The Art Of Reading The Stars To Practice Astrology Is Wrong – Sermon Series Part 1 of 3

Hello, and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you for being with us. This is a time of year we are entering into the worldly holiday season, so I figure it is appropriate to kick this off with a three-part sermon series leading right up to the worldly holidays. We are going to take this on for the next three weeks. We are going to talk about something that fits right within the worldly holiday season.

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Today we are talking about something called reading the stars. Now you may say, “What is reading the stars?” What is the point of this, reading the stars? We are talking a little bit deeper.

For example, you probably know your Zodiac sign and you may know some constellations like the big dipper and the little dipper and maybe you have heard of Orion’s belt and certain other areas or certain constellations that make up groups and clusters of stars.

These were made. Created by God. But they were discovered by humans and then used early on as a means of navigation. They knew where they were going based on the stars, for example, the North Star. Is that what reading the stars is? That is fine. There is nothing else there.

But if you take it further, that is what we are getting into today. You also may be under the impression that the moon phases affect human behavior, animal behavior, things like that. That could very well possibly be true. It is very easy to assume or guess or estimate that the moon also affects mammalian behavior as well.

Really whether it is scientifically proven or not, you can definitely see it. I am sure there is some science behind it, but that is not really reading the stars. That is just how the heavens have an effect on us here on Earth and all of that.

That is how God created this. That is how God created the world. For example, the sun. If you do not have enough sun, you do not get enough Vitamin D. Sometimes, some people, if they do not have enough sun, they become sad. They get seasonal affective disorder and they need to have special lights in order to improve their mood.

So it is very reasonable that if the sun has effects on human behavior or even mammalian behavior, then the moon could have effects as well, so that is completely normal. Knowing the constellations, using them as a navigation, or a means of navigation, that is excellent if you can navigate by the stars, I am really impressed and I encourage you. That is a great, great thing to know. Like I said if that is the farthest you take it, then you are perfectly fine.

However, if you read into these signs a little bit more or a little bit deeper and you look and see how things are lining up or if the planets come in or certain phases of the moon or when we have a new moon.

For example, or if it is like an orange moon or a blood red moon, any of those things, if you read deeper into that, kind of between the lines so to speak, and you start reading the heavens as a means of interpreting behavior or world events, then you are practicing what is called astrology.

Now we are talking about astrology in the sense of studying the constellations and where the stars are and how far away they are and naming the stars and seeing what type of gases they make, etc. We are talking about the definition of astrology, that you believe that the course of the stars and how the heavens are set guides and gives guidance to life.

It is kind of like that the heavens are determining human behavior and that based on what is going on in the heavens, certain things are going to happen here on Earth. Or we have to behave in a certain way or there are signs given for us to do, certain things, etc.

Things like that if you attribute power to the constellations and the stars and you interpret that as signs or omens or horoscopes or things like that, that is when you are taking it too far and it’s becoming more of astrology in that sense.

Let’s take a look at Deuteronomy 4:19. If you have your Bible, please turn with me, otherwise all of the references will be below in the description. Deuteronomy 4:19, “And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the heavenly array—do not be enticed to bow down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.”

A lot of big words there. What does that mean? Well, when you look at the sun, the moon, the stars, they are magnificent, they are very awesome, they could be inspiring, empowering, overwhelming, a lot of awe can be in the stars, in the heavens and God is saying do not be enticed to worshipping them. Because yes, the sun has power. Think about it: the sun gives life to the earth.

Without the sun things, would not grow. Without the sun, we would feel differently. Without the sun, we would not have solar power. The world would be drastically different. So a lot of people say, “Wow, the sun is something that we must worship because it is providing for us.” God is saying, “No, do not be enticed to worshipping those things, because I, God, have created them for this Earth.”

God created them, therefore, they are not divine. They cannot be. It is not something that you can bow down and worship, just like God does not want you to worship angels. He wants you to worship Him. God does not want you to worship other humans. Even though God created us and God may be in us, you do not worship other humans. We worship God.

We do not worship the sun or the moon even though they provide things for this Earth. They make it possible for us to have life on Earth, but we do not worship them. Do not be enticed to worshiping them. God has put them here for everyone, for the whole world under Heaven.

