Bad Moon Rising

John Fogerty penned the lyrics to Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1969 hit song "Bad Moon Rising," which warns of the onslaught of catastrophic natural disasters. He later admitted that when he wrote the song he actually believed that such an apocalyptic event would one day be visited on the world.

I have no idea if John Fogerty ever read the Bible, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did because various cosmic signs and cataclysmic events are no strangers to the pages of God's Word. Although there are numerous instances of such things occurring throughout Scripture, most of the really scary stuff occurs during Daniel's 70th Week, or the Tribulation (see the book of Revelation for a blow-by-blow account).

Unless you've actually been living on the lunar surface itself for the last few years, you may have heard something about some coming "Blood Moons," or an upcoming set of lunar eclipses that has the Bible prophecy world in a tizzy. In fact, even the secular media has picked up on it, and has interviewed several leading Bible prophecy teachers for an overview of the phenomenon.

So just what exactly is this phenomenon? Well, as you probably know, a lunar eclipse occurs during a full moon when the earth passes between the sun and the moon, and we see earth's shadow pass over the moon. When the moon is completely in the earth's shadow, it's called a total lunar eclipse, and due to certain effects that occur as the light passes through the earth's atmosphere, the earth's shadow on the surface of the moon often takes on a rusty, reddish hue. Hence total lunar eclipses are sometimes called "blood moons."

OK, so what's so special about total lunar eclipses? Slightly over one-third of all lunar eclipses are total—they happen all the time. In fact, it's unusual for us to go much longer than a year or two without being able to see a total lunar eclipse somewhere on earth. However, sometimes they come in bunches. In fact, once in a while we have four consecutive total lunar eclipses (with no partial lunar eclipses occurring between them), and when that occurs they span an 18-month period, roughly six months apart (exactly six lunar cycles). This grouping of four consecutive total lunar eclipses is known as a lunar tetrad.

OK, so what's so special about lunar tetrads? I mean, they don't happen all the time, but they do happen. According to my count at NASA's website, since the birth of Christ a little over two thousand years ago there have been a total of 55 lunar tetrads. But just like individual total lunar eclipses, lunar tetrads also come in bunches, with as many as eight occurring within a given century and then maybe none for several hundred years. According to my figures, it works out to roughly one lunar tetrad every 36 years on average. As a matter of fact, we just had a lunar tetrad back in 2003–2004, and we had five of them during the twentieth century.

So what's all the fuss about?

The Jewish connection

That brings us to the Jewish holy days. In Leviticus 23, God prescribed a total of seven primary feasts or celebrations for the Jewish people to observe:

1. Passover (Pasach)
2. The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Reshit Katzir)
3. The Feast of Firstfruits (Chag HaMatzot)
4. The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot)
5. The Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah or Rosh Hashanah)
6. The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
7. The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)

I could write an entire article just about these seven feasts, because when they are unwrapped and examined in detail, they virtually explode with stunning symbolism for both Israel and the Church. For the purposes of this article, however, a few brief comments will be sufficient.

Taken together, these seven Jewish feasts tell the story of God's plan of redemption. The three spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits) are a picture of how God told them to apply the blood of a lamb to their doorposts so His judgment would "pass over" them and how He delivered them from bondage in Egypt. They are also a picture of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, which provided the only way for us to be delivered from the bondage of sin through faith.

Sandwiched in between the three spring and three fall feasts is the Feast of Weeks, also known as the day of Pentecost to the Church. It is a picture of God giving Israel the Law of Moses after leading them out of bondage, and it is also a picture of God giving the Church the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit after Christ provided for man's release from the bondage of sin by His shed blood. God first wrote His law on tablets of stone to establish the Old Covenant, and then on hearts of flesh to establish the New Covenant.

The three fall feasts pertain to end-time events. The Feast of Trumpets begins a 10-day period of repentance and self-examination for Jews known as the Days of Awe. Some Christians see it as a picture of the Rapture, but others see it as a picture of the Second Coming. Personally I lean toward the latter, but I'm not going to argue the point here.

The Day of Atonement is the culmination of the Days of Awe, and for Jews it represents the day when your fate is sealed, so to speak. To many Christians, it is a picture of the judgments that follow on the heels of the Second Coming (think Sheep and Goat Judgment, etc.), when believing Tribulation survivors will be welcomed into the Millennial Kingdom, while unbelieving survivors will be sent away to eternal punishment.

The Feast of Tabernacles, the seventh and final feast, is a picture of God dwelling with the people of Israel as they trekked through the desert for 40 years after leaving Egypt, living in sukkot (temporary dwellings) along the way. Many Jewish families set up a sukkah (singular) outdoors in which to eat their meals during this feast. It is a picture of the Millennial Kingdom, when Christ will "tabernacle" with us here on earth and reign for a thousand years.

Note that there are other important holidays on the Jewish calendar today, such as Hanukkah, Purim, etc., but the above are the seven original feasts ordained by God in the Torah, dating back to the days of Moses.

Six of the seven feasts either fall on, begin on, or are determined in direct relationship to a full moon except one, and that's the Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets is the only feast that is celebrated on a new moon, which can only be ascertained over a two-day period. This is where the biblical expression "no one knows the day or the hour" comes from, which many want to apply to the Rapture. However, I am convinced that a careful reading of Scripture reveals that it refers to the Second Coming every time it is used.

Passover, the first feast, starts in late March to early April. The Feast of Tabernacles, the last feast, starts in late September to early October. Note that it's about six months (exactly six lunar cycles) between the beginning of Passover and the beginning of Tabernacles, and normally six lunar cycles until the beginning of Passover the following year, and so on.

So, if you recall what I said about lunar tetrads, you are probably beginning to get the picture.

Once in a blue moon...

Every once in a great while, and this "while" could be up to five or six hundred years, it just so happens that the four total lunar eclipses of a lunar tetrad fall on the first feast (Passover) and the last feast (Tabernacles) two consecutive years. In fact, since the birth of Christ a little over two thousand years ago, it has only happened a total of seven times, in the following pairs of years:

• 162‒163
• 795‒796
• 842‒843
• 860‒861
• 1493‒1494
• 1949‒1950
• 1967‒1968

For the sake of clarity, throughout this article I will refer to these as "feast-day tetrads." There is a Talmudic tradition that blood moons portend difficult times for Israel (and that solar eclipses portend difficult times for the Gentile nations). So, one might be curious to find out if anything significant occurred in regard to the Jews at or around any of those particular time periods.

As it turns out, one's curiosity would be rewarded.

Although the Jewish people have a long, colorful history that is marked by periods of great conflict, upheaval, and persecution at the hands of many other nations, the first four of these feast-day tetrads don't seem to be associated with any specific events of great significance to Israel—nothing really jumps out at you. Of course, if you're persistent enough you can always find something. For example, it is true that AD 162–163 does correspond to the peak of Roman persecution of the Jews (think lions, Colosseum, and so forth). A couple of the other feast-day tetrads can be linked to key victories over the Muslims—but again, nothing really catches your attention.

It seems that there's really nothing of any obvious significance to Israel that can be unmistakably pinned to the first four of these seven feast-day tetrads. I have seen people make valiant efforts to do so, and I certainly don't mean to diminish their scholarship; but it invariably comes across as a wee bit of a stretch to me. But the last three?

The last three are a completely different story.

"...Columbus sailed the ocean blue"

Spain, 1492. The Spanish Inquisition, spearheaded by Father Tomas de Toqemada, was in full swing and there was intense pressure being applied to Jews to convert to Roman Catholicism. Even worse, Jews whose "conversions" were determined to be, shall we say, less than sincere were given the choice of death by strangulation if they confessed, or being publicly burned alive if they did not (and the pope promised a special blessing for those good Catholics who attended such public spectacles). Toqemada had finally succeeded in persuading King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to issue an Edict of Expulsion to force Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism out of Spain. The edict was issued on March 30, 1492, and was to take effect exactly four months later on July 30.

By the time the edict took effect, hundreds of thousands of Jews—families who had flourished in that country for centuries—were forced to pack up and leave. Thousands of businesses and properties had to be sold at dirt-cheap prices (a much needed infusion of wealth to the Spanish economy). Spanish ship captains reportedly charged Jewish families exorbitant fees for passage out of Spain, only to later kill them and dump their bodies overboard. Word spread that many Jews had swallowed gold and precious gems before fleeing, and so robbers would waylay fleeing Jews, murder them, and then cut their stomachs open in the hopes of finding treasure.

The Edict of Expulsion kicked off one of the cruelest and most unjust phases of the Diaspora and changed the course of history for both the Jews and the world. It made the year 1492 as significant for Jews as it is for Americans, just for different reasons. In a sense, it officially kicked off the push for the Jews to find a homeland, because up to that point they were pretty well established in Spain. Christopher Columbus, whose journey was reportedly financed by wealthy (Jewish) members of the royal court, was given ships and a crew for one purpose: to find the Jews a haven. And he did.

