Sermon Central
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The Tale Of The Four Blood Moons
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Oct 13, 2015 (message contributor)
Summary: Many people have been swept away by the book regarding the "Four Blood Moon" sightings we have seen lately. Many are stirred up and anxious. What should we do with such teachings when they raise their heads? We do what they did in the church in Berea!
There has been a lot of talk about the “Four Blood Moons” which recently took place over the last two years. Most of the talk was in response to a book by John Hagee which was based on the writings of another preacher named Mark Biltz.
(Quote from the FBM book website)
Every heavenly body is controlled by the unseen hand of God, which signals coming events to humanity. There are no solar or lunar accidents.
Many people were stirred up over this. Imagine what the people of Berea would have done if confronted with such claims in the first century. I know what they would have done! They would have examined the Scriptures to see if these things were so!
Acts 17:10-77 LEB
“Now the brothers sent away both Paul and Silas at once, during the night, to Berea. They went into the synagogue of the Jews when they arrived.
“Now these were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica. They accepted the message with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so.”
So, let’s be Berean followers of Jesus, The Nazarene, today and put this to the test of Scripture!
The Holy Spirit has been poured out onto the 120 disciples of Jesus in the upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost only 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven and 50 days after His resurrection.
A great crowd gathers to what is causing this sound of a mighty rushing wind why all these are proclaiming the glory of God! So, the 12 disciples, including the newly minted Matthias all stand up together and Peter starts preaching and quotes from the prophet Joel.
Acts 2:14-21 ESV
“But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.
“For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
“Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
“The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
OK. So, right there in the phrase “the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood” you have exactly one half of the prophecies in the Bible regarding any type of blood moon. This one being found in Joel and quoted by Peter.
The only other one is found in Revelation 3:12 where it says about the moon.
“I looked, and behold … the full moon became like blood.”
OK. So we see the only references to a blood moon of any kind are found in two prophecies; one saying that the moon shall be turned to blood and the other saying the moon became like blood.
There is no mention of any Four Blood Moons at all.
So, let’s take a look at these prophecies compared to Scripture using the Wesley Quadrilateral. Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.
(Set up a board with a tripod sitting on top of it. Label each of the legs one of the three parts of the quadrilateral.)
Scripture says “the moon shall be turned to blood” and “the moon became like blood.” That’s our foundation!
So ... Tradition.
Does tradition support the Four Blood Moons theology. There does not seem to be any awareness of Four Blood Moon prophecy theology anytime before the present. As much as I searched there did not seem to be any thoughts of Christian writers concerning such a theology from the time of Jesus until now.
So, tradition does not seem to support the Four Blood Moon theology but we know that as we see the Scriptures unfold in our times sometime they seem to become more focused. So, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and say that tradition is clinging dangerously close to the edge of falling off the foundation of Scripture.
What about Reason?
Biltz and Hagee try to tie the FBM tetrads to major events in history and based on that logic they predicted another major event would take place.
