I’m happy I didn’t buy season tickets for baseball this year. In just over three weeks the world will cease to exist. Dang, I have a new pair of western boots; they won’t even be broken in by then. Do they allow cowboy boots in Heaven? I tuned up my lawnmower for what? And I renewed a magazine subscription for twelve more months and paid up front! If I’d only read the work of Harold Camping a couple of months ago I wouldn’t be in this mess. 89-year old Mr. Camping is a self-taught Bible-scholar who is also quite good with ciphering. By combining the two disciplines and, with just a bit of creative license, he has determined that the end of time will occur on May 21, 2011. You might want to hold off on putting down a deposit on a beach condo rental for July.
Mr. Camping began his time-sensitive equation with Noah’s floating zoo in 4990 B.C. He next took Peter’s statement “one day is with the Lord as a thousand days and a thousand years is one day.” 7000 added to 4900 gives you 2010, and since there had to have been a year one, add one additional year and the worlds shelf-life reads 2011. May 21 was a bit harder to discern as Genesis states the flood began on the “17th day of the second month.” But which calendar? Camping is convinced God uses the Hebrew calendar so the exact date is May 21. Piece of cake. So mark the date. It’s a Saturday.
Mr. Camping’s first foray in prognosticating Christ’s return didn’t go well. In his book 1994 he chose that year for the Rapture. In 2005 he published Time Has an End and at that point honed in on May 21, 2011. He isn’t alone in picking the end of time and being wrong. 88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988 was a big seller until 1989. William Miller (founder of the Seventh-Day Adventists and former Baptist) picked October 22, 1844 and convinced thousands of followers to ready themselves. Huge numbers of believers spent that entire day on their roofs (ten feet closer to Heaven). Oops!
Kudos to Mr. Camping for trying but it’s highly unlikely Jesus will return May 21, 2011. Scripture is clear that no person knows when God’s next phase will begin. In reality, no person can know when God will act next. So why spend decades trying? Pray and repent daily and trust God for the future is all we can do. God only needs our help in reaching and reconciling the world back to Him. God does not help planning the end of time. But just in case I’m wrong…might want to hold off on painting or re-roofing the house until May 22.
Michael McCullar
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