Welcome to Affirm Foundation, presented by Princeton ministries with Dr Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

I have been a great supporter of President Reagan. I pray for him regularly and have been very thankful for the things that have occurred during his administration. But recent news items, and in particular the book written by White House chief of staff Donald Regan. The book, entitled For the Record, has stirred such controversy and has brought into the public arena a side of the leadership in the White House that I think, as Christians, it is important for us to have a perspective, especially a biblical perspective. In his book, Donald Regan begins by saying, and I quote, because actions that would otherwise bewilder the reader cannot be understood in its absence. I have revealed in this book what was probably the most closely guarded domestic secret of the Reagan White House, unquote. And we ask, what was this secret that was so well guarded?

It is this, that first lady Nancy Reagan relies on a San Francisco astrologer named Joan Quigley to determine the scheduling and the timing of President Reagan’s calendar. Now, this is in a context of the United States of America, where currently there are some hundred and 75,000 part time astrologers with an additional 10,000 full time salaried astrologers in our land. In over 2000 newspapers, we find daily horoscopes being presented. And it is through a number of studies been revealed that in the United States of America, some 50 million people believe in the power of astrology to either a mild or an extreme belief. And so these newspaper horoscopes are ready regularly. Some read them humorously, but there is a growing number of people for whom these horoscopes have great importance. Now in the White House.

Though she only came one time to a state dinner, Joan Quigley has been having influence through Nancy Reagan. We know about her, that she was raised in a penthouse overlooking Union Square. She’s a graduate of Vassar. She is the author of three books on astrology. And in 17 magazine, she authored that article on astrology that was routinely found in that magazine. One acquaintance of Miss Quigley describes her as, quote, conservative, very private, and a little wacky. Now, despite the trust that has been placed in Miss Quigley, her astrology seems to be quite fallible. As a matter of fact, in the month of May 5, to be exact, it was her prediction that a major earthquake would rock San Francisco. And so she left California on that day. And as May 5 came and went, the Richter scale didn’t move.

And so she certainly is not infallible. And there seems to be more than simple, casual interest in astrology by Misses Reagan. According to USA Today, astrology was used for these purposes to edit President Reagan’s speeches, to cancel travel plans, and at times it was the instrument by which cabinet members were fired. Donald Regan states, and I quote, virtually every major move and decision that President Reagan made during the past two years were influenced by the advice received from Misses Reagan’s astrologer. According to Time magazine, the recent Reagan Gorbachev Washington summit, that a chart was calculated for both President Reagan and for Mister Gorbachev as a result of those astrological charts of both men, it was determined that 02:00 p.m. On December 8, 1987 was the most propitious moment for them to sign the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

And it was at Misses Reagan’s behest that the entire summit was built around that hour. Now, a casual involvement with astrology is something that every christian should be concerned with. But when astrology begins to affect schedules and plans, we have gone to another level of involvement, and I would remind you that part of the purpose of astrology is to affect your schedule and plans. That that is part and parcel of what it means to follow astrology. Now, the Bible has a great deal to say on this subject. In the Old Testament, there are many references to astrology. The golden calf, for example, which Aaron had fashioned from the gold of the people while Moses was on Mount Sinai. That golden calf was in the form of Taurus, the bull, who was the Egyptian astrological God.

The record of the rise and fall of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament included whether or not astrology was practiced during the reign of one king or another. Kings who did away with astrology and removed the temples and altars to Baalie were declared as good kings. And those who would remove the astrologers and would not be influenced by these prognosticators and would remove the towers and altars to Baal were declared as evil. As a matter of fact, as we look in the Old Testament, we find that Israel’s final doom was linked directly to its people’s involvement in astrology. In two kings, chapter 17, verse 16, we read that they bowed down to all of the starry hosts and they worshiped Baal. Astrology has always been linked to the worship of false gods.

Isaiah announced God’s judgment on all of these monthly prognosticators, on the astrologers themselves. When he said, let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from these things that shall come upon you, behold they shall be as stubble. The fire shall burn them. In two kings, chapter 23, verse five. King Josiah had initiated a reform among the people. And one of the great reforms that he made was that all those who burned incense to the sun and to the moon and to the planets and to the hosts of heaven, all of them were deposed. In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verses ten through twelve, we read, there shall not be found among you those who practice witchcraft, soothsayers, ones who interpret omens, sorcerers, mediums, spiritists. For all those who practice such things are an abomination to God.

In the book of Daniel, he exposes the work of the astrologers as simply false and futile. And again and again in the Old Testament, we find repeated theme that God’s people should have nothing to do with astrology, that they should remove themselves at every opportunity from being involved in this false worship. The astrologers say that there are many good reasons to believe in their so called art. Astrologers will tell you that it is a science in the same way that mathematics is a science, that chemistry is a science, and that astrology is a science. Well, is that true within the christian church? I am surprised at the number of times in a discussion about astrology that the question comes up about the Magi. Weren’t the Magi simply early astrologers?

Didn’t they simply look to the skies and learn the future, as though that were in support of christians dabbling in astrology? Well, if you look at the account in Matthew, chapter two, first you will find that the Magi found Jesus not by plotting and calculating the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus or Mars and some other star. No. Instead, we find the clear account that the Magi were looking to the sky and there was a star that they simply followed. This star suddenly appeared, and then it moved, and over Jerusalem it disappeared, and then it reappeared, and the Magi simply followed a star. Secondly, rather than being some pagan astrologers, it is more likely that the Magi were Gentiles who had been converted to Judaism. There are many who simply believe that Judaism had gone into that part of the world.

