Are the Red Blood Moons a Prophetic Blessing or a Blight?

When I take in the glory of our Creator’s handiwork in the endless night sky, I am amazed by what I see. I know I am witnessing what God set in motion before the foundations of the Earth were established. God was speaking the twinkle of cosmic entities into existence before your mother ever saw the twinkle in your father’s eye.

Science reveals that what we see in the evening skies has been traveling for light-years to arrive at a point where our naked eye can see it. It is not as though an angelic being in the heavens turned on a lamp at the very moment you began looking upward! Those lights have been in transit, sometimes for centuries.

Stop for a moment, right now if you can, and walk outside, look up at the vast expanse above, and thank our heavenly Father for creating light by day and by night. Then ask yourself, when was the last time you watched the sun set or the moon rise? If you can carve out only a few minutes to watch the dusty red horizon cloak itself in a cover of moonlit darkness, you will see the heavens open up like a rose in spring bloom, unfolding illuminations as each star twinkles into view. It’s magnificent!

As I contemplate all of this, I realize that what really fascinates me isn’t the creation. It is the Creator of the universe and His heavenly splendor that fill me with awestruck wonder.

Think about it: The sky that glowed so gloriously on the evening you were married or the night your child was born—everything that caused that sky to exist on those important days was set in motion on the fourth day of creation. Our all-knowing, all-powerful God put His divine machinery in motion so that the sky above you would appear in the exact arrangement you saw on that particular day.

Why am I sharing all of this with you right now? Because it is foundational to what I’m about to unveil regarding the phenomenon of the red blood moons. We need to seek God’s truths, not sensational rhetoric.

Rather than allowing your attention to be drawn to the latest end-time theories or predictions, if you remember that everything you behold in the sky at any given moment was planned and set in motion by God on the fourth day of creation, then your attention will be on the real question, which is, “Why would God program His celestial bodies to bring these signs into view now? What is God telling us?”

The Prophetic Red Blood Moon Phenomenon

A red blood moon (or some say “blood red moon”) is a naturally occurring, galactic phenomenon. But where did this name come from? Some say overexcited preachers gave this phenomenon its dramatic name, but that’s not the case. NASA actually coined the name, which they borrowed from the ancient name for a “Hunter’s Moon” or “Red Blood Moon,” making it an official, modern term. When you think about it, the name is appropriate because they are describing a moon that is blood red in color.

Remember, the moon has no light of its own; it only reflects a source of light that comes from beyond itself. The moon shows brightly in our night sky because it reflects the light of the sun.

Occasionally, we experience what is called a lunar eclipse, when the sun, moon and Earth align in such a way that the Earth blocks the light from the sun that would normally shine on the moon. When this happens, the moon appears darkened and eerie in the night sky. Perhaps you’ve seen a lunar eclipse before, or you’ve seen some of the dramatic photographs of this phenomenon.

When the Earth completely blocks the light from the sun, as the sun’s light passes through Earth’s atmosphere and bends toward the moon, it makes the moon appear reddish in color. For some reason, the Earth’s atmosphere filters the light of the sun, while blocking most of the other colors in the spectrum, permitting only red light to pass through and splash upon the moon. This creates the vivid and memorable sight of a red blood moon.

These red blood moons have occurred throughout history and continue today. They are somewhat rare, and we probably wouldn’t be paying so much attention to them today if their only oddity were this matter of color.

What has brought red blood moons into the headlines today is that at times—though very, very rarely—this phenomenon occurs in a series of four. The sophisticated word for this is tetrad. For purposes of our study, tetrad means “four in a row during a defined period of time.” So, if a red blood moon is rare, having four of them in a row almost never happens! We will see another blood moon in September.

What History Tells Us About the Future

But the rarity of this phenomenon does not end there. Think about this: God placed the sun, moon and stars in the heavens to delineate sacred seasons and ceremonies. Suppose we ask ourselves if these red blood moon tetrads ever coincided with the Hebrew calendar and Jewish feasts in a way that signals their significance. What then?

The Hebrew word mo’edim, often translated “feasts” or “festivals,” actually means “signs” or “symbols.” In light of this, our question now becomes, “Do these tetrads of red blood moons signify anything to us?” Let’s explore further.

We know that in Jewish tradition, the occurrence of red blood moons has most often been taken as a sign of war. The Jewish people historically considered them bad omens, usually relating to bloodshed. The Jewish Talmud, the commentary of the ancient rabbis upon the Torah, declares, “When the moon is in eclipse, it is a bad omen for Israel. If its face is as red as blood, the sword is coming to the world.”

