There has been much ado lately about the solar eclipse expected on August 21st. No eclipse of this kind has occurred in the continental U.S. observable from coast to coast since 1918. It is a big deal and people across the nation are planning to watch the phenomenon in celebratory ways.
Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of world-renowned evangelist, Dr. Billy Graham, thinks that it might be a warning. In a blog on her website titled, Is God’s Judgment Coming on America? Lotz recently said, “People are preparing to mark this significant event with viewing parties at exclusive prime sites. The celebratory nature regarding the eclipse brings to my mind the Babylonian King Belshazzar who threw a drunken feast the night the Medes and Persians crept under the city gate. While Belshazzar and his friends partied, they were oblivious to the impending danger. Belshazzar wound up dead the next day, and the Babylonian empire was destroyed.”
Lotz added, “While no one can know for sure if judgment is coming on America, it does seem that God is signaling us about something.”
I’m inclined to agree with her, as well as a number of other Christian leaders, who’ve made similar remarks.
Although solar eclipses are not always a sign of God’s coming judgment, in Scripture the darkening of the sun is associated with forthcoming calamities at the hand of God.
Certainly, the most significant mention of a solar eclipse in the Bible was recorded as having occurred during the crucifixion of Christ. The New American Bible rightly translates Luke 23:44-45, saying that while Christ was upon the cross of Calvary, “It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun.”
In Christ’s death on the cross, when the sun was eclipsed, God was judging the sins of the world. Moreover, Jerusalem’s destruction was also imminent because of her sin, which was a figure of the general judgment of all the nations that reject the Lord’s Christ.
It’s significant, I think, that the coming solar eclipse on August 21st is called the Great American Eclipse. It will arch the country from Oregon to South Carolina. This total eclipse will touch only one country: the United States. A century ago, the total eclipse of 1918 swept from the west coast to the east coast too, but it also visited the Bahamas. This one, with its possible implications of a coming judgment, seems strictly for America.
America is definitely ripe for judgment. This nation has become a fountainhead of moral putridity, and its influence is global. Judgment is always an act of God’s justice against sin, but it can also be an act of his mercy. When God judged Adam and Eve for their sin, sentencing them to death and casting them out of Eden, it was an act of mercy lest they should live in an eternal state of depravity. When God judged the world with a universal deluge in Noah’s day, it was an act of mercy lest mankind in his wickedness and rampant violence destroy the human race. Perhaps God’s judgment of America’s great evils would be an act of mercy, saving much of the rest of the world from the spread of her transgressions, and making us an example of the need to repent and believe.
In just a few days, the sun will turn black across our land. Is it a sign from the heavens calling upon our nation to turn from its sins and to Christ or suffer the consequences? I don’t really know. What I do know, however, is that we would be wise to treat it as though this very well may be the case.
Think about the matter carefully. Many dangers seem to be on the horizon for our country. Figuratively speaking, only the most stubborn and unreasonable could feel the rumblings and witness the steam venting of current events and not abandon their sin. Perhaps the darkened sun bespeaks the need to flee from being buried beneath the concussion, mud, and ash of God’s mighty wrath.