Do Not Be Terrified...

Some prophecies tell us about some very interesting celestial events which will happen in the future. Back when the so-called "blood moon" lunar eclipses occurred, I pointed out in this blog post that the events described by Yeshua (Jesus) and the Nabi'im (Prophets) are not the usual eclipses and meteor showers that we are used to, but incredible events that otherwise would be physically impossible given the known workings of our solar system. This solar eclipse, like the lunar eclipses I talked about then, seems to be among the common celestial signs that have occurred since the formation of our solar system, not the spectacular ones we are told to expect by the written servants of YHWH.

I haven't heard a lot of the usual "omen" talk around today's North American eclipse, but it seems inevitable given the activity around just about every celestial event in the recent past that today's event already has been interpreted as something more significant by some very vocal people.  This would inevitably lead to disappointment when emotional investments are made on a very imminent outcome that doesn't come to pass in the time that those playing that stock market were hoping for. The fear of these events is often what allows false prophets to flourish.  Some of these will be well meaning but clearly mistaken people, while others will have a more dubious agenda.  The point here is that the litmus test cannot be sincerity, because both of these groups are misleading their flocks.  The latter dubious group often stays in the limelight just long enough to make a decent buck from the venture, after which they can disappear and leave behind a mess of smashed hopes, but ultimately both of these types are leaving behind smashed hopes.   In other words, the litmus test is not the sincerity of the claimant, but the correct application of Scripture.  If you are armed with what the Scriptures actually say and hold all such claims strictly to its testimony, you will be immune to such attempts.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with enjoying these events for what they actually are: marvelous reminders of Elohim's creative hand in this very clockwork environment that He has fashioned for us. Enjoy the eclipse by all means, but be very careful not to read too much into it.  Not every event is related to prophecy or sin or punishment.  As Yeshua said:

"... [Elohim] makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good..." (Mattityahu / Matthew 5:45:)

I think it's safe to say that Elohim also makes his sun go dark on the wicked and the good.  If we're going to interpret beyond this, we must remember what he also promised about prophecies of this sort:

"For the Master YHWH does no matter unless He reveals His secret to His servants the nabi'im (prophets)." (Amos / Amos 3:7)

We all know that Elohim has promised to do some mighty things, but let's let Him be the one doing the promising.  It's wise to be on our guard and watch for signs of events He has stated which will occur or which He will bring about, yes, but it is unwise to interpret every celestial event as a portent to disaster, judgement, or even reward.

For those of you not in a location to see the total eclipse, or even a partial eclipse, NASA has some options for experiencing it online.  Check them out!

Witnessing a Blood Moon from Yerushalayim

As I mentioned before on this blog, I've made a commitment to my Elohim to observe the Chagim, the three Festivals commanded anciently by Elohim to be observed by all males in the place where He chose for His Name to abide.  And I choose to do this in the actual place where He chose for His Name to abide, that place being Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).  My commitment is to do this for as long as I am able, and this means physically, financially, among other things.  Since Chag HaSukkoth (The Festival of Tabernacles) is upon us, I am now seeing part of that commitment through by coming to Yerushalayim to observe that Festival before Him.

I arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday around 3:15 p.m. and was eager to get to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) before sundown.  Because I follow the actual New Moon visible from Yerushalayim to determine my months (as the Torah more than adequately indicates) and not the traditional calendar of the Jews introduced in the 4th century, my first day of Sukkoth was not yesterday as it was for most Jews, but will begin on Tuesday evening after sundown and end on Wednesday evening after sundown (September 29-30); however, I knew I would need to carry a lot of luggage to my apartment, which is a significant trek from my parking site to the apartment I rent every year to observe these Chagim.  I also knew I'd have to do some quick shopping, and carry the cargo resulting from that as well.  And since I rent an apartment in a very Jewish neighborhood, I just didn't want do these treks in front of them after sundown, when their first day of Sukkoth, an annual Shabbat day, began.  I'm keenly aware of how such things can cause offense, and since they don't understand and couldn't easily be made to understand the nature of our disagreement on the timing of the Appointed Times, I felt (and feel) that it's a good idea to avoid such things as much as possible.  I had also planned to get my sukkah (temporary dwelling) out of storage at my friends' place in the City Center and put it up before sundown.

I barely accomplished the first part of this, and really had no hope of doing the latter.  After going through immigration, getting my luggage, renting a car, driving to Yerushalayim, and shopping, I had only enough time before sundown to carry all of the luggage (two suit cases and two carry-ons) and all three bags of groceries in a single trek.  It was a rough trip, but I was able to do it.  There was however no hope of putting up the sukkah, and I gave up on that idea as I really only need to put it up before Sundown on Tuesday, more than a day away.  The truth is, by this point with all of the sleepless travelling, flight connections in Newark, New Jersey and Frankfort, Germany, and almost no rest time in between, I was just flat out exhausted and went to bed for the evening around 9 p.m. after observing that the Moon was indeed full.

I woke up inexplicably around 4:35 a.m. and went up to the lovely rooftop balcony of the apartment I had rented, the very place I will be putting up my sukkah in the days to come, and sat down with a drink to take in the night air.  Then I saw it... the same Moon I had seen earlier, only it was no longer full.  It was about 1/3 of the way darkened.  I have to say that I was pretty alarmed at first.  I mean, you don't see this kind of thing every day, and immediately the prophecies of Yoel (Joel) and Yeshua (Jesus) came to mind about the moon not giving its light.  The blood was pumping, let me tell you.

I had to watch it all the way through because I still wasn't sure it would be a full lunar eclipse.  It might be only partial, I was thinking.  So I watched as the moon slowly but surely became completely darkened.  Right at the point when no crescent was visible, someone in the distance blew a shofar three times, each one a rather long blast in succession.  Though he was not really close to where I was, the sound pierced through Yerushalayim like one would expect it to on a quiet night like this one.

It didn't take long for me though to realize what had happened.  I had realized it long before the Moon was fully darkened.  I had known about this lunar eclipse more than a year ago, but I had been ignoring it for that year because of the peripheral attachments that were being made to it, attachments of significance that I didn't share.  As a result of this, I had forgotten about it completely.  I was immensely fortunate that the ills of jet-lag had woken me up in time to see this phenomenon in action.

But I was also fortunate for the lesson it taught me about reading into celestial events something that may not actually be there.  As I mentioned, the reason I had blocked this out of my mind was because of all of the prophetic associations being made with this "blood moon" phenomenon.  It isn't that I begrudge folks for having these opinions and looking with some interest, especially since this was the fourth lunar eclipse in the last two years, with each eclipse happening in exact six months increments, making for a phenomenon known as a Lunar Tetrarch event.  It is certainly an interesting celestial event, so of course, note should be paid.  My real problem with it was more or less the resolute surety that many have connected to the event, as if there can be no doubt at all that this is THE event that Yoel and Yeshua spoke about in their prophecies.

But before we look at this, let's take a look at what the two main prophecies from Yoel and Yeshua actually say:

"And I shall give signs in the shamayim (heavens or skies) and upon the earth: blood and fire and columns of smoke, the sun is turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of YHWH!" (Yoel / Joel 3:30-31).

"And immediately after the distress of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall fall from the shamayim, and the powers of the shamayim shall be shaken." (Mattityahu / Matthew 24:29-30).

Granted, I am sure some will be able to interpret these verses differently, but if we take what this says literally, it is telling us that both the Sun AND the Moon will be darkened (with the Moon's darkness turning the color of blood) at basically the same time, or at least in very close proximity to each other.  Celestially this kind of double eclipse is an impossibility.  Why?  Because the circumstances that cause each type of full eclipse are mutually exclusive.

A total eclipse of the moon is basically when the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, and the Earth is uniquely positioned to block the light of the Sun from reaching the Moon, in turn preventing the Moon from reflecting that light back to Earth.  This is usually visible from any point at which the Moon is visible in the night sky, and completely hidden from those places in which the Moon is not visible, for what I believe are obvious reasons.

A total eclipse of the Sun is basically when the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun, and the Moon is uniquely positioned to block the Sun completely from a particular viewpoint on Earth, making the Sun look like a large black dot with a slight ring of fire around the outer edges of its circle (which is the sun's still visible corona).  Though the Sun and the Moon are much differently sized objects with the former drastically outsizing the latter, they both appear the same size from the perspective of Earth due to their different distances.  Hence, the Moon can actually block the Sun completely from at least one viewpoint of the Earth.  Notice, I said from a particular viewpoint, because unlike Lunar Eclipses, which will be visible from any area in which the Moon is visible, total Solar Eclipses are not visible from just any area in which the Sun is visible.  The percentage of the Sun which is blocked is entirely dependent upon the area from which it is viewed.  This perspective visible positioning of the Moon and the Sun must be just right for the Sun to be completely visibly darkened.  While the Sun may appear fully eclipsed in one location, in another location at the same time, only a partial eclipse may be visible, and in still another, no eclipse will be visible at all.

So basically, one requires the Earth to be between the Sun and Moon, and one requires the Moon to be between the Sun and the Earth.  What this means is that for what Yoel and Yeshua describe here to actually occur is at least impossible from a normal analysis of the physics of these events.  What this will likely mean for those who don't take the prophecies of the Scriptures seriously is that those verses are describing an impossible event and are thus nonsensical.  But what that should mean for anyone who takes these verses seriously (i.e. myself and those who are reading this for an understanding of these prophecies) is that this cannot be describing a normal eclipse of either the Moon or the Sun.  It has to be describing something unheard of, something never yet witnessed, something which cannot be explained by the fixed cycles of the Moon and the Sun, and further, something that likely couldn't be so precisely calculated for time and place as can be done for cyclical eclipses.

Notice that Yeshua implies exactly such an unheard of event when he adds that the "powers of the shamayim (heavens or skies) will be shaken."  Essentially this means that what we will see is something much more dramatic than even the double eclipse.  We'll see something that will definitely cause the world to take notice.  Yoel adds that we will see "blood and fire and columns of smoke" among the signs in the skies that Elohim will demonstrate.  There's a lot more to what they describe than eclipses, even the normally impossible double eclipse described here.

This future event is, I believe, something far greater and FAR more unique than the Lunar Tetrarch that certain Christian ministers have termed a "Blood Moon".  Lunar Tetrarchs are an event combo that has occurred seven other times since Yeshua came to the Earth  The reason this one is considered special by those ministers is because each of the events occurs on the traditional Jewish calendar's days for Pesach and the first day of Sukkoth.  Remember though, as I pointed out before, that if one goes by the method that the Torah clearly implies by observing actual new moons by looking for the opening crescent sliver, those days are a bit off anyway.  The traditional Jewish calendar was introduced in the fourth century A.D. in an attempt to approximate the appearance of new moons in Yerushalayim after they could no longer be observed effectively by dispersed Jews exiled from the land of Yisrael (Israel).  Therefore that calendar does not actually follow those lunar starting points in the first place, even now when Jews are more able to view the events directly in the night sky, having largely returned to the land of Yisrael.

Since the current Jewish calendar only attempts to approximate those dates, the resulting dates on that calendar are only sometimes correct, while at most other times they can be off by several days, usually from one to three.  This year they are off by two days.  So no, this lunar eclipse did not actually happen on the first day of Sukkoth, not by any calendar computational methods that either Yoel or Yeshua would have been familiar with.  Even if all four HAD happened on the right day, there's still the issue that only the last one was even visible from Yerushalayim (or any part of Yisrael) in the first place, simply due to the location of the moon in the night sky and the time of day in that land.

The hard cold fact is that full solar eclipses, full lunar eclipses, and even lunar tetrarch events, are not so rare in even very recent times.  They are much too common to identify them as definite signs of the end without some more information and research to tie them all together.  So what am I really trying to say here?  I'm trying to say that when someone is telling you that some celestial event is significant, you don't need to completely discount it, but you should also avoid a complete buy in until you've been able to do a little research of your own.  Dig a little deeper.  Try to see if all of the claims being made are valid, or if they are found wanting.  Check each assumption used as a building block toward the thesis they present and validate that these are solid axioms and not just faulty assumptions.  We are told to test every ruach (spirit), and that has to include the ruachot (spirits) behind claims such as these.  Even now, I would not tell you to discount these things completely, but definitely be careful about how much you invest into something like this and always do your own research on those claims before selling the barn.

Always remember that the Ruach HaKodesh is a ruach of power, love, and a sound mind.  It is not the ruach of hype and exaggeration.  Just recently on Facebook someone posted images they claimed were "pictures of the Blood Moon over Jerusalem".  These images were certainly incredible, but also very obviously fake.  The moon in those pictures was a deep rich red, with full light reflecting (in other words, not eclipsed by any stretch of the imagination), and each displayed a Moon about 20 times the size than the Moon which actually appeared in the sky that night during the eclipse.  What's more, some of them showed the deep red Blood Moon halfway over the horizon in the dark of night, one of the most startling ones showing it halfway over the horizon behind the Kotel (Wailing Wall or Western Wall) with thousands of Jewish men and women praying at its banks.  I can assure you that the scenario these photos displayed of the moon over the horizon in Yerushalayim was impossible, as the sun rose while the eclipsed Moon was still in the upper quadrant of the sky, basically causing it to become difficult to see due to the overwhelming sunlight, as its eclipsed state slowly receded hours later.  Here's a picture I took from my rooftop balcony in Yerushalayim of the Eclipse shortly after it became full.  It shows what the Eclipsed Moon really looked like in respect to the night sky not too long before sunrise:

So that giant red Moon you've been seeing is that tiny star-like spec in the night sky of Yerushalayim.  And here it is, zoomed as best as I could:

So why so many exaggerated claims about giant blood moons over Yerushalayim and the Kotel? Because even basically good people can, in their desire to believe something so strongly, make some details up as they go along.  Knowing then that the propensity to deceive is so great, and that the viral media world is full of much more false information and hype than it is truth, you should always strive to tread very carefully upon it.

Chag Sameach (Happy Festival) to all of you observing Chag HaSukkoth (The Festival of Tabernacles) this year.  I hope you have a truly joyous Chag before YHWH Our Elohim!

P.S. I'd like to send out a special thank you to whichever resident of Yerushalayim blew that shofar at the very moment the Moon became fully eclipsed and went completely dark (or red, as it were),  That was a very nice touch, and I can only imagine that it startled the life out of more than a few of the city's observers!

The End of the World is Big Business

About four years ago, I was driving from Virginia to Texas and saw a billboard ad proclaiming May 21, 2011 to be the date of the "rapture". I remember being startled by it and missing some of the details, then thinking I would never see or hear of this again. But I did see it again. I can't remember how many I saw billboards like it on the way, but it was often enough that something I would normally have dismissed and paid no attention to became intriguing, and I was interested in knowing the story behind these billboards.

For the record, I wasn't in the least convinced that any date proclaimed on a billboard would be authentic, but it was the first time in my life that I had seen someone take the "Burma Shave" approach to advertising an apocalypse. It struck me that there must be a lot of money behind this operation, and where there's a lot of money, there's likely a lot of people making big sacrifices for something they think is very important. With that, of course, comes the strong likelihood of many disappointments, both quantitative and qualitative.

After some research, I found out that this national billboard campaign announcing the end of times was being headed up by Harold Camping, a man who had taken a survey of the Scriptures, particularly prophecy and even more particularly the prophecies of Daniyel (Daniel), and had come up with the numbers he felt certain indicated the date of the so-called "rapture".  What's more, he had made several of these prophecies before, and of course as we know, none of them had come to pass.  Here he was at it again.

