When the Lord created the stars, He did not do it so that people would later believe in all kinds of horoscopes, but, as it is written in the book of Genesis, God said: “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years” (Gen.1:14). The sun is in the sky to divide the day from the night. The moon is for seasons — or, closer to the Hebrew original, for appointed assemblies, seasons and feasts — and also for years, for the new year begins at the new moon on the feast of Rosh Hashanah. And the stars are for signs. They have always pointed, and still point, to the One to whom the Law and the Prophets bore witness.

Ever since the building of the tower of Babel the enemy has tried to distort the true essence and purpose of the clusters of stars, the constellations, in the firmament of heaven. As Scripture says, they wanted to make a name for themselves in the sky instead of the Name the stars bore witness to. (The original meaning of the 12 constellations) The serpent has always tried, and still tries, to turn man’s gaze away from the tree of life, which reveals Christ to us, to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which reveals man’s nakedness. But however hard the enemy tries, the Lord is stronger and wiser than he, and He has accomplished everything as He planned.

The Word of God speaks of many signs, each of which reveals Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross to one degree or another. Not for nothing did the psalmist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, write that “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Ps.19:1) And I would like to look at one of these signs precisely because a similar sign will appear in the sky in September 2017, on the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashanah.

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
—Revelation 12:1-2

Once Joseph had a dream, which he told his brothers, and they hated him even more. He dreamed that he and his brothers were binding sheaves, and his brothers’ sheaves stood around his sheaf and bowed down to it. His brothers said to him: “Shall you indeed reign over us?…” Then he had another dream like it, in which the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him, and he told it to his father too. His father rebuked him: “Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” (Gen.37:5-10)

Many years later his brothers really did bow down to Joseph, when he came to rule in Egypt, but this story, like many others in Scripture, points to the heavenly Joseph, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is of Christ that it is written: “As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God.” (Rom.14:11) God has exalted the name of Jesus, so that every knee should bow before Him, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth.

In Scripture the sun symbolises God’s righteousness (Mal.4:2), the moon the righteousness of the law, of works (the Hebrew for moon is levanah, which means white), and the 12 stars are the twelve tribes of Israel. So the woman in the sign is the people of Israel, whom the Lord has clothed in God’s righteousness and put the Law under their feet. Although many Jews still live under the law today, God’s plan is for them to submit to the righteousness of God, and for the Lord to clothe them in the robe of salvation.

The amazing fact is that there have been only four such signs in the whole history of mankind (the 4th will be in September 2017). Each of them is unique in its own way, and each points to the King of the Jews. The number 4 symbolises God’s creation, which is why chapter 4 of the book of Revelation speaks of 4 living creatures standing at the throne, each of which also points to the Creator of the Universe. (More about the 4 living creatures)

The First Sign: The Seed of the Woman

The first time the woman (the constellation Virgo) appeared in the heavens clothed with the Sun, with the Moon under her feet and 12 stars on her head (the 9 stars of the constellation Leo plus Saturn, Venus and Mercury) was on 5 August 3915 BC.

I write “BC” because “before the birth of Christ” would not be quite accurate. I understand that many people think it is now 2017 years since the so-called birth of Christ, but few know that this calendar was devised by a Roman abbot, or Scythian monk, nicknamed Dionysius the Little, in 525. Using an existing method of calculating the dates of Easter (taking the solar and lunar calendars into account), he determined that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ fell on 25 March in the year 31 after His birth. You can see straight away that he made a mistake, for Christ was crucified when He was 33 and a half, and it is not clear which calendars he used.

Thank the Lord for computers, which Dionysius did not have but we do, with whose help we can see any signs in the stars in the heavens in any year. And the sky will give more accurate dates of important events in history than the calculations of any abbot.

So, the first such sign appeared about 4 thousand years before the birth of Christ, at exactly the time when the first prophecy about the coming Messiah was spoken from the mouth of the Lord: “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (Gen.3:15)

If we look at the sky, we will see that Jupiter was in the womb of the constellation Virgo, just at the moment of birth, as it was leaving the womb. Jupiter, which in Hebrew is Tzedek, which also means righteousness, points to the priest of God Most High, Melchizedek, the King of righteousness, whose priesthood is more excellent than the priesthood of Aaron. Melchizedek met Abraham as he returned from the battle, and blessed him. But this Melchizedek is also the seed of Abraham and the seed of the woman.

Jesus once asked the Pharisees: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” “The Son of David,” they answered Him. Then Jesus said to them: “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”‘? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” And no one was able to answer Him a word. (Mat.22:41-46)

But glory to the Lord, He has revealed this to us by His Holy Spirit. Jesus, being the Son of Man, born of a woman who was a descendant of King David, was not only the Son of David but also the Son of God, who remains forever, the Creator of the Universe. That is why Jesus said to the Jews: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” (Jhn.8:58)

Jesus called Himself just as God revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain in the burning bush. There God said to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM [YHWH] has sent me to you.'” In other words, Jesus called Himself the eternal, the self-existent One — in other words, God. This is the answer to those who keep claiming that Jesus never called Himself God. It was right after these words that the Jews picked up stones to throw at Him.

