2012 and the Apocalypse

Prophecy is beginning to dominate the public mind more than ever; much of this interest is because of the approach of dates mentioned in many prophecies. Hollywood is on the verge of releasing a new movie about 2012, those who have pay TV may have seen the History Channel present documentaries titled “The Lost Book of Nostradamus” and “Nostradamus 2012” as well as several shows about “Mayan Doomsday Prophecies” and similar themes. Many people are starting to ask, “Is it possible? Could all these predictions be true?”

The producers of these shows have so far ignored what might just be the source of the most important predictions, the Bible. Bible scholars have known for many years that there are events occurring around the world that seem to be directly related to Biblical Prophecy; the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and Daniel all described in detail the “end times” and the New Testament Gospel includes prophecies made by Jesus Christ. Most of these are vague as to the actual date and concentrate on events and the need to live according to Biblical instruction. The book of Daniel however gives specific times for events to occur, he talks of a period of “days” that certain events will take to pass. With many translations for time periods there is often conjecture over the actual duration of periods such as “days”, “weeks” (or sevens) and other ages, as often many of these are interchangeable.

With hindsight we can now ascertain with a fair degree of confidence exactly what Daniel was predicting. We can identify his accuracy with predictions of the various empires that would exist after his time and now we can establish what he meant by the 1335 “days” that would precede Judgement Day. The 1290 “days of the Gentiles” we can now identify refer to the period of 1290 years (according to the Hebrew calendar) that the Muslims and Christians controlled and fought over Jerusalem. The 45 “days” of the “End Times” are 45 years that follow the return of Jerusalem to Jewish control. We can now calculate that the final 45 years began when Israel returned to Jerusalem, which happened during the 1967 Six Day War. By adding 45 to 1967 we can establish that Daniel predicted Judgement Day would occur in 2012. Nostradamus may have made his predictions after reading Daniel, but would not have known when Israel would exist or if the prophecy that the Jews would return to their homeland had been fulfilled. It is certain that the ancient Mayans would not have had this information and were probably unaware that Jews existed.

Nostradamus made another interesting prediction that seems to relate to 2012. In his quatrain X74 he says, “At the time of the great games of slaughter” an apparent reference to the Olympic Games which were heralded in ancient times by the slaughter of 1,000 bullocks. This is a remarkable prediction because the Olympic Games were not held in Nostradamus’ time. The quatrain also says, “Not far from the age of the great millennium, when the dead will come out of their graves.” It appears that Nostradamus expected the resurrection of the dead to occur at the time of the Olympic Games. Some commentators assumed that his reference to “the great millennium” meant the year 2,000 but as Nostradamus was referring to astronomical cycles of thousands of years it is more probable that this reference was to the great galactic conjunction of 2012. This could also have a bearing on quatrain X72 that says, “In the year 999…” by which most believed he meant 1999 but nothing came from the sky so it was assumed that this prediction was wrong, but if he is talking about 2012 as the great millennium then the 999 year means 2011, or the final year before the end of the great millennium.

The words “Armageddon” and “Apocalypse” are the most misunderstood terms in our language and traditional Biblical teaching has not helped. Originally in Christian terms they were used to frighten the population into confessing their sins and donating to the church in order to obtain absolution and salvation. Society has developed a conditioned fear response to the terms even though in many countries people are not even regular church attendees, maybe that exacerbates the fear. A recent survey discovered that only about one third of the world’s population pray on a daily basis, yet the interest in an end of the world persists. The end of the world certainly should be of interest to everyone but it appears that many who do not take religion seriously are concerned that this concept might be real, especially as the idea is found in all types of unrelated cultures. (A summary of some these is recorded in my book The End Of Time available free from my website)

In Western Society the belief in judgement has come from the Judeo/Christian teachings that our civilisation was based upon, and in particular Biblical literature. The book of Revelation predicts that in the “Last Days” the armies of the world will gather in the place known as Armageddon, or in Hebrew Har Megiddo or the Hill of Megiddo. The armies of the world, or at least a United Nations task force consisting of soldiers of many nations, are already deployed near Megiddo along the Israel/Lebanon border, so the players are in place for a final showdown. The term apocalypse is usually used to convey destruction but that is not the original meaning of the word, accordingly the dictionary will tell you;-
Apocalypse [ə pókə lips] (plural apocalypses) revelation of future: a revelation made concerning the future [13th century. Via late Latin < Greek apokalupsis 'revelation' < apokaluptein 'uncover' < kaluptein 'to cover']*
*Microsoft® Encarta® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Apocalypse has the same meaning as the Biblical book about the end times; Revelation. It refers to the Biblical concept that in the time before Judgement the Creator will reveal himself so that everyone will know the truth of his existence. Ancient texts also claim that the Almighty remakes the world every seven thousand years, a concept which is not readily discernable in literature. There are several Biblical passages however that proclaim a new world where there will be no illness and peace will reign, the apocalypse is apparently the revelation of this new and better world, however it will follow a war.

Some people don’t want to believe that it is possible to see the future so that they can ignore all predictions, because the claims seem too daunting. Since 1989 I have been explaining why prophecy does not contradict the laws of physics in fact the principles involved can also explain dark matter and dark energy as well as many other things that science is currently unable to rationalize. Although these predictions will come to pass we should not dwell too much on the detail as they will be far different from anything imagined. Some people have developed theories of rapture and tribulation that have no similarity to the predictions on which they are based. More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago we are already in the turbulent end times period known as tribulation, it started with the Jewish New Year 5765 and was marked shortly after by the 2004 tsunami that killed so many. My advice is to forget the dire warnings and live in a righteous manner and trust that the promises in prophecy are as accurate as the warnings.

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