Letters From Grandpa #579

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 579

Dearest grandchild,

Today’s letter will be about man’s search for power. I presume Adam figured out that moving a rock was much easier when someone else helped him. Solomon wrote about this in Proverbs 4:9 saying “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.”

• Next, perhaps, Adam discovered the lever. Archimedes is famous for saying: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
• At some point man learned to train and harness animals. A horse or an ox can pull a much more than a man. In 1883 teams of 20 mules began transporting borax out of Death Valley.
• Elephants were also used for power in the Indus Valley over 4,000 years ago.
• As early as 5,000 B.C. the Egyptians learned to make sails and harness the power of the wind.
• As early as 900 B.C. the Persians were using wind mills to pump water and grind grain.
• Water wheels can be traced back to ancient Greece and the third century B.C.
• James Watt invented the first steam engine in 1769. Watt described the power of his engines by comparing them to the power of horses. To this day we still refer to the “horsepower” of engines.
• In 1864, Nicolaus Otto patented the first commercially successful gasoline engine.
• Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine in 1890.
• The jet engine was invented in England by Frank Whittle, and in Germany by Hans von Ohain in the 1930’s.
• On December 2, 1942 Enrico Fermi and his team achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in Chicago. On December 20, 1951 the first usable electricity from a nuclear source was produced at the Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho.
• According to New York City's Office of Management and Budget they spend $777 million each year for electricity and natural gas to provide light and heat for their 8.48 million people that live in N.Y. city. At this rate what do you suppose it would it cost God to provide light and heat for the entire universe?
• THE POINT IS, EVERY SOURCE OF POWER AVAILABLE TO MAN PALES INTO INSIGNIFICANCE BY COMPARISON TO THE POWER OF GOD!

The late J. Russell Morse, his wife Gertrude went to western China as missionaries in 1921 with their infant son Eugene. They were working with stone age people so primitive that they had not yet discovered the wheel. When Bro. Morse returned to the states on furlough the family stayed with some Christian friends in the dead of winter. At breakfast the next morning they asked Bro. Morse how he slept? Not meaning to complain, Bro. Morse confessed that he actually was freezing all night long. They immediately asked if the electric blanket was not working. Bro. Morse had never heard of an electric blanket! Warmth and comfort were at his fingertips but he didn’t even know it! Bro. Morse used this story to illustrate how important it is for believers to be constantly aware of the power of God! God is a very present help in time of trouble (Psalms 46:1) but many don’t know it! God has the power to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). How sad that many never even consider the power of God!

Please ponder these inspired words of Paul to the saints in Ephesus: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead

and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” (Ephesians 1:17-21)

The Israelites were not delivered from slavery in Egypt by human wisdom or political power. They were delivered by the power of God! The Red Sea did not part because Moses was an eloquent speaker or had a degree in science. The Red Sea was parted by the power of God! Several million Israelites ate food every day, not because they had taken courses in agronomy and horticulture, but because the power of God sent them manna from heaven. On August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb completely destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. Of the 22 pounds of uranium used in that bomb it has been estimated that only a pea sized fraction of that mass was actually converted into energy. Even nuclear energy, however, pales into insignificance by comparison to the power of God!

MAY YOUR PERSONAL SEARCH FOR POWER LEAD YOU TO CHRIST FOR IN HIM DWELLS ALL THE FULNESS OF GOD IN A BODILY FORM! (COLOSSIANS 2:9)

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce