Psalm 19
“19 The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
2 Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,And their words to the end of the world.”
For 2,500 years, from creation to Moses, there was no written word of God. Nevertheless, the wonderful story of the Gospel, of the Champion He would send to us, was passed down from father to son.
Was it simply oral tradition, as some maintain? Yes and no. You see, though it was not recorded on paper or writing tablets, God “wrote” the Gospel story in the night sky. That’s what David was talking about in the opening verses from Psalm 19. He and people of ancient times not only how to read it: They knew what it meant. Now you can, too!
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Not Astrology!
This beautiful love letter to us is NOT astrology but THE REAL STORY as our Heavenly Father Himself wrote it.
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What is astrology really? It is the devil’s counterfeit and nothing more than another in a long line of varied and pathetic attempts to pervert the REAL story: The One told by The One about THE ONE…..JESUS! I certainly hope it goes without saying that Christians have NO business dabbling in horoscopes and astrology. The stars DO NOT rule our lives:The Bright and Morning Star, JESUS, does. AMEN!
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Jesus Preached The Gospel To Abram.
In Genesis 15, God addressed Abram saying to him, “I Am your shield and great reward.” He then took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your SEED be. 6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
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Count? You mean like count all the stars: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…..2,872, 2,873, 2,874…..like that? I used to read that and think that’s what He meant. But it doesn’t really make sense that you can learn about the story of Jesus just by counting all the stars in the sky, does it? So what did Jesus mean? Let’s do a little word study.
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Translator Issues.
The translation in this passage is a bit unfortunate. The Hebrew word for “count” in this verse is, “Saphar.” It means “Count,” but not in the sense of numeric counting, but “to count, recount or relate,” as in telling a story. What Jesus was telling Abram was “Ifyou can recount, or tell, the story in the stars, so shall your DESCENDANT (singular) be.”
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Notice I didn’t say, “Descendants,” (plural) as some versions of the Bible do do, most notably the NKJV. Here again in this verse, the translation of the original Hebrew is a bit unfortunate. The word translated as “descendants–plural” in some versions is actually not plural. The Hebrew word here is “Zera,” which means “SEED.” It’s referring to Abram’s offspring or Seed, Jesus. It is SINGULAR. Jesus is The Seed Who would come from Abraham’s own body, referring back to Genesis 3 where God said that “The SEED of the woman” would crush the serpent’s head.
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Jesus Himself is speaking to Abraham here. This is one of His many epiphanies before He came to earth as a baby. He “recounted,” or told, the story as written in the night sky to Abraham: The story of the Champion, the Dragon Slayer, his own DESCENDANT: (SINGULAR), Who would come in the fullness of time. Abram saw in the stars irrefutable proof of the veracity of His words. He believed God and THAT belief was credited to him as righteousness.”
Paul refers to this meeting between Abraham and Jesus in Galatians 3 below.
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Abram Believed God.
Galatians 3:5-9
“Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—6 just as ABRAHAM “BELIEVED GOD, and it was ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,PREACHED THE GOSPEL TO ABRAHAMbeforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with (along with) believing Abraham.”
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See? It says God “PREACHED THE GOSPEL” to him. Jesus told Abraham the story by showing him and “saphar–recounting” the story blasted all over the night sky. It was the very same gospel that you and I believe today. The only difference is that he lived long before the cross.
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Psalm 19.
This same word, “saphar,” that is used here in Genesis 15 is the same word translated, “Declare,” in Psalm 19:
“The heavens “declare (saphar)” the glory of God…..”
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Now, there is a portion of scripture where Abram is told that his descendants (plural) will be as numerous as the stars in Genesis 22. That passage does talk about the numbers of his “descendants-plural,” referring to natural Israel. But such is not the case in Genesis 15.
Jesus came as a Jew and, although blessing to the whole world did, and does, come through the Jewish people, Jesus is THE ONE through Whom all those blessings flow.
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So what is the REAL story in the stars? Let’s begin at the beginning by going back to the oldest book of all: Job.
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The REAL Story In The Stars.
The first time the LORD spoke directly to Job is recorded in chapter 38 where He mentions that the morning stars sang together in vs. 7. Then, in verses 31-32, God asked him,“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?”
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He is speaking here of the constellations: The seven stars of the Pleiades and the constellations of Orion and the Bear. The word for constellations in Hebrew is “Mazzaroth,” which means “Zodiac.” Again, this is not astrology.It is the original story as God created it in order to tell the marvelous story of His Son to all generations. He quite literally blasted the story of Redemption FROM ONE END OF THE HEAVENS TO THE OTHER!
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Evil Invention.
Why did the devil invent astrology? Because he hates God and he hates man, especially believers. Why? Because God loves us! You see, He knows that man, whom God made in His image, is beloved of God and so valuable to Him as to be beyond price. Now, he cannot strike at God directly so he does the next best thing: He strikes at us.
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He perverted the gospel story so that man would deceived into not accepting and believing in the Champion God would one day send, effectively sentencing those whom God loves to hell. That hurts Him more than we can ever comprehend! The devil doesn’t want us to learn the truth, get saved, and spread the good news to the whole world. He wants to kill everyone and send them all to hell.
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He hates the nation of Israel with a passion because The Dragon Slayer came into the world as a Jew. He ERRONEOUSLY figured that if he could pervert the story, perhaps he would be able to stop the birth of God’s Champion and stop Him FROM CRUSHING HIS HEAD!
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Well…..He FAILED: UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY!
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Reading The Story In The Stars.
The real story does not begin with the constellation of Aries the ram as the astrology of today would have you believe. It begins with Virgo, the Virgin. Look back into the history of the constellations you’ll find that ancient depictions of this star grouping have her sitting down with a small male child on her lap, as pictured above. She also held a stalk of both wheat and corn in one hand.
Jesus is that small child on her lap. He is the bread of life. He is the grain of wheat which, when it falls into the earth, it dies, typifying His death which would bring salvation to the world.
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Since the story begins with Virgo, then it must end with Leo, the lion! Matthew, the FIRST book of the New Testament, is the FIRST to recount the VIRGIN BIRTH of our Savior. Revelation, the LAST book of the New Testament, is where Jesus is first called “THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH.” He is the triumphant King Who crushed the head of the great dragon; our enemy, satan.
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HALLELUJAH!!! Jesus is the FIRST and Jesus is the LAST!
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Now, think for just a moment: Where do we find all the stories of Jesus both before and after the cross? The New Testament, of course. What does that tell you? That the story above our heads in the night sky is the entire New Testament!
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Confirmation To Israel.
This serves as one of the many confirmations to natural Israel, Jesus’ relatives, that the 27 books of the New Testament are the HOLY WORD OF THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB. There are many other confirmations and clues left for the Jewish people to find, proving that the New Testament is Holy Writ.
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Below is a link to another one of those clues hidden in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, which you may follow if you‘d like to know more on that topic:
https://emmausroadministries.international/2020/03/31/gods-word-is-health-marpeh-מרפא/
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A Clue To Jesus’ Actual Birthday?
There are other clues as to the actual time and date of Jesus’ birth. Consider this: The constellation Virgo appears in the month of September, in case you were unaware. Do you know what Jewish feast is celebrated in September? The Feast of Tabernacles: Sukkot!
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How very interesting! John 1:14 it says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling (TABERNACLE) among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The word “tabernacle” refers to Jesus’ physical body. Our own tabernacles, for example, are temples of the Holy Spirit.
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(For more on the story of His birth and some little known, but fascinating history about the Inn, you may follow the link below:
https://emmausroadministries.international/2019/11/09/chimhams-inn-christmas-series-part-3-of-7/)
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The Night Sky.
Let’s now dial back the night sky to the time of Jesus’ birth. The feast of tabernacles of the year in question occurred on Sept. 20th. Hmmm……do you think that could be Jesus’ real birthdate? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do! We’ll be discussing the real date of His birth in part 9 of this series.
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This article is the first in a series of 44. The whole story is like a 3-act play with 48 scenes. At the end of each article is a link to the next one if you’re interested in the following along and learning the whole story. It is filled with such detail about God’s Champion that even the ancient names of individual stars that have come down to us line up perfectly to fill in details of the matchless story of our awesome Redeemer!
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Why 12 Constellations?
12 us an interesting number. There are 12 constellations for the 12 sons of Jacob. Each tribe in ancient Israel was represented by one of these 12 star signs. The tribe of Levi, for example, was charged with the “balances of the sanctuary,” hence “Libra” typifies them. Judah, no surprise, is represented by “Leo,” the Lion of the tribe of Judah, since Jesus, THE LION of the tribe of Judah, came from that tribe.
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Why Did God Confuse The Language Of Men?
The key as to why God had to confuse the languages of the people over the issue of the Tower of Babel is directly related to story in the stars. We will be covering that topic in the next part of this series.
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Understandably, this whole topic may be a little bit touchy for some because the devil perverted the real story. Many believers are hesitant as a result to learn the truth. Nonetheless, the beautiful, awesome, incomprehensible story is still written there in the night sky for us to see and to be blessed by it. It’s just further confirmation of how much we are loved by God and another of the many reasons why He can say unequivocally that “all are without excuse.” Everyone knows there is a God, whether they admit it or not. He says so.
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I write about it because I hate that the Church has been robbed of the blessing this wonderful story brings, this love letter from our Daddy, just for us! Today, of course, we have the written word of God and no longer need to rely on the stars to tell the gospel story. But it is still there. Besides, some of you may know people who believe in astrology and horoscopes. Now you will be able to tell the the REAL story about the REAL Jesus!
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And that, Church, is the beginning of THE REAL STORY IN THE STARS!
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You may follow the link below to part 2 to continue this series:
https://emmausroadministries.international/2020/05/20/the-real-story-in-the-stars-part-2-the-tower-of-babel/
