Sunday, May 22, 2011

Harold Camping Whiffs on May 21st

Harold Camping, the long-time manager of Family Radio, predicted for the last several months that the world would end on May 21st at around 6 p.m. In his worldview, he believed that the Bible "guaranteed" that it would come to an end and that all believers would be raptured away. He believed that the Great Tribulation began on 1988 and lasted 23 years until this year. On May 21st, he believed, there would be a series of earthquakes around the world marking the time when God was completely finished and nobody else could become saved. He believed that time would be around 6 in the evening, based on the scene in the Bible where Elijah made an offering in the evening after the prophets of Baal had held their feast in the day to prove that God was the one true God and not Baal.

Many people believed Mr. Camping's apocalyptic message and one person even spent their life savings to take out billboard advertisements warning the world that the end was almost here. Family Radio sent caravans all over the country and sent listeners all over the world proclaiming the end of the world was at hand. But May 21st came and went and nothing happened. In that regard, many different people have proclaimed the end of the world unsuccessfully.

This was not the first time that Mr. Camping had proclaimed the end of the world. Back in 1992, he predicted that the world would come to an end in 1994 and wrote a book named "1994?" in which he laid out his prediction that the world would, "in all likelihood," come to an end at that time. He believed that day would come in September. But when that day came and went, he announced an error in his predictions and subsequently settled on 2011 as the end of the world.

For Mr. Camping, he admitted the possibility of error in his 1994 prediction. However, for him, the ends justified the means -- the bottom line was that he wanted to get listeners to confront the question of whether or not they were ready to meet their maker. However, maybe deciding that not enough faith was involved this time, Mr. Camping declared that the "Bible guaranteed" that the world would end in 2011 and that there was no possibility of him being wrong. People who questioned him in that regard were viewed by Mr. Camping as not having read the whole Bible.

Family Radio has yet to come up with an explanation for their latest miss. While their local station on 920 AM, based in Shenandoah, IA was playing their signature old-fashioned gospel music, their website was down until Sunday. Archives for Open Forum programs after last Wednesday were not available as they normally are. Emotions were running high on the Wednesday Open Forum program with one caller mentioning two friends by name who had followed Mr. Camping's doctrines and inviting them back to church before being cut off. Another caller asked Camping how many times he had prayed before becoming saved. Another caller accused Mr. Camping of having made 10 such predictions since 1978 before being cut off.

On Sunday morning, May 22nd, no judgment day happened and millions of Americans went to church as normal. Preachers like Sheridan Christian Church minister Jeff Blaine were there to provide answers to why Jesus did not come on May 21st. Blaine said that the reason that Jesus didn't come during his Sunday sermon was that Matthew 24:35 states that nobody knows the day or the hour of the father coming, not even the son of man. He said that people should be alert and be in a state of constant readiness for Judgement Day to come, but that "anyone who claims to know when the day or hour is is a liar."

Preparing for the possibility that people might think they missed the Rapture, Blaine explained, drawing on 1st Thessalonians, that there were people who taught Christians that the Rapture had already happened during the days of the Early Church. "Paul was dealing with some of the exact same issues," said Blaine.

Blaine said that unbelievers would be caught away first and meet face to face with Jesus, who will judge them for what they had done. Then, he said that Jesus would come with the believers who had died in Christ and then catch up those who are currently alive to be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:14). He said key scriptures were the Parable of the Tares, in which the believers and unbelievers were to exist side by side until the final judgment day. In Matthew 13:30, Jesus describes the order in which the people will be taken; first, the weeds will be collected and tied into bundles to be burned; then, the wheat will be gathered to be put into the barn.

Further addressing arguments that the rapture already happened, Blaine pointed to John 5:25-29, in which everyone in their graves will hear Jesus' voice and be resurrected. In other words, there will be no secret about Jesus' second coming because God's voice will be such that everyone, even the dead, will hear it through the ends of the earth. He said the problem with teaching a secret rapture is that then, Jesus is not given all the glory. He said that a Biblical view of the rapture gives Jesus the glory and not any person. Blaine pointed to Acts 1, which states that Jesus will return in the same manner in which he ascended into Heaven.

Addressing the popular "Left Behind" series, Blaine said that Hebrews 9:27-28 states that Jesus will come one more time. That passage states that Jesus will come a second time to those who are waiting for him. Blaine encouraged people not to look back because "When Jesus comes again, it's over." For instance, Lot's wife looked back longingly at the city of Sodom, and was turned into a pillar of salt. Blaine said that there will be a final battle during the second coming, but that like the popular song says, "The battle belongs to the Lord." He encouraged people to use the Bible as one's compass and not any person so that people would not be going around in circles of confusion.

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