Signs in the Sky, Earth, and Sea?

And there will be signs in sun, and moon, and stars, and on the earth distress of nations with perplexity, sea and wave roaring... (Lk. 21:25, LSV)

We've often discussed the signs in the heavens and the signs on the earth, but it looks like God is even speaking through the sea.  And no doubt, for the Scriptures say:

...because all things were created in Him, those in the heavens, and those on the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him... (Col. 1:16, LSV)

And,

...and He answering said to them, “I say to you that if these will be silent, the stones will cry out!” (Lk. 19:40, LSV)

Let's revisit that first Scripture passage I cited: Luke 21:25.  We see a threefold witness of signs pointing to the end of the age and the return of Christ.

The first witness includes signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and indeed God created these astronomical objects for this very purpose according to Genesis 1:14, though few acknowledge the practical significance of this.  In the 19th psalm David proclaims that God is speaking through the sky continually, both day and night.  Very few are listening.

The second witness is the signs on the earth.  Think the regathering of Jews, rebirth of Israel, conquest of Jerusalem, preparation for the Third Temple, and the rapid movement toward global governance.

The third and final witness listed in Luke 21:25 is signs in the sea.  Perhaps we haven't given this enough of our attention.  Surely every word of God is worth our focus.

Let's take a look at these signs in the sea, but first a quick review of the signs in the heavens and signs on the earth.

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Signs in the Heavens

There have been signs in the heavens from the beginning of time, just as Genesis 1:14 and Psalm 19:1–4 indicate.  The sign of Genesis 3:15–16 may have appeared in the sky on July 28th of 3974 BC as I wrote about in my recent article Turning Point 2020.  Then of course the Star of Bethlehem sign appeared around the time of Christ's birth and infancy, likely in the years 3–2 BC.  In the days of Joshua the sun and moon both stood still (Josh. 10:12–13), and in the days of King Hezekiah the sun went backwards (Isa. 38:5–8).  Extra-biblical sources even indicate a heavenly sign appeared at the birth of Abraham (source).  These heavenly signs have always been with us, and for centuries Jewish and Christian scholars took these messages from God very, very seriously.  Today, God's heavenly signs are widely mocked as astrology, although astrology and biblical astronomy are two completely different things.  Astrology is the worship of sun, moon, and stars, or divining one's life by them.  This is a pagan and idolatrous practice.  Biblical astronomy is trusting the plain words of Scripture in regard to the sun, moon, and stars and discerning what God is saying to His people and the world through them.

There have been manifold signs in the sun, moon, and stars in these last of the last days, including blood moons and solar eclipses, comets, and other strange occurrences, but nothing compares to the redemption story that began at the end of 2016 and ends in the 2027–28 timeframe.  The twelve constellations that fall along the ecliptic, which the Bible calls the Mazzaroth, are depicting an end-of-the-age story that includes the Great Sign of Revelation 12, and perhaps even the return of Christ as early as 2027.  This heavenly depiction is clear, unambiguous, and perfectly ordered, and the story progresses just as you might expect if God were telling the story.  If talk of “signs in the heavens” concerns you or produces an eye-roll, I would encourage you to give this a second look.  The Bible is actually surprisingly clear about these signs.  I lay out this 2016 through 2027/28 redemption story unequivocally in my recent series on biblical astronomy:

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Signs on the Earth

The heavenly signs are accompanied by the more concrete end-of-the-age signs that have transpired—and are transpiring—on the earth.  These include a great many events and milestones reached in Israel and on earth in relation to Bible prophecy that tell us beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are indeed the final generation:

1. The regathering of the Jews to Eretz Yisrael (“Land of Israel”) from the late 1800s onward.

2. The development of the first proto-global governments in the form of the now-defunct League of Nations and the present United Nations.

3. The reestablishment of the nation of Israel in 1948, restoring the biblical nation after a roughly 2,700-year hiatus (722 BC to 1948 AD), which kicked off the fig tree generation.

4. The conquest of Jerusalem by the Jews in 1967, ending a nearly two millennia-long period of desolation in which the city was controlled by the Gentiles.

5. The gospel finally going forth to every nation on earth.

6. The preparation of virtually everything needed for construction of the Third Temple, including the blueprints, cornerstones, ornate vessels, the Golden Lampstand, the Table of Showbread, the Altar of Burnt Offering, the priestly garments for the lay priests and high priest, and the priests themselves who have been genetically identified as the very descendants of Aaron.  The priests have even been formally trained in service to the Third Temple.

7. The state of global rebellion and lawlessness as described in 1 Timothy 4:1, 2 Timothy 3:1–7, Daniel 8:23, and 2 Thessalonians 2, necessary to usher in the Antichrist.

