R.E.M. had a song out years ago called “The End of the
World as We Know It.” The most memorable
part of the lyrics of the song (much of which are incoherent garbage) is the line
at the end of the chorus which goes: “It
is the End of the World as We Know It... and I Feel Fine.”
Many really don’t feel fine right now. I’ve been asked repeatedly if all the recent
disasters are portents of the end. We
have indeed had a plethora of natural and man-made disasters as well as
interminable “wars and rumors of wars” in the past year. Is God setting things up to end it all?
And now along comes John Hagee, a television preacher with
a big church down in San Antonio, pushing the latest fear button with a book
out on “blood moons.” If you’re familiar
with Hagee, he has made something of a career in pushing “end of the world”
type histrionics. Now he’s found another
reason, if not to panic, at least to call on all of us to be a little
nervous. It seems that over the next year
and half or so, there will be several total lunar eclipses visible from here in
the United States. These total eclipses of the moon cause it to
appear red in color. Since speaking of a
“red moon” isn’t nearly as dramatic as speaking of a “blood moon”, that is the
designation given to the appearance of the moon during a total eclipse. The fact is, it is a natural, and far from
unknown, phenomena. Spaceweather.com describes it in this
way:
During the early hours of April 15th, the Moon spent more than three hours gliding through the shadow of Earth. The Moon turned red during the transit because the core of our planet's shadow is red.
Why red? A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway.
You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.
Anyway, Hagee and others have found a correlation between these “blood moons”, four of which will occur between this past April 15th and September 28th of next year, and the beginning of the Jewish feasts of Passover and Tabernacles. This “tetrad” of blood moons, according to Hagee, possibly portends coming Middle East conflicts. He cites the fact that tetrads occurred in 1949-1950 (during the time the nation of Israel was founded), and again in 1967-1968 (it was in 1967 the the famous Six Day War occurred in the Middle East). Therefore, he argues these new “blood moons” could be signs from God of coming conflicts in the Middle East. While he offers no Scriptural proof for this possibility, citing only Jewish tradition, he has, nevertheless, apparently managed to make a lot of people really nervous.
Allow me to make a couple of quick observations. First of all, when people start talking about
“end times,” I would encourage you to read Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 17 and
21. Unless I’m misreading what Jesus has
to say there, He is making it quite clear wars, famines, earthquakes, and
pestilences are not signs “of the
end.” In fact, He emphasizes the very
opposite – “…the end is still to come” (Mt 24:6); “…but the end will not come
right away (Lk 21:9).
As far as “blood moons,” Revelation 6:12 speaks of the
moon turning blood red, it also refers to the sun turning black like sackcloth
and all the stars falling to the earth.
I have neither seen nor read of any such thing having to do with the sun
or the stars occurring recently (thankfully), but they are clearly linked
together in the Revelation. Therefore, it seems a little dishonest to cite one
phenomena without the other two, since this is the only place in the New
Testament that makes mention of a “blood moon.”
Second, there is no doubt God has used wars and natural
disasters at times to get people’s attention (consider what God does to Egypt
and Pharaoh in Exodus; the Covenant of Blessing and Cursing in Deuteronomy
28). A world which has chosen to reject
and rebel against Him cannot hope to ultimately escape the consequences of His
wrath. Is that what’s happening now? That is a question only the Almighty can
answer.
Ironically, I have to agree with the last line of that
R.E.M. song. I do feel fine. Oh, I’m not fine about the suffering going on
because of earthquakes and typhoons. I’m
not fine that mankind seems to have turned warfare into almost a form of
recreation. I’m not fine with the
repression and persecution of Christians in so much of the world. There’s a lot I’m not fine about. But there’s one truth that overrides all the
heartbreak and nonsense we see in this world; one truth that makes everything
fine:
For
the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods…he is our God and we
are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care (Psalm
95:3,7).
Dan
Rouse
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