Questions No.2 Astrology - the Bible Says no

It's lovely to be back in the fellowship again. I'm reading from Isaiah chapter 47 from the New International Version. Go down, sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon.

Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate. Take millstones and grind flour.

Take off your veil. Lift up your skirts. Bear your legs and wade through the streams.

Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance. I will spare no one.

Our Redeemer, the Lord Almighty is his name, is the Holy One of Israel. Sit in silence. Go into darkness, daughter of the Babylonians.

No more will you be called queen of kingdoms. I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance. I gave them into your hand and you showed them no mercy.

Even on the aged, you laid a very heavy yoke. You said, I will continue forever the eternal queen, but you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen. Now then, listen, you wanton creature, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, I am and there is none besides me.

I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children. Both of these will overtake you in a moment on a single day, loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells.

You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, no one sees me. Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, I am and there is none besides me. Disaster will come upon you and you will not know how to conjure it away.

A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom. A catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you. Keep on then with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood.

Perhaps you will succeed. Perhaps you will cause terror. All the counsel you have received has only worn you out.

Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month. Let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble.

The fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. Here are no coals to warm anyone.

Here is no fire to sit by. That is all they can do for you. These you have labored with and trafficked since childhood.

Each of them goes on in his error. There is not one that can save you. Well, somebody should have heard us.

Spar heads in prayer. All the counsel you have received has only worn you out. Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month.

Let them save you from what is coming upon you. Father God, we offer these moments to you. And as we discuss this launching pad, this verse which takes us into an area that's foreign to most of us, that thankfully the majority have no experience of at all.

We pray that this message may not be purely negative, but may point from the counterfeit to the genuine. And that in our desire to know about the future, help us to realize that for those who belong to Jesus Christ, the future is safely entrusted in his hands and under his care and guarantee. Amen.

I was grateful to Geraldine for that beautiful reading of God's word. And although it contains some very harsh, almost some very stark metaphors, I particularly wanted it to be read because it contains, as far as I can work out, the strongest denunciation that there is in the whole of the Bible against what is commonly and popularly known as astrology. Maybe you've never studied the 47th chapter of Isaiah before.

Well, I would suggest that you read it again. When it refers to the queen of heaven, it's talking about the moon. And the moon and the sun and the stars were object of veneration and worship yesteryear.

And unfortunately, incredibly, it seems as though there is a revival, not always in their worship, but certainly in acknowledging certain powers that these planetary bodies are reckoned to have and to exercise over men and women like you and me. You may say, why in the name of sanity have you decided to opt to speak on the subject of astrology? The Bible says no on this summer evening. I do so really because of the birth of Prince William.

And that perhaps baffles you even more. Let me remind you that William is the name that has been given to the infant son of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. And when one received that glad news over the radio a few days ago, I was astonished.

I could hardly believe my ears. I am not exaggerating. When I learned that the BBC, that august authoritative body situated there in the centre of London, was going to consult an astrologer to give us a sort of prediction as to the type of temperament and the lifestyle that this infant prince would adopt, I thought they must be joking, but they weren't.

And indeed, the whole conversation with the astrologer was carried out in a very serious fashion. And to cap it all, just to run for the second blessing or cursing, whatever your vocabulary choice might be, we had a rerun the following day. And so I started to think about astrology.

And I confess my shame that I have given very little consideration to this topic throughout the whole of the 12 years I've been in this pulpit, and I've only had a sparse knowledge of it in a general fashion even before that time. But I have spent the last fortnight or so, and I'm not suggesting that it's a healthy occupation for anyone else unless you feel that the Lord is leading you so to do, I've spent the last two weeks immersing myself in the so-called science of astrology. And I have been amazed to discover that this subject, far from being played out, is going through revival interest.

As I mentioned this morning, it is perhaps the earliest religion known to mankind, more accurately expressed, it's the earliest deviation from the true religion known to humanity. I consulted the Encyclopedia Britannica to see what the officials who write up the various articles there had to say about this pseudoscience. And they wrongly predicted this, that when Newtonian physics, that's the physics that really came about a couple of centuries ago that paid to a lot of the mythology surrounding the sciences, when the Newtonian physics eradicated a belief in astrology among the educated, it was felt that the practice would fall away.

The practice, however, of the now pseudoscience continued among non-intellectuals in the West, gradually losing contact with its rich tradition and becoming more and more fraudulent. Well, if that was an assessment of the lack of interest that there would be in the 20th century regarding astrology, the Encyclopedia Britannica never got it more wrong. It's Oz Guinness, a colleague of mine who studied theology with me at the University of London, who wrote a book called The Dust of Death.

And he says, only a short time back, any belief in such a world as the astral, the supernatural, or the occult would have been relegated to the ridiculous. But Guinness has to go on in his book and state the fact that all this has now changed. And he pinpoints 1966 as being the year when there was a distinct shift in the emphasis and the understanding of people in England and in the States regarding the subject of astrology.

The 60s saw the mushrooming of the occult. It saw the revival in astral sciences and all the other related approaches to religion and religious experience that flow from that. I wonder if you remember what happened in 1970.

Well, I'm not a critic of the London stage. I can't think of more than a couple of productions on the London stage that I've ever seen. But in 1970, straight from the States, and they'd have done better if they'd kept it, there came to this country the musical production Hair.

Hair hit the headlines for the wrong reason. The wrong reason was this, and in no way am I applauding what I'm about to say. As far as I recall, it was the first occasion when frontal nudity was allowed on the British stage.

And as a result, there was a great amount of consternation, and there was a great amount of inquiry. And those who put the musical Hair on did extremely well, thank you, because of the derogatory comments that some people made, taken up by the press, who seemed to react very happily when there's a controversy of this particular nature. But it wasn't the frontal nudity on the stage that really was significant, deploring though that might be.

It was the fact that Hair had written into its theme the whole idea of astrology. And the main signature tune, if that's the right expression of Hair, was a melody entitled The Age of Aquarius. The Age of Aquarius.

According to astrologers, there are certain zodiac signs that depict specific ages. The age of Pisces apparently moves out at the end of this century, and then we move into Aquarius. As the main theme of Hair says, when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars.

The Age of Aquarius, astrologers tell us, is to mark the end of two thousand years of skepticism and disillusionment in the area of religious and mystic practices, and we're going to move into an era of faith and aspiration. Well then, what are we to make of all this as Christian people? We have to study it, because the Bible makes reference to it, and as I shall show you in the passing of time here tonight, the Bible in a very derogatory way dismisses the art of astrology and all related fields of religious and mystic practices. But one thing you cannot deny is this, though the validity of astrology is questioned by the Bible, the reality of the occult is not.

It is reckoned that there are 175,000 part-time astrologers in the United States of America, 10,000 full-time. They have horoscopes in 2,000 of the national and provincial papers in the states. In our own country, magazines, and this is the first time in my life that I've ever bought two, in fact I was so shy about doing this, I sent Muriel Foxson to buy them for me.

The magazine Horoscope and Prediction is selling in its tens of thousands, or in their tens of thousands, in this country. Most of our own papers, apart from the quality newspapers, also carry horoscopes. All this is a relatively recent phenomena, a phenomenon.

As far as purveying horoscopes nationally is concerned, you have to go back to the year 1930. There was a man by the name of R.H. Naylor who happened to be a rather gifted writer and also a student of astrology. August 21st of that year saw the birth of Princess Margaret, and it was very significant that the editor of the Express contacted this journalist and asked for some birth prediction, some nativity, some horoscope for Margaret.

It was sensational. I'll not go into all that it had to say, but in later years two specific predictions were uncannily fulfilled. Naylor, a few days later, was asked to write again, and in the room that was given to him in the Express, he made a prediction that a British aircraft would be involved in a collision within the next couple of days.

The airship R101 never reached India as it set off from England. It crashed, and that was all that Naylor needed, and it was all that astrology needed to give it prominence and for a resurgence of interest to so sweep through our press that none of the popular papers would dare these days not to carry a horoscope, because if they did, they might lose a certain percentage of their readership. So we have this phenomenon of astrology in Europe and in the States picking up revived interest.

It was the psychologist Jung who had to say this. Astrology, which went out of the back doors of our universities 300 years ago, is now knocking on the front door and asking for admission or readmission. You can hardly find a woman's magazine that doesn't have a horoscope, and even the sophisticated Nova magazine, last time I saw it, which was about 18 months ago, gave a full page to astrology.

