Notice with me in 2 Timothy chapter 4. I'm going to read verse 1 through verse 5. Our text I'm going to use this morning to begin our message is going to be verse 4 and of course we're going to use the surrounding text as well. I want to preach a message this morning titled Blood Moons. I promised you in January that we would do this. I was going to do it around June. And I thought, why not wait until September, the first week of September, and because we're coming, as you see, I've got written on the board, we're coming toward, today is the 6th, and we're coming, headed toward the 28th, which is the last blood moon of this year, part of the tetrads. And so notice with me as we read from verse 1, the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy. And he says, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, But after their own loss shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. Father, we ask this morning your blessing to be upon the reading of Holy Scripture. We pray, Lord, this morning that you would speak to our hearts by thy Holy Spirit and by thy word. We pray, Lord, that as we look at this subject that you would help us, Lord, that we would be students of thy word, we'd be followers of truth and not fables and fiction. We ask all of these things in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. And you may be seated. The next couple of weeks we'll probably be looking at biblical conviction, or conviction versus preference, and then also stewardship, hopefully in the next few weeks. Now, some related sermons that we have on this, some of them this year, some of them last year, is we've got some sermons that are titled, Date Setters, Antichrist, Christ Confirmed the Covenant, Left Behind, Israel's Fulfilled Promises, the Israel of God, and what would Jesus do? Point number three in that sermon would deal with these same things. This is September the 6th, and we know that this year, on the 28th, there'll be another lunar eclipse that is called by many Blood Moons. And we find that every year there's new books, new DVDs, and new CDs, and new predictions, a new deal, a new fad, a new gig that takes place every year. If it's not the Mayan calendar, the Y2K, if it's not some of these others, somebody's making predictions every year of the Lord's coming. Well, I purposely waited to do this this month because this is winding down the last blood moon of this year. Again, I've got written on the board here, which will be the 28th of this month. Now, when we come to this subject and we consider it, and I've got a lot of notes here. I'm going to probably use half of these. I've got many quotes and I'm going to use some of them. And I'm going to pick and choose. I'll be looking at my notes a lot, so I'll pick and choose what I want to use and what I don't want to use. But what we're going to do this morning, we got three points. And the first point is going to be the theory of blood moon teachers. And the second point, I didn't have time to put all, or the room rather, put all these on the board. The second point this morning is reasons why this theory is not true. And the third point is, what should our response be to this theory? Now, you notice in verse 4, he says in verse 4, "...and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables." This is a very important passage, a very important text that I wanted to begin with this morning. And the question that you and I must ask is this, is that does the four blood moons of lunar eclipse of 2014 and 2015 signal some great event that is about to happen? In other words, does it have any prophetic meaning whatsoever? I would not have even known about this because I don't get on the internet and search this stuff. But I was riding to prison last September with some other preachers, going to preach, and one of the preachers handed me some papers with predictions of the coming of Christ and things of that nature, and some charts of blood moons. That was, I'm not sure, that might have been the first time I was introduced, or at least it was somewhere around that time. Since then, I've had DVDs put in my hand, I've had calls, I've had emails, I've had many people come to me and ask me, what is your opinion of the blood moons? And one man actually got mad at me after asking me, and I said, well, I don't think they mean a whole lot. I told him, I said, astronomically, they show the handiwork of God, but prophetically, they mean nothing. And so he kind of got mad at me and I said, well, maybe we need to preach on this and talk about it just a little bit because it's all over the Internet. Well, I want you to notice, I'm going to read this passage again. I'm going to read verse four again and then read the text around it. But in verse four, he says, speaking of the last days, he said, they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. Well, fables are fictional stories. that turn people away from the truth. A fable is a falsehood. It's a fairy tale. It's a myth. It's superstition. And we find that fictions are best sellers today that is in our society. Fiction. Not truth. Not doctrine. But fiction. People are looking for something sensational. They're looking for something new. and people will believe anything but the truth in the time in which you and I live. Now in verse 4, notice in verse 4 again, he says, and they, now who is the they? Notice in verse 1, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom, preach the word Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come, notice that, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. So we live in a time today where people want to hear something new, they want to hear something different, they want to hear something exciting. instead of just hearing, to me the truth is exciting. And that satisfies me very much, it's just simple truth. And so the time will come, and he said not only will the time come, but he also says here in the passage, he says, and they shall turn away their ears notice from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables, that is stories and myths, things that are in speculation. they'll be turning to these things. Now, when we consider this, the Apostle Paul is telling Timothy to preach the word. He's saying to Timothy, thus saith the Lord, is what you're to be bringing forth to the people. Today, in our time, there are many prophecy teachers. And there's many websites And when I began just looking at this and doing a little bit of research