Wandering Stars

This passage points to the dark reality of a world that more and more lives by instinct alone, like creatures without reason, and compares the spiritual state of people who have left God and are wandering to ‘wandering stars’. People blame others for their own unhappiness and let their character crumble, and they grow spiritually dull and indifferent even to cruel events. A heart that has left God is empty, like a house swept clean, so evil spirits easily enter, and in the end it drifts unhappily, like rocky ground overgrown with thorns.

The sermon points out that the root of this wandering lies in Satan's scheme to separate people from God. Jesus promised to give rest to those who labor and are heavily burdened if they come to him, yet people still carry the world's burdens and roam like wandering stars. Believers must lead those who carry the world's burden of sin and are looking for rest to Christ, so that they find rest in the truth, and must fight on, using suffering as a stepping stone and hoping for God's eternal kingdom.

Through Cain's jealousy and anger, Balaam's greed and pretended faith, and Korah's pride and challenge to authority, it also warns how false choices lead to destruction. Believers must reach true perseverance and growth not through the number of times or years they have attended church, but by grafting the Word into their lives, and must take care not to fall for Satan's temptations. The sermon asks how believers should live so that they become not wandering stars wrapped in the darkness of Satan and false teachers, but beautiful stars that reflect the light of Christ.