What signs are there in the world today, that the coming of the Lord is near at hand?

Well, it's a whole lot closer than it was 2,000 years ago. However, no man knows the day or hour and certain signs still have to be fulfilled. One is that the Antichrist will sign a peace treaty with Israel but it will be broken after three and a half years.

The Mayans developed their own calendar (The Long Count) ca. 355 B.C. They were able to use their observations and mathematical prowess to calculate the future movements of stars across the sky. The result was that the Mayans discovered the effect of the earth’s wobbling as it spins on its axis. This wobbling rotation causes the stars’ movements to drift gradually in the sky (an effect called “precession”) in a 5,125-year cycle. The Mayans also discovered that once every cycle the dark band at the center of the Milky Way (called the “Galactic Equator”) intersects the Elliptical (the plane of the sun’s movement across the sky).

During the year of the intersection, the sun reaches its solstice (a brief moment when the sun’s position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer) on December 21 for the Northern Hemisphere and June 21 for the Southern Hemisphere. At that time, the solstice occurs at the same moment of the conjunction of the Galactic Equator with the Milky Way. The year this occurs (in relation to our Gregorian calendar) is A.D. 2012, and happened last on August 11, 3114 B.C. With Mayan mythology teaching that the sun is a god and the Milky Way is the gateway to life and death, the Mayans concluded that this intersection in the past must have been the moment of creation. Mayan hieroglyphs seem to indicate that they believed the next intersection (in 2012) would be some sort of end and a new beginning of a cycle.

All the so-called “Mayan prophecies of 2012” are nothing more than wildly speculative extrapolations, based on the yet-uncertain interpretations by scholars of Mayan hieroglyphs. The truth is that, apart from the astrological convergence, there is little indication that the Mayans prophesied anything specific regarding the events in their distant future. The Mayans were not prophets; they were not even able to predict their own cultural extinction. They were great mathematicians and accomplished sky watchers, but they were also a brutally violent tribal people with a primitive understanding of natural phenomena, subscribing to archaic beliefs and the barbaric practices of blood-letting and human sacrifice. (They believed, for example, that the blood of human sacrifices powered the sun and gave it life.)

There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that would present December 21, 2012, as the end of the world. While that date is no less valid for an end-times event than any other future date, the Bible nowhere presents the astronomical phenomena the Mayans pointed to as a sign of the end times. It would seem inconsistent of God to allow the Mayans to discover such an amazing truth while keeping the many Old Testament prophets ignorant of the timing of the events. In summary, there is absolutely no biblical evidence that the 2012 Mayan prophecy / prediction of doomsday is in any sense valid or probable.

Accepting the Mayan 2012 prophecy requires acceptance of the following theories: our sun is a god; the sun is powered by the blood of human sacrifice; the creation moment occurred at 3114 B.C. (despite all evidence that it happened much earlier); and the visual alignment of stars has some significance for everyday human life. Like every other false religion, the Mayan religion sought to elevate the creation instead of the Creator Himself. The Bible tells us about such false worshipers: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25), and “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). To accept the Mayan 2012 prophecy also denies the clear biblical teaching about the end of the world. Jesus told us, “Of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). GT

Homosexuality as an "accepted" practice, great deception and 'double-talk'; ie untruthfulness, the New Pharoah in Egypt, the organised chaos in the Middle East all designed to welcome the Mahdi onto the world scene, selfishness, wars and rumours of wars, an increase of unbelief and turning from God, the increase in witchcraft and esoteric practices, drug use worldwide, the plan to reduce the world's population down to a more manageable amount of 500 million or thereabouts, lawlessness, lust and it's tendrils within different aspects of sexuality; ie paedophillia; pornography; snuff movies; .....yes we are rapidly approaching a time of no return, as the Lord comes for His people..Muslims worldwide are awaiting the rise of the Mahdi and his false prophet, jesus, this pair will deceive millions who are looking to jesus, but who do not know their bibles enough to know The Truth and how to find Him.... John 3:16; John 14:6.

As for the Mayans they weren't too smart, after all they daily sacrificed their children and young adults to the flames of the volcano , until there were no second generation people and as a race of people, they were extinct.

So, suddenly everyone is talking about end of the world predictions from a race of savages?

That sounds real inspiring stuff !