on what people were saying, the YouTube is filled with it. I'm assuming Facebook. I've never been on Facebook. I sat down with somebody one time and they showed me something on Facebook. The news channels, magazines, Christian and secular, people are making millions of dollars off of DVDs and CDs and books and things of that nature. TBN television station, radio stations. There's conferences held on the blood moons. There's one food supply company that is using this to sell survival food just like they did in Y2K. This has gained much popularity. It's been on Fox, it's been on CNN, and just about all of the other news channels talking about it. Millions, again, millions of dollars are made off of this. Now, when September of this year, we're in it now, has come and it's gone, and October comes and goes, and then the end of this year comes and we begin into a new year, here is what they're going to do. And they're already preparing themselves, because they know their prophecy is probably going to fail. What they're going to do, and you and I know, without any doubt, there's a lot of problems in the world today. We know that. We know that one of the greatest migrant group of people in the world since World War II is in the Middle East and they're fleeing to other countries because of the war in Syria and Iraq and places like that. I mean, it's almost epidemic. People are dying. There's bodies washing up on the shores and things of that nature. And we know there's a lot of chaos and problems in the world. But there was a lot of chaos in the days of Noah, in the days of Lot, in the first century. There'd been a lot of chaos for many years. But what they're going to do when this comes and goes, they're going to write a new book for next year and put out some new DVDs and make some more money and say, see, we told you. Now, we didn't really set a date, but we told you. Now, look at the stock market went down in August and September. And by the way, he could even go farther. We could have a total bubble bust and a crash and whatever, but I promise you it'll have nothing to do with the lunar eclipse. I have read behind 15 professionals, most of them aren't even saved, that study economics and graphics, and they predicted last year that the fall of this year that our stock market would go down. And so this is nothing new, but the advocates of Blood Mooners, what they will do is that they'll use the stock market and China stock market, the global market, they'll use the economy, the crisis in the Middle East, they'll use the Supreme Court ruling on sodomy in June, they'll use the Iranian deal that we just made with them with nuclear weapons, They'll use everything possible to try to justify, well say, we told you that something big was going to happen and there were major things that happened. Now that's what you're going to see. I don't really read any of this stuff unless I'm studying it to try to preach against it, so it's not going to phase me. But listen, the Lord can come anytime He wants. He can come this month, He can come next month, or next year, or a hundred years from now, and that's fine with me. But what we're talking about today is that Christians do not have discernment. There's many that do not have discernment and they're following this. They're looking at this. And they're paying attention to this blood moon theory and teachings that is all over the internet. I was telling my wife the other day, I said, I can take a little booklet, it's the only booklet I've ever written, I've written many articles, I said, I can take a little booklet that will show you the truth of who confirmed the covenant in Daniel chapter 9, in other words, speaking of Jesus Christ, and I said, I can't give it away, and I can't even pay people to take it. But then, people can make millions of dollars off of heresy among Christian people. There's one man that's wrote a book, and he's trying to promote it now to jumpstart his ministry, wanting $500, and he'll give you a signature, and it's got heresy all the way through it, and I'll guarantee you people will buy it, but you can't give something away that's a truth, but you can sell a lie. These Blood Moon books are lies, and I'm going to give you the names of them in just a moment. They're lies, and they're making Now, turn with me to Joel, and I'm going to try to keep this limited this morning because we're already 14 minutes into the sermon before we ever even get to the first point. And so, I'm not going to get running fast. I will just skip some things. Again, I could talk about this for two or three hours. What I'll do, I'll just skip some things and I'll try to hit the most important things this morning in discussing this particular subject. Now, notice with me. As we come to the book of Joel, and I'm going to be reading in chapter 2 and in verse 31. This is the major verse that is used in this whole teachings of Blood Moons. And it's going to be in Joel chapter 2 and verse 31. The next major verse that is used is in Revelation chapter 6. We'll turn there and read it a little bit later. I believe it's verse 12 and 13. Now, notice as we come to the book of Joel. Alright, let's get into our outline. Number one, the theory of blood moon teachers. That's going to be our first point this morning. The blood moon theory is just that, it is a theory and nothing else. Now, this whole blood moon theory was conceived by a man by the name of Mark Biltz, and I believe I'm pronouncing his name right. And he's of El Shaddai Ministries, a pastor in Washington State. And also, someone who picked up his teachings and ran with it was John Hagee, a pastor in Texas, a well-known pastor. And I'm going to give you some quotes from these two men. And also, let me identify what Blood Moon is. I think most of you know, but just for sake of anybody that would listen to this. Blood moons, they're called blood moons by some people because of the reddish appearance in a lunar eclipse. And also, they call them that because there's a couple of Bible verses, again Joel 2.31 and Revelation 6.12, that speak of the moon turning to blood. So that's one of the reasons that they refer to them as blood moons. We're going to read one of these in just a moment. Now what is a blood moon? A blood moon is a lunar eclipse when the earth is between the sun and moon, and a total lunar eclipse is when it causes the moon to appear as blood. The sunlight passing through the earth's atmosphere and casting a red shadow on the