Harold Camping Article
What in the world are people thinking believing Harold Camping and his nonsense that the rapture will be on May 21, 2011. I don't get it. The boat for his proving himself sailed long ago when he said it was going to be in 1994. Let me rephrase: he said it might be in 1994...but there was the most humble possibility that his calculations could be wrong and it would be 2011 when it happened. Either way, only true believers (i.e. anyone who believes that the world will end when he does) will be raptured. I wouldn't quite call him a false prophet; after all, he never claimed to receive a vision from God or anything. I would say that he's a false teacher though. Telling people you have a sure thing when you don't isn't the best way to go about teaching the Gospel. This isn't the Da Vinci Code where we have to decipher hidden and complex messages in the Bible to figure out when this thing is going down. It was written for every man! Sure there are complexities here and there, but not to the point we dig for the timing of something that Jesus said no man knows. That's why Paul said not to worry about it. He told us to preach the gospel, not the timing of judgment day. Just that we will be judged one day.
While individual false prophets like Harold Camping have come and gone, the Jehovah's Witnesses are the only existing worldwide religious organization formed (in the 1880s) for the sole purpose of preaching that Jesus Christ had already returned in 1874 -- invisibly and secretly to everyone except followers of the WatchTower Society.
ReplyDeleteHere is the internet's BEST and most brief historical summary of the Jehovah's Witnesses -- who are an offshoot of the Adventists:
http://jwemployees.bravehost.com/JWInfo/1001.html
The following webpage explains how the Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide preaching work fulfills Jesus Christ's warning to his followers -- as recorded in Matthew 24 -- that while some false prophets would predict the time of His Second Advent, that a certain False Prophet also would proclaim that He had already returned, and only that False Prophet knew when and where:
http://jwbookstore.bravehost.com/books/signtimes.html