About a week ago I published A Day of Darkened Sun, a blog post introducing people to the eclipse that is crossing America this Monday (August 21st) and to some of the providential aspects surrounding the eclipse.  With the eclipse upon us in just a couple days, I wanted to share a particular point about the eclipse that is heavy upon my mind.  I hope that this post will soften our hearts and prepare us for what God is trying to teach us during the timeframe of this eclipse.

As I discussed in the previous post, eclipses are opposite to our typical experience in that an eclipse appears to move backwards.  The sun moves from east to west, but eclipses move from west to east.  This is exactly the case with this eclipse.  The August 21st eclipse will first be visible from Oregon, which is on the west coast.  Technically, the eclipse will already be underway before it is ever seen in Oregon.  The eclipse will begin over the ocean and will move its way toward the west coast, reaching Oregon’s shores at around 10:15am local time.

Of all the places that the eclipse could have entered our nation, I find it noteworthy that the first state that the shadow will cover is Oregon.  Why not Washington?  The path of totality comes very close to reaching Washington, and could have just as easily become visible first in that state.  Why not California?  California has a coastline that is over 2.3 times the length of Oregon’s coast.  If we were just taking a guess, it would seem like the shadow of the eclipse would be most likely to touch California as it moves from sea toward land.  If we add the coastlines of Washington and California, we realize that Oregon’s coast is about 2.75 times smaller than the total coastline of Washington and California.

With this in mind, it seems odd that Oregon would just happen to be the place where the eclipse first becomes visible.  The sheer length of the coastlines places the odds in favor of the eclipse first becoming visible somewhere else.  But sadly, I do not believe that Oregon is a coincidental location for the start of America’s eclipse.

Tuesday August 15th, just six days before the eclipse, Oregon’s governor Kate Brown enacted the most progressive and wide-reaching abortion law in the US.  Oregon’s House Bill 3391, termed the Reproductive Health Equity Act, provides $500,000 of tax-funded state aid for abortions.  “Under the first-of-its-kind law, most of which goes into effect immediately, Oregon insurers must provide 100 percent coverage for abortions without co-pays or deductibles.”  In other words, getting an abortion in Oregon now is completely cost-free.  I have this information from an article written by The Washington Times.

On August 21st the shadow of the total solar eclipse will start at sea and slowly begin moving toward America’s west coast.  At about 10:15am local time, the first state to be blackened by the shadow will be Oregon—a state that has just made it immensely easier to take the lives of unborn children.  If we truly believe that God controls the sun and the moon, then we must realize that God is blackening the sun first over a state that has just “upped the ante” on infanticide.  America as a nation has long embraced shedding the innocent blood of infants; and shedding innocent blood is something that the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:16-17).  It should not strike us as incidental, then, that the first state to completely fund abortions is also the first state to be darkened by the eclipse.

Make no mistake, Oregon’s decisions about abortion and the eclipse are connected to one another.  But even if they aren’t, what are the odds that these two events would coincide so closely to one another?  America is being given a biblical sign of judgement (the eclipse) exactly forty days before the Day of Atonement (a day the Bible sets aside for national confession and repentance). As a nation we need to wake up and repent for our sins.  God is sending a dark sun over a nation that has polluted its land with blood (Psalm 106:38), and he is sending it first over the state that has recently become the most offensive in this regard.

I pray that this article will soften a heart and bring someone to repentance.  Sadly, the sun will soon go black over a state that has proclaimed its disregard not only for human life but also for God’s prohibition of murder in his law.  But the case is not hopeless.  As a nation and as individuals, we do not have to be judged for our sins.  We need to pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness both now and after the eclipse; and may he help us to have a repentant heart.