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Series Code: TIJ
Program Code: TIJ002125A
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00:27 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 of the power plant went horribly 01:14 wrong when two massive explosions blew the 1000 ton 01:20 roof off one of the plant's reactors releasing 400 times 01:24 more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 01:29 World War II. More than 50 tons of radioactive material were 01:35 released into the atmosphere and carried by air currents 01:38 across Europe 01:40 contaminating millions of acres of forest and farm lands and 01:45 even reaching as far as the eastern United States. The 01:49 explosions killed two worker instantly and within days at 01:54 least 28 more died from acute radiation exposure. Ukraine's 02:00 government declared in 1995 that 125,000 people had died from the 02:09 effects of Chernobyl radiation. Eventually millions more would 02:13 show signs of health effects including cancer from the 02:17 fallout. But it's not all doom, gloom and kaboom here at 02:22 Chernobyl. There is hope. Wildlife have already made a 02:27 comeback and they say that in the distant future people will 02:31 once again be able to live, work and play in this region that has 02:36 for the meantime been rendered completely useless to the human 02:41 race. So Chernobyl carries a special message for us today. 02:48 A message of hope. Stay with us to hear all about it because it 02:54 could bring you hope and happiness and make a real 02:57 difference to your life. 02:59 ♪ ♪ 03:33 Chernobyl is located in northern Ukraine just over 100 kilometers 03:38 north of Kiev, the national capitol. A small town, Pripyat, 03:43 was constructed a few kilometers from the site of the nuclear 03:47 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 1893, four reactors had been 04:03 completed, each capable of producing 1000 megawatts of 04:07 electric power. The addition of two more reactors was planned in 04:13 subsequent years. At 1:23 A.M. on the 26th of April, 1986, a 04:21 group of engineers began a routine exercise on the number 04:25 four reactor to test whether an emergency water cooling system 04:28 would work during a power loss. As part of the poorly designed 04:34 experiment, the engineers disconnected the reactor's 04:38 emergency sensing system and it's power regulating system 04:42 even though this was a violation of safety rules. As they were 04:49 conducting their activities, the reactor's power levels suddenly 04:54 plunged due to a mistake by a computer operator. Now worried 04:59 that the core might overheat because of low output levels, 05:03 they removed two-thirds of the safety rods from the core that 05:07 was specifically designed to slow down a nuclear reaction. 05:12 Then when warning lights told operators that the plant was 05:16 overheating earlier mistakes were compounded by others. 05:20 Within seconds the power levels in the core skyrocketed to more 05:25 than 100 times the normal level causing pressure to build up in 05:30 reactor number four. There was a massive explosion that 05:36 triggered a large fireball that blasted the 1000 ton steel and 05:40 concrete roof off the reactor releasing plumes of radiation 05:46 and chunks 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 06:14 scene within in 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 5 A.M. the following day that reactor 06:34 number three was shut down. Some 24 hours later reactors number 06:39 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. Some were dropped on the rooftop of the reactor to 06:54 furiously shovel debris off the facility and spray water on the 06:58 exposed reactor to keep it cool. The workers were picked up 07:02 within seconds to minimize their radiation exposure. It would 07:07 take nearly two weeks to extinguish all the fires using 07:11 sand, lead, and nitrogen. Meanwhile life went on as usual 07:18 for almost a day in the neighboring town of Pripyat. 07:23 Aside from the sight of trucks cleaning the streets with foam 07:26 they 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 evacuations 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 home. All this because careless mistakes 07:56 were made and warnings ignored. It's not the first time that 08:04 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 08:20 he had provided, but they still did it. They chose to ignore the 08:26 warning lights. 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. 