Signs and wonders: Draconid meteor shower tonight

The Draconids. Image here.

I just found out that tonight is also the Draconid meteor shower.

Oh, FYI: people who are having trouble sleeping lately, which is a lot of you--I would count that as the influence of the moon. It is seriously, biologically, measurably more difficult to sleep on a night with a full moon, which is tonight and last night.

Anyway, it is pretty unique that today would showcase both a Biblical blood moon and the Draconids.


A book available at LDS bookstores, Pattern of the Heavens by Timothy J. Adams, explains the significance of Draco, the constellation the Draconids are named after.

Adams quotes Moses 4:1-6, 20-21 (his emphases):

1 And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.
 2 But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will bedone, and the glory be thine forever.
 3 Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;
 4 And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.
 5 And now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which I, the Lord God, had made.
 6 And Satan put it into the heart of the serpent, (for he had drawn away many after him,) and he sought also to beguile Eve, for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world.
 20 And I, the Lord God, said unto the serpent: Because thou hast done this thou shalt be cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life;
 21 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; and he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

He explains that from these verses we learn that Satan tried to usurp God's power and was therefore cast down. And then he explains that Draco is the constellation Job refers to in Job 26:13 when he says that God "hath formed the crooked serpent" in "the heavens."

He explains (my emphasis),

The celestial sphere experiences a movement known as the precession of the equinoxes. The Earth spinning like a top with an ever-so-slight wobble causes this precession. The precession moves one degree every 72 years, taking about 26,000 years for a complete wobble. In the course of this movement the Earth's axis points to different celestial bodies; approximately six thousand years ago the North Star wasn't Polaris but a star in the tail of Draco. The slow precession has since moved the axis so that it now points to Polaris--the footstool of the true king; not Draco and not Cepheus, but the Nazarene Jesus the Christ.

He goes on to cite two scriptures that seem to allude to this shift, Genesis 22:17 and Genesis 24:60 (the seed as the stars of heaven possessing the gates of his enemies).

The moon represents Israel, so a lunar eclipse represents
Israel's power faltering.

Long story short, Draco represents the serpent--Satan in the creation story. Over the past 6,000 years, the North Star has shifted from the star in the tail of Draco to Polaris, which is located in the footstool of the constellation representing Christ as King.

Traditionally, lunar eclipses represent hard times for Israel, followed eventually by triumph. Draco and his Draconids represent Satan and his followers. A torrent of Draconid meteors happening at the same time as a Biblical blood moon is notable to me--symbolically it would refer to Satan unleashing his minions and wrath just as Israel faced some tough times anyway. Just thought I'd share.

Signs and wonders in the heavens: Biblical blood moon tetrad

This morning is the second lunar eclipse of the final Biblical blood moon tetrad of the century. So let's talk about it.

First off, a link to my last post about reading the stars. Recap: we're not supposed to worship the stars or use them as an excuse to give up our agency. The stars are ordained to bring forth signs. Prophets have long read the stars (think of Moses and Abraham, and also the wise men following the stars to find Jesus).

Okay, let's go.

From The Mystery of the Shemitah by Jonathan Cahn:

The Scriptures speak of the sun and the moon and the celestial lights functioning as "signs." The Hebrew word used in Genesis 1:14 is otote; it can also be translated as "evidence," "mark," and "omen." The same verse declares that they will be connected to days and years and "seasons." But the Hebrew word translated as seasons is moedeem. Moedeem literally means "an appointment," or "the appointed time" or "the appointed meeting." It is the same word used for the holy days of Israel. Add to this the Scriptures' emphasis on these celestial lights as signs of judgment and the end times, and we have to, at the very least, conclude that they may at times serve as signs of significant events. 

Moon. Shutterstock.

Indeed, scriptures such as Isaiah 13:8-10 and Joel 3:14-15 and Matthew 24:29 all refer to signs like the ones we are presently witnessing. The Biblical blood moon tetrad is significant.

What is the Biblical blood moon tetrad?

Biblical blood moon tetrads are groups of four lunar eclipses, separated by 6 lunar cycles each, in a row, falling on Biblical holy days. This Biblical blood moon tetrad is falling on Passover and Sukkot, twice in a row.

Traditionally, the moon represents Israel, so an eclipse of Israel is symbolically bad news. The upside is that traditionally, the bad news has been followed by good news. From the Blaze:

Blood moons surrounding the Crucifixion. Image here.

In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella “issued an edict of expulsion” kicking the Jews out of Spain, Hagee told TheBlaze. This happened during the Spanish Inquisition, which began in 1478 in an effort to rid the region of Jews and Muslims.

Blood moons surrounding the Jewish diaspora and plague.
Image here.

According to NASA data, there was a tetrad from 1493 to 1494 (there were three preceding tetrads that century as well, but they did not fall on Jewish holidays). 

And that’s not the only series of blood moons Hagee links to Israel, as NASA data shows that yet another tetrad unfolded between 1949 and 1950, a key time for Israel’s modern-day manifestation. 

Biblical blood moons surrounding Columbus's discovery of
America and the Spanish Inquisition. Image here.

“In 1948, that’s the year Israel became a state,” he explained. “The thing that happened prior to that was the tragedy of the Holocaust, which ended in the rejoicing of statehood.” 

Another tetrad happened between 1967 and 1968, a period which saw the Six-Day War — a moment of “triumph” when Jerusalem was reunified and became “the eternal capital of the Jewish people once again,” Hagee said. 