moon's surface, and it's nothing else. That's all it is. It's a natural phenomenon. It is, again, It is something astronomically, it shows forth the handiwork of God, the glory of God. Prophetically, it means absolutely nothing. Now, a lunar eclipse are not visible all over the world. The one that happened here that we saw in April is not visible all over the world. Many of these lunar eclipses are not even visible in Israel. Three of them I think three out of the last four, and the fourth one's coming up, I think only one of them would be visible in Israel. That's going to be important a little bit later on. In the 20th century now, I'm shuffling around a few numbers. These numbers don't mean anything to me, and I've ran across a little conflict in numbers. I didn't go to NASA. and confirm this so I could be off a little bit on some of these, but in the 20th century there were a total of 229 lunar eclipses of all types and 81 of these were total eclipses. And again, the rest were partial. In this century, I've read, that there will be 228 lunar eclipses of all types, 85 total eclipses according, now this is according to NASA. And so now when we talk about Blood moons, which is a lunar eclipse, okay? And that's when, again, the sun is shining on the back side of the earth, and that light coming through the atmosphere as it comes around, it appears as red. And that's why it's called a blood moon. A tetrad, T-E-T-R-A-D, are a little bit more rare, but they're not unusual. That's what we're going to be talking about with these four I've got on the board up here. A tetrad is just simply a series of four total lunar eclipses. in a row over a period of time, for instance, like two years. These I have on the board, this is a tetrad, four blood moons, four lunar eclipses, April the 15th, 2014, October the 8th, 2014, April the 4th, I saw that one, 2015, and September the 28th, 2015. That is considered as a tetrad. That's four lunar eclipses, or four blood moons within a row, within a course of about two years. Now, there has been, and here's where the conflict in some of the numbers I've accumulated, there's been between 62, I'm going to say between 62 and 87, because a couple of writers say different things, of these tetrads since Jesus was on earth. And there has been eight tetrads that align up with Jewish feast days. And we're going to be talking about that in a moment. In this century, we're scheduled, again, to have eight tetras, I believe. Some centuries have none. And so, when we talk about blood moons, blood moons are always on a full moon. And so, Passover and Tabernacles, this is how they end up on Jewish feast days, because Passover, one of the major feast days of Israel, and of old, and tabernacles, they're always on the full moon. So if blood moons are always lunar eclipse or full moons, then two of these feast days are always on full moons, so you could see how they could land on the feast days, which would not be necessarily unusual. The Jewish calendar is based on lunar calendar. Now, what has happened in the last year and this year is all four of these has landed, or the last one will land, on Jewish feast days. Now, I want you to notice with me, again, we're coming to Joel, and let me give you just a few quotes. I'm going to read in verse 31. Notice verse 31. I'm going to read from verse 30. 30 and 31, I will show wonders in the heavens, in the earth, and blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and terrible day of the Lord come. Now, the theory of blood moons, and especially tetras, is that The four blood moons of 2014 and 2015, we've been through three of them, I'm going to keep saying that, that these signal, many are saying, and especially Mark and John Hagee, they're saying that these signal some major a change in the world and points to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and because all four of them are on Jewish feast days, they have something to do with Israel. There's some kind of signal, sign, warning, not only to the world, but to Israel. The only thing is, Israel will only see one of these. And that'll be the one coming up this month. So in other words, they are prophetic signs. They're an omen of the coming of end times or the coming of Jesus Christ. Even Mark builds, he says in Genesis 1.14, he says the sun, moon and stars are for signs, seasons and days and years and he says that the seasons mean divine appointments. In other words, he's saying look to the stars and you can tell the future. Don't we have some verses on that, by the way, of the pagans? And I want to tell you this, seasons are seasons in the Bible. A season is a season. Thank God we're about ready to go into the fall season. Amen? After four months of hot weather. Okay? We're about ready to go into that season. Seasons are seasons. They are not necessarily divine appointments. Now, let me give you a few quotes from Mark Biltz and then from John Hagee. First of all, from Mark. Again, this is the pastor in Washington State. He's associated with El Shaddai Ministries and really heavily into Hebrew roots. In 2008, he began teaching the second coming of Jesus Christ could occur in the fall of 2015, based upon his studies of blood moons and NASA. And what he'd done after a period of time, he pulled that article off, you won't find it anymore. He pulled that article off of his website. This man has published a DVD series entitled Blood Moons, Connecting the Eclipses with the Coming of Christ, and a book titled Blood Moons, subtitled Decoding the Eminent Heavenly Signs. He also sells his Blood Moon Eclipse Calendar. So you can get all three of those if you want to get them in one package. Alright, his book is centered around decoding the secrets. On page 26 he says, what you receive by reading this book are absolutely critical keys to unlocking the secrets of the Bible that have been hidden from the masses for a very long time. In other words, Mark has something that nobody has ever known about up until 2008. And he learned it from the Hebrew alphabet and decoding that and also NASA. That's where his information comes from. So what he says, he says that God chose to hide his message. Now listen to this. God chose to hide his message in ancient Hebrew alphabet. You will find the written Hebrew language like the decoder ring to understand what God is hiding. In other words, There is hidden truth not revealed to the average reader of Scripture in the Hebrew alphabet. That's what he's saying. So you have to know the Hebrew alphabet. thoroughly in order to decode the secrets of the heaven. In other words, the average reader cannot just read his Bible and understand the things that he's come up with through this secret interpretation and also heavily adding NASA's calculations with that. So that's him. Alright, John Hagee. John Hagee is a pastor in San Antonio, Texas. He was influenced by Mark. He wrote a book in 2013 titled, Four Blood Moons. Mark's is Blood Moons. John Hagee is Four Blood Moons. He subtitled this book, Something is About to Change. The book has been on the New York bestseller list. He's made millions of dollars from the books and the DVDs and CDs, and I think they've even produced a documentary based upon this. Now I want to give you some quotes from him. And we're going to follow on with our outline here. Alright, here's a quote from him from page 244. He said, The coming of the four blood moons are all most here. Are you ready? That's why I said that to you this morning, sister. Are you ready? Alright. In the Kindle location 322, 328, here's a quote. He says, the history of the world is about to change forever and God is sending us messages on His high-definition billboard by speaking to us in the heavens using the four blood moons. The question is, are you listening? Another quote, this would be the Kendall location, 2568-2572. It says, the fourth series of four blood moons is coming. They're extremely rare, even by scientific standards. God is shouting to us something big is about to happen. What they're telling us is that God is getting ready to change the course of human history once again, and He is preparing to display the next series of signs in the heaven. Hagee claims that there will be dramatic changes and dramatic events that will take place because of these four blood moons that I have drawn on the board up here. He also says on page 187, this is again the Kindle location, he said, the world has taken a wrong turn and we need a sign from God to get back on the right track. The four blood moons just may be that signal. If God gave Joshua and Hezekiah a sign in the heavens, if He posted a sign in the heavens to direct the wise men to the birthplace, of our Redeemer, then why wouldn't He continue to speak to us through signs? God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has declared that He will give the terminal generation, speaking of us, a signal that something big, something earth-shaking is going to happen. He says Christians would be foolish not to view the tetrad as a sign from God. Now notice in verse 31 again. In verse 31 again. He said, "...the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and terrible day of the Lord come." Alright, so we see the theory. Now I could spend another hour on that, but I want to get this all in. I don't want to get into a hurry. Okay, so we see the theory behind this. Something big is going to happen because of these four blood moons, this tetrad, that has taken place in 2014-2015. Now again, could the Lord come this year? Could He come next year? He can come whenever He wants to. Okay? But they're making prophecies, and they're going to weasel their way out of it. Some have actually literally said Christ is coming, and they're going to weasel their way out of this with some new books, and using the disasters that's taken place this year. Now let's come to our second point, and let's consider reasons why this theory is not true. I'm going to give you 3, I could give you 10 or 15, but I'm going to give you 3 because of time's sake. First of all, I want you to notice, I'm going to read verse 31 one more time. He says here in verse 31, He said, The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. We're going to turn in Revelation just a moment and read another passage. Alright? This will be number one under our second point. Reasons why this theory is not true. First of all, is that what they call blood moons, what they call... Now listen, what they call blood moons is not what we're reading in Scripture. Okay? Get that down. What they're calling blood moons and predicting The end of times is not what is spoken of in Holy Scripture. In other words, the verses they use and the verses they quote from, these prophecies have nothing to do with lunar or solar eclipse. I'm going to show you that. In other words, they are much more than that. They are either supernatural or apocalyptic in nature, they are not natural events as eclipses. I'm going to talk about that in a moment. As a matter of fact, let me just say that now. I didn't even know when the blood moon was going to happen in April. I'm sure I read it, but I've forgotten about it. And my wife was going to get up and see it, and I guess she forgot about it too. Well, I get up pretty early in the morning, and I got up that morning on the 15th, and I've forgotten about the blood moons, and so I give me a cup of coffee, I'm still in my pajamas, and I walk out on the front porch of the church, open the door, and I'm just standing here, and I look up, and there's a blood moon. There's a lunar eclipse. I said, wow, is that pretty neat? Now, you know what didn't happen? The sun never turned black, the stars did not fall out of the sky, and the earth did not shake. It was very peaceful, about 4, 4.30, I don't know, somewhere like that in the morning, very peaceful, very calm, the earth wasn't shaking, the stars weren't falling to the earth, none of those things were happening. You see, what I'm getting at is what they call blood moons is this is simply a lunar eclipse and nothing more, It is a natural phenomenon, it is a handiwork of God, but what we're reading here in scripture is either one of two things. It's either a supernatural event, or either it is an apocalyptic language that is used here. So notice he said, verse 31, The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. In verse 10 of this same passage, he includes the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the earth. He said, the earth shall quake before them, and the heavens shall tremble, the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. In chapter 3 verse 15 he said the sun and the moon shall be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining. That is not a lunar eclipse. Notice with me as we turn to Revelation chapter 6. In Revelation chapter 6. In other words, what we are going to find is that the sun, moon, and stars are nearly always connected when this language is used. And