Is May 21 judgement day?

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writer | Monday March 28, 2011 00:00

 

The billboards, mounted in Gaborone by Continental Outdoor Media for Family Stations Inc, a non-profit making organisation, started in 1958 by American citizen Harold Camping, give this succinct and bewildering message: 'Judgement Day is Coming.  21 May 2011.  Cry Mightily unto God.  Jonah 3:8.' The billboards, whose background pictures are of a mountain silhouette at sunset, with a person squatting at the foot of the mountain, goes on to show a terrestrial radio frequency and the times within which locals can access Family Radio.com, Family Stations Inc's radio station which can be accessed both online and via shortwave and a network of AM and FM stations.

According to Motlalepula Maxwell Moahloli, a Lesotho-based representative of Family Stations, inc., who was responsible for liaising with Continental Outdoor Media, Judgement Day will be a period of five months from May 21 to  October 21, 2011 in which 'the entire world and universe will be burned with fire by Creator God'.  

Moahlodi told The Monitor last week that because people who will be around for Judgement Day will 'experience great torment, which will begin with a great earthquake that opens all the graves and brings normal daily earthly life to a halt,' there will therefore be no year 2012.

Moahloli said that their proof of the coming of Judgement Day and the non-existence of the year 2012 is all in the Bible. 

'The Bible, as written by God, has a biblical calendar which extends from the year of creation 11,013 BC to the final day of the history and existence of this world on 21 May 2011,' he said, adding that the biblical calendar has been hidden by God in passages of the Bible such as those in books including Genesis Chapters 5 and 11, Exodus Chapter 6, the first and second books of Kings and first and second books of Chronicles.

Moahloli cited Genesis Chapter 5, as a chapter that gives an account of the total number of years from the time Christians say God created the Earth, to the date of the flood during Noah's time whose point the Bible says was to cleanse the world of sin and preserve only a few people and animals going further.  According to Moahlodi, from the date of the flood, God planned for the world to have 7,000 years of existence until the day of the beginning of Judgement Day.

'The purpose of the billboards is to warn as many people of the world as possible.  The warning is to encourage people to pray and seek the Lord's mercy.  We hope that as the warning goes into the whole world, God is saving a great multitude of people through his word,' Moahloli said.

Moahloli said that as at December 22, 2010 due to the billboards, their radio programming, Judgement Day tract distribution and media interviews their corporation, which he says is non-profit, has had activities in 114 countries of the world.  He said the organisation is funded completely by 'listeners in whose hearts God has put a burning desire to serve him'.

Meanwhile local religious leaders have strongly condemned the message on the billboards.  In a telephone interview with The Monitor, Reverend Rupert Hambira, board member of the Botswana Council of Churches, urged Batswana not to take the message from the billboards seriously.

'Obviously it's not true,' he said. 'The board is misleading, unfortunate and inappropriate.'  Hambira said Christians are aware that no one knows the day or the time of the second coming of Jesus.

'We cannot deny that Jesus is coming, he may come today or tomorrow, or even on May 21, but no one knows exactly when he is coming,' Hambira said. Pastor Samuel Makgaola of the Assemblies Church of God also dismissed claims of a specified Judgement Day date, saying 'there is no biblical reference for that, and Jesus himself said nobody knows the day'.

Dr Meena Rowhani, secretary of the The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai's of Botswana, said their reading of the different holy scriptures and writing  clearly illustrate that the knowledge of the future is only in the hands of God.

'Bahai's disregard any overstated claims regarding the approach of the day of judgement and caution ourselves against ambitions of individuals who are trying to gain fame through this,' she said. 'Many have claimed spiritual superiority in the past and made claims to know the second coming of Jesus,' Hambira said.  Indeed, history illustrates that people have previously predicted end-times.  According to www.religioustoleranc.org William Miller, founder of the Millerite Christian Movement, predicted that the world would end on March 21, 1843.  When his prediction did not come to pass, he predicted October 22,1844, and in an event now known as 'The Great Disappointment' his followers sold their property and possessions and prepared themselves for the Second Coming.  On the other hand, Jehovah's Witnesses predicted 1914 as the year of the Second Coming but this, too, did not come to pass.

However, currently it is not just Family Radio Station that is warning people of biblical end times.  Because of recent natural disasters that have hit the world, from the tsunami in Japan, floods in Australia, earthquakes in New Zealand and Haiti and diseases and civil unrest in many countries many are reading these as signs that biblical prophecies of the world coming to an end are being fulfilled.

On this, Dr Rowhani said their teachings indicate that even though these  calamitous events may be difficult to comprehend individually, collectively they have deeper reasons.

'Their object and purpose is to teach man certain lessons. We are living in a day of reliance upon material conditions,' she said.

Many people have also said that the ancient Mayan civilization has predicted that the end of the world will come in 2012, a date on which their calendar ends. However, cynics say that the Mayan calendar refers to the end of an age, and not the end of the world.  They say this end of an age signals a world shift in consciousness.