God's Word - the Holy Bible - clearly declares that NO-ONE will KNOW the DAY nor the hour when Our Lord Jesus Christ will Return!

HAROLD CAMPING: The Emergence of a New Cult

HAROLD CAMPING IS A TOOL IN SATAN’S HAND TO CONFUSE CHRISTIANS & TO TURN SINNERS AWAY FROM THE REAL TRUTH OF CHRIST’S GOSPEL!                   - Pastor Max Solbrekken

The Fallacy of Date Setting - Harold Camping and the May 2011 Rapture (For a full treatment of this important subject go to website http://www.lamblion.com/articles/articles_cults16.php
Harold Camping is at it again! Back in 1992 he published a book titled 1994? in which he set the date for the Lord's return for September 6, 1994. Now, in his latest book, Time Has An End, he has set a new "absolute" date of May 21, 2011.


An Historical Precedent

It is all reminiscent of a Vermont farmer by the name of William Miller who developed a theory in the 1820's, based on Daniel 8:14, that Jesus would return to the earth on March 21, 1844.

In the King James Version that passage reads: "And he [a saint or holy one] said unto me, 'Unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.'" This is a prophecy about the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and its ultimate cleansing. But Miller applied it to the end times and converted the days into years. Assuming the prophecy was given in 457 BC, he calculated that Jesus would return 2,300 years later, on March 21, 1844. Incredibly, he interpreted the "cleansing of the sanctuary" to refer to the purging of the earth by fire at the Second Coming of Jesus!

When Miller's date came and passed without any sign of the Lord's return, he proceeded to set a new date for October 22, 1844. When nothing happened on this second date, most of Miller's followers became totally disillusioned. The whole experience was dubbed "The Great Disappointment." Miller died in disgrace four years later in 1849.

But that did not prove to be the end of the matter. One small group of Miller's followers in New England decided that he had not been wrong after all. Led by a young so-called prophetess named Ellen G. White, they began to teach that on October 22, 1844, Jesus had entered the Holy of Holies in Heaven to begin an "investigative judgment" of the works of every person who has ever lived in order to determine their fitness for Heaven. They further taught that the reason Jesus did not return to the earth on the October date was because of the Church's failure to observe the Jewish Sabbath. And thus was founded the modern day cult known as The Seventh Day Adventists.


Playing With Numbers

As I pointed out earlier, Camping is a former engineer, and as such, he loves to play with numbers. They are an obsession with him.

The best example is a mathematical formula he discovered that absolutely convinced him that he is correct in dating the end of the Church Age to May 21, 1988. He treats this formula in his writings as if it has eclipsed the world's previously most important equation — namely, E=MC2. Once again, you had better sit down. Here's how it goes:

1. From the time of the crucifixion on April 11, 33 AD (a date that is not agreed upon by scholars) to May 21, 2011 is a total of 722,500 days.

2. The number 722,500 is made up of two sets of an identical series of numbers: 5x10x17 x 5x10x17 = 722,500.

3. Now, since the number 5 stands for atonement (Says who?) and 10 stands for perfection (Since when?) and 17 stands for Heaven (Give me a break!), this formula means, "Atonement has been completed for Heaven," and it is repeated twice for emphasis.

And if that silliness is not enough, Camping points to another calculation of his that he says validates his date for the Rapture. He states that the Noahic Flood occurred in 4990 BC (most Evangelical scholars place it from 2500 to 2300 BC!). He then points out that the time span from 4990 BC to 2011 is exactly 7,000 years.

Even if this were true, what would it prove? Well, Camping says that when Noah preached that Mankind had 7 days to escape the destruction (Genesis 7:4), he was really saying that Mankind had 7,000 years of existence left, since to God a thousand years is as a day. Once again, we find allegorical interpretation running amok!
The Ultimate Challenge

All date-setters have to deal with Matthew 24:36 where Jesus, speaking of His return, said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."
Camping dismisses this statement as being no longer true. He says it all changed in September of 1994 when the Holy Spirit began to be poured out and new revelations concerning the end times began to be given to true believers. He argues this is in fulfillment of a promise given in Ecclesiastes 8:5 where it states that "a wise heart knows the proper time and procedure."

Once again, Camping just fishes around for some words to substantiate an unrelated point. Ecclesiastes 8:5 is specifically talking about being obedient to political leaders. It says that a wise heart knows the proper time and procedure to obey a royal command. The fact that it is so specific is the reason that Camping only quotes the last half of the verse.
Camping also quotes Daniel 12:4 & 9. These verses state that certain end time prophecies will not be understood until the time comes for them to be fulfilled. This is certainly true with regard to prophecies that depend upon historical developments (like the re-establishment of Israel). The verses also relate to prophecies that rely on modern technology (like the whole world looking upon the dead bodies of the two witnesses in Jerusalem). But these verses certainly do not apply to Jesus' statement in Matthew 24:36 where He stated without reservation that no one can know the date of His return.

Camping also points to 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5 which says that the Lord will return "like a thief in the night," but not as such for "brethren" who are "sons of light and sons of day." Camping argues that these verses mean that true believers can know the date of the Lord's return. But that is not the meaning of this passage. Instead, it simply means that believers can know the season of the Lord's return (and not the date) because we have been given signs to watch for.

One final observation about Harold Camping — he is not only just a false prophet, he is also a cult leader. This has not always been true of him, but it has become increasingly apparent over the past 20 years.
 It was confirmed in 2002 with the publication of his book entitled, The End of the Church Age... And After.
In that book he proclaimed once again that God had washed His hands of the Church on May 21, 1988 when the Church Age came to an end. But this time he went even further. He declared that all churches in existence today are apostate and therefore are incapable of saving anyone. This conclusion prompted him to issue a call for all Bible-believing Christians to leave their churches. The clear implication was for them to affiliate with his group, since they are the only truly enlightened ones. The book brims with heretical statements from beginning to end, the most blasphemous being his assertion that "the Angel Michael is the Lord Jesus Christ."
Camping's teaching about the Church is as wrong as it can be. The Church is inseparable from Jesus, for the Bible teaches that the Church is the Body of Christ, with Christ as its head (Ephesians 1:22, 4:15 and 5:23. See also: Colossians 1:18 and 2:19). Further, Jesus promised that the gates of Hades would never be able to prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18).
Further evidence of his drift toward the cults is to be found in recent reports that he is now teaching that there is no such thing as a literal Hell. He argues it was doctrine devised by man to intimidate people. According to Camping, when an unbeliever dies, he will be judged by God and then be annihilated.


He argues it was doctrine devised by man to intimidate people. According to Camping, when an unbeliever dies, he will be judged by God and then be annihilated.

What has happened to Harold Camping is what always happens when a person starts playing with the Word of God, arguing that it does not mean what it says, but, rather, it means what that person wants it to mean.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is only one thing I know for certain about the date of May 21, 2011, and that is that Jesus will not return on that day. He may appear in the Rapture the day before or the day after, but it will not be on May 21. The Rapture is an event that can occur any moment. We cannot know the date, but we can know the season, for we have been given signs to watch for, and those signs are all around us today.

We are definitely in the season, and the crucial question is, "Are you ready?" You can answer that question positively and with certainty only if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you have done that, then you can cry out, "Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"