Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 28:11

Chapter 28, verse 11. As we close off one year and open another, please turn in your scriptures to Acts 28:11. Please stand. And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria which had wintered in the isle whose sign was Castor and Pollux. And let us sing a song asking for God to illumine our understanding of this text and to help us to understand it that we might obey it. Verses of the opening song.

And if you pay attention to those verses or maybe look at them later, you’ll see that in all 12 verses is sketched a history of God’s people, history of our descendants, our predecessors. That is, we are of the faith of those who we sang about in that song. If we want to think about our ancestors going way back, that’s what we go back to is the God of Abraham and even back further than that to Adam and Eve and their creation.

And we’re in the line of the elect. And we sang about the history of that elect of people over 4,000 years, and we continue singing for 2,000 more. That is our history. History is a thing we think about at this time of year as we close off one year and open another. And in the providence of God, we’ve come to this particular verse. And I want to use the designation of this ship that the Apostle Paul and his companions embarked on to make their final journey to Rome to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ at Rome.

I want to use this ship’s insignia which is Castor and Pollux as a jumping off point to talk about the implications of the signs of the zodiac, the implications of why the stars are in the heavens and then what Psalm 19 tells us the relationship of the stars in the heavens to the word of God. So we’re going to be talking about a sign here. This ship is signed. That’s what the word says here literally.

It doesn’t say whose sign was. It says the ship signed Castor and Pollux. The name of Castor and Pollux, it may not be familiar to you. It’s the Latin terms for what is also in the Greek entitled the sons of Jupiter and also is probably better known to you as Gemini, the two boys or whatever it is in the heavens that for generations since the creation of mankind, men have looked at the stars and referred to the constellations and this particular set of men here, Castor and Pollux, refer to the signs of Gemini in the astrological theme that was then in use amongst these pagan men.

These were pagan men and they used this sign in an improper way. The signs are important to us. I have here a sign and it may not have much import to you but it has import to me and I’ll tell you about my interpretation of this sign in my house at the close of the sermon. But signs are there to depict something, you know, to tell a story, to tell a message, whatever it is. That’s what sign means. And here, this ship is signed.

Castor and Pollux. These men when they plowed the waters that could be very dangerous did so under the sign, the guidance, the direction, and protection of the Gemini twins. The Gemini twins were—I won’t get into the entire mythology of them according to the Greeks. But as a result of the mythological history of these two men, they were the patron saints so to speak of those who went out in ships.

They were referred also to two types of exhalations or winds that when both were present were favorable to sailors. So these two, Castor and Pollux, were those who provide protection. They also became part of the Greek pantheon and as a result were referred to when men took oath. And I don’t know, but I think maybe that’s where when we today say “bye,” it probably is a perversion of “by Gemini” because under the sign of Gemini, men would take oaths, particularly mariners by Gemini.

They would swear. And so we have “bye Gemini” today. At least I think that’s why that is.

And so what I want us to see first of all from this text is pagan astrology, man’s old eyes, man’s fallen eyes, so to speak, and what he does and what he perceives as he looks at the heavens. Men are superstitious. Men are religious. However, they’re all made in the image of God. And men know there’s something much greater than themselves out there.

Remember, I mentioned several months ago that I heard this definition that paranoia is the cutting edge of the realization that all things are connected. And men can see that God’s testimony of himself, of his divine attributes is everywhere. Romans 1 makes that very clear to us. And men twist that. They can’t totally deny it. But they try to suppress the truth of God, holding it back by turning it and twisting it and perverting it and taking the very things that are given as signs of God and twisting them into signs of demons or signs of false gods or idols.

And so we hear in we see in these men the common plight of pagan men throughout all history which is superstition and idolatry. And it involves themselves in this case in pagan astrology.

Now the scriptures say a lot to condemn pagan astrology and that’s where I want to start. We had a president who in recent history one of the best presidents people can think of who are conservatives and yet his wife directed apparently much of his actions according to astrological signs to use the astrological signs that are pictured in the heavens for us to try to predict the future to try to predict favorable influences upon men to do certain things or not to do certain things is highly and strongly condemned in the scriptures.

The ancients were known to do this as are modern men as we’ve seen in our own contemporary political history. Job in Job 31:26 and following talks about that if he kisses his hand to the moon or to the stars that it’s a great offense to God and he deserves tremendous punishment from God. It indicates the worship of the heavenly bodies. To worship them instead of the one who created them is a great offense to the God who creates them.

Again, in 2 Kings 23:5 we read of those who would bow down or worship Baal or would worship the sun, the moon, and the planets and all the host of heaven, they’d bow down and the great judgments of God that would come upon such men. The Tower of Babel is of course a tremendous illustration of this. In Genesis 11:4, we read of men that they said, “Let us build a city and a tower whose top is in my version, the King James version in brackets may reach unto heaven.” And actually, I believe that the Hebrew is better stated it when it says that they would build him a city and the tower, the top would be heaven.

I don’t think these men thought that they were going to build a ziggurat, a representation of a holy mountain that would reach up to the moon. I don’t think that was the idea. I think the idea was is at the top of the Tower of Babel would be a pagan astrological tower room at the top that would depict the signs of the zodiac and be essentially the ultimate, the penultimate top of their worship system, their idolatrous pagan astrology, their old fallen eyes, taking the things that God had given to them as a picture of himself, the created order and worshiping them.

And the Tower of Babel, I believe, is a picture of astrological observance and men’s desire to have a culture based upon using supposedly the powers of the created order. Again, in Isaiah chapter 47, we read, “Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they that is these astrologers, these pagan astrologers shall be as stubble.

The fire shall burn them. There they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There shall not be a coal to warm at nor fire to sit before it.” God has strong words for those who would take the astrological observance of the zodiacal signs and attempt to prognosticate, predict the future, predict their own good times and bad times to do particular things to use astrological signs to read your horoscope in the paper and to then to try to determine what you should do that week on the basis of that is a great offense to God.

And so the old eyes of fallen man and that’s us too folks in our unregenerate state twists the very picture of God himself and his attributes that he gives us in the created order and makes that into an idol. And we are under God’s judgment for doing those sorts of things. And that’s what pagan man does.

However, the scriptures do not condemn men looking at the stars and trying to make discernments of what those stars indicate to us. That’s not what’s being condemned in the verses I’ve just read. What’s being condemned is the improper use of the created order of signs from God for improper purposes. Okay? To try to circumvent God by idolatrously looking to the powers of the heavens for guidance, direction, and protection the way that these men who put the sign of Gemini on their ship as they steered into the future. If we steer into the new year by looking at anything other than the word of God as the counsel and advice that we must follow as we steer our ship into this next year.

Then we fall into the complication of these men. But that very word of God tells us some very interesting things about heavenly bodies. For instance, we read in the scriptures there is a indication that the whole complex of stars is referred to as the host of heaven. That’s from Isaiah 11:26 and also Jeremiah 33:22, the host of heaven. The scriptures talk about the morning stars, the planet Venus in Isaiah 14 and Revelation 2.

The Pleiades, that is the seven star constellation the Pleiades is seen referred to in Job chapter 9 and in Amos chapter 5. Orion poetically represented as a giant bound by chains to the firmament of heaven is depicted in Job chapter 9 and also in Job 38:31. Arcturus the great bear that particular constellation is referred to in Job chapter 9:9 as well. And the crooked serpent of the dragon is referred to in the book of Job as well.

So the scriptures talk a lot about the stars and even in the providence of God and his word he refers to the names of some of these constellations. Now you may say well maybe all these verses are like the one we just read where God says well pagan men have done this with this stuff but you shouldn’t have anything to do with that. But that’s not what the scriptures say. Turn if you will to Job chapter 38 and we’re going to look at verses 31, 32, and 33. I believe there is a correct, new eyes approach to looking at the heavenly bodies and even the constellations themselves.

Job 38:31 and this is—you’ll understand the context. This is at the end of the book of Job. This is God answering Job. Now this is not his counselors. You have to be very careful in the book of Job. You quote one of his ungodly counselors is true and it may not be true what they’re asserting to Job but this is not that this is God speaking in Job chapter 38 and God tells Job this he says can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion now I think there probably has some references to the summer and winter that’s how Matthew Henry saw that particular verse but in any event God refers to the names of these constellations the Pleiades and the Orion verse 32 can you bring forth Mazeroth that’s the word that’s in the King James version.

I don’t know what’s in your version. There’s too many of them to keep track these days. Can you bring forth Mazeroth in his season? Or can thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Another constellation. Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Can’t thou set the dominion thereof in the earth. God, I think here tells us quite clearly that he created and named Pleiades, Orion, Arcturus and refers in general to the heavenly bodies by talking about Mazeroth in his season.

God is telling Job, you can’t do what only I can do. I think by way of implication in verse 32, God says, I bring forth Mazeroth in his season. What is Mazeroth? Well, one of the best Old Testament exegetical commentaries—now, you know, I talk about exegetical commentaries. They are commentaries that look at the original languages and exegete particular portions of scripture with a firm grasp of the original languages as opposed to devotional commentaries. If you don’t know the original languages, it’s quite easy to determine the implications of various original words in Hebrew or Greek through good commentaries.

And in fact, you’d have to study long numbers of years to do better than a good Greek commentary will do for you. In any event, one of the best Old Testament exegetical commentaries is Keil and Delitzsch. And let me read you their translation of verse 32. They said, Can’t thou bring forth the signs of the zodiac at the right time? And can’t thou guide the bear with its children? Well, you know, zodiac, you know, we don’t want pagan astrology.

Well, we don’t. We have all the warnings in scripture against that, but we don’t also want to deny what the text of scripture says. And Keil and Delitzsch indicate that this word Mazeroth is quite clearly used in the language of the Hebrews to refer to the 12 signs of the zodiac, which were likewise imagined as lodging houses or strongholds in which one after another the sun lodges as it describes the circle of the year.

I’m quoting from their text. Now the usage of the language also transferred this to the planets which because they lie in the equatorial plane of the sun as the sun although more irregularly also the planets run through the constellations of the zodiacs and so God is telling Job you can’t bring the planets or the sun moving through from earth’s perspective the signs of the zodiac, the zodiac itself is not a cultic term.

Zodiac simply means circuit and it refers to the fact that the sun moves through different tabernacles or houses of these constellations from earth’s perspective of course as one observes the sky. And so Psalm 19 tells us about the implications of God’s creation of the firmaments for particular signs. Then we understand how the sun goes forth as the bridegroom, as the strong man, and God has set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens, a great set of houses whereby the sun goes through.

Now, this isn’t stated from the earliest portions of scripture. In Genesis 1:14, we read that God set the stars and the firmament in the heaven and he said, “Let these and in the context he’s referring to the moon the sun and the stars from verse 16. Let these be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. Okay. God says that he set the sun, the moon, and the stars in the heavens for clocks, times, but also for signs.

You know, signs, pictures of things, things meant to tell us something, to tell a story, to tell a truth. A sign, a picture of something. God says that’s what he did as he set these things there. Psalm 147:4 we read that God tells the number of the stars. He calleth them all by their names. It says that God has assigned names to the stars and he calls them by names. Okay? He tells the number and he calls them by names.

Again in Isaiah 40:26 we read, “Lift up your eyes on high and Behold, who hath created these things, the things that are on high, that bringeth out their host, that’s the heavenly host of the stars by number. He calleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power. Not one falleth. Now, that verse Isaiah 40:26 tells us a couple of things. It tells us again that God calls the stars by names.

And it also says that he puts them out by number. There is an orderliness to the stars and the names that God has given them which has a significance the scriptures tell us. Okay, it isn’t just that he names them. He also orders them so to speak in a particular way. And so we come to Psalm 19 which we read responsively. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge.

Let me just mention there by the way that hopefully if nothing else out of this sermon when you go to bed tonight, you’ll thank God for nighttime because if we didn’t have night, we wouldn’t see the stars. And the scriptures say the stars are important to us so far what we’ve read because they’re signs of things. God has given them names and put them in a particular order. And he tells Job that he has created these constellations for a particular purpose and he brings them out in a particular progression.

And we would know nothing of any of that virtually till perhaps in our day and age in modern times when we have now telescopes that can see during the day and that see but for most of created history man would not have a knowledge of that great firmament of stars that at least shows us the greatness the majesty of God and our relative smallness man would know nothing of that without nighttime you know so you know kids don’t like night it’s a time to go to sleep but I’ve always tried to tell my kids that nighttime God turns down every other light so to speak so that we focus upon him.

And one of the ways we focus upon him is by looking at the sky and at the night stars here in Oregon and winter. You don’t get much that way, but in the summer and probably even tonight, we’ll have a opportunity to look at the stars and thank God for them. So God says in Psalm 19 that these stars are there for a particular reason. And he says that their line in verse four has gone out throughout all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

In them in the firmament, in these stars, in the heavenly host. He has set a tabernacle for the sun. And that’s where the idea of a zodiac, a circuit. The sun goes through these various constellations. That’s where that comes from. The house of Virgo, the house of Gemini, whatever it is. And so Psalm 19 tells us that there is a biblical way with the new eyes of regenerated man to look at the stars correctly and to understand that God has placed them there as signs and he has given them names and he’s put them in a particular order and it is proper to see that order and those names in relationship to the sun circuit.

Now Psalm 19 goes on to talk about the law of God and that’s we’re going to talk about that in a little bit here. But understand that Psalm 19 is not contrasting the one with the other. It’s not as if well, yeah, we have these stars, but what you really need is this. That’s not what he’s doing.

Now, he could do that, and there is a contrasting element to it, which we’re going to talk about. But the purpose of Psalm 19 is to show the unity that there is one God who speaks with one word, whether it’s through the stars or through the scriptures. It’s the same author. And secondly, there’s a unity of message. There’s a relationship drawn out in Psalm 19 between what we see in the stars and then what God’s word reveals to us.

And my outline here is old eyes, new eyes, mature eyes. We want to avoid pagan astrology. We want to avoid what those men did signing their ship, Castor and Pollux. We don’t want to reject the message of the stars that God has given to us. We want to see them through new eyes, biblical eyes, but we want to move on to having mature eyes and move from the first half of Psalm 19 to the last half. And as we seek guidance in to 1996 and the rest of our lives.

We want to follow not Castor and Pollux and pagan astrology. We want to follow God’s message in the stars, but God’s message primarily through the word of God to a mature people that they might become more mature by understanding his word. And so that’s the purpose of all of this. And what I’m saying now in the second part of the outline is that God, I think, establishes himself as the giver of these constellations.

And that these constellations have a purpose. The Apostle Paul quotes Psalm 19 in Romans 10:18 or at least alludes to it. He’s talking about how faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And then in verse 18, he says, “But I say, have they not heard? Yea, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” Paul says that no one is without excuse.

Nobody has an excuse saying I never heard about the gospel. Paul says the message has gone out to all the earth. You know how some people say we want to hurry up by the year 2000 and get the gospel out to every nation because then Jesus would come back. Well, if that was true, it’s my belief that Jesus would have returned immediately at the beginning of creation because I believe the gospel various truths of who God is and also, a gospel that produces faith in men in God’s substitutionary atonement through the Lord Jesus Christ is pictured in the stars.

And I believe that those constellations are related to the original names that God gave those stars to teach men of the great sun, the Lord Jesus Christ, who the scriptures refer to as bridegroom and strong man. Right? In Malachi 4, the sun comes forth. Sun, picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 19, the bridegroom. And John the Baptist said that Jesus Christ is the bridegroom who comes forth.

Obviously in Psalm 19, the son refers to the Lord Jesus Christ and his circuit through those stars and the names that God assigns we see them divinely inspired in scripture. Pleiades, Arcturus, etc. These names teach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul can say in Romans 10, everybody knows. Nobody’s without excuse. And one of the purposes I think of the revelation of the star and the signs they indicate is to say that no man can say I didn’t hear.

All men throughout created order throughout the created history of men have seen those stars and in every culture those names have come down and men have twisted them and perverted them because they’re unregenerate not elect. On the other hand, God says that in terms of Abraham, in terms of Abraham this was part of the way God witnessed to Abraham and brought him to faith. What am I talking about? Turn to Genesis 15, verses 5 and 6 actually.

Genesis 15:5 God brings out Abraham and he says in verse 5, “Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Now, what is this meaning? Well, we have an interpretation of this text in the book of Galatians. In Galatians chapter 3, we read in verse 16, Paul says this, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, this is God does not say to Abraham, and to seeds as of many, but as of one and to thy seed, which is Christ. Paul is telling us that when God told Abraham in verse five of Genesis 15 to look at the stars to number them to be not, he would not be able to number them.

And he says, “So shall thy seed be. Now, later on in Genesis, in chapter 22:17, don’t bother to look it up, but the reference is on your outline. In Genesis 22:17, God does indeed say that he will multiply Abraham’s seed singular into a multiplicity as the stars of the heaven. Okay, so Genesis 22 tells us that Abraham’s descendants through Christ would be great in number just the way the number of the stars is great. But that’s not what God is telling Abraham in verse 5. According to the Apostle Paul, we can either say Paul’s wrong or that there was some kind of trick being played in verse 5, but none of that needs to be done.

