Celestial calculations

The word magic comes from the Greek word magi, meaning “wise men.” Jordan says, “The magos were people who were prognosticators, star-worshippers, stargazers,” says Jordan. “We see in Daniel 2 that the wise men were really the magicians and the astrologers; the religious leaders of Babylon.”

We’re told in Daniel 2:27, for example, that, “Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king.”

Isaiah 47:13 says, “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.”

Jordan explains, “Isaiah 47 is a chapter about the fall and destruction of Babylon that looks over to ‘mystery Babylon the great’ over in Revelation 17, but it also looks back to Genesis 11 where Babylon began. These people, they claim, were able to predict the future by calculating the planetary positions, and that’s the same crowd as in Daniel 2.

“Now, they’re people who have a great deal of claim to being wise; to wisdom, counsel, knowledge and so forth. They were credited by those about them with profound wisdom and with extraordinary knowledge that was gained by these celestial calculations of the stars.

“At one time God used the heavens as a means of communicating. Numbers 24, when Balaam, one of the seers of Mesopotamia, is hired by Balak to curse Israel. He was one of these magi characters from the east. The prophesy he gives in verse 15 says there shall come a star out of Jacob. The passage goes on down and talks about the coming of Christ and His destruction of the enemies of Israel in the land.

“But notice he sees a star. He would be somebody interested in that kind of thing. In Genesis 1, when God created the sun and the stars, He made them for signs. He made them as instruments to teach and point to doctrine. There are verses in Job, the oldest written book in the Old Testament, that show they knew the constellations and the influences those constellations have. In fact, if you go to Amos 5, the Lord argues, ‘But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.’

“God made those signs and what Amos’ saying is, ‘What you need to do is not just try to read the stars; you better get in touch with the one who created all that.’ He’s talking to Israel here, by the way. The nation had become so corrupted that they had abandoned God’s word for the pagan gods . . .

“Notice they had become attached to a particular star. The stargazers looked at all these stars, but Israel had become attached to a particular star; the star of their god Molech that they made. You remember when Moses is up on the mountain and Aaron gets all the gold, and all the earrings and bracelets, and makes the golden calf and says, ‘Here be thy gods O Israel that brought thee out of Egypt’?

“The indication is they really had two tabernacles in the wilderness. They had one God gave them through Moses but they also had another one; one that’s of this pagan god. But they had become attached to a star in connection with him.

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“Not only is there a particular star, there’s a particular planet. As Paul reveals in Acts 14: 11-12, ‘And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.’

“Notice these guys down here who were worshipping pagan gods are priests of Jupiter. Now Jupiter, of course, is the father of the gods and it’s Zeus, the big god of the Greeks. Acts 19:35 goes on,‘And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?’ You see these guys are worshipping these gods up here."

(Editor’s note: To be continued . . . I am still trying to recover from a cold that smacked me down over Presidents’ Day weekend, followed by a gastrointestinal virus that had me on the run from the wee hours Wednesday morning, as in awakening to simultaneous diarrhea and vomiting from my nose-plugged dream land. Just putting out a warning to all who live in Chi-town. It’s definitely going around. Glad I had Blanket—a one-time queen-sized wedding gift to my parents now reduced to a small tangled and torn heap from my 30-some years of snuggling—to help me through. I am a wimp when it comes to this stuff!)