Bunker Mentality

Today is Friday the 13^th and in case you live under a rock, one Harold Camping has declared that, by his calculations, the world will end on May 21st.   Talk about an unlucky day!  Camping is a Christian radio broadcaster and president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the United States as well as a website.

Camping uses mathematical predictions applied to the Bible to predict dates for the end of the world.   His current end-times prediction is that the Rapture will be on May 21, 2011 and that God will completely destroy the Earth and the universe five months later on October 21. He had previously predicted that the Rapture would occur in September 1994.

He has sponsored highway billboards announcing his prediction all over the country.  Camping had the good sense to plant his billboard relatively close to a billboard for a life insurance agency (one of ours, actually).  So there’s still time to pop into the office and get your life insurance up to date if you live in this particularly area.

According to Bloomberg News, an enterprising Soviet businessman, Danila Andreyev, has gone into the bunker business, supplying fortified bunkers to nervous, affluent Russians worried about a great earthquake, flood, and 2012 predictions.  If Camping is right, they needn’t worry about 2012.

The news of the impending end of the world can be quite comforting.  If you’re about to be sacked, you won’t need to worry about updating your resume.  Mortgage underwater.  No worries – you won’t have a house to pay off anyway.  Tired of that boss, supervisor, teacher, bully, band director or other megalomaniac authority figure yelling at you, humiliating you in front of others, and just giving you a hard time in general?  Relax.  After May 21^st, they won’t have anything more to say.

Of course, if you plan on sticking around, you’ll to buy a survival bunker, which costs about $400,000.  Only megalomaniac millionaires will be able to save their worthless hides after the fallout.  The rest of us – those who actually survive – will just have to scramble about to find whatever food and shelter is still available.  Those who own boats had best remember the lesson of the Japanese tidal wave – get your boat out to sea and ride out the wave.

So, what’s all this end-of-the-world business about, anyway?  How does this guy know it’s lights-out on May 21^st?  For those of you who haven’t “done the Math” and looked at a Bible in years, much less memorized it or analyzed to the nth detail, according to e-biblefellowship.com:

ONE DAY IS AS 1000 YEARS

The child of God has learned from the Bible that the language of Genesis 7 has a twofold meaning: 

Genesis 7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Historically, as God spoke these words, there were seven days remaining for Noah, his family, and the animals to get into the safety of the ark; but spiritually (and the Bible is a spiritual book), God was speaking to all of the people of the world and was declaring that sinful mankind would have 7000 years to find refuge in the salvation provided by Jesus Christ.  How can we know that?  We know this is so based on what we read in 2 Peter, chapter 3:

2 Peter 3:6-8 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The context of 2 Peter 3 is extremely important!  In the first few verses, God refers us to the destruction of the world by the flood during Noah’s day.  Then we find an interesting admonition that we ought not to be “ignorant” of one thing,  which is, 1 day is as 1000 years, and 1000 years is as 1 day.  Immediately following this bit of information is a very vivid description of the end of the present world by fire. 

What could God be telling us by identifying 1 day along with 1000 years? 

Since we recently have discovered the Biblical calendar of history on the pages of the Bible, we find that the flood of Noah’s day occurred in the year 4990 BC.  This date is completely accurate (for further information on the Biblical timeline of history, please go to: www.familyradio.com).  It was in the year 4990 BC that God revealed to Noah that there would be yet 7 days until the flood of waters would be upon the earth.  Now, if we substitute 1000 years for each one of those 7 days, we get 7000 years.  And when we project 7000 years into the future from 4990 BC, we find that it falls on the year 2011 AD. 

   4990 + 2011 = 7001   

Note: When counting from an Old Testament date to a New Testament date, always subtract one year because there is no year zero, resulting in:

   4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7000 years exactly.

The year 2011 AD will be the 7000^th year from the flood of Noah’s day.  It will be the end of the length of time given to mankind to find grace in God’s sight.  This means that the time to find refuge in Christ has grown extremely short. We are only a little ways off from the year 2011 AD! 

It is not unusual that God’s people have been given insight into the timing of the end of the world. Actually, the Bible tells us this is normally the case.  In times past, God has warned His people of approaching periods of judgment:

Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

JUDGMENT DAY: MAY 21^st, 2011

We know that the year 2011 is the 7000^th year from the flood. We also know that God will destroy this world in that year.  But when in 2011 will this occur?