In verse 5 of Genesis 15, God tells Abraham to look at the stars and to order them, so to speak. And he teaches him, I believe, through those stars of the one seed to come, the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe God preached to Abraham through that heavenly host and through those constellations that he set up for the son to go through. And that is the way that Abraham came to believe. And verse six immediately says that he then believed in the Lord and God counted to him for righteousness.

And Paul tells us that seed that God was referring to as he told Abraham to look at the stars in the way they were laid out that seed singular was the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:8 says that the scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham. Okay, God preached the gospel to Abraham. And then it goes on to say as I said in verse 16 that God refers us back to Genesis 15:5 when God told Abraham to look at the stars to see their number and order and to see the significance in the coming of the great one, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so I believe that, you know, that was the relationship. So I believe that when God tells Job about Mazeroth, about the signs of the constellations, about the names that he has assigned to the stars, that they are a picture, a sign to mankind of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to condemn those who are not elect because they have seen and rejected and indeed perverted into pagan astrology, and to lead the elect, as Father Abraham was led, to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so we have the word of God in Psalm 19 being preceded, the written word being preceded by the word of God in the heavens. And it is a unity of message through those two positions. Luke 1:70 Zechariah said that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets which had been since the world began. Prophets have been since the world began. It links the prophetic word of God to the creation.

And so I believe in that context is what we see with God declaring his gospel through the constellations. Now I know that’s a new thought for some of you and I know that it kind of may be a while if you can digest that. But what I want you to do at least is to remember when next time you look at the stars in the evening that God put them there for signs as well as for clocks. They’ve got to be signs of something.

Could just be the sign of the magnificence of God, his great power, etc. But I believe that from the message of Job and the other places we’ve looked in this outline, take the verses home yourself, study them out, and think through the implications of God himself not referring to pagan naming of the stars, referring to his own naming of those stars. And I believe what we see when we come down to Acts is men perverting as men, ungodly, unregenerate men always does, perverting the truth of God and worshiping the very thing that is there to sing out the praises of God, those stars in this particular case.

Now, there’s a second aspect of the constellations of God that I want to mention briefly and I don’t you know I could this is a big subject. This is a big subject. Let’s just say that and that is the relationship of these constellations to God’s people and particularly to the 12 tribes of Israel in the Old Testament and then the 12 apostles and on into the book of revelation and the 24 elders. I can’t get into all the detail on this but there is a relationship between these 12 circuits. You’re not simply taking the heavens dividing them up into 12 months and you have these 12 constellations or houses that the sun moves through. And I think that what the scriptures show us is that as God has a heavenly host in heaven, the stars all arranged in the context of the sun, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So in the Old Testament, he has his earthly host, so to speak, his people. And as they, for instance, camp around God in the tabernacle in the wilderness, he’s at their center, the sun, the king, the bridegroom. And he orders the 12 tribes around him in a like fashion to the 12 signs of the constellation of the 12 constellations being his heavenly host that he lives in the context of. And his people on earth are therefore displayed as the earthly host that he dwells in the context of as well.

And so there’s this correlation between Mazeroth, the periods and the constellations that God has set in the skies for us to see in relationship to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s a relationship between that and then God’s people. Remember that Jacob’s sons, remember Joseph’s dream that he saw his brothers and mother, father bowing down to him. And he saw it in terms of stars and the sun.

And he shows us that picture of the greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus, and the sons, the 12 tribes of Israel camped around him as the preeminent one. And so this picture of the 12 and then the center being the one who was chosen by God, the lesser Joseph and the greater Joseph, the Lord Jesus is portrayed for us in the scriptures. There are other things that we could talk about. I could just maybe touch on them briefly.

There has been some very interesting research done in the censuses of the book of Numbers. And I don’t want to get into a detailed explanation of this but suffice it to say and I can give you the material I actually have that report that what this was based on. Suffice it to say that good godly commentators such as Wenham in his commentary on the book of Numbers talks about the relationship that has been discerned from the censuses of the numbers of the tribes in the book of Numbers the literal numbers there that are given and the relationship of that to the sidereal periods of the planets and the coincidence is far too great to be just coincidence and I believe that there’s another indication from that research for the people of God to see themselves as stars, as God’s earthly host, the way that his heavenly host is displayed in the firmament.

Let me quote here from Wenham. This is from his commentary on the book of Numbers. And as I said, he is a very good commentator, you’ll find him sound, conservative, and very useful. And let me just read this quote from his commentary. He says, “Indeed, scripture frequently refers to the celestial bodies as God’s heavenly host.” For instance, Deuteronomy 4:19, “While the armies of Israel are his earthly host, Joshua 5:14 and throughout Numbers chapter 1, the earthly tabernacle was a replica of God’s heavenly dwelling place.” Exodus 25, verses 9 and 40. Both were attended by the armies of the Lord. Finally, Genesis 37:9 compares Jacob and his sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes, to the sun, moon, and stars. These census numbers then affirm the sacred character of Israel. They remind us that God’s promises to Abraham have been fulfilled and that the holy people of God is called to struggle for him on earth as the stars fight for him in the heavenly places.

So, the signification of Mazeroth, the establishment of the heavenly host is seen throughout the scripture to the relationship as well between the heavenly hosts and the earthly hosts of God’s people. And so, you know, there’s a little different way to think about it when you talk about shining as lights in the context of darkness. You are in a very real sense in the scriptures correlated to the heavenly hosts of the stars.

And you, the people of God, come particularly on the Lord’s day to assemble around the Lord God himself who comes to be with us. And you are a picture of that earthly host, the stars of God with great significance in terms of his progress of the manifestation of his kingdom. And so we see in the scriptures this correlation between the heavenly hosts with God at their center and the earthly host with God at the center in the context of his church.

I could say a lot more about this, but it time really I don’t want to spend a lot more time on this. I’ve kind of brought up the basic concept for you and try to lay out that a series of scriptures for you to study through and discern as you attempt to use the new eyes, biblical eyes to understand what the heavens tell us and their correlation to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as their correlation to you the church of God who operate in the context of the Lord Jesus Christ as their king.

There are astronomical significances throughout the book of Revelation. Perhaps we’ll get into some of that as we begin our Sabbath school classes next week going through the book of Revelation. It might be a while before we get to some of them, but there’s a lot of astronomical signification in the book of Revelation as well. For instance, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming of the great one who the book of Revelation points to is portrayed in the context of the constellation of Virgo, the woman in heaven with the moon at her feet and robed with the sun.

And there’s an astronomical significance to that David Chilton points out in some detail in his book Days of Vengeance, his commentary on the book of Revelation. In any event, I’ll leave that for now and just leave you with this idea that we don’t want to have the old eyes of perversion of God’s created order. But we do want to put on the new eyes. We look at the hard biblical evidence that says that the host is there for particular reasons, the heavenly host.

And we want to use those new eyes to understand biblical astrology in the context of biblical understanding that God has put the stars in the heavens for a particular purpose. Let me just mention that in Dwayne Spencer’s book Mazeroth—now Dwayne Spencer we have in our library a book by him on baptism called Holy Baptism. He was again a very conservative Orthodox Presbyterian minister until his death I think somewhere around 10 years ago or so.

And Spencer’s tapes are used throughout this country in conservative Orthodox Presbyterian study groups. He’s a very good exegetical commentator and he wrote a pamphlet called Mazeroth about this very thing I’m talking about and then talked about the signification of the original Hebrew names for the constellations as opposed to the later Greek and Latin perversions of those names and additionally the stars and the context of those constellations and I do want to just to satisfy what might be your curiosity relate to you what he believes Gemini is a picture of in the context of those signs of the zodiac the circuit of the sun through the constellation through the stars.

Gemini refers to as I said before two men in the context of that particular constellation and he believes that it is a picture to us of the Lord Jesus Christ as fully God and as fully man. And I won’t get into any more detail than that. You can borrow the pamphlet from me if you’d like. But let me just say that at this time of year when we celebrate and meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The orthodox teaching that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man but not with a confusion of being God and man together is very important for our concept of biblical truth. R.J. Rushdoony in his excellent book Foundations of Social Order traces the early creeds and confessions of the church to the implication for political implications and other implications for men through those formulations. And he talks about the Council of Chalcedon that really enumerated what Gemini tells us in broad brushstrokes in the heavens, the church meeting in council at Chalcedon in 451 articulated that doctrine that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man.

And that had great implications for Western liberty. Let me just touch on this briefly at the. A couple of quotes from R.J. Rushdoony’s work Foundations of Christian Liberty. He says that the Council of Chalcedon met in 451 to deal with the issues as it came to focus at the critical point in Christology. If the two natures of Jesus Christ were confused, it meant that the door was open to the divinization of human nature.