8. The development of the technology necessary to implement the mark of the beast worldwide (Rev. 13:16–17).

9. The restoration of the biblical identity of the nation of Israel via the 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law.

10. And finally, a “peace plan” that could finally succeed in dividing the land of Israel, thus ushering in the judgment of God (Jl. 3:2; Zech. 12:1–3).  This plan will ultimately be implemented or made to prevail, post-rapture, by the Antichrist himself (Dan. 9:27).

If you'd like to study these signs on the earth in much greater detail, take a look at a few of these articles:

Major Prophetic Milestones

Top 20 Signs of the Rapture and Second Coming of Christ

10 Reasons Jesus Will Come Back in Our Lifetimes

The Parable of the Fig Tree

As It Was in the Days of Noah

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Signs in the Sea

This finally brings us to the third category of signs mentioned in Luke 21:25: signs in the sea.  The book of Revelation describes clear signs such as the sea turning to blood, ships sinking, and a mountain (or meteorite) crashing into the ocean, but these clear prophetic events transpire during the Tribulation itself, as the wrath of God is poured out on a Christ-rejecting world.  The Church will not be on earth to witness these things.  All that said—there seem to be a series of signs in the great oceans of the world that tell us the Lord's coming is nigh at hand.  And they largely have to do with the roaring and tossing of the sea as mentioned in Luke's gospel account.

Step back in time with me a few years, back to September of 2017—the month of the Great Sign.  For those students of Bible prophecy familiar with the sign, how could you ever forget it?  The first two verses of the twelfth chapter of Revelation were fulfilled, not figuratively as theologians had assumed for centuries, but literally.  In the sky.  For all to see.  And without any sort of confusion or ambiguity.  Just a decade earlier who could have ever imagined that what John transcribed in the account of his vision was an actual astronomical sign just as the text indicates?  While the sign was an astronomical alignment pointing forward to the rapture of the Church and the subsequent Tribulation, it also naturally reminds us of the prophetic template of a woman, a male child, and a serpent, in the form of Mary, Christ, and the wicked ruler Herod who sought the child's destruction.

The image of a woman in labor with a male child, in danger from a serpent-dragon, finds its prototype in Genesis 3:15–16, and the image persists throughout the Old Testament, into the gospels with Christ's nativity, and ultimately into the Tribulation as outlined in Revelation 12.  While the prophecy in Genesis 3 was first and foremost about Christ, it finds future [and final] fulfillment in and through the body of Christ, the Church.  You cannot read Christ into the prophecy of Revelation 12 and regard the passage as literal truth (see here, here, and here).  The nativity story didn't end in Matthew 2 or Luke 2—it continues on to this very day as we, the body of Christ, await our own birth into heavenly bodies to complete the serpent-crushing prophecy that Christ began to fulfill in the gospels (Rm. 16:20).

This brings us back to the topic at hand: signs in the sea.  It just so happens that the nativity story has been playing out in the sea right before our very eyes, and it has worked in tandem with the signs in the heavens.  The roaring and tossing of the sea is proclaiming God's glory!  In September of 2017, as the astronomical sign was forming of a woman clothed with the sun, crowned by twelve stars, with the moon under her feet, and in labor with a male child, two powerful hurricanes developed in the Atlantic Ocean: one named Maria (Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek for “Mary”) and the other Jose (Spanish, Portuguese, and French for “Joseph”).

Mary formed on September 16th, just one week before the Revelation 12 Sign, and Joseph formed a week and a half earlier, on September 5th.  These powerful cyclones raged through the Atlantic the entire week leading up to the Great Sign, and even after, with Jose dissipating on September 25th and Maria dissipating on October 2nd.  Maria was the third-costliest cyclone in world history, causing nearly $100 billion in damages and over 3,000 fatalities, while wrecking havoc throughout the Caribbean.

Jose, on the other hand, was the longest-lived Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Nadine some five years earlier, and it took a similar path as Maria.  These storms were both raging during the Revelation 12 Sign.  Given that the name lists used by the World Meteorological Organization to name cyclones are prepared years in advance and that over a six-year span no letter will see the same name repeated, the probability of this incredible convergence coinciding with the Revelation 12 Sign is less than nil.  Even excluding the Revelation 12 Sign itself, this nativity-story-at-sea will never occur again because the name Maria has been permanently retired due to the tragic loss of life. 

But there is more to this story still...

