2012 and the End of the World

By Mark Hitchcock

Over the last few years, Americans have been bombarded with one huge concept that can be summed up on one little word: change. Both political parties, and most Americans, recognize that major adjustments are needed in the economy, education, and health care. If one is to believe the political pundits, big changes are on the way. But few people are prepared for the change that many are predicting. A change they believe has been bearing down on the planet for 5,000 years, the colossal transformation of our solar system and our collective psyche that many believe will happen on December 21, 2012.

Many believe that ancient prophecies indicate that change is coming. Big change. Predictions vary widely about what will happen. They range from total, all-out apocalypse to some kind of quantum shift in human awareness and consciousness. Yet they all agree that big change is coming for planet earth and the human race. And they appear to all focus on one specific day — December 21, 2012 — the final day on the Mayan long count calendar. Never before have so many people from diverse backgrounds and viewpoints pinpointed one day as the expiration date for human civilization. It’s like Y2K gone wild.

Crises of alarming complexity are emerging and accelerating with frightening regularity — depletion of vital resources, peak in oil production, food shortages, nuclear threat, economic meltdown, vanishing species, potentially pandemic flu viruses, wars and rumors of wars, turmoil in the Middle East, record tsunamis, erratic weather patterns, unprecedented earthquakes and the escalation of battering storms. Life on planet earth in the last few years has been anything but business as usual. We live in a fragile, increasingly dangerous, interdependent world. There’s an amazing confluence of tipping points. And the world’s problems are multiplying. Is this all a build-up to some imminent cataclysm? The prelude to the grand finale of unspeakable destruction? Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock winds down to zero? A time of epic disaster? Was the warning of the earth’s grand finale encoded in the Mayan calendar? Many people believe that it was. The Mayan long count calendar ends abruptly on 12.21.12, the same day that the earth and the sun align with the center of the galaxy — an alignment that only occurs every 26,000 years. December 21, 2012 also marks the end of the fifth cycle of 5,125 years on the Mayan calendar. Allegedly each of the previous four cycles ended in some great disaster. Putting all this together and adding in Nostradamus, Bible Codes, and computers has many believing that this date marks doomsday for planet earth. The end of the world as we know it.

While there are many issues surrounding 12.21.12 that I address in detail in my new book 2012, the Bible and the End of the World, the bottom line is this — while the Mayans knew a great deal about astronomy and calendars, they did not know the future. No man does. Only God knows the future, and He has not revealed any specific dates for either the Second Coming of Jesus or the end of the world (Matthew 24:36, 42, 44). Of course, some unusual things could happen on or near December 21, 2012, but whatever occurs it won’t be the end of the world, the mass extinction of humanity or some quantum leap to a new level of human consciousness. Don’t panic or be drawn away to rash, impulsive actions by those claiming to know the exact date of the end of the world. They don’t know when the world will end. Only God knows, and He isn’t telling anyone on earth.

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