Woe to us! The world, as we’ve come to know and appreciate it is going to end on June 24 this year, that is if any of the doomsday prophecies of the past have been anything that worried you.
Someone has read the Bible really closely, unlike all those other times when it was wrong, and is convinced that this time the world is actually going to end.
So who’s the latest to predict our inevitable annihilation?
A conspiracy theorist by the name of Mathieu Jean-Marc Joseph Rodrigue from parts unknown, believes the clue to planet Earth’s date with Armageddon lies within a certain passage of the holy text. Sometime last month he highlighted a passage in the Book of Revelations, which is a part of the Bible touching on the subject of Judgement Day – as a sign 2018 could be the mother Earth’s last year.
It reads:
“He was given authority to act for 42 months.” Revelation 13:5
The theorist, as many have termed him, believes this part of the text, when thought of in the context of crop harvests and prices, indicates a startling revelation.
As reported by the Daily Star, he says:
‘I heard a voice in the middle of the four living beings. This is wisdom. He who has intelligence can interpret the figure of the beast. It represents the name of a man. His figure is 666.’
So to find the date of the apocalypse, he takes the figure 666 and adds it to his earlier calculations, with the forty-two months from the bible. When added all together, according to his arithmetic, of course, Rodrigue comes up with the date; 24th June 2018.
With Zimbabweans caught up in preparing for the next elections set for July this year, perhaps its time everyone relaxes and forgets about prospects of an extended Emerson Mnangagwa government or perhaps a new government by the opposition.
But wait, Rodrigue did not give an indication of mankind’s demise, he’s unsure how it will happen. Then again aren’t those just semantics, and do we subscribe to any of these beliefs and creeds, especially given how many other predictions and theories have failed us since time immemorial?
We are not saying there shall not be the doomsday(Judgement Day), but that we have just heard enough of these periodically recycled apocalyptic fables so often.
Pope Sylvester said Jesus would return in the year 1000. Emanuel Swedenborg said it would be 1757. William Miller said it would be 1844 (and 1843). Charles Taze Russell said it would be 1874. Joseph Smith said it would be 1891. The Watchtower Society (of the Jehovah’s Witnesses) said it would be 1914. Herbert Armstrong predicted four separate dates, including 1935, 1943, 1972 and 1975. Harold Camping predicted 1994 and 2011. The year 2000 was guessed by Edgar Cayce, Ed Dobson and (by some reports) Jerry Falwell. Jack Van Impe guessed 2012. Mark Blitz (the Blood Moon guy) said it would be 2015.
More recently, in 2017 some Christian numerologists, David Meade, predicted that the doomsday was going to occur on September 23, October, and then in November when the mysterious planet of Nibiru was going to destroy the Earth. Luckily, all this didn’t happen, thanks to the hearsay of a Christian numerologist.
Now, another punter reckons the apocalypse has been rescheduled for June this year instead and we are supposed to believe him…
So even though he is convinced ‘this is it’, as Christians we wouldn’t worry too much – if it does turn out to be Earth’s last year at least we had a good run of it, right?