Signs in the Sky
Return of the King: Week 2
Scripture: Luke 21:24-25; Joel 2:30-31; Matthew 24:29-47 (Back of Bulletin)
Last week we started a new series called Return of the King…
Last week, we learned about seven signs coming from the nation of Israel, signaling that Jesus is preparing to return soon.
Unfortunately, the audio was corrupted from last weeks message here in the church, but you if you missed it you can still see it on the church’s Facebook page.
Anyone who has studied biblical prophecy can see the signs that are coming to pass.
Jesus is coming. In which case we have a lot to learn, and not a lot of time left to learn it.
So, over the next four weeks we are going to do a crash course on biblical prophecy. If you have been attending our mid-week bible study, some of this will be very familiar to you.
I want to walk you through the events of the final decade or so of life as we know it on planet earth. And today, we focus on one more set of signs that we may be coming up on that last decade.
One quick caveat- Jesus Himself said that no one knows the day or the hour of His return, so I’m not setting dates here.
I’m only pointing out what God’s word says about the end times, and why it beginning to look more and more like we are getting close.
I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. Like you, I’m a Christian who read the bible and is starting to see some things line up in very interesting ways that point to the end times.
So, if you’re ready to do some learning, let’s pray,
Lord Jesus, speak to me. Amen!
Open a Bible to Luke 21:24.
A few verses before Luke 21:24, the Disciples asked, “And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”
Jesus answers them, and it is important to understand that He is speaking directly to his disciples here- in other words, Jewish people-
They will be killed by the sword and be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:24
There is a pause in the narrative, and then Jesus says,
“Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars…” Luke 21:25
I believe Jesus was thinking of this Psalm as HE said that.
Psalm 19:1 says,
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the xpanse proclaims the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.
Psalm 19:1-2
Psalm 19 is saying that God is constantly communicating from the heavens. We have some nice weather coming up this week.
I challenge you- go out after dark and look up. Put down the electronics, leave the phones in the house, lay down in the grass and just gaze into the heavens.
You get a sense that there is a marvelous creator behind all we see. Let creation speak to you about Him as it’s meant to.
God is communicating in the sky all the time.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
And sometimes His communication is more specific and direct than others.
What Jesus is saying in Luke 21 is, “Towards the time of My return, I’m going to be sending you signals, using the sun, the moon, and the stars as My communication device.”
How might He do this?
Why do I think he could be using the stars above to communicate to us?
Because God operates in patterns, and He used this pattern to announce Jesus’ first coming to this planet when He was born in Bethlehem.
Let’s look at that for a moment- remember the Wise Men said they knew that the Messiah was born because they, “saw His star in the East?”
Follow me for a moment-
Over the century’s, humanity has given names to many of the stars and constellations in the sky. We’ve even named the 8 planets in our solar system.
Most of us don’t give what’s up there a lot of thoughts. We live here on earth, and earth seems to be a pretty big place on it’s own.
But think of this-
Jupiter is called “The King Planet” (>1300 earths)
One of the brightest starts in the sky after the sun is named Regulus is called “The King Star” 3 times the size of our sun, and our sun fits over 1000 Jupiter’s, or 1.3 million earths inside of it.
Regulus exists within the Constellation Leo. Leo is called “The King Constellation.”
Leo contains stars that are hundred of light years away from each other. One light year is 5.879 Quadrillion miles. That’s 12 zeros.
This isn’t just a science lesson, it has meaning to us as bible believing Christians-
Let’s go back in time to the year 3 B.C.
If you were watching the stars from earth’s perspective you would have seen he following phenomenon.
The planet Jupiter passed over the top Regulus- the king star
It then passed back over Regulus two more times over the next few months.
IN astronomy, this is called a “crowning.” Jupiter crowned Regulus in the constellation of Leo.
Between late 3 B.C. and mid 2 B.C., the King Planet crowned the King Star in the King Constellation. King, King, King.
You want your mind blown a little bit more?
