The ABC TV program, Compass, aired a repeat of Apocalypse Now? on Sunday night. Read the complete program transcript here.

Ron Weinland, American Pentecostal pastor and self-proclaimed prophet, stated last year (2009) that he believes that he’s been sent by God to announce the end of the world in 3 years time! He goes on to say; Yes we are living in the end time. However it isn’t like a lot of people interpret it, they believe it’s the end of the world. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just the end of a particular age for mankind. He uses biblical material to show that the 6000 years of human rule of the earth is at its end. He also uses numbers and prophecies from the book of Revelation to show that he believes current events herald the end times.

 The programs poses the question, Is he alone in his apocalyptic thinking? Do climate change, acts of terrorism, wars and natural disasters add fuel to this apocalyptic fire?

 The idea of world catastrophe is very present in the mind of many people, and particularly the church, because the church has texts that talk about the end of the world. – Dr John Dickson (Biblical Scholar)

We like to know what’s going on, and when we don’t, that generates uncertainty and anxiety. So apocalyptic thinking can help to relieve that and therefore can be very attractive.  –  Susan Tanner (Psychologist)

As a literature scholar I am really keen on people understanding the nature of literature. The bible is a book. The bible has to be understood as the kind of literature it is. And it’s apocalyptic literature, it’s exciting, it’s full of symbolism, it’s telling a grand, wonderful story, but it’s not meant to give us a running sheet for the future. It gives us a way to imagine what the future entails. But it doesn’t tell us the who, the where and the how.  – Greg Clarke (Literary Academic)

 Speculation, Is it the end of the world? is also fuelled by the Mayan Calendar which finishes in the winter solstice of 21 December 2012. Joseph Robert Jochmans writes of the Mayan Calendar,

Both the Hopis and Mayans recognize that we are approaching the end of a World Age… In both cases, however, the Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility. The same theme can be found reflected in the prophecies of many other Native American visionaries from Black Elk to Sun Bear.”

Various Books have been written about it, 2012: The Bible And The End Of The World (by Mark Hitchcock) and 2012: Is This The End? (by Lloyd Hilderbrand), as well as the recent movie release, 2012.

As for me, I like to refer to ‘The Book’, The Bible for my guidance and what Jesus said about the last days,  

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:36,37,42-44

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 2 Timothy 4:1-4 

This response is mine. It is not as simple as planning for ‘Apocalypse 2012’! I am to get on with building the kingdom of God and to trust in Christ until he returns or I go to be with him.