Not Camping With Camping

Well, May 21 came and went and California radio preacher Harold Camping's prediction that the rapture would occur and God's judgement would fall on that day didn't materialize.

Regrettably, the 89-year old Family Radio head is not deterred. He's simply "recalculated", again, and now says that all of this will take place in October. News people are having a jolly field day with this stuff, and hundreds of folks who believed this man's declarations now feel crushed and deceived.

Some observations:
1.He blended ignorance and arrogance in his claim to know when these major prophetic
events would happen. Matthew 24:36,42, and 44 make it clear that no one but the Father
has that information. We're given signs but not the date.
2. He has to be labeled a false prophet now if you take Deuteronomy 18:21-22 seriously.
Jesus warned that lots of spokesmen like that would turn up in the endtimes(Matthew 24:
24).
3. He has given the culture around us one more reason to laugh at our faith. In the minds of
many, all preachers, churches, and Christians are lumped together with this guy and
others like him as silly and backward and thus deserving of ridicule rather than a hearing.
That's unfair because there are millions of believers who are faithfully living the Christian
life and are involved in serving, sacrificial ministry. There are thousands and thousands of
Christ-followers who are careful, responsible, capable students of the scriptures who
present God's Word accurately(2 Timothy 2:15).
4. The more I study the Bible, the more I doubt the validity of a pretribulational rapture
anyway. It's just my opinion these days but I don't see a lot of scriptural support for it.
Jesus is coming back visibly, bodily, gloriously...but it's hard to hold to a 2-stage second
coming. And just believing in that because that's always what you've been told,without
doing your own diligent study on it, is not wise.
5. Unwittingly, Mr. Camping may now have caused a lot of Christians to lose hope in the
return of Christ. He may also have made it easier for many unbelievers to doubt the sure
reality of coming judgement for this earth . Evidences abound that we are living in the
last days. Signs seem to be intensifying that our Lord will soon be appearing and millions
of lost people will be doomed forever. That's why it was so hard for me to hear media
people mock and scorn Camping, even though I knew he was wrong, because I was
saddened that they were missing the larger point that one day final endtime events are
going to take place and so many won't be ready(2 Peter 3:1-13). Jesus said that society
would be pretty much like it was in the days of Noah(Matthew 24:37-39) when He comes
again.
6. While we're waiting, we're to be ministering to people, winning souls, and growing in
Christ-likeness. That ought to keep us busy.