Unleashing the Beast

C OSMIC S IGNS AND L AST D AYS P ROPHECY / 249

in the heavens (Luke 21:11). These signs would involve the sun, moon and stars. Let us begin with the sun and explore thoughts related to strange cosmic activity in the sun. T HE S IGNS IN THE S UN Christ indicated there would be signs in the sun. According to Biblical prophecy, during the seven-year Tribulation, we are told the sun will be darkened: And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became blood (Revelation 6:12). Immediately after the tribulation .... shall the sun be darkened. (Matthew 24:29). The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining (Joel 3:15). When I read this as a child, I imagined the sun going completely black, or supernaturally burning itself out. In the early 1990s, a war in the Persian Gulf gave me another perspective on this prophecy. During the Gulf War, black smoke from hundreds of oil well fires poured into the blue skies over Kuwait, causing the sun to appear to be veiled in blackness. Observers in the surrounding areas also noted that the chemicals released in the atmosphere by the fires created an illusion that caused the moon to appear to be blood red. The prophet Joel, more than 2,500 years ago, predicted: