never 16:53 go away, at least not by themselves. You see what our sin 16:58 problem needs is more than a pile of debris. It needs to be 17:03 permanently buried. When the fires went out in the reactor 17:08 the final stage of the cleanup process was a giant concrete box 17:12 20 stories high that was built over the entire nuclear reactor. 17:17 To put a stop to the damage the problem was covered with 17:22 something much bigger than debris. And then in 2010 an 17:29 international consortium organized the building of an 17:32 even bigger more secure covering or sarcophagus for the site. 17:36 The 35,000 ton steel box was built on tracks and then slid 17:42 over the damaged reactor and existing sarcophagus in November 17:48 2016. It's designed to contain the radioactive debris for over 17:52 100 years. And when it comes to the problems that seem to haunt 17:57 us the solution is more than the debris we've been throwing at it 18:02 We need to cover it with something much, much bigger. We 18:07 have to find a solution that puts a final stop to the lethal 18:11 levels of radiation that keep plaguing us. And that solution 18:16 is found in the pages of the Bible. Listen to what the 18:20 apostle Paul wrote concerning the plague of death brought on 18:23 by Adam in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 21 and 22: 18:50 Could it really be true? Is it possible that there's a 18:55 permanent solution to the biggest problems that plague the 18:59 human race? Well according to God's promise the answer is yes. 19:05 There is a solution. The guilt that has been troubling us can 19:10 become a thing of the past. The loneliness that drives us to 19:15 despair can be solved. The rejection we feel at the hands 19:19 of other people can be addressed and finally even death itself 19:25 can be defeated. So how does this happen? Well the good news 19:32 of the Bible is that God saw what you did and out of pity he 19:37 decided to take the consequences upon himself. His own son 19:42 volunteered to take our place. It's almost as if he stepped 19:47 into the nuclear blast zone to cover the problem so that we 19:52 wouldn't have to be exposed to it. He took the full lethal dose 19:58 of the consequences of your sins so that you wouldn't have to be 20:02 exposed to it. He suffered complete and utter separation 20:06 from his Father so that you could be united with him. Today 20:16 we can visit the Chernobyl site in safety and without any 20:20 serious risk to our health because the source of the 20:23 radiation has been buried in a concrete tomb and the residual 20:28 radiation is starting to die away. You don't want to eat food 20:33 grown in this area or step off the road because the radiation 20:38 is still pretty high. But because asphalt doesn't retain 20:42 very much radiation you can travel through the area with 20:46 relative safety. The 30 kilometers or so around the 20:51 reactor is still pretty much a ghost town and it may take 20:56 decades before anyone can safely live in the area again. But one 21:01 day they say in the distant future people will once again be 21:06 able to live, work and play in this region that has for the 21:10 meantime been rendered completely useless to the human 21:15 race, which raises a really important question. We all have 21:19 this awful sense that life on planet earth is not exactly what 21:24 it was intended to be. When we experience heartache, suffering 21:29 and pain we instinctively know it's not supposed to be like 21:34 that. Tucked away in our collective memory we 21:38 remember a time and 21:40 place when things weren't so bad when we actually lived in 21:44 harmony with our creator. The question is, will this tired old 21:50 planet ever recover from the devastating effects of sin or 21:54 will it always be a horrible ghost town in God's universe, 21:58 a place forever pock marked by pain and suffering? Well let me 22:04 give you the answer from God's word the Bible. In 2 Peter 22:08 chapter three and verse 13: 22:18 One day the Bible says God is going to set things right and 22:23 he's not just going to slap a few patches on this tired old 22:27 planet like a cheap plug in a bald tire. He's going to start 22:30 all over from scratch and create a new paradise home for us. 22:36 Listen to what it says in the closing chapters of the Bible 22:39 over in the book of Revelation chapter 21 verses 1-4: 23:23 Try to imagine a world where we won't have to suffer or endure 23:26 pain anymore. Try to imagine a place where we'll never have to 23:31 go to a funeral or sit by the bed of a dying relative, a place 23:35 where we'll never have to pay for the mistakes of others or 23:39 worse yet watch other people pay for the mistakes we've made. Can 23:44 you imagine a place like that? I know it's tough but the Bible 23:49 says it's a reality and it's just around the corner. And best 23:54 of all Jesus Christ himself is going to be there with us. All 24:00 of the devastating effects of sin will be wiped out forever. 24:04 In the kingdom of heaven there will be no more Chernobyl's, no 24:09 leftover catastrophes we will have to deal with for the rest 24:13 of eternity. And so right now if you're tired of living life 24:18 the way you've been living it and if you want to grab hold of 24:22 a bright new future, a new chance and a new world just 24:26 accept God's offered invitation as we pray. 24:31 Dear heavenly Father, we recognize that we live in a 24:36 broken and sinful world. We see and experience the results of 24:42 sin. We are tired of this old world and we want to be citizens 24:46 in your kingdom where there will be no more death nor sorrow nor 24:51 crying, where there will be no more pain. Please remember us 24:55 and grant us a place when you make all things new. We ask this 25:01 in Jesus' name, Amen. 25:04 The greatest nuclear disaster in history took place here in 25:13 Ukraine. The massive explosion at Chernobyl reactor number four 25:17 caused death and destruction. The disaster provides insights 25:22 into the devastating effects of sin. It also provides insights 25:27 into sin's cure and reminds us that one day soon God is going 25:32 to set things right and create a new paradise home for us. 25:36 If you're battling the trials and temptations of life and are 25:40 looking for support in your journey through life and would 25:43 like God to guide you to the new world he's preparing then I'd 25:47 like to recommend a free gift we have for all our viewers today. 25:51 It's the book The Great Controversy. This book is our 25:57 gift to you and is absolutely free. There are no costs or 26:01 obligations whatsoever. Thousands have been blessed and 26:05 inspired by this book Great Controversy so please don't miss 26:10 this wonderful opportunity to receive the gift we have for you 26:14 today. Here's the information you need: 26:17 Call or text 0436-333-555 in Australia or 020-422-2042 in New 26:27 Zealand or visit our website www.tij.tv to request today's 26:34 offer. Write to us at: 26:49 Don't delay. Call or text us now 26:52 The Incredible Journey and Pastor Gary Kent with Pastor 26:57 Louis Torres and Carol Torres as the principal trainers are 27:01 opening a Bible College in Sydney in February of 2020. This 27:05 14-week program will give you the skills you need to be an 27:08 effective co-laborer with Christ to carry the message of a 27:12 crucified, risen, and soon coming Savior to the whole world. For 27:16 more information and to register phone or text us at 0481-315-101 27:22 Email us at info@tij.tv or visit our website at TiJ.tv/events. 27:32 If you've enjoyed today's journey to Chernobyl in Ukraine 27:38 and our reflections on the disastrous effects of sin and 27:42 the better world that is coming then be sure to join us again 27:46 next week when we will share another of life's journeys 27:49 together. Until then remember the ultimate destination of 27:54 life's journey. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And God 27:59 will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no 28:02 more death nor sorrow nor crying There shall be no more pain for 28:07 the former things have passed away. 28:09 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-07-06