God's Power

THIS TALK WAS FOR A FAMILY SERVICE IN WHICH THE CHILDREN STAY IN

PART 1, EARLIER IN THE SERVICE: PHYSICAL FORCES

There are different kinds of forces. For example, I can put my hands on Priscilla’s [my wife’s] shoulders and … hey presto! … she goes down. The force is coming from my hands on her shoulders. I’m physically touching her. But there are a lot of forces which we can’t see. They’re invisible. Can you think of any forces like that?

Demonstration 1. Throw an apple up in the air and catch it.

Was something pushing the apple down? Did I have a bit of string attached to the apple? No. So, what was the force which pulled the apple down? Gravity, of course.

Can anyone guess why I used an apple for this demonstration? [Isaac Newton, late summer, 1666; Isaac Newton 23 years old, at his family farm in Lincolnshire; an apple fell from a tree. Newton pondered it … and it led to him proposing the law of gravity. The apple tree is still there.]

In this case of the apple, it was the earth’s gravity which pulled the apple down. We can see the earth! We’re standing on it. But a large part of the gravity in the universe comes from something called dark matter. We can’t see dark matter and we can hardly detect it. So, something invisible is exerting an invisible force!

Demonstration 2. This time I have a globe instead of an apple. But it behaves just the same way as an apple. I can throw it up and it comes back down.

Do you think I can get the globe to stay up, with nothing at all holding it? [Do an internet search for floating globe and you'll see what I used. I have a 'C' shape floating globe.] Gravity is certainly pulling the globe down so something must be holding it up. What do you think it is? There’s a magnet inside the globe and an electromagnet inside the arm pulling it upwards. It’s another example of an invisible force.

Demonstration 3. I have a battery. Do you think that if I place the battery on this table and don’t touch it, it can roll forward all by itself? [Demonstrate: AA battery with neodymium magnets at each end placed on aluminium foil. Make sure you have the same poles facing outwards! The battery rolls forward by itself.]

Something made the battery roll along but it wasn’t me! What do you think it was? It was magnetism or, to be more precise, electromagnetism, like the previous example. The point of this is not to give a science lesson. The main thing is to see that a force was at work – but it was invisible.

Demonstration 4. I have a glass globe with a vane inside. [It’s technically a Crookes radiometer.] I can’t touch the vanes. Do you think that even though I can’t touch the vanes, I can make them turn round? [Demonstrate: shine light on the radiometer and the vanes rotate. If you’re inside you’ll need quite a powerful light.] I didn’t touch the vanes, but they span round! How did that happen? What kind of force was it? Again, we don’t need a science lesson. The point is, some force moved them, and we couldn’t see it. It was an invisible force.

So, we’ve seen some examples of invisible forces: gravity, electromagnetism and whatever force it was that caused the vanes in the radiometer to go round. [Air pressure produced by heat from the light.]

Scientists talk about ‘fundamental forces’. Gravity and electromagnetism are two of them. They’re invisible. Scientists know of two more fundamental forces which act on atoms. They’re also invisible. Scientists are wondering about a fifth fundamental force but they’re not sure yet if it exists or not, so if it does, it’s definitely invisible! ALL the fundamental forces which scientists know about are invisible.

Do you think there are any other invisible forces in the universe?

PART 2, LATER IN THE SERVICE: GOD’S INVISIBLE POWER

Earlier on we thought about forces. I’m going to switch to talking about power. Force and power are related but the Bible uses the word power much more than force.

Is there any invisible power that we know about, but scientists don’t know about – not unless they’re Christians, anyway?

The Bible says, there is. There’s a power which is invisible and can’t be detected by any scientific instruments and yet it is greater than any other power. It is God’s power.

I’d like to give you four big ideas about God’s power.

1. GOD’S POWER IS THE GREATEST

The God who we read about in the Bible has enormous power and strength. It’s far greater than any other power. How do we know that?