Just as Revelation 12:1–2 was fulfilled on September 23, 2017, at the exact same time as Mary and Joseph were churning through the Atlantic, so too the astronomical aspect of Revelation 12:3–4, which depicted Satan and his angels being cast of Heaven, was fulfilled on October 8, 2018, the exact same day that a hurricane called Michael formed!  Remember, in the narrative of Revelation 12 it is the Archangel Michael that casts Satan out of Heaven (Rev. 12:7–9)!  This couldn't happen in a world governed by chance.  Below is Michael as it formed into a hurricane on October 8, 2018, the same day as the massive Draconids meteor shower:

In the story told in Revelation 12, what happens next?  The male child is presented in the heavenly temple, in the very throne room of God (Rev. 12:5).  Now how does this connect with Jesus' own nativity story?  We learn the answer in Luke chapter 2:

And when the days of their purification were fulfilled, according to the Law of Moses, they brought Him up to Jerusalem, to present to the LORD, as it has been written in the Law of the LORD: “Every male opening a womb will be called holy to the LORD...”

...And there was Anna, a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, she was much advanced in days, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, and she [is] a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, serving with fasts and supplications, night and day, and she, at that hour, having come in, was confessing, likewise, to the LORD, and was speaking concerning Him, to all those looking for redemption in Jerusalem. (Lk. 2:22–23, 36–38, LSV)

After Jesus was born, and after the time of purification had transpired as determined by the Law of Moses, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple.  There at the Temple He was seen, acknowledged, and blessed by the prophetess Anna, the only prophetess mentioned in the New Testament.

On July 24th of this year, just ten days ago, Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Gulf of Mexico.  Hanna is the actual transliteration of the Greek name of the prophetess as recorded in Luke 2:36.  Anna is an Anglicization.  Upgraded to a hurricane the next day, Hanna passed over Corpus Christi (Latin for “Body of Christ”), with the eye hitting Padre Island, some distance south of the city.  Just as Christ was presented to God in the earthly Temple in Jerusalem and was seen by the prophetess Hanna, so too the body of Christ will soon be presented to God in the heavenly temple.

Interestingly, in August 2017, one month before the Revelation 12 Sign and the accompanying hurricanes of Maria and Jose, Hurricane Harvey struck Corpus Christi almost head on, making landfall mere miles from the city, and causing residents of the “Body of Christ” to be evacuated.  Again, this was just a month before the Revelation 12 Sign of a woman in labor.  The real body of Christ is removed from the earth prior to the labor pains of the Tribulation in a way reminiscent of how residents of Corpus Christi were evacuated prior to the Revelation 12 Sign (see here; cf. Isa. 66:7–9; 1 Thess. 5:9; Rev. 3:10).  Hurricane Harvey went on to become the first or second costliest cyclone in world history (tied with Katrina), causing massive flooding in the Houston area and immense destruction along the coast of Texas.

Fast forward to this present moment and Hurricane Isaias (“Isaiah”) is wreaking havoc along the East Coast of the United States.  Isaiah was the major prophet who prophesied not only of Christ and the gospel (Isa. 7:14; 9:6; 52:13–12; 61:1), but also of the rapture of the Church, the return of Christ, and the millennial period (Isa. 26:17–21; 66:7–9; 9:7; 11:1–12:6; 66:12–24).  He is considered by many scholars to be the most messianic of the prophets.

Isaias formed on July 30th, the 9th of Av, the date on the Jewish calendar on which the First and Second Temples fell and both world wars began.  Today, Tuesday the 4th of August, Isaias passes over both Washington, D.C. and New York.  Nearly 19 years earlier, on Tuesday the 11th of September, hijacked aircraft slammed into the Pentagon (Washington, D.C.) and the Twin Towers (New York).

Isaias made landfall in the United States at precisely 11:10 PM Eastern Time last night.

And there has been, in that day, || A Root of Jesse that is standing for an ensign of peoples, || Nations seek Him, || And His rest has been glorious! (Isa. 11:10, LSV)

The prophet Isaiah declared that the nations would seek and be gathered to the Root of Jesse.  Jesus Himself is that root (cf. Rev. 22:16)!  Reading further, we see that God will soon finish gathering His people and will restore Israel once and for all:

And it has come to pass in that day, || The Lord adds His power a second time, || To get the remnant of His people that is left, || From Asshur, and from Egypt, || And from Pathros, and from Cush, || And from Elam, and from Shinar, || And from Hamath, and from islands of the sea, || And He has lifted up an ensign to nations, || And gathers the driven away of Israel, || And He assembles the scattered of Judah, || From the four wings of the earth. (Isa. 11:11–12, LSV)

In this article I'm merely scratching the surface in terms of signs in the sea.  The sea and waves are roaring!  God is clearly speaking through all of creation—earth, sky, and sea.  And all of creation is crying out: “Prepare ye the way for the LORD!  Make His paths straight!  Let the earth finally, after millennia of waiting, receive her rightful King!”  He is coming soon.  Very, very, very soon.

~ MARANATHA ~

Holy, holy, holy!
Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise Thy Name
In earth and sky and sea

Lord of all creation
Of the water, earth, and sky
The Heavens are Your Tabernacle
Glory to the Lord on high

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