in most of these verses, you'll have the sun, the moon, the stars, and also earthquakes. This is not lunar eclipse. There's no way that it can be. And sometimes when a blood moon is mentioned, it is in conjunction, again with cosmic events that we see in the scripture here, occurring at the same time. Now think about this. A lunar eclipse is a lunar eclipse, and it lasts for a very short period of time, can only be seen in certain parts of the world, and most of the time not in Israel. That's important later on. And so, again, there's a calm, it is pretty, and all those kind of things, and still yet, you don't see something happening with the sun, you don't see the stars darkening or falling, and the ground is not shaking, none of these things are happening, in other words, the scripture is speaking something either supernatural or something that is using symbolic language to get something across to you and I. Notice with me carefully as we come to the book of Revelation. And by the way, Peter quotes Joel in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost. You can read that. He said there'd be wonders in heaven, signs in earth, blood, fire, vapor, smoke, and the sun darkened and the moon turned to blood. He's quoting from the book of Joel chapter 2. Alright, now notice with me in Revelation chapter 6. In Revelation chapter 6, I want to read just a few verses from this chapter. If you want to look at other verses, Matthew 24, 29 would be another passage that is used also. But the main two verses is going to be in Joel 2 and in Revelation chapter 6. Now notice this passage as we come here and read it. We find here in Revelation chapter 6, and I want to begin reading in verse 12, and he says, And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake. Now notice all the things, the events that take place that are associated with the moon. He says here in this passage, He says, and I beheld, and when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as the fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind, and the heaven departed as a scroll. He goes on to talk about the islands, the mountains, and all these things, and the kings of the earth, and the people of the earth. In other words, there's something major going on here and not a lunar eclipse. Now, I want you to think about that. What did we just read in Joel? I'm not asking you to turn back there, but in Joel chapter 2, again, he says, verse 30 and 31, I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth, and blood, and fire, and pillar of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood before that great and terrible day of the Lord come. There's other cosmic events. There's other things associated every time when it talks about the moon turning into blood or turning as blood. Let me come back to verse 12 again. You'll notice, well, verse 13. Verse 12, you got the sun turning black. and you got the moon became as blood. Now notice in verse 13, and the stars fell unto the earth. Now, we can take that one of two ways. We can take that literal, that that will literally happen, or we can take that, we can say that's a supernatural event, or we could say that he's referring to apocalyptic language In other words, very symbolic language to describe something bad. Now why do I say that's a possibility? How many knows how many stars there are out there in the universe? Not just in our galaxy. Billions. They are billions upon billions upon billions of stars. There are some stars that are smaller than the earth. but the majority of stars are larger than the earth. Okay? So when he says in verse 12, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, if you've got one star that's ten or twenty times larger than the earth and it fell to the earth, how would you get billions of others falling to the earth? You understand where I'm coming from? I mean, we need to think a little bit. as we read the scripture and people say, well, you're just not taking it literal. You don't take it literal either, brother. You know, when you're going to tell me that billions of stars, there's stars out there bigger than the sun. I started to bring in some illustrations here and line them across the pulpit and how they start off with the earth and the few that are smaller, the planets, whatever, smaller than the larger. Have you ever seen the dimensions of the earth and the the earth here and the sun, there's stars bigger than the sun. And so the Lord is describing something horrible, and if you want to take it literal, that's fine with me, but the point is, is that we're not talking about a lunar eclipse. You've got the sun going black, you've got the moon becoming as blood, you've got stars falling out of the sky to the earth, And at the same time, while all this is happening, you've got the earth shaking, the mountains moving, the islands moving, and the men and people of this earth crying out unto God because of His wrath that is to be poured out upon them. So, you've got some major things going on here. Alright? The second point, under point number two, reasons why this theory is not true. The second point is you cannot have a lunar and solar eclipse at the same time. It is impossible for this physically to happen. Can I get an amen? Now, there's a lot of supernatural things happen with the Lord, you know, and whatever, but it's impossible for these two things to happen. Now, I think this year, or within the last year, you've got two. Let me see how this will work. I know there's been one solar eclipse. I think the one solar eclipse would be in the middle of these four blood moons. So in the midst of all this, you would have had, I think, one solar eclipse, but they didn't happen at the same time. Let me point this out. A lunar eclipse is when the earth is between the sun and moon. You see I've got these drawn up here in color? A solar eclipse is when the moon is between the sun and the earth. You show me how both of those are going to happen at the same time. You start shifting these circles around. I got up here these colored circles. You can't shift them out and make them both happen at the same time. So again, my point, now let me give you a quote by John Hagee. He, in a sermon, he preached on Mark 13, 24-26, when the sun shall be darkened and the moon not give her its light. He said the sun and the moon will eclipse at the same time and God sends planet Earth a signal that something is about to happen. Again, we see here a manipulating scripture and even this is something that cannot happen. Alright, now the third point under number two, that is reasons why this theory is not true, the third point is the inaccuracy of actual dates that these blood moon advocates give. The inaccuracy. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, let me read here again, let's turn to Acts chapter 17 just for a moment. In Acts chapter 17, quickly, notice where I'm going to read just a few verses in two different places in this chapter. I want to read first of all from verse 21 and verse 22. Now the blood moon advocates claim that the tetrads appear during important events in Jewish history. And especially the last three. And I'm going to give you those last three up until this point here in just a moment. And then they claim that 2014 is the same, and so something major is to happen not only in the world, the end times, the possible coming of Christ, but also with the nation of Israel. So this is what they teach. But here's the problem. The dates they give The warning comes afterwards. I'm going to give you the days and moment, but for instance, there's a tetrad in 1949 and 1950. That's four blood moons. And they say, see, that has to do with Israel becoming a state, becoming a nation. Well, Israel became a nation in 1948, May the 15th. In other words, What is a sign, a prophetic sign, if it happens after the fact? You understand what I'm getting at? I'm going to give you the three... By the way, they look over some that has nothing to do with Israel. That happened, even on feast days, that nothing happened in Israel. They just look over them and just kind of... Oh, we found three that line up, but they don't line up. In my hometown, in our county, I forget the name of the highway there, but in Old Washington, where Darlene's mother lives now, there's a road that goes there, and we had two ferries in Ray County, and one in Dayton and one in Old Washington, where there was not a bridge. How many of you have ever been across a real ferry? I'm not talking about something just for vacationing and riding. I'm talking about you had to do it to get across the river, the Tennessee River. Well, this one in Old Washington, You could be driving down this road. Now, they had signs. They had signs. And I don't remember exactly what they said, but it was signs like, there's a river, and there's no bridge, and there's a ferry, and so this ferry could be on the other side, it could not be running that day, and so you better stop. And sure enough, I mean, you couldn't see the river until you got up on it. And at night, there'd been people, many people dying, you know. and especially at night. Well, what if you were coming from Alabama to my hometown or my home county and you wanted to drive down this road and there's signs there that's going to protect you and warn you about the river that you don't drive off in the Tennessee River. What if I moved them on the road to the other side of the river? Well, you'd be dead before you'd seen the signs. What if a car was about to run over you, and I hollered an hour later, after you've been run over, and said, hey, that car is going to run over you. That wouldn't help you a bit. And so, what they do is that these signs, basically, or these blood moons they talk about, basically appear after the fact, and not before the fact. So, if they were prophetic signs, You see, God does not miscalculate things. If they were prophetic signs in biblical terms, a sign would be in place before the prophetic event, not after or at least at the same time of the event. So Haggai, he picks three tetrads out of eight over a period of 2,000 years, that has something to do with Jewish feast days, but he skips over these others. And Mark does the same thing. He even made this statement, and this is where I've got a few numbers probably off. He said that there were 87 tetrads that have occurred since the time of Christ, only 8 have fallen on Jewish feast days, And the eight occurred in the following years. I mean, start off in 162-163 A.D. and bring it all the way up to 1967 and 1968. All of these eight are in between here that they claim that there's something very important about them. Both make much of the last three tetras, not counting this one here, but 1492, 1948, and 1997. They make a big deal about them but they don't say much about the other four or five that landed on Jewish feast days. There is no significant event in Jewish history on these others, even though they were on feast days. Okay, they say, they come to the last three tetrads, not counting this one I have on the board, 2014-2015, and they say in 1492, this is the year that Columbus said. In 1492, they say that the Jews were expelled out of Spain, and they were. But you know when the blood moons occurred? They occurred in 1492 is when the Jews were expelled out of Spain, but the four blood moons didn't happen until 1493 and 1494. a year to two years later. That really didn't help anybody at the time. This was during the Spanish Inquisition, started 15 years earlier and then ended in 1834. So this tetrad followed, not before, but it followed the Jews being put out of Spain. Alright, the next one that they make a big deal about, I've already mentioned, 1948. That Israel became a nation, May the 15th, 1948, but here's the problem. The tetrad, the four blood moons, did not occur until 1949 and 1950. The closest that you can get with a tetrad to maybe even a partial sign would be in 1967, the Six-Day War, whenever the Jews, Israel, for the first time took control of the city of Jerusalem. And so this would be the closest, I think, and I'm not sure about this, but I think one of the blood moons happened before the other three afterwards. And so the point is, at the very most, that would be a partial sign. And now we come to 2014, 2015, and we're coming down to the end of this tetrad, these four blood moons, and again, when I started doing some research on this this year, it is absurd as some of the things that people are saying about this. Even Baptists, fundamental preachers, and different ones, it's absurd what they're saying. The Lord comes this year, it will not change our theology. It will not change a thing. If He doesn't come this year, there are going to be some new books written by the Blood Moon Advocates. And they've got to come up with a new gig. They've got to come up with a new deal in order to keep the money flowing in. I want you to turn to Matthew. chapter 24, and notice here. And