William Branham and the Zodiac: Difference between revisions

What kind of religion was this that they had developed with this tower? Well, we don’t know. But there’s some interesting thought about it. My friend, Dr. Jim Boice, who preached here a number of occasions, is now with the Lord, and we miss him greatly, came to the conclusion that this religion was probably the start of astrology, the zodiac, which has surely been connected with Babylon and may go back to Babel.

He writes this: “Turn to any book on astrology and you will find that it was the Chaldeans,” another name for the inhabitants of Babylon, “who first developed the zodiac by dividing the sky into sections and giving meanings to each on the basis of the stars that are found there. A person’s destiny is said to be determined by whatever section or sign he is born under.” You’re aware of that. Taurus, Gemini, whatever.

Boice goes on: “From Babylon, astrology passed to the empire of ancient Egypt, where it mingled with the native animism and polytheism of the Nile. The pyramids were constructed with certain mathematical relationships to the stars. The Sphinx has astrological significance. It has a head of a woman, symbolizing Virgo, the Virgin, and the body of a lion, symbolizing Leo. Virgo is the first sign of the zodiac. Leo is the last. So the Sphinx, which, incidentally, means ‘joining’ in Greek, is the meeting point of the zodiac, first and last, indicating that the Egyptian priests believed the starting point of the earth in relation to the zodiac lay in Egypt, on the banks of the Nile.”

You can trace all of this fascinating study of the zodiac back to Babylon through Egypt and very likely, Boice believes, back to the original Babel. By the time the Jews, after 400 years in Egypt, remember, left, they had been greatly influenced by astrology. Remember, now, astrology was invented by Babylonian God-rejecters, Babylonian pagans. It’s a part of their false system.

But when the Israelites left Egypt, because the tremendous amount of influence had been brought to bear upon them to believe in the stars, there were a series of warnings. In Leviticus 19:31, “Do not turn to mediums or spiritists,” and that’s pretty general. It would include those who read the stars. “Do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” Don’t go near those deceivers.

Deuteronomy 18, I can’t read all of this, but just a couple of places I think are really helpful. Deuteronomy 18:9, “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,” and sometimes that’s translated “astrologer,” “one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.”

Verse 14, “Those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.” Again, warning about this.

Later on, and this will be more familiar to you, in the Book of Daniel, there are a number of references to this. In Daniel 1:20, it says, “As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them,” this is now in Babylon, or Chaldea, “he,” that is the king’s servant, found Daniel and his friends “ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers,” astrologers. Some of your Bibles will say “astrologers” there.

Astrologers are mentioned again with magicians in 2:2. They’re mentioned again in 2:10. They’re mentioned again in 2:27. They’re mentioned again in chapter 4, chapter 5, I think three times. So astrology, having its roots perhaps at Babel, finds its way to Babylon, finds its way to Egypt, infects, to some degree, the people of Israel, as it continues its influence around the world.

“This is the reason for the Bible’s stern denunciation of these practices. Are we to think, then, that Satan was entirely absent from the original attempt to build a civilization without God? Was he absent from the formation of this first non-Biblical religion? I don’t think so. If he wasn’t, then the religion of the tower was actually a Satanic attempt to direct the worship of the human race to himself and those former angels who, having rebelled against God, were now already demons.”