Daily Devotional for Monday July 23, 2018

The Blood Moon is Coming

(Revelation 6:12-14, Acts 2:20, Joel 2:31)

***DAILY PERSONAL PRAYER FOR YOU: Dear Lord, I know that it is your desire that ALL come to repentance, that none be lost. Please give me a passion for souls. Help me to look at each person and never forget that they are created in your image, that one day they will die, and they have an eternal soul. Take away any fear, any hesitancy, to share the hope we have in Jesus with those people you bring into my life. Let me never forget that without Jesus, their soul will be lost for all eternity and do my part to share with them how they can have everlasting life through faith in Jesus who died for their sins. It is in the name of Jesus I pray...AMEN!

The "blood moons" con is simply the latest on Christians! The "blood moon" is back in the news, and will come and go as this con on Christians will once again produce NOTHING but fear and book sales. As the fervor over the "blood moons" began to intensify few years ago, finally hitting the mainstream Christian news services along with a handful of secular news agencies, I could only shake my head as I thought of "The Prayer of Jabez," and more recently "The Harbinger."

"The Prayer of Jabez," authored by Bruce Wilkinson, comes from 1 Chronicles 4:9,10 and is the prayer to God by a man named Jabez. Soon after it was published in 2000, the book was being marketed by insinuating people could pray this prayer in repetition in order to bring them fortune and blessings. These type of books always have to take Scripture out of context in order to make such false claims, preying on people's Biblical illiteracy. THERE ARE NO MAGIC PRAYERS. WE PRAY TO GOD IN FAITH TRUSTING IN HIS PROVIDENCE, NOT MAGICAL WORDS!

All I can tell you about "The Harbinger" is that there is not ONE THING in that book that people haven't been reading in the Liveprayer Daily Devotional...FOR FREE...regarding the signs of the judgment of God on this nation for the past 16 years, LONG before anyone ever heard of Rabbi Cahn. However, I don't charge for anything I write or produce at Liveprayer, and I certainly don't go on the Christian media circuit in order to hype people up so I can sell them something! BTW, where did Cahn run off to with his millions???

Just like "Jabez" and "Harbinger," the "blood moons" ARE tied to Scripture. They are directly referred to in Revelation 6:12-14, Acts 2:20, and Joel 2:31, indirectly in a few other passages. Anyone who has read even two of the Liveprayer Daily Devotionals knows that there is NOBODY on the face of the earth that stands stronger and advocates for the Bible being God's inspired, inerrant Word, representing Absolute Truth, and our final authority in ALL matters than I do!

My issue with the "blood moons" hysteria is not about its' Biblical predicate, but how that Biblical predicate is being taken out of context, perverted, and marketed by and endless array of people looking to cash in on Christianity's version of psychics and fortune tellers. These people work in the area of Bible prophecy and end-times events.

In brief, the "blood moons" happened a few years ago on April 15th and October 8th, a year later on April 4th and the final one on September 28th. The "blood moon" occurs during a lunar eclipse and the bloody red color is caused by refraction of sunlight by the Earth's atmosphere. The Biblical significance is that the "blood moons" are tied to the end-times and Israel, especially since these four will occur during Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Trumpets, which is a rare occurrence.

Like in ALL end-times events, there are competing explanations (all are in, or soon to be in, books to sell to you). The most common belief is that the "blood moon" is a bad sign for the people of Israel and means war. It is also believed that a "big event" will happen in Israel due to the "blood moon." As I warned you last year, NOTHING OF SIGNIFICANCE WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND IT DIDN'T!

There are some very sound, Godly, Bible prophecy teachers like Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Perry Stone to name a few. However, in the end, they don't agree on much since eschatology, or the study of the end times, is so subjective. Despite the persuasive claims they all make about certain end-times events, very little will be definitively known until those events actually unfold.

The main driver of the "blood moons" hype with surprise, surprise, a new book he is all over the Christian TV world selling on that very subject, is Pastor John Hagee. Years ago, Hagee discovered a huge financial bonanza by preaching almost exclusively on the end-times and creating an organization linking Christians and the Jewish people, cashing in on the love Christians have for God's chosen people.

Hagee doesn't preach the Gospel to the Jewish people, telling them Jesus WAS the Messiah they were waiting for and that they had the same responsibility to their sin every man does since that would be bad for his business with Jewish leaders in Israel he depends on. Even though they were, are, and always will be God's chosen people collectively, individually without faith in Christ they will die and burn in hell like anyone else who rejects faith in Christ.

Instead, he began to preach a lie known as the "dual covenant theology" which teaches that Gentiles can only be saved by faith in Jesus, but by virtue of simply being Jewish, a Jewish person is saved! Hagee has proven a willingness to sell out the faith for money by his public endorsement of satanic Mormon cult member Glenn Beck, even allowing Beck to speak to his Pro-Israel organization! In exchange for helping Beck perpetuate his lie to the public that He is a Christian, Hagee gets to sell his books via Beck's various media outlets. MONEY OVER SOULS!

Note: For the record, virtually 100% of the books sold by people like Hagee, Cahn, and the rest of the big names in Christendom are written by staff or ghost writers. They simply put their name on the book, go on all of the Christian TV programs, and sell their "book" as the newest and greatest revelation ever. That is why I tell people to save their money and simply read the Bible. Unfortunately, it is a book less than 10% of professing Christians have ever read cover to cover. There is NO GREATER REVELATION and I can assure you 100% that it was actually written by God Himself!

This is why I rarely get into the end times. It is interesting to talk about, study, but certainly nothing I choose to spend too much of my precious time on after exhaustive study of this issue during my seminary days. The fact is, most of the end times events are very subjective and speculative. They generate incredible amounts of money for those who sell books, DVDs, and speak on the end-times, since people have an insatiable desire to know the future.

It is the same desire that fuels those who promote themselves as psychics, fortune tellers, and seers, who are at best carnival acts, and at worse operating in demonic powers. That is why I also am VERY leery of those who promote themselves in the church as a "prophet. " A modern day prophet is a FORTHTELLER, declaring what is in accordance with what the Bible teaches, as opposed to the OT Prophets who God showed the future to (they were FORETELLERS) before the Bible was complete.

I love you and care about you so much. Regardless of who the players are during the final chapters of human history end up being, what order the events actually unfold, whether it ends up being pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, the two most critical facts are already known and guaranteed by God's word. First, Jesus can return at any second, though only God Himself knows that exact day and hour. Second, when it is all over God wins!!! In all honesty, what more do we really need to know?

That is why I use my precious minutes each day to deal with the today we have, rather than focusing on a tomorrow we may never see. I am more concerned with bringing God's Truth to the lost and hurting, ministering to the daily needs of people saved and lost alike, sharing the Gospel so that those without Jesus in their heart and life have the opportunity to make that most critical decision by faith.

Like Y2k, the end of the world as foolishly predicted by Family Radio's Harold Camping, the Mayan calendar, the four "blood moons" will come and go. Will there be a "big event" in Israel? Will there be war in Israel? Sadly, big events occur in Israel all the time and war is always imminent. Whatever does or doesn't happen, God will be in control. For me, that is enough.

In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller