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Answer: Well, you actually answer your own question by using the phrase "acting of their own accord". They are certainly not acting on behalf of the scriptures. Any codes that have been allegedly found in the bible, whether it dealt with slaves, eschatology (end times), or other world events have been found to be severely wanting and little more than wishful thinking. A quote taken from Christopher B. Brown illustrates this point:
Not everything that people want to believe is true is in fact true. Many people get overexuberant in their interest in such areas as Bible Prophecy and (in the last year or two) "Bible Codes.'' It is important to examine these things carefully so as to not be pulled into things that are a waste of time.Again, see the other answer concerning people who justify horrible actions from scripture. Also, of interest would be to read this article on the specific ways in which people twist scripture. It indicates TWENTY ways (see below for list) in which people past and present have sought to twist God's word:
"Bible Codes'' are a good case in point. The people that have written books on ``Bible Codes'' have nicely convinced me that they neither understand generating functions, state spaces, nor null hypotheses, which are pretty basic requirements to show that they understand the probabilities of the combinations that they are looking for. The primary thing that they have succeeded at is at coming up with yet another way of promoting books and computer software.
Putting it another way, from my "graduate school'' understanding of statistical mathematics, it is clear that the people writing the books are not using more than a layman's understanding of probabilities in order to evaluate their results.