I have been hearing a lot about Blood Moons over the last 12 months and their apparent spiritual significance. More recently I am hearing and reading a lot about Shemitah and some alarming predictions relating this biblical concept to the Blood Moons. So trying to sift through all the information, both positive and negative toward the concept of Shemitah, that immediately springs up on a Google search, I have spent about 8 hours reading, researching and then some time in prayer before writing this blog. My aim here is to firstly brief you on the concepts and what is being said and then give you my opinion and thoughts on the matter. I will post a list of the main links that I used to research at the end of the blog.

First some concept contextualisation. Three things you need to understand.

1) Jonathan Cahn

The main proponent of the doom and gloom message post the end of Shemitah comes from Author Jonathan Cahn who has written a bestselling Book titled The Mystery of the Shemitah. Cahn is a Messianic Jewish Rabbi and Pastor who wrote the bestselling novel The Harbinger in which he compares the United States and the September 11 attacks to ancient Israel.

Here is a link to my blog on the Harbinger

2) What is a blood Moon?

During a Lunar Eclipse, the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow.  The only light reaching the Moon is sunlight which has passed through the earth’s atmosphere at a low angle.  This is the same effect which makes sunsets appear red.  In ancient times people referred to an eclipsed moon as appearing ‘Blood Red.’   The Earth as viewed from the Moon during an eclipse would appear as a thin ring of red light. 

A Tetrad of Blood Moons:

It is possible for a Lunar Eclipse to occur twice a year when the sun and moon are 180º apart in the sky and close to the celestial equator.  If a total Lunar Eclipse occurs four consecutive times in a row, it is called a Tetrad.  When this happens you will have four lunar eclipses occurring about 6 months apart covering a period of time of one and a half years.  Tetrads can occur a number of times in one century, while other centuries will have no Tetrads. From year 1 until 2010 there have been 54 Tetrads.   The years 2014-2015 will be the 55th Tetrad.  

Tetrads that occur on Jewish Feast Days:

In Mark Biltz’s book Blood Moons, Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs he states that it is somewhat rare for all four tetrad blood moons to occur each on Jewish Feast Days.  Only two happened in the fourteen hundreds and the next two happened in the nineteen hundreds.

3) What is Shemitah?

As soon as the Jews settled in the Holy Land, they began to count and observe seven-year cycles. Every cycle would culminate in a Sabbatical year, known as Shemitah, literally: “to release.”

The year following the destruction of the second Holy Temple was the first year of a seven-year Sabbatical cycle. In the Jewish calendar, counting from Creation, this was the year 3829, 68–69 CE on the secular calendar. By counting sevens from then, we see that the next Shemitah year will be the year 5775 after Creation, which runs from Sept. 25, 2014, through Sept. 13, 2015.

The observance of Shemitah has several dimensions.The following paragraphs will outline the basics of Shemitah observance.

3.1) Give Your Friend a Break

At the end of seven years you will make a release. And this is the manner of the release: to release the hand of every creditor from what he lent his friend; he shall not exact from his friend or his brother, because the time of the release for the L‑rd has arrived. (Deuteronomy 15:1–2)

The Shemitah year waives all outstanding debts between Jewish debtors and creditors.

3.2) Take a Break from Farming

For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its produce. But in the seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest, a Sabbath to the L‑rd; you shall not sow your field, you shall not prune your vineyard, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth of your harvest . . . And [the produce of] the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to eat for you, for your male and female servants, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you . . . (Leviticus 25:3–6)

During the Shemitah year, the residents of the Land of Israel must completely desist from cultivating their fields. They also relinquish personal ownership of their fields; whatever produce grows on its own is considered communal property, free for anyone to take.

3.3) Refocus

In the ancient Israeli agrarian culture, the Shemitah year proved to be a difficult challenge for the people’s collective trust in the Creator, the One who bequeathed them the land of milk and honey.

And if you should say, “What will we eat in the seventh year? We will not sow, and we will not gather in our produce!” (Leviticus 25:20)

Yet those who put their trust in God were richly rewarded:

I, [God,] will command My blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years. And you will sow in the eighth year, while still eating from the old crops. Until the ninth year, until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old crop! (Leviticus 25:21–22)

As well as giving the people an opportunity to put their faith in God and see it fulfilled, the year-long abstention from farming also allowed them to collectively take a breather and focus on higher, more spiritual pursuits—as the people packed the synagogues and study halls.

God’s Impending Judgement?

Jonathan Cahn is claiming that America and the world is on the cusp of  experiencing divine judgement. He warns that a “great shaking is coming to America and the World”.  He believes that September could bring about an “Economic Collapse, Financial Collapse, and a shaken even greater than those realms”! The Shemitah is part of prophetic Harbinger that can bring blessing to a nation following God, but can be a curse if  it spiritually fails to follow him.

Cahn is saying that in September he expects 50% of the world’s wealth to be wiped out, for there to be major conflict start, possibly a life changing, world changing natural disaster, Palestine to become a nation, Ebola to come back stronger than ever and possibly even the beginnings of a One World Government. In one post I read it also talked about the CERN Hadron Collider that has scheduled to start some particle smashing experiments toward the end of September, may actually trigger a black hole and the world will end as we know it. I have even just come across a news article that is reporting that the World Population of the endangered Saiga Antelope has halved in less than 2 weeks with over 140,000 of them just dropping dead. (See Pics) Christiantoday.com is asking the question is this an Apocalyptic sign?

Here is a post that lists out 10 things that will happen within 15 days of the end of Shemitah;-

Sept. 14: Rosh Hashanah

Sept. 15: The Jade Helm military exercises are scheduled to end.

Sept. 15: The 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly begins on this date. It has been widely reported that France plans to introduce a resolution that will give formal U.N. Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state shortly after the new session begins. Up until now, the U.S. has always been the one blocking such a resolution, but Barack Obama has already indicated that things may be different this time around. If alarm bells are going off in your head as you read this, then you probably already understand how significant this event could potentially be.

Sept. 20 to Sept. 26: The “World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel” sponsored by the World Council of Churches.

Sept. 21: The U.N. International Day Of Peace. Could this be the day when the U.N. Security Council resolution establishing a Palestinian state is actually adopted?

Sept. 23: Yom Kippur

Sept. 23: Pope Francis arrives at the White House to meet with Barack Obama. Some have suggested that the timing of this event is highly unusual.

Francis is the 266th pope, and he will be meeting with President Obama on the 266th day of the year, leading one Internet preacher to wonder if “something is being birthed” on that day, since 266 days is the typical human gestation period from conception to birth.

Sept. 24: The Pope addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

Sept. 25 to Sept. 27: The United Nations is going to launch a brand-new sustainable development agenda called “The 2030 Agenda.” The following is an excerpt from an article that I just wrote about this insidious new plan:

“If you didn’t like ‘Agenda 21,’ then you really are not going to like ‘The 2030 Agenda.’

“Next month, the United Nations is going to launch ‘The 2030 Agenda’ at a major conference that will be held from Sept. 25 to Sept. 27 in New York City. The pope is actually travelling to New York to deliver an address that will kick off this conference.

“Unlike Agenda 21, which primarily focused on the environment, the 2030 Agenda is truly a template for governing the entire planet. In addition to addressing climate change, it also sets ambitious goals for areas such as economics, health, energy, education, agriculture, gender equality and a whole host of other issues. As you will see below, this global initiative is being billed as a ‘new universal Agenda’ for humanity. If you are anything like me, alarm bells are going off in your head right about now.”

Sept. 28: This is the date when the Feast of Tabernacles begins. It is also the date for the last of the four blood moons that fall on biblical festival dates during 2014 and 2015. This blood moon falls on the very first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, it will be a “super moon,” and it will be clearly visible from the city of Jerusalem. There are many that dismiss the blood moon phenomenon, but we have seen similar patterns before. For example, a similar pattern of eclipses happened just before and just after the destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans in A.D. 70.

The more I read the more alarming things seem to be getting.

• America is preparing to go to war with China and Russia to prevent the collapse of the Western Banking System.
• NORAD moves back into the Colorado mountain hideout that they gave up 10 years ago.
• American Homeland security orders 62 million rounds of Ammunition suitable for machine guns.
• Some people are suggesting the mass movement of people into Europe is part of the end times.
• And the final one I read is that this Shemitah is actually the start of the 7 years of tribulation that was prophesised in the Book of Revelation.

My Conclusions

I grew up in a little Anglican Church called St Marks in a country town called Picton. It was the late 1980’s and I was heading toward my HSC and possible university. The minister of the church consistently preached on end times. (If you are my vintage and been around church for a while you will remember Barry Smith and his Final Warnings Book; Well it was Warning, then it was Second Warning and then it was Final Warning.)

Anyway the minister of St Marks used to say often, the world will not see past 1994. It was all doom and gloom: it was the Cashless society, some new concept called EFTPOS, (which we were all concerned about) the Luciferian Triangle on the US Dollar note, the Illuminati etc etc. I remember speaking to my parents and saying what is the point of studying for the HSC if the world is going to end in the next five years. My parents told me, when they were younger, that they were not going to have children when they got married, the arms race was in full swing with the Cuban Missile Crisis putting the World exceptionally close to a Nuclear War and they didn’t want to bring children into a post apocalyptic world. Thankfully they decided to have kids anyway.

I did go to Uni but I remember the stress leading up to 12^th May 1988. There is a bible verse that says that when the Figtree blossoms, not one generation will pass away before the end of the world. Commonly understood to mean that the world will end within one generation of Israel becoming a nation, which happened on May 12^th 1948, and with a generation being 40 years, I was pretty sure the world was going to end on that Tuesday….I am pretty sure if I remember rightly I skipped uni that day….I mean who wants to spend the last day on the planet in an economic theory lecture.

I also survived past 1994 (but got married in 1992: I mean who wants to die a virgin)

Then I remember all the doom and gloom prophecies about the new millennia….it was 2000 years from creation to Abraham, (if you are a young earther) 2000 years between Abraham and Jesus and now 2000 years between Jesus and his return….I mean it all made sense. And of course the Y2K bug was going to trigger the end of the world. I remember the prophets of doom ( Christian leaders) writing books about what was about to happen. I remember churches in the US stockpiling food and guns.