So there we are. In the 1980s, scientific man is going back to practices once adjudged to be so primitive and devoid of any scientific basis that it was reckoned there would no longer be any interest in them. How do you explain it? Because we're moving out of Pisces into the area of Aquarius? Or could it be that there is a search on in the heart of modern man, even if he will not admit to it, for authority? We've had rationalism poured into our minds, dropped into our throats, absorbed into our system, and we know that there is more than just a mechanical universe.

There is a force. There are forces that are in control that have some influence on men and women. The scientific answer is not adequate, and the church unfortunately speaks with such a muted voice, or seemingly so, particularly the establishment.

And when one looks for something to base one's life on, in this country particularly more than the states, one is turned off the church and one investigates the occult and astrology to the extent that millions of people tomorrow will at least glance at their stars, their horoscopes, so to speak, in one of the popular papers, however seriously or otherwise they may claim to take it. What then are the origins of astrology? This astrology that Isaiah, in a very cynical fashion, points towards and says of its members, let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month. If they can save you, let them step forward and do exactly that.

It's unfortunate that in the King James Version, there's a mistranslation, a wrong guess at the interpretation of some Hebrew. In the 11th chapter of Genesis, reference is made to the Tower of Babel, and if you were to read it through in the AV, it seems, and there's no real warrant from the original, that the attempt of the men in that day was to build a tower so high it would get to the very heavens itself. Now the ancients weren't as stupid as all that.

They realized that there would be geometric problems in trying to do something just like that. Rather, as the NIV makes it quite clear, they wanted to build a tower that reached to the heavens in as much as it was a high tower. It was a ziggurat, an observatory, and on top of this observatory, the priests would go, and they would look at the moon, and the sun, and the various stars, and they would offer worship.

And way back 3,000 years BC, the pseudoscience of astrology began to accumulate its law. It's a very interesting thing, at least to me, that the area of the Tower of Babel, the land of Shina, is where ultimately would be born Babylon, would be built the city of Babylon. And Babylon in the ancient world was the center of astrology and the occult.

Many of you will know of the story of Daniel, who has a prophecy in scripture named after him. He's a Hebrew, and along with several other young Hebrew men, he is carted off to Babylon, and there he is immersed, brainwashed, in the so-called science of astrology. But Daniel won't buy it.

He rejects it. He knows that what he is being taught is alien to the teaching of the Hebrew faith. He knows from the book of Deuteronomy that Moses has prohibited the practice of astrology.

And you remember much to the consternation of the court, when King Nebuchadnezzar is troubled through a dream, and astrologers go in for answering dreams, you'll read one of these magazines today, and you'll get the most weird illustration of that, that you could conceivably think of. When the astrologers could not respond to the challenge of Nebuchadnezzar, spiritual godly Daniel steps forth, and he says, Nebuchadnezzar, I can't discern the future. I can't recall the dream that you've forgotten.

But there is a god in heaven who answers prayer. Daniel put a bomb under the magicians, and the sorcerers, and the astrologers, and those who wrote the law, and kept the books, and the parchments that had been passed on from age to age, from generation to generation. But from Babylon, to India, and to China in the east, astrology spread, and its own law was concocted in those lands.

And towards the west, it came into Egypt. You know of the pyramids? You know of the sphinxes? The pyramids are not only places where the pharaohs were buried. The pyramids have astrological significance.

The sphinx is a combination of two of the signs of the zodiac. The sphinx is a woman, Virgo, and also a lion, Leo. Linked together are the two extremes of the zodiac.

The Egyptians believed that somehow, from the location of those pyramids, and the position of the sun, and the moon, and the planets in the heavens, they could work out the horoscopes. They could plot the course of human destiny. And the so-called science of astrology, though it has many permutations, and has gone through certain changes, its basic presuppositions are exactly the same.

It's the sun, and the moon, and the planets, and the point where you were born, and the date of your birth, which taken together, and applied to this law of astrology, will reveal the secrets of your life, and enable your personality to be identified, and the significant points of your experience to be predicted. Astrology has become such an international, such a widespread thing, even in the earliest of ages, that it hardly matters where you look in human literature, you will discover that reference is made to the astrologers. I stood about nine months ago on top of one of the pyramids outside Mexico City.

One pyramid was dedicated to the sun god, another pyramid was dedicated to the moon god. If you check the religious practices of the primitive Mexican Indians, you can see that they are seeked in astrological information and data. When you check the writings even of Shakespeare, you will discover references made to astrologers.

Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, the astrologers were claimed to be of importance that enabled them to have access to the palaces of kings. The influences that they exercised in Europe was astronomical, if you'll allow that pun. You will discover if you read up the history of Queen Elizabeth I, that Dr. D., an astrologer, had an acute influence on her life.

If you check through the presidencies of various candidates holding office in the United States of America, you will discover that at least one significant president had some confidence in astrology. There's a great deal of legend that is built up around the personality of Adolf Hitler, but it seems to be reasonable that Hitler was influenced to a degree by an astrologer. The only astrologer I ever felt sorry for was the man who predicted an assassination attempt on Hitler.

The attempt was made November the 8th, 1942 or something like that. The Gestapo got to know about it, and they thought that the astrologer had got something to do with the assassination attempt. And he spent a few days sweating it out in front of the Gestapo, trying to convince them that he was a fortune teller, a predictor of an event, and not one who manipulated the attack on Hitler's life.

So here we are. I've given you a sort of potted resume. The origin of astrology is at the beginning of the human tale.

The influence of astrology is worldwide. And in the 1980s, incredible though it may seem, there is a revival of an art which is completely devoid of scientific basis. In fact, the lack of scientific basis is absolutely ludicrous.

The whole of the zodiac system derives from a man by the name of Ptolemy. And he lived so many centuries ago that he believed that all the planets, including the sun and the moon, went round the earth, and that the earth was central. And the whole of the zodiac is built around that.

But well, that is absurd. And when later on, in more recent centuries, it was realized that the sun indeed was the center of our universe, then the whole of astrology went through a heart attack. And literally speaking, it should never have continued.

But it did. And the reason why it did is found in a comment that I made a few minutes ago. And that is that men and women have an insatiable longing, a desire for something beyond themselves, because they know that life as we understand it is not just explicable on a mechanical basis.

Well, let me spend my last ten minutes by bringing you face to face with the biblical attitude to astrology. And the fact of the matter in summary fashion is this. The Bible forbids it.

Ever since Babel, the Bible has forbidden the practice of astrology and the occult. You know the golden calf that the Hebrews made, or Aaron made for the Hebrews as they went back to the land of promise? That was Taurus, the bull. You know the two calves that were set up in the reign of King Jeroboam? They too were replicas of these symbols within the zodiac.

The downfall of the children of Israel at various stages of their history was attributed to the prophets, to astrological worship. If you have your Bible with you, I'd like you to turn to two references. The first is in the second book of Kings in chapter 17.

The second book of Kings and chapter 17. And there in the 16th verse, reference is made to the reason why the anger of God was poured out against Israel. Second Kings, did I say chapter 16? Chapter 17 verse 16.

If you're following the NIV, it's page 441. They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts and they worshipped Baal.

They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger. The reference to the starry hosts, to the two idols, to the Asherah are all the old-fashioned way of describing the signs of the Zodiac.

Will you turn on in the same book to chapter 23? And here we have an even clearer reference. There's a reformation going on in Israel under the auspices of the young king Josiah. And this is what you read of him doing in the fourth verse of Second Kings 23.

The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priest next in rank and the doorkeepers, to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burnt them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem, those who burnt incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations, and to all the starry hosts.

That word constellation there is the Hebrew equivalent for the 12 signs of the Zodiac. What had happened to Israel was this. They had been baptized in the practices of astrology and related occult arts and as a result spiritually and materially she had declined and it took the young king Josiah with all his bravery to eradicate, to eliminate for the time being, the practice of astrology from Israel.

I want you to turn just to two more references and then I'm nearly through. The third one is found in the prophecy of Ezekiel and chapter 8. The prophecy of Ezekiel and chapter 8. Again if you're in the NIV version of the Bible it's page 965. There we have a description by the prophet of what was going on in the temple at Jerusalem.

If you please. Ezekiel chapter 8 verse 10. So I went in and looked and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.

In front of them stood 70 elders of the house of Israel and Jezaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. He said to me son of man have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness? Each at the shrine of his own idol they say the Lord does not see us.

The Lord has forsaken the land. Again he said you will see them doing even more detestable things and as you read through that chapter you discover can you believe it that in the holiest place in Israel on the walls of the temple were written the signs of the zodiac and against that Ezekiel brings denunciation and prophesies judgment. My last reference the prophecy of Jeremiah and chapter 8 and here the prophet is taking to task the kings of Judah who have allowed the practice of astrology.