here's the thing that they overlook also. When you look at Jewish history, why was there not a tetrad or a blood moon during the time in AD 70 of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple when over a million Jews died? and several hundred thousand were carried into captivity, one of the worst things that's ever happened in the nation of Israel outside of the Holocaust. By the way, where was the blood moons of the Tetras and the Nazi Holocaust that took six million lives of Jewish people? Where was the blood moons then? And not only that, just go and study the history of Israel. Before they went into the Assyrian captivity, where was the prophetic warning? Before they went into the Babylonian captivity, where was the prophetic warning? Before they went into Egypt or came out of Egypt through the Red Sea, where was the blood moons at? And before they came back out of captivity from Babylon to rebuild, of the city and the temple, which Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah all spoke about this. Where was the blood moons? Where was the blood moons when Jesus was born, when He died, when He was raised from the dead, and when Pentecost came? Where was the blood moons, if they're associated with Israel? And someone said, well, what about the cross when it was darkened? Well, the darkness was in the daytime. You want to call that a solar eclipse? whatever, but it was in the daytime. So what I'm getting at is that this becomes a fascination and a sensation with people, and still yet, millions upon millions of dollars are spent on this kind of stuff, making people rich and causing you to worry and bite your nails, you know, wondering what is going to take place this year. Now I'm coming to Matthew chapter 24, and I'm going to wind this down. What should our response be to this theory of blood moons? How should we respond to this? What would Jesus say about this? Well, notice with me as we come to Matthew chapter 24, and I'm going to cut into the text because we have a whole message on date setting. But notice as we come to verse 36, talking about the Lord's coming. See, our response should be God's response. And he said in verse 36, he said, but of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. And Mark chapter 13 says that Jesus in His humanity while on earth had limited Himself in knowledge, limited Himself in strength and so forth. I mean, Jesus got hungry and He got thirsty and He slept and He suffered and as a child He grew in wisdom. He says that He didn't even know while He was here on earth. But you know. He said He didn't know. In the Greek it says, no one knows. In the English it says, no one knows. But you know, don't you? You think about that. And not only that, as you read from verse 37, He says, but as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the days of the Son of Man be. Now what was the major thing in Noah's day? You said there was a lot of wickedness. What a lot of wickedness today. There's a lot of wickedness in Lot's day, a lot of wickedness in the first century. There's always been a lot of wickedness. Now there was a lot of sin and rebellion and wickedness, but what was the real issue in Noah's day? There wasn't a sign, was there? Except one man preaching and building an ark. That was the only sign. Why wasn't there any blood moons during this time? And we found that the people were doing normal activities. They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were working. That's what we do today. We eat and we drink and we marry and we work And those kind of things, they were going through normal activities. They were living in an unprepared way. As we witness, think about yesterday, witnessing. As we witness, people are living in an unprepared way. They're not heeding to the preaching. They weren't heeding to the preaching of Noah and the building of the ark. This happens in the middle of a time when people are doing their own thing. They're just going about their own business, living their lives. They're eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. They're working their jobs. In other words, they're unprepared for judgment. So he says in verse 37, as in the days of Noah were, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and... and what's the next two words? Knew not. And knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Two shall be in the field, one shall be taken, the other left. Two shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, and the other left. What's the next two words? What's there for? What's there for, for ye what? I want to make sure you get this. For you know not, you ought to underline those. You know not, in other words, no man knows. No woman knows. No prophet knows. He said, for you know not what hour your Lord doeth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore, be also ready, for in such an hour as you think what? Not. If you think not, the Son of Man cometh." In other words, we see words down through here, they knew not. They were taken in judgment. He says, watch, for you know not what hour your Lord doeth come, as we're going to read in just a few moments also. And then we're going to see, well, we just read it in verse 43 about the Lord coming as a thief. The thief doesn't send you an email or a text and says, I'm going to rob you tonight. The Lord said that He will come when men are not expecting, and they're doing their own thing, and they're not thinking about the Lord, and they're not thinking about judgment. In other words, they're refusing the gospel, they're refusing the truth. The Lord says that's when He will come. Notice with me as we read, we're going to stop right here by the way, and I challenge you to read chapter 25 in reference to this, but notice with me now as we read from Let me come back to verse 44 and read down to the end of this chapter and we'll stop. Again, chapter 25 continues this thought of not knowing when. And see, we find the final judgment in chapter 25, verse 31 through 46. And the separation of the sheep and the goats. And I'm going to tell you what I think that needs to happen. I think that some people need to get saved. And day-setters need to repent, and liars need to shut up, because there's a lot of this going on. The Lord said there'd be a few that will go in, and He said, you shall know them by their fruits, here in this same book in chapter 7. Isaiah 8, 20 says unto the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Deuteronomy 13 verses 1 through 5 and Deuteronomy 18 verses 20, 21 and 22 will tell you exactly how to identify a false prophet. He even goes as far to say, if what they say comes to pass, he says, still don't listen to them. Now notice as we close here in this chapter, and I'm going to come back to verse 44, And he says this, let me read from verse 42 to the end of the chapter and we'll close here. He said, verse 42, Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doeth come. But know this, that if the good men of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour ye think not the Son of Man cometh, Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat and due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over his goods. In other words, the blessings and rewards that is given to those who are saved. Verse 48. but and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth this coming. This man here is like one of the foolish virgins. This man here is like the goat in the reference to the sheep and goats. He goes on to say in verse 49, and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkard. The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So as I bring this to a close this morning, and again, there's a whole lot more I could say. I've been working on this for over a month. And I've spent at least four hours a day this week working on this, and most of my quotes, I just put them aside and put them in a folder, because I knew we couldn't get through this in, you know, 60, 70 or 80 minutes. Alright? Three of these blood moons have already happened. April the 15th, 2014. October the 8th, 2014. And this year, April the 4th, we had a blood moon. Again, I saw it. It was very peaceful, very calm, very beautiful. As a matter of fact, it was one of the most calmest mornings I've seen. The sun didn't fall or turn black, and the stars weren't falling out of the sky. I've never seen one star hit the earth. There was no earthquakes. The mountains weren't moving. The islands weren't shaking around. It was very calm. I have a feeling that this one here will be the same. The Lord decides to come then. That's His business. But He's not going to come based upon what our writers are saying. what the blood moon advocates are saying. He's not going to come. Because we're talking about lunar eclipses. We're talking about lunar eclipses, blood moons. And that is not what you find in Holy Scripture. Now that's a beautiful thing. It's a handiwork of God. It's something, if you want to get up early, some people have never seen the sun, much less the moon. But if you want to get up early in the morning and see something like that, I think you'll be able to see it in the States. I'm not sure. I think you can. But anyway, in the scripture, when he talks about the sun, moon, and stars, and they're nearly always together, darken, falling, etc., and usually an earthquake associated with that, he's either talking about a supernatural event, Or either he's using apocalyptic language, symbolic language, to show you that this is serious. Now why do I say the possibility of apocalyptic language? I want you to do this. I want you to read through this evening, or this week, Isaiah chapter 13. The whole chapter is a prophecy of the downfall of Babylon. You read it also in Daniel 7. and also Daniel 5, and there's a few other places, even in Jeremiah, but it talks, Isaiah 13, the entire chapter is the burden of Babylon. In other words, verse 17 says when the Medes, you know, there's the Medes and Persians, take them down. But in verse 6 through 10, you know what it's called? When the Persians and the Medes, again, go read Daniel 5, you'll see clearly, Belshazzar, you know, and the handwriting on the wall, you remember the story, they fell in one night. In verse 17 says the Medes, of Isaiah 13, the Medes and Persians, and that destroyed Babylon, but if you read from verse 6 to about verse 10 or 12, you'll find that twice it is called the Day of the Lord. And you'll also find the sun, the moon, and the stars, and I believe even earthquakes. Well, that didn't literally happen that day, but there was a nation that fell, an empire, a world empire that fell, and God illustrated that by saying the sun, the moon, and the stars. In other words, He illustrated the horrific thing that was taking place in that very night, whenever he spoke, and use cosmic names and whatever, and to illustrate an empire falling down. I mean, read through that, and somebody say, no, no, no, no, that's a second coming. It says the Medes Mediapersia is the one that took Babylon down. He's not talking about something in the future. He's talking about what took place when Belteshazzar, the grandson, when he was in power, the handwriting on the wall, it was prophesied in Daniel 2 and also Daniel chapter 7. In other words, what I'm simply saying is the Lord described this in a way that this is horrific. This is major. People die. Things change in the world, and especially in the Babylonian world at this time, which ruled the world basically. Shall we stand and pray? I will be honest with you this morning, I don't like to preach messages like this, for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like it's almost a diversion sometimes. And it's too much research. You can't just get up and take the scripture the next two weeks and I'm just going to take the scripture and preach it. But you've got to document what you say. You've got to document what they say. You know, and I don't enjoy doing that kind of research for a bunch of goofiness. But maybe we can use this in our lives as we witness to others. And hopefully none of us will ever get caught up in this stupidity. Again, the Lord comes this month, next month, next year, ten years from now, a hundred years from now. Are we ready? Are we okay with that? Yes. Yes. But we cannot base His coming on lunar eclipse. Can't do it. There's been hundreds, hundreds over the years. Father, we thank You this morning for Your Word. We thank You for Your love and kindness and mercy to us. And Lord, we just pray today that we'll stay close to You, close to Your truth. Be careful when we read the Scripture that we not read anything into it or take anything out of it. And Lord, if we don't understand something, that we'll be big enough to admit that. Lord, keep us close to you and your word and your truths. We thank you for this day. We thank you for this privilege this morning. In Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen.