Cable-TV channels have a way of mainstreaming every niche of American culture, and now the National Geographic Channel is going to give the treatment to what it calls “preppers” – individuals who take extreme measures to plan for a forthcoming apocalypse, which by their definition can range from nuclear war to economic collapse to the end of the world called for by the Mayan calendar this year.

Of course, we totally agree with the subjects of the show, Doomsday Preppers, in that the apocalypse is upon us. But what kind of apocalypse are they preparing for, and what kind of apocalypse should we as end-times Christians be preparing for? And what should our preparations be?

The National Geographic channel commissioned an online survey of about 1,000 American adults and found that 61 percent of them believe the country will experience a major catastrophic event within the next 20 years, though only 15 percent of them feel they are fully prepared for it.

It may be obvious to say that part of what defines an event as a disaster is that we’re not fully prepared for it – or it wouldn’t be a huge disaster. And in the case of the end of the world as orchestrated by God Almighty, we can be fully prepared for the eventualities, certainly in a spiritual sense and to a large extent in a material sense.

We just need to do a few things.

We urge all who will hear the Spirit of God today to do so. Revelation chapters 2 and 3 say repeatedly, “Let him who has ears, hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” as the book describes the seven churches and their various responses to God.

The Bible describes the events preceding the final years before the return of Jesus, graphically so in Revelation. What we are seeing are what the bible calls birth pangs: wars, earthquakes, pestilence, famine, excessive corruption, men being lovers of self rather than lovers of God, hurricanes, the worst floods in recent history and so on.

We also are told that in order to buy and sell, every person alive will have to receive the mark of the Beast, signaling their alliance to his satanic system in opposition to God’s, followed by the antichrist’s declaration that he is god.

What we must be doing as believers is preparing to live outside the system of the antichrist materially as well as spiritually. This includes practical preparation, as when Matthew 24 compares these days to the time when Noah built his Ark. Matthew writes that the last days will be just like the days of Noah.

Getting God’s money is an urgent piece to the puzzle; money answereth all things, as Ecclesiastes 10:19 says. If you get God’s money, precious metals, He will see you through. It is an act of obedience to get his money and get prepared, just like Noah.

It’ll be interesting to see if National Geographic deals in a straight and honest way with Christian “preppers” and doesn’t make us out to be idiots. Of course, ultimately, their treatment doesn’t matter anyway – only what we do out of obedience to Christ.