Astrology

Individual Topics — Steve Gregg

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Astrology

Individual TopicsSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg concisely discusses the history of astrology, its pagan roots, and its conflict with Christian beliefs. He touches on the Bible's mentioning of stars as signs and God's divine appointment of constellations, which tell the story of redemption through Jesus Christ. He concludes by emphasizing that studying astrology alone can give a wrong impression and that divine revelation through the Bible is the perfect way to gain knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Transcript

Welcome to our broadcast about the scriptural view of astrology. We're going to be examining what the Bible says about the stars and about the constellations of the heavens. And of course, there's a lot of information, popular information about astrology that circulates, most of which is just the opposite of what we're about to share with you.

Before we begin, I'd like to read two passages of Scripture which relate to the stars. The first of them is in the first chapter of Genesis, which describes the creation of the stars. It says in verse 14, "...and God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and years." So we see then that God created the stars and the heavenly bodies, the planets, the sun and the moon.

These things were created to be signs, and they are for seasons and for days and years. Well, of course, we can see exactly how these things relate to our seasons, especially the sun and the moon, and the relationship of the earth to those bodies. And we can see how they might have influence over our days and our years, because we measure, our calendar is measured by the movement of these things.

But the part that we don't usually think much about is what it means that he made them for signs. Obviously, a sign is something that carries information. And so we would suggest from this Scripture that when God made the stars, there was something in his mind that he wanted to communicate, because he made them for signs, to tell a story or to communicate some information.

The second passage of Scripture I'd like to read before we discuss astrology itself is the 19th Psalm. In Psalm 19, one of the Psalms that David wrote, we have 14 verses, the first six of which talk about astrology, or we might say astronomy, actually, although there's a difference between those two. In ancient times, that difference was not very clearly defined.

But there's reference in the first six verses of Psalm 19 to the heavenly bodies. And then in the verses 7 through 14, there is reference to the values of the Word of God, namely the written Word. And I want to suggest that both of these appear in the same Psalm, because both the stars in the heavens and the Word of God in its written form tell the same story, though it is my conviction that the written Word tells the story in much greater detail and is of much greater value to us than the message that is in heaven.

But we will study that. I'd like to read the first six verses, first of all, of Psalm 19. Then we read, "...the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth his handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their word to the end of the world.

In them," that is, in the stars themselves, "...God hath set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." I'd like to draw your attention to this chart to my right here. Let's look down on this slide at the sun.

Here we see the circle which represents the ecliptic of the sun, that is, the path that the sun travels in general in the course of a year. It goes around in a big circle through the heavens, and that circle is dotted with stars which align themselves into certain constellations. And these constellations have pictures that are associated with them, and we will talk about these pictures before long, but the idea here is that these stars, the heavens, declare the glory of God, and the firmament, which means the skies, show forth His handiwork.

And it says, "...day and night these stars actually broadcast information. They show forth knowledge, they utter speech. Day into day and night into night they are in the process of communicating." And it says, "...in them God hath set a tabernacle," or a tent, or a dwelling place, "...for the sun." Now, of course, we know the sun travels in this direction around these things, and therefore it provides a home for the sun.

It is where the sun lives, so to speak. Now the sun is described in this passage as being like a strong man rejoicing to run a race. Would you bring it up to the chalkboard here now if you can? Here we have again a representation of the signs of the zodiac in a more casual and less detailed form.

Here is the sun that travels around among them, and it says that the sun is like a strong man that is rejoicing to run a race, and like a bridegroom coming out of its chamber. And so, a strong man and bridegroom are terms that are associated with the sun in this passage, and they are also terms which in the Bible are associated with Christ. Jesus Himself spoke of Himself as a strong man.

We'll see that later. And, of course, He is described as a bridegroom in more than one place in the Scripture, and the sun is also likened unto it. Also, Jesus Himself is related in the Bible to the image of the sun, especially in Malachi chapter 4, where we read that, "...unto those who fear my name shall the sun, s-u-n, sun of righteousness, arise with healing in its wing," which indicates that Jesus at His coming is like the rising of the sun, and we will perhaps talk about that a little more.

So, the psalm says that the stars are constantly declaring a message. In Genesis, we read that God made the stars for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and in the psalms it says that they carry a message, as all signs do. And so, we want to talk today about what this message is.

Now, from the very beginning, I want to give a background on what the popular view of astrology is and where it came from. First of all, we must make the clear distinction between astronomy and astrology. Most of you probably know that difference between those two, but astronomy, of course, is a legitimate natural science which studies the positions and movements and relative distances of the stars and the heavenly bodies of planets.

This is a study which is strictly a scientific matter, and it's in fact one of the oldest exact sciences known to man in history. Actually, way back 4,000 years before the time of Christ, there was a pretty good understanding of astronomy. That is to say, they could accurately predict when the eclipses would be, what course the sun and the moon would travel on a particular day of the year, when the seasons would change.

This was known by man very, very early in human history. The earliest recorded human history takes up to about the year 4,000 B.C., and that's about when the earliest understanding of astronomy came to be known. So almost from the beginning of humanity, this rather exact understanding of astronomy was known to man.

But astrology is something different, because astrology is that art, or what I would consider a pseudoscience, which associates with the stars actual personality, actual deity, in fact. The stars are considered to be gods or mighty spirits that have influence over the affairs of the earth. And this was the perfect merger in ancient times of religion and science.

There's many people who would like to come up with the perfect merge of religion and science, and the ancients already did so. They took the science of astronomy, which was a growing body of information about which they already knew a great deal, and from that science they added their religious superstitions concerning the gods and goddesses, and they came up with what is now called astrology. I would call it popular astrology, because there is another interpretation of these matters, which might be called astrology also, it's certainly not astronomy.

But as astrology, it is not the popular brand, it's something else. In fact, if it were known, it might still remain unpopular, though it would widely circulate. We will talk about popular astrology and about unpopular astrology, the view of the stars that we are going to talk about tonight especially.

I want to talk to you about the history of the current opinion of astrology. What I mean is how these stars came to be associated with different gods and goddesses, how these constellations came to be recognized. And this began, as far as we can tell, in about the third millennium before Christ, that is, in the 2000s before Christ, astrology as an art, as a means of divination was started among the Mesopotamian people.

Now the Mesopotamians were the people who lived in the region that later became Babylon, one of the oldest civilizations in recorded history. And these people, about maybe as much as 2500 years before Christ, were already practicing astrology extensively. Now what they did, they were interested in predicting the fortunes of the kingdom and of their kings and governors, and so they looked in two places, they had two forms of divination in ancient Mesopotamia, which they used to discern perhaps future events and omens that would relate to the fortunes and future of the kingdom.

One of those methods was the studying of the livers of sacrificial sheep. The Mesopotamian magicians would study the livers of the sheep that had been sacrificed and from various conditions that they would find there, they would draw omens concerning the future of the kingdom or of the king. It was a royal science, really, it was something that related to the royal family primarily, not to the public in general.

They also would look to the stars. Now they would look in the stars also for omens concerning the same type of material, and this is how astrology began. Now we don't know who exactly first associated the gods with the stars, but it seems to be a man named Nimrod, who is mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis, he is a great-grandson of Noah.

Now until Noah's day, apparently astrology as we know it was not really practiced or recognized. Astronomy was. There was a knowledge of what the signs and the constellations were, but there was not the same interpretation of them that we find today.

And it was apparently in the days of Nimrod, Noah's great-grandson, that this started. The Bible tells us that Nimrod was a mighty one in the earth. He was one of the first kings over the first government of the earth, which was Babel, and of course correlates to the area of Mesopotamia or later Babylon.

