Hello and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Sunday afternoon Bible study. Today we are going to take a look at why October 7, 2015 is the likely end of the world. Of course, we have been discussing this in our Bible studies for the last couple of years, but today we are going to focus on this question and address it from the Bible. People are constantly asking, “Why October 7, 2015?”
In order to give a proper answer, we first have to start with May 21, 2011. Actually, it is impossible to understand why October 7, 2015 is such an excellent candidate for a date that the world would end unless we first understand why May 21, 2011 was the beginning of Judgment Day. Once we have a good understanding of this, then we will quickly see how October 7, 2015 fits with it.
There are three main proofs for May 21, 2011 being the beginning the Judgment Day. We have learned that Judgment Day is a prolonged period of time, which will very likely be 1,600 days in duration beginning from the date May 21, 2011.
Before we can understand that May 21, 2011 was the beginning of Judgment Day, we first have to realize that God has placed within His Word a Biblical calendar of history. This calendar is primarily found within the genealogies in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis and God has laid out the history of the world from the very beginning.
We are able to determine the creation date of 11,013 BC and many other important Biblical dates. We can go down the timeline of history from creation to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob, from the coming out of Egypt and the wilderness sojourn, and into the period of the judges and the period of the kings of Israel and Judah, and so forth. Then we can actually proceed to the birth of Christ in 7 BC and to the crucifixion of the Lord in 33 AD and then project the Biblical calendar into the future through time paths that show when the church age came to an end and the Great Tribulation began, and so forth. So the Biblical calendar which God placed in His Word has all the power and authority of the Word of God behind it because it is a Biblical calendar — it is not a calendar based on secular evidence or archeological finds or anything like that. It is a calendar that comes directly from the Scripture and, therefore, we do trust the Biblical calendar and we can build doctrine off this calendar. It is not man’s calendar, but God’s calendar. God wrote it and placed it in the Bible and “hid” the information until the time of the end.
It is interesting how it was Mr. Camping that first discovered this calendar and he wrote the book “Adam When?1” a few decades ago. As a result of understanding the Biblical calendar of history, all sorts of spiritual understanding of God’s “times and seasons” began to neatly fall into place. We understood the duration of the church age as 1,955 years. We understood the time of the Great Tribulation to be 23 years and we could pinpoint it to exact days and months and years, all as a result of the Lord opening up the Scriptures to reveal this Biblical calendar.
Concerning three proofs for May 21, 2011 being the beginning of Judgment Day, I mentioned that the world began with creation in 11,013 BC. From that date, we find that there were certain patterns or time paths that developed. By the way, “time paths” are Biblical. God gives a time path in the Book of Daniel regarding the “seventy weeks.” A time path has a starting point and an ending point and God will make a statement indicating what will happen, as He does with, “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel 92.”
God has given a time path, for example, from creation to the flood and we are able to see that the flood took place exactly 6,023 from creation. That is a significant number because we find that it is part of a pattern God will establish in the Bible of going to the “fullness” of a number (like 6,000, in this case) and then adding on a “tribulation period,” to arrive at 6,023 years until the world would be destroyed by the flood.
Then there is a time path from the flood to the cross. The flood took place in 4,990 BC and the cross took place in 33 AD and when we add the two numbers together, we get 5,023 calendar years (not exact years, but calendar years) and, again, we see the “fullness” of the number “5,000,” which has the number “5” which points to the atonement and “0” which points to completeness. So from the flood in 4,990 BC to the completeness of the atoning work of Christ (as He demonstrated what He did from the foundation of the world) in 33 AD, it is 5,023 years. And there is that pattern again, where we see the fullness of the number and then a tribulation period.
Likewise, from creation in 11,013 BC to the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day on the world has a distinct time path. The first world was destroyed after 6,023 years with a flood. Then this “second” world (this present earth) is destroyed after 13,023 years. The year 1988 was the 13,000th year of earth’s history and then there was the 23 year-period of Great Tribulation to 2011, so the year 2011 was 13,023 years from creation, following that pattern of the “fullness” of a number in thousands and then a 23-year tribulation period that leads to a judgment: judgment at the flood, judgment at the cross and judgment on unsaved mankind at the end of the world.
