Step Or Stumble?
One small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind. With these words Neil Armstrong placed his boot on the surface of the moon, and a tremendous new era of discovery was opened. Some months before one sincere brother, greatly disturbed that man would even attempt to go to the moon, assured me that such as this could never happen. It is contrary to the Bible, he said. God will not allow man to go outside his assigned elements.
I am told that the moon trip has shaken the faith of some. It should have shaken their erroneous and unsubstantiated conclusions regarding Bible teaching. It should make some aware that they were interpreting Gods word subjectively — in keeping with their own limited knowledge of the material universe — and that God is bound by no such limitations. It is conceivable that someone objected to the first boat (the ark??) on the ground that God never intended that man should travel on the water. Or, at the first suggested flight, If God meant man to fly he would have given him wings.
Some men may use their knowledge and productivity in an attempt to outwit or disprove the things of God, as did the builders of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9); but this does not forbid our probing the universe in which God has placed us, and using its elements constructively. Man remains man, on the sea, in the air, on the moon. He must take his elements with him to survive. He is subject to his Creator, on earth or on the moon. And if he journeys to Mars (which wouldnt surprise me too much) he will not be far from home as God sees it. God made Mars too — and it is a close neighbor of ours in that inconceivably vast space over which the heavenly Father presides.
Man does not create anything. He alters and mixes elements with his atomic machinery — but he is just playing with that which God made available to him. He analyzes basic protein factors, reconstructs means of producing amino acids; and some pride-filled fool announces that God is not the only one who can make life. I can almost imagine God, somewhat exasperated, smiling tolerantly, and perhaps recalling the time man first pressed clay together, fired it into bricks, and announced that God was not the only one who made rocks. Even the so-called new elements coming from our cyclotrons, are but the products of the material and capabilities God has given us.
Who knows but that God saw Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin cavorting upon the moon, much as a parent sees the childs first step away from the play pen — turning loose of the hand rail, and stepping out into the vast new territory of the bedroom floor. Finally made it, huh? Young one, you are in for many great surprises when you discover what is in the other rooms — and outside this house!!
It is not wrong to cut a tree, and use part for firewood, part for eating utensils, etc. But when, with the residue thereof man makes a God and falls down to worship it, he deceives himself. (Isa. 44:14-20) LET US HUMBLY USE GODS CREATION TO GODS GLORY.