God named the stars and set them in their appointed place

Last Nugget I think I opened up a can of worms with the responses to last week’s Nugget – Uncountable Stars. The immensity of the universe is astounding. Below is another photo of the three million billion suns. Some of you doubted that there were 3,000,000,000,000,000 suns in last week’s photo. Maybe this photo will convince. Again from the Hubble Space Telescope.

But what is more shocking to some of you is that the Bible claims God named the stars and set them in their appointed place. Oh come on Ian, how can that be? All I ask is a little patience as we work through this concept.

Last week I drew attention to the verse “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.”Psalm 147:4

But that is not the only verse claiming such an astounding thing. Here are some more.

“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in place.”

Psalm 8:3

“Look up into the heavens. Who created the stars? He brings them out one after another, calling each by its name.”

Isaiah 40:26

“The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvellous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak, night after night they make Him known.”

Psalm 19:1-2

How can that be? Ian, that leaves me with so many questions. Well, as I said in the last Nugget, “Hang on to your seats. You will see something of the majesty, power and nature of God as we explore the above truths and investigate the truth of the . . . Scriptures.”

We are all familiar with the Zodiac. It conjures up all sorts of reactions in us, some negative, some positive, some mystical and for some notions of evil. Zodiac is a term in Greek that simply means pathway, actually the pathway either side of that line bisecting the cluster of constellations known as the signs of the Zodiac. It is a swath cut across the heavens, a 15 degree pathway mapped across the heavens, as the earth goes around the sun. As a result there are a series of constellations selected around that pathway which have been chosen and mapped out around the globe. In Hebrew the term used is Mazzaroth which means the same thing. It is the term given to that pathway selected from among all the stars in the sky from which twelve constellations have been chosen. Were these twelve constellations chosen at random? There are 48 constellations chosen in total and arranged together with sets of 3 decans centred around each one of the selected twelve constellations.

But who chose these constellations? Was it astronomers in “jolly old” England? Is it a Western world thing? No. What is fascinating is that the same constellations have been chosen uniformly by the ancient civilizations and handed down to us in the present day and age. There appears to be uniformity across the board. I was first introduced to this concept by a man who came to our church one Sunday night and spoke about the Gospel in the Stars back in the 1970’s. I was astounded by what he claimed and over the years have looked into what he said.

The Ancient Chinese records indicate that the first man on earth had perfect scientific knowledge of the world. What else is fascinating is the ancient Chinese pictograms appear to be biblically based and consistently mirror biblical truth in the ancient Chinese characters. But that is another related topic at this point. Parsis tradition records in the Bundahis that the zodiac signs and meanings were given by the Creator God, Auharmazd. The fifth tablet of the Chaldean Genesis (located in the British Museum) tells how God fixed the twelve signs each with three decans, defined their symbols and meaning and marked them to be for signs.

Albamazer, an ancient Arabian Astronomer wrote, “None of these forms from their first invention have varied in coming down to us; nor one of their words (names) changed, not a point added or removed.” His claim is that the 48 constellations, made up of the 12 signs other Zodiac together with each of their three associated decans, have consistently been chosen from all the stars in the sky. So it seems that it is not a random process at all. The statements in the Bible related to God set the stars in place and appointing them to their position and then calling each by name is in fact the reality.

I am very aware that as Christians we have a tendency to react to such information because we have the idea that the Signs of the Zodiac are inherently evil and associated with astrology, soothsaying and horoscopes. But just chill out for the moment and allow me to lead you through the understanding of how indeed God has set the stars in place and called them by name.

Author’s Note:

The Nugget for today has been delayed because when I woke this morning to write this Nugget I was confronted by multiple texts, What’s App messages and emails informing me of the 7.5 earthquake off the shores of Sulawesi at a depth of 10 kms and the associated tsunami that came ashore around Palu. It shocked me and made me unable to think about writing a Nugget, being aware that there are people we know and love in that area. It took me a couple of hours of praying and crying before I felt to write this Nugget. Our thoughts are with you people of Palu. We haven’t had word from loved ones we know as yet because communication lines are down.