Then the New York attacks happened in 2001 and I remember feeling deeply unsettled in the first 3 or 4 days after the attacks, not knowing what response America would have and not knowing if there were more attacks coming. There was fear all through the media. And I get that as a Christian, I am not given over to fear and I have the peace of God, but there is still the natural concern and angst for life, for my family etc.

Then US Pastor Harold Camping convinced many that the rapture was going to happen on May 21st 2011…which I will admit was only entertainment value for me, but certainly a lot of people in the US were caught up in the hype.

And then there was the Mayan Calender where the world was going to end on 21^st December 2012.

And now its Shemitah……..

Please hear my heart here. Cahn might be right. But he might not be. For example. Here was an interesting push back from one article I read.

“The Shemitah was an obligation given specifically and exclusively to the nation of Israel, and there is no biblical support for the idea that God would either require any other nation to observe the Shemitah year or that He would impose a Shemitah-type judgment according to a seven-year cycle on any nation, including Israel itself. Beyond this, the Shemitah, being a Sabbath and an integral part of the Law of Moses, was completely fulfilled in Christ and is no longer in operation (even it actually did affect other nations prior to the Cross).

A Facebook friend of mine who knew I was researching Shemitah sent me this comment from a Jewish Christian, theologian and author Pastor Tov Rose

He wrote the following in one of his own Facebook statuses: “I have purposely stayed out of the “Blood Moon” hype. However, I think I’ll wade in…just a little. With some cold hard facts: Of the 55 Blood Moons that have occurred since the First Century AD, there have been 7 which coincided with Jewish Holy Days, and none of them were seen as signs of anything significant at the time.

To put everything in another perspective, here are some very significant events in the history of the nation of Israel which DID NOT coincide with any Blood Moon signs. There were no Blood Moons during: 1446 BC (Israel left Egypt in the Exodus)

• 1406 BC (Joshua entered Canaan)
• 723 BC (Ten northern tribes went into Assyrian Captivity)
• 587 BC (Judah went into Babylonian captivity)
• 538 BC (Cyrus proclaims the Jews could return to Canaan)
• 533 BC (Jews began return from Babylon and arrived in Jerusalem)
• 1-2 BC (Jesus was born)
• 33 AD (Jesus was crucified)
• *Solar, but not lunar eclipse 70 AD (Jerusalem and the Temple destroyed by Romans)
• 135 AD (Hadrian renamed the city of Jerusalem, killed many Jews and expelled the rest)
• 1943 AD (Hitler killed 6 million Jews during the Holocaust)

Put another way, here are four more examples of when Tetrarchs (or a series of four Blood Moons) fell on all four Jewish feast days:

• 162 AD
• 795 AD
• 842 AD
• 860 AD

Guess what significant historic events happened during these Blood Moons? Wrong! Nothing happened.

Now, what if something significant DOES happen between now and the end of these four Blood Moon signs that are still forthcoming? Well, things happen all the time. My point is that if anything does happen in the world, we cannot point to the Blood Moons as any sort of prophetic sign. They certainly haven’t been in the past. The one’s pointed out in certain books happened either before or in some cases AFTER the events that in HINDSIGHT are supposedly signs. Enjoy the lunar eclipse. Take good pictures. Marvel at God’s creation. But don’t give in to the fear and the hype.”

I also spoke to my good friend and Messianic Jew Dick Reuben….His very logical comment was “Peter the only way to handle all of the controversy:- It is what it is; time will tell. We cannot change destiny, that’s God’s domain.”

I end this blog with this thought.

Around the world on any given day, the world ends for 153,424 people (which is the average number of people who die each around the world). For some of these people it will be expected and for others it will have come as a total surprise. The key is that we need to be ready for the event that every living person on the planet will experience some time in the future. It may be because the CERN scientists create a black hole during a Blood Moon, but it may not.

The key is…Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour?

Some of the websites I used to put this blog together

http://www.charismanews.com/world/48667-the-shemitah-unraveled-what-2015-2016-could-bring

http://www.shemitah-blood-moons.net/

http://www.shemitah-blood-moons.net/events.html

http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/September24/241.html

http://www.biblicalintegrity.org/2014/09/19/mystery-of-the-shemitah/

http://www.escapeallthesethings.com/shemitah-prophecy.htm

https://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/shemitah-2015-demystified-will-the-economy-drop-like-a-rock-in-september/

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/john-hagee-world-will-face-global-economic-crisis-fall-2015

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Controversial-pastor-John-Hagee-predicts-global-6219268.php

http://usawatchdog.com/great-shaking-and-collapse-is-coming-jonathan-cahn/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/603634/Blood-Moon-end-of-the-world-antelope-deaths

Categories: Current Affairs, Life, Theology

Tags: Blood Moons, christian lead speaks on Shemitah, End of the world, I need to know about the end of the world, I need to know information on Shemitah, Is the world about to end, is the world's financial system about to crash, Jonathan Cahn, Shemitah, The mystery of Shemitah