Eclipsing the Rapture
By John Earp
“But 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 the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31, NASB)
Recently, those who live in North America were treated to a “blood moon,” immediately followed by a total lunar eclipse. These occurrences are regular, and can be predicted by modern science with great accuracy. While it is perfectly understandable that people might assign divine significance to the event (and of course, those of us who believe that God created everything we see and holds all together by the word of his power have no problem seeing the hand of God involved in such things as eclipses), as is to be expected, some always seek to assign end-time prophetic significance to events such as this. When a series of lunar eclipses occurred a few years ago, some sought to sell a very sensationalistic interpretation of end-time prophecy, with purported connections to the solar eclipse. I will say that those who wrote such things obviously put quite a lot of effort into them. One in particular strongly implied in 2017 that that eclipse along with the then-upcoming eclipse scheduled for 2024, were essentially bookends of the Great Tribulation prophesied of in Scripture. (Since Jesus plainly stated in Matthew 24 that He would return to Earth bodily immediately after the tribulation, and that all the tribes of the earth would witness His return, these would-be prognosticators have been quite manifestly mistaken in their foolish speculation).
Several things lead me to believe that the idea that these solar eclipses have end-time prophetic significance is, quite frankly, silly. While I would not be the least bit upset if Jesus were to return to earth today, the Lord Jesus himself stated in Matthew 24 several conditions that must obtain prior to His return. Further, His statement that, “the sun shall be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,” does not necessarily imply a solar eclipse.
One of the conditions which must happen prior to the return of Christ to earth is stated plainly by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24:14, where it says, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” It is important to note that the word translated in English here as “nations” is the Greek word, “ethnos,” from which the modern English word, “ethnic” is derived. Rather than a modern nation-state such as the USA, the biblical usage refers to tribes or people groups. In the USA, for instance, there are many different “nations” (ethnic groups or tribes) in this sense of the word. That said, those who are involved in the great work of missionary Bible translation have conservatively estimated that at least a portion of the New Testament will be translated into every known language of the world within the next few years. In any case, we can say positively that the gospel of the kingdom has not yet been preached for a testimony into all tribes of the earth as yet, which, again, the Lord Jesus plainly stated would have to happen before the end comes.
The second thing that is important to note is that when Jesus does say that the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give its light, He says this will happen AFTER the tribulation of those days. Nothing is mentioned in Matt. 24 of something like an eclipse happening as a sign of the end PRIOR TO the tribulation period. We also search in vain to find any mention, here or elsewhere in the Gospels, by the Lord Jesus (the greatest, most accurate theologian who ever lived) of any secret rapture prior to the great tribulation period, such as is so popularly believed today, and as has been the subject of many bestselling books over the last several decades.
The statement by the Lord Jesus about the sun being turned to darkness and the moon not giving its light, the stars falling from the sky, and the powers of heaven being shaken seems to most fit instead (if taken strictly literally) with a massive series of asteroid strikes on our planet, or perhaps the eruption of a super volcano, which would send up massive amounts of dust and soot into the atmosphere, blotting out both the sun and the moon. When these signs eventually occur, according to what Jesus says earlier in this same chapter, they will occur after the tribulation of those days, which, He says, will be the worst time that ever has been or will be in all of human history. Further, the Lord said in this chapter that right after these signs, the (unsaved) tribes of the earth shall mourn, for they shall see the Son of Man (Jesus) coming on the clouds with power and great glory.
There is much more that could be said, and by the time of this writing (Wednesday, March 18, 2025), Jesus has obviously not returned yet, and the world has just kept on spinning into the future.
How should we respond to sensationalistic claims of end-times prognosticators? Don’t buy it for a second, my friend. As Jesus himself also says in the latter part of the chapter concerning His return after the tribulation period, believers must stay alert and awake, watching for His return, being about the business of spreading the gospel of the kingdom, so that when the Master does some day return to earth, He will find us working for Him. Some of Jesus’ last words to His disciples before He ascended from Earth to Heaven were that it is not for His disciples (us) to know the times or the seasons which the Father has placed in His own authority (See Acts 1:6-8).