Horoscopes – harmful or harmless

Horoscopes can only lead you to Hell

Here I am, a simple but reasonably erudite old blogger – who happens to be Pentecostal Christian – sitting here watching Facebook and Twitter. Nothing much happening today until up pops a short “Tweet”, (a 140 character entry on Twitter), urging me to check out my horoscope for today. Nothing out of the ordinary in that you may say. Except that the originator is someone who I know purports to be a Christian.

Age old question pops up in my mind – is this a Christian type thing or is it not? Well, some churches and pastors regard this as a ‘bit of a lark’, or a ‘harmless bit of fun’. Yes they do – honest they do !!!

So what exactly is a horoscope then? Well, it’s a modern day form of fortune telling except that rather than individually targeted – as it used to be when fortune tellers roamed the country with a travelling fair or circus – it is a general ‘forecast’ aimed at everyone in a particular star sign. What’s a star sign? It’s the name given to an inclusive pair of dates such as September 21st to October 22nd – Libra. Just for info, I was born on September 27th but as I don’t believe in horoscopes so I don’t say like millions of those who do believe in them that ‘I’m a Libran’.

Now we have to get a little bit serious about this as the question is – “Horoscopes – harmful or harmless” and to answer that question we have to look at the Bible. So have a look at what it says in Acts 16:16-18 “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. “ So far so good except for one disturbing phrase – “possessed with a spirit of divination” Hmmm – not so good perhaps?

Well NO actually. A spirit of divination has much more to do with witchcraft than it has to do with good Christian things. In fact it has much to do with controlling and manipulation and domination – it is occult and very bad indeed. Not at all Christian.

So what does scripture go on to tell us? Acts 16:18b says “But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.” You see, if it is a spirit and it’s not the Holy Spirit, then you don’t want to have anything to do with it at all. In fact, as Paul did, you need to cast it out and bind it – banish it and prevent it ever working again.

So in one short passage of scripture, which most Christians regard as the inerrant Word of God, we see that fortune telling – horoscopes – are evil and occultic and must be sent banished and packing. Yet the question remains – why do some Christians actively condone and use horoscopes?

I don’t know is the short answer. Horoscopes are undoubtedly evil and occult as they try to ‘tell your fortune’. Of course they will be accurate for some poor soul. I mean, after all, in a country of 60 million people, with 12 ‘star signs’, you are fortune telling for 5 million people at a throw – each and every day. I tell you now – every single person who reads horoscopes and takes them to heart is treading a tightrope to hell !! Strong words? No – not really.

The truth actually. The Bible say so. I pray you all turn from this sin, repent, and be healed.