The End of History—Messiah Conspiracy
CHAPTER 17—A Moon-Walking Astronaut Gives His Testimony in Israel
“I felt very special when I looked down at my footprints on the moon. The scientists said that they would be there for a million years. Looking up I could see the earth the size of a marble. It was so beautiful and so far away, and yet, I felt strangely at home on the moon....The days I spent on the moon were very exciting. Not because I was there but because God was there. I could feel His presence....When I was on the moon, I was inspired to quote from Psalm 121, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?’ I knew my help was coming from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. He made the moon and made it possible for Jim Irwin to place his footprints there....I believe Jesus Christ walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon. Just as surely as He walked 2000 years ago, He wants to walk today in your life. All you have to do is call upon Him....invite Him into your life by faith. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ John 14:6....yield your life to the Master and let Him guide your footprints.”1
James B. Irwin, Apollo 15 astronaut
17
A MOON-WALKING ASTRONAUT GIVES HIS TESTIMONY IN ISRAEL
James B. Irwin, the famous astronaut, was also a devout believer. The photograph shown here is a personal gift which Jim gave to me in Jerusalem in 1984.
When I mentioned to Jim that his mother looked Jewish, he told me that he always felt he was part Jewish. If it is true that Jim’s mother may have been of Jewish ancestry and that Jewish blood coursed in his veins, we can be doubly proud that, in a sense, a Messianic Jew for Jesus walked on the moon!
Those who speak against Messianic Jews should reconsider. Columbus was a Messianic Jew and discovered America, while Jim may have been, and helped us discover some of the moon’s most closely guarded secrets.2 Truly, the greatest discoverer is Jesus,3 whom they both knew. We suggest you read Jim’s personal account of his moon voyage in his book To Rule The Night, The Discovery Voyage of Astronaut Jim Irwin, available through High Flight Ministries. In his book, he tells of his ups and downs, his young life, and how he became a believer in Jesus through the Southern Baptist Church. In addition, he details every step of his 1971 trip to the moon.
In 1972, Jim presented Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
with an Israeli flag which had been to the moon with him.
Jim also wrote Destination Moon4 (1989), a picture book. In another book, More than an Ark on Ararat (1985), he shared the adventures he had when climbing Mount Ararat in Turkey, which is where the Bible says Noah’s Ark finally came to rest. Jim nearly died from a fall during his search for the Ark. His more recent planned expedition was postponed by Saddam Hussein’s Gulf War. Jim went home to be with the Lord in August of 1991. His memory will be with us always until we see him again in God’s soon-coming kingdom.
U.S. postage stamps commemorating the exploration of the moon.
Right, lunar rover; left: lunar lander (Falcon of Apollo 15) in distance.
Some of the more interesting comments Jim included in his book, To Rule the Night, were: “When you lean far back and look up, you can see the earth like a beautiful, fragile Christmas tree ornament hanging against the blackness of space, It’s as if you could reach out and hold it in your hand. That’s a feeling, a perception, I had never anticipated. And I don’t think it’s blasphemous for me to say I felt I was seeing the earth with the eyes of God. I believe, looking back on it now, the good Lord did have His hand in it. For me to travel such a roundabout way, and finally end up in the space program, and then go to the moon—it’s amazing it ever happened....the beauty of the mountains of the moon had moved me, and that I had felt the presence of God....The moon has a powerful force; it seems to affect the feelings and the behavior of everybody. I cannot imagine a holier place.
I think of it as a very friendly place, too. When I am flying across the Rockies in a light plane and the moon rises in front of me, I look at it with fond attachment. There is the place I spent my vacation that summer of 1971: my favorite resort....It seems plain to me that the hand of God has been in my life as far back as I am able to remember. I think Providence has been a factor in every important thing that has ever happened to me. As strange as it sounds, my flight on Apollo 15 was the fulfillment of a dream I had all my life. I have talked of wanting to go to the moon since I was a young kid. My mother says that she remembers this, and some old neighbors of ours whom she talked to recently also remembered that when I was a little boy I used to point up to the moon and say, ‘I’m going to go up there some day.’ ” This actually happened to Jim over thirty years later—the most relaxed moment of his voyage, just before he was to leave. Jim continues: “August the second, 1971....I started running around the Lunar Module in circles, and I did some broad jumping. Just having a ball—you know, like a little kid. Even in the space suit, I could broad jump about ten feet, about three or four feet in the air. No telling how far I could have jumped if I hadn’t had that suit on. It was the most relaxed time I had on the surface.
Houston was urging us to get into the Lunar Module. It was time to come home. ‘Move the baggage into the Falcon and climb in.’ CapCom got a bit lyrical. ‘As the space poet Rhysling would say,
we’re ready for you to come again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth’....A combination of factors had led to my decision to become a Southern Baptist and join the Nassau Bay church. One, of course, was Bill Rittenhouse....In the spring of 1971, I had taken the family with me on a trip to Florida. We drove through the little town of New Port Richey, where I had lived years ago, and we saw the little church where, as a youngster, I had stepped forward to accept Christ....I appreciated their looking after me, and I knew they were Southern Baptists, actually members of the Nassau Bay Baptist Church....One Sunday morning I told the children that I was going to make a decision for Christ and asked if any of them wanted to go with me. Jill, my second daughter, was the only one. At the end of the morning service, when Brother Rittenhouse invited us to make a decision for Christ or to rededicate our lives, Jill and I stepped forward. Jill accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior, and I rededicated my life to Christ. We both decided that we wouldn’t be baptized until I got back from the flight.
I feel now that the power of God was working in me the whole time I was on the flight. I felt His presence on the moon in the most immediate and overwhelming way. There I was, a test pilot, a nuts-and-bolts type who had gotten rather skeptical about God, and suddenly I was asking God to solve my problems on the moon. I was relying on God rather than on Houston.”5
1 James B. Irwin, “Footprints on the Moon.” This pamphlet is available through High Flight Ministries, POB 1387, Colorado Springs, CO, USA 80901. This is Irwin’s personal testimony from a tract which he gave to me in June of 1984 during a visit to Jerusalem. He also told us these very same words in his sermon at the Scottish Chapel near the railroad station in Jerusalem.
2 Read about the white Genesis rock Jim found on the moon on p. 77 of his book, To Rule the Night, The Discovery Voyage of Astronaut Jim Irwin..
3 Jesus discovers our hearts when we invite Him in—He becomes a part of our lives and truly knows us!
4 Available through Multnomah School of the Bible, 8435 N.E. Glisan Street, Portland, OR, USA 97220, and; High Flight Ministries. He is also the author of More than Earthlings, Broadman Press, © 1983.
5 James B. Irwin with William A. Emerson, Jr., To Rule the Night, The Discovery Voyage of Astronaut Jim Irwin. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, © 1982, pp. 11, 21-23, 85-86, 122-124, used by permission. [ ] mine.