Yom Kippur Remembrances

I was listening to the Prairie Home Companion radio show last Saturday and a Jewish man sang a song in Hebrew in recognition of Yom Kippur. Good old Garrison Keillor (I used to live in the Twin Cities and saw him in person) he at least mentioned it. The next day I attended one of the best churches in suburban Detroit and nothing was said about the Biblical holiday. Why is that?

I also thought of my second year at Bethel college in Arden Hills, Minnesota. I was taking some art classes when the war broke out. It caused me to create an art piece that I posted a few years ago. Here is the link to that image:

http://luthersbaggage.blogspot.com/2011/12/yom-kippur-war-1973-drawing.html

Coincidentally, I am reading the book The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich who was a reporter for the Jerusalem Post. It’s a great book. What is truly fascinating to me is that I was in that area two years before war broke out. My aircraft carrier, the USS Independence, had just left from Athens and was on its way to the Greek island of Rhodes. I was looking forward to this because our ship had never been there before (this was my second Med cruise). And then the conflict that became known as black September occurred. The trip to Rhodes was cancelled and we were sent off the coast of Israel for one month. Because I worked in Photographic Intelligence at our ship’s intelligence center I was deep into the activities related to the region. I saw some extremely cool photography of the countries involved. As I’m reading the book I have flashbacks to many of the places that I saw. Israel was caught off guard in this war but was able to recover with the help of the United States. I am 100% committed to helping Israel. 

Finally, I need to say that I read on my kindle the book BLOOD MOONS by Mark Biltz. It’s a very interesting phenomenon where the moon goes through four total lunar eclipses in a row. When it does this it is called a tetrad. There were 62 tetrads in the last 2000 years. But the key is, when did these fall on Biblical feast days? Only 8 times, and some of those dates are provocative for Israel: 1492, 1948, 1967. Nine is the number of completion and the ninth tetrad began on Passover, 2014

1. Passover-April 15, 2014

2. Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles)-October 8, 2014

3. Passover-April 4, 2015

4. Feast of Tabernacles-September 28, 2015

The blogs are busy anticipating what will happen on these dates and during these times. There are some who are refuting Biltz’s claims. To throw out the baby with the bath water is a mistake.

The strength of this book is really in its strong belief that the Gentile Church needs to honor, study, and observe in some way the Biblical holidays because God is trying to tell us something through them. Yes the Middle East is a powder keg with ISIS on the move and Netanyahu defending Israel against the world’s ridiculous accusations. Will the United States remember that we have been a blessed nation (in part) because we were founded on Biblical principles and because we have supported Israel? I hope so.