Doomsday 2012

2012 Predictions
One thing that will never end is speculation about the future. (That last sentence being a case in point, I suppose). Although, to my knowledge no specific dated predictions has ever succeeded, dates continue to be set and people continue to be fascinated and even concerned about them as they approach. (David Booth's dream of the 1979 airline disaster premonition is one notable documented case that makes me qualify prediction with the word "dated".)

The most popular doomsday date approaching is 2012. Countless sites offer evidences from various sources including Bible Code, Peak Oil, Numerology, Remote Viewing, Elliot Wave, etc. as evidence of something earth-shaking due that year. Most famously 2012 is the year when the so-called Long Count b'ak'tun cycle of the Mayan Calendar ends (on December 21 or possibly December 23). While it's unclear what the end of that period meant to the Mayas, many interpret the period end as The End, perhaps of civilization as we know it due to a major catastrophe, such as the passage of Planet X.

My default assumption about 2012 has been that it would probably be no different than the previous speculated dates. That assumption came from a time-proven maxim I had coined based on the saying that a "watched pot never boils": If anyone "sets a doomsday date", that's the one date that you can count on nothing happening. In other words, if everyone is distracted by watching one time period, it seems to virtually guarantee that nothing will happen during it. Or if something does happen, it will come at some other unwatched time.

Historically Doomed "Doomsday Dates"
The ultimate example of a set date which failed was of course Y2K or January 1, 2000. Many authors and ministries in 1999 were seriously committed to warning people that the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) was nigh because of the year 2000 computer bug. Many people took them seriously and took action by stocking up on ready to eat (RTE) meal kits and other food supplies, investing in gold and silver, and preparing safe houses out of the city, etc. To their regret or relief, nothing happened.

By the way, I'll readily admit here that Y2K heavily influenced the timing of my already planned exodus from the USA in search of a better life to the beautiful tropical country of Costa Rica. Not long after arriving in 1999, I realized that Y2K could not possibly live up to its predictions. In hindsight I can see how God used that rumor to put some urgency behind my relocation plans. Nine years later I have no regrets and a very well-received prophecy book to show for my move. I never would have been able to write this book had I stayed put in my old lifestyle (or "the machine" as it's called in Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine). God guides and teaches us in surprising ways, even through misunderstandings.

Another example of a set date that is especially notable in the context of 2012 is May 15th, 2003. This was the supposed date of passing for Planet X according to Zetatalk, Mark Hazlewood and others early in this decade. Again, it was a dud that (this time) I recognized a mile away coming off my lesson from Y2K. On the positive side, 2003 hype did make many people aware of Planet X--including me. This lead directly to the researching and writing of my first book Planet in Bible Prophecy with the goal of finding out if the Bible substantiated such a catastrophe. (Which it did, just not for that year that many were watching).

One example of a major catastrophe that happened without prediction or at the wrong time, is, of course, 9-11. Supposedly there was at least one specific prediction of commercial passenger jets crashing into the towers before it happened, but none that I heard of dated it for Sept 11, 2001 nor did any such predictions become popular until after the event happened. Talk about a great missed opportunity for all the capable prophets out there to prove their mettle. (And in the end, as far as I have concluded from studying what real Bible prophets are made of, they did show their worth, or lack thereof.)

Clues From Bible Prophecy Breakthroughs
When I set out in 2006 to expand Planet X in Bible Prophecy to cover the rest of the Bible's prophetic roadmap of the end times, my understanding was already good enough to rule out Planet X's passage a few years into the future based on the absence of Biblical prerequisite events in the present. With 2012 already well estabished in the prophetic lexicon, one of the goals of my research was to determine if the many milestones and relative timing clues of Revelation and Daniel would tell us anything about whether 2012 deserved the dreaded reputation it was gaining. I would be willing to change my default assumption that 2012 was not going to be anything special if the Bible confirmed it somehow.

This would be a difficult task, because, contrary to the idea you'd get from studying the "Bible codes", literal Bible prophecy gives you no absolute or set dates. Instead there are relative timings given between certain milestones and the End of the Age. If you have heard of the 1335, 1290, 1260 days or the 42 months or 3½ years then you know what I'm talking about. Thus at the outset there seemed little hope of finding a definitive answer on 2012.

That changed when I remembered something I had learned years before. In listening to a Torah teacher, I heard that the 70 Weeks of Daniel 9 are, as one who has carefully studied the OT might suspect, Sabbath year cycles, or periods of seven years ending with a Sabbath year (called the Shmita in Hebrew). The Sabbath years were given to Israel as a year of rest from planting their fields with the guarantee that they would produce enough in the sixth year to carry them two years. On the surface this seems to have nothing to do with end time prophecy, but God never does things for a single reason or on a single level of meaning.

For example, Israel was told to eat the passover lamb each year to remember their Exodus on that day in history. Yet, later, Jesus was sacrificed as the Passover Lamb on that very same day of the year as well. Jesus also told us plainly in the Sermon on the Mount that the Torah, which includes the instructions of such holy day events as well as the Sabbath years, needed to be fulfilled (Mt 5:17-19). In other words, all of these instructions were "a shadow of things to come" (Col 2:17; Heb 10:1).

The Sabbath years turn out to actually point to the year of the return of Jesus. Jesus will return at the end of the 70th week, which is a Sabbath year. (For those who want the full understanding, I've dedicated an entire chapter to this topic in my book).

2012 According to the Bible...
Once I remembered that prophecy secret, I had two more steps to leverage it for determining what was possible in 2012 according to the Bible. I first needed to figure out which, among the differing opinions, was the correct Sabbatical year cycle today. Thanks to all my previous Bible research, that did not prove too hard to work out (although it remains debatable to most experts you'd ask). Next, I proceeded to deduce where all the events of Daniel and Revelation fall during the 70th week, working backwards from the rapture/return of Jesus at the end of it.

Yes, I said that right, the rapture is last. There are unfortunately many key prophetic events predicted by the Bible to come before the rapture, which is incorrectly considered the first prophetic event on most Christian's prophetic roadmap (if they even have one). Wormwood (secularly known as Planet X) of the 3rd trumpet, is actually the kickoff event to the catastrophes ahead which Revelation predicts starting with the 6th seal and ending with the 4th trumpet. Planet X's passage is often connected with 2012 (although as far as I can tell, this date is picked because of its widespread acceptance as a doomsday date, not based on any actual observations and orbital data). From my research on the Sabbath year cycles, I was shocked to find that the Bible indicated 2012 as one of the few possible years for Wormwood's passage!

But I hasten to add that 2012 is only the first possible year for Wormwood/Planet X and only if the 70th week starts at the next Sabbath year cycle. Time has passed since I made that discovery and the window is closing for that to be true. See, we don't even have to wait for the actual year before we can rule 2012 out completely. I mentioned there are other events that are not on the typical pretrib Christian prophetic roadmap that should be. Another one of these events is the coming Middle East nuclear war predicted by an abundance of prophetic chapters, including Psalm 83. This particular event has to happen before Wormwood comes, for many reasons I won't go into here. To make a long story short, if we don't see this war materialize soon, we can rule out 2012 as a year of any type of prophetic fulfillment. (And if something does happen that year and it's not in Bible prophecy, then it's nothing to worry about.) Therefore, if I had to guess based on the information we have now, I'd say 2012 will be another non-event just like 2000 and 2003.