Matter in Miniature

How important little things can be! A Spells of dust in the eye, how annoying; a speck of dirt hi the wound, how dangerous; a ‘moment’ of time and a great disaster; a little spark and how great a fee is kindled. Atoms, microbes, bacteria, plant, and animal cells, thousands of them might be placed on a pin-head, but are they important? They certainly are, for scientists have for many years been struggling with things in immature, and now we ordinary folk talk freely of atom bombs, bacterial warfare, and the like. Not only do we talk of them, we fear them, small though they are.

What a number of things have been discovered by accident – or perhaps it wasn’t an accident. Here are two – a romantic DISCOVERY: In the year 1895 Roentgen was in his laboratory, experimenting with a vacuum-tube which he had wrapped up in black paper so that no light could be seen from it. To his intense astonishment he noticed that a piece of cardboard covered with wimi yellow crystals, which was lying on the table some yards away, was glowing brightly! He could only conclude that some rays from the tube must have penetrated the black paper, travelled to the crystals and caused them to glow. He had discovered X-rays!

It did not take Professor Roentgen long to show that these penetrating rays would also penetrate the human body and show up, on a photograph, the bony structure. Today every hospital is equipped with an X-ray outfit, and how valuable it is.

Now in Romans, chapter 3 verses 13 to 23, we have a photograph of all boys and girls, men and women, taken with God’s X-ray. Read it for yourselves and see how much alike we all are. For “there is no difference; for all have sinned.” Now for our next story.

DISEASE, one of man’s greatest enemies, owes much of its power to the very minute organisms or microbes in the air. When scientists are experimenting with germs, they sometimes grow them on jelly in a flat dish. They have to keep the dishes covered, in case other microbes from the air fall on the jelly. In 1928 Professor Fleming was trying to grow some germs in this way, at St. Mary’s Hospital. He must have left the cover off by accident – for near the edge of the dish a patch of mould appeared, and he noticed that just there no germs grew.

Something coming from the mould must be stopping the growth. This was the beginning of one of the most important medical discoveries of modern times – the discovery of penicillin.

I wonder if you have ever made 8 discovery of this kind. I expect not. But there is something we should all discover, and that we can find by looking into our own hearts. It is the disease which God calls “Sin.”

In Romans, chapter 6 verse. 23, you will read what the end of this disease will lie – it is death. But the great Physician, our Lord Jesus, has conquered death at the cross, so that there is a remedy for all. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, can cleanse us from all sin.

DESTRUCTION. Finally, I would like you to read what God says in 2 Peter, chapter 3 verse 10, and then what the great nuclear physicists are saying today as to the possible future of the world. There may be some connection. What do you think?

Professor Oliphant, of Birmingham University, said recently that there was enough hydrogen in the see to rise the temperature of the whole earth to at least one million degrees centigrade.

In a broadcast lecture on the nature of the universe, Fred Hoyle said … “this will bring me to our newest, our most anxious fear. It has been maintained by some people that an atomic explosion might fire-off a nuclear chain reaction that would blow up the whole earth.”

The whole earth would be vaporised within a few minutes, if some cosmic giant were to peel-off the outer layers of the sun like skinning an orange, for the temperature inside the sun is about twenty million degrees!

The idea of a Hydrogen bomb is to produce an extremely rapid conversion of hydrogen into helium – to do in fact what the sun does, but to do it quickly. If all the hydrogen in the oceans were suddenly converted into helium, the earth would be vaporized practically instantaneously.

No wonder we read in Luke 21, verse 26, of “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”

We can look for something much better than this. Read Titus, chapter 2 verse 13, and then ask yourself the question “What am I looking for!”