Wednesday Bible Study - September 22, 2021

is [Music] i am [Music] oh [Music] [Music] shingle my name is pastor john i'm one of the pastors on staff here at st mark and this is our wednesday night bible study we're using a totally different format we're having a sit down conversation with me and pastor porner as we discuss knock off spirituality i hope that you all have been blessed so far by our sessions as a matter of fact those of you who are in the chat i see you all on facebook on youtube and our live stream uh right in the chat what has been your favorite part of this series so far what has been most helpful for you we have talked about a lot of stuff we talked about healing crystals um and that was last week which was a good session and we've also dealt with other issues like our ancestors and being able to honor our ancestors without worshiping our ancestors so we really do hope that this has been something that's been really helpful for each and every one of you so make sure you all share the broadcast on our various platforms whether it be facebook youtube or our live stream we're looking forward to continuing this series here in just a moment there was something over the top of my face okay good good good we just removed it okay so uh i see you on facebook rick joyce lilly uh crystal valerie shonda carolyn good evening uh share one thing that you have appreciated about this series so far tonight we're gonna get into it we're gonna talk about horoscopes in a episode called do do do wishing on the star wishing on the start so looking forward to talking about them horoscopes that y'all read some of y'all be reading uh we're gonna have a conversation about that we're going to look at the history of the practice because it's nothing that's new to our culture but we're also going to look at a biblical study on horoscopes stargazing things of that nature in scripture uh rick says i i like that dead is dead god is alive yes stones are dead and we talked about that and we said that the the tree that was in the end of revelation was a living tree with healing in its wings so we certainly um ann stewart said this should be good we certainly hope so we certainly hope so as a matter of fact we might mess up your christmas but you make everybody [Laughter] but you'll you'll appreciate us for it i'm pretty sure you will miss people says happy wednesday can't wait this has been awesome birthstones were very helpful due to everyone has okay yeah good good to hear from y'all glad to hear that well tonight it's a natural progression to going from birthstones to talking about those 12 signs and horoscopes so y'all be ready and make sure you share you know people be liking them horoscopes i'm a gemini i'm a taurus well we gonna get into it tonight okay we definitely are and we certainly want you to share this with folks that y'all know who'll be loving those horoscopes and we're going to provide them with some biblical context around it and hopefully uh get some things straight here so i appreciate you all for joining us each week uh as we continue through this series knock off spirituality next week i'm gonna give y'all a preview we're talking about manifestation oh so make sure y'all be here next week because that one's going to be 5-2 for sure we'll be in the chat tonight talking with you all uh chatting with you all about what's going on in the session and looking forward to getting into it with y'all those of you who are calling on the phones appreciate you all the love that y'all show us every week on the phone even though you can't see us we appreciate you and good evening to everybody who's been faithfully joining us each week we're going to go ahead here in just a second get right into the session 30 30. [Laughter] uh crystal said next week's studies about manifestation yes don't miss it and forget don't forget we have thursday nights we do a q a live so we'll go live in our growth factor group if you haven't joined it go over and join it we do a q a based on the session on wednesday night so make sure you join that group because we have some good conversations over there too all right well we about to go i'm looking forward to uh y'all hearing this on tonight and we're going to get right into it god bless you good evening and welcome to the virtual bible study of the saint mark baptist church i'm philip l porner senior and i'm here with pastor john richards and it's our great joy for you to be a part of this study that we're continuing that we're calling knock off spirituality our theme this year is relaunch we want to reconnect with what it means uh to grow growing learning and serving and giving at st mark our mantra is you grow here to that end we're looking at uh all of the ways that we connect with god through uh spiritual uh disciplines we've talked about that this year in bible study and then we're looking at the ways that are not quite biblical ways that people believe they can connect with god or connect with the divine um but they're always substitutes they're always cheap copies of the real thing and so we are talking about knockoff spirituality and tonight we've got a great great discussion for you tonight uh that we're going to be talking about uh the subject of astrology so listen i want to pray i want to ask god to bless our time in this discussion and most of all in his word and then i want you to be inviting encouraging others to join in to listen to pay attention to what's happening to what's being said and ultimately uh ideally to connect with god in the meaningful ways the biblical ways that connect us to uh divine things and the divine person who is the lord jesus christ himself so let's pray friends and as i'm praying you're inviting and we'll get into the study tonight let's look to the lord together god we are so grateful for your grace in our lives and for the mercy that you give us um that is beyond our expectation and certainly more than we deserve god we approach your study tonight this study because we want to hear from you and we want to know your will we want to know what is true and what is real and what is right so that we operate in what is true and real and right those things that are god glorifying and that are edifying for our souls so open us up help us to hear your voice help us to be receptive and ultimately responsive and we thank you for these things we thank you for all things in jesus name amen amen we're going to talk about horoscopes and astrology this week pete yeah oh yeah you ready for that let's go so we've had this uh unhealthy over human history kind of an unhealthy enamored state around the heavens since the beginning of time right so since then many people have tried to read or as our episode says wish upon a star because stars have always intrigued us they've been above us in the sky they've they've guided many people and we've had this unhealthy relationship with those things in the sky and it has manifested itself today to millions of people actually either innocently looking to stars or horoscopes to predict their future or to lead them on paths and it is a spiritual practice for a lot of people including believers and most people will find that it's innocent in their lives they say oh it's just like me waking up and reading the newspaper and ironically they're in your paper yeah right so they see it as innocent as part of their coffee and horoscope to begin their day well today we want to talk about that practice in the context of christian the christian life and christian ministry and as pastors we want to help you all realize that it's not as innocent as it seems right so i want to make sure that we start though as we do with most of our episodes with the history of astrology and horoscopes yeah and and pastor john let me let me add the concern that many um i hear from many of our members people say it again some jokingly being trying to be um you know just culturally relevant those kinds of things one of the things that is especially troubling is people who find their sense of identity from their horoscope or their astrological sign that that concerns those of us who are followers of jesus christ because as followers of jesus christ our identity comes from christ and not from our sign and so you know i mean in to the degree people won't date certain signs or they you know they they tell their children well that's why you act like that you're such a tourist you're such a virgo those kinds of things and so when we look back at it historically and as we walk through its practice and see it biblically we're going to see that our nature cannot be defined by the arrangement of the constellations at the time of our birth from earth's perspective so you know it's it's it goes all the way back to the ancient near east and so in the ancient near east culture uh you know they ascribe divinity to the sun to the moon to the stars and to celestial events comets um and and the like so this is why genesis and then throughout the law this is why creation is addressed as always being subject to the creator because again our bible wasn't written in a vacuum and so moses is well aware he he's raised in egypt in the house of pharaoh he's well aware that they have deified these celestial bodies uh in cultures around them and in some places in egypt there was a cult of a sun or cult of the moon um and and so it it's it's a it's a direct address the the genesis one directly addresses that these things are not to be worshipped they are to point us to the one who is to be worshipped and so you know the israelites are surrounded by all of these cultures that practice astrology regularly uh and you know you go to ezra chapter four and you're going to see that there's a library built in nineveh by king a snapper around 650 bc that has this you know this major cachet of you know 27 tablets of astrological texts on early cuneiform so there's this goes way way back it's not a new discovery it's not a new practice goes way back to ancient times uh and it comes forward then john to the babylonians even after that uh so they thought their gods lived above their earthly temple on the other side of the heavens and that the sky the babylonian babylonians believe that the sky was the mediating area between humans on earth and the gods in heaven so these cultures that looked to the stars um to find identity and to predict their future if it worked it didn't work for them yeah yeah you know babylon is gone essentially it's where it's where uh iraq is now so that that nation was defeated by the persians and so forth and so on uh the mighty glory of egypt in its past uh has fallen and faded away um so those those nations that looked to these stars to these signs um they didn't make it they didn't make it and so you know you look at it uh then you bring it forth you know because the greeks westerners are always and lord help me with this but they're always taking and co-opting and reframing and acting as if they invented something and so the term zodiac is a greek term which simply means circle of animals it's what they took from those far uh or near east cultures um those persons who were uh ahead of them mathematically scientifically they they then took their systems of faith and co-opted them into what we now call the zodiac yeah yeah and then as we often do in contemporary culture we take those things and try to add more significant meaning to them right so in western astrology as we fast forward to today the zodiac now becomes this imaginary belt that's surrounding the earth that has this appearance of 12 zodiac constellations and y'all know these because you know your signs as he mentioned earlier most of us know what our sign is and as p said we try to make major life decisions based on how we are created as a sign in this constellation so i'm a scorpio so i'm gonna you know i'm gonna be angry all the time and folks ain't gonna like me yeah that's just how we do we're gonna sting you um so folks though they make major life decisions are you married who you date where you go and socialize based on this concept of these constellations that were meant from the beginning to be signs and astrologers today have continued to use this concept that we know historically that ptolemy who created this geocentric model of the universe so back then um he decided that the earth was the center of the universe right through his scientific research now along comes and a lot of this played out in the church yes along comes copernicus it called the copernicus revolution and he says the sun is the center of the universe yeah we all know that to be scientifically true today right the sun is the center of our um the earth and all the other planets around our solar solar system right so the sun being the sun the center of our solar system you know who pushed back first on that the church the church every time the church pushed back on this idea of the sun being the center of our solar system and they adhered to that ptolemy model of the earth center model because they wanted to be stubborn in the way they were thinking as a matter of fact he got persecuted severely for his scientific research and for his his outstanding work around this heliocentric solar system that we know