In his book Essentials of Physical Science, John DeVries traces the history of splitting the atom. In World War I when Lord Rutherford was advised to quit puttering with the atom and devote his talents to inventing an effective anti-submarine device, he reportedly answered, "Gentlemen, I am trying to split the atom. If I succeed, it will be more important than the war."

Rutherford's dream was realized in 1938 by the success of Hahn, Strassman and Meitner who were interested in obtaining elements beyond Uranium. Through their experiments they obtained Barium as an end product and the great Danish atomist, Niels Bohr, agreed they had split the atom into nearly equal fragments. This was called fission. As the atom was split, a tremendous amount of energy was released, and later this became the basis for nuclear energy. This power has always existed within the atom, but it was hidden. Many other blessings of nature are hidden and research and work are required to uncover them. The apostle Paul says that in Christ are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If it is profitable for scientists to uncover secrets of the atom, it is of much more value to uncover treasures hidden in Christ Jesus.

That it is valuable to search for hidden things not only in nature, but also in Christ, we learn from A.D. Schnabel in his book Has God Spoken? He recounts that in 1835 a sailor, Matthew Fontaine Maury, was at home, sick in bed. He asked his 12-year-old son to read Psalm 8, the Christmas Psalm. Toward the end, in verse 8, we read that the Son of Man is Lord over all the fish which pass through on paths of the sea. Maury asked his son to re-read that verse. He knew of no paths in the sea, but if God's Word referred to them, they were there. And he set out to find them. He did find them, and because of his discovery, the whole science of oceanography was founded. This led to establishing our U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. When the head of the Board of Education in California recently stated that all references to creation must be removed from science textbooks, it would seem that even the science of oceanography must be removed from science.

The greatest treasure hidden in Christ is forgiveness of sin. Because all of nature is contaminated by human sin, Christ's forgiveness extends even to everything in nature and science.

References 20, 21.

Prayer: That we be aided in our efforts to make Jesus Christ a total force in our lives. Also that we be privileged to learn more of God's secrets hidden in nature.