The Moon In The Bible Series

Bruce Barton said, "When you're though changing, you're though." Change is inevitable,

and one might just as well refuse to accompany the earth in rotating on its axis as to refuse to

accept change. Robert Burns said, "Look abroad thro' Nature's range, Nature's mighty law

is change." Longfellow points out, "There are no birds in last year's nest." Change is

constant, and Robert Browning feels we should be excited about this fact of reality, for he

writes, "Rejoice that man is hurled, from change to change unceasingly, his soul's wings

never furled."

Change is essential to progress, and as man's concepts of reality keep changing and

expanding, he draws nearer to the Author of reality, and the God who changes not. Truth in

any realm points to the Author of truth. When man stopped centering his thoughts on

himself alone, and took the whole world into consideration, he became geocentric. When he

realized that the earth was not the center of the solar system, but that the sun was, he became

heliocentric. Then man learned that the sun is just one of billions of stars in the galaxy, and

he became galactocentric. The final stage of growth is when man learns that the one who

made all of the vast universe is a Person, and then they become Christocentric. When we

study space and objects like the moon we are studying the handiwork of Jesus our Savior.

This changes how we see everything.

There were many who objected to man's going to the moon, and many even said the Bible

taught that it was impossible. They said that it was not God's will for man to go into space.

But Wernher Von Braun, the Christian who was greatly responsible for man getting to the

moon said, "..don't tell me he doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to

go." Man is made to be an adventurer and climb every mountain just because God put it

there. The Bible does not settle all issues dealing with the moon, even though it refers to the

moon 34 times in the Old Testament and 9 times in the New Testament. Our interest in this

message is to just learn all we can about what the Bible says about the moon.

I. THE PURPOSE OF THE MOON.

Our text makes it clear that the moon was no mere accident. God created it for a

definite purpose. The God of light filled His creation with lights, and He prepared the earth

to have a lighting system for both day and night. The creation of the moon was an act of

God's love for man, even before man was created. If there was no moon or stars, man would

be plunged into total darkness each night. Total darkness, however, is reserved for those

who reject completely the light of God, and especially the light of the world-Jesus Christ.

The most simple and obvious purpose of the moon is to give light to the earth at night.

It is the secondary of the two great lights. The first reference to the moon in the Bible in

verse 16 does not name it, but it simply calls it the lesser light. Lesser is an understatement,

for it would take 600 thousand full moons to equal the splendor of the sun. The moon always

plays second fiddle to the sun. In Buddhist thought the sun is spirit and the moon is matter.

The ancient felt that when man died his spirit went to the sun and his body to the moon.

Being inferior to the sun lead the ancients to think of the moon as female, and the sun as

male. We think of the man in the moon, but the people of the East think of a maiden in the

moon. We shall see that the Bible followers the Eastern imagery, and it refers to the moon as

the Queen of heaven. Verse 16 says a greater light is to rule the day and the lesser light to

rule the night. It follows then logically that the sun is king and the moon queen. George

Croly wrote,

How like a queen comes forth the lovely moon,

From the slow opening curtains of the clouds,

Walking in beauty to her midnight throne!

In Gen. 37:9 Joseph had a dream that the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed down to

him. The sun was his father, the moon was his mother, and the eleven stars were his

brothers. We see the moon is associated with the female. Later we shall we that poets always

refer to the moon as female. The moon is second to the sun, but it is superior to the stars. In

Joseph's dream the stars are the children. Here in Gen. 2 it the great lights that are stressed