Signs of the End of the Age
Signs In the Sun, Moon and Stars, Part 1

Studio Session 89
Sam Soleyn
01/01/2006

Jesus prophesied that great events from heaven will come at the end of the age, that is that the origins of these great events will be from the realms of the heavens. But for us on the earth who are affected by these events the question becomes: When will these things be and how will we know? And of course the reason for those questions is that we need to be prepared. Well Jesus said there will be signs… signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. We began by seeing that the evil one will be thrown out of the heavens as a result of the work of Michael, the great angel, and the forces with Michael who wage war against the dragon, known as that ancient serpent, the devil or Satan, who will be thrown out of the heavens. (Inserted – actual verse—“And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” – Revelation 12:7-9)

These are the sorts of things, to the rational mind, that seem fantastic, fairytale, perhaps nightmare—Grimm Brothers kind of fairy tales—and it is no wonder that the rational mind is obligated to reject these things because they are not part of any of our experiential history and certainly not subject to quantification or prediction. That is why these events will catch the world unawares. It is not that we could not be made aware, it is not that God is not making us aware; it is that there is a self-imposed blindness by an over-exaltation of the value of science, and in a sense creating an imperialism by which all things are judged as being important or not important. So for example, if science does not agree that such things are possible then of course the “rational” population will say that it is not possible. But it will happen anyway.

You see, Jesus is not interested in being popular or famous or even well-liked because He is God and God’s role entitles him to a supremacy that couldn’t care less whether man believes him or not once man has been told the truth. If you are told the truth and you don’t believe, then God is not hesitant to bring the appropriate judgment or to unfold the events in such a way as He has foreordained, whether or not you then are prepared if you elect not to heed the warnings and to understand the things that God has said. Let us understand that if you live without faith in the Most High then the only thing you can know are the things that are, in effect, quantifiable and provable through a linear process. There is an entire world—a universe if you like—of things and occurrences that do not ask the permission of the rational to occur… and will, when it is time.

But God doesn’t do any of these things without warning his people because if the people of God are not warned in advance of the occurrence of these things—these things will be shocking enough to the people of God, let alone the ungodly population—then men’s hearts will literally fail for fear. Anything that overtakes the human race, that the human is incapable of addressing through his knowledge and other resources, will overwhelm him. But for the righteous, God warns us ahead of time so that we are not overwhelmed by the shocking events. So whoever will hear these things and trust God will be prepared; whoever will hear but will not pay attention to the things that are said, their destiny is sure: they will be overwhelmed by these events. Because the signs at the end of the age relate to these incredible events, they foretell the timing and the nature of these great occurrences, and because these great occurrences come not from the earth—though they end up on the earth—they come from the heavens, then the signs must be given by God.

When it is just a matter of human society in turmoil and conflict because it represents the maturation of conditions in the human heart and conditions latent to human society—when those progress to their natural paces and conclusions then the signs may occur from the earth: wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, pestilences and the like. But when these “greater events than even those” come upon human beings and come from the heavens, then humans cannot be held responsible for their own warnings because they don’t know when these events will come and they barely know what these events are, notwithstanding the fact that God has told us these things will happen and has written the record of them in Scripture. And the record of these things, of course, is also written in the Book of Truth.

When the great events of the evil one being thrown out—together with his minions, to then raise his opposition against God and the people of God on the earth—when that most disturbing of events occurs, the heavens will tell us of the imminence of its coming—the fact that it is right on the doorstep and the signs will appear in the sun, the moon and the stars. Before I get to that let me give you an example. When Jesus was born, the record of Matthew and Luke in particular, tell us that a great sign appeared in heaven. The wise men who came to visit him at the time close to his birth said, as their reason for coming, “We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.” (Inserted – actual verse—“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.’” – Matthew 2:1,2)

These wise men came from the upper reaches of Mesopotamia in what is now known as Babylon and 2000 years ago the population of that area, like it is mostly now, were Arabs. The Arabs have a long history of observing the heavens. Many of the names of the stars are Arabic. For example: Zuben Elgenubi is one of the great clusters of stars. Al Zimach is another of the great stars, it actually means, “the branch,” Al Zimach is one of those clusters of stars, and one of the reasons that some of these stars have Arabic names is because the practice of learning the information that the stars presented has been long undertaken by Arabs. But before them, the courts of ancient Samaria and Babylon had in these courts people whose learning was specifically in the stars.

