Sing along with CCR if you want, just substitute the words "bad" for "blood" in the old tune "Bad Moon Rising" and you've got the new Apocalypse fad du jour - (insert rumble of thunder) The Four Blood Moons. (dun dun DAAAA!). TBN favorite Mark Biltz and his tome Blood Moons first popularized this fad and he was recently joined by John Hagee with his book "Four Blood Moons, Something Is About To Change" I want to refute this in love but it's very hard to do considering that the preeminent author and promoter of this fad John Hagee denies the very basis of Christianity; that Jesus came as our Messiah. The blood moon fad is not hard to refute, it's just hard to do it in love, but I'm going to try.
The claims of the Four Blood Moon fad are pretty amazing, and refuting their claims is so embarrassingly easy one wonders why this whole thing got started in the first place. In case you haven't been reading the breathless exclamations of blood moon enthusiasts the Four Blood Moon fad goes like this: when blood moons happen on Jewish holidays Things can Happen. That's the whole blood moon fad in ten words. There will be two blood moons in 2014 and two in 2015, the first one on Passover which will be April 15 2014 and April 4 2015, and during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) on October 8 2014 and September 28 2015. These four lunar eclipses are called a Lunar Tetrad, and Lunar Tetrads are portents of Things That Happen (according to Biltz and Hagee).
A blood moon occurs during a full lunar eclipse when the moon passes into the earth's shadow, the red sunlight of both sunrise and sunset on both sides of the world are reflected on the face of the moon making it look orange. However a blood moon isn't always a blood colored moon. Dust and volcanic debris can change the color of Earth's shadow causing the moon to appear anything from brown to gray. Also, 'blood moon' is not an astronomic term but a religious one so don't go calling NASA for details.
According to Hagee and Biltz many world turning events have happened during lunar tetrads. In 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus discovered America. in 1948 the UN established modern day Israel. In 1967 Israel won the six day war. Hagee and Blitz quote Joel in their books
"I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (Joel 2:30-31)
Biltz and Hagee noticed that on several occasions major political events occurred in conjunction with a lunar tetrad, such as the afore mentioned tetrads that foretold the Spanish Inquisition, the establishment of modern Israel, and the 6 Day War, so obviously the upcoming lunar tetrad will foretell even more earth shattering events. So let's look at this whole thing.
12 I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. (Revelation 6:12-13)
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Matthew 24:29)
The bible describes this as a global darkness that causes not just the moon to go red but the sun and stars to go dark. This is something big, more than just a lunar eclipse, which is why Biltz and Hagee do not use Revelation and Matthew to back up their theory, but instead they just use Joel 2:30-31 which only mentions the sun and moon (discounting the billows of smoke as spurious). However if you back up 20 verses you'll see that Joel has more to say
10 Before them the earth quakes, The heavens tremble, The sun and the moon grow dark And the stars lose their brightness. (Joel 2:10)
Also Ezekiel 32:7-8 makes it abundantly clear that all the lights in the heavens will go dark, we're not just talking about an orange tinted moon. And there's a huge earthquake mentioned in the bible, which Biltz and Hagee fail to mention. It's also impossible for a solar and lunar eclipse to happen at the same time, so the sun and the moon going dark can't be from shadows being cast, it has to be something that obscures the entire sky.
In Biltz' research he actually found a total of 6 lunar tetrads not just the four he mentioned in his book. However he failed to mention these two tetrads because when they occurred nothing of any significance happened. So let's look at the ones that supposedly foretold events.
The Lunar Tetrad that occurred in April 1493 to September 1494 supposedly foretold the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately for Biltz and Hagee the Spanish Inquisition actually started in 1478. A modern day equivalent would be to say that the lunar tetrad that is happening this year actually foretells George W. Bush's presidential election victory over Al Gore. Fine, you say, it actually foretold the royal decree that expelled the Jews from Spain. However when the lunar tetrad actually occurred there were no Jews in Spain (officially), they were expelled over a year before. The only thing of significance that happened in 1493 to 1494 was the discovery of manatees by Christopher Columbus.
The lunar tetrad that supposedly foretold Israel's independence according to Biltz and Hagee occurred in 1949 which was over a year after Israel won her independence. The next lunar tetrad supposedly occurred in conjunction with the 6 day war, however the 6 day was was over for 10 months by the time the first bloodmoon of that tetrad happened. The only thing these lunar tetrads show is that it's really easy to predict the past.
If God was really using lunar tetrads to warn his chosen people why wasn't there a lunar tetrad before the 70 AD siege of Jerusalem? What about the expulsion from Rome? The holocaust? And why are the tetrads denoting good events (independence) while others denote bad events (discovery of manatees the inquisition) wouldn't God try to end confusion by using tetrads for one type of information and stick to that plan? Besides it's got to be weird that a lunar eclipse happens on a Jewish holiday once, let alone four times in two years, right?
Well, no. In reality a lunar eclipse has a better chance of falling on a Jewish holiday than any other holiday on the calendar. To begin with a lunar eclipse can only happen when there's a full moon, that's when the moon is behind the earth and its full face is reflecting the sunlight. The start of Passover is celebrated on the first full moon after the spring equinox and Sukkot is celebrated on the first full moon of autumn. When you schedule holidays to occur on the day of the only moon phase that will allow a lunar eclipse you're eventually going to have a holiday with a lunar eclipse.
In the 20th century there have been 230 lunar eclipses and 37 of them (about 1/6th) have happened on Passover or Sukkot, which works for me because Passover and Sukkot occur on exactly 1/6th of all the full moons in a given year/century/millennium. When you figure in the fact that an eclipse can only happen on a full moon, and that Passover and Sakkot also can only happen on a full moon, the idea of four lunar eclipses happening on these two dates two years in a row is not a mathematical impossibility, in fact its not exceedingly rare.
I've shown that the moon turning to blood is not the same as the events prophesied in Revelation, Matthew, Joel and Ezekiel because it's just the moon turning red, there's no sun darkening, no stars disappearing, no earthquakes. I've also shown that the events claimed by Mark Biltz and John Haggee to have happened on a lunar tetrad in reality aren't even close to occurring on the Blood Moons. In fact if you look at the history of what actually goes on during the days a Blood Moon is happening, historically the only thing a lunar tetrad foretells is a quiet day where not much at all happens. And finally when you run the math lunar eclipses falling on Jewish holidays appears to be the norm because of the lunar calender that is used.
In the end it's a rock circling the earth moving in and out of darkness on a regular, predictable cycle. You may say that the movie Noah has just as much chance of causing Richard Dawkins wake up and declare that Jesus is his savior as the Blood moons have of foretelling any cataclysmic event. So while I believe some incredible, wonderful, and at the same time terrifying events are on the horizon for us, it's not because that the moon's elliptic has caused the moon to hide in the earth's shadow four times in two years, it's because my Lord and Savior is coming to gather us home.
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