Eclipse and Path of Totality

My wife and I live in the path of totality.  Yes, that’s right.  We live in the path where for three or four minutes we will see a total eclipse.  For that reason, this rural area with a relatively small population will grow in population over the next few days with people who want to be here too.  For those coming into our parking lot, our church will offer eclipse glasses through which to look at the eclipse when it shows itself in the most significant fashion.

Many people think the eclipse is an eschatological sign.  Even unbelievers around this area speak in a wary way about what’s happening in the sky and what it means for their future.  I’m happy that it has them thinking about their lives.

Signs of the Times Are Everywhere?

I grew up in a small Baptist church in rural Indiana, and I’m not endorsing the song, but I have the words in my mind of one we sang then:

Signs of the times are everywhere,

There’s a brand new feeling in the air,

Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky,

Lift up your eyes, redemption draweth nigh.

For many, that sounds about right.  Signs of the times are everywhere.  Except they’re not.  Signs won’t appear until after the Antichrist reveals himself (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10).  On April 8, if you keep your eyes upon the eastern sky, you better at least be wearing your eclipse glasses.

I know people are writing and producing youtube presentations about the eclipse as a sign of the end times.  I have not read any of these works but just have heard people asking and talking about it as such.  So here goes.  The total eclipse on April 8 is not a sign of the end times.  It isn’t.

Seeking After Signs

What gets people’s attention, I believe, is the weird or earie astronomical nature of the eclipse.  It’s obvious and odd.  Jesus’ own birth provided a star, a sign in the sky for that event.  People who followed Him around also wanted astronomical signs from Him, but He said He wouldn’t give them.  He said in Matthew 16:4:

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

The sign of the prophet Jonas was Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  So He says, besides that, He would give no more signs to that generation.  The message of Jesus was that scripture was sufficient.  “But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28).  Blessing came to those who believe the word of God without having or seeing signs.  Signs are not for them who believe, but believe not.  Believers don’t need signs.  They believe, and faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17), not from signs.

Era of Astronomical Signs

Jesus in Luke 21:25 says that during the Tribulation period on earth, Revelation chapters six through sixteen, God will give astronomical signs:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.

Peter references these occurrences in Acts 2:20 on the Day of Pentecost:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:

This references Joel 2:31, which also also says this is when “the great and terrible day of the LORD come(s).”  These signs mark the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when He opens the seals of His judgment.  People on earth will know they have little time for salvation at that point.

None of us need signs, because nothing needs to occur for the rapture of the saints (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  Neither do unbelievers need signs for sufficiently knowing they’ll be left behind for God’s judgment.  Not just that, but it is already appointed unto man once to die (Hebrews 9:27), and no man knows when that will occur (Proverbs 27:1, James 4:14).  In the next second, eclipse or no eclipse coming, the Lord could descend through the clouds to meet true believers in the air.

Signifying Nothing

This total eclipse signifies nothing.  Eclipses happen.  The fact that we could predict this one indicates that God created astronomical bodies with mathematical precision.  Ships navigate by the movements of celestial bodies.  This testifies already to the glory of God, eclipse or no eclipse.

Eclipses testify to man’s helplessness and the immensity of God’s creation.  The sun is just one star of many, not even the largest.  It is a fiery, hot mass that God created just the right distance away for enough heat without burning up men.  It’s not always going to be this way though.  Everything in the future will burn with a fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10), annihilating everything, and God will create a new heaven and a new earth.  Only those who believe in Jesus Christ will make it to the other side and a whole new and eternal and blessed era.

Reminder of Opportunities

Man does not have interminable opportunities for salvation.  If the eclipse helps him remember this, the eclipse offers a great blessing to him.  No doubt an eclipse gets people’s attention and makes them think.  If men continue in their sin, never listening to God’s Word, then the eclipse serves very little purpose for them.  Perhaps it just makes men more proud, because they saw it with their special glasses.  Now they can say they’ve done another thing that makes them more special.

The total eclipse does provide an opportunity.  It parallels with future astronomical events that will be signs.  They provoke men to think about the last times.  On April 8, 2024 and even before and after that day, let everyone consider what Jesus warned in Matthew 24:44:

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

The eclipse is not a sign, but Jesus said always to be ready.  Be ready for His return.  Paul says that it will occur in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52-54).  Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).