Message for THE LORD S DAY EVENING, December 2, 2012 Christian Hope Church of Christ, Plymouth, North Carolina by Reggie A. Braziel, Minister The Truth About The End of The World (Dispelling The Mayan Doomsday Myth) ACTS 1:7 (NKJV) Please turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter one. Jesus has now completed His mission of bringing salvation to the world through His death, burial, and resurrection. As He prepares to ascend back to His heavenly Father, His disciples are full of questions regarding the events of the future. How did Jesus answer those questions? Look at verse 7. P R A Y E R And He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. ******************************************************************************** I N T R O D U C T I O N If you have been watching the news in recent months you no doubt are familiar with the doomsday prophecy based on the Mayan calendar, which says the world will end on December 21 st of this year, or nineteen days from today. Simply put, the Mayan Indian calendar was based on cycles of time called Baktun. A baktun is 144,000 days or a little more than 394 years.
Counting backwards on the Mayan calendar 394 years 393 years.392 years the calendar reaches zero on December 21, 2012. Think of the odometer on your car showing a string of zeros when your car reaches 100,000 miles. On December 21, 2012 the Mayan calendar shows the equivalent of a string of zeros. It is very interesting that the ancient Mayan Indians didn t predict the end of the world would occur on December 21, 2012. They simply viewed it as the beginning of a new baktun or 394 year time cycle. So if the Mayans weren t predicting the end of the world on December 21 st of this year, where did this doomsday prophecy come from? It came from men like Terence McKenna, Whitley Strieber, Adrian Gilbert and Lawrence Joseph. All these men are heavily involved in New Age religion, beliefs and practices that involve mind altering drugs, contact with spirit guides and the occult. Using the Mayan calendar, these false prophets have made hundreds of thousands of dollars writing doomsday books about the end of the world. This very day, thousands upon thousands of people truly believe the world is going to end in nineteen days. Many have quit their jobs to prepare for this doomsday event. Thousands have bought survival kits. Many have sold their homes and moved into fortified bunkers stocked with food, water, clothing and medicine. Many have pulled all their money out of the banks, believing the banks will be destroyed on December 21 st. When doomsday predictions such as this are made even some Christians become unnecessarily anxious and fearful.
One of my responsibilities as a minister of the gospel is to refute false teachings by preaching and teaching the truth of God s word. And so this evening, I want to set your minds and hearts at ease by revealing the truth about the end of the world according to the word of God. ************************** First of all. I. The Bible Does Teach That The World Will End 1. In fact, the Bible gives us a pretty detailed account of how the world will end. Turn to II Peter 3:10-13. 13. 10 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. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 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? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2. Just when will this climactic, catastrophic event occur? We are given a clue in verse 12. Notice it is in connection with the day of God. The day of God is also called the day the day of the LORD.and the day of wrath in the scriptures.
Most Bible scholars agree this day will come at the end of the thousand year reign of Christ when Satan is loosed for a time, then ultimately defeated and cast into hell forever. Revelation 20 tells us after Satan s defeat, every lost soul will appear before God at the Great White Throne Judgment. It is at that point THE END OF THE OLD HEAVENS AND EARTH will take place to make way for the New Heaven and New Earth, the eternal home of the saved. 3. Can we fix an exact YEAR.MONTH.and DAY when this will take place? Absolutely NOT! II. The Bible Teaches Us Not To Be Pre-Occupied With Dates and Times 1. Let s go back to that scripture we read at the outset of the message in ACTS 1:7. And He said to them, It is not for you to know times or 2. The apostle Paul issues a similar admonition in I Thessalonians 5:1. 2. 1 Thessalonians 5:1,2 (NKJV) 1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
3. When will CHRIST come to get His Church? No man knows the day or the hour. When will THE DAY OF WRATH occur? No man knows the day or the hour. When will THE WORLD COME TO AN END? No man knows the day or the hour! 4. If specific dates and times and seasons for various events to occur is exclusively for God alone to know, then it is absolutely foolish of us to be pre-occupied with trying to figure out these things. 5. You see, this Mayan Calendar Doomsday prophecy is just the latest in a long string of similar false prophecies. IN 1822, A FARMER BY THE NAME OF WILLIAM MILLER wrote a pamphlet stating that after much study of the scriptures he was convinced Christ would return and the world would end in the year 1843. Thousands of people believed Miller and became known as MILLERITES. They sold all their possessions..put on white robes and ascended to the highest mountain peaks so they could be closer to Christ when He returned. Well 1843 came and went. Jesus didn t come the world didn t end.and the Millerites disbanded. It It is not for you to know times or IN 1910 HALLEY S COMET CAME VERY CLOSE TO THE EARTH. Newspapers all across the country, including the New York Times, published articles stating the gases from the tail of Halley s Comet would kill hundreds of thousands of people. In a panic, people bought comet pills and bottled air to survive that fateful day of May 20, 1910. Well guess what. Halley s Comet came and went and nobody died from breathing the gases. It It is not for you to know times or seasons which the t Father has put in His own authority.
IN 1982, TV EVANGELIST, PAT ROBERTSON, created widespread panic when he stated on-air that God had told him the Battle of Gog and Magog would take place before the end of 1982 and the Great Tribulation would begin. Well 1982 came and went. No battle of Gog and Magog! No Great Tribulation! No end of the world! It It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. IN 1988, EDGAR C. WHISENANT released a book entitled, 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988. 4.5 million copies of this book were sold and 300,000 more were sent to preachers all across America. Well 1988 came and went and the rapture didn t take place. As with most false prognosticators, Whisenant claimed he had made a slight miscalculation, and re-adjusted the time of the rapture to a new date. The new date came and went, and the rapture still didn t take place. It It is not n for you to know times or MANY OF US CAN PROBABLY REMEMBER BACK IN 1997 WHEN THE NEWS WAS ALL ABUZZ WITH STORIES ABOUT THE HALE-BOPP COMET. Some amateur astronomer claimed to have photographed a small alien spaceship following the comet as it made its way towards the earth s atmosphere. It was during that time a cult arose called Heaven s Gate. Many Heaven s Gate followers committed mass suicide when the Hale Bopp Comet made its closest approach to earth, believing this desperate act would hitch them a ride aboard the spaceship. Well, the Hale-Bopp comet came and went. No spaceship picked up the suicide victims. And the world went on. It It is not for you to know times or
AND REMEMBER ALL THE HOOPLA ABOUT THE Y2K? In the late 1990 s doomsday alarmist began sounding the trumpet about the catastrophic events that would occur at the stroke of midnight when 1999 ended and 2000 began. The sale of guns, ammo, survival foods, gold, and silver, sky-rocketed. Many people moved out of cities into fortified bunkers in rural areas. Well, 2000 came and went and nothing the prognosticators said would happen happened. It It is not for you to know times or AND REMEMBER THE NAME HAROLD CAMPING? Back in 2011, Camping predicted the end of the world would occur on May 21, 2011. What most people didn t realize at the time was this same nut case, I mean, gentlemen had predicted the return of Christ back in 1994. Well May 21 st 2011 came and went and the world didn t end. Admitting he had made a slight miscalculation Camping revised the date to October 21, 2011. Nothing happened on that date either. While we can dismiss Camping s false predictions as quackery, the sad truth is a number of people all across America committed suicide on May 20, 2011 because they believed Camping s prophecy that the world would end the next day. It It is not for you to know times or AND SO THAT BRINGS US TO THE MAYAN CALENDAR DOOMSDAY PROPHECY. Should anyone believe the world is going to end on December 21, 2012? Stop and think about it! There has been a 0% success rate by every one who has ever made such similar predictions in the past..zero PERCENT! The Lord Himself has admonished us not to concern ourselves with predictions about what may or may not happen on such and such date or time on the calendar. The apostle Paul writes in II TIMOTHY 1:7 (NKJV) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
CONCLUSION As we close, let s imagine its December 22, 2012. The top news story on the front page of every newspaper and on every news program on TV will likely read something like this: WORLD DOESN T END OR WORLD LIVES TO SEE ANOTHER DAY! All those people who sold their homes and moved into bunkers are going to realize they were duped. All those people who quit their jobs and pulled all their money out of the banks are going to feel like absolute fools. There is only one thing that can keep people from falling victim to such hoaxes as The Mayan Doomsday Prophecy and that is THE TRUTH..THE TRUTH FOUND WRITTEN IN THE PAGES OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. AND YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! (JOHN 8:32 NKJV)