It's called America.

Oh, you didn't know Christopher Columbus was Jewish? Welcome to the club. The real story behind Columbus' journey to the New World has been so completely airbrushed out of the history books that it comes as a shock to most people when they learn of it. The very next Passover following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain marked the beginning of the first feast-day tetrad in over six hundred years:

• 2 APR 1493 (Passover)
• 25 SEP 1493 (Tabernacles)
• 22 MAR 1494 (Passover)
• 15 SEP 1494 (Tabernacles)

A nation is born in one day...

Palestine, 1948. It was Friday, the 14th of May. The British Mandate on Palestine was set to expire at midnight that night, and David Ben-Gurion hurriedly prepared a statement that was read at a meeting at the Tel Aviv Art Museum at around four p.m. He finished with this historic announcement:

"The State of Israel is established! This meeting is adjourned!"

This declaration of the new State of Israel officially took effect at midnight that night. At 12:11 a.m., with the Jewish nation a mere 11 minutes old, a telephone call was received from the White House to inform them the United States officially recognized the State of Israel—the first country to do so, under the direction of President Harry Truman.

The next day, however, the hours-old Jewish nation was attacked on multiple fronts by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, not to mention several small, irregular groups of Arab combatants. The Israeli War of Independence continued for nearly 10 months, but Israel emerged victorious in March 1949. Israel's ultimate victory was due in large part to the fact that Israeli forces were under unified command, while there was little coordination among her Arab attackers, who were united only in their maniacal hatred for and desire to destroy Israel.

After nearly two thousand years, Israel was once again a nation—in direct fulfillment of scores of Old Testament prophecies, including one given by Ezekiel sometimes referred to as the prophecy of the dry bones:

The fact that the nation was hastily created on May 14 and the declaration became official that night at the stroke of midnight recalls the words of Isaiah, prophesying of a regathered Israel:

The push to find a homeland that had officially begun over four centuries earlier had finally reached its fulfillment. A month after the hostilities ceased on March 10, 1949, the first feast-day tetrad since the days of Christopher Columbus began on Passover:

• 13 APR 1949 (Passover)
• 7 OCT 1949 (Tabernacles)
• 2 APR 1950 (Passover)
• 26 SEP 1950 (Tabernacles)

And its capital is unified in six

The Middle East, 1967. For quite some time, tensions had been mounting in Israel and neighboring Arab countries. By the spring of 1967, Egypt had amassed roughly 100,000 troops in the Sinai, and their powerful air force appeared to be at the ready. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq were similarly champing at the bit. Israel's Arab neighbors were clearly gearing up for something.

And Israel knew exactly what they were gearing up for.

But in the early morning hours of June 5, Israel beat them to the punch. The Israeli Air Force launched a surprise attack on air bases in Egypt, with many of the Israeli aircraft flying in low from the north across the Mediterranean to avoid being detected by radar. Greatly aided by confusion and bungling on the part of Egyptian military commanders, the Israelis tore Egypt's vaunted air force to pieces as the planes sat on the ground, before Egyptian pilots even got their flight suits on.

After effectively wiping out the Egyptian Air Force, the most powerful among all Israel's attackers, the Israelis quickly turned their attention to Egypt's Arab cohorts, and by the end of the day most of the aircraft of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq were reduced to smoldering piles of scrap metal.

It took all of six days for Israel to resoundingly defeat her attackers, and in the process they recaptured the Golan Heights in northern Israel, the West Bank, and the greatest prize of all: East Jerusalem.

Since 1948, Jordan had controlled East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City and the Temple Mount. For 19 years, Jordan had prohibited Jews from even visiting what for them were the holiest spots on earth. But at the climax of the Six Day War, throngs of Israeli soldiers flooded into the plaza in front of the Wailing Wall, a section of the retaining wall that surrounds the Temple Mount. They stared at the wall in wide-eyed amazement; some of the younger ones had never seen it up close or touched it before. Many wept openly as they placed their hands on the wall and prayed, thanking and praising the God who had just miraculously delivered their enemies into their hands.

And the God who had just made Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel for the first time in nearly two thousand years.

The Israeli Army opened the Wailing Wall to the public a few days later on June 15, just in time for the celebration of Shavuot (Pentecost). Over 200,000 Jews packed into the plaza in front of the wall, a tradition that has been repeated every Shavuot since 1967.