08:39 It literally unleashed the phenomenon of death on the 08:43 entire human race. Writing to the early church in the city of 08:47 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 09:02 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 live with the pain and heartache that 09:16 comes with life on a tired old planet. In essence, we told God 09:22 that we don't want to live life his way. We would rather take 09:25 matters into our own hands and try things our own way. That's 09:31 a little like the Chernobyl employees deciding that they 09:35 would ignore clear safety measures and try things their 09:38 own way. The end result was a nuclear disaster that spewed 09:43 many times more lethal radiation into the atmosphere than the 09:48 atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Right after the 09:54 explosion the reactor was churning out between 30 and 300 09:59 times as much radiation as it takes to kill a man. It was a 10:04 problem no human being could possibly hope to fix. A strange 10:10 eerie glow radiated from the depths of the ruined core and 10:15 scientists knew that they had a massive problem on their hands. 10:18 How do you put out a fire in a nuclear reactor. Instead of 10:24 abandoning the plant 100s of brave employees tried to fight 10:28 the fires with common hoses, but of course, to not avail. Their 10:34 equipment was woefully inadequate. And to make matters 10:38 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. 10:54 The decision was made that the problem had to be buried. 11:02 Helicopters began to dump loads of sand, clay and lead into the 11:05 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 11:20 core the fire finally went out. You know a lot of people have 11:29 tired to deal with their own spiritual problems in the same 11:32 way. They try to drown them out with a sea of drugs or alcohol, 11:37 inappropriate sexual relationships or even 11:41 never-ending entertainment. They reason that if they could only 11:46 numb themselves of the realities of life or forget 11:49 their haunting past everything will get better. But in the long 11:54 run, no matter how many loads of debris they drop on the 11:57 problem it just won't go away. They can't silence the skeletons 12:03 in the closet or cover up the lingering guilt that plagues 12:07 them day and night. They're like the man we find in the Bible 12:11 book of Isaiah who tried to find rest by building himself a bed, 12:15 but when he finally climbed into the solution of his own making 12:20 he discovered he couldn't sleep a wink. Here's what it says in 12:25 Isaiah chapter 28 and verse 20: 12:38 I don't know if you've ever been forced to spend the night 12:41 in a bed that 12:42 just 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 little 12:51 too short for your body with a blanket that just doesn't cover 12:55 you up. Either your legs hang out the one end or your head 13:00 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 13:08 long even though you might drift in and out of slumber you can't 13:12 get the rest and peace you need. Well that's exactly what we do 13:18 when we try to provide man made 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 13:48 radiation was unleashed above the plant to be picked up by 13:53 winds and delivered all over the European continent. It wasn't 14:04 until six days after the accident that the villages 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 14:29 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 14:42 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 15:11 the mistakes of a handful of people. Just like sin the 15:16 problem grew to be much bigger than most people realized, 15:21 blasting its way into almost every facet of life. Precious 15:25 farmland 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 too 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 16:01 harmony with his surroundings but after sin everything changed 16:06 Our lifespans 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 16:20 to 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 16:35 so did hatred, loneliness and heartache. Every corner of 16:40 human existence was tragically affected and we still live with 16:43 the results today. And while it take decades for the problems 16:48 of Chernobyl to subside the problems of sin will never go 16:53 away. At least not by themselves. You see what 16:58 our sin problem needs 16:59 is more than a pile of debris. It needs to be permanently 17:04 buried. When the fires went out in the reactor the final stage 17:09 of the cleanup process was a giant concrete box 20 stories 17:13 high that was built over the entire nuclear reactor. To put 17:18 a stop to the damage the problem was covered with something much 17:22 bigger than debris. And then is 2010 an international consortium 17:29 organized the building of an even bigger, more secure 17:33 covering or sarcophagus for the site. The 35,000 ton steel box 17:39 was built on tracks and then slid over the damaged reactor 17:44 and existing sarcophagus in November 2016. It's designed to 17:50 contain the radioactive debris for over 100 years and when it 17:55 comes to the problems that seem to haunt us the solution is more 17:59 than the debris we've been throwing at it. We need to cover 18:03 it with something much, much bigger. We have to find a 18:07 solution that puts a final stop to the lethal levels of 18:11 radiation that keep plaguing us. That solution is found in the 18:16 pages of the Bible. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote 18:21 concerning the plague of death brought on by Adam 18:25 in I 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 19:04 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 19:14 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 19:38 he decided to take the consequences upon himself. His 19:41 own Son volunteered to take our place. It's almost as if he 19:46 stepped into the nuclear blast zone to cover the problem so 19:51 that we wouldn't have to be exposed to it. He took the full 19:56 lethal dose of the consequences of your sins so that you 20:01 wouldn't have to be exposed to it. He suffered complete and 20:05 utter separation from his Father so that you could be united with 20:11 him. Today we can visit the Chernobyl site in safety and 20:19 without any serious risk to our health because the source of the 20:24 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 20:37 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 21:05 able to live, work and play in this region that has, for the 21:10 meantime been rendered completely useless to the human 21:14 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 remember a 21:39 time and place when things weren't so bad, when we actually 21:43 lived in harmony with our Creator. The question is, will 21:48 this tired old planet every recover from the devastating 21:52 effects of sin or will it always be a horrible ghost town in 21:57 God's universe, a place forever pockmarked by pain and suffering 22:02 Well let me give you the answer from God's word, the Bible. In 22:08 II Peter chapter 3 and verse 13: 22:19 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 22:26 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. 22:35 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: 23:22 Try to imagine a world where we won't have to suffer or 23:26 endure pain anymore. Try to imagine a place where we'll 23:30 never have to go to a funeral or sit by the bed of a dying 23:34 relative, a place where we'll never have to pay for the 23:37 mistakes of others or worse yet watch other people pay for the 23:42 mistakes we've made. Can you imagine a place like that? 23:47 I know it's tough but the Bible says it's a reality and it's 23:52 just around the corner. And best of all Jesus Christ, himself is 23:58 going to be there with us. All of the devastating effects of 24:02 sin will be wiped out forever. In the kingdom of heaven, there 24:07 will be no more Chernobyl's, no left over catastrophes we will 24:11 have to deal with for the rest of eternity. And so right now, 24:16 if you're tired of living life the way you've been living it 24:20 and if you want to grab hold of a bright new future, a new 24:24 chance in a new world, just accept God's offer and 24:28 invitation as we pray. Dear heavenly Father, we 24:35 recognize that we live in a broken and sinful world. We've 24:39 seen and experienced the results of sin. We are tired of this old 24:45 world and we want to be citizens in your kingdom where there will 24:48 be no more death, nor sorrow nor crying, where there will be 24:52 no more pain. Please remember us and grant us a place when you 24:58 make all things new. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. 25:05 The greatest nuclear disaster in history took place here in 25:13 Ukraine. The massive explosion at Chernobyl reactor number four 25:16 caused death and destruction. The disaster provides insights 25:22 into the devastating effects of sin. It also provides insights 25:26 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. If 25:37 your 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 25:51 today. It's the book The Great Controversy. This book is our 25:57 gift to you and is absolutely free. There are no costs nor 26:00 obligations whatsoever. Thousands have been blessed and 26:05 inspired by this book The Great Controversy, so please don't 26:10 miss this wonderful opportunity to receive the gift we have for 26:13 you today. Here's the information you need: 26:17 Call or text 0436333555 in Australia or 0204222042 in New 26:28 Zealand or visit our website www.tij.tv to request today's 26:34 offer. Write us at: 26:49 Don't delay. Call or text us now 26:53 The Incredible Journey and Pastor Gary Kent with Pastor 26:56 Louis Torres and Carol Torres as the principle trainers are 27:00 opening a Bible College in Sidney in February of 2020. 27:04 This 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 27:11 crucified, risen and soon coming savior to the whole world. For 27:16 more information and to register phone or text us at 0481315101 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 27:37 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 week when we will share another of life's journeys together. 27:50 Until then remember the ultimate destination of life's journey: 27:54 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth and God will wipe away 27:59 every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, 28:03 nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. For the 28:07 former things have passed away. 28:09 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2020-07-09