Jeremiah chapter 8 page 884 in the NIV. At that time declares the Lord the bones of the kings and officials of Judah the bones of the priests and prophets and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshipped.

Jerusalem riddled with astrology and the parallel pseudosciences of the occult. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the historians, godly kings, new testament writers they converge on this one declaration. Astrology, the occult, spiritism, mediums, witchcraft, sorcery are an abomination in the sight of God but notice this it is not the reality that is in question it is the validity.

There's all the difference in the world. I studied a thesis on astrology during these last two weeks which has convinced me as to the truth of some of the claims not all of some of the claims that are made but on my knees before God I'm of the conviction that astrology is of the devil and those who practice it and those who follow the proponents of it do so at the expense of their spiritual health. Basically astrology comes from polytheism and must be against the bible.

The bible teaches there is one god father son and holy spirit the trinity. Astrology derives from worship of the planets the sun and the moon which were reckoned to be gods. Astrology destroys man's individuality.

Can you believe it the whole of the world is split into 12 sections and when you read your horoscope the rest of the 12 of the 12th of the world who are in your particular division have predictions that are common one to another it's insane. It's ridiculous and were it true it would mean that the stars the sun and the moon created to declare the glory of God and to show how marvelous is his handiwork are the controllers of human destiny. Astrology has a low view of man.

Man is not the plaything of the planets. Man is made in the image of God. There is something about man that is absolutely unique and the ultimate power that controls the destiny of man is the sovereign power of God the father son and holy spirit.

However much may be claimed for astrology by its proponents and however much they argue against it it is a pseudo science that has as its stimulant the as its stimulus the power of evil and not the power of good. They're advertising witch's covens in here. They're advertising pieces of jewelry which if you wear around your neck are supposed to bring you luck.

How to invest on the stock exchange read all about it in the horoscope. If it was true the astrologist would be multi-millionaires. They'd have played the stock exchange and they'd back every winner that ever ran on the derby.

Use logic my friend before you get caught up in this absurd notion of astrology but recognize this for in my last remarks I'm not denying the fact that there is an evil genuine satanic power involved. What's the answer of the bible to astrology? Why does astrology exist? Because of the quest of the human soul to know that there's something beyond that there's something to whom one can turn and this is why Jesus came into the world. Listen I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the father but by me.

You want to get rid of your problems. You want to get rid of the conscience that won't give you peace. You want to change in your circumstances so that life becomes bearable and you've something to live for.

It's not to the mediums that you go. It's not to the witches. It's not to the astrologers.

They'll lead you down a blind alley. They'll take you into experiences which will be diabolical and can destroy your spiritual health. You need to go to Christ to the lamb of God to God's own son who one day came amongst us and took flesh and blood like yours and mine but without sin who addressed himself to human need and 33 years after he was born he went to the hill called Calvary and there he gave his life the just for the unjust so that those who were sinners could have their sin credited to his account and so that God the heavenly father could enter into a relationship with sinful men.

That's the greatest experience that anyone can have and as for the future it's locked up in the hands of Jesus. History is his story and the future is exactly the same. Dispense with any notion that astrology can be of any help to you.

Come out you astrologers says Isaiah. If you can save the people do it right now and they couldn't because the Jews were taken away from Jerusalem and came under the bondage of the Babylonians and under the judgment of God and today the same challenge is made. Where is the astrologer that can give a man new life and purpose and a sense of sins forgiven? He she does not exist but Christ does and he can deliver what promises and he says come unto me all you who want hope all you who want rest all you who want understanding all you who want a guarantee of your eternal well-being come to me for I'm the way and the truth and the life and everyone else is a charlatan a fraud or satanically deluded and deceiving others.

That's why the bible says no to astrology. Let us pray. Father there may be some here who don't realize the significance of what's being said or even the risks that are taken when one of the devices of satan is exposed before a few hundred people but you know the necessity of the message that's being preached and we offer it to you and pray particularly that those last few moments of gospel exposition may wedge their way into the mind of everyone here and wherever this tape is used that the message may deliver from the occult or prevent bondage coming to any who might be interested.

We cover every young man every young woman every older person with our prayers right now in this congregation and ask that none shall ever be attracted into by design or accident the area of the occult in any of its manifold facets and deliver those who are so ensnared for Jesus' sake. Amen.