Although the conflict ended with a unified Jerusalem under Israeli control, General Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defense Minister, sought to take a conciliatory tack after Israel's stunning victory. Incredibly, he made the controversial decision to allow Jordan to maintain sovereignty over the Temple Mount itself.

It was Israel's for the taking—and he handed it right back to them.

He reasoned that since the Temple Mount contained the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, two sites that are holy to Muslims, taking the Temple Mount outright would do nothing but set the stage for another major war that he clearly wished to avoid. In other words, he wanted to do the politically correct thing.

At the end of the Six Day War, Moshe Dayan issued the following statement at the Wailing Wall:

Never mind that it is the absolute holiest of holy places for Judaism. Oh, and that major war that he clearly wished to avoid?

He made it inevitable.

This time, the feast-day tetrad—just like the Israelis—got a head start:

• 24 APR 1967 (Passover)
• 18 OCT 1967 (Tabernacles)
• 13 APR 1968 (Passover)
• 6 OCT 1968 (Tabernacles)

What's next?

That brings us up to the present, and up to what's going on with this scary-sounding Blood Moon business you may have heard about. It just so happens that the next feast-day tetrad begins in April of 2014—the first since the Six Day War, and only the eighth since the days Christ walked the earth:

• 15 APR 2014 (Passover)
• 8 OCT 2014 (Tabernacles)
• 4 APR 2015 (Passover)
• 28 SEP 2015 (Tabernacles)

In case you're curious, I did some checking and although there will be a typical number of ordinary lunar tetrads along the way, apparently there won't be another feast-day tetrad for well over five hundred years, when Passover and Tabernacles will both see blood moons in the years 2582–2583.

Believe it or not, to the best of my knowledge the upcoming feast-day tetrad in 2014–2015 went completely unnoticed until early 2008, when Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Washington was doing some research and stumbled across the information at NASA's website. Apparently something related to eclipses caught his attention and piqued his curiosity, and he started doing some digging. Next thing you know he had uncovered the details of what I am sharing with you.

And the word spread like a brush fire on a dry, breezy day.

As you may recall, by 2008 apocalypse fever had started to take off. The Mayan 2012 industry was in full swing, and it seemed the whole world was mesmerized by the possibility of a coming cataclysm.

And then along came...

As you can imagine, this set the Bible prophecy world on fire. Bible teachers went ballistic, with Mark Biltz leading the way. Book after book, video after video, teaching series after teaching series, website after website, media interview after media interview, talk show appearance after talk show appearance. The Blood Moons became a cottage industry almost overnight.

But things quickly began to spiral out of control. Mark Biltz and others got caught up in a lot of frenzied speculation, partly due to the timing of the discovery. Hmm, let's see...2008 to 2015, oh wait, that's seven years!

S-e-e-e-v-e-n  y-e-e-e-a-r-s! (Try to imagine me saying it with a creepy voice.)

Seven—God's favorite number. The number of divine perfection. And the length of Daniel's 70th Week, or the Tribulation. It was just too perfect.

Biltz and others jumped all over the idea that the Blood Moons just had to correspond to the second coming of Christ, which, in 2008, meant the seven-year Tribulation had to be staring us right in the face, which put those who believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture at DEFCON 1.

People looked at several well-known passages of Scripture that mention blood moons to support their theories:

Peter quotes this same verse in Acts 2. And there's also this:

They concluded that these passages must refer to the 2014–2015 blood moons, which also feature a total solar eclipse in the middle of them just for good measure. They took this to be the part about the sun becoming "black as sackcloth," and a sizable portion of the Bible prophecy world was swooning.

This is it!!

But this wasn't it. Nothing happened. Well, at least the Rapture didn't happen and the Tribulation didn't start. As 2008 became 2009—and 2009 became 2010—the Biltz Brigade had to shift gears. They had to come up with a new angle. Revisions were required, along with the inevitable backpedaling.

For his part, Biltz denied ever trying to set dates for the Rapture, the Second Coming, or the start of the Tribulation back in 2008. If you read his early statements, however, it's obvious that's what he believed and wanted others to believe. It also helps explain why the books and DVDs flew off the shelves.

Next, some people claimed the Blood Moons corresponded to the abomination of desolation at the midpoint of Daniel's 70th Week, or the beginning the Great Tribulation. That bought them some time, moving the possible start date for the Tribulation ahead to the 2011–2012 time frame. And it wouldn't surprise me if there were books published that explored the possible link between the Blood Moons and the Mayan apocalypse on December 21, 2012.