It is something that we need to understand that it can be taken too far, that form of astrology. It is an art of divination which really means “Divining the heavens.” Deuteronomy 18 Verses 10 and 11 says, “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or cast spells, or who is a medium spiritist or who consults the dead.”

A lot of things here. Basically what it is saying is do not let anyone around you do anything that involves evil or that involves seeking the spirits or calling on the dead or bringing things back into this world or giving them more power than they really have. This is a long list, but it is really spells, witchcraft, and mediums.

So consulting the dead or psychic ability-type things where they are calling on things beyond this world or they are speaking to the supernatural—the demons because they are here—they are all around. Some people may be able to see them and that is fine, but then if you are able to see them, then you should use that gift for God rather than trying to talk to the demons.

Because guess what those demons could tell you about the future, they know exactly what is going to happen. In fact, there are verses in the New Testament in Acts 16 with a woman possessed by demons and the masters of the child, they used her for profit. People would come to the child and get their futures interpreted. They would get their horoscopes or whatever. Then the demons were cast out.

What happened was the Apostle Paul or any other apostles, if they would cast these demons out then the people would be mad at them, because now they lost their ability to read their future. She was following the apostles around, screaming out who they were for days, and then finally, Paul got so frustrated and, he says, “In the name of Jesus I command you, come out.” Then of course they were upset because that girl was filled with a demon that predicted the future and they knew ahead of time.

Modern-day, I guess, you would call her a psychic. God is saying, “Do not let anyone be found among you who does these things,” and specifically, what we are talking about today is the divination of the heavens. Giving the heavens more than they are, and why does that matter?

You can understand witchcraft or sorcery, casting spells, even wizardry, things like that, you could see why you are not supposed to go there or like the dark magic, talking to the dead, seeking mediums or spirits or calling on demons. Things like that make more sense. But you say, “Why, what is wrong with the stars? What is wrong with divining the heavens?”

Well God is the only one who is divine. “There should be no other Gods before me.” Therefore, if you are attributing holiness or divinity to something else, that is a sin. God does not want you to do that. He is a jealous God, so if you are attributing power falsely, that is not good. He is not going to appreciate that.

God created the sun, the moon, and the stars in the beginning when He created the rest of the world. He created them for this world, not to be worshipped. They are not idols, they are part of the world exactly as the dirt is part of the world.

Without dirt, we would not be able to live either. We could not grow things in the soil. We would not be able to grow if everything was just rock, if we lived on a big rock we would not be able to grow. So are we worshiping the soil as well as the sun because we need the sun just as much as we need the soil or the rain or the clouds that are up there? No.

Leviticus 19:26 [says], “Do not practice divination or seek omens.” Now this is a very key part and this was also in Deuteronomy. Here omens are the practice of seeing the signs of the heavens or the sky. The sun, moon, stars, and then predicting something is going to come because of it.

They see what is going on—“Hey these planets are going to align up. This is a bad omen,” or “This is a good omen” or “At this point in time x-y-z will happen” or “We need to figure this out because this is interpreting an omen.”

So that is why this divination is so dangerous because it’s almost like the stepping stone. All of a sudden you are reading the stars, understanding astrology—it goes from astronomy, studying everything out there, then it goes to astrology, and now all of a sudden, you are starting to get omens and signs and now you are getting more and more curious.

Maybe you can see things lining up and now you are looking at the Zodiac signs and you are looking at the constellations and trying to predict human behavior based upon the patterns of the stars and the time of year and when people are born and all of this. Then you are into it and now you are fascinated.

What happens next is you might start consulting even more, you might start getting into spells or witchcraft or sorcery or wizardry, and then it could go into speaking with the demons and consulting mediums and even demon worship or satanic worship or dark magic or things like that. It is a gateway.

Keep the gate closed. Do not practice divination or seek omens. The Hebrew word for astrology literally means “Divining the heavens.” So you can study astronomy and know the stars and understand the stars, but do not let it become astrology. That means making the heavens. Divining is a sin. Like I said, only God is divine.

1 Corinthians 8:6 says, “Yet for us, there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

So all of these things, the heavens came from God, therefore we are to worship Him and thank Him for providing us with the sun, moon, and stars so that we can have sustainable life here on Earth and so that we can navigate by day or night. That we can tell time based on where the sun is or based on where the moon is.

God tells you in the Bible that reading the stars as a means of finding a horoscope, an omen or a sign is a grave sin. It is 1 Samuel 15:23. It says, “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the Word of Yahweh, he has rejected you as king.”

