The Sun and Moon Prophecies and Chain of Events, Part 5 of 9

Part 4 covered Joel 2:28-32 and Joel 3.

Both of those tied what happens in the heavens to a chain of bigger events around them, events that would be impossible to miss and impossible to leave out of the record, and the record does not have them.

In Part 5 we keep doing the same thing. Read the passage in full, list the chain of events in the order the text gives them, then check history and see if that chain ever happened.

Part 5 has Amos 8:9-12, four verses where God says he will make the sun go down at noon, and Matthew 24:29-31, where Jesus himself speaks of the sun darkened and the moon giving no light.

It also brings back the Isaiah 24 part that goes with the sun going down at noon.

No teachers, no doctrines from outside. Just the Bible, and the historical record.

1. Amos 8:9-12

"“And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”"

"I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day."

"“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”"

"They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it."

The chain in this passage, in the order it is given:

1. God will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight
2. He will turn their feasts into mourning and all their songs into lamentation
3. Sackcloth will be on every waist and baldness on every head
4. It will be like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day
5. God will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread and not a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord
6. They will wander from sea to sea and from north to east, running to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and they will not find it

Amos spoke these words to the northern kingdom of Israel. In his day that kingdom still stood, rich and at ease, with its capital at Samaria.

The passage opens at noon, the brightest hour of the day. God says he will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Then the feasts stop. Songs turn into mourning, sackcloth goes on every waist, heads are shaved bald, and the grief is like a family mourning an only son.

Then comes the second half of the chain, a famine that is not about food. People will wander from sea to sea hunting for the word of the Lord, and they will not find it.

That northern kingdom did fall, and its fall is real history. Assyria, the empire to the northeast, came against Samaria and surrounded it for three years.

Shalmaneser V, the king of Assyria, started the siege. Sargon II, the king who came after him, finished it, and the city fell in 722 BC.

Sargon put the victory in his own royal record. He says he conquered Samaria and carried away 27,290 of its people, and other peoples were brought in to live in their place.

The Babylonian record from those years says the same kind of thing, that Shalmaneser ravaged Samaria. Armies, sieges, and captives are what the records of that fall are full of.

What those records do not hold is this chain. No record from those years tells of the sun going down at noon over the land as God describes it here.

And no record tells of what follows it: feasts turned to mourning in a day like the mourning for an only son, and a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

No record tells of people wandering from sea to sea and from north to east, hunting for God's word and never finding it.

The fall of Samaria is in the record, down to the number of captives. The chain Amos gives is not.

This is the part that goes with the sun going down at noon.

Back in Part 1, Isaiah 24 said the earth itself would stagger like a drunken man.

Isaiah 24:19-20, 23:

"The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken."

"The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again."

"Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders."

Put the two together and the picture is plain: the earth wobbles like a drunkard, and the sun goes down at noon.

2. Matthew 24:29-31

"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

"Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

"And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

The chain in this passage, in the order it is given:

1. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened
2. The moon will not give its light
3. The stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken
4. The sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn
5. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory
6. He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call
7. The angels will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other

Jesus himself speaks these words. Matthew 24 opens with him walking out of the temple in Jerusalem and telling his disciples that not one stone of it would be left standing on another.

He sat down on the Mount of Olives, across from the temple, and his disciples asked him when these things would be. These verses are part of his answer.

The darkening here is set right after the tribulation of those days. And it is not the last thing in the chain.

After the sun and moon go dark and the stars fall, the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven. Then the Son of Man himself is seen coming on the clouds, and the chain ends with the trumpet and the gathering of his elect.

The temple Jesus pointed to did fall, and that fall is real history too. Rome's army took Jerusalem in AD 70, and the temple was burned down.

Josephus lived through that war and wrote down the strange signs people said they saw over the city before it fell. Part 3 already read them: a star shaped like a sword, a comet, and a light that shone at the altar.

But those signs are not this chain. Josephus wrote about that war in heavy detail, and his record does not have the sun darkened and the moon giving no light and the stars falling from heaven as one event.

His record does not have the sign of the Son of Man appearing in heaven either. It does not have the tribes of the earth mourning at the sight of the Son of Man coming on the clouds.

And it does not have a loud trumpet call, with angels gathering the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. AD 70 is in the record. This chain is not.

And the temple is the standing point of this whole series. The temple Jesus walked out of was destroyed by Rome in AD 70, and no temple has stood in Jerusalem since that day.

The temple of the last days has not been built yet. That is one plain fact the record and the city itself both show today.

That is two more chains. Amos has the sun going down at noon in broad daylight, and the record of Israel's fall does not hold it.

Isaiah's part stands with it: the earth staggering like a drunken man, and the moon confounded and the sun ashamed.

Matthew has the sun darkened and the moon lightless right after the tribulation, with the Son of Man coming and the elect gathered, and no year in the record holds that chain.

Part 6 picks up at Mark 13 and Luke 21, and the chains keep going from there, until the last part lines them all up together.