In light of this, let’s survey some of the times in history when a tetrad of red blood moons coincided with important dates on the Hebrew calendar that signaled historic events on Earth.

1. The Crucifixion of Jesus

A red blood moon tetrad occurred during A.D. 32 and 33, the period when our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on the angry, mean, biting beam of Calvary. These blood moons coincided with Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles in these years.

2. Jewish Persecution

Four total lunar eclipses occurred on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, in 161 and 163 B.C., coinciding with the worst persecution of the Jewish people up to that time.

3. Defeat of the Arabs

Four total lunar eclipses occurred on Passover and on Yom Kippur, in A.D. 795 and 796, when Charlemagne, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, established a buffer between France and Spain, ending centuries of Arab incursion into Western Europe.

4. Another Defeat of the Arabs

Four total lunar eclipses occurred in A.D. 842-843, when Muslims from Africa attacked and looted Rome. Shortly after these eclipses, in A.D. 860-861, the Byzantine Empire defeated Arab armies at a great battle in what is now Turkey, and permanently stopped the Islamic infiltration of Eastern Europe.

5. The Expulsion of the Jews From Spain

Four total lunar eclipses occurred in 1493-1494, only months after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain expelled the Jews from that nation, commissioned Christopher Columbus to sail to the New World and ended the Spanish Inquisition.

6. The Jewish War of Independence

In 1948, the United Nations voted in favor of statehood for the nation of Israel, and Israel took its place among the nations of the world. Israel was immediately forced to defend its newly gained independence against the surrounding Arab nations, a conflict that continues to this day. In the years that immediately followed Israeli independence, red blood moons occurred according to this pattern on the Hebrew calendar:

Passover, April 13, 1949
Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 7, 1949
Passover, April 2, 1950
Feast of Tabernacles, Sept. 26, 1950

7. The Six-Day War

Though the 1967 war was, in one sense, a continuation of the ongoing conflict between Israel and its Arab enemies, the war was particularly significant. As a result of this series of battles, Jerusalem was reunited with the Jewish people for the first time in nearly 1,900 years.

The story of this war is so replete with miracles that it reads like a page from the Bible. However, equally miraculous is the fact that a tetrad of red blood moons occurred at that time, and once again, they fell on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. Specifically, they occurred on:

Passover, April 24, 1967
Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 18, 1967
Passover, April 13, 1968
Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 6, 1968

A Rare Prophetic Pattern

Do you see the pattern forming here? Not only do we have the rare reoccurrence of a tetrad of red blood moons, but we also have the even more rare alignment of the red blood moon phenomenon with God’s holy days.

If we are to understand what He is telling us, we must become historians, taught by the Holy Spirit and who consider the meaning of God’s time stamps. Let’s take, for example, what the ninth day of the month of Av, the fifth month of the Jewish year, has to show us. On this single date, some of the worst events in the history of the Jewish people occurred:

In 1313 B.C., the children of Israel cried out to God and declared that they would rather go back to Egypt than enter the Promised Land (Num. 14).

In 423 B.C., the Babylonians destroyed the temple of God.

In A.D. 70, the temple of God was again destroyed, this time by Roman armies.

In A.D. 133, the famous Simon Bar Kochba rebellion of the Jews against Roman rule occurred.

In 1095, Pope Urban II launched the first Crusade to the Holy Land.

In 1290, King Edward I expelled the Jewish people from England.

In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain.

In 1914, World War I began. Historians consider World War II—with its Jewish ghettos and concentration camps—the continuation of World War I.

When we use God’s calendar, considering His signs in the heavens and understanding the spiritual battles that are taking place on the Earth, we can receive tremendous revelation from our great and mighty God.

Rod Parsley is president and founder of the Center for Moral Clarity,  founder of Harvest Preparatory School and Valor Christian College and senior pastor and founder of World Harvest Church in Ohio, where he resides with his wife and children. He has written over 50 books, and his daily television program is viewed by millions worldwide.

For More Study…

In God’s End-Time Calendar: The Prophetic Meaning Behind Celestial Events and Seasons (Charisma House), Rod Parsley explores the message God is relaying to mankind through the four blood moons that appeared in 2014 and 2015. Find this book on amazon.com, christianbook.com or anywhere Christian books are sold.