A Biblical Response to Blood Moon Speculation

BLOOD MOONS

Blood moons are an interesting phenomenon. Of that there is little doubt. But unstable men lacking deep foundation exploit them for sensational theories and predictions. I am highly skeptical that blood moons are signs of wars or that they have anything to do with the timing of the rapture. Here are a few facts that must be taken into consideration.

ONE

Blood moons are simply total lunar eclipses. They are a regularly occurring natural phenomenon.

TWO

Blood moons are so common that the creative mind can align them with just about anything: cool inventions, who wins ball games, elections, lottery winners, companies going bankrupt. Blood moons belong in the same category as new moons, full moons, crescent moons, except that they happen only once every 1-2 years on average. This is still common, astronomically speaking. Much too common to point to them as prophetic signs which portend last days events.

THREE

Blood moons are exploited when men make a false dichotomy between coincidence and prophetic sign, a false dichotomy which “convinces” the gullible. Error requires a false dichotomy to prevail. False dichotomies always leave out the right option and force men to choose between two wrong options. The correct option here is that blood moons are neither coincidence nor prophetic. They are simply a predictable scientific phenomenon that God placed in creation.

FOUR

The upcoming blood moon will not be visible in the Middle East, which would seem to be essential if it was a sign for a Middle East war. The total eclipse will be visible in much of South East Asia, western China, western Russia, northwestern South America, southern Central America, the Caribbean, and the eastern seaboard states. This doesn’t leave much ground for exploiting it as a sign for war in the Middle East. The partial eclipse will be seen in most of Asia, western South America, eastern North America. The tail end of the penumbral eclipse will fade over Oman, eastern Iran, and the east coast of the Caspian Sea. You can’t claim a total eclipse (the blood moon) as a sign for a regional war and then point to the penumbral aspect of the blood moon which will only be visible over a small portion of that region as your proof. This is like claiming that you have a stick of dynamite, and then pointing to a firecracker.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I wish that the watchman community on YouTube and social media would walk away from the sensationalizing approach to Bible prophecy. Prophecy is already sensational enough. The rapture, a literal tribulation, a literal second coming, a little kingdom, and prophetic convergence coming together before our very eyes is amazing truth. We don’t help the cause of this amazing truth when we slather it with our own amazing theories that continually prove to be chaff. We need to get back to basics and die on that hill.

Lee