MARTIN CAREY | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Assurance Ministries Board Member
“This soil is too dry for my seeds,” Eliab stood looking over the little field he and his ox had just plowed. He jabbed the hard ground with his staff. “Lord, your promised land needs rain! Can you see this?” The sun beat down from the hard blue sky, empty of clouds.
“In Egypt, our fathers had rain and plenty of bread. How can we please our God more, so that he rewards us now as he did in Egypt?”
“Rightly spoken, good neighbor. Yahweh is unhappy with us, but we know a better way to honor Him.” Eliab turned and saw his neighbor Ahira approaching him, carrying something. He held up a miniature house, a little shrine with a seated figure inside. “God wants our worship, and we can show Him.”
Eliab looked closely at the little shrine. “A tabernacle for the Egyptian god, Repa!”
“No, good neighbor,” Ahira answered. “This is to worship Yahweh, our God. He reveals himself in the stars everywhere, even in Egypt.”
Eliab hesitated. Ahira sounded so sincere and earnest. And yet, he was holding up an image of the Egyptian god, Repa. Idols were forbidden in God’s law. Ahira continued, “His star shines over us from the heavens. Our fathers told us that Repa had power over our crops and our fortunes. Should we not honor our king?”
After his neighbor left him, Eliab looked at his dusty fields and wondered, “Where is our God?” Maybe Ahira was right; they needed to show worship that would bring them more blessings. This was to be the land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land. Maybe they could do more to please God and bring back His blessings.
Eliab had questions, so he turned and followed his neighbor.
Their fathers had died in the wilderness after 40 years of wandering, and now Eliab’s generation was here in the land, ready to plant and eat. Moses and Joshua had instructed the people, warning them against bowing down to other gods. Many of the people, though, respected other authorities and had carried certain religious traditions from Egypt, habits of worship they never abandoned. One such tradition was the star god, Repa. As a wandering star, he glided slowly among the stars, staring down on the earth with his disapproving gaze. One could change his attitude to approval by showing honor and sacrifice.
Stars Evoke Worship
People around the world have always worshiped the sun, moon, and stars. When we look at the starry sky, awe, wonder, and a feeling of our being so small is our natural response. What we believe the stars are telling us reveals much about what we believe about deep reality, and about ourselves. We see that stars are distant, vast, and ancient. They feel powerful in some way. The stars are talking, but what are they saying about worship?
King David was sure the heavens are telling of God’s glory, every night. They pour forth knowledge to us without using any words. If we don’t see God’s true glory there, it is because we are drawn to other gods. God warned the Israelites of this misplaced worship in Deuteronomy 4:19:
“And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”
The Israelites were drawn away from the worship of Yahweh, and throughout their history, they bowed down to the stars and worshiped them. We see astral worship practiced by Israel in numerous Scriptures, such as 2Kings 17:16 and Jeremiah 8:2. The sun, moon, and stars mark seasonsand the weather that controls our crop cycles. People reason, therefore, that the stars must rule the world.
Astrology Derives from Polytheism
Astrology’s belief systems (and there are many, not just one) assume that stars and planets have power over earth’s events and people, down to the tiniest detail. We still say, “Thank your lucky stars,” and use the word “disaster,” meaning, we’re under the power of a bad star alignment. People introduce each other by astral signs: “I’m a Leo.” They imagine their entire life’s destiny is set in the stars. When we dabble in astrology, we forget its roots in ancient religion, where people feared the power of many capricious, jealous gods, all demanding their sacrifice and loyalty. Astrology is inseparable from polytheistic religions with all their superstitions and uncertainties.
Even for those who don’t think of astral powers as gods, the power in their lives clearly shows what they worship. What or who are you pleasing or making angry at this moment? You can never be quite sure. The gods might be crazy, but humans will go to great lengths to appease their insanities.
Ancient Israel’s divided loyalties often got them into trouble, as we see in Amos 5:25-27:
“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
The ancient peoples of the surrounding nations often carried idols around in little portable shrines, “tabernacles” to please that god, hoping they would bring good fortune and success in battle. Sikkuth and Kiyyun were astral deities that originated in Mesopotamia and were later carried to the nations under Babylon’s imperial influence. Scholars generally agree that Kiyyun, or “Kaiwan” was a star god, the planet Saturn. The ancients especially feared the “wandering stars,” as the planets were called, because they moved among the stars, supposedly showing their power to control events.
The prophet Amos is reminding Israel that their divided allegiance to God could be traced back to their time in the desert wanderings, and their star god was a total rejection of Him. Thus, he would send them off into exile into the lands controlled by star-god worship.
In the New Testament, Stephen gives his sermon to a hostile audience of Israel’s leaders, pointing out their history of resisting God and continuous idolatry. He quotes Amos 5 from their Greek translation, the Septuagint (known as the LXX),
“Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.”
The LXX was translated into the Greek language in Alexandria, Egypt, by 72 Hebrew scholars. Jesus and the NT writers quoted from this translation, as did Stephen. They translated this passage in Amos 5 using the names “tent of Moloch” and “Rephan” for the gods Sikkuth and Kiyyun. Rephan was the Greek name for the Egyptian god Repa. Moloch, or “king,” was the Canaanite god that Israel worshiped with child sacrifices. Worship of Moloch, Sikkuth and Kiyyun were all practiced in ancient Israel. The prophets made it clear that such idolatry led to Israel’s downfall and exile.
Stephen, speaking by the Spirit’s power, saw idolatry in the Jewish leaders’ intense religious zeal, and compares them to the revelers dancing around the golden calf at Sinai. They had great zeal for the law, but their rejection of the Messiah revealed their hearts’ worship. They had made a god for themselves, and were blending true worship with idol worship. The most dangerous idolatry comes clothed in the shining garments of zealous religion, in efforts to bring our good works and law-keeping to please God, to convince Him to increase our material and spiritual blessings.
Ellen White Teaches Modern Idolatry
We can feel superior to ancient Israel worrying about their future, their crops, and their fertility. For them, trouble was always around the corner. They bowed down to the astral deities, with a little Yahweh worship thrown in. They didn’t know the difference between a star and a planet. But then, how are we really different today? We share the same concerns by different names. Popular religions in our modern societies often focus on our prosperity, comforts, living your best life now. That describes much of so-called Christianity in America and around the world.
In Seventh-day Adventism, we see a great concern with health and longevity, and Adventists have built great institutions around those concerns. Health is the “right arm” of their gospel. The ideal life lives in harmony with the laws and powers of nature, so we can avoid death as long as possible. Living by “the testimonies” of Ellen White is ordering our lives around the powers of nature. Adventists believe that observing her prohibitions and observances is the way they please God and bring material and spiritual blessings on their families. There is much talk of Jesus and His grace, but the focus is dominated by fear of natural forces on their bodies.
We tend to worship what we fear the most. Great controversy theology is much concerned with the power of Satan to challenge God’s goodness and honesty, to thwart God’s plans, and to destroy the lives of believers. Satan became a little star-god that the devout could carry around in a little shrine, fearing his power to bring trouble to their lives. Shaking his fist at God, Satan becomes the Lord of Disaster for many of the most religious.
You Hold My Lot
When you trust in the Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, you first trust in the One He has sent, Jesus of Nazareth. He said,
“This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” —John 6:39-40
True worship begins and ends with knowing Jesus, the One who controls our destinies, our “lot,” when we believe in Him. He is the One who shows us the Father, and sends us His Spirit to make us truly alive. All the powers obey Him alone. He is the Master of destiny and disaster. As king David told us in Psalm 16:5-6,
“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;you hold my lot.The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”
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