Tag Archives: Greg Koukl

Doomsday THIS Saturday!!! Well… Maybe Not!

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We are quickly approaching Harold Camping’s doom date, which is tomorrow. This is really sad because Camping is scaring millions of people with his fallacious prediction that the end of the world will come at 6 p.m. EST May 21. Yet, Camping isn’t willing to put his money where his mouth is. WorldNetDaily is reporting that Sol David Cuddeback of Eugene, OR offered to take possession of all Campings worldly goods for $1 on May 22 since Camping won’t be needing it any longer. Camping has yet to reply.

Let me reassure you, Camping is a nut case. He goes so far to say that we must believe in his prediction of the rapture in order to be saved. No where in the Bible does it say “believe in the rapture as interpreted by Harold Camping to be saved.” What it says is that we are to believe and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, not a prediction by Harold Camping. This makes Harold Camping officially a heretic. He is teaching another gospel all together. All you have to do is alter the gospel just a bit, and you join hands with him. The gospel is that Jesus Christ saves us from sin and death, through HIS atoning work on the cross. We are to believe in His Second Coming, but there is nothing about believing in a particular date of His Second Coming. Jesus even tells us that we cannot know the day or the hour of that coming. So Camping is at odds with Christ’s words.

Here is a bit of the WND report:

Harold Camping, 89, of Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio is standing firm in his claim that mankind has run out of time and the Creator of the universe is arriving this Saturday, with earthquakes around the globe heralding the event.

In fact, when asked how he was feeling in this so-called final week, Camping admitted he’s already got a case of the shakes.

“I am trembling. I have never been at this place before,” Camping told CNN. “When we are only a few days away from the last thing that has to happen – the whole world destroyed by God – I have never been here before. Where can you get direction so you know how to feel?”

I hope he trembles on Sunday morning, when he realizes how he is duped so many people. The problem is, he will resort to his old tactics of spiritualizing what was to take place on Saturday. Once again, many will be duped.
Now, some might say: “But Timothy, look at all those who are coming to faith because of this prediction. Shouldn’t we rejoice?” (I know, straw man… but there are those who would naively say this very thing.)  Not at all because they are coming to faith in a lie, not in the person and work of Jesus Christ. What happens to all those who believe in Camping’s message, and then it doesn’t happen? They are worse off than if they hadn’t believe at all because now they return to unbelief with a vengeance. This entire news event should sadden us because it is the result of a madman, not the truth of the gospel.

The truth of the matter is that we need to ignore Camping and his ilk. Let the Scripture dictate to us what we believe about the second coming.

Here is Hank Hanegraaff’s refutation of Camping.

I don’t believe in the rapture as Hanegraaff does. But you see that I’m not the only one refuting this heretic.

Realize that the idea of the rapture comes from the Plymouth Brethren about 150 years ago. Before that day, the church never heard of the rapture. What the Plymouth Brethren then did, was read their prophecy back into Scripture. This is a big problem. We are never to read our prophecies or views of the world back into Scripture. Scripture is to dictate what we are to believe and our view of the world. The Plymouth Brethren were doing the same thing that liberals are doing, reading their worldview into Scripture. This leads to heresy every time.

Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason, gives a good biblical account of the rapture, or Second Coming as I would call it,  here. (Hattip: Neil.)

Also, there are some good links and an Mp3 download on the topic at Reformation 21, here.