It seems that there will be remarkable celestial movements occurring in the skies this December. Noting this news reminds me of the Christmas star that led the Wise Men and their entourage to Bethlehem to see the newborn King. Could God have used a conjunction of two or three of the planets for that blessed event? We know He could have just created a special star.
by L. Agnes Russell
The most spectacular heavenly event will be Dec. 21, the night of the Northern Winter Solstice, when the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn can be seen. They will be so close together that they will appear as a single bright object, unless you use a magnifying aid. The planets have not been observed this close together since 1226 A.D., 800 years ago!
Why should we, now, pay attention to the celestial bodies in the sky? “And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” Genesis 1:14. Also, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” Psalm 19:1-2
In his book “Seeing through Heaven’s Eyes,” Leif Hetland shares how we have spent millions on projects like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), trying to contact the universe. Yet, to quote Hetland, “The irony is that…we haven’t gotten the message. Day after day, night after night, David says, the heavens have been shouting it; the earth has been showing it. Look at this! See that! Here it is! And there! Look, it’s over there, too! The glory of God is everywhere. And all creation has been trying to get us to see it.”
Thank God for the Bible, His Word, where we can read the Gospel of Jesus and the salvation He has provided for us through the sacrifice He made on the cross. But what if one has never seen the written word? Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…”
Beyond the fact that the creation, especially the starry sky, is awesome and magnificent, I have often wondered how a person who had none of the Scriptures could ever conceive of anything of the Gospel of Jesus Christ just from looking at the sky. I remembered a book on my shelf entitled “The Real Meaning of the Zodiac” by the late D. James Kennedy, Ph.D., who was the pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. It is fascinating and chock full of detailed and well documented information concerning the original meaning of the Zodiac, which paints the Gospel in twelve great constellations in the sky.
The Zodiac, as it is used today by astrologers who make up horoscopes, is condemned unequivocally by God in His Word. The use of His Zodiac was perverted and corrupted even as early as the Tower of Babel. A horoscope is defined as “a forecast of a person’s future…based on the relative positions of the stars and planets at the time of that person’s birth.” God never intended for His message written in the sky to be used that way, just as He never intended for mankind to actually worship the heavenly bodies, which they did (Acts 7:42). We must avoid reading horoscopes, even “just for fun.” In Isaiah 47:13-14, God condemns astrologers, saying “the fire shall burn them.”
Dr. Kennedy asserted that virtually all civilized nations have in their writings a description of the major stars in the heavens, which could be called the constellations, or signs, of the Zodiac. He stated that many nations such as Babylonia, Egypt Rome, and Greece, “had the same twelve signs, representing the same twelve things, placed in the same order.” There are pictures for each sign, but these pictures do not resemble the constellations themselves. Psalm 147:4 says God created, numbered and named the very stars He created.
The book of Job, which most scholars believe is the oldest book of the Bible, goes back to about 2150 B.C., which is about 650 years before Moses and over 1100 years before Homer wrote “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad.” There are references to some stars and constellations: Pleiades, Orion, Arcturus, Cetus the Sea Monster and Draco, the Great Dragon. There is even a verse, Job 38:32, giving the name “Mazzaroth,” a Hebrew word which means “the constellations of the Zodiac.”
Immediately after the fall of Adam, God in Genesis 3:15 proclaims the “protoevangelium,” the first promise of the Savior to be sent to save mankind from our sins. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This conflict can be easily seen in the glorious pictures of the Gospel in the sky. Also, the New Testament refers to a prophecy that Jesus would be a Nazarene, yet scholars have not found that in the Old Testament. Dr. Kennedy points to names in the Zodiac that could depict Christ as a Naz-Seir-ene.
God placed wonderful pictographs in the heavens to signify the story of Jesus, from His birth throughout His life, His giving of Himself on the cross, His victory over Satan and His resurrection. The most ancient writings indicate that the observer should begin the story in the circle with Virgo, the Virgin, and continue through until the twelfth one, Leo, the Lion. In every constellation, we see Christ being victorious over his evil enemy. The latter part of the circle of the constellations show His return, not as His first coming, which was as a gentle baby then a surrendered Savior, but as a furious judge, coming to bring judgment and destruction upon evil and those who love and practice darkness and evil.
To summarize the Gospel story of the constellations, I quote from Dr. Kennedy’s book, “Briefly, the first four books [or constellation pictures] are a picture of the suffering Savior, the coming of Christ, His battle with sin, and His suffering and death. The middle four books are bracketed by pictures of the lamb or ram, and are the story of the Church, redeemed by Christ. It is first seen as chained and desolate and then enthroned and glorious, as in Cassiopeia. The final four books are the story of the consummation of all things: of the coming of Christ in judgment, of the Great Assize [court], of the gathering together of His own unto eternal salvation, and the fiery destruction of the wicked. It is the great culmination of the ages which is now before us.”
I did not do the subject justice, but I urge you to research the Gospel written in the stars, even as we are thankful we have the gospel in the written Word of God.
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon! You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