Certainly, we can see a pattern in the way God uses the number “13” in the Bible. They went 13 times around the city of Jericho and then the walls fell down. There were also 13 tribes of Israel. Well, I do not want to go off on a tangent, but the number “13” in the Bible points to the “end” of the world and we reached 13,000 years in 1988. Just look at the things that have been going on in the world over the course of the last 20 plus years since we reached 1988 and the world is almost unrecognizable today in how much sin has multiplied and the churches have fallen away from truth. Just look at “gay marriage,” which was unheard of just a couple decades ago. The marriage institution is destroyed as divorce is rampant all over the earth. There are just so many things that have gone downhill and not only downhill, but into the depths of the sea. It is incredibly horrible to see the things that have taken place in the world regarding the tremendous increase of sin at the time when the world reached its 13,000th year of history. It is not a coincidence, since God had said there must be a “falling away first” and “iniquity shall abound” at the time of the end.
And do not forget that Israel became a nation in 1948, just 40 years before 1988, the 13,000th year of earth’s history and this is a big indicator in the Bible. I heard the Israeli ambassador to the US say recently that Israel was scattered for almost 2,000 years. These were his words and then he pointed out that they had become a nation again (in 1948) and then he went on to list the dangers they presently face and how they are not going to risk their nationhood. But he recognized the fact that they had been scattered for almost 2,000 years until relatively recently, in 1948, when the “fig tree was in leaf.” There is no fruit, as they never turned to Christ, but the “fig tree is in leaf” and this is an indicator which the Bible gives concerning the time of the end.
When we put all these things together, there is no question at all about where we are in history. It is the time of the end of the world and, therefore, when we see the year 2011 was 13,023 years from creation, it is a huge proof that we can expect Judgment Day to occur in the year 2011 and it did.
A second proof is the time path from the flood. Let me read this because God tells us exactly when the flood occurred in this chapter in Genesis 7:11:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Now why did God give such detail? He told us the year, the month and the very day the flood occurred. You can read about many other important historical events in the Bible where God does not give this kind of detail. In this instance, He did so because He knew that at the time of the end He would unseal His Word to reveal the Biblical timeline of history and the people of God would then have a framework in which to lay out the flood event. They could see the flood occurred 6,023 years from creation in the year 4,990 BC in the “seventeenth day of the second month” in Noah’s calendar. In the same chapter God forewarned Noah a second time; He had already told Noah the flood would take place in 120 years and, therefore, Noah must be busy in building the ark. That is why the ark was being constructed, since Noah had advance information concerning the flood, but then God told him more specifically of the flood, when He told him at the beginning of Genesis, chapter 7: “and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” So Noah knew on the 10th day of the second month of his 600th year that the flood would come in seven days. He knew the very day the flood would begin.
Then in the New Testament in 2 Peter, chapter 3, God speaks of the flood in the early verses of this chapter and then He begins to speak of the end of the world when it would be destroyed by fire. In the same context and right in the midst of the discussion of the first world being destroyed by a flood and how the present earth would be destroyed by fire, God says in 2 Peter 3:8:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Then God goes on to speak of the day of the Lord coming as a thief in the night and how the world and universe will be destroyed with a fervent heat. He addresses His people as “beloved,” and then He says, “Be not ignorant of this one thing.” The phrase “one thing” is very important. Mr. Camping did a study on this phrase a few years ago, showing how it is exceedingly important that we not be ignorant of one thing, so God is saying that we must know this: “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” If you fail to understand this, you will not realize the time you are living in and that you are living on the very edge of the end of the world. You would not realize that Judgment Day would be exactly 7,000 years from the date of the flood. God said to Noah, “for yet seven days” and He would bring the waters of the flood to destroy the earth. He was simultaneously saying in the underlying spiritual dimension, “And yet seven thousand years and I will destroy the world, not with a flood of water, but with fire at the end of the world.”
The people of Noah’s day had a seven-day period, which was the time they had to get the animals and themselves into the ark if they were to be delivered. The ark was deliverance. It was the only escape and the only way to avoid being destroyed in the flood. Likewise, the only way to escape the final judgment that would come upon the world after 7,000 years was to find deliverance in the Lord Jesus Christ, which the ark typified. It was the only way to be delivered from sin and the wrath of God that would come. To be “in Christ” was deliverance, for the Bible says that in Him we are “hid” and protected in the Day of Judgment. So God gave a dual timeline when He said, “For yet seven days” and He would destroy the world with a flood. Exactly seven days later, on the “seventeenth day of the second month,” the rains begin and soon the world was destroyed. God fulfilled that timeline when He brought about the flood on the “seventh day of the second month” in Noah’s 600th year.
So where does 7,000 years from 4,990 BC fall? It is the year 2,011 AD. It is the same year that is 13,023 years from creation. Remember, we pointed out the significance of that as it indicates the “fullness” of a number plus a 23-year tribulation period. When did that 23-year Tribulation period begin? That would be important if we could know that. It just so happens that by understanding the Biblical timeline of history and God’s “time and seasons,” we realize the church age began on the day of Pentecost in the year 33 AD and it ended the day before Pentecost in 1988. If it had reached the day of Pentecost in 1988, it would have been as if the church age had “renewed” for another year, but on the day before, on May 21, 1988, God ended the church age and initiated the judgment which begins at the house of God and He initiated the Great Tribulation period, which extended an exact 23 years from May 21, 1988 until May 21, 2011. This date for the Great Tribulation was known before anyone “put together” the time path of the flood and where the 7,000 years would land. The time period of the Great Tribulation was set and locked in from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011, an exact 23 years and an exact 8,400 days. The number “84” has everything to do with tribulation and the Great Tribulation. We will not go into that right now, but there are several tie-ins with the number “84” and the Great Tribulation, which helped to confirm the time period for the Great Tribulation.
By the way, some people will say that we are still in the Great Tribulation period, but they give no particular information. They will not speak of dates any more; they may say the church age ended on a certain date, but they are not going to tell you where we are in that supposed Tribulation. They are not going to say that the Tribulation will end at any point. Why not? It is because they cannot and they have gone outside the boundaries of the 23 years. May 21, 2011 was the end of the 23-year Great Tribulation period, but they refuse to acknowledge that God then brought the world into Judgment Day and we are in the time after that Tribulation. Yet, they continue to insist that we are still in the Great Tribulation. In the second part of the Great Tribulation, God saved the great multitude and they want that to be still true. They want God to be continuing His salvation above all, including going beyond the truth of God’s Word in order to maintain their doctrine that their God must continue to save or He would not be “just” or He would not be “loving.” They have their own ideas on why God must continue to save, but it is the doctrine of men that comes from the minds of men and from the “emotions and feelings.” They say, “My God would not allow children to be born into a world in which He is not saving anyone.” But what about all the children that were born in families that remained in the churches and never left the churches during the period that God was not saving anyone there? These people have their doctrine. It is a doctrine they are insisting upon and they refuse to dig into the Word of God in an honest way and to search out these things to see if it is so and this has left them outside the boundaries of the 23-year Great Tribulation period; they are in a sort of “limbo” and they have no idea how long the Great Tribulation will continue. Will it be forty years or seventy years? What day will it end? What is the significance of the prolonged stretch of time?
We can tell you that the Bible indicates that it would be 23 years, as typified by the period from 609 BC to 586 BC, inclusively, and there God typifies the Great Tribulation. We can tell you that the number “8,400” relates to the number “84,” which ties into Tribulation. But they cannot give dates for the Great Tribulation in years or days any longer; they are going to stay far away from that. They are not going to dig into the Bible regarding this to any degree. That should be a big sign post to them that they have gone down a wrong road at a time when God has opened up the Biblical timeline of history and at a time when we can pinpoint key Biblical dates exactly. We know that the church age began on the day of Pentecost in 33 AD. We know the church age ended the day before Pentecost on May 21, 1988. We know there was a period of 2,300 “evening mornings” (days) when virtually no one was becoming saved. That period ended on September 7, 1994, which was the first day of the Hebrew seventh month in a Jubilee year and the day that the trumpet of the ram’s horn would sound to signal the Jubilee. The year 1994 was the Jubilee year. It is just amazing, is it not? On a day that was 2,300 “evening mornings” from the end of the church age, we came to the time when the trumpets should blow and sound the Jubilee and it just so happens to be a Jubilee year in 1994. And it was not just any Jubilee Year, but it was the 40th Jubilee period since Christ was born in 7 BC. These two dates are 2,000 years apart. It is “40 x 50” and then we come to 1994 and the first day of the Hebrew seventh month, September 7, 1994, and then we have the 6,100 days of the “second Jubilee,” the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit when there was the Latter Rain and God worked outside of the churches to save that great multitude. Then He concluded the Latter Rain and He concluded the judgment on the churches; the Great Tribulation came to an end on May 21, 2011, exactly 23 years (and exactly 8,400 days) from the beginning of the judgment on the churches and the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
May 21, 2011 is exactly 13,023 years from creation and it is 7,000 years, precisely, from the flood. When did the flood begin? It began on the “seventeenth day of the second month” of Noah’s 600th year. That date of May 21, 2011 was locked in prior to any forecasting of where 7,000 years from the flood landed. In addition, May 21, 2011 had an important underlying Hebrew calendar date. In our society we use the Gregorian calendar and our date of May 21, 2011 is based on that calendar that is tied to the (supposed) life span of Christ. The year 2011 is supposedly 2011 years from the birth of Christ; of course, we know that there was an error in our calendar and Christ was actually born in 7 BC, but, nonetheless, we use the Gregorian calendar dates. Yet, there is a Hebrew calendar, the Biblical calendar, that underlies these dates. That is how we learn of the Jewish holidays that come normally in September or October and they have feast days at other times of the year. For instance, they have their Feast of Tabernacles in their seventh month and that relates to our September-October period, which is our ninth and tenth months, so the Jewish calendar underlies our calendar. To put it another way, you can look at any of our calendar dates and then you can check and compare to see what the Jewish calendar date is for that particular day.
On May 21, 2011 the underlying Hebrew or Biblical calendar date was the “seventeenth day of the second month.” Think about that for a second. The flood occurred on the “seventeenth day of the second month” and exactly 7,000 years later on the day the Great Tribulation concluded (after an exact 23 years) in the 13,023rd year of earth’s history, it was May 21, 2011. What are the other possibilities if the timelines are “manmade” and it is just people like Mr. Camping that are manipulating or fabricating things? How do you manipulate and fabricate all of these times derived from the Bible and tie them in to the flood and creation and the Great Tribulation and then fit it with our own calendar? How do you do that? Who is brilliant enough to manipulate these things to such a degree and we cannot see their sleight of hand? The critics will say they are sure it is not accurate and it is not true, but they cannot prove an error or show where there has been deceitfulness of any kind and that is because there is no deceit.
It is not the brilliance of man, but it reveals the brilliant mind of God who has opened the Scriptures at a time when the world has…well, what words can we use to describe the situation in the world and the situation in the churches? In addition, Israel has become a nation again and everything is in place and a timeline is unveiled that is pinpoint in its accuracy to the very day of May 21, 2011. It concluded the 23-year Great Tribulation period and it was exactly 7,000 years from the flood to the equivalent day as God said to Noah, “For yet seven days,” and “a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” We are not to be ignorant of that one thing. We have all this in place and God locked it in and it still has not budged. He locked it in so that we would know, absolutely, prior to the arrival of that day that it was Judgment Day and, therefore, we would blow the trumpet with all certainly: “Judgment Day is coming! Seek the Lord while He may be found because you have until that day to become saved and to be delivered, if it is God’s will to save you.” The world was warned! Afterwards, God locked it in so we would continue not to be able to disprove it or move it. We cannot move it anywhere because the calendar will not permit us to move it. Of course, as we came to May 21, 2011 and there were no physical manifestations, like an earthquake, and we did not see anything with our physical eyes, there was a tendency to want to “move” it. We must have been wrong; let us go back to the calendar and review all the information and see if we might be off by a decade and we did that. But when we went back and reviewed it, it could not be moved. It would not budge from its position. God had locked it in and put His finger on that day and, therefore, we can only say that the Bible continues to insist that Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011.
And that has been very helpful because that has caused us to go back to the Bible and to reexamine the entire idea of judgment. We returned to the Bible with this kind of question: “Is it possible that God brought a spiritual judgment on the world? Is that Biblical? Is there any precedent in the Bible for a spiritual judgment? We found that, yes, there was and the very first judgment in the Bible was a spiritual judgment, as man died in their soul existence. Also, the judgment on Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was a spiritual judgment and the judgment on the churches was a spiritual judgment; it was the removal of the Holy Spirit and of salvation from them. Understanding the latter was especially helpful because God spoke of first giving the cup of His wrath to the churches and then giving the same cup to the nations of the world. Then we saw that the Bible does teach spiritual judgments and they were very major judgments: 1) the first judgment upon mankind for their sin; 2) the judgment on Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane; and 3) the judgment upon the churches when judgment began at the house of God. All of these judgments were spiritual in nature.
Of course, then we had other questions: “Why are the true believers still here?” Should we not have been taken in the Rapture? How is it that believers are still living on the earth in the time of judgment?” Incredibly, as we turned back to the Bible, we found all kinds of evidence that it had always been God’s plan to leave His people in the world to go through the Day of Judgment. In Zechariah 13, God tells us that He will “bring the third part through the fire.” In 1Corinthians, chapter 3, it says that in the Day of Judgment God will try all those are professed true believers to see what they are made of — if they are “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble.” Obviously, this means that all must go through the fire and “the day shall declare it” and reveal it. In Revelation 14 where God speaks of the cup of His wrath, He says, “Here is the patience of the saints.” Why would there be a need of patience in that context of Judgment Day? So, “Here is the patience of the saints,” in the time of the Day of Judgment. God says in Isaiah 24:6:
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
The “few” are the elect, as the Bible says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” But, here, “the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left,” which means they are present and living on the earth in the day of God’s judgment. There is an enormous amount of Scriptures to support this.
There were even very direct statements in the Bible that we had “explained away” or incorrectly interpreted before. Referring to the elect, it said in 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” God says in a few places that He will “judge the quick and the dead.” The “quick” means the living. He is the God of the living and He is the God of the elect that are alive in Christ. He will “judge the living and the dead,” and the “dead” are all those that are spiritually dead or unsaved. God is indicating that the elect are present and they are alive and remaining unto the coming of the Lord. It is interesting how God states that in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, where He says twice that His people are “alive and remaining,” and this is because He has left His people on the earth to go through the spiritual fire of the day of wrath to see who will “endure to the end” and come out the other side purified as “gold, silver, precious stones.”
Well, May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day. Let us look at a third proof of this fact. We have not talked about this for a while. April 1, 33 AD was the date that Christ was crucified. It was a Friday. From April 1, 33 AD to May 21, 2011 is 722,500 days. From the crucifixion of Christ on April 1, 33 AD until May 21, 2011, when God shut the door of heaven (just as He did in the days of the flood when He shut the door of the ark and sealed the fate of all the unsaved of the world that were not inside the ark) and sealed the eternal fate of all those that were not “in Christ,” was 722,500 days. That number breaks down to (5 x 10 x 17 x 5 x 10 x 17). Each of the numbers is “doubled.” Those three particular numbers have spiritual significance. The number “5” points to the atonement, as Jesus was demonstrating at the cross His atoning work from the foundation of the world. The number “10” points to completeness and the atoning work of Christ would be completed by May 21, 2011. The number “17” points to the fact that all the elect are saved and “heaven” is secured, as the number “17” identifies with heaven. Each number is “doubled.” The atoning work of Christ is complete and heaven is guaranteed for all the elect by that date of May 21, 2011.
When we put that timeline of 722,500 days and its significant numbers together with the 13,023 year timeline from creation and the 7,000 year timeline from the flood, along with the detail of it falling on “the seventeenth day of the second month” in the underlying Hebrew calendar, then we can see that Judgment Day did begin on May 21, 2011. The Bible continues to insist that Judgment Day began on that date. God shut the door of heaven and ended His salvation program and we are living in that time after the Tribulation.
If that is true that we are living in the days after the Tribulation, does the Bible allow for that idea? The Bible says in Mark 13:24:
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
So the Bible allows for a period of time known as “those days, after that tribulation,” in which the Gospel light is darkened. It was through the light of the Gospel that God saved. The Bible says, “Cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved,” but the countenance of God’s face, which is likened to the sun, is no longer shining and, therefore, there is no light to penetrate the darkness of a man’s heart. There is no salvation, according to the Bible, “in those days, after that tribulation.” It agrees with what we have learned is taking place at this time.
Well, now the big question is: “How long will Judgment Day last?” That is the question we began with, as we asked why October 7, 2015 is the likely date for the end of the world. Now that we have a basic understanding of May 21, 2011 and we see how that date locked in as Judgment Day, we can build upon that. In our next study, we will look at the 1,600 day period of the Day of Judgment.