Now of course this is directed at King Saul, but it still could be directed at us as we are children of God and He, Jesus, is the king of kings. We are His children, therefore, we could be royal in an earthly sense. We are heirs to the throne. It is a heavenly throne. We are not good enough to go there, but in our earthly understanding of how kingship works, we would be royal descendants.

Stick with me on this analogy here. If rebellion is like the sin of divination, that means divining the heavens, practicing astrology, is exactly like rebellion. Now in these days, rebellion, if it happened, people were executed. It was done. It was shut down.

In fact, in the book of Numbers, there was an instance where there was a rebellion against Moses as leader, and Moses was pleading to God and God opened up the earth and swallowed up all of the people who were involved in the rebellion.

Then there were 250 others who were lighting censors and God just sent down fire and consumed all 250 of those people as well. So rebellion is not tolerated at all. Rebellion is like the sin of divination—not tolerated at all. Do not divine the heavens. Do not attribute power to something that does not have that power.

Arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. Now how does that relate? Well in the times when Samuel was speaking this, it was going on there. But we can even relate it to itself. Idolatry is worshiping something else, so if you are divining the heavens, it’s becoming an idol.

If you are divining the heavens, you have become arrogant saying that you believe that this is better than God. That you can understand more from that than you can from God. You are becoming proud and arrogant, thinking that you have the ability to do what you cannot do—what you should not do. Thinking that the power does not come from God but it comes from something He created instead. You are being arrogant. You are also being ignorant if you do that.

So when that happens, you will be rejected. You are sinning, and the wages of sin is death. Now, fortunately, Jesus died for our sins. So, if you or someone is doing any of this or is taking it a little too far, you can repent and ask for forgiveness and Jesus will forgive you. As long as you stop sinning, then you will be fine. You have been saved by grace.

The point of this is [that] God wants you to trust in Him, not in the things He created. Do not put your faith in the sun, the moon, or the stars. Put your faith in God because He provides all of those things.

In 1 Kings, Elijah prayed for three years that the rain would not come upon the earth, that the heavens would be stopped. He did not pray to the clouds, he prayed to God and God made it so. Then when it was time to rain, he prayed and God made it rain. He did not pray to the clouds.

For example, some cultures, native Americans traditionally, may see it in movies, they do the rain dance or the sun dance or those types of things. What are they doing? They are practicing divination.

They are dancing and singing to whatever god they believe brings rain. Some type of clouds or god of the Earth or the atmosphere. Divination. When they should be focusing on God because God is the one who makes all things possible.

You say, “What does this have to do with the worldly holiday season? What does this have to do with this period of time in our world and our life?” Well, fortunately, it is a three-part sermon series so you will have to come back to find out. But this is an intro and a lead-in to topics that we are going to get into in the next couple weeks. You may already have an idea.

In summation, astronomy, knowing sun, moon, stars, phases, constellations, and navigation by those means is fine. When you practice astrology and divining the heavens, believing that horoscopes and omens and behaviors can be interpreted and given and predicted by those, that is when you are taking it a step too far.

Why is that a problem? Because it opens up the door. It opens that gate and it is a gateway into all of the other things, sorcery, witchcraft, mediums, spirits, all of that stuff that God says stay away from. Shun evil, so do not do it. God wants you to worship Him.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, thank You for this message. I ask that everyone would stick with us and that they would internalize and remember this information and know that they need to be on high alert because it is very easy to slip into compliance or to adjust the line and be tolerant of these things when it is very clear that You say we are not to do this.

I ask that if there is anyone in their life that is divining the heavens, the sun, moon, and the stars or practicing any sort of these spells or wizardry or witchcraft or sorcery, that they would take that very seriously.

Even in the form of their books or their movies or their TV shows, that they would know that it is not okay. Whatever weird languages or tongues that they may be hearing could have real power and it could open the door for demons to enter.

Lord, I ask that they would seek You, the creator of all things, rather than seeking any of these other things that You created. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thanks again for being here this week. Join us next week when we jump in. I will give you a sneak peek and a preview. We are going to talk about the magi and the wise men that came when Jesus was born.

As this is what the whole worldly holiday season is falsely wrapped around. So come back next week and we will continue this sermon series. God bless.