And a great sign was seen in heaven, a woman dressed with the sun. The moon was under her feet and upon her head was a victory crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and she cried out in pain as she labored to give birth. Rev. 12:1, 2.
From childhood on, the moon has held a special interest for me. When I was 9 years old I bought a three-and-a-quarter-inch reflector telescope. With a special Barlow lens it was capable of bringing heavenly objects 270 times closer than with the naked eye. The telescope had a heavy, cast-iron base and was angled according to the tilt of the earth's axis, so one could follow an object as it moved across the sky because of the earth's rotation.
I set up the telescope in the front yard of my parents home just outside of New York City. A half moon floated in the sky that night. I focused the telescope on the straight edge of the moon. The moon's craters were in sharp relief because of the long shadows near the lunar sunset. The view was magnificent. I stopped everyone walking by so they could have a look!
It should be no surprise, then, that I got up at 3:00 a.m. the night of the first moonwalk on July 20, 1969. Live television broadcast Neil Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface. I distinctively remember the sound of his words: "That's one small step for...man, one giant leap for mankind." The words were so unexpected, yet so appripriate.
It turns out that Neil Armstrong meant to say, "That's one small step for a man," adapting the phrase from a children's playground game. Instead, because of intense radio static, Mission Control in Houston and the rest of the human race heard, "That's one small step for...man," one of the most famous sentences of the twentieth century.
Even on a grainy black-and-white television set the images were unforgettable. A camera mounted on the base of the lunar landing vehicle beamed back the other-worldly milestone. The 38-year-old Armstrong became the first earthling to stand on the moon. Since he was assigned to handle the portable camera, most of the pictures of that mission were of his fellow astronaut, Edwin "Buss" Aldrin. We see Armstrong mainly as a reflection of Aldrin's faceplate. A total of 12 men have walked on the moon, the last in 1972.
In another sense, though, Armstrong was not the first human to stand on the moon. The woman of Revelation got there first! Earth's final battle is the outcome of an earlier struggle in heaven. The two battles appear side by side in Revelation 12. What happens to the woman is determined by the outcome of he universal war between Satan and Christ. Whenever my life becomes a struggle, I look up at the moon and know that I am not alone.
Lord, help me not to be absorbed in my own difficulties. Keep me aware of the larger battle, of which I am only a part.
From childhood on, the moon has held a special interest for me. When I was 9 years old I bought a three-and-a-quarter-inch reflector telescope. With a special Barlow lens it was capable of bringing heavenly objects 270 times closer than with the naked eye. The telescope had a heavy, cast-iron base and was angled according to the tilt of the earth's axis, so one could follow an object as it moved across the sky because of the earth's rotation.
I set up the telescope in the front yard of my parents home just outside of New York City. A half moon floated in the sky that night. I focused the telescope on the straight edge of the moon. The moon's craters were in sharp relief because of the long shadows near the lunar sunset. The view was magnificent. I stopped everyone walking by so they could have a look!
It should be no surprise, then, that I got up at 3:00 a.m. the night of the first moonwalk on July 20, 1969. Live television broadcast Neil Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface. I distinctively remember the sound of his words: "That's one small step for...man, one giant leap for mankind." The words were so unexpected, yet so appripriate.
It turns out that Neil Armstrong meant to say, "That's one small step for a man," adapting the phrase from a children's playground game. Instead, because of intense radio static, Mission Control in Houston and the rest of the human race heard, "That's one small step for...man," one of the most famous sentences of the twentieth century.
Even on a grainy black-and-white television set the images were unforgettable. A camera mounted on the base of the lunar landing vehicle beamed back the other-worldly milestone. The 38-year-old Armstrong became the first earthling to stand on the moon. Since he was assigned to handle the portable camera, most of the pictures of that mission were of his fellow astronaut, Edwin "Buss" Aldrin. We see Armstrong mainly as a reflection of Aldrin's faceplate. A total of 12 men have walked on the moon, the last in 1972.
In another sense, though, Armstrong was not the first human to stand on the moon. The woman of Revelation got there first! Earth's final battle is the outcome of an earlier struggle in heaven. The two battles appear side by side in Revelation 12. What happens to the woman is determined by the outcome of he universal war between Satan and Christ. Whenever my life becomes a struggle, I look up at the moon and know that I am not alone.
Lord, help me not to be absorbed in my own difficulties. Keep me aware of the larger battle, of which I am only a part.
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