BOOK REVIEW: Blood Moons Rising by Mark Hitchcock
Mark Hitchcock has served as senior pastor of Faith Bible
Church in Edmond, Oklahoma for over twenty years. He earned a PhD from Dallas
Theological Seminary after graduating from law school in 1984. The author goes
into great detail of why the upcoming four lunar eclipses, “blood moons,” are
not a specific sign of the end. He uses Scripture in its context to support his
conclusions. “My goal is to present what
I believe Scripture says about the end times, examine the historical evidence
for the blood moon prophecy, and leave you to make your own decision.” (p.
xi)
“These total lunar
eclipses are known as blood moons because when they occur, the moon takes of a
reddish hue or blood color.” (p. 8) In 2007, Pastor Mark Blitz first
discovered that the four upcoming blood moons would fall on Jewish feasts, and
he noticed that in the past there was blood moons that “foretold” historical
events for the Jews.
The author, using information from NASA, shows that the
four upcoming blood moons will occur on four Jewish feasts days in 2014-15, and
revealing that there will be a solar eclipse in between the second and third
blood moons. The four blood moons, feasts days and solar eclipse are listed as
follow:
April 15, 2014 Passover
October 08, 2014 Feast of Tabernacles
March 20, 2015 Solar Eclipse
April 04, 2015 Passover
September 28, 2015 Feats of Tabernacles
The author spends some time explaining some of the
“prophecies” told by John Hagee in his book, Four Blood Moons, showing how Hagee takes Bible verses out of
context and misapplies them to America, thus being guilty of replacement
theology, a gross and heretical teaching that states that God is done with
Israel, and either the church today or America have replaced Israel in
prophecies.
Hitchcock does an excellent job of going over what Scripture
says about the end times, laying the groundwork for why the current craze of
the four blood moons is overblown and not Scriptural. “We don’t read the Bible in light of the headlines, but we do read
headlines in light of Bible prophecy.” (p. 18) He states that the main sign
of the times is that Israel was reborn as a nation on May 14, 1948, thus
setting the stage for future prophecies to be fulfilled.
The author talks about the four pillars that the blood
moons theory is based upon being espoused by Blitz and Hagee: God uses signs in
the sky; science confirms that four blood moons will occur of four Jewish feast
days; five verses from the Bible mention signs involving the moon in the last
days: and finally historical data that shows what has happened to the Jewish
people on previous blood moons.
Hitchcock spends an entire chapter (five) and gives a good
summation of the different Jewish feasts and how they relate to the end times
and prophesy. He mentions that the four spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened
Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks) of the Jews were fulfilled in the first coming of
Jesus, while the three fall feasts (Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles) of the
Jews are fulfilled in relation to the second coming of Jesus, while the time
period that we are currently in is the summer between the spring and fall.
The author then spends three chapters supporting his claim
that the prognostication by Blitz, Hagee, et al are not Scriptural but taking
each of the passages out of context to fit their theory of the four blood
moons. He points out that the three previous set of four blood moons (or tetrads)
did not all occur before some significant historical event that happened for
the Jews, but at times happened after. For example, on pages 130-133 he writes
that the first tetrad occurred in 1492-93, and all occurred after the Great
Expulsion of Jews (March 30, 1492) from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella.
Overall, Hitchcock does an excellent job of debunking the
hysteria about the four blood moons using Scripture to back up his claim.
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