Now Nimrod was the one who was in charge of the project, now famous because of the story in Genesis chapter 11, of the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel was an astrological observatory that was built for the study of astrology and basically to get up high where they could observe the stars without much interference from other structures and trees and things. And so they built this Tower of Babel to be a center of religion for them, and it was apparently under Nimrod that a highly trained priesthood developed the study of astrology as it is known today.

And they associated these planets and these stars and these constellations with the things that they are now considered to be, and they came up with an interpretation of the Twelve Houses of the Zodiac. This was all done in Mesopotamia, and the Bible describes it. In fact, I would like to read you something about this subject from a book called The Witness of the Stars, and this is by a man who lived in the 1800s who did extensive research about it, and he's quoting the words of a Lieutenant General Chesney, who is well known for his learned researches and excavations among the ruins of Babylon.

Now this Lieutenant General Chesney said this, and I quote, "...about five miles southwest of Hillah, the most remarkable of all the ruins, the Burj Nimrud," which is related to Nimrod, "...the Burj Nimrud of the Arabs rises to a height of 153 feet above the plain, from a base covering a square of 400 feet, or almost four acres. It was constructed of kiln-dried bricks in seven stages that correspond with the planets to which they were dedicated. The lowermost brick, the color of Saturn, were black.

The next were orange for Jupiter, the third red for Mars, and so on. These stages were surmounted on a lofty tower, on the summit of which, we are told, were the signs of the Zodiac and other astronomical figures." Now, this is a description of the probable site of the Tower of Babel. No one is quite sure which of the towers that have been unearthed in ancient Babylon really was the Tower of Babel of Scripture, but there are many of these towers, which they called ziggurats, which the Babylonians used as astrological observatories, and the one that was described as the Burj Nimrud, which seems to be related to Nimrod's name, was very possibly the Tower of Babel itself.

It's mentioned in what we just read that it was made of kiln-dried bricks. The Bible specifically says that the Tower of Babel was made from kiln-dried bricks, and so it could be that this is the same tower. Seven stages relating to the seven planets, and at the top, depictions of the stars and of the constellations there.

So, this is apparently the origin of astrology. Now, I will say later why I think that it originated, but that seems to be the historic information there. In some time, about the same time, a little later, the Egyptians came up with their brand of astrology, and I'd like, if we could, to view this slide again, if it's not too difficult.

The Egyptians picked out 36 bright stars in the heavens. Now, there is a constellation associated with each of those bright stars. As you can see in this picture, there are far more constellations than the actual twelve houses of the zodiac.

There are twelve houses, and each of them has three constellations. So, there are actually 36 constellations here, and there is a certain bright star in each of them that was originally recognized by the Egyptian astrologers, and they were called later by the Latin writers, Deacons. The Deacon stars later were integrated into the twelve houses.

They are situated at intervals of ten days between each other, so that in the course of a year, 360 days by the Babylonian calendar, all of these Deacons would be in their brightest house for about ten days. It was believed by the Egyptians that these Deacons were associated with very powerful spirits, which actually ruled over the earth for those periods of time. So, for ten days, the spirit of Coma would rule over the earth.

For ten days, the spirit of Ophiuchus would rule, and these other spirits. Pisces, Australeus, and these other Deacon stars. Now, the Greek form of the word Deacon, the Greek equivalent, is Horoscopa, from which we get the word Horoscope.

And so, we see then that the Egyptians began to recognize these 36 signs, and then the Greeks are the ones who really gave us the form of astrology that we see today. Because in the Egyptian and Babylonian world, again, it was still a royal science. It really only had anything to do with the royal family and the fortunes of the king and the kingdom.

But the Greeks expanded it more. Now, the Greeks had a form of astrology long before they became associated with the Mesopotamian brand. But the Greeks, of course, had their gods and goddesses, which were mostly answered for more human-like gods and women.

They married, they felt pain, and they had things like that, although they were immortal. The Greeks believed in these human-like gods. They also believed in the influence of the heavenly bodies over the earth.

But they did not associate their gods with these stars or these heavenly bodies. Their gods were rather earthly, whereas the heavenly bodies were celestial and way up there. Now, the influences, the Greeks, of course, were a reasoning people.

We had such philosophers as Aristotle and Plato and Socrates coming out of that kind of a climate, intellectual climate. They were reasoning people. And they saw, for instance, that the moon would affect the tides of the earth, that harvests and seasons would be affected by the sun, and different things about the movement of heavenly bodies could affect certain physical conditions on the earth.

And they reasoned from this that perhaps all events on the earth were, in fact, dictated by the heavenly bodies. Now, in about the fourth century before Christ, the Greeks became familiar with the Mesopotamian type of astrology, which was the earliest type, and the astral gods of the Mesopotamians. You see, until this time, the Greeks had just reasoned from a natural perspective, that the planet's natural bodies had some influence over natural events.

But at this point, in the fourth century BC, the Greek thinkers began to embrace the idea that these constellations actually were their gods, that the gods and goddesses that they'd always believed in were then associated with the astral gods of the Mesopotamians. And so, the current idea of astrology was born. But the Greeks changed the whole extent of astrology.

They didn't use it only for the king and his family, or just for a few things concerning the benefit of the nation. What they believed is that the whole character of an individual, his future and his character could be determined by what was read in the stars. And they would have to, of course, determine the exact moment of the person's birth, the position of the stars and the planets at that time, and from that they would make certain predictions.

It was an art of divination among the Greeks. And it was available not only to the king and his family, but it was available to anyone who could afford to have it done. And so it became a general... it was a practice that was applied generally to all men.

And then the Romans, as they took over the world, pretty much, they were very slow to embrace astrology. The Romans didn't care for it at first, but then they eventually took on the Greek astrology and gave, instead of the Greek names, the Latin names to the stars and constellations, which we now recognize when we talk about Virgo or Libra or Sagittarius. We're really speaking in Latin terms.

But in all the societies, at least in the Western world, we're excluding India, China and Tibet, but in the Western world, all the societies recognize the same constellation as being the same thing, though they have their own language, and their own language, their own words. So that is where astrology came from. It was basically a pagan worship of the stars.

It was associating the stars with the gods. And therefore, since they were gods, they had power over human beings and over the events of the earth. I want to read something for you that I just found the other day.

This is in a Santa Cruz advertising newspaper, which is called The Great Exchange, and it has an astrology column in it. I just wanted to read this to show you the mentality that is associated with modern astrology. The astrologer in this column is Robert Cole, and he opens his column in these words.

He says, Hello to the pagan in you. If you are one of those millions of people who turn to read an astrology column in a newspaper or magazine like this one, it's time to really start thinking about what you are doing. You are participating in an ancient pagan ritual.

Again, hello to the pagan in you. Most important of all, being pagan means that you take all power into your own soul with great compassion, for a pagan has the power to create his or her universe of experience with divine purpose. Pagans not only read astrology columns, but they also indulge in such rituals which are meant to satisfy passion and stimulate imagination.

Pagans not only read astrology columns, but they also create and prepare delicious food. They worship the earth that they lay on in the hot summer sunshine as the great sun goddess tans their naked bodies. Pagans especially pagans in Santa Cruz, which is the city we live in, now, I'm sorry, pagans in Santa Cruz know how to make their futures come true and how to respect the power in every individual who knows that they can, and they know that they can have it.

I'm sorry, let me see. So Santa Cruz is the center of a healthy pagan community. It's full of people like yourself, people who want a good future and who know that they can have it without retribution.

