A proposed timeline for the Apocalypse – 318.5

Part of me is reluctant to do this, engaging in scriptural speculation. After all, as we read in Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.” However, I have some interesting ideas on the topic, that could get people thinking, and I do love doing that. So, I will proceed, but with the following guideposts and disclaimers.

· I am not giving an exact time, just a potential guideline.
· I am stating outright that I have no scriptural authority.
· In a very real way, the time doesn’t actually matter.

My very first speculation occurred many years ago. I had heard that that Mayan calendar showed the world ending in 2012, and I had also read that people counting back using the ages given in the Old Testament calculated its start at around 4004 BC. Giving the earth a 6000-year life span, I had thought would put its completion at about 2004. This was a math error, as I should have come up with 1996. Anyway, I split the difference and was thinking maybe around 2008, which at the time was still a long way off. I wasn’t married to the idea; I just kind of had it in mind.

The next key point happened with something President Bott said in reference to Revelations 8:1, “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Previously, all I had ever heard anyone do with this verse is use it humorously as proof that there are no women in Heaven (ha ha). What he did was point out that if to God a thousand years is as one day (many places, but let’s go with 2nd Peter 3:8), that this could represent about twenty-one years. He talked about many other things related to the second coming, and we didn’t really dwell on that point, but I did file it away.

A few years later I was in an institute class, and I honestly can’t remember if it was with Brother Dymock or President Woolley, but he was talking about how what happens in the Book of Mormon is a key to what happens in our times. I started pondering that, and what struck me was the first coming of the Savior. You had the sign of His birth, and everyone believed and repented, and then they fell away, and then the disasters struck with His death and He came, starting off a time of great peace (3rd Nephi).

This gave me a new idea of how things could work. We could have a huge series of disasters, or one big disaster—something that would cause lots of people to think that this is the end and repent, and then nothing happens. Things get better and stay peaceful and maybe even get kind of prosperous, so they forget and fall away and grow in wickedness and then BAM!

It makes sense in relation to many scriptures. Consider Luke 12 and Matthew 24, My Lord delayeth his coming, or 1st Thessalonians 5:2 and 2nd Peter 3:10, where they use the simile of a thief in the night.

Clearly there is supposed to be an element of surprise, and yet many people are looking for the Second Coming now. It grew with Y2K, and I expect to see another bump with December 21st, 2012, but people are expecting something. Every catastrophe that happens, from the World Trade Center attacks to Hurricane Katrina, makes people nervous, especially when several get bunched together, like the tsunami, followed by the earthquake in Pakistan, followed not long after by Katrina. They track these things over at raptureready.com (check out the rapture index).

You could argue that only the faithful are watching, and it is only the wicked that will be surprised, but in the parable of the ten virgins they are all virgins and all invited to the wedding, but half of them still run out of oil.

I am particularly interested in the December 21st 2012 date, because the Nephites did have a specific date. Samuel the Lamanite told them it would be five years until the star, and it was to the day. There are some interesting things scheduled for that time period. (Novelty theory has some really interesting ideas about the date, but they are pretty vague, and I’m not sure that the whole concept is scientifically sound.)

Regardless, I can totally imagine crazy bad things happening on that date, followed by an amazing religious revival that fades along with the fear as no one comes, but He still will come.

So that’s my theory, and it is certainly better thought out than my 2004 idea, but I am still not married to it.

First of all, no one does know, and I am not going to claim to know.

Secondly, it kind of doesn’t matter when it happens. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, it’s pretty much all the same to me, and whether I have four years or thirty years, what is required of me is pretty much the same.

In addition, prophecies just make a lot more sense after they are fulfilled. What Isaiah said about Cyrus is fairly clear, but I don’t think anyone knew how clear until it was fulfilled. I’m not sure even David guessed how literally the 22nd Psalm would be fulfilled. So while I feel confident that I understand prophesies about the learned man and the sealed book, or the stick of Joseph and the stick of Judah coming together, or a voice speaking from the dust, it doesn’t necessarily help me picture the locusts with faces like men and tails like scorpions and hair like women, even if I have some guesses.

I would like to think that Jerusalem being under siege by the entire world and defended by two powerful servants of God for three and a half years would be fairly clear, but you know, maybe not. If everyone recognized it for what it was, they would be crazy not to retreat. (Unless maybe it was not the whole world, but the known world of that time, which would be primarily the middle east, and Muslim, so not necessarily drawing on the New Testament.) I am completely open to finding out that I didn’t understand.

I will mention one other thing that has been interesting to me. When I was in the Missionary Training Center there were about 46000 missionaries in the world. My roommates were learning Cantonese to go to Hong Kong, so I heard a lot about that, and one of the things that was said was that when China does open up, they will need to divert all the missionaries there, I assume because the population is so large and they have been without the Gospel for so long.

It could just be one of those faith-promoting rumors (they also believed that after finishing, all the Chinese-speaking former missionaries could be called up again after China is open) but I was thinking about that, and about needs, and I figured we just needed to triple the number of missionaries. That way we could maintain the current areas, cover China, and also cover the other areas that were closed. (There are less of those now then there were. The first six proselytizing missionaries left for Cambodia the day I came home.) Perhaps the correct total would be 144000. That would be a good symbolic number.

While I was thinking these thoughts, I also thought about tripling the number of temples, which seemed necessary to keep pace. There were about 45 then, so I just rounded up to 150, but then I thought with the time involved that would take an impossibly long time.

Well, the number of missionaries has gone up. In the 2007 statistical report it was 52,686, which is impressive, but not even close to tripled. However, there are currently 128 temples in operation, with another 17 announced or under construction. Just based on my thinking that would be good, I could not have believed it possible. If the prophet had said we would have it, I would have found it difficult to imagine. I would have believed it, but not seen how. Things can happen amazingly fast.