Blood Moon Rising - Day of the Lord

By Mike Taylor

“And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of

smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come” (Joel 2:30-31).

This is part II, completing my sermon from my previous article, “No Man Knoweth the Day or Hour.” If you have not read that article you must make it the foundation to build upon to understand the teaching presented here. I invite you to read the first part found on this site to prepare your understanding.  In the first part, we established that Jesus was talking about a coming day that could point to the time of His coming to earth to take His church home. It was an “idiom” that any Jewish man living at the time would recognize immediately just what Jesus was talking about, when Jesus said these words: Matthew 24:36:

“But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”  The key words are, “no man knoweth the day or the hour.”

This “idiom” that Jesus was speaking of was also spoken of ONLY on one day on the Hebraic calendar known as the Feast of Trumpets. We studied the connection that Jesus spoke of to the God-appointed times of His plan for mankind and the prophetic rehearsals that signaled His first coming and His death and resurrection. It also points to His Second Coming at the end of the age of grace.

It would be logical and scriptural to assume that if God used these times for the redemption plan of salvation to be completed on the exact days of these feast days made by God, and knowing God doesn’t do anything by happenstance, we can look to the feasts that are still waiting to be fulfilled those that are observed in the fall with the first of these days known as the Feast of Trumpets, also known as, “The return of the King.”

But moving on to what I would like to focus on in this article: Is there anything that can be correlated to this feast day that would give us pause and wonder? Could this be the day? A word of caution is needed here. I am no Harold Camping and I am not so impudent to say that God has told me the exact day of His return. No, we look to the Scriptures to let the Word give us meaning to the coming days, as we see them approaching.

As I cautioned last time, take these words and line them up to your Bible and as a good Berean, see if these things are true and judge for yourself. Don’t believe me. Believe your Bible. There will be mockers and people who say that this has no meaning except it be seen from an example of Israel and something proclaimed by a rabbi. I am aware that Israel is the center of prophecy. God gives all His people warning of His closeness of return and it doesn’t take a rabbi in Israel to “sanctify” the Word of God. All born-again believers will understand through the direction of the Holy Spirit, as they are foolishness to the carnal man, but wisdom to those who are saved by grace, as they a spiritually discerned.

BLOOD MOON TETRADS

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

Luke recorded the words of our Lord when the disciples came to Him and asked when the end of the age would happen and the signs of His coming. What are these signs Jesus was speaking of and do they have any significance to what we are studying? We will see that may be just the case. But notice further on in the chapter Jesus said this to them, and to us:

“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Matthew 21:34-36)

We are to be ever alert and watchful as the signs of His appearing will be all around us. Signs in the heavens were present that announced Christ’s first visitation. Will there be signs that will be present at His Second Coming at the end of the age of grace?

“He [Jesus] answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will befair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signsof the times?” (Matthew 16:2-3)

As it was in the beginning found in Genesis chapter 1 that the sun, moon and stars would be signs in the heavens for season, signs, and years:

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Genesis 1:14).

So it will be in the end, that God will use His creation to signal to His people the signs of His coming and the end of the age. Let us focus for a moment on the opening Scripture that is quoted from Joel. Joel writes that the sun will be “darkened.” Joel restates this very thing in a following verse in the third chapter:

“The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining” (Joel 3:15).

Looking to Strong’s Concordance, we find the meaning of the words, darkened or darkness. We see in one of the verses the Hebrew word “chosehek.” Strongs #2822 states: the dark, darkness, or figuratively, misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, night or obscurity. The other word is Strongs #6937 “qadar” to mean dark colored, sackcloth, be black, to make dark meaning no light.

Is there coming a day when the sun becomes black when no light falls anywhere and near a prophetic feast day, a day we have determined could be the day that the Lord says He would return? In the secular, they are called “solar eclipses” either partial or total. When the sun is covered either in part or total, the moon receiving its light from the sun turns reddish in color, depending on what part of the world you are viewing it from called a “blood moon.”

If we go to NASA, a secular authority that tracks these solar and lunar eclipses, we find that they have a complete listing of the eclipses that have happened and the ones that will be coming in the future. NASA identifies these as blood moon tetrads or four consecutive lunar eclipses that group together. There have only been two in the last century and they came on dates that are associated with prophetic events concerning Israel.

The first set of lunar eclipses happened in 1949 and 1950 and they are associated with the formation of Israel as a nation. Their birth was in 1948, but the government was not established until 1949. Those events happened in April and October of 1949, and April and September of 1950. The other event surrounded the recapturing of Jerusalem in 1967 or the Six Day War. Those eclipses were in April and October of each year of 1967 and 1968 also known as Passover and Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkoth. These can be viewed as prophetic markers in the sky that pointed to a completion of God’s promise to restore Israel and Jerusalem to the Jewish people.

How common are these blood moon tetrads, and the complete lunar eclipses of four in a row? Quite rare, as it had not happened in the past before 1949, except in 1493, and will happen only one other time in this century and will not happen again for 500 years. I would call that very rare.

BLOOD MOONING RISING, AGAIN

As we have learned there have been two blood moon tetrads in the last century. But notice that in our last lesson that Jesus made a clue that pointed to a possible feast day of His return. None of these last blood moon tetrads fell on what Jesus alluded to as the prophetic day in the Hebraic calendar, the time we have determined to possibly be the Feast of Trumpets and the Lord’s return. Is another total eclipse coming in the near future that does fall on these feast days? Yes, there is. According to NASA there will be another set of lunar eclipses coming up in 2014 and 2015. Why is this significant? In 2014 these eclipses fall on April and October 2014, which so happens to be Passover and Tabernacles (again) of that year. It will also happen in 2015 on yet another holy day of Passover and Tabernacles in April and September. But remember, Joel said that the Day of the Lord would happen after these signs are shown:

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come” (Joel 2:31), emphasis added).

So we know that the Lord can’t come in 2014 or 2015, as the signs or blood moon tetrads have not been completed. The next Feast of Trumpets will be August 31 through September 1, 2016; a possible sign of His return. This is also the end of a generation after Israel became a nation, and also the end of a 50-year Jubilee or the end of a generation as previously discussed.

But there’s more. There will also be a total eclipse on the beginning of the Hebrew calendar on March 20th, 2015, and again the very next year on March 9, 2016 which is also the beginning of the Hebrew calendar year. These are both on a new moon of both years and NASA says there will be total eclipses. Another point is that on the year of the Feast of Trumpets there will be a partial solar eclipse on the very day; a very rare occurrence to say the least.

What are the chances of this happening on these exact days in our past, and our future? The answer is: NEVER. It has never happened in the past, and it will never happen in our lifetime and won’t happen again at all for 100 years! Coincidence? I don’t think so. But remember, we observe that the Lord has completed His first advent on the exact feast days found in the spring, and it bears note that He will most likely follow suit to complete the fall observances, as well.

Could these signs in the sun, moon and the stars proclaim the coming of the Lord on a following Feast of Trumpets? It bears much study and prayer, waiting and watching for further signs. But again, I make no claim that these are facts indisputable and I am not infallible, but only reporting what God has shown me, and others, things that may be coming upon the earth.

continue article at Rapture Ready:

http://www.raptureready.com/soap/taylor83.html