Mind you though, if God had actually set a date, I wonder how much of a feeding frenzy there'd be ?

None. End-times mentality is one of the most dangerous and perfidious aspects of evangelical Christianity. Millions of people spending their entire lives expecting Jesus to appear in the clouds at any moment, right up until the day they die.

Look at the history of your own religion. For the whole of the past 2,000 years people have been saying that "these are the end times". In the year 1,000 there was mass panic all across the Christian world because they thought the end of the world was upon them.

We are here for the long run - thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands more years on this planet if we are lucky, until it becomes uninhabitable for whatever reason or our technology advances to the point when we can leave Earth and go off and explore the galaxy.

That's if we stop expecting the world to end and start looking after the planet - the only thing keeping us alive.

Is the end of the world really near?

THE BIBLE’S ANSWER: “When you see these things occurring, know that the kingdom of God is near.”—LUKE 21:31.

In the book The Last Days Are Here Again, Professor Richard Kyle writes that “sudden change and social chaos create an atmosphere conducive to predictions of the end of the world.” That is especially the case when the change and chaos seem hard to explain.

However, the Bible prophets who spoke about the end were not trying to explain baffling events of their day. Instead, they were inspired by God to describe conditions that would indicate an imminent end of the world. Consider some of those prophecies and decide for yourself whether they are being fulfilled in our time.

▪ Wars, famines, earthquakes, and epidemics of deadly disease.—Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11.

▪ Significant increase in crime.—Matthew 24:12.

▪ The ruining of the earth by mankind.—Revelation 11:18.

▪ People who love themselves, money, and pleasures but do not love God.—2 Timothy 3:2, 4.

▪ The breakdown of the family.—2 Timothy 3:2, 3.

▪ General apathy toward the evidence of the approaching end.—Matthew 24:37-39.

▪ The preaching of the good news of God’s Kingdom worldwide.—Matthew 24:14.

As Jesus said, seeing “all these things” lets us know that the end of the world is near. (Matthew 24:33) Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the evidence is convincing, and they share their faith with others by preaching in 236 lands.

Notice that the date and time is mot provided to us so we cannot say it will be December 2012 (lol)

***Read all of Matthew 24: it talks about world wars which we have had two. Something impossible before now. The ability to destroy all flesh has only happened with nuclear weapons.

1Thessalonians 5: shows it will come when they are saying peace and security. So somthing will happen to make them think all is well. Jesus likened it to the days of Noah. Then it caught them unaware. So in our day. That also disproves the rapture. If the chosen are raptured out what difference whould it make how long it took? Psalms 37:9,10,11,29 shows it is the wicked who are leaving.

(Matthew 24:21, 22) for then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again. 22 In fact, unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved; but on account of the chosen ones those days will be cut short.

There is no such conspiracy to come up with a New World Order. It's hard enough for people working under a common cause, following guidance from a powerful single person, to come up with even minor coordinated actions. (Read virtually any history of ANY US presidency. Talk with most anyone who has ever tried to work in a volunteer organization or even a church or social club.) You will quickly see the impossibility of such foolish conspiracy theories, let alone something as big as this NWO idiocy. With Jesus himself admitting even HE couldn't know the time of his second coming, how could you imagine that some minimially-educated Bible group could do it.

There are so many & all about us. A biggie is terror & terrorism, (our children???) Bad sign there! The disasters are reaching Biblical perportions. Economic situation, not good...world-wide. Famines, Wars & rumors of, wars. Nations rise against nations. Plagues & diseases. The Scripts compare this time to a woman in childbirth, Labor Pains. All creation groans & hurts, and troubles upon the earth. Confusion, as how to fix problems? Perplexity? Whats the way out? Jesus said "I am the Way, The Truth, and The Life."

"What signs are there in the world today, that the coming of the Lord is near at hand?"

The fact that humans have never had it so good, never had such long lifespans, and are far more tolerent on average than the bigots of yesteryear?

Well it's 6:47am here, so I think we're fine. BUT, NASA has confirmed that on the 21st of December, late evening, the sky is going to turn very dark. This is a phenomenon called "Nighttime".

Extreme violence oh wait it had happen in the last 4000 years low morals regarding sex oh really I thought the ancient greeks and egyptians invented the orgies and what about the kamasutra a book at least with 3000 years of history lack of faith in the "lord" which lord out of a thousand?