How hot is 4 trillion degrees Celsius?
Scientists have produced the hottest temperature ever in a laboratory – 4 trillion degrees Celsius! That equates to an astounding 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit which is an unimaginable 250,000 times warmer than the center of the Sun. The temperature was sustained for less than a billionth of a second. It was achieved by smashing gold particles together at a very large and powerful particle accelerator at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Scientists believe that this was the temperature just microseconds after the birth of the universe. These scientists call the birth of the universe the Big Bang – God calls it Creation (Genesis 1:1). Who’s right? Well, there’s just no need to compare. What this does tell us, though, is that man is coming back around to the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, when God said, “…Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them” (Genesis 11:6).
God then had to come down and confuse the languages to keep man from bringing himself to the brink of destruction, or worse. To contain such incredible temperatures in a laboratory, and produce, from colliding particles of matter, a temperature which is hot enough to melt protons and neutrons into a rare plasmic form – that has some incredible possibilities, but also some very dangerous ones.
Remember what happened when mankind learned to split atoms? Not a comforting feeling to say the least. But we do have the hope and the comfort from God’s word of Jesus’ plain words in Matthew 24 when He proclaimed, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matt 24:21-22). Unless Jesus Christ steps in and saves mankind from themselves, no flesh would be saved alive!
Thankfully, we have God’s very own promise that He would never again destroy the earth. We read of that promise in Genesis 8:20-21, “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.”
Even though man’s heart is evil, bent on disobeying God and desperately wicked (Romans 8:7; Jeremiah 17:9), God has promised not to bring upon mankind as a whole utter destruction. But God will bring on the disobedient Israelite nations the Great Tribulation, however, and that time of trouble will be inescapable for those who will not repent beforehand, as God commands (Revelation 16:9). That is really all that God is looking for in mankind – the willingness to repent of sin and to turn to the truth – the way of life that God designed for man for his own good.
The Apostle Peter spoke to those present on the day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. saying, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21). Peter was telling the Jews and others present on that day that there was a time of peace and prosperity and joy, “times of restoration,” which would be ushered in at Christ’s return.
He was preaching to them the gospel of the Kingdom of God. The leaders of the Jews, not wanting them to preach Jesus’ name, laid hands on them and put them in prison, but then what? Verse 4 states, “However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand” (Acts 4:4). About two thousand listened and were added to the number of the Church which was previously a little over three thousand (Acts 2:41).
That is the very message that must be preached to all the world, the Israelite nations included. That God will accept repentance and surrender, and if a person will do this, He will fulfill all His promises and bring them into His divine kingdom and family. What an awesome reality and opportunity for those willing to heed the call. The very fact that mankind is able to achieve so many wondrous and unthinkable things is proof that time is short. Mankind has entered an era that underlines that fact that we are living in the time of the end…and 4 trillion degrees later, we may very well be one small step closer.
