davidbowerkingwood

It is unlikely that anyone has avoided all of the hoopla about 2012. It has become a popular enough topic that even a movie was made on the subject. I must admit not only have I seen the movie I have a copy of it. Do I agree with its conclusions, emphatically not, it’s Hollywood hype.

Beyond the movie, which was simply opportunistic, there has been a great deal written about what, if anything, may happen in or around 2012. It has been speculated that this may be the end of the world or at least the end of life as we have known it.

As students of the Bible we know this is not the case; true enough the world as it is will be destroyed completely along with the entire universe but not in 2012. We are also told  things will get deadly during the Tribulation but God’s judgment will stop short of world destruction at that point.

Information provided in the Bible tells us there will be a minimum of 1007 years before this event takes place. The one incident that will start that clock ticking is the signing of the covenant between Israel and the Antichrist. Before that happens I believe it is clear in Scripture that the church will be called home by the Rapture and will not experience the terrible judgments of the Great Tribulation.

None of us knows when the Rapture will take place or how bad things will get before the church is called home; only time will tell us that information.

On the subject of 2012 there seems to be a mixture of a little science with a whole lot of urban legend type speculation. While it is true that sunspot activity will experience a cyclical solar maximum in or around 2012 the impact of that increased activity is not precisely known.

Let us consider the science behind the sunspot part of this equation. If one searches for 2012 sunspots one will find nestled among the urban legends some articles by NASA Science News. These articles have indicated the possibility of damaging sunspot activity in the 2012-2013 timeframe.

While NASA can estimate the possibility of a negative impact on our electronics and electrical grid, the impact of a more severe level of sunspot activity is unknown since there has not been a truly severe level of activity since we entered our present technological era.

The last moderately severe event took place in 1958 and the last truly intense event took place in 1859. The 1859 episode is called the Carrington Event and caused overloaded telegraph lines to cause fires in telegraph offices as well as the northern lights to be visible in the United States.

The National Academy of Sciences reported that a similar event today could cause between $1 to 2 trillion in damages to our highly developed electronic/electrical infrastructure and take between four to ten years to completely repair. Would you like to imagine being without electricity for even four years?

An event comparable to the 1958 event could cause damage to cell phone and other satellite dependent services and potentially damage some of the orbiting satellites along with some possible damage to our electrical infrastructure.

Since we have not had even a moderately disruptive event since technology achieved its present state of complexity no one really knows how bad it will be. By this time in 2013 we may have a much better understanding of the consequences of a sunspot event of some magnitude.

Now all we can do is to wait and see what the sun will do over the next few months; Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted as saying:”The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way.”

Those in the know seem to agree we could be in for some surprises and it seems to be generally understood that a storm is coming, a solar storm. In my last blog I mentioned a foundation that could withstand the storms which life will surely bring; it appears possible that one of those storms may be approaching in the not too distant future.

This of course leads my thinking to Luke 21:25 where the Lord refers to signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; although this verse has a specific reference to conditions at the close of the tribulation, I find it easy to believe we may see precursors of these signs taking place as a warning of what is coming.

I believe we who love the Lord can agree we’re thankful our times are in His hands and join together in saying even so, come Lord Jesus.