Sunday last (27 May) I posted a tongue-in-cheek farewell message.

This is my final post. Why? Because the world ends today.

Come midnight, the world hadn’t ended. But there was still time … New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of GMT! I went to bed … and then I woke up. And the world was still here.

Was I surprised? No. I never thought for more than a moment that the world would end on 27 May 2012. Who would? Well, perhaps some of the visitors to The Prophesied End-Time Revealed. When I wrote my earlier post I thoughtfully kept a copy of the page as it was on 27 May. The opening paragraph read

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind and the beginning in a countdown of the final three and one-half years of man’s self-rule that will end by May 27, 2012.

The opening paragraph now reads

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind. The final countdown to the end of man’s self-rule began on May 27, 2012, and will end on Pentecost of 2013.

Now, that’s a bit dodgy. The end of the world isn’t nigh. It’s been indefinitely postponed. Since 2008.

In fact, Jesus says that no one will know at what hour the Son of Man will return (not even he does!), and Paul tells us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When I looked up chapter and verse, I found that this message is repeated over and over in the New Testament. Really, it is inexcusable for a Christian to claim he knows the specific date of Christ’s Second Coming!

Matthew 24:36, 42-44 (NIV)

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Luke 12:35-40 (NIV)

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 (NIV)

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

2 Peter 3:10 (NIV)

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Revelation 3:3 (NIV)

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Revelation 16:15 (NIV)

“Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

Matthew 24:3-5 (NIV)

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (NIV)

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter —asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.