Saturday, February 1, 2014

The Coming Blood-Moon Tetrad


       Blood-moon refers to instances where the moon assumes a blood red colour during a lunar eclipse.  A tetrad means “a set of four”.  A tetrad of blood moon therefore refers to the moon appearing as red in four consecutive lunar eclipses.
       Scientifically, a blood moon is caused by the scattering of light from the sun by the earth’s atmosphere.  Some component colours of  the sun’s white light are scattered away from the moon, leaving only some components, predominantly red-orange-yellow to impinge on it, illuminating it  as a red object. (The same scattering phenomenon explains why the evening skyline is red.) Watch a simulation of this phenomenon here . 
       The occurrence of blood moon depends on the relative positioning of the earth and the moon as they jointly orbit around the sun.  Since the days of  Johannes Kepler, man has acquired considerable expertise in predicting the movements of the planets and other celestial bodies.  For instance, the NASA on one of its websites,(Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000)   provides details, not only of all  lunar eclipses  (including blood-moon phenomena) in the past four thousand years, it goes on to predict the precise timing of future ones, for the next one thousand years.
       The occurrence of blood moons in four consecutive lunar eclipses (blood moon tetrad) is relatively rare.  In the past two thousand years, since the Lord’s first coming till date, there have been less than 100 such tetrads.  Of these, seven and only seven, coincided with Jewish Feast days. (http://prophecyupdate.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-coming-blood-moons.html) .
      Now almost all students of Bible prophecy are in agreement that the timing of the second coming of the Lord Jesus, and other significant end-time events, would harmonize with the Jewish Feasts.  For instance in His first coming, the crucifixion and death of the Lord could hardly have happened at any other time, other than the Jewish Passover.  After all He had come to become the Passover Lamb for the whole world (John 1:20, 1 Cor 5:7).  Though we can’t confirm this independently, some researchers claim that one of the 7 Jewish blood moon tetrads  actually coincided with this epic crucifixion, which is believed to have occurred on April 3, 33AD ( see http://thetruthwins.com/archives/the-blood-red-moons-of-2014-and-2015-an-omen-of-war-for-israel)
      Now to the crux of the matter.  Of the few other blood-moon tetrads coming up  this millenium, which of them fall on Jewish Feast days, such that they could be relevant in eschatological discourse?  It turns out that there are actually only two:  one billed to occur 2014-2015 that is beginning from this year, and  the other some 568 years away in 2582-83. 
      Hence the current huge interest in the coming 2014-2015 tetrad among prophecy enthusiasts!  (Most people will agree that the world with all its socio-economic upheavals, scientific misadventures, gross moral decay, etc can simply not last another 500 years!)  The first eclipse in the tetrad is billed for April 15, 2014 (the 2014 Jewish  Passover), with the next eclipse scheduled for 8th October, 2014 (The Feast of Tabernacle or Sukkoth).  The next two eclipses also coincide with the next Passover-Sukkoth  feasts sequence on 4th April and 28th September of 2015. To make the matter even more intriguing, there will be a solar eclipse during the period on March 20, 2015, which happens to be the first day of the Jewish new year, Nisan 1.  The diagram below from The Truth Wins summarises the situation.
       Some respected observers, such as Answers in Genesis,) or Escape these things however believe there is nothing much to the coincidences of blood moons/lunar eclipses with Jewish Feast days. After all the feast days were based on the Lunar calendar to start with; and the eclipses could be argued not to be a sign to the entire world in that they would only be visible by a tiny minority of earth’s inhabitants.  However, the star of Bethlehem heralding the first coming of the Lord was also only noted by a few magi, of all the inhabitants of the planet.  More importantly, virtually all the occurrences of blood-moon tetrads coinciding with Jewish Feast days were obviously correlated with significant historic events in the life of the nation Israel - and consequently of end times importance.  For instance, the last two occasions, still fresh in our memory in this generation, were in 1948-49 when the state of Israel was declared, and a bitter war of independence fought and won; and in 1967-68 when Israel took possession of the Temple Mount area for the first time in nearly 2000 years, thus marking the end of the trampling down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles (Luke 21:24). Similar significant correlations between past tetrads and Jewish history are documented for instance here: http://massivetruth.blogspot.com/2013/01/blood-moons-tetrads.html.
      It would therefore appear fool-hardy to ignore the prophetic significance of the coming blood-moon tetrads, coming a few weeks from now!  Especially in light of current developments in the Middle East (Syria, Iran, and the on-going largely secret peace moves, expected to be concluded for April 2014).
Of course it would even be more fool-hardy to declare on the basis of this event, a date for the coming of the Lord Jesus. (There are certainly some aspects of these theories that are glossed over to patch up things.  For instance “the crucifixion darkness” included in Blix chart featured here has been shown as unexplainable as a solar eclipse).  For the Church, the next big event is the Rapture.  And the wise steward knows that the Master would come for His Church “in a day ye think not” (see Luke 12:39-40). That means it could very well happen even this very day. Glory Hallelujah!
      The parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Mathew 25) and similar parables of the Lord clearly preserved for our generation in the Scriptures will absolve the Lord of anyone’s accusation that they did not receive prior warning of the earth-shaking events to come.  This article might as well be your last opportunity to buckle up and begin to take necessary steps to escape for your life while you yet may! (See Gen 7:13-16, Gen 19:15-17, Heb 2:3, etc)

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