Prophetic

It's eclipse day! This means Jesus is coming back, the seven-year tribulation period is about to begin, God is passing judgment specifically on America, and constellations are soon to align which signal the fulfillment of Revelation 12. I'll see you on the other side!

Or . . . not. Since all of that is bunk. Every last bit of that (and far more) has come across my desk recently, and it tells me Christians have issues with what prophecy truly is. Biblical prophecy is not endless lists of clues, codes, and enigmas which take vast arrays of outside knowledge to unravel and comprehend across thousands of years. It is not reading the newspaper, declaring, "It's a sign!" and then rushing to take Scripture out of context to make it fit the morning headlines.

Instead, biblical prophecy can best be explained by the refrain of Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones: "Prophesy . . . and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says'" (Ezekiel 37:5,9,12). It's not speaking in coded riddles, even if some actions are a bit weird. It's declaring, either openly in words or in symbolic actions later explained, the word of the Lord. It's telling a specific people a specific message from God. God doesn't speak in incomprehensible gobbledy-gook it takes modern science to interpret; He is not the author of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33, KJV). His word will be ordered, understandable, and available to all -- not just so-called "prophecy experts" (most of whom are just trying to sell books -- the very definition of a false prophet [see 2 Peter 2:3,14-15 and Didache ch. 11]).

Enjoy the eclipse. Be safe as you do so. But know it's not an omen of damnation; rather, it's just part of the beauty and mystery of God's creation. If you must view it as a sign, then let it be a sign of precisely that: a sign of how incredible our Creator truly is.