The Second Sign: The Birth of the King

The next such sign appeared in the heavens on 11 September 3 BC, on the feast of Rosh Hashanah, when the King of the Jews was born in Bethlehem, the city of David. Only now Jupiter, which is also called the King of planets, was one of the 12 stars on the woman’s head. Just as Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, so the Messiah, the Son of Joseph, was born a Jew of the tribe of Judah.

If we look at the sky, we will see that Jupiter came into conjunction with the main star of the constellation Leo, Regulus. Regulus comes from the Latin word regulus, which means prince. How can we not recall the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa.9:6) Interestingly, the Child is born, but the Son is given, for the Son cannot be born; He remains forever.

At the birth of the Messiah two stars came together: the Prince of heaven (Regulus) and the King of the earth (Jupiter). This conjunction truly shone very brightly in the sky, and over the following year Jupiter came into union with Regulus several more times, which was clear confirmation for the astronomer sages (the magi) that the King of the Jews had been born. They asked the people: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” (Mat.2:2) Whom do people worship, if not the Lord God, the King of heaven and earth!?

But just as his brothers hated Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt for 20 pieces of silver, so His brothers the Jews hated Jesus and sold Him to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver to be crucified. The Messiah was rejected by the people of Israel. As the apostle John wrote: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him…” (Jhn.1:10-11). So about 35 years after the Jews rejected the good news preached by Stephen and stoned him, the temple was destroyed by the Gentiles.

The Third Sign: The Destruction of the Temple

On 28 August 70 there was another sign in the sky. After a seven-month siege Jerusalem was taken, more than a million people were killed and the Temple was destroyed. It is not a very joyful event, but it is very significant in the life of Israel, and the woman with twelve stars on her head points precisely to it. And the signs themselves are first of all for the Jews, God’s children according to the flesh, not for Christians. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” (1 Cor.1:22-23)

After the destruction of the Temple the Jews were scattered over the whole earth for almost 2 thousand years, while Christianity, whose centre had been Jerusalem, spread mainly among the Gentiles. Just as Joseph came to rule among the Egyptians, so Jesus became king among the Gentiles.

But, as the apostle Paul writes: “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew… blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.'” (Rom.11:2,25-26)

Since the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917 the Lord has begun to gather His people in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Lord is preparing the people of Israel for His return, no longer as the Messiah who suffered for the sins of the whole world, but as King of kings and Lord of lords. The times of the Gentiles are coming to an end, and the Deliverer is coming to deliver His people, whom He has chosen.

The Fourth Sign: The Appearing of the King

On 23 September 2017, on the feast of Rosh Hashanah, there will be a great sign in the sky: “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth… She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.” (Rev.12:1-2,5)

This sign in Revelation chapter 12 is often associated with the birth of Christ and His first coming, but, as we saw earlier, at the birth of Jesus the sign was a little different, for Jupiter was not in the woman’s womb, as it will be now. Another remarkable fact is that Jupiter entered the womb of the constellation Virgo at the end of November 2016 and will circle there for 42 weeks, until 9 September 2017. That is how long a woman usually carries a child.

This sign is more like the first one, almost 6 thousand years ago. Only then Jupiter had not been in the womb of Virgo for 9 months, and instead of Saturn, which was one of the 12, there is now Mars. Just as the first sign pointed to the Seed of the woman and to the enmity between the woman and the serpent, so this sign speaks of the Seed of the woman and of the dragon that tried to devour her child and began to persecute the woman after losing the war in heaven. Just as in the garden of Eden the Lord said to the woman: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception” (Gen.3:16), so now it is written that she “cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.” (Rev.12:2)

The times of the great tribulation are coming, but they are for the woman (the people of Israel), not for her child. It is written that the child was caught up to God and His throne. Paul wrote that “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal.3:29), heirs of the kingdom of God, and “God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.” (1 Ths.5:9-10)

Beloved brothers and sisters, the return of our Lord and Saviour is approaching, and the countdown is no longer in hours but in minutes. Paul writes: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Ths.4:15-18)

When we talk about the return of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, about the resurrection and about our being caught up to heaven, we comfort one another with it. Many Christians have been frightened into thinking that the Lord will judge everyone for their sins, so they are not very glad about His return, but Jesus Himself assured us that he who believes in Him has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. (Jhn.5:24)

Dear brother or sister, let these words of our Lord become your unshakable assurance that your judgment ended on the cross, and that only a reward from the Lord awaits you. It doesn’t matter what this or that “man of God” says, or how he interprets another passage of Scripture that seems to speak of judgment on those who believe in Jesus. It is all untrue! Read this verse once more and let the words of our Lord take root in your heart, and then every reminder of the return of our Beloved will give you blessed hope, and the Spirit of God will comfort you in it.

“And behold, I am coming quickly… And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev.22:12,17)