Acts 13 Astrology and Satans Strategy

The speaker begins by discussing the continuation of the study in Acts chapter 13, focusing on speaking the truth and astrology. They introduce a character named Bar Jesus, who is not the Jesus people typically think of. The speaker then mentions Peter's miraculous escape from prison and Herod's death. They explain that Antioch is a new hub for the Christian Church and the base for Saul's ministry. The speaker emphasizes the diversity of the early church and the importance of being set apart for God's work. They explain the different Greek words for "set apart" and highlight the significance of worshiping and ministering to God. Fasting and praying are mentioned as practices that help focus on ministry. Barnabas and Saul are sent out by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the word of God in synagogues. They encounter a magician named Bar-Jesus. The speaker concludes by discussing the commonality of the name Jesus and its historical origins. Okay, I have to try to get my pulpit mic on there and so we're going to continue in Acts chapter 13 tonight, kind of going away from chapter 12 now. So we made it to the next chapter. We're going to talk about speaking what is true. A lot of that we're going to talk about astrology. You guys all know your signs. You're not supposed to raise your hand if you do, you're in trouble. But and we're going to meet this guy named Bar Jesus. Not a guy that hangs out at the bar and it's not the Jesus you're thinking of. So we're going to be introduced to him to him tonight, but before we get started let's go ahead and go to him in prayer. Dear God, once again we come before you just to clean our slate, just forgive our sins, purify our hearts and our minds, and help me to stay out of the way of what you want to accomplish tonight, and let us hear exactly the words of truth tonight from directly from you. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen. So we have Peter was in prison and then he was freed, miraculously freed. He had over a dozen soldiers guarding him, probably chained to him. All of a sudden the chains fall off, the doors open, several doors open for him, and the disciples are shocked to see him knocking at their door. So do you think that scared him into stopping in his ministry and going into hiding? Nope, he just kept on going and in fact he was empowered to even go farther away. So and then we have justice occurred last week. We saw that Herod, the one that locked Peter up, everybody started to worship him and adore him, you know like typical politician, everybody kind of puts him on a pedestal. But then he was killed, and he was eaten from the inside out by worms, so that was a pleasant way to die. But that's what evil does, I mean it does eat you from the inside out. It just happened for him, it happened very quickly. And then now they're at Antioch, which is this new hub for the Christian Church. It's where Christian was first named, belonging to the party of Christ, and it's the base for Saul's ministry. So let's see this ministry as it grows here in Acts chapter 13 verse 1. It says, Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Simeon, who is called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene and Manion, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. So that verse kind of describes where they're from, who they are, showing you that it was a diverse church actually, a very diverse early church. It wasn't like they were all from one little town, they were from all over. Niger, Simeon was from the African region, it means dark complexion actually, and Barnabas was a Jew from Cyprus, and Manion worked in the capital with Herod Antipas. He was the one who actually beheaded John the Baptist, so Manion was probably there to witness that whole thing going down during Jesus' ministry when John the Baptist was beheaded. So you have all these people from different areas, and that's how God likes it, you know, He likes the diversity, despite what the media says Christians are, we're not diverse, but we are all from the same person. So we totally believe that we are all from Adam and Eve, so we are the least racially discriminated group in all of history probably. But verse 2 goes on, while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, so I want to highlight a couple words there, ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit says, set apart, and we're going to look at that word too, for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So the Holy Spirit is speaking to them as they were ministering to God Himself, but He says set apart for me Barnabas and Saul. God tells us that He wants us to be set apart for His work as well, so we can kind of put ourselves in these shoes too. God wants us to be set apart, but what does that set apart mean? There's a couple different translations, a couple different words in the Greek. We have aphorizo, which means literally to mark off by boundaries, it means to separate, it's almost, I think of it as God's putting you out here and He's putting a barrier around you and saying this is your mission, I will protect you from any outside influence, and it's a literal boundary or marking off. Whereas hagios is another term for set apart that you'll see throughout Scripture, and of course when you come across these words, it's just a set apart, so you don't really know the difference. I think the interpreters could have done a little bit better job sometimes, but hagios means holy, and that means set apart in a good way. It means set apart in a good way, and often we think of it as being set apart from the world. We're belonging to the party of Christ, we're