I agree with many out there who frown upon “date setting” with regard to the exact day that Jesus will come back for us. Matthew 24 clearly tells us that “36But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” (Matthew 24:36)

But Jesus DID tell us to watch for signs of his coming. Jesus specifically tells his disciples “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.” (Luke 21:25)

Then he told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” (Luke 21:29-30)

I did some studying of works researched by a few different pastors, and found some very interesting things about the signs of today.

Picture this: The Israelites are in the desert, recently having experienced the miraculous Exodus, and are now poised to enter the Promised Land. But first they send out a reconnaissance mission, to assist in formulating a prudent battle strategy. The spies return on the eighth day of Av and report that the land is unconquerable. That night, the 9th of Av, the people cry. They insist that they’d rather go back to Egypt than be slaughtered by the Canaanites. God is highly displeased by this public demonstration of distrust in His power, and consequently that generation of Israelites never enters the Holy Land. Only their children have that privilege, after wandering in the desert for 40 years.

The 9th of the month of Av:

1. The destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem (423 bc).
2. The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (69 ad).
3.1095 CE – Pope Urban declared the 1st Crusade (Thousands of Jews died/many communities obliterated)
4.The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 AD
5. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain. King Ferdinand decreed that by the end of July, Spain should be Judenrein. They were then given two days extra, until the second of August, the 9th of Av.
6.Word War I was declared on the 9th of Av in 1914.
7. Jul 22, 1942 – Some historians suggest that the Nazis chose the day deliberately: “The mass expulsions from Warsaw began on July 22, 1942, the day before the 9th of Av. On the following day, the 9th of Av, the gas chambers of Treblinka began to operate.
8.1935  – Hitler enacted a law that propelled the nation toward the infamous Nuremberg Laws of the Holocaust
9.1989 Iraq walks out of talks with Kuwait.
10.1984 The deadly bombing the building of the AMIA (the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina) which killed 86 people and wounded some 300 others.
11.1990, the Gulf War begins,
12.1994 the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, smashed 20+ fragments into the planet Jupiter striking the planet with an estimated energy equivalent of 6,000,000 megatons of TNT.
13.Starting at midnight on August 14, 2005, the entry and presence of Israeli citizens in the areas of GAZA to be evacuated. Israel gives up GAZA
14. 2008 Russia invades Georgia, Georgia was going to allow Israel to use there military bases to bomb Iranian nuclear sites

So we can obviously come to the conclusion that this is an important day that God is still using…

The Man who stumbled upon it: Pastor Mark Biltz, A Messianic Jew

February 20th, 2008, at Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake Washington saw something, a total lunar eclipse also called a “blood moon” for its reddish hue.

“I thought ‘wow’ that looks just like what the Lord was talking about in the last days,” said Pastor Mark Biltz with El Shaddai Ministries.

In the book of Joel, Chapter 2, verse 31 it says, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.”

“So I did a comparison. I went to NASA’s website to see if there would be any total solar or lunar eclipses in the next 10 years, said Biltz.

And what he found were four in a row.

“To my surprise, in 2014 NASA has what it calls a Tetrad-4, total lunar eclipses back to back,” said Biltz.

And two significant solar eclipses as well. In 2014, on March 20th to 21st, April 15th and October 8th.

And in 2015 on April 4th, September 13, and September 28th. But it wasn’t the number of eclipses that caught his attention.  It was the dates on the Jewish calendar on which they fell.

“There was a total lunar eclipse on the 1st day of Passover and a total lunar eclipse on the 1st day of tabernacles,” said Biltz.

“The feast of trumpets, there’s a solar eclipse and there’s also a total solar eclipse beginning the religious year,” said Biltz.

In the Bible, Revelations 6 verse 12 “…and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”

These kinds of celestial phenomena are prophetically significant to messianic believers, Biltz says.

“I see with what’s going on in the world today with all the turmoil; with earthquakes and famines, hurricanes and floods, I think it’s a wake up call to both Jews and Christians that we need to wake up and start looking for the Messiah,” said Biltz.

And according to Luke chapter 21 verse 25,  “…and there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.”

For more information on Messianic beliefs and end time theology, check out these links:   http://www.finalevents.com or  http://www.elshaddaiministries.us/ .

EXPLAINED:

According to the Jewish calendar, the year 2008 is a Sabbatical year.  A new Sabbatical cycle will begin September 29, 2008.  2015 will also be a Sabbatical year. But most amazing of all, in the years 2014 and 2015 there will be two solar eclipses and four lunar eclipses, all of them occurring on God’s Holy Days…

The Lunar eclipses break down as follows:

Passover                                       April 15, 2014

Feast of Tabernacles              October 8, 2014

Passover                                       April 4, 2015

Feast of Tabernacles              September 28, 2015

The two Solar eclipses connected with God’s Holy Days in 2014-2015 occur:

Adar 29/Nisan 1(new year)            March 20, 2015

Feast of Trumpets                               September 13, 2015

The real shocker is that this is extremely rare, for this pattern of eclipses to fall on both Passover and Sukkot (Tabernacles) in two years in a row, and for a solar eclipse to occur on important Holy Days in the same year (2015).

Four lunar eclipses occurring on the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover in two successive years are phenomenal, yes – But add to them two solar eclipses on the two days that open the Jewish year – Adar 29/Nisan1, just two weeks before Passover, and Tishri 1 (Rosh Hashannah) – is uncanny.  On each of these six Jewish Holy Days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light.  Will this happen again in the 21st century?  No.  Did it happen in the 20th century?  Yes, in 1949/1950, the year following Israel’s statehood, and 1967/1968, the year Jerusalem was liberated in the Six-Day War!  Before that, you have to go back to 1492/1493, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, for four successive lunar eclipses on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Whats even more interesting, remember the 9th of AV mentioned above, there will be three SOLAR eclipses in a row, in 2008, 2009, and 2010, all on the date of the first of Av, the fifth Hebrew month of the year.

Av 1                 July 31, 2008

Av 1                 July 22, 2009

Av 1                 July 11, 2010

Note: 2 other dates to research-

*March 14, 2014:
–It’s exactly 1,260 days from September 29, 2011 (the Jewish New Year) and equates to 3 ½ years into the “week” (using the Jewish calendar year of 360 days) also obviously the middle or half-way point of that “week”
–It’s also the Jewish holiday of Purim, in which people give gifts
(And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. ~Revelation 11:3) (The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. ~Revelation 11:10)

*September 30, 2017:
–It is Yom Kippur, or The Day of Atonement
–It’s exactly 1,290 days from March 14, 2014 (the half-way point of the “week” and also the Jewish holiday of Purim as noted above
(In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.~ Daniel 9:27) (From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. ~Daniel 12:11)

Joel 2: 31The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.