On July 27, the moon will glow orange across much of the world in the longest lunar eclipse of this century.
If the internet is to be believed, this magnificent spectacle is also a sign of an impending apocalypse. A flurry of headlines—mostly from British tabloids—ask if the end of days is really upon us.
“Blood moon 'to bring end of the world' as stargazers enjoy longest lunar eclipse this century,” proclaimed the Mirror. “The Blood Moon prophecy: Fears bible predicts end of the world in WEEKS,” read the Daily Star.
The publications variously claim conspiracy theorists are taking the blood moon as a sign of an incoming apocalypse. Bible verses from the Book of Joel and the Book of Revelation seem to predict a glowing blood moon will accompany an ever-approaching end of days.
Joel reads: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come." Revelation states: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”
A number of articles focus on the work of evangelical Christian and end-of-days-prophecy peddler Irvin Baxter. The doomsday preacher is the face of EndTime Ministries, whose broadcasts and magazine are devoted to unraveling the weirder parts of Christian texts.
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But even Baxter—who claims to have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall—doesn’t actually seem to think the blood moon is anything to worry about.
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In a video released January 31, the date of a previous blood moon-cum-supermoon, EndTime Ministries' End of the Age program called foretelling the future on the basis of celestial bodies “a sin” which should not be used to predict the end of days. Divination, whether it’s by fortune-telling, astrology, witchcraft, tarot cards, necromancy or spell-casting, the program stated, should be avoided.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. Light traveling through our planet’s atmosphere casts an incredible reddish glow on the face of our rocky friend.
Read more: Will the moon really glow green tonight?
July’s eclipse will be visible from regions including Europe, Asia and parts of South America. Unfortunately, sky watchers in the U.S. will have to settle for online streams of the beautiful event.
Americans will have to wait till January 21, 2019, to see a total lunar eclipse, timeanddate.com reported.
Baxter, in the meantime, would probably prefer you focus on the Bible’s true prophecies—that the U.N.’s condemnation of Israeli settlements was the first step towards the battle of Armageddon, and that the election of Donald Trump will save the U.S. from “the one-world government ruled by the Antichrist.”
“How can we be so sure?” Baxter’s website stated, “Because the Bible prophesies that this is the destiny of the United States, and the prophecies always come to pass!”
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