2012 is Debunked

2012 is debunked. If you've somehow missed all the speculation that the world will end on December 21, 2012, but you've recently seen the movie "2012" by Director Roland Emmerich, then you've just had a Hollywood-style crash course in the latest and greatest Doomsday scenario. Many people already were very pessimistic about the world lasting much longer, given concerns about overpopulation, destruction of the world's forests, depletion of earth's resources, pollution, global warming and now worldwide terrorist attacks-with possibly even nuclear weapons being used. Doomsday in 2012 simply puts a date to the End of the World and has it engineered by catastrophes that most of us hadn't even considered before.

We have the Mayas to thank for supplying this date, because December 21, 2012 is when the Long Count in their calendar finishes a cycle of 13 b'ak'tuns or a total of some 5,125 years. Many sober scholars insist that the Maya said nothing about what happens after that date and that it could mean nothing more stressful than a new calendar beginning, but millions more people fear that time running out on the Mesoamerican calendar signals the end of the world as we know it. Maya scholars are becoming more and more irritated by all this talk and say that such speculation is a misrepresentation of Maya religion and mythology. Just the same, the Internet is awash with websites proclaiming that Doomsday is about to happen.

On the other hand, many New Agers are predicting that this date will usher in a fantastic consciousness shift and kick off the Age of Aquarius. I predict that neither Doomsday nor a vast new "awakening" will happen on that date, but that many people will celebrate Christmas four days later with an immense sense of relief that the world didn't end. As for explaining why nothing happened, New Agers will have an easier time of it, since even some guru teaching a new way to dance Ring-around-the-Rosie on top of some mountain in Colorado can be heralded as the beginning of the consciousness shift that "the Maya prophesied about," yadda yadda.

A question many Christians are asking right now, however-while we're still looking forward to 2012-is: "Does the Bible say how the world will end?" Yes, it does. And the chilling passage in question, Revelation 16:18-21, describes many of the same cataclysmic events that Roland Emmerich's movie depicts so graphically:

1. The entire earth will be shattered by the greatest earthquake ever to strike.
2. All the buildings and skyscrapers in every nation on earth will fall.
3. The ruling city system, Babylon, will be broken into three parts.
4. Every island will be moved out of its place.
5. Entire mountains will split apart and collapse in thunderous landslides.
6. 100-pound hailstones (either meteorites or volcanic debris) will fall.

But when will the earth be hit by the destruction described in Revelation 16:17-21? According to God's Word, this global earthquake can't happen till the very last day of the Antichrist's seven-year reign on the earth-and the Antichrist hasn't even showed up on the world scene yet, let along begun to reign. So the End is a ways off yet.

So when will Jesus return and the World End? We don't know. Jesus said, "Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (Matthew 24:36). So be very, very wary of those who predict dates.