9 DAYS TODEH

Members of the local church community have dismissed the prophecy put forward by an American religious group from Pennsylvania that Judgement Day is only 10 days away, and the Lord will return on May 21 followed by total destruction of the world by fire five months later on October 21.

“May 21, 2011 is the equivalent date to the date when God shut the door on Noah’s Ark, through this and much other Biblical information, we find that May 21 will be the day when God takes up into heaven his elect people. May 21 will be Judgment Day! This is the day God shuts the door of salvation on the world,” is an excerpt taken from the group’s website.

The group, eBible Fellowship, has been proclaiming God’s return worldwide on its website, ebiblefellowship.comand through advertisements including billboards, one of which can be found on Hagley Park Road in St Andrew.

At the same time, the website’s picture gallery displays that at least eight billboards have been posted islandwide all carrying the same message, Judgement Day – May 21, 2011, supported by selective verses taken from the Bible. The website states that according to their bibical calculations, the world as we know it will come to an end on the said date followed by worldwide destruction as the apocalypse will be upon us.

day of judgement

According to the group, “We know that the year 2011 is the 7,000th year from the flood. We also know that God will destroy this world in that year.” The group further explains that May 21 will be the Day of Judgement as it was on that date in 1988 AD that the church age came to an end.

“It so happens that the church age began on the day of Pentecost (May 22) in the year 33 AD. Then 1955, years later, the church age came to its conclusion on May 21, which was the day before Pentecost in 1988,” the group illustrates on their website. Additionally, the group adds that “the Bible teaches that the end of the church age would occur simultaneously with the beginning of the great tribulation.” They reason that on May 21, 1988, God finished using the churches and congregations of the world.

The Spirit of God left all churches and Satan, the man of sin, entered into the churches to rule at that point in time, the group claims.

The Bible, the group states, teaches us that this awful period of judgment upon the churches would last for 23 years. A full 23 years (8400 days exactly) would be from May 21, 1988 until May 21, 2011.

But despite the justifications given by the group to pinpoint Judgement Day, some local church members are not convinced.

Bishop Rowan Edwards, president of the Jamaica Full Gospel Assembly of Churches, emphasised that he was aware of the claim but described the prediction as untrue.

“It’s utter madness I tell you,” he explained to THE STAR.

“It’s a facade … The God that I serve sent his only begotten son and he says that no man knows the time nor the hour of his coming … the coming of the Lord is sure but nobody knows when,” he added.

Similarly, Reverend Jim Parkes of the Christ Church, in Vineyard Town maintained that he was not persuaded by the claim.

“I would be quite reluctant to accept any date given by anyone because that would not be consistent with Jesus’ words,” he told THE STAR.