After The End

Once again, ‘the end of the world’ has come and gone! Sigh.

Harold Camping is a wonderful example of a false prophet in our day. He stirred up fear for a few and ridicule from a great deal more. The 89 year old founder of ‘Family Radio’ had made similar pronouncements before. You would have thought that the disgrace of being proven a false prophet already would have prevented a following this time around, but once again people were willing to get behind him, in some cases selling their homes and cashing in their life savings. They paid for 1200 billboards to be put up in the US and 2000 more internationally. What an incredible waste and what deception! Now he is saying it was a ‘spiritual’ event. How pathetic is that! I can’t help but feel sorry for all who followed him, even though they should have known better.

They should have known better. As Quintin reminded us on Sunday, Jesus made it clear … “The Son of Man comes at such a time as you know not… No man knows the day or the hour…” But, nonetheless, we periodically have these guys who come along and insist that they know better. Camping is a classic case in point. Take a look at this quote from an interview he gave to New York magazine where he spoke of his prophecy:

“God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all. There’s nothing in the Bible that God has ever prophesied — there’s many things that he prophesied would happen and they always have happened — but there’s nothing in the Bible that holds a candle to the amount of information to this tremendous truth of the end of the world. I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question.”

Camping is a prestigious member of a select group with a longstanding tradition of heresy; men who claim to have some new secret revelation from God. Take note because this is ALWAYS a sure sign of error. Here is a quote from his website:

“… it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world.”

I have actually had two preoccupying thoughts though as this scenario has unfolded (or not). The first, of course, is a disdain for men like Harold Camping who bring reproach upon the Bible and its message. Because they claim to be appealing to the Bible as their authority this becomes a type of guilt by association.

But, as much as I have been wowed by the audacity of Camping and his crew, I have been just as disturbed by the reaction of so many in the media. Last week, leading up to the ‘day of doom’, I was watching one news program where they were having a great laugh about the end of the world. It became the joke of the day. The fact that Camping set a date and time is laughable, however, they weren’t just laughing about that. It became more obvious as the program went on that their laughter was directed at the whole idea of impending judgment.

What made this so very, very poignant for me, and just too ironic, was the fact that, at the same time as they were having a great laugh at Harold Camping’s predictions of coming judgment in the form of great disasters upon the earth, they were passionately reporting (with actual video footage of course) on the devastating tornadoes, fires and floods occurring presently in unprecedented number and severity across our continent, not to mention the unprecedented political situation in the Middle East!

There is an incredible blindness evident in all of this. And it causes me to wonder if in some strange way God uses men like Harold Camping. I was reminded of the Scripture:

“First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
2Pet 3:3-7

This week the ridicule continued on the same news program with people sending in staged ‘rapture photos’ of just their abandoned clothing lying where they were supposedly engaged in various activities at the time of their supposed rapture. Ha Ha Ha!

Date setting is absolutely in error and false prophets have theirs coming. But, I would not want to be found ‘in the seat of the scoffer’ either. Because, (and be assured of this) judgment IS coming on the earth and it will be no laughing matter. No one knows the day or the hour of His coming, or of the end of the world as we know it, but we know it is approaching, and it will be a day when the laughter will be turned to mourning for any and all who fail to take the message of the Bible seriously; who fail to take refuge in the Son while there is time.