With all the media-inflicted hype created recently by the 2012 movies, there has been an attempt to tie together the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ (as predicted in scripture), with the 2012 prophecies of the Mayans, Nostradomus, and others. Are these two prophecies one in the same? Is it possible that God's prophets of the Bible, (on the one hand) and the best prophets that the world has to offer (on the other), are in agreement on this date? If they are, what significance does this hold for us? If they are not in agreement, then which one is right and trustworthy? (Of course, time will tell...but...)
Since the Mayan calendar seems to cease on that ill-fated day, many suppose that the world, as we know it, will cease to be. Life will be a struggle, at best, and few, if any, will survive. They claim that the solar system will be in such a state of affairs that there will be tsunamis, the likes of which we have never seen. Earthquakes. War. Pestilence.
Works have been discovered by the Masons (Masonic lodge) of many years ago that seem to indicate the same date. Egyptian coded messages from dusty pyramids do as well. It almost seems spooky.
We can not know what all these "works of men" could and might mean. At best, they are just that: the works of men.
But when these same prognosticators try to pull the Bible into the mix, taking passages from the Book of Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, and other Bible prophecies (even the words of Christ in the Gospels) concerning the end time, and "squeeze" the Bible and twist it to add validity to their "man-made" doomsday theories, that is really stretching it. Suddenly we see people everywhere who wanted nothing to do with the Bible whatsoever all their lives, now "force it" to fit their flimsy farce of a "fairy tale."
As for the Rapture of the Church of Jesus Christ, it is the most real and imminent event on the biblical prophetic calendar. There is no other Bible prophecy that has to be fulfilled before the rapture of the church occurs. All is ready.
The word, "Rapture" does not appear in the language of the Authorized Version of the Bible, commonly known as the King James version. However, the Greek word for "Caught up" in I Thessalonians 4:17 is "Raptuo". Quoting: "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
Then again in I Corinthians 15:50,51 we find: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Clearly, there is coming a moment yet in the future where the dead shall rise, and all others in Christ who have not yet experienced physical death, shall be changed. Raptured. Caught up to be with the Lord in the air.
Is the rapture going to occur on December 21, 2012? Again, if you know anything about the Bible, it clearly teaches us in Mark 13:32,33 "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is."