See, so if Jesus was both God and man confused, one brought into a unity not two separate natures, then it left the door open for the divinization of man. So man could become or migrate into the godhead, and the state then was potentially divine. If man and God if humanity and divinity are mingled together in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ instead of two separate natures then mankind can become divine and the state as the representative of mankind can become divine and assert divine prerogatives over mankind.

And of course that’s the history of the state for most of created history apart from Christian cultures. The state becomes divine. If the human nature of Jesus Christ was reduced or denied, his role as man’s incarnate savior was reduced or denied and man’s savior again became the state. If Jesus wasn’t truly human or fully human, then he cannot be the salvation of humankind.

And if he can’t be the salvation of humankind that leaves for the coordinated powers of the state to become the savior for man. If Jesus Christ on the other hand if his deity was reduced or denied then his saving power was nullified. If he was just human and did not have a divine nature then his saving power also is brought to naught. If his humanity and deity were not in true union, if they were totally separate and not in true union, the incarnation was then not real and the distance between God and man remained as great as ever.

This was what Chalcedon faced. The implications are great. And in its formulation, I’ll read just a very short quote from the Council of Chalcedon’s finding and that is this: that Jesus Christ son Lord only begotten recognized in two natures without confusion without change without division and without separation. So in the Council of Chalcedon’s formulation, they asserted the full divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the full humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the union of them, but not the admixture of them.

And so, I know it’s probably going over your head a little bit here, but the point is that has tremendous signification for you as a Christian. It’s really in detailed mature language what Gemini, if Dwayne Spencer is right and God’s giving us Gemini and the twins and the constellation. It’s really a mature language with that heavenly picture represented to us the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ in concert but not confused and it has tremendous implications for political liberty.

It is what puts the death now to statism. Again to quote Rushdoony, I’ll close with that particular article is salvation man’s upward reach or God’s downward reach is it man’s word or God’s grace is God or the state man’s savior. The answer of Chalcedon is emphatically for God and liberty. So now you know in terms of Castor and Pollux and in terms of what I believe the heavenly constellation pictured that became matured and developed in Christian doctrine in the Council of Chalcedon with tremendous implications for you.

And so that basic element of the faith is extremely important for us to understand what that particular part of Mazeroth created by God and ordained by him teaches us. So we want to reject old eyes. We want to have new eyes, a biblical understanding of what the stars picture, but we want to have mature eyes. And this is my last point. Psalm 19 moves from the first half of it to the second half by asserting the maturity of the written word of God to bring to full maturation what those heavens portray for us in big broad brush strokes or signs. Those signs are fleshed out in the word of God. And so Psalm 19 goes on to speak of these things. As I said, it’s not contrasting in the sense of one versus the other. It says the same author, the same basic message, but there is a maturation.

This maturation is portrayed in the name of God in the first and second half of Psalm 19. In the first portion of Psalm 19 that refers to the heavenly circuits, the general name for God Eli, shortened form of Elohim, strong one, mighty one, is used, and it’s only used once.

It’s the least specific term for God, and it’s only used once. In the second half of Psalm 19, where we read about the word of God and the law of God, the commandments, the precepts, etc., the covenant name of God, Yahweh, the specialized name for the covenant relationship to his people is used, and it’s used seven times in fullness. Okay? So, there’s this movement from Eli to Yahweh as God reveals himself in covenant with his people.

And there’s a movement from one use of the term for God to seven now in its fullness and maturation. And so Psalm 19 draws us from seeing the heavens with new eyes to moving on with mature eyes as we move into the rest of our lives and into 1996.

Now again, I probably should have a whole sermon spent on Psalm 19. I might even have one in the tape library. But just in brief terms, what I want to get you to think about man is the maturity of your eyes in relationship to God’s word.

There are six terms used for the law of God in Psalm 19 and the maturity of the understanding of the revelation of God to his people. The first one is law which is the general concept Torah, the way of life that God gives in his scriptures for his children. The second term is testimony. And the word testimony refers to the word of God, the revelation of who he is as testimony to who he is. We prayed in our prayer that we sang that God might reveal his very self to us through the written word.

And testimony is a picture of that God attests to himself and reveals himself through that law. So we’re given Torah. We’re given the way of God. That way is a testimony and assertion of who God is. It is used for his covenant declaration to