Well, Harold has done it again. Camping has managed to put his foot in his mouth twice in one year in front of the media.
He has dismissed his May 21st prediction as “a misunderstanding” or a slight “miscalculation” and forecasted our destruction for today, Oct. 21st.
Okay, so is it that God can’t make up His mind or is Harold the culprit here?
Hopefully, I don’t have to answer that one – you already clearly know who is at fault.
You would think that after being embarrassed on a worldwide level in May and then suffering a stroke in June, that Camping would get the hint and simply keep his fanciful fallacies to himself.
But he must truly believe in the old saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.
According to an article on the Christian Post website, Camping’s “media liaison” Tom Evans held a meeting with Family Radio/Camping supporters and told them that –
“He [Camping] has emphasized that he is convicted that the end will come very quietly…that the end will come like a whisper. That the unsaved of the world will fall asleep and never reawaken. There won't be any suffering or torturing."
"We don't know how He [God] will bring about the end... we don't know physically what that will look like, how it will take place..."
"He believes that unbelievers will simply become tired, fall asleep and never awake."
"Is he correct? ... I want to believe this. I hope and pray that this is the case."
“We mistakenly thought that every eye would see Christ coming on the clouds. ... We know that's not true for several reasons..."
"We have learned since May 21 that we cannot look at things literally necessarily. May 21 was a very good teacher. And it taught us some very painful, but important lessons. And that is, we can never presume anything. We cannot presume we that understand something simply because we want to believe it. Especially when God uses parabolic language in the Bible and we look at it physically. We must be very careful with how we interpret Scripture, especially when it comes to the character of the end. On the other hand, though our understanding of truth is faulty at times, we must never be ashamed of the truth."
"If God's Spirit has revealed something individually, we should never be ashamed of that. We should never apologize to anyone that God has opened our eyes to truth. That doesn't mean that we know everything. ... We have to humbly admit that we see through a glass darkly." (Nicola Menzie, Christian Post.com)
Let’s dissect this disarray of misinformation by Evans bit by bit from a Biblical perspective.
Starting with the phrase “He [Camping] has emphasized that he is convicted that the end will come very quietly…that the end will come like a whisper”, we already see total denial of what the Bible tells us –
Rev 16:1 “And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go and pour out the vials of the anger of God on the earth.
Rev 16:2 And the first went and poured out his vial on the earth. And a bad and grievous sore fell on the men who had the mark of the beast, and on those who worshiped his image.
Rev 16:3 And the second angel poured out his vial on the sea. And it became like the blood of a dead one, and every living soul died in the sea.
Rev 16:4 And the third angel poured out his vial on the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood.
Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
Rev 16:10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom became darkened. And they gnawed their tongues from the pain.
Rev 16:16 And he gathered them into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Rev 16:17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air. And a great voice came out of the temple of Heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done!
Rev 16:18 And voices and thunders and lightnings occurred. And there was a great earthquake, such as has not been since men were on the earth, so mighty and so great an earthquake.”
According to the Apostle John, the end won’t be quiet at all. When have you ever seen people suffer drought, great sores, and extreme sunburn (verses 2-9) quietly? When have thunder and a great earthquake (verse 18) ever sounded like a whisper?
Next, Evans states that "We don't know how He [God] will bring about the end... we don't know physically what that will look like, how it will take place..."
Okay, I know you can clearly see what’s wrong with this statement. First, you (Evans/Camping) just told us that the end will come quietly, like a whisper, now you say that you don’t know how God will bring the end or what it will physically look like?
Evans just told us Harold believes that the unsaved simply won’t wake up…
Secondly, what are the purposes of the latter chapters of Daniel, Matthew chapter 24, and the book of Revelation (among others), if God didn’t intend for us to know what the end would physically look like?
Chapter 16 of Revelation alone gives us complete details about how, why, and even when (after the rise of the Antichrist) God’s wrath and Armageddon would come.
Then Evans says “We mistakenly thought that every eye would see Christ coming on the clouds. ... We know that's not true for several reasons..." He then goes into the May 21st mishap.
They “mistakenly thought that every eye would see Christ coming on the clouds’ because that’s exactly what both Jesus and John testified to in Scripture –
Mat 24:27 “For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even to the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Mat 24:29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
Mat 24:30 And then the sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the heavens. And then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the heaven with power and great glory.”
Rev 1:7 Behold, He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him will see Him, and all the kindreds of the earth will wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.
Evans and Camping thought that everyone would see Christ’s return (and all will see it) – that was Camping and Evan’s first true mistake – thinking!
We don’t have to think about or try to calculate when Christ will return – He did all of that for us already.
We have the signs (Matt. 24, Luke 21, & Revelation), and we know how the end will come –
Rev 19:13 And He had been clothed in a garment dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
Rev 19:14 And the armies in Heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
Rev 19:15 And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, so that with it He should strike the nations. And He will shepherd them with a rod of iron. And He treads the winepress of the wine of the anger and of the wrath of Almighty God.
Rev 19:16 And He has on His garment, and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Rev 19:19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies, being gathered to make war against Him who sat on the horse, and against His army.
Rev 19:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet doing signs before it, (by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast), and those who had worshiped his image. The two were thrown alive into the Lake of Fire burning with brimstone.
Rev 19:21 And the rest were slain by the sword of Him who sat on the horse, it proceeding out of His mouth. And all the birds were filled from their flesh.
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And the sea no longer is.
Rev 21:10 And he carried me [John]away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven from God,
Rev 21:27 And there shall in no way enter into it anything that defiles, or any making an abomination or a lie; but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Evans states that "If God's Spirit has revealed something individually, we should never be ashamed of that. We should never apologize to anyone that God has opened our eyes to truth.”
There are just two things wrong with his conclusion - 1) God’s Spirit has not just revealed the end-time events to individuals – God, through Scripture, has revealed the end-times to everyone! And secondly, you should be ashamed if you thought you heard from God and the date you heard along with the information itself does not match up with God’s Word.
Dear ones, keep this in mind whenever you hear people prophesying – God never violates or goes contrary to His Written Word –NEVER!
Even in my last article about what lies ahead for America, I don’t say anything contrary to Scripture – in fact, it’s based on it.
As for Harold Camping and Family Radio – not so much.
The world can sleep soundly tonight – Harold’s been wrong before and he’s wrong again now.
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