Doomsday?

“The end of the world is nigh; 21 May, to be precise. That's the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world's population will be immediately "raptured" to Heaven; the rest will get sent straight to the Other Place. If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.”

Just so that you know, 6pm on 21^st May California time in the UK, will be 2am on 22 May. This is not the first time that the end of the world has been prophesied, and guess what? So far all predictions have failed. That's a 100% failure record, and impossible to ignore. Harold Camping has come up with his revelation, by using certain significant numbers in the Bible, and has a lot of publicity for his trouble. The following quotation is from the official report in the USA.

(Camping says the world will end on 21 May, because that will be 722,500 days from 1 April AD33, which he believes was the day of the Crucifixion. The figure of 722,500 is important because you get it by multiplying three holy numbers (5, 10 and 17) together twice. "When I found this out, I tell you, it blew my mind," he said.)

For my own thinking, I have to decide who to believe, Camping or Jesus? You have read what Harold Camping said, but here is what Jesus said:

When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power”.

Acts 1:6-7 (KJV).

I think I will trust Jesus words. After all, He is the author of the very book which Camping is using to give us his date. The trouble with this kind of thing, is that it puts God's Word, and His people in a bad place in the eyes of the watching world. When 2am on Sunday 22 May dawns in the UK, and the rapture has not happened, once again the general Church gets more bad press. But at least Harold gets his 15 minutes of fame! I wonder if he will enjoy it? I also wonder what the title of his own sermon will be on Sunday 22^nd May? How about, “Always Live Ready”?