The answer is amazing.  Let’s take another look at the flood account in the book of Genesis:

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Faithful to His Word, God did bring the flood 7 days later in the 600^th year, on the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of the calendar aligned with Noah’s lifespan.  It was on this 17^th day of the 2^nd month that God shut the door on the ark,  securing the safety of its occupants and also sealing the fate of everyone else in the world outside of the ark.  They would all now certainly perish in that worldwide catastrophe.  

Genesis 7:16,17 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

Earlier it was mentioned that the church age came to an end in the year 1988 AD.  It so happens that the church age began on the day of Pentecost (May 22^nd) in the year 33 AD. Then 1955 years later, the church age came to its conclusion on May 21^st, which was the day before Pentecost in 1988. 

The Bible teaches that the end of the church age would occur simultaneously with the beginning of the great tribulation: 

Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

On May 21^st, 1988, God finished using the churches and congregations of the world.  The Spirit of God left all churches and Satan, the man of sin, entered into the churches to rule at that point in time.  The Bible teaches us that this awful period of judgment upon the churches would last for 23 years.  A full 23 years (8400 days exactly) would be from May 21 ^st, 1988 until May 21^st, 2011.  This information was discovered in the Bible completely apart from the information regarding the 7000 years from the flood. 

Therefore, we see that the full 23-year tribulation period concludes on May 21^st, 2011.  This date is the exact day that the great tribulation comes to its end, and this is also the most likely landing spot for the 7000 years from the flood of Noah’s day. 

Keep in mind that God shut the door on the ark on the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of Noah’s calendar.  We also find that May 21 ^st, 2011 is the end of the great tribulation period.  There is a strong relationship between the 2^nd month and 17^th day of Noah’s calendar and May 21^st, 2011 of our Gregorian calendar.  This relationship cannot be readily seen until we discover that there is another calendar to consider, which is the Hebrew (or Biblical) calendar.  May 21 ^st, 2011 happens to be the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of the Hebrew calendar.  By this, God is confirming to us that we have a very correct understanding regarding the 7000-year timeline from the flood.  May 21 ^st, 2011 is the equivalent date to the date when God shut the door on Noah’s ark. Through this and much other Biblical information, we find that May 21 ^st, 2011 will be the day when God takes up into heaven His elect people. May 21^st, 2011 will be Judgment Day! This is the day God shuts the door of salvation on the world. 

In other words, in having the great tribulation period conclude on a day that identifies with the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of Noah’s calendar, God is without question confirming to us that this is the day He intends to shut forever the door of entry into heaven:

John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Andreyev told Bloomburg News that he “started building started building ‘panic rooms’ three years ago, when fears of terrorist attacks and commercial disputes turning violent created demand in Russia.  Now he’s selling ‘survival bunkers’ for as much as $400,000 each to capitalize on angst over theories the world will end next year.

 “’I myself am not a believer in doomsday scenarios,’” Andreyev, 31, whose Spetsgeoproekt company is completing 15 bunkers at hidden locations across Russia, said at his office in central Moscow.  “But when you start hearing clients talking about the end of the world, it gets you thinking.’”

Yes.  You can think on the dark side.  Or you can think on the bright side.  At least we lived long enough to see Osama Bin Laden get what was coming to him.  We won’t have to worry about Obamacare.  We won’t have to hear anymore about Lindsay Lohan or Charlie “the Torpedo” Sheen.  Now that we know the end is near, we can eat any kind of food we want.  Load up on those cheeseburgers, Glenn Beck!  Kids, you can load up again on the peanut butter sandwiches.  That kid who drew the American flag can now paper his classroom with them.

We won’t get to see the final Harry Potter movie, though.  Those who haven’t read the books or at least the last one, won’t know how it ends.  To think, they’ll end their days never knowing whether Prof. Snape was a villain or a hero, or who wins the final showdown, Voldemort or Harry Potter. 

I’m so glad I read all the books.  Maybe God could put off the end of the world until the end of summer.  I’m almost finished with Glenn Beck’s “Broke” (excellent text on how the government has been cheating us).  I was hoping to get to a couple of more before it’s all over.  The 12^th Imam.  Shakespeare’s As You Like It.  The Life and Times of Paul Revere.  The Culture of Corruption.  War and Peace.

So many books; so little time!