ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT WRONG ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME

As 2013 ends, keep in mind that predictions of the end of the world have been wrong all the time. Tons of books have been written and sold about how this or that event marked the beginning of the end, yet we're still here. So why do people keep predicting doomsday? It makes them money, that's why.

Remember back in January of 1974 when the Children of God cult predicted that a comet would destroy the United States? Kohoutek was supposed to be bright and close to the earth, yet it actually looked very faint. I didn't hear about how many people took it seriously but I'm sure some did leave America.

Remember Y2K? Many people were duped into buying a year's supply of dehydrated food because society was supposed to collapse when the computers crashed. Apart from minor glitches, nothing happened.

I certainly remember the false prophecy of a man who calls himself Brother Stair. He predicted, wrongly of course, that fifty percent of Americans would be dead in 2003. Again, I don't know how many folks took him seriously. I certainly didn't.

Jack Van Impe made a lot of money in the past with his sensational prophecies. One of his videos was entitled "2001 Countdown to Eternity." I'm glad that a friend gave me a VHS copy rather than me having to purchase that over-hyped baloney.

Then there was the Mayan calendar fiasco last year. Many false prophets claimed that since it ran out on December twenty-first, the world would end in flames. However, it cycled back to the beginning again.

Whichever way you celebrate the new year, you can relax in the knowledge that the world won't end because some preachers claim it will next year. They were wrong before and they'll be wrong again.

Nobody knows when Christ will return. He'll come when he comes. As long as you belong to him, you'll be safe when he does arrive to make a new heaven and a new earth.

I wrote extensively about a house church minister and his bogus prophecies in my newly-published memoir, How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Please check it out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm.