Black Holes
“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” [1.John 1:5]
A “Black Hole” is a unique phenomenon in space caused by objects that are so concentrated, massive, and dense that their immense gravitational pull does not even allow light to escape. A star with a mass ten times the mass of the Sun would become a black hole if it were compressed to 60 miles or less in diameter.
To better understand, if you could throw a rock just hard enough to escape our planet’s field of gravity that speed would be called the “escape velocity.” Now imagine an object with a required escape velocity greater than the speed of light – which would be 186,000 miles per second. Since nothing can go faster than light, nothing could escape the object’s gravitational pull. Even a beam of light would be pulled back and would be unable to escape a black hole!
The gravitational force is so strong in a black hole that laws of classical physics no longer apply, and astronomers must use Einstein’s theory of relativity to explain the behavior of light and matter under such strong gravitational forces. By 1999 astronomers had found only about a dozen potential black holes in our observable universe. You might be wondering, what causes matter to become so concentrated as to produce a black hole? It occurs when a star dies and the core continues to collapse, forming this super mass that will not allow light to escape.
The Bible teaches us that when Lucifer fell he imploded like a fallen star and refused to allow the light of truth to escape his domain. Lucifer (whose name meant ‘light bearer’), became Satan (whose name means ‘enemy’). He lost his position of being the highest angel in heaven to become the lowest being on Earth.
Like a black hole that sucks light and creates darkness, Satan wants to pull us away from the bright truth of God’s Word. But the Lord provides a gravitational pull through the love of Christ, giving us an escape velocity that redeems us from sin. “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). Now, “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness” (1.Thessalonians 5:5).
