Title: 13
Author: Joe Griffin
Last saved by: Matt Lawson
Company: GDC

The Concept of Freedom by the Founding Fathers	10-03-21-A.TG09-55 /

Astrology Is Not Astronomy: Jewish Star Worship; Astronomy Is a Science & Was Practiced by the Magi; It Observes the Order of the Creation; Methods of Communication Used by God in the Old Testament; the Teleological Method
The Jewish people have suffered the ravages of anti-Semitism since Ishmael taunted Isaac in Genesis 21:9.  It is curious that their history is dotted with holocausts, initially with them as executioners and later as victims.
In the Old Testament, involvement in astrology, including the worship of the planet Saturn, and the holocaust of their sons in Moloch’s furnace led to multiple fifth cycles of discipline.  
Following the last Diaspora of a.d. 70, the Israelites have suffered multiple holocausts because of their rejection of God’s Son and His substitutionary spiritual sacrifice on the cross.
Today in client nation America, we, too, are engaged in a very sophisticated worship of creation.  Hypotheses about the origin of the universe abound and billions of dollars are spent in space exploration, the discovery of clues to this riddle being one of its major objectives.  Plans are made to go to Mars to find that one drop of water that will convince the Progressives that there once was life on another planet and by the stretch of their imagination likewise throughout the universe.
Every effort today is designed to squeeze the last syllable of divine viewpoint and biblical truth from the public conversation.  The resultant vacuum has sucked in the lie so that we have the irony of searching for life elsewhere in the universe while on this earth we prevent human life from occurring through abortion or end it prematurely through euthanasia.  To quote Solomon:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 -	That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done.  So there is nothing new under the sun.
The emphasis from this point forward in our study will be in astronomy.  This is the science of identifying, studying, and mapping celestial objects and calculating their movements.  More specifically:
Astronomy (Greek astron, “star”; nomos, “law”) is the scientific study of all objects outside the Earth and its immediate environment, including the Moon, Sun, planets, stars, the Galaxy and similar external star systems, interplanetary and interstellar matter, and the universe as a whole.  It must be distinguished from astrology, which has no scientific bases.
Compared with other experimental sciences, astronomy has certain limitations.  First, apart from meteorites, the Moon, and the nearer planets, the objects of study are inaccessible and cannot be manipulated, although nature sometimes provides special conditions, such as eclipses and other temporary effects.  The astronomer must usually content himself with studying radiation emitted or reflected from celestial bodies.
Second, from the Earth’s surface these are viewed through a thick atmosphere that completely absorbs most radiation.  (p. 245)
Astronomy has been carried on from the earliest times by amateurs using their spare time and resources and by professionals working in universities and institutions financed by governments or privately.  The governmental tradition goes back to antiquity, when priests and other high officials already were engaged in astronomy to fix the seasons and calendar and to study celestial omens. (p. 246)

Bernard E. J. Pagel, “Astronomy and Astrophysics,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia, 15th ed. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1979), 2:245–46.

These ancient professionals included the Parthian Magi whose observance of the heavenly bodies was a part of their function as the Empire’s priests.  Observations by ancient astronomers led to the discovery of the luminaries’ repetitive cycles and the order of their movements.  From this order, the Magi and others like them were able to bring order to their societies.  The skies forecast the arrival and passing of seasons which in an agrarian society was most important.  From this information were developed calendars and methods of timekeeping.
The Heavenly Bodies.  To the sacred writers, the ordinances of heaven taught the lesson of Order—great, magnificent, and immutable.  Day by day, the sun rose in the east, “as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber” (Psalm 19:5), and pursued unswervingly his appointed path across the sky, to his going down.  Night by night, the stars, the “host of heaven,” moved in their “highways” or “courses.”
But, as the year revolved, the dial of the stars in the north shifted round; while of the other stars, those in the west disappeared into the light of the setting sun, and new stars seemed to spring out of the dawning light.  There was thus a yearly procession of the stars was well as a nightly one.
And to this “ordinance of the heaven” the Hebrews noted that there was an answer from the earth, for in unfailing correspondence came the succession of seasons, the revival of vegetation and ripening of harvest and of fruits, the return of winter’s cold.  Of them God asked the question: “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?  Can you establish the dominion thereof in the earth?” (Job 38:33), and they recognized that to this question no answer could be given, for these ordinances of heaven were the sign and evidence of Almighty wisdom, power and unchangeableness.

E. W. Maunder, “Astronomy,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, ed. James Orr (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956), 1:301

From these references we have defined astrology as an occult system devised by Lucifer to turn the handiwork of God into a source of quasi religious beliefs that puts emphasis on the creation rather than the Creator.
Astronomy is the study of observable objects in outer space, the charting of their clocklike rotation, and the predictability of those movements.  From a biblical worldview, astronomy is the study of God’s extraterrestrial creation and recognition that its orderly arrangement serves as a testimony that He exists as an all-knowing, all-powerful deity.  
Before mankind was blessed with written revelation from God, He communicated to them by several means: (1) theophanies, (2) dreams, (3) visions, and (4) angels.
There is a fifth means by which God communicated to man and that is by means of His creation.  This is technically referred to as the Teleological Argument:
The observation of the structure of the universe indicates the need for a designer.  Both microscopic and telescopic phenomena, from the structure of an atom to the configuration of galaxies, display order, design, arrangement, purpose, and adaptation that demand both a Creator and a Preserver (Col. 1:16–17).  The probability that an orderly universe emerged from primordial chaos, even over a period of billions of years, is about the same as a Shakespearean sonnet appearing in a can of alphabet soup!

R. B. Thieme, Jr., Heathenism, 3d ed. (Houston: R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 2001), 16–17.

That the creation communicates to man is confirmed throughout Scripture, one in particular that professes the testimony of creation is Psalm 19:1–6.

© 2010 by Joe Griffin Media Ministries.  All rights reserved.	www.joegriffin.org