We rely upon and actually live according to the Gregorian calendar. That's fine and it certainly serves its purpose. It took a lot of evolution to come to where we are today....but....this isn't God's calendar. You can see this all through Scripture but it's very clear in the seven year tribulation period. You don't have to calculate....let's see....is there a leap year in there.....and take in consideration the various months of thirty or thirty-one days. It's very simple and straightforward.....1260 days.....42 thirty day months....3 1/2 years!
God's calendar....is lunar.....not solar....and those new moons and full moons and blood moons mean something.
All of this talk about four blood moons in a row....or tetrads....began in earnest around 2015....and primarily through the research of a pastor/author out of Washington....Mark Biltz....who you can easily Google.
Total lunar eclipses....or what has come to be called....blood moons....are not that rare at all....as NASA statistics show that over thousands of years they occur on an average of one every year and a half. Now four in a row....meaning no variations between them....over a period of say a year and a half to two years....that's pretty rare. To have them all fall on Jewish holidays is very rare....to say the least!
This situation occurred right around when the Jews were kicked out of Spain....1492/1493....and it happened when Isreal became a nation again in 1948....and it happened when Isreal took control of Jerusalem during the six day war in 1967....and it happened again in 2014/2015. Donald Trump was born on a blood moon....and he came down that escalator in the middle of that 2014/2015 tetrad. To the credit of Mark Blitz....I heard him say that Trump could turn on Israel...."on a dime"....and he isn't sure if Trump will turn out good or bad. That's not an easy admission today in evangelicalism!
When that last tetrad passed it's as if people started thinking....well nothing happened....so there's nothing to that theory....but that isn't the theory....the theory is that that time period is bringing about something significant....and if you look back at 2015 to today.....and everything that has happened....and all the changes that are happening right now almost every day....then something of biblical proportions did indeed change at that time!
So.....blood moons aren't being talked about much anymore....not because the issue itself was proven wrong.....but because the issue itself was interpreted wrong. People....(believers).... either wanted an immediate answer to that sign....and others....(unbelievers)....waited for that no immediate answer so that they could ridicule it.
Changing course a little....
I certainly do not have to bring up what I am going to bring up. It will only make matters a little worse for me....but I think that it is worth going over. There was a Christian book on Bible prophecy written in 1986 that put forth a theory that upon first glance it appeared to be rank speculation. I'm going to make this sound as absurd as I can....and get that out of the way....and then hopefully make it a little easier to at least consider. Here it is...Psalm 1 pointed to 1901....and Psalm 2 to 1902....and Psalm 3 to 1903....and right on down the line....meaning that Psalm 125 is speaking about our day.
There it is....and I can guarantee to you that most pastors would immediately denounce this as gross and egregiously absurd speculation. And I would agree....and pretty much did agree back when I first read the book....Prophecy In The Psalms....by Baptist pastor and television prophecy teacher....J. R. Church. I wasn't convinced....but I could not bring myself to throw the book away....until years later when I did donate it to a library book sale. Fast-forward a few more years....this maybe ten or so years ago....and I reordered the book! As I witnessed history unfold....I just could not get this concept out of my mind.
What was happening was that I continued to read into Bible prophecy....which has been a seven day a week thing for many years now if not decades....and I'm listening to sermons every single day by men of the past (primarily Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones)....where the glory and power of God were still in the sermons....and if the doctrine of the....means of grace....has a practical blessing as it is said to have....then at least it would not be unusual to see things that even pastors....who will be watching the Super Bowl this Lord's Day....have been and are oblivious to.
J. R. Church himself was humble in this....as he described how a secretary in the church simply brought up a few seeming coincidences to him....and he then could not get the concept out of his mind....which eventually led to the book. Looking back....the problem was that J. R. Church went beyond seeking discernment for the present....to predicting the future. But you know what? Calvin made mistakes too....and C. S. Lewis made a trove of serious doctrinal mistakes to go along with his extraordinarily profound wisdom in apologetics!
I need to segue here....O. Palmer Robertson is not a television prophecy teacher....he is a well-respected theologian of Reformed Theology. He wrote an extraordinary book on the Psalms.....The Flow Of The Psalms....Discovering Their Structure And Theology....which was published in May of 2015. Although not speculative....it is the discovery....of a progression in the Psalms...through the five books contained within the Psalms.... Psalms 1-41 as 'Confrontation'....42-72 as 'Communication'....73-89 as 'Devastation'....90-106 as 'Maturation'....and the final section....Psalms 107- 150 as 'Consummation.' The author would surely not agree with this but he may have been inadvertently entering into a chronology of years.
Maybe I put something into your mind that will come to the forefront as you read through the Psalms....which you should be doing all the time! Consider Psalm 73....verse 2...."But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; My steps had nearly slipped." That is exactly what happened to the leadership in Israel prior to the Yom Kippur War of 1973....and there are many other intriguing examples.....but it is Psalms 117....so short....as if to imply a watershed moment in time.....and 118....a messianic Psalm....and Psalm 119....a Psalm of the law....and the beginnings of the....Psalms Of Ascent....(Psalms 120-134)....that wedged its way into what had already been dominant in my mind....that surely Jesus is at the very doorstep...and surely we should be desiring His soon return in this world....that surely is...."as the days of Noah."
These are not predictions....these are consolations as we see everything....including great delusion....and false teachers....and false prophets....and false signs and wonders....and a "falling away"....already in progress....and people thinking that peace and security is finally here....when it is God's impending judgment that his most faithful ministers have been giving us in warnings!
