I have a friend who has 2 PhDs and 186 patents. He is one of
the brightest minds I’ve ever known. On Monday, July 22, he called me to
express his disappointment that nothing was said on Sunday, June 21st
about Apollo 11 and mankind’s first trip to the moon. Of course, the reason for
his surprise was that Saturday, July 20, 2019 was the 50th
anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin setting foot on the moon;
arguably the greatest feat in human history.
Now if you know my friend, you know that the reason he
thought mentioning Apollo 11 on July 22nd was appropriate was
because of the role God played with Apollo 11. For him mankind’s first trip to
the moon was an obvious example of divine orchestration. And he is consistent.
He speaks of the same divine mastery over his own work—from idea generation to
stunning ground-breaking applications.
Just consider the 8-day, 3-hour, 18-minute, and 35-second
mission of Apollo 11. It all began May 25, 1961 when President John F. Kennedy
speaking before Congress said, “We chose to go to the moon not because it’s
easy, but because it’s hard.” And hard it was.
Over 8 years $24 billion was spent on the moon landing. The
Saturn V rocket, used to lift the spacecraft off the launch pad, was the largest
rocket man ever designed, weighing 6.2 million pounds, the weight of 120 thirty-ton
dump trucks. The rocket generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust, creating more
power than 85 Hoover Dams, while expending 20 tons of fuel per second! It
burned more fuel in one second than Lindbergh used to cross the Atlantic. The
Saturn V went from paper design to launch in just six years in large part
because Wernber von Braun was a Christian. The difference between the
recognition of a need and the infinitesimally small time interval just
preceding its solution is unfathomable and only explainable by Divine
Orchestration or more specifically, Divine Insight.
There are some amazing facts about the Apollo 11 mission.
The average age of NASA engineers at the time was 27 years old. When the Lunar
Landing Module touched down, a distance from its intended landing site, it had
only 23 seconds of fuel left. On the way from Colombia, the command module
captained by Michael Collins, to the surface of the moon, astronaut Buzz Aldrin
broke a crucial circuit breaker in the Lunar Landing Module—Eagle—but was able
to fix it by shoving a ball point pen into the disabled breaker.
A modern iPhone has 2400 times the processing speed, 1
million times more operating memory (RAM) and 7 million times more program
(ROM) memory than the crucial Apollo 11 navigation computer essential for to
the success of the mission.
But perhaps most incredible of all, President Richard Nixon
had his speech writers draft a disaster speech that was ready to be delivered
in the likely event that the mission failed.
Now these are only a handful of facts that leads my good
friend to rightfully conclude that God superintended the success of the
mission. The three principle astronauts—Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins have all
spoken plainly, and at length, about God’s hand in all of it. (Perhaps this is
why Aldrin took communion on the surface of the moon.) All 3, along with Chris
Kraft, knew that without God’s sovereign work the mission would have failed.
But how did they know that? Not every astronaut believed
that. Certainly not every engineer believed that. The truth is whether its 1969
or 2019 the vast preponderance of scientists aren't like my friend. They
are skeptics at best. Why? Jesus tells us, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this
to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17) It’s Revelation! It’s
not the product of human wisdom. It’s the result of God opening eyes and
hearts. And that is exactly what we will see this Sunday as we examine Matthew
19:16-20:16.
How many times have you been told that what you do
determines your destiny? How many times have you told yourself that your
standing with God was based on your own efforts at obedience and holiness? How
many times have you wondered whether your life measures up to the standards God
has established for getting to heaven? If you think getting to the moon is
tough, just imagine working your way into heaven.
Until this week I never put Matthew 19:16-30 together with
Matthew 20:1-16. Maybe it was the chapter break by someone other than Matthew.
Maybe it’s because I was lazy. Maybe it’s because of revelation. Whatever the
reason, they go together and the truth is startling!
In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the
following:
1. What is Jesus’ point in 19:17?
2. Why does he point this rich young man to the second tablet
of the law?
3. How good is the man’s self-assessment in v. 20?
4. What does His command in v. 21 mean?
5. What’s Jesus mean in verses 23 & 24?
6. Why are the disciples astonished in v. 25?
7. How does verse 26 relate to 20:1-16?
8. What are the two ways Jesus answers Peter’s question asked
in verse 27?
9. What is the principle message of the parable of the laborers
in the vineyard?
10. How does 20:13-15 answer the questions of both the rich
young man and Peter?
See you Sunday!