In other words, that means you can make your own future, do your own thing and there will really be no punishment, no retribution for it. The stars are not very judgmental. Astrology is an old pagan ritual, he says, and from now on I hope you will remember that, especially when you read anything in this column or any of the thousands of others.

And if you know another pagan here in Santa Cruz, say hello again to them for me, and I'll see all you pagans right here in the Great Exchange next week. And then he gives his astrological prediction for each of the 12 signs. Now we see then that even the astrologers who are writing popular columns recognize that this is something that they didn't want to flaunt, that this is something that is not Christian, it's not a view that would be held by Christians, it's a pagan thing.

And pagan or heathen always refers to that which is the worship of many gods. And that is what astrology is, it's the worship of many gods, the worship of the stars. Now there are a few reasons besides my own bias that I reject astrology.

I personally am biased in favor of the scriptures, and I believe the scriptures teach against modern astrology, or the way it's commonly believed and interpreted. And so because I believe the scriptures, I reject popular astrology for that reason, but there are other reasons. And one of the problems is that popular astrology was formulated and developed in a day when there was a geocentric concept of the universe.

That is to say, they believed in a flat earth around which the whole universe revolved, that the earth was really the center of everything. And because of this view, their understanding of the relationship between the earth and the heavenly body was very different than what it came to be in the days of Copernicus, when Copernicus in his astronomical revolution brought out the fact that we are not in a geocentric universe, that in fact, earth is just one of many planets that goes around the sun, and the sun in its turn has an orbit also around other bodies, or other constellations. And so the whole ideas that were behind the formulation of astrology were based on some ideas that are now proven false.

And then there's another problem, and that has to do with the precision of the equinox, and I don't know if I have the information at hand here, I did a few days ago, but I don't know if it's still around. The problem with the equinox, and if you could turn over to this, if you would, turn over to this blackboard. The equinox, if you're not familiar, is that point at which the celestial equator intersects this ecliptic of the sun.

Now the celestial equator actually runs somewhere around in here, and it's a circle similar to this circle that is drawn, and at two places, these two circles intersect. One would be over in this area, in Pisces right now, and the other would be over on the other end. And those two places are called the equinox.

The vernal equinox, which relates to spring, originally was in Aries, but there is that process, or that progress, which is called the precession of the equinoxes, which means that certain influences caused the equinox to change from the Earth's vantage point, and so now the vernal equinox is not in Aries anymore, as it was originally when these signs were named, but it is now in Pisces, which means that everything is off just about a half step, and so if you were believed to be a Gemini before, then you are now really, you should see yourself as a Taurus, because the equinox has changed. Now in another 28,000 years, the equinox will be back where it started, so maybe, if there was ever any validity in astrology, you should wait 28,000 years to get back on the track here. But the problem is, the whole system of astrology, of pagan astrology, was developed at a time when there was not really as accurate a picture of the universe as we now have.

I said that they had an exact science of astronomy, and that is true. It was exact in its predictions of such things as eclipses and phenomena like that, but they didn't really understand how big the universe was, or what the relationship of the Earth was to that universe, and therefore they came up with some very wrong information, I believe. Now, I want to share with you some of the things that the Bible says about this popular brand of astrology.

I'm going to read a few scriptures. One is found in Isaiah 47. The Bible, by the way, speaks quite a bit about divination and sorcery, and divination refers to all methods of divining the future, whether it's looking at the livers of chickens, or whether it's astrology, or poem reading, or those kinds of things, those are all forms of divination.

What's more, astrology is not only a form of divination, it's a form of sorcery, or magic art. It is at least directly tied in. No witch can cast a spell or make a potion without giving attention to astrological information.

It's all part of sorcery, and it is a form of divination. So, when the Bible speaks against divination, or against sorcery, we must realize that the popular astrological view is all a part of that system that is decried there. In Isaiah 47, astrology is mentioned by name, and in certain other places it is not mentioned actually by name, but divination and other things like it are.

I want to look at verse 13. God says, I'm in the wrong chapter, here we go. God says, Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels, talking to Israel.

Let now the astrologers and the stargazers and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from these things that shall come upon you. Behold, they shall be as stubble, and fire shall burn them. They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.

There shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before it. Now, what God is saying is that because the Jews of that time had embraced the religion of the Babylonians, which was a totally ungodly, pagan, polytheistic, astrologically based religion. God was going to bring judgment upon them as a nation.

He was going to bring, actually, what he was going to do is bring Babylon in. They loved the religion of Babylon so much, he said, okay, I'm going to take you captive into Babylon. And the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar came in and took them away, but not without ransacking their city and murdering thousands and thousands of them.

And God said, this is going to happen to you, and when it does, you just call on your astrologers to help you. Because I've been standing here waiting to help you all this time, and you haven't been calling on me, you've been calling on the stars. So when that happens, you go to your astrologers and see if they can save you from these things.

The stargazers, the prognosticators, and you talk to them about it, because guess what, they won't be able to help you. So they themselves will be like stubble. That means they're going to burn like dry grass on a hillside.

They're going to be as stubble, and they will be burned up, and they won't be able to help themselves, much less you. So the position here is one of indignation toward the country that has turned to astrology. And God says, when the judgment comes upon you for this, let them try to help you, don't you call on me, because I'm getting a little weary of waiting.

In Jeremiah chapter 10, there's an outright command from God, Jeremiah chapter 10, verses 1 and 2, where God commands that we do not observe this popular astrology. Here in Jeremiah 10, verses 1 and 2, Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen.

And the word heathen is synonymous with the word pagan. Do not learn the way of the pagan, and do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen, or the pagans, are dismayed at them. In other words, don't give consideration, don't let them worry you, don't pay any attention to the stars, the signs of the heavens, because, at least don't get afraid of them, don't let them dictate to you how you're going to spend your day, because if something is rising and something else is, you know, in another position, and these things are likely to scare you from doing certain things, don't pay attention to that stuff.

God says the heathen do that, and he forbids us to do the same. At this point, the cassette tape was stopped, and turned over to record on the second side. I'd like to turn to 2 Kings also, and in the 23rd chapter, we will look at verse 5. It says, And he, that is the king of Judah, he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah, and in the high places round about Jerusalem, them also that burned incense unto Baal, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the hosts of heaven.

Now what it says here is that when the heathen were to turn from their wicked ways, and to turn to God, they had to get rid of all the idolatrous priests, and the idolatrous priests are described as those who burned incense as a way of worship to Baal, which was a pagan god, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the hosts of heaven. There was this being practiced among the people of God. It was forbidden, but they did it anyway, and when they finally got right, they had to get rid of the priests that were doing this, because it was obnoxious to God, it's an abomination to God, as we will see.

I'd like to show you also Deuteronomy chapter 18. We'll just show a few more scriptures on this subject, but we want to thoroughly document the scriptural position on this brand of astrology that says that the stars are really powers that have influence over human beings. Chapter 18 of Deuteronomy, beginning with verse 9. When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

Now that's what Jeremiah said, do not learn the ways of the pagans, because they're just made up of signs of the heavens. He says you shall not learn to do after what he here calls the abomination of those nations. Abomination is as strong a word as you can get for something that God hates.

It's abominable. It's an abomination. It says, there shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, which is an ancient form of worshiping Moloch.

And it says, or that uses divination. Now astrology is divination. There shall not be found any among you who use divination, God said, or an observer of times, which is also astrology, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter of familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

A necromancer is one who consults the dead. These were all forbidden by God and his law. If we go over to Leviticus, we have another statement of God's opinion about all this.

And we'll look at verses 9 through 14. Leviticus 19, 31, for those of you who are trying to follow along. Regard not them that have familiar spirits, which are actually medium, those who have familiar spirits.

Neither seek after wizards, neither seek to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Now what he's saying there is that if you seek after these things, you defile yourself.

And in chapter 20 of the same book, in verse 6, it says, And the soul that turns after such as have familiar spirits, or after wizards, or who go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. So God says he's not really going to tolerate this kind of thing among his people. Now for this reason, Christians have traditionally really had a low view of astrology, because the Bible forbids the indulgence of the consideration of pagan astrology.

And because of this, sometimes Christians have overreacted, and they even get terrified at the thought that there might really be twelve houses of the Zodiac, that these constellations might be real, that they might really have meaning. A lot of Christians overreact and don't like this idea. And yet the Bible itself recognizes the twelve houses of the Zodiac.

In Job chapter 38, and in verse 32, God asks Job and says, Can you bring forth the Mazaroth in his season? Now Mazaroth is the Hebrew word for Zodiac. Zodiac is based on the Greek word for animal, and that's why the houses of the Zodiac, the signs of the Zodiac, mostly are animals, not all of them. But Mazaroth is the Hebrew form of the same word, and it's the twelve signs.

God says to Job, Can you bring forth the twelve signs in their season? The twelve signs are mentioned in other places in the Scripture. In Job 9, three of them are mentioned. I won't turn there now at this point.

In Jacob's prophecy, in Genesis chapter 49, Jacob on his deathbed prophesied over his twelve sons. Now, his twelve sons earlier were associated with twelve stars. One of his sons, Joseph, had a dream that the eleven stars bowed down to him.

And his father, when he heard it, interpreted it and said, Do you mean your brothers are going to bow down to you? In other words, he recognized that this one son and his eleven brothers were twelve stars. In Revelation chapter 12, there's a very symbolic depiction of Israel, and it describes a woman with twelve stars in her crown. So we see the twelve stars represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

And in Genesis 49, where Jacob, or Israel, is prophesying on his deathbed over his twelve sons, many of the signs of the Zodiac seem to be alluded to. And you can check that out on your own. It's the whole chapter.

We don't want to read it all right now. It is believed that the twelve tribes, as they marched through the wilderness and into the Promised Land, they carried banners, each of them having a sign of the Zodiac on it. It was recognized that there were really twelve signs of the Zodiac, and they were associated with the twelve tribes.

Now, this does not mean that pagan astrology is true. It only means that the reality of these twelve signs was recognized in ancient times even by the Hebrew people, who did not have the same interpretation of them that the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans later had. There is reference to the constellations in Isaiah 13.10, a recognition of them.

There is also in Amos 5, verse 8, a reference to the constellations and an exhortation to worship the maker of those things. Now, I believe we'll have to look at this again here, over at the chalkboard. Each of these twelve houses is depicted with a picture, as you can see.

This one looks like a lady. This one looks like a scorpion. This one looks like scale.

This one looks like a centaur. This one looks like a goat with a fish body. This one is a water bearer.

This one is actually a lamb, or sometimes a ram. This one is a bull. This one is twins.

This is a crab. And here we have a lion. These things, in every society, except for those few that I mentioned earlier, are recognized as the same animals, or the same figures, by all societies, though in their own language they have their own words.

Still, in every society, this constellation is a centaur, whether they call it by whatever name they use, their name means centaur. The one for this one means twins, and this one means bull. We happen to have the Latin names here.

We've got Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Vagetarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo. Those are the Latin names. The interesting thing is that the stars that make these up do not really suggest these pictures at all.

If we can now focus down on this, if it's possible, you can see, for instance, let me turn to one of these other slides here, where we can get a better picture. Here we have a centaur, and this is Sagittarius, the centaur, the archer, and you can see the stars, these white spots are the stars, and you can see that the lines do not necessarily connect the stars. In fact, there are some stars that don't fall on any of the lines themselves at all, they're just all around it.

So that if you didn't see the drawing, and you simply looked into the sky and saw those stars scattered around, you wouldn't necessarily look and say, well, look at that centaur up there, isn't that interesting? And I want to suggest that the reason that all societies recognize this, for instance, as a centaur, even though the stars themselves do not suggest it, is because somewhere way back there, in the origins of human society, that was recognized as a centaur. And later, when the people of the earth scattered out, they took that knowledge with them, and I believe that this knowledge originated with God himself. In Isaiah chapter 40, and verse 26, and also in Psalm 147, and verse 4, in these two places, there is the statement that God himself brings out the stars by their number, and calls them all by their name.

Now when it says he numbers the stars, the word numbers there in the Hebrew can mean lists them in order. So that we might be reading in these two places a statement that God lists the stars, or the constellations, in order, and calls them by their name. That means there are divinely appointed names to the stars.

I believe that the names that are recognized in every society of the constellations originated with God. When he created the stars, two days before he created man on the earth, he gave them to be signed, and he gave them names, and he listed them in order. And I believe that when he later made man, he told man what those were.

He told Adam that that one right there is a virgin. This one right over here is a crab. This one here is a bull.

This is a lamb. This is a water bearer. And when this information was given to Adam, I believe the interpretation of the information was given to him also.

But as time went on, the interpretation of that information was so unpopular, that Nimrod, after the time of the flood, took the information and perverted it, and made it into something else, which is now what we see as astrology in the newsstands, and in the paperback bookstores, and in this column, such as I just read from in the newspaper. Now, I have said then that these stars were named by God. These constellations received their name by God.

Now, human beings would not come up with the name Scorpion for this constellation. If you just saw the stars that were part of it, you wouldn't see a scorpion. The kind of names that man gets the constellations are things like the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper, because you can connect the stars with lines, like a dot-to-dot drawing, and come up with a Big Dipper or a Little Dipper, but you can't do that with these.

These are not humanly given names, these are divinely given names, and the reason is because they convey divine information, and I want to tell you what that information is right now. Let's look at the scriptures again. I want to look at Romans, where did I place it? Here we go.

Romans, chapter 10. The writings of the apostle Paul. We see that Paul himself recognized the twelve houses.

In fact, in Acts, chapter 17, the apostle Paul quotes from a writer, I believe a Greek writer, named Erethus, who wrote a poem about the twelve signs. The name of the poem was Phenomena, and it was a poem about the twelve houses of the zodiac. On Mars Hill, when Paul was speaking to the Greek philosophers, he quoted from that poem.

He didn't quote any portion of it that had to do with the stars, he said, as one of your own poets has said, and he refers to Erethus in this poem, Phenomena, he quotes, we are his offspring. Speaking of people, human beings are the offspring of God. Well, Paul quotes that part, but in doing so, he acknowledges that the poet had some light.

The poet had some information that was worth paying attention to. Paul himself was not only familiar with the poem, but he actually sanctioned it as being a true statement of the state of the heavens, because the heavens really do have twelve houses of the zodiac in them, and in Romans, chapter 10 here, I want to show you what Paul actually says the message of the stars is. He gives us information about that.

Right about verse 13, we'll begin. Paul says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent, as it is written, and they quote, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.

Then he says, But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Esaias said, Lord, who has believed, I'll report. So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Now here's the interesting verse in verse 18.

But I say, Have they not heard? Now, the question that he's asking here is those who have never had a preacher come to them, those who have never heard a Christian missionary speak the gospel. Have they heard the gospel or haven't they? It's interesting. He says, Yes, verily, certainly they have heard.

But how did they hear if no Christian missionaries came to substantiate the fact that they have heard the gospel? Paul quotes from Psalm 19, which we read earlier in this broadcast. And he quotes this part right here. He says, Yea, verily, their sound went into all the earth and their words into the ends of the world.

Now, that's a quotation about the stars, about the constellations. Paul says those who have not heard a Christian preacher have still heard the gospel, at least had opportunity to hear the gospel because the voice of the stars has been heard in all the earth and there is no language or speech where their voice is not heard. So Paul indicates that the stars themselves tell the gospel and that anyone who is an expert on the stars could have knowledge of the gospel.

They could have heard it from the stars. An interesting claim. Well, if that is true, now let's look again if you would, over at the chalkboard.

If it is true that these stars tell a story and what we are actually going to suggest tonight, today, is that the sun is like one of those old follow the bouncing ball cartoons, you know, where they had the songs and they'd have the lyrics to the songs and this little ball would bounce around on top of them and you'd follow the song by following the bouncing ball. And as you progressed and you followed the trail of that ball, you'd come to the end of the song and of course you'd know what it was all about. Now this sun is like a follow the bouncing ball.

You start at a certain place in this thing and you move around and after you've been through the whole picture, you get the message. And the sun goes around here about once a year, in fact, exactly once a year. So we see then that every year the message is told, but where does it begin? Proverbially, circles, you know, have no beginning, they have no end.

And so how do we determine where the story starts? If you start in the middle of the story or at the end, you're going to be confused. So we have to determine which of these things really is the beginning of the story. I believe the answer is found in the scripture, but even without the scripture it is possible to know the answer to that because the Egyptians understood where the story begins.

And you can find information about this in the Sphinx. If you're not familiar, a Sphinx is a statue, usually they were tombs, and they had the head of a woman, and this is a very unbeautiful woman that I'm drawing here, and a ponytail, and it had a lion's body, and the Sphinx was not very much like this, but a little bit. The general idea is there.

We see the woman in the front and the lion in the back. If you were to greet a creature like this, you would first come to the woman and finally come to the lion in her. And in the star charts, in the pyramids, and in the Sphinx themselves, and in some of the other temples in Egypt, on the star charts they depict a picture of the Sphinx right here, between Virgo and Leo.

The woman of the Sphinx is Virgo, the lion is Leo. And the suggestion is that the story begins with a woman and ends with a lion. The tail end of the story is the lion.

The beginning of the story is Virgo. So if we would take this as true, it definitely corresponds very readily and naturally with what the Bible teaches about the story of Jesus, because Jesus' story on earth begins with a virgin also. And it also ends with a lion.

Now if you can see here, the lion is pouncing upon a serpent. The star charts call him Hydra, the sea serpent. Jesus, when he returns, will come, the Bible says, as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

And he will come to destroy Satan, who in the book of Revelation is described as that old serpent, that ancient serpent, Satan. So we see then, if we have the beginning of a story with a virgin, and you work through the whole thing, and you finally come around to the end of it, and you have a lion leaping upon a serpent, you can see some parallels there between this and the gospel story of the Bible. Now I want to point out that there are some very remarkable parallels in these stories.

And I'm going to move, I'm going to advance this slide a little bit here until we get Virgo. This is Virgo. Yeah, we don't want her big, we'll take her small.

If we start the story with Virgo, then we can examine some of the stars and their names and find out what the message of Virgo is. There's one bright star in Virgo called Semech in the Hebrew, and another one called Zerah. Z-E-R-A-H, we would transliterate that.

These stars mean, respectively, the branch and the seed. Semech means branch, and Zerah means seed. And these are two of the stars in Virgo.

Well, in case you're not familiar, these are also designations for Christ in the Scripture. The Bible refers to Christ as the branch, springing out of Jesse, which is the father of David, and also as the seed of the woman. In fact, the very first prophecy in the Bible about Jesus calls him the seed.

And I would like to read that to you. It's Genesis chapter 3, and verse 15, God is speaking to the serpent who has successfully tempted man and woman to sin. And God curses the serpent, and he says this.

He says, I will put enmity, or hatred, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and it, that is the seed of the woman, shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Now, the prediction is that there would be a seed of the woman, that is an offspring of the woman, who would bruise the head of the serpent. Now, we know that in this story, the serpent was Satan.

He's that old serpent, that ancient serpent. He had deceived these two, Adam and Eve, and led them into sin. God said that his head was going to be bruised, his authority would be crushed by someone who is described as the seed of the woman.

On the other hand, it said that person who was the seed of the woman would have his heel bruised by the serpent. Now, we believe that Jesus was that seed of the woman. He was not the seed of man, because he had no human father.

His only human parent was a woman. And therefore, as the seed of the woman, he came, and his heel was bruised by a nail being driven through it, when he was nailed to the cross. And yet, in that act, the Bible tells us Jesus conquered and dethroned and stripped Satan of his authority, so that the head of the serpent was bruised, and the heel of the Messiah was bruised.

So, the first prediction in the Bible, in the Old Testament, about Messiah, calls him the seed, and says that he will destroy the serpent ultimately. So, if we go back to the picture here, we've got the seed and we've got the branch. Both of these are designations concerning the Messiah.

Now, I want to find another picture here that shows a little bigger thing. Here we have Virgo again. This is Virgo.

Now, each of these signs, each of these twelve houses, has three deacon stars, or actual constellations that are related to it. Here in Virgo, we have three. One of them is Centaurus, this centaur, not to be confused with the centaur over here, which is Sagittarius.

This is Centaurus, he's associated with Virgo, and also this one right up here. This one is called Coma. And I want to, uh, I'm sorry we can't get that any, oh here we go, that's a little better, isn't it? This, if you can't make it out, is an Egyptian drawing of a woman holding a baby.

That star is called, or that constellation is called Coma. The word Coma means the desired. I want to show you that the desired is Jesus Christ.

And I'm going to show you that in the scripture, and then I'm going to read from an ancient Arabian astronomer who makes a similar, uh, gives us clues in a similar direction. First I want to look at Haggai, which is the third to the end of the Old Testament, the third to the last book of the Old Testament. In Haggai chapter 2 and verse 7, um, it says, God says, I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill his house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.

Now, the desire of all nations shall come. This is referring to the second coming of Jesus Christ. He is the desire of all nations, the desire of all people on the earth.

They might say, well, not everyone loves Jesus, no, not consciously, but everyone is desiring something. Everyone is searching for reality, and searching for satisfaction in life, and they look to it, uh, they look for it in other religions, they look for it in experiences with, uh, people of the opposite sex, or people of the same sex, or perhaps through drugs, or drink, or through money, or through popularity, or fame, or through some other means, they're seeking something, their soul is desiring something. Now, David used the same Hebrew word when he said, my soul panteth for thee, O God, as the heart pants for the water brook, my soul thirsts for you.

Speaking about the thirst of his heart, what his soul was searching for, he said, was God. Now, this says that Jesus Christ is the desire of the nations. The word koma, which is this constellation that we were looking at, is the desired.

I want you to look at this constellation while I read something to you out of this book, The Witness of the Stars. And, uh, it's a very interesting piece of information, because it's written, uh, many centuries ago, and it's written by a man who was not a Christian. Let me see what page I'm on, page 34.

It says, the ancient Zodiacs pictured this constellation as a woman with a child in her arms. A man named Al-Bumazir, also called Abu-Masher, an Arabian astronomer of the 8th century, says, now this is a quote from this Arabian astronomer of the 8th century, quote, there arises in the first deacon, koma, as the Persians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, and the two Hermes and Ascalias teach, a young woman, that's the woman that we're looking at there, whose Persian name denotes a pure virgin, sitting on a throne, nourishing an infant boy. The boy, I say, having a Hebrew name, by some nations called Yesu, which in Greek is called Christos.

Now, that's what the Arabian astronomer said, that this boy, in the Hebrew, is called Yesu, which is another form of the name Jesus, by the way, and that, uh, in the Greek, his name is called Christos, which is the Greek form of the word Christ. Now, this astronomer recognized that the Chaldeans and the Egyptians and others have recognized this as being a pure, and the Persians, he said, recognized this as a pure virgin, holding the Christos, the Christ. So we see that right here in Virgo, we have these suggestions of the Messiah being born, of a virgin, yes, not many people are born a virgin, uh, in history, we know of only one who has been, and, uh, that would have to be Jesus.

So there could be no other figure in history depicted, uh, or suggested by this constellation except Jesus himself, and of course the names of those stars suggest that also, the branch, the seed, and so the gospel begins with Virgo. And then we have, uh, several themes I want to talk about in the stars. In a future tape, we are going to talk about the details of how these stars really do tell the gospel, but I want to tell you, I want to bring out three main themes which are part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which are found in the stars.

And the first of those themes has to do with the dual nature of Christ. Now it is the belief of Christians that Jesus was not a mere man, he was God come to earth in human form, that he was a perfect mix of two natures, divine and human. He was human and he was God at the same time.

He had two natures. The stars, I think, suggest this. Uh, in one of them, well, not a, let's see, we've got, we'll have to look down here, I'm afraid.

Uh, we have here Centaurus, who is the centaur in Virgo. We have also Sagittarius over here, who is a centaur. These are mythical creatures that have two natures, the nature of a man and the nature of a horse, or an animal.

They are a creature with two natures, and both of them are depicted as warriors, and they are fighting off evil beasts. This one is fighting off a wild dog, and this one is fighting Scorpio, who is a wicked beast, of course. And so we will see what this actually depicts, how Jesus is seen as the warrior, but I want you to see that the dual nature of this warrior is depicted.

He's not just human, he's human plus something else, and so would the Messiah be more than just human. He would have two natures. And that is also suggested in Gemini, if I can get a picture of Gemini here, let's see what we can do.

Here's Gemini here. These are the twins. These twins, the word Gemini means twins, but the Hebrew word for this constellation is Thaumim.

Now, the Hebrew word Thaumim means joined together. It was believed by the Greeks that these twins were the two twin sons of Zeus, and they were Hercules and Apollo. But I believe that's a perversion of the true meaning of this constellation.

I don't believe that they are supposed to be two twins, two people. I believe it is actually two natures joined together, as the Hebrew suggests. The Hebrew word Thaumim, which is the name of this constellation, means joined together, that these reflect two natures.

And the reason I suggest this is because of the names of a few of the stars that are in them. In Gemini, in, let's see, in Hercules here, one of these twins here, Hercules has a star in his left foot, and that star is called Hina, which means bruised. The other twin, Apollo, in his right knee has a star called Mevsuta, which means to tread underfoot.

Now, Jesus, as one man, both had a bruised heel, and that heel is called bruised, and the knee of the other one is called to tread underfoot. Jesus, in that prophecy we read, the serpent would bruise his heel, but he himself would tread underfoot, the head of the serpent. This is a suggestion of that early prophecy, just the names of the stars suggest it.

And, what's more, we see then we're not talking about two people, but one person, with two natures joined together. As a man, Jesus was bruised. As God, he tread our spiritual enemy, Satan, underfoot.

And therefore, we see the dual nature of Christ suggested right there, and also in the centaurs. So, the first part of the Gospel that is depicted for us has to do with the dual nature of the Savior would actually be more than human. He would have two natures, as is suggested there.

At this point, the cassette tape was stopped and turned over to record on the second side. The theme I want to bring out here in these star charts is the theme of redemption. Certainly, one of the main themes of the Gospel is that Jesus paid the price for our sins.

The Scripture teaches, of course, that all sins are worthy of death. The wages of sin is death, and that someone had to pay that price, the death penalty. Someone had to shed their blood to pay that price.

And Jesus came as a sinless one, one who himself never sinned, and therefore who was not subject to death, because he hadn't sinned. But, though he was not subject to death, he said he came to give his life a ransom for many. And so, for us who have sinned, this sinless one laid down his life to pay that death penalty, and to redeem us, or to purchase us.

That's what redemption means, the purchase. Well, where do we see this in the star charts? I'd like to look now up at the blackboard again. There were three animals besides birds in the Hebrew, or the Jewish religion, which could be offered in sacrifice for redemption.

One was a goat, one was a lamb, and one was a bull. Now, we have these three animals in the charts. We have Taurus, the bull.

We have Aries, which is a lamb. And we have Capricorn, who is a goat, or at least half goat. But he's half fish also, as we'll see.

Now, these three animals were sacrificial animals to the Jews. What's more, the lamb and the goat, here's Aries, the lamb, and Taurus, the goat. These have one leg bent back.

I don't know if the picture is clear enough to see that. Here, we see the leg is bent back. And also up here at Aries, we have a leg bent back.

This depicts a wounded leg, as Jesus was wounded. But in both cases, or at least in this case and in a few others that we will see, the other leg is extended and defeating an enemy, defeating a sea monster in the case of Aries. We'll talk about that in a moment.

In fact, almost immediately. But I wanted to suggest that there is a reference here to sacrifice being made, sacrificial animals that redeem humanity. So, the idea of redemption is suggested.

Now, the relationship here between Aries and Taurus and Pisces is interesting. This Cetus here is a sea monster. Cetus, the sea monster.

He is related, actually, to this constellation here, Taurus, to the house of Taurus. But, so, of Taurus, we have Cetus. Aries, we have a lamb.

And of Pisces, we have two fishes. These two fishes are tied by the tails. There are strings tied to their tails.

And they extend to the head of Cetus, where they are connected. They are bound to him. Cetus depicts the devil, the sea monster, and the dragon that is in the sea.

Aries, of course, depicts Jesus Christ himself, the Redeemer, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, as John the Baptist called him. Now, one leg is broken. He's been bruised in sacrifice to pay for our sins.

The other leg extended is crushing or striking the sea monster. But at the same time that it strikes the sea monster, it is crossing and cutting off this band that comes and binds these two fishes. Now, we need to identify those fishes.

Who do they represent? Now, if we're talking about the concept of redemption, there must be a Redeemer, but there also must be those who are redeemed, or else there is no redemption. I believe the fishes are the redeemed. It's clear that they are the ones who are being set free.

And so I believe the fishes represent Christians, or those who have been set free by Jesus. Now, there are two other fishes in this star chart that we need to give consideration to. And I think that if we look at them here, we will see that they actually suggest that this is the people of God.

We have a close-up slide of Capricorn. I want to look at Capricorn. There he is.

This is Capricorn. You can see that his head is that of a goat, and his feet, he's got the bent leg there. And then his tail is that of a fish, a strange creature indeed.

But you know what? The Bible teaches that Jesus, who is like the scapegoat upon whom our sins were laid, that his people whom he has redeemed have become his body, the church. And there we see the body of the goat is a fish. I believe that the fish symbol in the stars represents the church, the body of Christ.

Here is the head, here is the body. Jesus is the head of the church. And it's interesting, more than interesting to me, that throughout history the church has been depicted by the symbol of a fish.

The redeemed have always been depicted by the symbol of a fish. I'd like to look back up at the chalkboard now at Aquarius. Aquarius depicts a water-bearer.

He's got a bucket here, and out of this bucket is flowing a river. And that river is hitting this fish right in the face, apparently keeping it alive. This fish, he needs water to survive, of course, so the source of life is coming from the bucket of Aquarius and feeding this fish.

This fish's name is Pisces Australis, which means the southern fish. And we believe that Jesus Christ is the one who gives the living water and provides life for us. And so again, the redeemed ones are seen in the fish, the body of Christ.

The ones who are receiving the living water, which is the Holy Spirit. And also the fishes of Pisces are the same thing, being separated from the devil by what Jesus has done himself. Now, why two fishes? Why not just one? I don't know the answer to that exactly, but I do know that the Bible says that before Jesus came, there were two bodies of people who were both in bondage to Satan.

One was the Jews, and one was the non-Jews, the Gentiles. And that both of these bodies have been redeemed by Christ and have become one body, or one fish, we might say. And so this could represent the two bodies of humanity that were redeemed at the coming of Christ.

I wouldn't press that too extensively or dogmatically, but it certainly is a possibility. As we consider all the fishes in the Zodiac, this is an idea that comes forth. Now, also with reference to the idea of redemption, we have the scales, Libra.

Now, I've drawn the scales differently than they are usually drawn in the star charts. Usually they look like two circles. It's like scales that are laying on a table and where the two bowls are sort of overlapping each other.

I drew it this way just for the sake of making it clear that these are scales. Now, scales, of course, can be used for just about anything. They can be used for weighing flour and salt and things to bake bread, or for almost any other thing that you need to know the weight of something.

However, these scales, in the Hebrew language, are called mazniyim. Libra, in Hebrew, is mazniyim. Mazniyim is the Hebrew word for scales that were used in the marketplace with reference to a purchase.

In other words, you want to see how much gold you need in this side to cover the amount of grain that you're buying there. They were scales that were used for a purchase. Now, an interesting thing is seen in the Arabic names for a couple of the stars in here.

One of the stars in the Libra is called a Zuban al-Ghanubi, not to be confused with Obi-Wan Kenobi. But Zuban al-Ghanubi is the name of one of them, which means the price is deficient. The other one has a star that is called Zuban al-Kamali.

Again, this is the Arabian name for it. And that name means the price which covers. Now, in these scales, we have the price that is deficient, and we have the price that covers.

We have the scales that refer to a purchase. We believe Jesus in dying purchased us with his own blood. Now, there was a price that was not sufficient.

The price that is not sufficient for salvation. That price is the price that everyone offers who does not believe in Jesus. They try to get there by their own works, by their own righteous acts.

And previously, it was by the offering of sacrificial animals. They thought that this would redeem them. The Bible, however, says that God has no pleasure in the blood of bulls and goats.

In the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, it says that. So, that was a price that was deficient. But the blood of Jesus does cover.

The Bible says, you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. So, the blood of Jesus purchased us, redeemed us. And it was the price that covers as opposed to the former price of human good works and religion that is deficient.

You cannot really work your way to heaven. You cannot in any way pay God what he demands for your salvation. Because the wages of sin is death.

And if you have sinned, and every one of us has, then of course you cannot be saved by anything you can do except dying. And even that won't save you if you don't have the blood of Jesus Christ. So, we see the concept of redemption again and again here.

In the lamb, in the bull, in the goat, in the Aquarius here, in Libra, the scales. So, this is the second of the three themes that I see here in the stars concerning the gospel. And the third, which I think is the one that is found most often in the stars, is the conquest, the victory of the strong man.

Now, Jesus said in the gospel of Luke, in chapter 11, verses 21 and 22, He said, when a strong man keeps his own house, his goods are secure. But one who is stronger than he comes and binds him, he takes away all his armor in which he trusted and then spoils his house. What Jesus was talking about there is Satan's house.

The Bible says the whole world lies in the wicked one. The world was Satan's habitation. Jesus called him the prince of this world.

Paul called him the god of this world. Satan has authority or had authority in this world before Jesus came. Satan was... this was his house, the world.

Jesus said when a strong man is keeping his house, he keeps everything for himself. But when one who is stronger than him comes and binds him and takes away his armor in which he trusted, he can spoil that man's house. Jesus is the stronger man.

Jesus was suggesting that he is stronger than Satan. The Bible says, greater is he that is in you, Christians, than he that is in the world. That is, Jesus is greater than Satan.

He is the stronger man. In the star charts we have the conflict demonstrated in a number of places. We have the conflict mentioned in, for instance, in Scorpio, in Sagittarius, in Taurus.

In Taurus, by the way, there is a constellation which I don't have drawn here named Orion. Orion is the strong man in this particular one. We won't talk too much about Taurus today.

But also in Leo. Now, in these constellations, here we have it, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Leo, also in Orion we have it. And these are places where we see the conflict between the strong man and the wicked one.

Let's look for a moment at Scorpio, which I think is among the most interesting of these signs. In Scorpio, this is the strong man here. His name is Ophiuchus.

He is holding in his hand a constellation called Serpens, the serpent. And then under his foot he is crushing the head of a scorpion, which we call Scorpio, which the Hebrews called Akrab. We'll talk about that in a moment.

We see also Sagittarius, this warrior is aiming at Scorpio. Now, the strong man we believe is Christ. In all of the charts, the strong man is Christ.

Even when it's a centaur, the dual nature of the Christ is mentioned. Even in Gemini, where there's a bruised heel and another foot that crushes underfoot the enemy. In fact, Ophiuchus here, the strong man in this one, has two interesting stars in his heel.

In one of his heels, the word bruised appears. It's the word shuf, bruised. That's the Hebrew shuf.

In the other one, the foot that's actually hitting Scorpio on the head, there's a star called Daka, which means crush underfoot. So we see again the same thing we see in Gemini. One foot is bruised, the other one is crushing something underfoot.

And in both cases, of course, that which is crushed is Satan. Or actually, one of Satan's emissaries. In this case, the serpent is Satan.

He's being held in the hands, but the foot is crushing someone else. That Scorpio, to figure out who that is, the Sumerians had a different name for Scorpio. And their name for him was the perverse one, or the lawless one.

The Scorpion was called the lawless one. That is the name that is found in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, to describe the coming man of sin. The one who many call the Antichrist.

He will come and he will deceive the world and cause the people to be worshipping Satan. In fact, the Bible says that he will do mighty wonders and signs by the power of Satan. By the power of the dragon, which is found in right here.

Now, he is the lawless one. He is being destroyed and also Satan is taken into captivity here. So that the lawless one is crushed by Ophiuchus under one foot there.

Interestingly also, the Hebrew word Akrab, which is the equivalent of Scorpio, can mean scorpion. It can also mean war. The word Akrab in the Bible, the Hebrew word, is translated war or scorpion alternately.

So we see then that in the stars we have these three themes of the gospel. We have the dual nature of the Messiah. The fact that he would be bruised in his humanity, but in his deity he would crush Satan.

He would not be a mere man. He would be God-man. Jesus pointed this out to the Jews of his day.

He said, what do you think of Christ? Whose son is he? And the Jews said, well, he is going to be David's son. Because the prophets in the Old Testament spoke of him as the son of David. Well, that's not what Jesus was getting at.

What he really meant was, what is the real origin of the Messiah? Not whose son on earth will he be, but where does he really come from? And so in order to stump the Pharisees, Jesus said, then why, if he is David's son, why did David call him Lord? In Psalm 110, David said, the Lord Jehovah said unto my Lord, here at my right hand. So David called Jesus his Lord. Jesus said, if the Messiah is strictly human, if the Messiah is just a descendant of David like so many others, then why did David call him Lord? What Jesus was implying there is that the Messiah, in fact he was the Messiah, he was implying that he was not only the son of David, he had another nature also.

