This Time For Sure

There's a new billboard up the street from my house:

 It must be true.  I mean, it's on a billboard and everything.  And we all know that we are morally obligated to do everything that a billboard tells us to do, up to and including enrolling in clown college.

Still, I wanted to know more. I figured there would be more detailed requirements behind this "cry mightily unto God" instruction; I wouldn't want to do it wrong, you know, or face the wrong direction or something and cause God to get angry with me right at the moment of Judgment.  So I went to the website, FamilyRadio.com and found this explanation:

In 2 Peter 3:8, which is quoted above, Holy God reminds us that one day is as 1,000 years. Therefore, with the correct understanding that the seven days referred to in Genesis 7:4 can be understood as 7,000 years, we learn that when God told Noah there were seven days to escape worldwide destruction, He was also telling the world there would be exactly 7,000 years (one day is as 1,000 years) to escape the wrath of God that would come when He destroys the world on Judgment Day.  Because Holy Infinite God is all-knowing, He knows the end from the beginning.   He knew how sinful the world would become.

Seven thousand years after 4990 B.C. (the year of the Flood) is the year 2011 A.D. (our calendar).

4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7,000

[One year must be subtracted in going from an Old Testament B.C. calendar date to a New Testament A.D. calendar date because the calendar does not have a year zero.]

Thus Holy God is showing us by the words of 2 Peter 3:8 that He wants us to know that exactly 7,000 years after He destroyed the world with water in Noah’s day, He plans to destroy the entire world forever. Because the year 2011 A.D. is exactly 7,000 years after 4990 B.C. when the flood began, the Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment, which will come on the last day of the Day of Judgment.

Short version: When God gave Noah his final instructions, he gave him seven days lead time. With that, God was also telling everyone who would ever live that He would destroy the world forever in seven God-days, which equals 7000 years.

Still, this didn't give me much on which to base my actions in the Last Days, other than repenting and so forth. But the reference on the billboard to the verse in Jonah was obviously another clue:

"But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands."

Jonah, you'll remember, was the plucky fellow who spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish.  Jonah got into that predicament when he was thrown into the sea by the mariners on whose ship he had booked passage. A storm had come, and the crew decided to draw lots to see whose fault it was. Surprise!  It was Jonah who had brought divine punishment upon the ship. So they tossed him overboard. (They also had reason to believe he had booked his passage to Tarshish to escape the presence of God, which was evidently possible in those days.)

But Jonah was able to pray from inside the fish, and God answered him by telling the fish to vomit him up. God then told Jonah to travel to the great city of Nineveh, taking with him the message that the city was about to be overthrown and destroyed. He did so, but because the Ninevites humbled themselves by wearing sackcloth and sitting in ashes, God decided to spare the city. 

Ah, now we have the key: on May 21, 2011, we can be spared God's wrath by wearing sackcloth (rough sacking material, in those days made from camel hair) and sitting in piles of ashes, while begging God for forgiveness.  But the offer is limited.  From the website:

Sadly, the Holy Bible tells us that only a small percentage of today’s world will turn from their evil ways, and with great humility and fear will cry to God for mercy. Nevertheless, the Bible assures us that many of the people who do beg God for His mercy will not be destroyed. We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people (that is about 3% of today’s population). On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them.

Well, I fully intend to win that Holy Lottery. I will spend that day, May 21, crying in a pit of ashes with a bag over my head.  Many will scoff; the Bible tells us this. They will burn. Or drown, or get left behind or something. But I will be mightily crying to God inside my bag, and will be lifted up to Heaven from the ashes of this dying world. Presumably the bag will come off at this point. And I will rejoice, knowing that practically everyone I have ever known has perished and that I have been specially chosen to live forever with that blessed memory.  Praise Be to Lord Jesus.