Consider that the light from Regulus would take about 79 years to reach earth. The rest of the stars in Leo are even further way. In other words God put something into effect centuries before Jesus was born to announce His birth.
The wise men of Persia were astronomers. They saw this happen and knew exactly what it meant.
Remember- they are the descendants of people directly taught their craft by the Prophet Daniel himself. They know what this means.
So, when these eastern astronomers saw a crowning OF the King BY the King IN the King, they gathered up gifts and mounted their camels and followed the star on its westward migration, which led them to Israel.
As they followed this planet, Jupiter, (the King Planet), it came so close in the sky to the planet Venus, that the two looked like they merged in the night sky.
Jupiter is called the King Planet,
Venus is called the Mother Planet.
This merger took place inside the constellation of Virgo.
Guess what Virgo represents?
Virgo is the Virgin.
This conjunction of the biggest star in the sky and the brightest star in the sky not only signaled something was up between the mother and the king, but their combined light produced what appeared to be the brightest star in the sky during the wise men’s lifetime.
Now can you see how the heavens can tell a story, or signal an event?
That’s what Jesus is talking about in Luke 21 when He says,
“Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars…” Luke 21:25
Listen! God announced the first coming of His Son by forecasting it in the stars 2,000 years ago, and He is announcing the second coming of His Son by forecasting it in the stars today.
How?
Well in Matthew 24, which is the parallel passage to Luke 21, Jesus gets much more detailed about these heavenly events.
That’s what I want to walk you through for the remainder of our time today.
Turn to Matthew 24 and find verse 29. It describes four events. Jesus says,
“…the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not shed its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Matthew 24:29
Here are four cosmic events that foreshadow the end of days.
One is, “The sun will be darkened.” That happens during a solar eclipse.
A second is, “The moon will not shed its light.” That happens during a lunar eclipse.
A third is, “Stars will fall from the sky.” That sounds like a meteor shower, or maybe a series of comets, doesn’t it?
And the fourth is “the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” “The powers of the heavens could be spiritual warfare, but I think there might be another thought I’ll touch on in a moments.
We may not be able to understand everything illuminated in this verse, but let me tell you what we do know.
ECLIPSES
According to Jewish tradition, solar eclipses are signals about the Gentile nations, and lunar eclipses are signals about the Jewish nation.
A little context here before we go any further-
Jesus starts talking about signs in the sky after the following happens on the earth- Matthew 24 –5
things like wars and rumors of wars,
nations rising up against nations,
false prophets appearing on the scene,
a rise in lawlessness,
and the love of many growing cold.
Does the following list describe the evening news and what we are seeing today?
Jumping down to vs 29, he starts talking about signs in the heavens.
That’s the first sign:
Signs in the Skies (Matthew 24:29-31)
1. There will be solar eclipses – v. 29a.
If you can remember back a few years ago, on August 21, 2017, our nation spent an entire day tracking a total solar eclipse that crossed over the United States from one shore to the other, moving from the west to east.
The last time there was a full continental eclipse over our nation was on June 8, 1918.
Remember what else happened then. The Spanish Flu hit our nation, causing a lot of sickness. That flu pandemic infected 20% of the world’s population. It resulted in 675,000 American deaths, and somewhere around 40 million deaths worldwide.
Before the 1918 solar eclipse, there was another solar eclipse that spanned our entire nation. That eclipse took place on November 30, 1776.
You know what happened then. 17,000 Americans died during the Revolutionary War, and we were a much smaller nation then, so that’s a big number.
REVIEW
Okay, so our first continental solar eclipse as a nation took place in 1776. The second in 1918. The third, just 3 years ago.
Would you like to guess when the next solar eclipse will happen?
It’s coming a little under three years from now - on April 8, 2024, which is the last day of the Jewish calendar, and exactly two weeks before the Jewish holy day of Passover – which is the time when Jews would be selecting their lambs for sacrifice, if they had a Temple to sacrifice them in.
I admit, this may be coincidence, but I believe God is trying to tell us something.
Remember- Solar eclipses are signs about Gentiles. Lunar eclipses are signs about the Jews.
Matthew says, “the sun will darken, and the moon will not shed its light.”
2. There will be lunar eclipses – v. 29b.
Through the Prophet Joel, God says,
I will display wonders in the heavens and on the earth:
blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
Joel 2:30-31
The moon looks like it turns red during a solar eclipse, and for that reason, a total lunar eclipse is called a “blood moon.”
Listen closely again.
Four times over the last 500 years, there have been four blood moons that fell on four Jewish holidays over a two-year period of time. Theologians call Four blood moons lining up like that a “tetrad.”
The first tetrad happened in 1492 and 1493 under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. We tend to think of 1492 as the year Columbus found the Americas.
But lunar eclipses are signs for the Jewish nation, and for the Jews, 1492 has a different significance. The Jewish people had settled in Spain to escape the persecution from the RCC of that time.
1492 was the year Ferdinand and Isabella kicked the Jews out of Spain. From that time on, they had no place to call home. It was the beginning of the re-gathering of the Jews that eventually resulted in Israel being reborn as a nation in their own land.
The second tetrad happened in 1949 and 1950.
We learned last week that Israel held their national independence day in May of 1948, but it took them another nine months to get a government up and running. So this second tetrad signaled the coming back together of the Jewish nation.
Any guess when the 3rd Tetrad happened?
The third tetrad happened in 1967 and 1968.
At Israel’s rebirth, she controlled only half of the city of Jerusalem. But during the Six Day War of 1967, it regained East Jerusalem, and for the first time since 70 A.D., Gentiles were no longer trampling the Holy City. The Jews controlled it themselves.
The most recent tetrad took place in 2014 and 2015.
We believe this tetrad signaled the beginning of the rebuilding of the Temple, which hasn’t happened yet, but during this time, a group was formed behind the scenes to make it happen, and now the red heifer was again bred.
Jesus’ third sign from the sky is that,
“the stars will fall from the sky.”
I believe he is saying
3. There will be meteors or comets – v. 29c.
Meteors are impacting us every day.
A huge one exploded over Russia in 2013, setting off a blast that was 30 times more powerful than the Hiroshima Bomb.
More interestingly, some of you over 45 years old might remember the UFO craze of the 1970s. That has began to take off again as pilots, people at sea, and other are seeing strange things in the sky that they can’t explain.
And, the fourth sign from the sky is that…
4. The powers of the heavens will be shaken – v. 29d.
I thought long and hard about this one. What is the physical power of the heavens? We have been talking about it the whole sermon-Beside God of course, what makes life possible on earth?
Stars- in our case, the sun. Without the sun, we freeze to death inside of a few hours, or starve to death or suffocate when the plants die.
What is the power of the sun?
Thermonuclear fusion
What is an atom bomb? A thermonuclear fusion.
Now, the bible does NOT say that specifically, but it is logical to me anyway. Again, this is not a “Thus saith the Lord moment”, it’s a “John speculating” moment.
I think something nuclear will happen somewhere in the heavens.
This week in the news, many experts said the possibility of a nuclear attack has increased more in the last few weeks than it has over the last 20 years.
Both China and Russia is looking the USA and sees weakness, both in our culture and government, and the number one best way to encourage attack by a bully is to show weakness.
Perhaps an EMP device- a low radiation yield bomb detonated at high altitude that permanently takes out anything with a transistor in it. Which is anything electronic, including our entire power grid.
Jesus continues His description of the end times in v. 30 by saying,
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. Matthew 24:30-31
So, three more signs to come are:
5. The Son of Man will come on clouds of heaven – v. 30.
6. There will be angelic trumpeting – v. 31a.
7. He will gather the elect – v. 31b.
After giving these signs in Matthew 24, Jesus gives some application. In verses 32-44, Jesus gives us 7 warnings we need to heed in these last days-
Let’s look at the seven warnings to us.