And for centuries before the coming of Christ, the people who studied the Old Testament knew that according to numbers, chapter 24, verse 17, a star will come out of Judah and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. There was an expectation that some heavenly sight was going to direct the people to the place of the Messiah. Now, astrologers claim that by merely looking and observing your character, the things that you do, the qualities of your life, that they are able to tell your astrological sign. Well, there have been repeated tests done which have shown over and over again the inability of astrologers to watch you, to determine your personality, and then to be able, without knowing when you are born, to be able to say under what star you were born.

As a matter of fact, a french researcher by the name of Michael Guaugalan examined the birth records of some 25,000 celebrities, doctors, artists, musicians, athletes, trying to see if he could group by personality types people who were born under certain signs of the zodiac, with the way their lives actually were lived. And he could find no relationship whatsoever between the way people’s qualities of personality manifested themselves and their sign. According to the zodiac, just this week, Larry King was talking with an astrologer, and she asked him, what is your sign? And he answered and she said, oh, I thought so. Which is the common practice of the astrologer today.

That as you tell a little bit more of yourself, they will leave you with the impression that had you not told them, they would have been able to figure it out simply by listening to you. Another tactic that is used by present day astrologers is their willingness to point out successes that they claim to have had. And so it is from the platform of one success that they then go ahead and make various predictions. Well, usually we read these things before the events unfold. Seldom do we look back to see how did they do. Now, according to the ten leading psychics who make use of astrology, the year 1987, which is long behind us, had these things occur. Now notice the way they are presented. First, Clarissa Barnhart, famous for her accurate earthquake predictions, made many predictions.

One of them for 1987 was that there will be startling proof that Japanese explorers visited America thousands of years before Columbus, and that will be found in California. It never occurred. According to Los Angeles Psychic, as he was looking to the stars to tell us what would happen in 1987, Los Angeles psychic Maria Gas Yeti, who predicted the Manson family murders, offered these forecasts for the new year. Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev will be seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by one of his own soldiers during Moscow’s Mayday parade. According to Miami psychic Mickey Daney, who accurately predicted the Canary island jumbo jet collision which killed more than 500 people.

He made this prediction, which was to have occurred in 1987, that a massive White House investigation into UFO’s will be launched after an entire fleet is cited by thousands of fans at an open air rock concert in northern Colorado. According to the same stargazer, Libya’s leader Gaddafi will be shot by one of his own bodyguards. Florida psychic Bridget Teague, who uses astrology to help investors pick successful stocks, made this startling announcement. Terrorists will try to kidnap Farrah Fawcett in Paris, but her boyfriend, Ryan O’Neill will pummel the thugs and rescue her. And it goes on and on. Now I remind you that these are the ten leading psychics who are relying on astrology and their soothsaying to be able to predict those things in the future.

I have been keeping a record over a number of years of these predictions, and their predictions are over 99% inaccurate. And giving the benefit of the doubt, there is still a question on that 1%. In 1936, Adolf Hitler addressed the International Congress on astrology, and to their delight, he expressed his enthusiasm for astrology. He encouraged the astrologers to continue their work. He eventually would hire a number of full time astrologers to help him notice to schedule his plans for war. In the early days of World War Two, he relied heavily for the scheduling of various military maneuvers, and there was some degree of success in the early days. But as the war continued and he continued to rely in more obvious and more powerful ways upon the influence of the astrologers, he found that they became inaccurate.

By the end of World War Two, Hitler banished all of his astrologers to concentration camps. In 1949, the German Astronomical Society concluded, whatever hides behind the title of astrology is nothing more than a mixture of superstition, duplicity and business. And to our president and to misses Reagan, I would plead that they would have nothing to do with astrology, that they would have nothing to do with the monthly prognosticators, that as a nation we deserve more from our leadership, that our schedules as individuals should not be determined by the stars, and certainly that the schedule of our president, no matter how seemingly accurate it may seem at this time, should be the way that we go about determining the schedule for our president.

According to psalm 97, the heavens are to declare the glory of God, and God has placed the stars in the sky to remind us that he is our creator, not that we should look to the stars for guidance day by day, and to anyone who is fascinated with astrology. And one leader of an astrology group in America this week made this statement. My regard for President Reagan has gone up a thousand percent since learning of his interests in astrology, and one of the concerns that I have for christians is that we would not be tempted to see a seeming success in astrology, but instead that we would look with great concern as our nation is led by a president that we want to pray for.

And I plan to even send a copy of this message to our president, hoping that with many others there will be a flood of concern on the part of christians, that we would want more from those who would lead us, that we would desire that astrology would have no place in the leading of schedules or plans. And for those of you who have an interest in astrology, I would encourage you to put aside that interest. That you instead would have interest in Jesus Christ. That you would replace your daily horoscope reading with daily scripture reading, that you would replace the planning of your schedules around the placement of the stars and instead that your eyes would be focused upon the one who is the bright, the morning star, Jesus Christ.

To know that he is with you every day, that he will never leave you, nor forsake you, that our eyes would be upon the son of righteousness, Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we come before you and ask that for each of us we might note, mix superstition and the gazing at the skies with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us to believe in the promises of your word alone, that from Christ and the scriptures come all of the knowledge that we need about the future. And the future we know is held in the hands of Christ, to whom we will all stand one day and give an account. And upon that day, our horoscope will not help us. Our monthly astrologers will not help us. Only faith in Jesus Christ will stand on that day.

Help each of us. We pray to trust more in you, to love you more, and to serve you more. For we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to affirm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org or send your donation to Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. That’s Princeton Ministries, post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. The Lord bless you and Dr Smith looks forward to hearing from.