Of course, that too came and went. Rinse and repeat. Now the story is that the Blood Moons must represent the beginning of the Tribulation, and according to some that puts the Rapture no later than April 2014.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my fingers crossed, but I'm certainly not going to cancel any plans.

Meanwhile, as Mark Biltz and many other prophecy teachers were swimming in unrestrained speculation, there were many others who were not exactly blown away by the blood moon business. Skepticism grew. For example:

• They wondered why the first four feast-day tetrads since the birth of Christ had little if any obvious significance to Israel.

• They kvetched over the fact that there were no feast-day tetrads linked with other historic events in Israel's history, such as the Holocaust.

• They groused over the fact that only one of the four total lunar eclipses in the upcoming feast-day tetrad—which is supposed to be of monumental importance to Israel—will even be visible in the Jewish nation.

• They questioned the timing of the feast-day tetrads in relation to the events in question, noting that some followed the event while in 1967 the first lunar eclipse preceded the event. Certainly God is more precise than that.

• As far as the Rapture was concerned, they argued that even if the Blood Moons were significant, they were significant only to Israel, not the Church.

Some prophecy teachers swung to the opposite extreme, dismissing the Blood Moons as pure hokum—nothing more than wild, unbiblical speculation based on mere coincidence that gave people an excuse to make money from yet more apocalyptic hype.

Some attacked the messenger. It just so happens that Mark Biltz is the pastor of a church that is part of the Hebrew Roots movement, a relatively new movement which emphasizes a return to the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith by introducing people to the Jewish feasts, the Torah, Hebrew customs, etc. Many such churches, however, including the one pastored by Mark Biltz, go too far according to many.

Some Hebrew Roots churches reach the point where the members of the congregation essentially have to become de facto Jews and strict observance of the Torah, Saturday Sabbath worship, Jewish holy days, and so on is required, while the clear New Testament teaching to the contrary (that is, against so-called "Judaizers" who seek to drag believers back under Jewish law) is twisted, disparaged, and ultimately dismissed.

So, as with many prophetic teachings, the coming Blood Moons have been enthusiastically embraced by some, and dismissively rejected by others.

As usual, I think the truth is hiding somewhere in the middle.

If you ask me...

Admittedly, the speculation has been a little over the top. There have been people coming up with schemes to pin the Blood Moons to the Rapture, the Second Coming, the Tribulation, the Great Tribulation, the abomination of desolation, the battle of Ezekiel 38–39, the battle of Psalm 83, Armageddon, the building the third temple in Jerusalem, the disclosure of alien contact, you name it. In many ways, the Blood Moon phenomenon has been a perfect example of the kind of rank sensationalism that invariably ensues when Bible prophecy becomes a commodity for public consumption, and it has been the hottest thing going for the last several years.

The why of prophecy: I'll say it again. The purpose of Bible prophecy is not to scare people, amaze your friends, win arguments, or titillate the public with sensational books, movies, and DVDs. It has three basic purposes: (a) to confirm the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture, (b) to let Israel know when the Messiah's first coming was upon them (which they missed because of the hardness of their hearts and the fact that they weren't paying attention), and (c) to let us know when the Messiah's second coming is near (which many don't see coming for the same reasons).

On the other hand, some who have dismissed the Blood Moons have done so for reasons that amount to nitpicking, such as the fact that, unlike other tetrads that followed their respective events, the 1967–1968 feast-day tetrad started several weeks before the Six Day War actually broke out...and therefore the entire thing is a bunch of nonsense. Or they have argued against the interpretation of Scriptures used to support the biblical significance of the Blood Moons, and thus contend that they should be discounted as natural events with no more prophetic significance than a sunny day in December.

I'll tell you what I think, and this is the point I want to leave you with. In my opinion, the wild speculation is just that. Wild speculation, which almost invariably turns out to be wrong. Some people are always trying to hurry God up, and eagerly jump on every best-selling bandwagon that comes along, even if God's Word gets caught under its wheels and gets run over in the process.

At the same time, I think some of the arguments against the significance of the Blood Moons are unnecessarily picky and unfounded, as if certain people were straining for any excuse to dismiss the whole thing just to make sure they aren't lumped in with those 'lunatics' who are going ga ga over them.

To me, it all comes down to one simple question:

Does God ever use the heavenly bodies as signs?

And the answer is simple:

Yes, He does.

As clear as this seems in most English translations, some argue that the original Hebrew doesn't necessarily suggest the idea that the heavenly bodies are used for prophetic signs, but rather just what it says in the next phrase: "for seasons, and for days and years." That is, they argue that the verse should be interpreted to mean that the sun, moon, and stars are just for the natural cycles of life: things such as the determination of agricultural cycles, feast days, and so forth.

OK, fine. I'm certainly no Hebrew scholar, so maybe they're right. I'll give 'em that one. The fact is that it doesn't matter how you interpret Genesis 1:14—we can go elsewhere. We don't need to look any further than one of the verses I quoted earlier:

What else do you need to know? God comes right out and tells us point blank that there will be unusual cosmic activity before the Day of the Lord, or the Tribulation. So yes, God does use the heavenly bodies as signs. He just said so. End of discussion.

By the way, notice it just says "before." It doesn't say exactly thirty days before or anything like that. There is no particular degree of precision attached to this, which means we have to trust God that no greater degree of precision is required in such things. But do these passages in Joel and Revelation refer to the upcoming Blood Moons, as some insist?

In my opinion, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever if any verse of Scripture refers specifically to the upcoming Blood Moons or not. Frankly, I'm highly skeptical that any verse does, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove it either way. Why? Because (a) I can't, and (b) it doesn't matter! And those who think it does are missing the point, which is this:

FYI: When God says He does something, it doesn't obligate Him to tell us somewhere in His Word every single time He does that.

For example, we read in the book of Daniel that...

He raises up leaders; He removes leaders. Why? To carry out His sovereign will. But does the Bible tell us every single instance in which God does this? Of course not. For example, please don't tell me you doubt that He has raised up Barack Obama as an instrument of His judgment on America. You won't find that alluded to anywhere in the Bible.

But we know He does these things. He said so.

Similarly, God indicates to us that He does in fact use cosmic events to draw our attention to things. So, why should we expect the Bible to tell us every single instance in which God does that?

It's enough for us to know He does these things. He said so.

Can I have your attention, please...

Is God trying to get our attention through these Blood Moons? Personally, I find it impossible to believe otherwise. As a matter of fact, the only thing that will convince me these Blood Moons don't mean anything is if all four of them come and go and nothing significant happens to Israel. If they do, so be it.

To be honest, however, the question should be:

Who on earth needs these Blood Moons?

Seriously. It strikes me that the only people who need a sensational event like the upcoming Blood Moons to know something of prophetic significance is about to happen with Israel are people who haven't studied God's Word enough and aren't paying enough attention to what's going on.

Those who study the Word and follow events in the Middle East know the Tribulation is drawing close, and they know the Rapture is drawing even closer. They see the Ezekiel 38–39 players positioning themselves on the world stage. They see the prophetic scenario rapidly congealing as outlined in Scripture. For people who study the Word and have some understanding of what it teaches about end-time events, these Blood Moons are nothing but a confirmation of what they already know—icing on the prophetic cake, so to speak.

What these upcoming Blood Moons suggest to me is that the final sequence of events that will lead up to the Tribulation is about to begin. Mind you, it could take several years to unfold, but I believe that sequence of events is about to be initiated.

You don't exactly need any blood moons to know that there's a bad moon rising for Israel.

Personally, I believe we may soon see Israel regain some degree of sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Here's why:

I believe the 1493–1494 blood moons signaled the start of the push for a Jewish homeland. The 1949–1950 blood moons signaled the establishment of that homeland—they got their nation. The 1967–1968 blood moons signaled the regaining of their holy city Jerusalem. And I think the 2014–2015 blood moons will signal the regaining of the Temple Mount.

Two thousand years ago, in fulfillment of prophecy, the Jews lost their temple. They lost their capital. They lost their nation. And God scattered them among the nations of the world.

Two thousand years later, also in fulfillment of prophecy, God has regathered the Jews from among the nations of the world. He has restored their nation. He has restored their capital. And His Word says He will restore their temple.

I think I see a pattern developing. I believe a fuse is about to be lit, and I think it's going to blow up in the world's face.

Yet the world lurches along, trying to go about its business as if everything would continue as it always has, doing what the world always does: ignoring the warnings and hoping for the best.

Ignoring the warnings and hoping for the best—and mocking those who try to tell them that there is a holy, just, loving God who wants them to come to Him in repentance and in faith before it's too late.

There may be a bad moon rising, but it's not too late.

Greg Lauer — MAR '14

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