The Seasonal Prophets
Where in the New Testament do we find Jesus or Paul teaching us how to decode spiritual insights or the future from Hebrew year numbers or month names? And increasingly, so-called “prophets” seek omens in perfectly natural events, including lunar and solar eclipses, the appearance of a comet, rainbows, and even unusual cloud formations.
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| [Photo by joel protasio on Unsplash] |
It seems that every month, week, and even day we enter another unique “season” when God operates in new and different ways. Apparently, the Almighty works on the clock. And so, the arts of divination are alive and well within many Western churches. But this is not part of the biblical faith.
STARGAZERS AND PROGNOSTICATORS
For
example, when pronouncing the downfall of Ancient Babylon, Isaiah chided her
for relying on the dark arts:
- (Isaiah 47:1-13) - “Down and sit in the dust, O virgin Daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground, throneless Daughter of the Chaldeans; for you will no more be called Tender and Dainty… Take your stand, I pray you, with your spells, and with the throng of your incantations wherein you have wearied yourself from your youth. Peradventure you may be able to profit, peradventure you may strike me with terror. You have worn yourself out with the mass of your consultations. Let them take their stand that they may save you, the dividers of the heavens, the gazers at the stars, they who MAKE KNOWN BY NEW MOONS, some of the things which shall come upon you.”
The
clause, “make known by new moons” or “monthly prognosticator” in
several English translations, represents the Hebrew words for “moon” and “know”
(chodesh, yada‘). It refers to SOOTHSAYERS who divine the future
from lunar phases, especially the new moon that marks the start of each month
in both the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars.
And the
term, “dividers of heaven,” translates a word that is derived from Mesopotamian
astrology, one that originally described the practice of dividing the night sky into what
became the zodiacal constellations.
In
contrast to many popular preachers, the Apostle Paul warns us that reverting to
calendrical observations amounts to regression, a return to enslavement under
the “elemental spirits” (“You narrowly observe days and months and
seasons and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor
upon you in vain”).
But “stargazing” and “monthly prognosticating” only scratch the surface of the pursuit of the occult by many of today’s false prophets.
For
example, some pastors now promote mysticism and meditation under the name
“contemplative prayer.” Thus, the occult is repackaged with Christian-sounding
window dressing and peddled to unsuspecting believers as a means to decipher
God’s will.
One
popular “Christian” song promotes the mystical adage “As above, so below; As
below, so above,” a mantra borrowed from Hermeticism and its so-called
“Principle of Correspondence,” an old occult philosophy often linked to the
Egyptian god Thoth.
REPLACING SCRIPTURE
Charismatic
“leaders” seek new insight into God’s “mysteries” from extra-biblical and mystical
sources, including the Kabbalah, 1 Enoch, the book of Jasher,
and the Zohar. Never mind the New Testament claim that all God's
mysteries are revealed in Jesus of Nazareth!
These practices are performed (supposedly) to acquire deeper “spiritual experiences” to peer into the “spirit world” and obtain new understandings and revelation.
But as the saints in Thyatira were warned, the day is coming when
we will discover that such things do not constitute revelation but are the “DEEP
THINGS OF SATAN” - (Revelation 2:18-24).
The
replacement of Scripture by divination and mysticism should come as no
surprise. Paul also warned of a coming proliferation of “doctrines of demons”
that would cause “some to fall away from the faith.” “Evil men and SORCERERS
(goétes) will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” - (1
Timothy 4:1, 2 Timothy 3:13).
Paul
uses the term “sorcerers” in the same context in which he compares deceivers
with the Egyptian soothsayers who withstood Moses – “Jannes and Jambres.”
Having “itching ears," many Christians are now "heaping up
to themselves teachers after their own lusts. They will turn away their ears
from the truth and turn aside to fables.”
The irony is that many Christian
practitioners of divination whine constantly about “spirits of witchcraft
and Jezebel,” yet they then engage in sorcery, astrology, numerology, and
calendrical calculations. And Paul warned us that two things must precede the “Day
of the Lord,” namely, the “apostasy” and the “Man of Lawlessness.”
Clearly, the first is upon us already. Perhaps the second is not far behind.