That wasn’t only true of those ancients, but even in the days of the Romans the entire order of Roman priests (here I am not speaking of Roman Catholic priests, just Roman priests in the Roman Empire prior to Christianity) the entire Roman priesthood—because Rome as you know had its own official religion; it worshiped the mother goddess known as Vesper, and numerous other gods. But the practice of augury was to interpret from the entrails of animals, signs in the entrails of animals that corresponded with the arrangements of the stars in the heavens. This was the routine practice undertaken in the great temples that dotted the Roman Empire, so the stars of the heavens were long known to foretell incredible events.

In the day when Jesus was born, these three wise men who made the journey from the upper Euphrates to Israel—a very perilous journey, one might note—did so because their imperative was to find the One who was born: the King of the Jews. And in their own words, “We have seen his star in the east and we have come to worship him.” That raises an interesting question. You know, there are lots of things we take for granted as Christians because we live in a culture that has long supported Christian ideals, so we have not felt any need to actually ask the tough questions. One of the questions we ought to ask is: When they were looking up in the heavens, what star did they see? Because they said, “We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.” What star did they see? What is it that they saw that caused them to say it was his star? And seeing that star, why did they come to worship? They brought gifts, important gifts, but their real purpose was to worship. That meant that their intention in coming was to find a living God.

These are important questions. We just assume, “Well the story of Christmas has wise men following a star so there you go: wise men followed a star.” But what was different in these nights, in the night sky, from before, that would allow them to say, “This means this.” And when they followed that star and came to Bethlehem, did they in fact find what they were looking for? The answer is: Of course they did. Why? Because you see, the observing of the stars was not a whimsical, magical sort of thing. They looked into the heavens for the clues of the great events that would occur on the earth and they had so precisely understood the heavens that it was almost a matter of cause and effect to them.

If you like, this was a different kind of science. The methodology was based upon observable phenomenon, like science is, but their principles were different because they perceived that God had set the stars in the heavens for signs and for seasons, for days and for years. (Inserted – actual verse—“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so.” – Genesis 1:14,15) In fact when Jesus was born what occurred in the heavens was the appearing of a new star, it was a new star that appeared in the constellation, “Comah,” which in its ancient roots, “Comah,” in Hebrew is “the Desired,” or “the Desired One,” or “the Desired of the ages.”

Now today modern astronomers name the constellation Coma Berenices, after an event that occurred about 200 years before Christ. That event was that a queen of Egypt, whose name was Berenices, promised to give her hair to Venus if Venus would provide safety for her husband who was going on a perilous journey. I believe the husband’s name was Evergetes, and when this sacrifice was offered, the astronomer, Kanon, exalted her sacrifice to the place of saying that Jupiter (the king of the gods) had taken this and put her wig, her crown of hair, in the heavens. So today Coma Bernices is the hair of Berenices, the queen of Egypt of that period.

But before that time, 2000 years before that time, Comah was known in Hebrew as, “The Desired One,” or “The Desire of the Ages,” and the companion understanding of it came from ancient Egypt. Shes-nu, that same constellation known as Comah, in ancient Egyptian was known as Shes-nu, and it referred to “The Desired Son.” The modern understanding goes back only to 200 years before Christ. The ancient understanding was: “The Desired One,” or “The Desire of the ages,” and it was literally “the virgin,” Virgo, which in Hebrew means “virgin,” it also in Arabic means “the branch,” in Latin it is Virgo. Originally, the original term in Hebrew was Bethulah, and it meant “virgin.” There was a similar word in Arabic, which meant, “the branch,” and the Latin equivalent is Virgo.

Now this was the brightest constellation in the heavens and next to it was the constellation Comah, like the virgin and the sun. But according to the Scriptures, in the book of Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17, a specific promise was made and the ancients knew it. This promise was, “A new star will rise out of Jacob.” Here it is, this was actually one of the oracles of Balaam, “ ‘I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near.’” (The “him” here is Jesus.) The prophecy is “I see Jesus, but he is not here at the moment. I behold him in the distance, not now.” “ ‘A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.’” It was the promise of a new star. When this bright star appeared in the constellation Comah, or “the Desired One,”—and again the constellation was positioned next to the Virgin—then the ancients knew that the heavens had released into the earth the true meaning of “the Desired of the ages.”

Now Jesus himself is foretold by this star. We know that there are new stars that appear all of the time. There was a new star and this star is the sign of the Son of Man. When this star appears again in the heavens it will be about his second coming, and that is what Jesus is saying in Matthew 24, when He says, “And then they will see the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens.” (Inserted – actual verse—“ ‘At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn.’” – Matthew 24:30a) What is the sign? The same one that came when He first came: the arrival of a star, and it is possible that this star comes every 2000 years. We will see his star. Like they saw it the first time, they will see it again.

Now you say, “This is a lot of talk about the stars.” Well the history of mankind is written in the stars. Why? Because God set them up in that ancient time at the creation of the world to serve this purpose. (Inserted – actual verse—“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” – Genesis 1:14,15) You may say, “Well, I thought that all the stars were named by the Greeks and the Romans.” No, the stars have Greek and Roman names, but their description and even some of their specific names appear routinely in the Scriptures. For example in the book of Job, which by all accounts is the oldest of the books of the Bible, there God said to Job, “Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades?”—the seven stars of the Pleiades—“…or loosen the bands of Orion?” (Inserted – actual verse—“Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?” – Job 38:31)

Is there a constellation called the Pleiades? Yes. Is there a constellation called Orion? Yes. Who called them that? God did. When God spoke to Job about Mazzaroth, He was referring to another constellation in the heavens. Just as we spoke [about] earlier on, Bethulah was the Virgin. The Latin word for virgin is Virgo, but it was known in Hebrew before it was known in Latin. So the constellations of the heavens serve this critical purpose.

Why am I laboring this point? It seems like an awful investment of credibility to talk about the stars of the heavens when we have been warned not to get into astrology in the Scriptures. There is a difference between astrology and astronomy, and these constellations are known to astronomers. They may also be known to astrologers but they are known to astronomers, and the Scriptures themselves say that these mighty events that come out of the heavens—when an event originates in the heavens, if God is going to fulfill his promise to the people of God on the earth to warn them and to not let these events occur without warning them—how is God going to warn of events that are taking place from heaven?

We know how He warns with events that take place from earth, how does He warn with events that take place from heaven? The stars tell us that! That’s why Jesus himself said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars.” (Inserted – Luke 21:25a) It is Jesus who said that. Now the stars are not just planets floating around in the constellations. They mean something; they have meanings. So for example, Virgo means “the virgin.” There is a constellation called Virgo but there is a woman named Mary who is a virgin. She also is typical of that at the end of the age that will give birth to a son, the man child of Scripture, the fully mature sons of God, the huiós toú Theóu, the sons of God. And all creation is waiting for the revelation of such a thing, and the heavens will declare the majesty of this occurrence. (Inserted – actual verse—“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” – Romans 8:19)

So these great events foretold to come out of the heavens begin with great signs in the heavens. Here in Revelation 12, verse 1, it says, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven…” Where did this sign appear? In heaven. What is in the heavens? The stars. So where does this great and wondrous sign appear? In the stars; in the heavens. “…a woman (and the word here is synonymous with Bethulah, or a virgin) clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns…”

Now what does that mean, because we find this seven heads and ten horns recurring throughout the Scriptures? You can be sure that the next broadcast will be about seven heads and ten horns. An enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads, “His tail (or his influence, attracted) swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” Now that is being said, and then immediately it is said, “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.” (Inserted – Revelation 12:1-4; 12:7,8)

What is this telling us? It is telling us the exact timing in which we will see the demonic forces thrown out of the heavens coming into the earth. What is the sign? That in the constellation Virgo there will be a crown of 12 stars—normally there are 8. This constellation is called the Sombrero Galaxy because of the band of stars about her head. This time there will be 12 as opposed to 8. And she is crying out; she is pregnant, it is about time that out of this that is the church, will come now the mature sons of God. That is about to happen.

But an enormous red dragon stands ready to devour the child. Who is the red dragon? In the heavens the constellation is Draco, the dragon. On the earth it is Satan himself who has come, together with his minions, to create this thing that is the beast of seven heads and ten horns, and with the seven heads and ten-horned threat he wants to devour that which God wants to protect. So on the earth we will begin to see the actual manifesting of the demonic forces thrown out of the heavens and the rise of this global kingdom of seven heads and ten horns. But that I am stating as a conclusion; I’ll develop it in the next message, so stay with me will you? I’m Sam Soleyn, God bless you; we will see you then.

Scripture References:

Matthew 2:1,2
Numbers 24:17
Matthew 24:30a
Genesis 1:14,15
Job 38:31
Luke 21:25a
Romans 8:19
Revelation 12:1-4; 12:7-9