Man’s Greatest Achievement

It is beyond question that man is the jewel in the crown of God’s creation. No creature on God’s earth has been endowed with greater intelligence, greater intuition. No creature is more creative, more innovative. None has more ability to invent, design, construct, imagine or dream, than man. The ancient man had his wonders. The Egyptians built their pyramids. The Greeks their Parthenon’s. The Aztecs their magnificent structures. The Romans their aqueducts, viaducts and roads, which was the template for our roads and bridges today. The Chinese built their Great Wall. The Victorians, with their Industrial Revolution that changed the world. 

However, all that pales into insignificance when you consider what has to be the pinnacle of man’s success, the crowning glory of all man’s loftiest achievements. I believe that moment came on 20th July 1969, when American astronaut Neil Armstrong, became the first human being, since the creation of man, to set foot on another world. When the Apollo 11 lunar module touched down on the Sea of Tranquillity, and Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, speaking those unforgettable words, “It’s one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind.” At that very moment 600 million people around the world saw on their television screens, with their own eyes, mankind’s highest and greatest achievement. The watching world was stunned, and euphoric at the same time. It was if for one brief moment time stood still.

For the first time in human history two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, looked up from the moon and saw the earth as only God Himself had ever seen it, a beautiful bluish, white, brown, green sphere hanging in the velvety, inky blackness of outer space. This was the zenith of man’s powers of intellect, creativity and engineering skills. This was the absolute cutting edge of science and technology, in just sixty-six years since Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew a little canvass and wooden plane over Kitty Hawk in December 1903. Mankind had pushed the boundaries of their knowledge of flight, far beyond the earth to the moon. 

However, just five more moon landing later, by the time we got to Apollo 17, three years later in Dec.72, the world was bored with astronauts and the moon. The next three missions were quietly cancelled. The public had enough. The circus had left town. The greatest show on earth was over. Why am I saying this to you today? The point I want to make is this: To argue that man outside of God can never be satisfied. He has an itch he can never scratch. A thirst he cannot quench. A hunger he cannot fill. Even when he has fulfilled his loftiest dreams and goals, it’s still not enough.

You and I were made for eternity – time alone will never fulfil us.

You and I were made for heaven – earth alone will never satisfy us.

You and I were made for spiritual, things – Natural things are not enough.

C.S. Lewis “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

- Pastor David Goudy