Clearly, there is a pattern for the Biblical blood moon tetrad. I expect that this one will be similarly eventful for the House of Israel.

Ebola and the blood moon

Biblical blood moon and the return of Jerusalem to Israel.
Image here.

So far I have personally noted how close the first Biblical blood moon of this tetrad was to the initial outbreak of Ebola in West Africa--the blood moon was only maybe two or three weeks after the initial diagnosis of it.

The second blood moon is falling right after Rosh Hashana of the Shemitah, which is something else I need to blog about--but suffice it to say, we are living in an economic judgment year, Biblically speaking, which is to say, according to the Biblical calendars set forth in Leviticus. We can expect major economic shut-downs as the year progresses, building up to 13 September 2015, the Biblical-calendar equivalent of 9/29/08 (the day of the 777-point one-day drop, the largest one-day drop in the history of Wall Street) and 9/11. But this Rosh Hashana was also notable because it was the day that Ebola Patient 0 for the US checked into the hospital with his beginning symptoms and was sent home.

Traditionally, how Rosh Hashana goes, as New Year's Day, is supposed to be a symbol of how the rest of the year goes. If that tradition is at all valid, we can expect lots of sickness and people being turned away from medical facilities, as well as medical personnel not seeming to take illness seriously. Hopefully I am just being a crazy person. But in case I am not, that is what I have been feeling.

Conclusion

We are living in a time of signs and wonders in the heavens. If you are not aware of them, it's not because they are not happening. It is time to wake up as they did in ancient days and be aware. Prepare.

We are currently at 10/8/14, approaching the midpoint of the most symmetrical Biblical blood moon tetrad in history.

the Gospel and reading the stars

 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

- Psalms 19:1-2

Stars. Public domain.

The term "astrology" is very loaded in Christianity in general and Mormonism in particular. And it's no surprise: the prophets both ancient and modern have cautioned against it--or more specifically, they have cautioned against putting our faith in the stars.

So I'm sure it probably looks "bad" that I write about things like the Saturn Return and my natal chart and so on and so forth. Isn't that going against what the prophets have taught?

Well, obviously I don't feel that is the case. But I'd like to explain why.

In LDS bookstores now, you can buy an amazing book called Pattern of the Heavens. It is an incredible resource for information about, well, "the pattern of the heavens." The idea contained in Psalms 19:1-7 is that the stars "show knowledge" every night; that "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Psalms 8:3 explains that the heavens, moon and stars have all been "ordained" (ordained for what??). 

Even in Genesis 1 (1:14), as God is creating the earth, He explains that the "lights in the firmament of the heaven" are not just to divide day from night and be for seasons and days and years--they are also "for signs." 

Well, signs for what?

Alma 30:43-44 explains that "the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." 

Job 38:32-33 has a reference to Mazzaroth, the Hebrew zodiac, and asks, "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?" Which obviously implies that there are actually ordinances of heaven. 

Stars. Public domain.

We know from the books of Abraham and Moses that both of those prophets were taught to read the stars. They were shown the "patterns" of "heavenly things." The wise men who came from the East to worship baby Jesus... weren't they led by a star? Perhaps a star in some sort of constellation? Was that wrong? Obviously not. So where does the caution against astrology come from? 

Timothy Adams, in Pattern of the Heavens, explains that the cautions in the scriptures are against worship of the stars. Deuteronomy 17:3, Deuteronomy 18:9-14, 2 Kings 21:3-5, Jeremiah 8:2--they all deal with people actually worshipping "the host of heaven." We are cautioned against making the stars our gods, worshipping them, using them inappropriately. 

Adams writes,

"After consideration of these Old and New Testament scriptures, it is plain to see that those who earlier consulted the stars did so following the pagan practices of surrounding cultures. Not only were they consulting, but they were also practicing divination [defined as "a superstitious method of trying to discover the course of future events," by the LDS Bible Dictionary], and they were even worshipping the figures of those constellations. 

Those who practiced virtue and understood prophecy looked to the stars as a manual for teaching. This added another witness of God's dealings with man, understanding symbols as the "language of righteousness." As long as we distance ourselves from those evil practices of consulting, divining, and worshipping the stars, perhaps we might see the original intent of the constellations of the heavens." 

As long as we are not worshipping the stars, or trying to somehow divine the future from them, it is okay and even right to search them as one would any witness of God. At least, that is my understanding. Many holy men and prophets have studied the stars and the signs in the heavens. Obviously, the wise men did it in order to come find Jesus at His birth. It is not wrong to do that, as long as you come from the proper (read: Christ-centered, Gospel) perspective.

The Zodiac also testifies of Christ. Enjoy
John Pratt's article on the topic.

Indeed, modern LDS astronomer John Pratt has found that heavenly calendars testify of Christ. The heavenly calendars include the movements of Venus, Mercury, Mars, and likely other planets as well. And obviously, the calendars based on the Sun and Moon. If you understand what you are looking at, it becomes clear that they all testify of Christ, His divinity, His mission.

Here's something fun: For Christ's 2000th birthday, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Moon all clustered together, and Mercury and Venus clustered together as well. Is it wrong to note that? I don't think so! What a testament of Christ!

Conclusion

The scriptures and modern prophets caution against worshipping the stars and using them inappropriately. They are meant to act as a witness of God, not as a substitute. The study of the stars is not a substitute for the study of the scriptures, but in conjunction with the study of the scriptures can add a beautiful second witness of God, Christ, and the Plan of Salvation.