Wise words from Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky from his podcast yesterday: Does a blood moon tell us that the return of the Lord is near? There’s a great deal of Christian conversation about this and it does not reflect well on us. As Sarah Pulliam Bailey for Religion News Service reports, “In the wee hours of Tuesday [that’s yesterday] morning, the moon slid into Earth’s shadow, casting a reddish hue on the moon.” That’s called a blood moon, and it occurs when there is a total eclipse of the moon, when the moon slides into the shadow of the earth, and around the penumbra of the earth, the sun is reflected onto the moon and it shines red. Why does it shine red? For the very same reason that a sunset appears in hues of red: it is the reflected image of the light of the sun, and, yet, it is something that is now consuming a great deal of the attention of at least some Christians and some Christian teachers. As Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports: There are about two lunar eclipses per year, according to NASA, but what’s unusual this time around is that there will be four blood moons within 18 months Now this has happened before; it will happen again. As a matter of fact, it’s going to happen several times between now and the year 2100, but this tetrad, it occurring in the year 2014 and 15, and all of these red moons occurring during Jewish holidays, well this has sent a lot of Christians into speculation about the return of the Lord. Why? Because the blood moon is found in the Scripture, or at least they claim that the blood moon is found in the Scripture. There certainly is a statement in Scripture that the moon shall be turned into blood and this is tied to apocalyptic expectation connected to the Day of Judgment that is yet to come and to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 2, verse 20, we read the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord. Remember that is Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. And that refers back to Joel chapter 2, verse 31, in which the Prophet Joel declared, “The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord.” So how should Christians think about this? Should we consider the fact that the blood moon, as is identified in terms of total lunar eclipse, is the moon being turned into blood that is part and parcel of biblical prophecy connected with apocalyptic expectation? Well, if we’re supposed to make that connection, that connection’s been made hundreds and hundreds of times since the time of Christ, and that’s the problem. And, yet, as Bailey reports: A string of books have been published surrounding the event, with authors referring to a Bible passage that refers to the moon turning into blood. Recent books capitalizing on the event include “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs” by Washington state author Mark Biltz; “Blood Moons Rising: Bible Prophecy, Israel, and the Four Blood Moons” by Oklahoma pastor Mark Hitchcock; and “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change” by Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee. Hagee’s book, by the way, has the most attention of all. It is now number four on the New York Times best-seller list in the section identified as advice or how to. It’s number 80 on USA Today’s best-seller list, and it has spent 152 days in Amazon’s top 100 books. Somebody’s buying these books and that means somebody’s buying the argument. But, as I said, this does not reflect well on us. The Bible does not tell us that we are to spend our time with our eyes on the sky, trying to determine the time when the Lord Jesus Christ will return. Instead, the Lord Himself said when He returns, He expects to find us not looking up at the sky, simply waiting for His return, not involved in all kinds of apocalyptic expectation, but rather doing what the Lord commanded us to do: being active in witnessing in missions; being active in faithful discipleship, following the Lord Jesus Christ; being active in the affairs of life that are commanded as the Scripture tells us how we are to live in this world. In his book, Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change, John Hagee argues that every time there is a tetrad, that is, four of these eclipses within a very close proximity of time, and when those eclipses take place within the timeframe of the Jewish religious holidays, something major happens to Israel. He points back to 1492, when he says the Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus discovered America. In 1948, the modern state of Israel was born, and in 1967, Israel won the Six-Day War and recaptured Jerusalem. Well, looking at those dates, indeed, major events in at least Jewish history if not the nation of Israel, you can look at that and say, well, there must be something to that argument, until you look back and you recognize that these tetrads, at least as they took place in regard to at least some of the Jewish religious holidays, well, they took place so many times that there are more occasions in which blood moons took place and nothing happened than blood moons took place and something happened. But the reality is that this kind of speculation has to do probably more with astrology than it has to do with the Bible. The Bible simply gives us some very important pictures of the Day of Judgment and the pictures of anticipation and the eminence of the Lord’s return. It does not tell us that we are to figure out heavenly signs in order to understand the timetable for the return of the Lord. “When you see these signs, the Bible says, lift of your head and rejoice, your redemption draws nigh,” Hagee said in a sermon, and that was reported in the San Antonio Express-News. As related to the blood moons, Hagee also said, “I believe that the heavens are God’s billboard and that He has been sending signals to planet Earth, but we have just not been picking them up.” Well here’s what we’re supposed to pick up: the Bible. And we’re supposed to look to the Bible as our sufficient revelation that tells us everything we need to know about the return of the Lord and what we are to be found doing when the Lord returns according to His own timetable. And, by the way, when you’re thinking about these tetrads and the Jewish religious holidays, also understand that Christians can make way too much of the Jewish religious holidays. They are simply not the timetable that we are instructed to follow. And, furthermore, in terms of these tetrads, eight sets of them are expected between now and the year 2100. NASA reports that the most unique thing about the upcoming tetrad—and remember that the first of these blood moons has already taken place; that was yesterday—is that they are visible from all or parts of the United States. That’s hardly an importance to biblical prophecy. John Hagee points to the blood moons taking place in this tetrad—and, by the way, they are to take place on the dates of April 15 (that was yesterday), then October 8, and April 4 and April 28 of next year. Hagee says that this tetrad indicates that in this timeline, the rapture will occur, Christians will be taken into heaven, Israel will go to war in a great battle called Armageddon, and Jesus will return to Earth. According to Religion News Service, Hagee is going to the airwaves with his message as well as to the best-seller list. So, in terms of the Christian worldview and the full authority of Scripture, what should Christians think about this? Well, what we should understand is that there will be heavenly signs when the Lord returns. As a matter fact, we are told that the sun and the moon will actually disappear because in the new heaven and the new earth, the Father and the Son will be our lights. We also come to understand that there are signs that are sent in terms of the heavens that we should note going all the way back to that star that declared the birth of the Christ child in Bethlehem. But we are not told that as Christians we’re supposed to be paying attention to the stars or paying attention to the planets or paying attention to the moon. As a matter of fact, we are supposed to be paying attention to the word and we’re supposed to understand that God has revealed all things in His words. We don’t need the heavens as a billboard in which God is speaking to us because God has told us that He speaks to us in His word, and the sufficiency of Scripture is undermined by this kind of Christian speculation. Instead, we ought to understand that what the Lord has told us to do is to know that that Day of Judgment is coming, and as the Lord says in John chapter 9, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming that no man can work.” In other words, we are to be found busy in well doing; doing what Christ has commissioned His church to do, knowing that the day of judgment and the return of the Lord is near, and praying, as the book of Revelation instructs us to pray, “Even so, Lord, come quickly.”
Posted on: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 09:17:58 +0000
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