Blood Moons and Darkened Suns: What Bible Prophecy Says
A red moon or a darkened sun can immediately make people think about Bible prophecy. But does every eclipse fulfill Joel or Revelation? I want to follow the passages in their own setting and sequence before deciding what these signs mean.
Ordinary Eclipses and Prophetic Signs
We hear “blood moon” in news reports and astronomy calendars as well as sermons and prophecy discussions. A red moon can be beautiful, and a darkened sun can bring a city to a standstill in wonder. But I do not believe that sight can tell me what a passage means. Scripture must tell us when an announced sign occurs, how far its effects reach, and what God intends to accomplish through it.
Joel places wonders in heaven and earth before the great and awesome Day of the LORD, and Peter quotes that promise at the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. Jesus places the darkened sun immediately after the Tribulation and before His visible appearing. John’s vision of the sixth seal includes much more than a changed moon. The sun becomes black and the moon looks like blood, while stars fall and the sky recedes. Every mountain and island is moved. I need to notice those different settings even though the passages share so much language.
The prophets had already used darkened heavenly lights to describe God’s overthrow of proud rulers and nations. That Old Testament background helps us understand the future signs, but it does not turn them into mere metaphors for political change. They are real acts of God that will shake the created order. We need to hear the prophetic language without explaining away what God promises to do.
Reading Joel alongside Peter’s sermon in Acts will help us understand what began at Pentecost. Revelation and the Olivet Discourse then show how the promised signs fit into future events. Earlier judgment prophecies supply background too, and I want to keep them in their historical settings. Together, these passages help distinguish routine eclipses from the connected signs of the Day of the LORD. We also need to keep the church’s pre-Tribulation hope distinct from Christ’s public return after the Tribulation.
God made the heavenly lights, the earth, and the atmosphere through which sunlight passes. Their regular motions within His orderly creation allow eclipses to be predicted. During a total lunar eclipse, Earth stands between the sun and moon. The atmosphere filters sunlight so that redder light reaches the lunar surface. The moon may then look copper or orange and sometimes deep red. A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, blocking part or all of the sun from view in particular locations.
Ordinary eclipses display the order of creation, so we need neither fear nor mock the mechanisms behind them. They occur on calculable schedules and have been observed many times. The prophecy that speaks of “the moon into blood” cannot be reduced to every red eclipse simply because people call it a “blood moon.” That modern popular nickname does not determine the meaning of the inspired passage.
Joel places the changed moon among wonders in heaven and earth as the Day of the LORD approaches. Blood and fire appear with pillars of smoke, and the sun becomes dark. Revelation 6 describes a worldwide earthquake along with the blackened sun and bloodlike moon. Stars fall as the sky rolls away, and mountains and islands move from their places. In Matthew 24, darkened lights and shaken heavenly powers accompany the unmistakable appearing of the Son of Man. I cannot identify any of those descriptions with a lunar eclipse alone when the passages describe so much happening together.
Eclipse tables therefore cannot set a date for the Lord’s return. A lunar tetrad consists of four total lunar eclipses with no partial eclipse between them. Some prophecy teachers attach special meaning to tetrads near biblical feast dates, but Scripture never gives that pattern as a prophetic calendar. An interesting pattern or a viral photograph cannot supply that authority. Jesus does call His people to watch. The apostles explain that watchfulness as sober faith in Christ, expressed through love for others and hope of salvation. That hope leads to holiness and faithful service. Following every astronomical headline would do me little good if I ignored the Lord who made the heavens.
Joel, Pentecost, and the Day of the LORD
Joel’s prophecy begins with land devastated by a locust invasion and ordinary worship disrupted. He first called the priests to lament, then summoned the elders and the rest of the people to return to the LORD. From that immediate disaster, he looked ahead to a greater Day of the LORD. The book gathers the nation before God amid ruined fields, then promises restored blessing and the outpouring of His Spirit. Cosmic wonders will precede judgment among the nations, after which the LORD will dwell in Zion.
Joel names no king, which has led to long debates about whether the book should receive an early or late date. The prophecy’s authority does not depend on my settling that dispute. We can see its setting in the book itself: God’s covenant people were under severe chastening and were being called to repent. Through that historical crisis, Joel also showed a final intervention still to come.
"And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the LORD has said, Among the remnant whom the LORD calls.
Before speaking of wonders in heaven and earth, God promises to pour out His Spirit across generations and social positions. Sons and daughters will prophesy, old and young will receive revelation, and servants will share in the gift. The red moon therefore does not stand alone as a signal. It appears with blood and fire, rising smoke, and a darkened sun before the great and awesome Day arrives. Even in that announcement of judgment, I hear an invitation to grace: whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.
“All flesh” does not say that every human being automatically receives the Spirit or is saved. Joel names people who had often been separated by age, sex, or social standing. Peter’s use of the passage shows God crossing those boundaries as He gives His Spirit to believers. The offer is open to everyone, but calling upon the Lord remains necessary.
Joel 3 also describes judgment in the valley of decision and the LORD roaring from Zion. That keeps me from reading the open invitation as a promise that everyone will be saved. Those who call upon Him find deliverance, while those who persist in rebellion face the Judge. The mercy and judgment belong together because the holy God who confronts evil also invites sinners to call upon Him.
Joel’s Hebrew says that the moon will be turned hayyareach ledam, “to blood.” The phrase describes a bloodlike transformation within the prophetic scene but does not explain a scientific mechanism. The surrounding wonders, rather than a modern nickname, tell us what the expression means.
At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the disciples and they began speaking in languages that visitors from many lands understood. Some listeners mocked them and accused them of drunkenness. Peter stood with the eleven and used Scripture to explain what the crowd had witnessed. Acts 2 therefore will not let us push every part of Joel into the future with no connection to Pentecost.
But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.'
Peter did not say, “This resembles Joel but is not its fulfillment.” He said, “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.” The promised outpouring had begun, marking the last-days work Joel announced. Peter’s hearers needed to recognize that God was acting through the risen and exalted Christ.
That morning, however, the sun did not turn dark and the moon did not become bloodlike. The full Day of the LORD had not arrived. Peter quoted the whole movement of Joel’s promise, bringing separated stages into one view. The Spirit’s outpouring began at Pentecost, while the cosmic signs and the judgment they lead toward remain future. We can see the interval more clearly once fulfillment has begun. Old Testament passages similarly place the Messiah’s suffering beside the glory that would follow much later.
Peter’s words keep me from treating Pentecost as an illustration unrelated to Joel, but the unfulfilled signs keep me from saying Joel’s promise ended there. I believe we need both parts of his interpretation. The outpouring truly began, and we still await the completion of the promise.
The Day of the LORD is not a twenty-four-hour label for one eclipse. In the prophets, it describes a decisive time when He enters history in judgment, bringing proud powers low and vindicating His holy purposes. He will ultimately establish His promised rule. To understand how much a particular passage includes, we need to follow its context.
Some prophets use Day-of-the-LORD language for a historical judgment that anticipates the final reckoning. Isaiah 13 concerns Babylon’s fall, while Joel begins with a locust disaster and Amos announces judgment on the northern kingdom. Those interventions reveal the same holy Ruler who will one day judge the world. Other passages speak directly of the future Tribulation and Christ’s visible return. Some continue through His kingdom or reach as far as the final renewal of creation.
I understand the future Day as a series of connected prophetic events. Christ will first gather His church before the seven-year Tribulation. That seven-year length comes from Daniel 9, where the final prophetic “week” concerning Daniel’s people and Jerusalem represents seven years. The ruler’s covenant and its violation halfway through also explain the divided halves seen elsewhere in prophecy.
During that final week, divine judgments will expose the rebellion led by Antichrist, and God will resume His public dealings with Israel. Jesus will then return bodily and visibly to overthrow His enemies and deliver Israel. He will reign for a literal thousand years. The prophetic movement reaches its completion when evil is finally defeated and creation is renewed.
Those passages help me understand why the Day can include more than one event without becoming a vague expression. In 1 Thessalonians 5, sudden destruction overtakes the unbelieving world, while believers belong to the light and are not appointed to wrath. Matthew 24 places Christ’s visible coming after the Tribulation, and 2 Peter 3 reaches to the dissolution of the present heavens and earth. One Lord governs the Day, but its events unfold in ordered stages.
The Sixth Seal and Christ’s Visible Return
Revelation 6 describes far more than a routine eclipse. The previous chapter reveals Jesus Christ as the Lamb who alone is worthy to take God’s sealed scroll and open it. That tells me these judgments neither escape His control nor surprise heaven. At the sixth seal, upheaval among people extends throughout the created world. Earth and sky are shaken as the sun and moon change appearance, stars fall, and mountains and islands move from their places.
I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
John says the whole moon became “like blood.” The Greek comparison describes its appearance without telling us the physical cause. I should not use “like” to turn the event into an inner feeling or a political metaphor. Neither should I claim to know a mechanism the passage never names. John tells us what the moon looks like and places it within an unmistakable cosmic catastrophe.
The people’s response helps us understand what this catastrophe means. Rulers and military commanders seek somewhere to hide, but wealth and social position offer no protection. Slaves and free people share the same terror before the One on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb. All that human power fails to answer the question, “Who is able to stand?” Revelation 7 shows that God knows His servants and that a redeemed multitude can stand before His throne. They stand because salvation belongs to God and the Lamb.
The Lamb’s wrath is His righteous judgment against rebellion. We must not confuse it with the false claim that the Father poured wrath on Jesus at the cross. Wicked men tortured Him, shed His blood, and killed Him as He physically bore the punishment for our sins in His innocent body. The Father did not punish or curse His Son. He neither abandoned Him nor struck or bruised Him, and He did not pour wrath upon Him. Jesus willingly gave Himself for the whole world and rose bodily from the dead. The risen Lamb genuinely offers salvation, yet He will judge those who finally refuse Him.
In Matthew 24, Jesus answered questions raised by His prophecy about the temple. He warned the disciples that false christs would come and wars would trouble the world. His teaching then moved through persecution to the abomination of desolation and the great Tribulation. When He described the signs of His public return, He gave their timing explicitly.
For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Jesus places the signs “immediately after the tribulation of those days.” The sun will be darkened and the moon will stop giving its light. Stars will fall as the powers of heaven are shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear. The tribes will mourn when they see Him coming with power and great glory. His appearing will not depend on a secret internet interpretation. Jesus compares it to lightning spanning the sky because His return will be public and unmistakable.
I distinguish this visible appearing from the church’s gathering in 1 Thessalonians 4 because the passages describe different settings and an ordered sequence. Paul comforts the church with the promise that dead believers will rise before living believers are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. In Matthew 24, Jesus speaks within Israel’s Tribulation setting. The heavens shake and the world mourns as the Son of Man arrives openly after the Tribulation. The same Lord acts in both events, but we should not lose the differences Scripture gives them.
The strong verbal parallels lead some interpreters to identify Matthew’s cosmic signs with Revelation’s sixth seal. Others follow Revelation’s sequence and place that seal earlier than Matthew 24:29. I do not think a reading that places these events in the future has to force every darkening into the same instant. Revelation describes further cosmic judgments as the trumpets sound after the seals and the bowls are poured out. The signs can recur with increasing intensity. Jesus places their culmination immediately before His public appearing.
Revelation 8 helps us see why every disturbance cannot be identified with the sixth seal or the final appearing. At the fourth trumpet, one-third of the heavenly lights are struck.
Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"
One-third keeps appearing in this description, showing restraint even within severe judgment. Daylight and night are both diminished before a heavenly warning announces three remaining woes. Since the trumpets follow the opening of the seventh seal, this darkening cannot simply be treated as one undifferentiated event with every other disturbance.
I understand those events to unfold in this order. Christ gathers the church before the Tribulation, then the Lamb opens the seals. The sixth brings vast disruption throughout the created order. The trumpet judgments follow, with the fourth striking one-third of the heavenly lights. Later, the bowls intensify God’s judgment on the rebellious world. Immediately after the Tribulation, the climactic signs Jesus described accompany His visible return.
We can be firm about that revealed order without pretending to know the mechanics. John describes something like a mountain and another object like a star burning as a torch. He also sees a bloodlike moon beneath falling stars while the sky recedes. Those comparisons tell us what he truly saw; they do not identify a modern weapon or a particular asteroid. I would not fill in what Scripture leaves unexplained with changing atmospheric theories or the latest satellite technology.
Old Testament Foundations and the Meaning of the Signs
Revelation draws on language already used by the prophets. Isaiah and Ezekiel speak of darkness and shaken heavens when God judges proud kingdoms, and Amos uses similar language in announcing judgment on Israel. Joel and Zephaniah also use it for the Day of the LORD. Reading each passage in its historical setting helps us understand the moral seriousness of the future signs.
Isaiah 13 names Babylon at the outset. Its arrogance and apparent security would end when God summoned the instruments of judgment. Yet Isaiah described that overthrow on a scale that reaches beyond one ancient city toward the worldwide Day of the LORD.
Wail, for the day of the LORD is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will be limp, Every man's heart will melt, And they will be afraid. Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth; They will be amazed at one another; Their faces will be like flames. Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not give their light; The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine. "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. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the LORD of hosts And in the day of His fierce anger.
Babylon is the immediate subject, so I cannot lift this passage out of its setting and read it as an eclipse timetable. Its fall was a real act of divine justice, revealing the pattern that will reach worldwide completion in the final judgment. Human arrogance collapses when the LORD acts. The darkening lights and shaken creation accompany His punishment of sinners and express His indignation.
Ezekiel 32 laments Pharaoh king of Egypt. The ruler imagined himself as a lion and a sea monster, but God announced his fall. The description of Egypt’s extinguished light reaches into the heavens.
When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, And the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you, And bring darkness upon your land," Says the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel is describing the public undoing of Pharaoh and Egypt. I would not take that as an independent explanation of exactly how the signs in Matthew 24 will happen. Kings often presented themselves as the source of order and light in their realms. By darkening Egypt’s lights, God showed that its ruler was no such source. The Creator alone governs both nations and heavens.
In Amos 8, the people under judgment had trampled the needy and falsified their scales. They treated days of worship as interruptions to making a profit. The darkened sun at noon and feasts turned to mourning announced covenant judgment on that society. That keeps me from treating prophetic darkness as merely a spectacle in the sky. God was confronting their idolatry and oppression, along with the arrogance that kept them from repenting.
These signs show that creation remains under God’s authority. People often speak as if the sun and moon were independent, and as if the regular seasons and physical patterns answered to no one. Scripture presents them as the work of a Maker who still governs them. The God who established their ordinary order can also interrupt it in judgment.
Babylon’s empire appeared powerful until God acted. Pharaoh projected that same confidence in Egypt, while corrupt Israelites trusted in wealth. Revelation shows earthly kings making the same mistake. When the heavens shake, their caves cannot shelter them and their money cannot buy safety. As creation itself shakes under God’s judgment, how could I trust human power to provide a permanent refuge for rebellion?
We also need to understand why blood appears in these passages. Elsewhere in Scripture, blood can concern life or violent death, sacrifice or covenant. When the surrounding passage describes judgment, we need to understand blood within that setting. I should not transfer every one of those uses into the moon’s appearance or make it a hidden symbol of redemption. In Revelation 6, the bloodlike moon belongs to the terrifying scene in which the earth’s inhabitants recognize the Day of wrath.
The shaken heavens also announce the rightful King’s approach. Matthew 24 moves directly to the Son of Man’s appearing, while Joel 3 moves from the darkened sun and moon to the LORD roaring from Zion and dwelling there. Creation is not falling into meaninglessness. It is being shaken as rebellious rule gives way before Christ.
God gave warning through the prophets before sending His Son. Jesus warned of judgment too, and the apostles continued to proclaim it. Throughout this testimony, God has offered salvation before judgment. The promised crisis will vindicate those warnings, and no one will be able to say God hid the outcome of unrepentant rebellion.
Fear, Hope, and Faithful Watchfulness
In Luke 21, Jesus described Jerusalem’s coming desolation and then looked forward to the Son of Man’s public arrival. His words contrast a distressed world with people whose redemption is near. Because near and future judgment appear together in the prophecy, I need to follow each paragraph’s setting rather than assume every statement concerns the same moment.
"And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near."
As the powers of heaven shake, the nations will be distressed and perplexed, and people will faint from fear. Yet Christ tells His faithful people to straighten and lift their heads because His arrival brings deliverance. What determines that difference is their relationship to the King. The same appearing that terrifies the rebellious gives His people hope.
I do not understand that promise to place the church inside Daniel’s seventieth week. In 1 Thessalonians 4, believers are caught up to meet the Lord. Paul also promises deliverance from the wrath to come earlier in the letter and returns to it in chapter 5. Revelation 3:10 says the faithful church will be kept from the worldwide hour of trial. Together, those passages teach a gathering before the Tribulation. Luke 21 gives hope within its own setting, including faithful people who will live through those events.
Knowing how to label an eclipse or arrange a chart cannot save anyone. Salvation is in Jesus Christ alone. God’s offer can be resisted, but everyone who repents and believes receives forgiveness and eternal life by grace. He makes the believer a new creation, indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. That salvation is eternally secure. It gives no permission for lawlessness, and a shallow profession does not prove new birth. A person who finally refuses Christ will face the Judge whose signs he tried to explain away.
Paul’s application of the Day of the Lord helps me see how different biblical watchfulness is from prophecy sensationalism. He gives the Thessalonian church no eclipse table. Instead, he reminds believers who they are and calls them to live as people of the light.
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
The unbelieving world will speak of peace and safety before sudden destruction comes, but Paul says believers belong to the day rather than the darkness. Sleep and drunkenness picture moral carelessness. Watchfulness and sobriety, by contrast, take shape in faith and love as we live in the hope of salvation. That assurance does not depend on our ability to read the sky. God has appointed His people to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ, not to wrath.
That hope should give us courage in suffering without promising freedom from every trouble. Jesus said His followers would have tribulation in this world. Christians may suffer persecution or deep grief, and war or disaster may reach us too. We remain subject to physical death unless the Lord gathers the church during our lifetime. Those experiences do not cancel His promise to rescue the church from the coming worldwide hour of divine wrath. My hope must rest in Christ even when earthly conditions give me little encouragement.
Peter carries the application farther. Knowing that the present creation will face final dissolution leads us to ask what kind of people believers ought to be.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;
Peter brings the future home to how I live now. Prophecy should lead me to holy conduct and deeper devotion to God, including a pursuit of peace and a blameless life before others. The excitement of date-setting usually ends in embarrassment or cynicism. Hope grounded in Scripture produces endurance instead, because the future belongs to the Lord. Even when life is hard, we can keep serving Him by resisting sin and forgiving others. We should care for people and remain faithful to the gathered church while continuing to proclaim Christ.
We should not wait for a red moon, a darkened sun, or shaking ground before calling on the Lord. Revelation shows that even greater signs do not automatically soften a hardened heart. The gospel is urgent now. Today we should hear God’s Word, turn from sin, and trust the Savior who was crucified and rose from the dead.
My Final Thoughts
I do not believe we should announce an ordinary eclipse as the fulfillment of Joel or Revelation. These passages describe connected judgments that intensify as God shakes creation and judges rebellion before Christ’s visible return. Joel’s promised outpouring truly began at Pentecost, but its cosmic culmination is still ahead. Our hope as the church rests in Christ gathering His people, not in calculations from eclipse tables. Until He comes, I want that hope to steady my faith and shape how I live, including faithfully calling others to the Lord.