different from the world. If we're too comfortable with the world, we're probably not holy, we're not set apart. So that's how we can identify if we're holy, you know, we're having a hard time with the world, we're having a hard time fitting in with the world, if we are truly holy, like he is holy. He had a really hard time fitting in though, Jesus had a hard time fitting in with the world enough to where he died. So we have this word aphorizo, more of a physical boundary that God set apart these people for, mentioned a few times, and we have it here in Galatians 115 where Paul talks about how he was set apart early on, but when God who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace was pleased. So God had set him apart even though he was a terror on the church. His mission didn't start until later on, but God knew that he had a mission for him. You know, you may not feel like you're doing a lot for Christ right now, but maybe God has something bigger for you in the future, you need to watch out for that. Set apart for the gospel in Romans 1.1, he says, Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, set apart specifically. He was given the mission to preach the good news that everybody can be saved. You know, you just have to trust in Christ for your salvation. And now we see in Acts 13 where we're at now, he's set apart for a specific service and that's to expand and grow the church. But another aspect of this is we see that the Holy Spirit communicated during their worship service. The worship service is a good place to have the Holy Spirit communicate with you. So is being at home too, you know, it depends on how connected you are at home. But I know many times I go throughout the week and I feel disconnected and then at church, I'm once again connected on a deeper level. And then that's where the Holy Spirit can start speaking to you. But if we had that same attitude throughout the week, we could always be being spoken to, you know. But ministering comes from the word liturgio or liturgy, liturgy. You probably heard that word before. And here's the definition of liturgy. In a general sense, all public ceremonies that belong to divine service, hence in a restricted sense among the Romanists, the mass, so the Catholic mass, would be a liturgy. It's a service. And among Protestants, the common prayer or formulary of public prayers, or in our case, meeting together here at church as a liturgy, it's a meeting together for the purpose of ministering to God. And we don't often think of worship as ministering to God, but God created us to worship him just for no reason, just because he did it because he loves it. He loves it when we communicate with him, when we worship him. And it's actually a ministry to him. And we don't often think about that when we worship him. And it's not just singing songs. It's not just listening to the word of God. It's being an example as we go out these doors. And it's praying to him when we wake up in the morning and committing each day to him. That's all worship and it's all sacrifice. Acts 13, 3 goes on, then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So we see this fasting and praying pretty often. It really helped them maybe focus on their ministry when you're fasting, you're hungry. So that reminds you to pray. And maybe it reminds you a little bit of the suffering that Christ went through. I don't know, but it helps you focus. And we know that our founders, when our country was established through a miracle, fasting and praying was their foundation. Ministering to God was their foundation. And that's what brought about the miracle of our nation. So fasting, praying, ministering to God, that's where the Holy Spirit can start speaking to you. That's where God can start using you and setting you apart for his work. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. So we have this map here from Antioch. So we've really been in between Jerusalem and Antioch so far. They've been bouncing back and forth. Jerusalem sent some reinforcements up to Antioch. Now they're expanding to another missionary journey to this island of Cyprus. So we go on, verse 5, when they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they also had John as their helper. So in Salamis here, there was several Jewish synagogues at this time. It was known as a place of high concentration of Jews. So they're really going into a thick Jewish environment here. And we're going to see that reflected here in one of the sermons that he gives here in a little bit. But when they had gone through the whole island, as far as Paphos, they found a magician. This is where it gets cool. A magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus. And, you know, I thought, you know, when you think of Jesus, obviously you're thinking of the Messiah, right? But if you look it up in secular history, Jesus was a common name. Of course, we say it wrong, really. His real name is Ishush, I-E-S-O-U-S. And it comes from originally the Hebrew Yehoshua, and it means literally Yahweh, which you can't pronounce it unless you're breathing it, like we've talked about before. Yahweh saves. So Jesus's name in our language, how we've interpreted it, comes from the Hebrew word, which I like that one the best, Yehoshua, and it means Yahweh saves. And it wasn't the first time that Jesus was used, Yehoshua comes from the root Joshua, as we see in the Old Testament. That word Joshua is the same as Yehoshua, and it's all connected together. And remember, when Moses stepped down, Joshua stepped in and took on that ministry. But we see Jesus was actually a common name, probably going back to that Old Testament Joshua. You know, just like we name our kids after biblical names, which I don't think I named any of my kids after biblical names. One was Clay Matthews, a Packers player, and see how religious I am. Kinley, I don't even know what that name means. Of course, Scott's name means toilet paper, so I don't know. But there's no better, how do I move on from that? But talking about this bar Jesus guy, he's not hanging out in bars, but it means son of Joshua. It means son of Eshush, you could say. But this guy was a magi, he was an astrologer in a bad way. So there's two kinds of magis throughout scripture. We see the ones that visited Jesus. They were the good guys. They observed the heavens. You know, God says that there'll be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars in the end times. So maybe we should be looking, you know, I guess there's a solar eclipse coming up here in the spring. But things like that, you look up and there's signs and you're just observing the stars. But there's also worshippers of the stars. There's fortune tellers that try to interpret the stars. And that's where you come from, this word magi and magio. So there's two different ones. Magion, somewhat of importance, intelligence, honorable during this time. Magio was a word used and the definition was a fraudulent wizard. Magio, and this guy's a magio. So what is astrology? Where is this coming from? Is this a new idea? We see astrology, we see the zodiac. We're going to look at that really quick. But it goes, I looked up, what is the history of the zodiac and astrology? And it literally goes back before we even have record of time. They started worshipping the stars very, very early on. But it's a science which teaches to judge of the effects and influences of the stars and to foretell future events by their situation in different aspects. This silence was formerly in great request as men ignorantly supposed the heavenly bodies to have a ruling influence over the physical and moral world. But it is now universally exploded by true science and philosophy. And where do you think I got that definition? Because he kind of puts the truth in there. That's Webster's 1828 dictionary dot com. You can use that. The very original dictionary included God and truth and godly science is a good science. And he knew what he was talking about. And he says, this is just a bunch of junk, basically. We have the zodiac. I don't know, again, I don't know if you guys know your sign, like what month you're born and all that stuff. I was born in February and I have no clue which sign I am because I don't care because it doesn't mean anything. But this was actually, again, invented before time. I mean, there's been variations that have existed. But the zodiac is something you may hear, too. It's a broad circle in the heavens, like you just saw, containing the 12 signs through which the sun passes in its annual course. The center of this bell is the ecliptic, which is the path of the sun. It intersects the equator at an angle or 23 degrees and a half or other 29 minutes. This is called obliquity. Well, they do have it correct that the stars and the sun and moon were hung for a purpose. It was hung for a purpose. It wasn't meant to be worshipped in itself, but it was to direct us to the one who we should worship. It was to amaze us at the scientific exactness of everything. You know, if the world was just a few feet off balance, we'd be hurtled out into space because of the gravity would be off. If the sun wasn't where it was, we would either get too hot or too cold. God hung everything into place just for a purpose. And, you know, Saturn's rings aren't just there for fun. Yeah, they're cool to look at, but they actually collect space junk for us. So that space junk doesn't end up hitting us here on Earth. I don't know if anybody knew that one. But there's a purpose for everything that God did up there. But, of course, they always want to worship the creation. You see, the one world government people love to worship creation, start with global warming. But what does God think of this? What does God think of astrology? Well, he tells us in Isaiah, he's talking about Babylon or the daughter of Babylon, which many could say that it's America. We'll look at a little bit of that evidence here in a little bit. But and how astrology and sorcery was the downfall, actually, of Babylon. You wouldn't think of that. So the worship of the stars, the moon and all that stuff was the fall of the daughter of Babylon here. Isaiah 47, 8, he describes this Babylon. Now, just think about this. Does this remind you of any nation that you can think of? Now then, hear this, you sensual one. I looked up the word sensual and it means voluptuous. Crazy word. Voluptuous one, whom dwells securely, who says in your heart, I am and there is no one besides me. So they're prideful, right? I will not sit as a widow, nor no loss of children. So very prideful. But these two things will come on you suddenly one day. Loss of children and widowhood, they will come on you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries, in spite of the great power of your spells. Now that sorcery, remember, is the pharmaceutical companies, basically is how that interprets into. I know that sounds like a basic interpretation, but it literally means pharmacy or pharmaceuticals. So the power of their great spells and pharmaceuticals do have great power. It says, you felt secure in your wickedness and said, no one sees me, your wisdom and your knowledge. They have deluded you for you have said in your heart, I am and there is no one besides me. Who said I am? God said I am. And now this nation is saying, well, no, I am God. But evil will come on you, which you will not know how to charm away because that's how this nation has acted. They think they could just charm their way out of anything, you know. Just bribe their way out of anything and disaster will fall on you for which you cannot atone and destruction about what you do not know will come on you suddenly. Stand fast now in your spells and in your many sorceries with which you have labored from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to profit. Perhaps you may cause trembling. You are weary with your many counsels. Let now astrologers, OK, this is where the astrology comes in. The astrology comes in. So we know that the pharmaceutical God is calling out as an evil empire. Now we see the astrologers is another evil empire. And both of those led to the downfall of this nation. But those who prophesy by the stars, those who predict by the new moons, stand up and save you from what will come upon you. Behold, they become like stubble. Fire burns them. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coal to warm by nor a fire to sit before. I wouldn't want to be in this nation if this was our nation because we know it's going to be reduced to a stubble. So some of the ideas why they think it might be America he's talking about, we can't prove that, but we see that this nation through scripture will exist at the same time as the restoration of the Jewish state. That was a big deal back in 1948 when Israel became a nation again. Really, could you say that fulfilled a lot of biblical prophecy? And we know this nation, Babylon, will exist when the Jewish state exists. So and then the national symbol, according to scripture, will be an eagle. Coincidence? She's the greatest economic nation in the world. She's the world's most powerful military nation. She's a nation of diverse people, people from many nations woven together. She's a golden cup in the Lord's hand. Actually, that was the positive mentioned throughout scripture of this nation, a nation used to bless the rest of the world. That could be true too. A nation where the Jewish people will emigrate and prosper. True too. I mean, that could be true of several nations, but I think it's zeroed down pretty well. On our nation, which is a little scary because that means we're reduced to stubble, if that's true. But we won't be here because the rapture will occur before that, hopefully. But we have the astrologer, Bar-Jesus, here we're looking at. And verse seven will go on. He said, Who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence? This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. So here's this really high up official with a lot of power, wanting to hear the word of God, wanting to know Christianity. You know, it's kind of like somebody like Elon Musk would become a Christian. Imagine the power that he would have to influence people. Or, you know, there's many different celebrities and things that if they became a Christian would very much impact the world. So Satan comes in here and he has a strategy. He's like, we cannot allow this. So, but Elamus, the magician, for so his name is translated, this Bar-Jesus guy, was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. He knew he was in trouble. If he would convince that person in that position of power that Jesus was the Christ, the damage he could have done was great. Just much like Paul, you know, he was terrorizing the church, but then came to the faith. Now he's doing just awesome, great things. The proconsul was a governor appointed by the Roman Senate, so he was in charge of a territory. But it's amazing how the enemy knows how to get a hold. He knows where to go. You know, is he here in Little Albion? Well, I would like to think that we're making a big impact in the world, but maybe he's over in an area where he can be more of influence, like in Washington, D.C. or something, you might say. I don't know. But he knows how to get a hold of the influencers, of the powerful people, of the ones that manipulate thinking and control the narrative, right? So you think Satan's involved in our media today? I think you see that throughout our media. But I like this picture. Here's CNN, you know, getting their poster ready to go ahead and go on the news. And he's writing this Muslim terrorist and he's drawing him as this peaceful guy releasing a dove. Well, just as Moses did. So nice. And they'll say that Islam means religion of peace, where actually it does not mean religion of peace. It means submission via violence or whatever it takes. So we see how the enemy can get and make evil look appetizing. And it's really ruined our nation. Evil has become attractive and something that people pursue. And it's sneaky, too. And they want you to go to college. Oh, you're just going to get an education, you know, to get out into the workforce. No, they're going to manipulate your kids. So verse 9 goes on. But Saul, who is also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. So we know that God is behind him. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you know that God is really working in your life. He fixed his gaze on him. Now, what's this fixing the gaze? It's a death stare. The power to destroy universes. I'm sure I've never seen this from my wife because I'm always a good person, a good husband. But I'm sure you guys have seen the death stare. But you want to know a next level death stare? This is the highest level death stare you can give. This one. That's just different, isn't it? That's like a really, can you imagine Bill Clinton on the other side of that? Or unfortunately, our whole entire nation on the other side of that. That look when your next text message is sent to your hitman. And we looked at over 40 some people have committed suicide that were tied to the Clintons a few weeks ago. Coincidence? Do you think the enemy is working in our governments, in our media, in places of influence? Verse 10 goes on and said, you. So remember, he's giving him the death stare. I love this. So we can do this death stare too. The good guys can do the same thing. We can fight back too. He says, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil. Are you allowed to say that in scripture? You enemy of all righteousness. Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? This is why it drives me crazy when Christians, when churches say, oh, we just need to get along. We need to always be loving and peaceful. And no, we need to be ferocious and direct and clear with our message sometimes. So remember there was another magician who the apostles weren't very happy about either, named Simon. Back in chapter eight, we see this guy. Now, when Simon saw that the spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money. So what's up with these magicians always causing trouble? Saying, give me this power also so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could attain the gift of God with money. So he is direct telling him, may your silver perish. It's not about money. They all knew if you made it about money, that was the wrong motive. That is something that destroys churches. And we see that the enemy uses this. He gets church leadership to start focusing on money. And then like these magicians, they're obsessed with money and how to make the most out of it. There's many false preachers out there that are in it for the money, unfortunately. And, you know, nothing wrong with taking a salary, but it would be a little hard. You know, if the offerings weren't quite there, you might have to take a pay cut eventually, right? So it really ties you down. But Paul also points this out in 2 Corinthians 11, 7. He was kind of debating this idea about the money situation. He says, I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God's message to you without asking for something in return? Serving you for free of charge so that you could be saved? Serving you for free of charge so that you wouldn't be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. So he wasn't necessarily looking for the money. He's going to clarify his point here in a second. But he says, not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the Christians from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden on you, and I never will be. You can count on it. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be stopped in the regions of Achaia. So he's saying that the truth of Christ is the most important thing. The truth itself is the most important thing. It's beyond money. And at first he's kind of saying, yeah, I give him a little hard time. He's going to clarify. He's going to say that, you know, it's not about the money. It's about the truth, getting the truth out there in the best way possible. So we know that the truth of Christ is in him. When truth is spreading and the truth, we know that that message will set you free. So what's the opposite of that? What happens when people start focusing on the money, when they start focusing on the lie that money is important, that will imprison you. So the truth will set you free and lies will imprison you. We have this guy here, Justin Popovic. In truth, there is only one freedom, the holy freedom of Christ, whereby he freed us from sin, from evil, from the devil. It binds us to God. All other freedoms are illusionary, false. That is to say they are all in fact slavery. You think money will give you freedom, but the love of money actually will bind you and cause you to be a slave to it. He says he will not be stopped. He will not stop teaching the truth. And he clarifies his position here in verse 11. It's not that I don't love you, he says. God knows I do. I'm just trying to keep things open and honest between us. And I'm not changing my position on this. I die before taking your money. I'm giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing preachers. Can you tell this is the message version? So he started out kind of thinking money is important. Now he's saying the total opposite. So we know that he's calling these people out. And no wonder Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light. So it shouldn't surprise us when his servant, the angel of light, comes to the table and says, I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. I'm going to teach you the truth. It shouldn't surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God, but they're not getting by with anything. They'll pay for it in the end. So this magician, he's not going to get away with it. He's going to pay for it in the end. When Christians try to come in and stir up trouble in the church, they're going to pay for it in the end. When we turn our back on God and don't allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and use us and set us apart, we're going to regret that in the end. So we need to be focused on the end, just like these early apostles are. And then that'll help keep us on track and keep us wholly separate from the rest of the world, because we know that this is the devil's playground, right? And we want to be separate from that. Let's go ahead and close in prayer tonight. Dear God, we thank you that you just guide us and direct us on a straight path. And we can be confident that you're always there for us. I pray that you just send your Holy Spirit just to guide us throughout this week as we go out and serve you the rest of this week and just keep us all safe. In Jesus name, Amen.