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 “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 God’s 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 wouldn’t surprise me
too much) he will not be far from home as God sees it. God made
Mars too — and it is a close
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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 child’s 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 GOD’S CREATION TO
GOD’S GLORY.
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