MYSTERIES OF THE BLOOD MOON.

In the wee hours of Tuesday (April 15) morning, the moon slid
into Earth’s shadow, casting a reddish hue on the moon. There
are about two lunar eclipses per year, according to NASA, but
what’s unusual this time around is that there will be four blood
moons within 18 months — astronomers call that a tetrad —
and all of them occur during Jewish holidays.
A string of books have been published surrounding the event,
with authors referring to a Bible passage that refers to the
moon turning into blood. “The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord,” Joel 2:31 says.

In the New Testament, Acts 2:20 echoes the same doom: “The
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before the great and notable day of the Lord.”
Recent books capitalizing on the event include “Blood Moons:
Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs” by Washington state
author Mark Biltz; “Blood Moons Rising: Bible Prophecy,
Israel, and the Four Blood Moons” by Oklahoma pastor Mark
Hitchcock; and ”Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to
Change” by Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee.
Hagee’s book is drawing the most attention, with his book
now No. 4 on The New York Times best-seller list in the
advice/how to section, and No. 80 on USA Today’s best-seller
list. The book by the controversial 74-year-old founder of San
Antonio’s Cornerstone Church has also spent 152 days in
Amazon’s top 100 books.
In his book, Hagee says something will happen to the nation of
Israel due to the tetrad. The four eclipses occur on April 15
and Oct. 8, 2014, and April 4 and Sept. 28 next year. The ones
in April occur during Passover, and the ones in October occur
during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.
Jewish holy days revolve around a lunar calendar with
Passover beginning on the first full moon after the beginning of
spring, and the Feast of Tabernacles occurring on the first full
moon after the beginning of fall. Hagee writes that every time a
tetrad occurs on Jewish feast days, something traumatic and
“world-changing” happens to Israel.
In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain and Christopher
Columbus discovered America, giving the Jews a place to go.
In 1948, the modern state of Israel was born, and in 1967,
Israel won the Six-Day War and recaptured Jerusalem.
During the 300-year interval from 1600 to 1900, there were no
tetrads at all, according to NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak.
This time, Hagee suggests that a Rapture will occur where
Christians will be taken to heaven, Israel will go to war in a
great battle called Armageddon, and Jesus will return to earth.
Hagee planned a special televised event on Tuesday (April 15)
on the Global Evangelism Television channel.
But NASA does not consider tetrads as especially rare, saying
in a statement that there will be eight sets of tetrads before the
year 2100. The most unique thing about the upcoming tetrad
is that they are visible from all or parts of the United States,
NASA stated.
“When you see these signs, the Bible says, lift up your head
and rejoice, your redemption draweth nigh,” Hagee said in a
sermon, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “I
believe that the Heavens are God’s billboard, that He has been
sending signals to Planet Earth but we just have not been
picking them up.”
Greg Boyd, a pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul,
Minn., called the predictions a waste of time, maybe even
bordering on astrology.
“You have an entire population buying into this stuff so no
congregation is immune to this,” Boyd said. “It can strike fear
into people, which is so unnecessary and wrong.”
The Jewish holy days carry less theological significance than
Jesus’ resurrection for many Christians, said Sam Storms, a
pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City. Any connection
between the two events should carry less weight, he said.
“We need to stop giving into some of these sensationalist
speculations,” he said. “Maybe Christians are more gullible.
One has to twist the data to make it appear as if these are the
fulfillment of some biblical prophecy.”