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Bible Study		January 5, 2014
Four Blood Moons

Introduction

As we begin a new year we always look backward and forward. One thing that we look forward to this year and next are five astronomical events. In 2014 and 2015 there will be a solar (Sun) eclipse and four lunar (Moon) eclipses. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon comes between the Sun and the Earth and blocks the light from the Sun from reaching the Earth. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and blocks the light from the Sun from reaching the Moon.

Both solar and lunar eclipses can be partial or total and this is shown in the diagram. In a partial eclipse the Moon or Sun isn't completely covered. They aren't in the darkest part of the shadow. In a total eclipse they are completely covered.

Lunar eclipses are not that uncommon and they are very visible; a large part the planet can see them if the sky conditions permit. Solar eclipses are rarer and can only be seen by a small strip of the Earth.

Lunar total eclipses are also called Blood Moons. With the Earth between the Sun and Moon, the Moon gets none of its light directly from the Sun. The light it gets comes from the sun's light passing through the Earth's atmosphere. Without that the Moon would be completely dark. So anything in Earth's atmosphere colors the Moon. The result is a color anywhere from a light orange to a deep red. In lunar partial eclipses the Moon still gets much of the Sun's light directly and so the Moon's color is white.

So in 2014 and 2015 there will be a total of 4 Blood Moons and 1 solar eclipse.

But why would a Christian care about astronomy? First, when God created the universe he said in Genesis 1:14

¹⁴ Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;

In this context, a sign is an event that God uses to tell us something. In this sense the Bethlehem star was a sign that the Messiah had come. And also remember that the Jews were always asking Jesus for some sign that they might believe he was the Messiah.

Our purpose in this lesson will be to consider if these Blood Moons and the solar eclipse are signs. If they are signs, like the wise men at Jesus' birth, we will not be able to know what they are a sign of until they arrive.

Lesson

The occurrence of these eclipses is astronomy not astrology. It's important to understand the difference between astronomy and astrology here. Astronomy is the science of measuring the motions of the heavenly bodies and predicting their future positions. "Astrology is the worship of stars […]. People who make choices based on the stars are seeking guidance for their lives from things created rather than from the Creator. This is a violation of the law of Almighty God (Romans 1: 20– 21; Exodus 20: 4).¹"

So our purpose here is not to use these astronomical events as guides for our lives. We have the Bible and Holy Spirit for that. But instead we will study these events so that we can be watchful.

In Acts 2:19-20 Peter quotes Joel 2:28-32

¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

Jesus also refers to the Sun, Moon, and Stars as signs in Luke 21 when he is describing the events leading up to the second coming.

²⁵ "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

But is this coming series of four Blood Moons a sign? How uncommon is this coming event? A few factors contribute to answering these questions. We start by knowing that the Moon rotates around the earth about every 30 days. Therefore, the Moon is more or less between the Sun and Earth once every 30 days. When it isn't directly between them, however, there isn't an eclipse. The result is that there is a lunar eclipse only every couple years.

So a lunar eclipse is not that uncommon. One thing that makes this coming event less common is that four eclipses occur in a short period of time. Also, total eclipses are less common. In this event all four eclipses are total eclipses, Blood Moons, which is even less common. But this event is still not that uncommon.

Another thing makes this event less common. All four of the Blood Moons occur on major feast days in Israel, the feasts given to Israel by God. But we need to be careful not to over-estimate the importance of that. It may seem like this alignment of the Blood Moons with the feast days must make this a one-of-a-kind event. Because lunar eclipses always occur at full moon and the feast days of Passover and Sukkot also occur pretty close to or on full moons, it isn't that uncommon to get this alignment.

One other thing makes this event less common. The last Blood Moon of the four comes at the close of a sabbatical year, in Hebrew called a Shemitah year. Directed by God, every seventh year is a rest year. One of the things that occurred in that year was an economic leveling that resulted from the forgiveness of all debt. So this additional factor makes this occurrence seven times less likely. In the case of the 2014 – 2015 Blood Moons the second and third Blood Moons fall within the Shemitah year. The Shemitah year ends with the beginning of the holiest season of the year and the last Blood Moon comes on the last day of that.

In summary, these are the characteristics that make this coming event uncommon

It isn't just one lunar eclipse but a set of four lunar eclipses
All of the four eclipses are total eclipses, Blood Moons
The four eclipses occur on God's feast days
The last eclipse comes at the end of a Shemitah year

Good statistics are hard to find for past four Blood Moon events because they happen so irregularly. The best I've seen is this. "NASA found that we have had 'blood-red moons' on the first day of Passover and the first day of Sukkoth on back-to-back years seven times since 1 A.D."²

There can be hundreds of years between four Blood Moon events or as little as 18 years. The last two events began in 1949 and 1967. The one before those two began in 1492. Those three events correspond with major events for Israel.

1492 – Jews are driven out of Spain by the inquisition or slaughtered. Those that are driven out leave without their possessions
1949 – Israel wins the war of independence that establishes it as a separate country
1967 – Israel wins the 6 day war and with enough territory to secure itself from bombardments of that time.

But there is more to it than that, from a US perspective. A seven year pattern³ has started to develop in the history of the US. As the table below shows we have had two recent major events in the US occur on a significant date on the Jewish calendar, the calendar given by God. The last of the four Blood Moons comes near the next date in that pattern.

Event	Date	Date on the Jewish Calendar
The attacks on the Twin Towers	September 11, 2001	Elul 29, Feast of Trumpets / Rosh Hashanah, Shemitah year
The Wall Street crash. Dow Jones Average drops 777 points	September 29, 2008	Elul 29, Feast of Trumpets / Rosh Hashanah, Shemitah year
?	September 13, 2015	Elul 29, Feast of Trumpets / Rosh Hashanah, Shemitah year
Last of the four Blood Moons	September 28, 2015	Tishri 15, Feast of Tabernacles / Sukkot

To understand this completely it needs to be understood that the most holy time of the year on the Jewish calendar begins with Rosh Hashanah, the last trumpet, and ends with Sukkot. So it wouldn't be a surprise to have significant events occur on both these dates.

Summary

With the four blood moons occurring on these feast dates in a Shemitah year we have a rare event but certainly not a one-of-a-kind event. It's closer to being a once-in-a-lifetime event. But does this mean it isn't a sign, that it has no value to us?

To answer that we only have to look at other signs in the Bible. In Israel every year there was Sukkot. Year after year Sukkot came and went but then one year a child was born and a star came to rest over the house where he was laid. Similarly Passover came and went year after year but one year God, in the flesh of man, was sacrificed. At the start of every month trumpets are blown as a warning of the seventh trumpet which is blown and goes by each year. But one year the Messiah will return.

Understanding this we see all previous Blood Moons as warning signs of a future Blood Moon spoken of in the Bible. Sets of four Blood Moons occurring on feast days would therefore be a louder warning, but the coming set of four Blood Moons is not necessarily the time of the event. It may be only another warning.

¹ John, Hagee (2013-10-08). Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change

² http://www.pray4zion.org/TheComingBloodMoons.html

³ DVD, The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment: Is There an Ancient Mystery that Foretells America's Future?