It seems a bit odd to me that someone can search almost the entirety of the Tanakh ("Old Testament") and the Ketuvim Netzarim ("New Testament") for any available numbers that he can plug into his own self-styled equations to figure out the end of the world, and yet somehow miss one of the most telling parts of the Torah itself, namely Devarim (Deuteronomy), in which YHWH tells Mosheh the following:

"And when you say in your heart, ‘How do we know the word which YHWH has not spoken?’, when the prophet speaks in the Name of YHWH and the word is not, or comes not, that is the word which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him." (Devarim / Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

Or, in more contemporary English:

"You may be asking yourselves, 'How can we tell if a prophet's message really comes from YHWH?' You will know, because if YHWH says something will happen, it will happen. And if it doesn't, you will know that the prophet was falsely claiming to speak for YHWH. Don't be afraid of any prophet whose message doesn't come from YHWH." (Devarim / Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

I believe this should give individuals who carelessly make pronouncements in the name of YHWH great pause. This startling statement of the obvious was clearly missed in this prophetic numbers game that Camping and his followers were playing.  It doesn't matter if you believe in the Torah or specifically the Sefer Devarim, it suffices to acknowledge that Harold Camping does, or at least claims to do so, and so any point that these verses made would be extremely apt to him and his followers. He's now relegated (again) to the status of someone who speaks presumptuously for the Elohim that he claims to serve, and by that Elohim's own words, he cannot be relied on to speak for Him. That's not a condemnation from me at all, rather, it's something that comes out of the testimony that both he and I subscribe to, available to anyone with an internet connection and access to Google, or a dresser drawer with a Gideon's Bible.  Mr. Camping may have been sincere in his belief that his calculations from Sefer Daniyel among other portions of the Scriptures were authentic, but he missed the mark again, and once again took some people on the ill-fated journey with him.

This is the age of reality television, an age when the misfortunes of others are the fodder of entertainment, and it's tempting to laugh at the spectacle. I was doing that all those years ago, before the set time approached, something of which I am somewhat ashamed in retrospect, but now that all of that excitement over the events is long gone with the passing of years, I'm not finding the situation of those people who staked so very much on what turned out to be so very little to be all that funny. There are pieces to pick up for these people who staked their lives, reputations, jobs, and property on what they mistakenly thought was a revelation.  There were plenty of sincere followers who were left without quite a bit of their money, time, and self-esteem, and I don't think it's a stretch to believe that many of them lost their faith.  Mr. Camping was the instigator of this great loss.  The honorable thing to do would have been to return what is left of the money and just admit that he has received no revelations about the precise time of the end, that he was speaking presumptuously, and that it is an error he will not repeat.  I believe he did most of the latter, but I never heard about the issue of the money.  I would, of course, be very (pleasantly) surprised to hear that such a return ever occurred.

I hope that any of us who have made a commitment to wait for YHWH understand just what it means to wait for Him.  It means that we won't know exact dates.  It means that we won't know exact times.  It means we won't know the exact sequence of events.  We are tasked to watch for current events with respect to revelation, and yet remain balanced enough to avoid jumping onto every bandwagon that comes our way declaring the end of the world.  We have to work hard not to be taken in, to be responsible for how we allow our resources to be used, to ensure that we are not party to any deception.  We have to take both the encouragements and the warnings of Yeshua seriously, as he related in his so-called "Olivet Prophecy" (Mattityahu / Matthew 24, Marqos / Mark 13, Luqas / Luke 21).  Most of that sequence is about patience, caution, and being on our guard against deception and corruption, as we wait confidently for the end we are certain will come despite not knowing how or when.  And we must do all of this while we strive to keep our garments white and clean, keeping ourselves free from the corruption of the world around us.

And that includes the corruption of money, because the end of the world has always been big business for those caught up in that love affair.  Mr. Camping passed away mid-December, 2013, so he's no longer here to make any amends that he hadn't already made, but I do hope that those like Mr. Camping can see that their talents to persuade need to be reigned in by some common sense and decency before the Living Elohim.  And I certainly hope that it doesn't escape the realization of any false prophecy profiteer that purposefully profiting from false alarms will be an act of particular interest when YHWH does come someday as a righteous judge.  One certainly doesn't have to be a prophet to see that.