“And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.”
Deuteronomy 4:19
This topic is so relevant today and needs to be dissected because it’s so prevalent in our culture that it seems almost to be “the norm.” We seek astrology to get our answers concerning complex questions like who we are (our personalities), who the people around us are, and how we should or shouldn’t deal with someone, etc. The only One who knows any of those answers is not something made by the hands of the Creator, the moon, and the stars, but rather the Creator Himself.
Astrology is not new; it stemmed from nations that were into divination, in other words, witchcraft. They were looking to outside sources to find their answers on how to live their lives as opposed to going to “The Source” of all wisdom and knowledge, God (Colossians 2:3). Needless to say, the Bible is evident on God’s stance and his commands of forbidding any form of witchcraft, sorcery, or anything else contrary to God’s word. Thankfully, though, God made it simpler to find answers to those questions that we seek through the practice of astrology, and the only answer that creation gives us is that it points us to a Creator.
Psalms 19:1 states, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalms 8:3-7 says, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have Ordained…O Lord, O Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!” The Psalmist is saying that when he looks at the majestic nature of the universe, the stars, and the moon, he doesn’t seek those created things for answers to dictate his life. Instead, it causes him to worship the Creator of all this beauty he sees through creation.
The first sin known to mankind, carried out by Adam and Eve, shows us where this sin originated. What was the sin that caused all of mankind to fall? Humanity wanted to look outside of God to have knowledge and understanding that could only be received from God. The way Satan tempted mankind was by offering a way to obtain this profound knowledge. Convincing Eve that this knowledge was something to be desired, Satan said in Genesis 3:4-5, “…you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” And how did Eve respond to something as enticing as “to be like God”? Well, Genesis 3:6 says, “When the woman saw that the tree was…desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.”
Instead of looking to God, Eve ate the fruit, which was something created by God, to become like God. Now, how does that make sense? But that is exactly what we’re doing when we are searching for our answers in created beings such as the moon and stars, when scripture says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5). With astrology, most people believe they have inside wisdom and knowledge but they don’t realize that it’s contrary to God’s word and whenever something is contrary to God, that’s a lose-lose approach to living life.
God created the majestic wonders of this world, the complexities of humanity, and all that this world has to offer. Do you believe that with knowing that God would then lump all humanity’s personalities and life expectancies into something as confined as what month we were born in? He made us so unique that not one of us has the same fingerprints, the same birthmarks, or life experiences. We are all so uniquely different, and when He created us, He loved us so much that he made us in His image (Genesis 1:27). Why would we then belittle ourselves to be defined by creation, a month in a year, or stars in the sky, rather than being defined by our Creator? If we are searching for those answers, those answers can only and should only be sought through direction from God (i.e., through prayer, studying God’s Word, etc.)
For each one of us, the desire to be like God outside of God’s assistance was born in us at the fall of mankind. That desire to seek answers outside of God is ever-present in each of us each day. We have a choice every day, whether to appease that desire to look outside of God for our answers or look to God for all things, including wisdom and knowledge.
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without an excuse…Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!
Amen.”
Romans 1: 20-25