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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