Roy Exum
I got over my fears a long time ago when I finally got it in my head that all F.E.A.R. really stands for is “False Expectations Against Reality.” Nothing, and I mean nothing, is ever as bad (or as good) as the zany stuff we can dream up. Johnny Majors, the great football coach, taught us, “Nothing is ever as bad as it may appear but it’s never quite as good either, so the best thing to always do is keep on keepin’ on.”
But wait, this isn’t about the Internal Revenue Service, or the undeniable day of April 15th that our government has carved in stone as the day we must “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” Instead behold the verse from the Holy Bible where Joel is quoted in Acts 2:20 – “The Sun shall be turned into darkness, and the Moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.”
My friend, you need to get your arms around that sort of thinking because early tomorrow morning a “Blood Moon” will be outside your window.
In stark reality, our friends at AccuWeather.com predict the only thing those in the Chattanooga area will see out their window between 1:58 a.m. and 5:33 a.m. EDT on Tuesday is rain, with the heavy clouds possibly laced with thunder and lightning.
At the same time, much higher in the heavens, it’s a guarantee the first of four spectacular and haunting lunar eclipses – called a “tetrad” -- will occur between tomorrow and September 2015. These four uncommon eclipses are called “Blood Moons” that will each turn the moon into a burnt reddish orange easy to see with normal eyesight.
More pointedly, the string of four blood moons – without a partial eclipse anywhere in between – has conspiracy theorists and prophets on the Internet going nuts. Megapastor and great televangelist John Hagee wrote a best-selling book last year entitled, “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About To Change” and has freely predicted “a world-shattering event that will happen between April of 2014 and October of 2015.”
Pastor Hagee points to the Holy Bible’s Book of Revelations, where you can read the 6th Chapter and see where verse 12 says, “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the Moon became as blood.”
Here is what we know: The Jewish holy day of Passover will be celebrated this Tuesday. The Jewish calendar, set in ancient times, is lunar-based so the Festival of Tabernacles will come six full moons later, this year on Oct. 8. The second Blood Moon, according to NASA scientists, will appear the same day. In 2015 the third Blood Moon will be April 4 – also Passover – and the fourth will be on the very day of Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles, on Sept. 28, 2015.
According to historical records, a tetrad of Blood Moons occurring on Jewish Holy Days has happened only eight times since the time of Christ. Since this year the dates are again on Holy Days, and the fact Jesus was a Jew, Pastor Hagee points to the fact that he believes God uses the moons for more than just happenstance for those who pray towards heaven.
For instance, in 1493 the tetrad came as Jews were being exiled from Spain, this just one year after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World that would welcome and become a refuge for its Children in the centuries to come. In 1949, the tetrad celebrated the formation of a Jewish nation – Israel – the year before. The last tetrad was in 1967 and it happened as precisely at the moment Israel won its famous Six-Day War.
In Pastor Hagee’s book he wrote, “Just as in biblical times, God is controlling the sun, the moon, and the stars to send our generation a signal that something big is about to happen. The question is: Are we watching and listening to His message?”
John Hagee, easily one of the best preachers in the world today, will actually have a television special on GETV at 9 p.m. on Tuesday night (check local listings) and, if you go to his Global Evangelism Television website, you can watch him on a 2012 tape as he explains, “The Coming Four Blood Moons.”
If you are more upset because the rain will keep you from viewing the Blood Moon, look instead at NASA’s website because they’ll have live streaming of the Tuesday morning eclipse. And, if something “world shattering” fails to happen, the next Blood Moon tetrad, according to scientists, will be in April 25, 2032.