For times sake, I’m not going to read the entire section, but refer to specific verses.
Warning number one is: keep watching for the signs.
Warnings from the Fig Tree (Matthew 24:32-47)
1. Those who are looking will see the signs – v. 32a.
That’s why we’re doing this series – to acquaint ourselves with the signs.
The second warning Jesus gives is that…
2. Jesus will return within that generation – v. 34.
“This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.”
There are various interpretations of a biblical generation but we can’t be sure. I’ve heard 20, 40, or 80 years. And we don’t know if the countdown began in 1948, or 1967, or 2018, but I believe the countdown has begun.
The third warning Jesus gives is that…
3. He will come on a day no one knows – v. 36.
Most scholars believe that “no one knows that day nor the hour,” in which Jesus will return, because that’s what He said here in v. 36.
But Messianic Jews- those who started out Jewish but then became Christians have now taught us that within Jewish believe that there is a holiday called “The day no one knows.”
A little background- You and I live according to the Julian calendar- based on the solar calendar.
However, all Jewish holidays are timed by the lunar calendar the phases of the moon. Most holidays start a few days or weeks after the first of the month.
But one holiday starts on the first day of the month. And since the first day of the month is determined by the new moon, the holiday can’t be declared until the new moon is sighted.
So, in Jewish tradition, two witnesses are required to watch the last of the moon disappear on the last day of the year, and when these witnesses see what is called “The horns of the moon” – the last little slivers of the moon’s light, they report to the Chief Priest that the new moon is upon us. At that moment, he declares the holiday.
No one knows when the holiday will start until the Chief Priest declares it.
So, the Jews nickname for “Yom Teruah,” which means, “a day of blowing,” or “the day no one knows.” Yom Teruah happens on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Stay with me. Jesus’ fourth warning was that…
4. Those who are not looking will not be ready – v. 39.
He says, they’ll be eating and drinking, just like people did in the days of Noah. Right up until it started raining.
Those who aren’t looking for the return of Christ most likely don’t know Christ, so our job is to help them get ready by telling them about the good news of Christ.
Jesus’ fifth warning was to us:
5. We should be constantly watching for Him – v. 42.
My translation says, “Be alert.” Other translations say, “Keep watch.” Like a military guard walking a post- alert at all times.
And while we are watching,
6. He told us to be ready – v. 44.
We are to be ready for His return at any moment. The entire chapter of Matthew 25 is all about being ready for Jesus’ return.
You might asking- How can I make sure I’m ready for Jesus’ return?
He tells us how in vs. 46-47:
46 Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
Matthew 24:46-47
A servant who is ready is a servant who is doing his or her job. This means actively serving the Lord through prayer and service and sharing their faith.
#7 isn’t so much a warning as it is a description of the reward you’ll receive for being ready. Jesus says,
7. Those doing their job when He returns will reap a great reward – vs. 46-47.
But the warning comes in that the opposite of that is also true.
Let me close here
Friends, in these last days, God is up to something in this world:
? He’s building a community.
? It’s a community of people who are related to Him by faith, or one another in love, so that He can bless us, and through us bless the world.
The community is almost complete.
...But not quite.
In Matthew 22 and Luke 14 there are twin parables about a King who invites people to His son’s wedding feast. May refuse the offer, then the King says
Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
I believe we are standing on the threshold of a divine harvest that will dwarf anything in History.
Because God has decreed that HIS House will be filled.
Our job is to be faithful lovers and sharers, and livers of God’s truth is to share it with others.
That’s what it means to be ready when He comes.
This is God’s word for you today. Do you receive it?
All Rise-
For our closing today, I’m going to read Jesus’ best friend’s words to this generation.
Please close your eyes, and take this as the closing prayer-
The Apostle Peter speaking. If you live like this, you have no worries about how Jesus will find you when He comes:
1 Peter 4:7-117 The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
God bless you all week long!