to be scientifically true and taught in schools today now here's the interesting thing earth centered generally means that the planet that we live live on is the center of everything else around us it really sounds like the culture that we've created today a mesenteric culture right yes sir because we're the center of our personal solar systems that anything that revolves around us needs to serve us and we're going to talk about this a little bit in our next episode around manifestation but there's this there's this self-awareness or self-centeredness that comes even with this model that is based on the horoscope model now if you are a believer in the 21st century and you know there's a heliocentric model now and this is based on the earth center model at the very least you have to say that this is based on a faith a false model yeah and i don't know i don't know if we can stress that enough john so let me be let's be very very clear the zodiac your sign i'm a leo i'm a capricorn i'm a sagittarius doesn't really work because it's based on a time when people thought scientifically that the celestial bodies the sun and the moon and the other planets revolved around the earth that's how they determined that's how they determined which sign was which at what time it it it was from the earth's perspective but we know scientifically that the sun is the center of the earth so the so these celestial bodies that they thought revolved around the earth do not move around the earth the earth moves around the sun and the other bodies move around the sun and gravitational pull you know causes that that uh that pattern that is not quite an oval but whatever that is that the earth is on that track that the earth is on um so that whatever your sign is it's not really your sign because look it's being measured from the wrong place in the first place the starting point is wrong and so you're saying to me i can't tell people around here to trust the science when i'm walking around trusting my horoscope can't do it can't do both wow can't you can't have the science of the way the universe is working and the horoscope at the same time yeah and let's be clear astrology is not the same as astronomy not the same thing no right so astronomy is biblical we would say it's biblical and we're going to look at a biblical text that shows that but astrology is based off of magic superstition astronomy is actually based on actual science it's measurable any science is going to be measurable you cannot measure astrology it's based on superstition it's based on magic it's based on people drawing pictures in the sky and you have to understand the distinction there because there are going to be some people that say well you know astronomy is is is science so why are you saying no there are two different things there's a distinction there so we want to look at as we turn to scripture because we always want to make sure that we turn to god's word as we discuss these matters we don't want to look at a text that really lays out an astronomical case but i would argue also a theological case very much so for against um even diving into uh astrology or horoscopes and that's found in the beginning and let me see this as we're going to genesis chapter one so we're gonna look at genesis chapter 1 verses 14 through 19 and the creation account uh which i think is one of the most critical aspects of understanding god and scripture as a whole it's the beginning for a reason um yeah it assumes the existence of god it doesn't set about to prove it it assumes the existence of god it ascribes to god creative power and imagination yep that that that god invented wet you know what i mean he invented hot and cold and and those kinds of things now i do want to say this john as we're turning there these signs the scorpion the archer the lion the crab the scale the scales people looked up in the sky and said that kind of looks like a crab to me do you understand do you cancer that's what happened they looked up in the sky and said that kind of looks like a lion to me there is no set of stars and it again from a human perspective the stars were not arranged to look that way necessarily for significance or meaning and you know both of us love movies fiction oh he's like oh yeah you are star wars buffs my kids and i we love mcu we love the marvel com common universe we love them all yeah so those stories are meant to entertain you not inform your spiritual life correct and that's what that's what these zodiac signs are they're they entertain people because they're entertaining stories they tell these stories and these myths and these legends and we've you know i've gone through greek legend classes and talked about the grief mythology and there's interesting stories but when those things begin to inform your spiritual life that's when they become problematic and when they become either substitutes or you think they are supplemental to scripture you're in a world of trouble right there yeah in a world of truth because what ends up happening is we tend toward the scripture calls us out of self-centeredness into god-centeredness and service to others that's what scripture's always going to do but i want the horoscope to be true because as it does from a perspective on earth so it does with my internal perspective it makes me the center mm-hmm it makes me the center yeah yeah it does and i i want to get back before we read this i want to get to to the point that this is a theological text so much time and energy has been spent on trying to figure out how old the earth is based on this text and moses didn't have that in mind when he wrote it not at all he's writing it in an ancient near east culture where the people are surrounded again we've talked about this before with cultures that worship pagan and idol gods let me name a few of them sun god moon god animals and when you see this text when we read genesis 1 is not so much god saying here's when it happened right here's why it happened here's why in john one of the one of the things if you've been hanging around saint mark for any length of time you've heard me talk about genesis 1 before one of the most critical parts of interpreting genesis chapter one is understanding it's a poem yeah it's a song it's not merely narration it is the beginning which is a which begins with a song of adoration for the creative power of god this god who makes everything out of nothing ex nihilo is the term out of nothing out of nowhere god makes this everything and so when we're reading it we have to remember we're reading it not from it not because moses intends for us to have an investigation he he intends for us to be informed to the end that we see the glory of god so we're not meant to examine the text that text is meant to examine us who is this great god wow what how great is this god and intentionally so so that we can see as god deals with humankind for the rest of genesis and then throughout the rest of the first five books this is why this god must be worshiped and obeyed yeah so this very well well could be put in the book of psalms yes as an as as worship to god absolutely so as a poem in worship to god so let's take a look at genesis 1 and i want to look at 10 through 14 but first i want to look at probably three and four to provide some context right so verse three says and god said let there be light and there was light and god saw that the light was good and god separated the light from the darkness and he called the light day in the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day now how are we going to measure days and nights god is a god of order yep and i always tell people who complained about me being so structured i said let's go to genesis 1 and have a conversation yeah this is how god started the world yeah and then we get down to um after he creates the expanses in water he goes to verse number 14 here and it says and god said let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years there it is here's the reason why i created these things yep signs seasons days and years years not to tell you who you are no or your future and let them be signs and let them be light in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth and it was so and god made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night now here's the crazy part about that those two lights the sun and the moon had names in this culture yes and god was like i'm not even gonna name them i'm not gonna name them why because i don't want you to think i made other gods come on this is not a democracy no this is a theocracy yeah i'm not ruling in a council i'm ruling all by myself and these things that you're calling gods are actually created lights by common names he gives them and and here is here is one of the most critical parts of this understanding the culture that moses is writing to the culture he's writing in and the people he's writing to the israelites here's what they're grasping as they read this that this thing high in the sky that we see during the day that other people worship and sacrifice to isn't even the best part of god's creation wow because there's only one part of the creation yes sir that god said i'ma put my image on that and that's humankind so that here's the thing humans aren't to serve the sun or the stars the sun and the stars are made to serve humankind come on yes sir therefore our usefulness they are tools yeah to measure and mark time that's that's the explicit meaning of the text yep yeah yeah and that's exactly what it says and and god set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth verse 18 to rule over the day and over the night now that rule there is not ascribing them any worth as gods but it is an illustrative point to say that the sun will be out during the day yes right right right right it's going to occupy right yeah the movement is going to occupy the sky yes at night yep and look when you look up they are beautiful a full moon people love seeing it's gorgeous yeah but that doesn't mean that they are god like in their nature right and here he goes to separate the light from the darkness that's a purpose and god saw that it was good and to your point everything's good first day second day third day fourth day fifth day sixth day he creates mankind to rule in his image and he says very good yep yep so so so let me let's let's go back and look at the and look at this this this blew me away i'm i'm a bible nerd john as i know you are but i'm also an information junkie and a and i am a science junkie as well so physicists are now saying because it seems it seemed how how is there how how is their light on day one but we don't get the lights sun and moon and stars until day four how is that possible people have that question scientists are saying that at the origin of the universe however long ago they want to measure it to be at the origin of the universe that the chemical and mineral realities of matter were all light and as they came together gravitational pull pulled these elements together they then began to form the celestial bodies and what we see is space at one time was all light right and gravity coalesce those individual light particles into these celestial bodies stars and the sun you know sun is a star and and these these entities so there was light first then there were the lights scientifically wow which is what genesis describes explicitly in this creation account it says there was light first and then there were the lights and the intent and the purpose of god inventing gravity wow was to pull these lights together so as god puts humankind in place we can mark time that is the sole purpose yeah other than i mean and there's a spiritual purpose i'm this practical purpose the practical purpose is that we can mark time that we can mark time and i wanna i wanna john i want to i want to amplify that um a bit by going to the post-flood experience in genesis um yeah because god is going to reaffirm that purpose god's going to reaffirm that purpose in genesis chapter 8. so noah builds the ark um the flood comes god washes the earth clean and then in in genesis chapter 8 verse 20 noah gets out of the ark it's it's dry now so the first thing noah does is he builds an altar noah built an altar to the lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar yeah when the lord smelled the pleasing aroma the lord said in his heart i will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth neither will i ever strike down every living creature as i have done watch verse 22 while the earth remains see time and harvest cold and heat summer and winter day and night shall not cease what is governing this sea time harvest cold heat summer winter date night what's governing that it is our ability to measure the movement of the of the bodies of the universe by looking at the stars god reaffirms the purpose of the stars even as god prior to this reaffirms the purpose of man in chapter 8 when he gives noah the same instructions he gave pop adam and mama e same ones same instructions same instructions in uh in in verse 16 it says go out from the ark you and your wife and your sons son's wives are with you bring with you every living thing that is of all flesh birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth that they may swarm on the earth and listen to it again here's man's purpose reaffirmed be fruitful and multiply on the earth and then the reaffirmation of the purpose of the stars so humankind again the crown jewel of creation is humankind and the thing that god set in creation set up for humankind to be able to mark time is the stars and the purpose of humankind is reaffirmed right after the ark incident and then now the purpose of the creation around humankind including the sun moon and stars for the sake of knowing when to plant crops right when reap crops you know when to when to store grain away for the winter that's that's the purpose of them yeah it's a practical purpose yeah and and there is a science that is affirmed through this right and we do have astronomy which is a science that is affirmed through uh the words here and i'm glad that you read that passage because it talks about a day and night not ceasing but then there's a text that i want to read in isaiah 13 that talks about a phenomenon that wants to unpack here for a second because it's going to really help us understand why these things are still assigned yeah even when they're not functioning in the purpose that we see back then so um we're in isaiah 13. sorry that's that 14. so isaiah 13 this is an account of the judgment of babylon he's he's talking to the people of babylon who ironically are people who have this complex system of being able to read the moon and the sun and the stars they have this this great system in place yeah and look at what he says in isaiah 13 i'm going to start in verse 9 and read 9-10 it says behold the day of the lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger anger to make the land of a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it for the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light the sun will be dark and it's rising and the moon will not shed its light here's what he's getting at here he's talking about the judgment of god yes and there are signs that accompany the judgment of god now i'm not trying to get too happy here but it points forward yes sir to a day a friday yes sir yes sir where we see at 12 o'clock p.m during the day there's this event that occurs in the life of jesus as he's on the cross it says that the sun darkened from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock 6th hour to the 9th hour no eclipse in scripture when you see darkness it generally is accompanied by judgment and what we see in that text is we see god's full wrath and judgment coming down on jesus so that the son as this text says cannot even give light to the day cannot even operate in its original purpose it's almost as if god is reverse engineering his creation account right right like after the fall he's like i have to put something in place to get us back where we were and what i need to do now is make these items that i created for a purpose i need to take that purpose away so that i can judge the earth but then create a new creation yes that we'll see in revelation yep yep i won't put a pen there because i'm gonna get too happy here yeah but this text is really about judgment isn't it it's about judgment and even prior to the judgment of god that was due to us being poured out on jesus christ prior to that for the immediate readers in babylon or for the immediate hearers as isaiah is proclaiming this to babylon about its fall as you said they perceived their system of observation to be a system of revelation that's good they had ascribed undue significance to natural events undue spiritual significance to natural events and god says even when you see something happening you won't be able to tell what it is you'll be in the dark even as the celestial bodies are giving their light and and again judgment this idea that what you have um what you are counting on depending on it's ultimately going to fail outside of christ that that the wrath that is described in a microwave uh in a small way to babylon as a nation historically ultimately is going to be poured out in a macro way in an eternal way on jesus christ on the cross and we see that the that the sun is still even then just an indicator yes not a determiner it is still just showing you that there's something bigger happening than what you see so that's uh yeah that isaiah tex is it's it's so important it really is and as we bridge that gap and and talk about the new testament there's one text that i think many of the people who are watching may be familiar with but we might mess them up today and mess them up on on the podcast yeah and i want to make sure that we unpack this a little bit because it's a favorite of a lot of people around christmas time and it's found in matthew 2. i want to look at the first couple of verses but also read some of the other verses to provide it with them some context but first of all i want to i want to ruin some people's christmas right quick oh man oh man and talk a little bit about how we celebrate these accounts and how matthew and the us other gospel writers talked about jesus's origins because it's very important for us to understand that theologically right matthew is the gospel of the kingship of jesus he wants to present him as a king so this is why these kings come and bow and worship before him right right now luke the gospel for the marginalized absolutely you don't see kings there what do you see see shepherds shepherds you see women being prioritized in his gospel you see children being prioritizing his gospel so when we got all these major scenes in churches when you got shepherds sitting there with kings not the same thing john i also want to mess i also want to mess it up and i tell i tell people this all the time in fact um we've got great friends at saint mark's episcopal church and uh we we do a lot of ministry together and worship together often they invited me for epiphany which a lot of people don't know that's where the 12 days of christmas comes from and epiphany is when supposedly these magi arrived at the place where baby jesus was well the problem is it wasn't baby jesus mess him up it was a little boy jesus he's probably about two years old by the time so the so the shepherds are at the manger the magi don't make it to the manger he's long gone from the manger as a matter of fact they call it a house they tell us in the text it's a house he's in the house now you're messing people up yeah so they didn't make it to the birth uh the original birthday they got to take their stuff back to hobby lobby they missed the whole birthday party ain't no cake for the magi they didn't get there they were a couple of years behind and it wasn't three of them and it wasn't we don't we don't know how many there are that's that's one of our i don't know we don't know yeah we we know their three gifts don't save three people and generally they travel with in caravans caravans with a bunch of folks so they were they're anywhere to tens to hundreds but y'all can still keep singing we three kings yeah no no no no we you know i'm not trying to mess up your christmas phone and and if you've got a man just scene with with three uh three wise men there you know you don't have to rip it acro rip it out and all that stuff and you can still use the little drummer boy i like all of that stuff i'm just telling you what was historically and biblically true here's the other thing about these magi john um how did they know how did they know well these they're from the east yep they're from babylon that's good context they're from babylon they learned in babylon under a prophet named daniel yep the real meaning and use of stars they are not to be worshipped they're not to be used to determine identity but there would be an indication of times and seasons yeah there would be an indication god was going to indicate that the time in the season of the messiah god's son would come and they were because they had inherited this knowledge from daniel's time and daniel himself because daniel becomes the lead of those guys in in in babylon under nebuchadnezzar and um under other kings he maintains his influence and teaches them now they are able to see something happening in the heavens and properly interpreted yeah as a as marking a time marking a season that's good yeah that's good and that's exactly what we're seeing here so i'm gonna start in verse one and then skip down to verse nine but i wanna make sure we get context around that now after jesus was born in bethlehem of judea in the days of herod the king behold wise men from the east as you mentioned came to jerusalem saying where is he who has been born king of jews for we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him now that's important i'm glad you mentioned daniel there because you can see his influence resonate throughout that culture so that when they saw the sign they were able to recognize the sign and show up and be able to experience this in this text right yeah so then herod comes to them and says hey what gives wait king of the jews wait a minute what's this about now this is the king of the of the israelites yes he's supposed to know this he's he and here's the thing about herod and the heronia herodian dynasty and i don't want to chase this rabbit too far i love this rabbit but herod is not really the king he's what's called a vassal king he's a representative he's a puppet of the roman government he's also not really a child of israel he's not really a jew he's an edomite yeah he's the son of esau and what happened in the period between the writing of the old and the time of the new testament is that the israelites began to revolt they wanted to establish their identity again several people raised up and claimed to be the deliverer the messiah and they were always beaten militarily so to set them at peace so to speak rome began to give them someone who was with them who was like them but rome didn't make any distinguishing they you know edomite israelite they don't matter wrong it don't matter the wrong you know what i'm saying whatever esau your daddy uh jacob your daddy don't matter jerome so they they gave it to herod in the herodian dynasty and his you know uh that that family began to rule uh judea specifically uh because rome just wanted to keep the rebellions down yeah yeah and they really didn't have any power in the context of the roman empire no that's what makes them vassal or puppet kings here's what they could do they could judge um cases criminal cases um and their real job was just to be politically astute enough to please rome by collecting enough taxes by keeping the peace in that area and by making the people feel like they had some sense of independence yeah yeah give placate them pacify them so herod is a politician now he's a great builder he builds a whole lot of of amazing um uh buildings um but his he's a politician trying to please rome trying to keep the jews pacified and then he hears hey man the king of the jews right and that's important because you'll see throughout the herodian dynasty that anybody who is a threat even their own kids yes they will kill absolutely even their own sons they murder because they don't want them to be a threat to their power so when he hears about this messiah it's not so that he can as he says in the text here right go and worship him no that's not the point he got other plans for jesus yeah so that's what he says he says um go and search diligently for the child and when you have found him bring me word and i too may come and worship him after listening to the king they went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them so this star was moving until it came to rest over the place where the child was when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy and going into the house yes there's a house there they saw the child with mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him then opening their treasures they offered him gifts gold frankincense and myrrh and being warned in the dream dreamed not to return the hair herod they departed to their own country by another way it's so much so much in there oh goodness so this is a unique miracle i would say celestial event miracle mm-hmm john i preached sermon years ago about um the sun standing still called a one-hit wonder sometimes god does something one time for the sake of facilitating divine purpose and there is no reason there is no need to repeat that event jesus is not being born through the womb of a virgin again yeah that has happened it was sufficient it was enough we don't need another one the the coming of these magi they're coming to worship they're coming to give gifts it is a further affirmation two things it's a further affirmation to joseph and mary of who jesus is yep the other thing is it's intentional in the in the in the providential um planning of god it's in herod must seek to kill the christ child because what we're going to see after this is that they flee to egypt to fulfill the prophecy out of egypt i've called my son yeah that's good so god sets up this star this moving star specifically to affirm in that culture what daniel had left prophetically to affirm to mary and joseph who christ was and also to facilitate biblical prophecy yeah yeah that was it and not just egypt the one about uh rebecca yes crying for her children the slaughter of the son of the innocent yeah so many prophecies connected with this miraculous event but it is a sign that points to the child in this house yes who is jesus yes the the magi don't say oh i'm such a scorpio now they don't say oh i'm a leo it all points to jesus it all points to jesus yeah yeah yeah and and in terms of signs and prophecies and end times i know people get freaked out about things like that but these uh celestial bodies also are going to play a role in knowing the end times yes and jesus specifically speaks about this in matthew's gospel yeah in matthew 24. because this isn't something that just happened on calvary on that day right we're actually gonna look at a sign here that also um reflects what we read in that isaiah text people will be skipping over this section oh yeah it's it ain't cute it ain't going to cute the abomination of desolation and then coming so uh we're going to talk about the coming of the summer the son of man the second coming right um i'll start in 29 immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of man and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory yes these same celestial bodies that we see show up in genesis that we see show up at the event on the cross will again show up when jesus returns to establish his church will be the sun will be darkened the moon will be darkened the text says that the stars that y'all are depending on now right to tell your future are going to fall from the sky yeah yeah and then he will establish his kingdom and i know you want to go to revelation because i'm thinking about it myself too yeah yeah we're going to go there but i want to talk about that matthew 24 just a bit because here's the thing so end times are scary and spooky to a lot of people oh we don't know what when is it going to happen what's going to happen yeah but i have to do um here's the short answer the most thorough answer i can give we don't know if you've been hanging out with me a long time you know i always say prophecy look at the biblical prop what they were saying and what they meant we can look back at them through the lens of the of the first advent the first coming of jesus christ and say accurately what they meant but the prophecies about the second coming of christ are just that they are for us as they were for them we see through glass darkly we don't this is not a measurement of time um it's not going to be something that's humanly observable this is a this is a word of hope and warning to trust christ to live as followers of jesus christ so this idea of the sun and the moon and the stars once again not written in a vacuum jesus is telling a culture around him remember the greeks and the romans adopted co-opted did an affectation of the faith of the babylonians and the egyptians and other uh eastern uh nations they had brought forward this worship of the sun apollos uh they this worship of nature the great god zeus was the god who had thunderbolts jesus is saying the stuff that this culture thinks is powerful that's why he says explicit that christ is stronger greater larger bigger grander and he's the one whom we should love and serve and anticipate joyfully the end times for believers should not be a time of fear they should be they should be for us a word of one comfort it ain't gonna be like this always hallelujah and then also a word that puts us on notice to serve and to and to and to execute uh the will of god for our lives there's gonna be a time where no man can work there's gonna be a day jesus says i must work the works watch his illustration while it's dated because the night is coming again times and seasons there's coming a time when no man can work so to your point all this stuff is falling from the sky i'm nervous in the new creation what is going to be their roles or are they going to have roles and if not how am i going to see like what's going to be what's going to be the future for us as believers if we do believe in christ i think that's a great a great question and i think we've got to go to the book of revelation which is going to tell us is there a future role an ultimate role for the sun and the moon and the stars i think that that that question john because let me say this let me tell you why it's important i believe it's important i believe it's important because if i'm determining my identity and my destiny based on something i want to be something that's going to be there forever yeah that's good i don't i don't want i don't want it to be something that's eventually going to fade and be and be replaced if i'm still here and it's not how will i know myself yeah yeah how will i know who i am i think so i think revelation 22 really really locks in on the future and what that looks like for us as believers and then the role of that the sun and the other celestial bodies in the future of um our state and our existence yeah yeah yeah yeah and and so we i think we talked about it with uh with revelation 22 this this river that's flowing these these uh these healing leaves that are on this tree um but but revelation 21 22 mm-hmm so chapter 21 verse 22 john says i saw no temple in the city for its temple yeah is the lord god the almighty and the lamb and the city has no need of a sun or moon to shine on it yes sir for the glory of god gives it light and its lamp is the lamb it's light the nations will walk and the kings of the earth and will bring their glory into it and its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there it will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations but nothing unclean will ever enter it nor anyone who doesn't what is detestable or false only those who are written in the lamb's book of life john the sun the moon the stars their benefit for us in creation will be made void in the new creation yeah i don't find my identity in stars and the sun or the moon or the movement of celestial bodies because that's going to be temporary anyway i need to find who i am for eternity wow i'm not such a leo i've got a better lamb i'm i'm that's that's who that's who i look to to define me who am i in light of jesus christ what about christ defines me well his holiness demonstrates that i am a sinner his sacrifice demonstrates that i can be forgiven his resurrection demonstrates that i can be justified and i can live with cro with god forever when i look at my life in the light of the person and work of the lord jesus christ i don't need the stars to tell me who i am i just need the stars to tell me it's september the 10th wow and and this brings to to bear jesus's words in the gospel when he says i am the light of the world yeah that that reality is going to be in a reality when this earth passes away yeah and it's our responsibility as believers to stand up in a world that is darkened and provide them with that light because that's that's why jesus says let your lights shine before other people so they can see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven so even then our lights are support supposed to point to jesus as the light looking forward to this day in revelation 21 where we don't need sun we don't need moon we don't need stars but we have jesus who is the light of the world yes sir and our responsibility as believers is to point people to him so that the darkness that pervades this world will be invaded by the light of christ and by seeing that and by experiencing that they'll be able to walk in this new city that doesn't need the light of the sun the light of the moon or the light of any celestial body or horoscopes but can dwell and live off of the lamb of god who gave himself for us who loved us enough to provide us with that light so that we don't have to walk in darkness and and john we know that this is true it's true because the bible says it but science also says that all the sun which is another star and the stars are doing are they are burning themselves out scientific they're eventually every star will burn itself out and die and why would i want to be defined by what is dying to live no more come on i want to be defined by the one who said in revelation i was dead but i'm alive and i'm alive forever and more yeah and that's one of the things those are the things we want you all to take away from this is that one is that only god knows your end from the beginning and only he knows the end from the beginning his creation does not it may have to point you to the creator god don't take something that showed up in the beginning and make it your idol allow that thing to point you to the creator god who knows your beginning from your end yeah yeah and and to that end that's what psalm 19 1 says when it says the heavens declare the glory of god and the earth shows forth insanity we've talked a lot about how the stars and the sun and the moon give us times and seasons but they're made aesthetically beautiful for a reason also they're not just cold clocks uh to measure time they're also beautiful bodies to draw us to the glory of god to see the the wonder of creation should make us wonder about the creator and so i'm not telling you don't look at the stars i'm telling you to look at them as much as they reflect the glory of god and if they are so bright and beautiful and big how much more bright how much more beautiful how much more large would be the god that made them yeah and i would just say don't allow those stars to be your guide for life yeah allow them to guide you to life look up to them and say there's a creator god who says that these things declare his glory and that i am created for his glory so i'm going to not worship them but worship him yeah and and that's what we really wanted to get at in this episode as you're thinking about wishing on a star or reading those harmless horoscopes this episode really just wants to point you back to where we all know that our hope is and that's jesus christ himself well friends thank you for studying with us tonight it's our great joy uh to have you as a part of these series of studies talking about knockoff spirituality and we want to point you to jesus christ perhaps you've got questions about what it means to be a follower of jesus christ perhaps you say i know i need to get right with god and i need to know what it means to to to do that through jesus christ do me this kindness text the word connect to 501-299-9009 again the word is connect the number is 501-299-9009 perhaps you want a community of faith like saint mark st mark says we would love to be your church we're not an institution we are a community we're people flawed but faithful doing life together and we would love to incorporate you into the body life of this church so that you too can grow here i would love to be your pastor we would love to serve you and your family in any way possible to help you develop into all that god really has designed for you to be so you also text that word connect to the same number 501 299 whether connecting to christ whether connecting to church we are excited to have that conversation with you perhaps you need prayer you say i need someone to call out to god with me or for me i don't know what your need is how uh deep and serious maybe it seems trivial maybe it seems small but listen we are to pray about everything we're to pray always nothing too big nothing too small it doesn't have to be a crisis it might be a hope a wish a dream something you desire you're asking god to do we would like to pray with you you text the word prayer to 501-299-9009 and we will call out to god with you and for you and trust that god will do something great and marvelous in your life finally we're going tonight and i'm going to leave you to the rest of your evening but let me invite you to share with us in generosity because as you give so we can minister and we're touching lives in our local area around the state the nation and the world and so you can give by going to our church app it's saint mark little rock in your app store you can also go to our website it's smark.org smart.org you can you can text the keyword s mark to that same number 501-299-9009 or you can bring a mail that gift to our address 5722 west 12th street little rock arkansas 72204 however you're giving and however much you're giving thank you for partnering with us in the purpose of god on this church and ministry friends let's go and let me pray for you as we're going father i thank you that you help us to know that nothing created is greater than you who are the creator so god we pray now that you help us to look beyond the stars and through the stars to see our savior in such a way that we are made more like him walking closer with him until we get to the day where there is no need for the sun the moon and the stars and so keep us tonight in the strong and wonderful name of jesus christ amen thank you for studying with us god bless check check one two one two let me hear you [Music]

Channel: Saint Mark Baptist Church

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Id: ibCtii5tJb0

Length: 70min 40sec (4240 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021