He was the Lord also of heaven. And so that is what Jesus points out there. Now, I want to show you that the gospel was preached to Abraham in the stars.

Let's look at Genesis chapter 15. If you have a Bible. Genesis chapter 15 and verse 5 and 6, I think is where we'd like to look.

There God took Abraham out under the stars and told him to look at the stars. It says in verse 5, and he brought him forth abroad and said, look now towards heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be.

Then it says in verse 6, and he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now, the scripture quotes this verse 6, how that God counted Abraham's faith to him for righteousness. Abraham believed in God and what God had said, and God counted him righteous for that belief.

In the New Testament, a number of times, Paul in Galatians and in Romans and in other places, quotes this, how that we are made righteous by our faith in the gospel, just as Abraham was. But did Abraham hear the gospel? Well, look at verse 5, which says, God said to him, look now towards heaven and tell the stars if you are able to number them. He said, so shall your seed be.

Now, we talked about the seed. The seed is Jesus. In fact, Galatians chapter 3 and verse 16 even says so.

Paul says that the promise was not made to seed, as a plural, many. But, in other words, the promise was not to the natural Israel, the natural descendants of Abraham. The promise was to Jesus, the seed, singular.

Paul confirms that in Galatians 3, 16, and we can see it right here. The seed of the woman that was promised. Your seed shall be like this.

Jesus will be like this. The word tell and number, where it says, tell the stars if you are able to number them, those two words in English are actually the same word in the Hebrew. And the Hebrew word number or tell can be translated decipher or list in order.

So, a valid translation of this verse, though not a necessary one, but a valid one, would be, look now toward heaven and list in order the stars if you are able to decipher them. This is what the seed shall be. This is what Messiah will be like.

So, God said to Abraham, look at these stars, check them out, list them in order. And he said, if you can decipher this message, this is what your seed, Christ, will be like. Here is Christ.

Here is Christ. Here is Christ. Here is Christ.

Here is Christ. Here we have Christ. Here we have Christ.

Leo the lion, pouncing upon the serpent in the end and taking it over. Destroying Satan as the lion out of the tribe of Judah. Here we see Christ.

In coma, which is not depicted here, we see Christ. So shall your seed, Christ, be, if you can just decipher this message. And so we have been talking about how to decipher it.

In our next broadcast we will go into more detail. I want to confirm also from Galatians chapter 8, I'm sorry, Galatians chapter 3 and verse 8, the fact that Abraham, what God said to Abraham out there under the stars was the gospel. In Galatians 3.8 it says, And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Now the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, God preached it before unto Abraham, it says. So you see that when he was out under the stars, what he was told, to decipher this message, that's the gospel, that's what Jesus is going to be like. Now there's, I have said then, and I believe that the conclusion can be drawn, as well as any other conclusion, that the stars are not God, they are not powers, they do not influence human life, but they are instead a great painting in the sky, which God has drawn to tell a story, a wonderful story that is retold every year as the sun goes around it.

The twelve houses, by the way, twelve is a special number in the Bible, the number of God's kingdom, of his government. And so the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom is seen in these twelve houses. And so everyone can really hear the story.

Now the Bible says that when Jesus was born, there were magicians, magi, wise men, the English Bible says, who came from the east bringing gifts, and they came to Jerusalem, and they had this question on their lips, Where is he that is born the king of the Jews? For we have seen his star at its rising, and we have come to worship him. These magicians from Persia had come because they had been looking at the stars, they had been looking at the constellations, they had deciphered them to the point where they were able to tell that there was a king coming, a messiah, a savior, the king of the Jews was going to come. They got this message from the stars, and they saw a special star rising in Virgo, which to them spoke of the fact that he had now come.

And so they came to Jerusalem, since they knew it was the king of the Jews, they came to Jerusalem, which was the capital of the Jews, and they said, Now where is he? And then the experts of the law got out the Bible, and they pulled out the book of Micah, and they said, Well, he's going to be born in Bethlehem, which is about six miles from Jerusalem, or twelve miles I think, and they said, He will be born in Bethlehem because the prophet said so. Micah said, Thou Bethlehem, though thou be little among the people of Judah, you shall, you know, you've got a great future. He said, Out of you shall the governor come, the ruler will come from you.

And so they quoted from the Bible, and the Persian astrologers, who had learned so much about Jesus, received their final bit of information from the Bible itself, which means that astrology can take you so far, but it can't take you all the way there. You need the divine revelation of God from His words in order to really come to knowledge of the gospel in detail. There was a missionary to Japan, a woman, who went into the backlands of Japan and found there a tribe that had never heard about Jesus Christ.

And she began to sit the people down, and in a meeting of them, she began to tell them about how Jesus had come and died for their sins, how that He was the Son of God, a man of two natures, a God-man, how that He had come and lived a perfect life, that through His life and His death and His resurrection, He had defeated Satan, the enemy of mankind. And while this missionary was telling this story, an old woman, who was the tribal astrologer, began to get excited, and she began to jump up and down and say, That's it, that's it, that's Him. And the missionary said, What are you talking about? That's who.

And the astrologer said, I have read this message that you are telling in the stars, and I have already told this message to my people. But until now, we didn't know what the Savior's name was. But now we know His name is Jesus.

You see, just like the Persian wise men who came to worship Jesus when He was born, this woman had, through the stars, gained information about the gospel. She understood that the Messiah was coming. She understood certain things about Him, but she just didn't know His name until the Bible came to her.

You see then that the Bible is the more perfect revelation. When people begin to learn the information we've been talking about tonight, there is the tendency, or a desire begins to spring up, to go out and make an all-out attempt to understand astrology, to make heavy research on the subject of astrology. And that is not necessary, because there is a much more perfect revelation than even what the stars give.

The stars do give a good revelation of who the Messiah will be, but His name is not given there. And therefore, people who study astrology can get the wrong impression and think that the Messiah, maybe that there are many Messiahs, because certainly in the star chart, we have many strong men depicted, and they can really get the wrong impression if they don't have the revelation that God gave in the Scripture. But I conclude then that the gospel is in the stars.

The stars are not gods themselves. They are merely prophets of God. When Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, had been dumb and unable to speak for nine months while his wife was pregnant, the baby was born and was taken to the temple and was dedicated to God, Zechariah's mouth was open, he was able to speak, and he gave a beautiful prophecy.

And among the things he prophesied was that God had sent the day spring from on high, the rising of the sun, and I'm talking about the daybreak, and he says, which was spoken of by the mouth of all His holy prophets from the beginning of the world. Well, of course, there were no humans on the earth at the beginning of the world, so what prophets were speaking about the Messiah at the beginning of the world? I believe it was the stars. The stars are the prophets who have been speaking from the beginning of the world.

The astrologers of old, I believe Adam, knew what these signs were. God told him the names of the stars. God brought them out by their number and gave them names.

He taught them to Adam, I'm sure of it. And then Adam passed it down, and eventually Nimrod perverted it and changed the stars from their true role, which they were actually spokesmen. They were prophets of God, telling the truth.

A big message written in the sky. He changed their function to be that of God's, and he began an idolatrous worship of the stars, which later in the prophets, God began to tell people to get away from it. It's an abomination.

So modern people should take heart. There is a message in the stars. It is the message of redemption through Jesus Christ.

But it is not a message about your personality or about your future. That is something that only God reserves the right to talk to you about. He is able to read your heart.

He is able to tell you about your future. And he has forbidden all other forms of divination, including popular astrology. And on that note, we will close.