Love Under Fire

Moon as Blood

“When night came, its darkness was just as odd and terrifying as the day's darkness had been. Though there was almost a full moon, no object was visible without the help of some artificial light. When people saw these lights from the neighboring houses and other places at a distance, it was as though they were looking through a kind of Egyptian darkness which seemed almost to let no light through at all.”⁶ “If every shining body in the universe had been wrapped in light-proof shades or struck out of existence, the darkness could not have been more complete.”⁷ After midnight the darkness disappeared, and the moon, when it first became visible, had the appearance of blood. LF 130.2

May 19, 1780, stands in history as “The Dark Day.” Since the time of Moses no darkness has ever been recorded that equaled its density, extent, and duration. The description of eyewitnesses echoes the prophet Joel's words recorded twenty-five hundred years earlier: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD” (Joel 2:31). LF 130.3

“When these things begin to happen,” Christ said, “look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” He pointed His followers to the springtime's budding trees: “When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.” (Luke 21:28, 30, 31.) LF 130.4

But in the church love for Christ and faith in His coming had grown cold. Those who claimed to be the people of God were blind to the Savior's instructions about the signs of His appearing. They had neglected the doctrine of the Second Advent until, to a great extent, it was ignored and forgotten, especially in America. A consuming devotion to money-making, the rush for popularity and power, led people to put off, far into the future, that solemn day when this world as we know it would pass away. LF 130.5

The Savior predicted the low spiritual condition of believers that would exist just before His second advent. Christ's counsel to those living at this time is: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly.... Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34, 36). LF 130.6

It was important to alert people to prepare for the solemn events connected with the close of probation. “The day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it?” Who can stand when He appears who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil,” and “cannot look on wickedness”? “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.” “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them”; “their goods shall become booty, and their houses a desolation.” (Joel 2:11; Habakkuk 1:13; Isaiah 13:11; Zephaniah 1:18, 13.) LF 130.7