Saturday, May 14, 2011

NPR Picks up on Harold Camping

The liberal media picks up on the end of the world. Take a few minutes to listen to the stories:

NPR: Is The End Nigh? We'll Know Soon Enough

Listen to NPR's story on Harold Camping.

And also: Divining Doomsday: An Old Practice With New Tricks

Listen to the Audio Version

Both of the listen links are worth your time to hear how the liberal media is reacting to Camping.

Harold Camping is not the first person to fix a date for the end of the world. There have been dozens of such prophets and so far, they've all been wrong. Camping himself has had to do some recalculation. He first predicted the end would come September 6, 1994. He now explains that he had not completed his biblical research.

Mr. CAMPING: For example, I at that time had not gone through the book of Jeremiah, which is a big book in the Bible that has a whole lot to say about the whole matter of the end of the world.

HAGERTY: So you're not planning for May 22?

Mr. CAMPING: Oh, absolutely not. It is going to happen. There is no plan B.

HAGERTY: I've asked a dozen of Camping's followers the same question. Everyone said even entertaining the possibility that May 21 would come and go, without event, is an offense to God. They all hope they'll be raptured. Some, like Kevin Brown, worry about being left behind.

Mr. BROWN: If I'm here on May 22 and I wake up, I'm going to be in hell. And that's where I don't want to be. So there is going to be a May 22d, and we don't want to be here.

HAGERTY: On the other hand he will, presumably, have lots of company.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR News.

Camping Countdown clock:

12 comments:

Ken said...

Very sad to see the pictures of the families with little children who are being caused to stumble by their parents and the false teacher H. Camping. Amazing.

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.”

Matthew 24:36 (also Mark 13:32)

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."
Acts 1:6-8

Ken said...

They need to read books like:

( I Don't Necessarily agree with everything any of these men write; but reading all of them would help Christians be more careful about eschatology and trying to interpret the events in the Middle East.)

99 reasons why no one knows when Christ will Return. by B. J. Orapeza

Last Days Madness, by Gary DeMar

End Times Fiction, Gary DeMar

The Last Days According to Jesus, R. C. Sproul

The Israel of God, O. Palmer Robertson

Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation. Kenneth Gentry

The Beast of Revelation, Kenneth Gentry

Perilous Times, Kenneth Gentry

Blood Brothers, Elias Chacour

Whose Promised Land? Colin Chapman

Who Owns the Land? Stanley Ellison

Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Mitchell G. Bard

Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond. edited by Darrel Bock

Four Views on the Book of Revelation; edited by Stanley Pate

Coming Again! But When? Jerry Newcombe

Ken said...

B. J. Oropeza

Spelling correction

Ken said...

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3983

For those who don't know - Micah Burke put together a lot of links and resources (above) that fully expose the false teachings of Harold Camping.

James Swan said...

By the way, if you Google News search Harold Camping, he's a hot topic:

http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&tbs=nws%3A1&hl=en&gl=us&q=harold+camping&oq=harol

James Swan said...

Micah Rules!

James Swan said...

Ken said:
Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond. edited by Darrel Bock


This is a very useful book. I worked through it abou 8 or 10 years ago.

While a lof of the Gentry / DeMar stuff is interesting, I do appreciate the Bock edited book as it's interactive.

I am not a 100% convinced partial preterist. They make some intersting arguments, but that their method of interpretation is very similar to Dispensationalism makes me bit weary. By that I mean, both the PP's and Dispies see that "this means that." One places the meaning in the past (PP0, the other the future (Dispies). It is the same method of interpretation.

Some time back on ISI, I called up and politely challenged a PP on this very issue:

http://sharpens.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post.html

I called in somewhere in the last 15 minutes, if I recall.

Ken said...

I am not 100% convinced or dogmatic either, that is why included books from different perspectives.

But,
a lot of the Olivet Discourse does seem to be about 70 AD - up until before Matthew 24:36; and Jesus is speaking to the disciples to prepare them.

seems to go from Matthew 23:36 - 24:35 - mostly 70 AD.n (But the disciples mix things together by their question in verse 3 (combining destruction of temple with end of the age and sign of His coming - so it seems mixed with both events in the "signs".

24:36 - 25 - second coming

666 does equal Neron Ceasar in Hebrew.

616 the textual variant - because Nero's name in Latin came out to 616.

Rev. 17:9-10 - five kings have fallen (died), one is . . .

"one is" is alive at the time of writing.

5 have fallen -
if one counts from Julius Caesar the sixth one is Nero

1. Julius Caesar
2. Augustus
3. Tiberius
4. Caligula
5. Claudius

6. Nero

"city on seven hills" seems to be Rome.

The adulterous woman who is a prostitute seems to be apostate Israel of that generation - "we have no king but Caesar" - "all of these things shall come up this generation" - Matthew 23:36 ff

The adulterous woman, Israel, for rejecting the Messiah, "has gone after Baal" and become "Babylon" -
rides the beast (Rome and emperors) - controlling them - 'crucify Him"

and kills the prophets, etc. (end of matthew 23)

Rev. 11:8 - "the great city where their Lord was crucified, symbolically called "Egypt" and "Sodom" (enemies of God along with Babylon in OT history)

Those seem to be compelling items; but I am not dogmatic.

Also, Irenaeus in Book 5, 30, 3 - Gentry shows that he means "he (John) was seen alive in the time of Domitian (96 AD), but the vision of the Apocalypse was in 68 AD.

Orapeza writes from a Pre-Mill Historic perspective.

Stanley Ellison is Pre-Mill also and was a prof. at Dallas Seminary.

Mitchell Bard is Jewish.

Chapman and Chacour argue from an A-Mill. perspective about the land.

so I included other view points.

Ken said...

clarification -
24:36 - 25 - second coming

Means
Matthew 24:36 through all of chapter 25 is all about the Physical Second coming of Christ at the end of time.

Other passages on the second coming of Christ:
(Acts 1:11; 2 Peter 3:4-15; Titus 2:12-13; John 14:1-3; Hebrews 9:28; I Corinthians 15:20-25; 55-58; I Thess 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians chapter 1)

Rhology said...

Hey, wait, does theology matter?

PeaceByJesus said...

As Turretinfan pointed out 9http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2011/05/counting-down-with-camping.html), Camping''s calculations are off, and he has shown he can go about reworking them.

Years ago he demonstrated how he was able to see a prophetic significance to virtually every number in every closet, using the 276 saved from drowning in Acts 26 to relate to the final tribulation period:

"The number 276=3x4x23. It also equals the sum of all the numbers that come before 23. Thus, 276=1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10...+21+22+23. By this unique arrangement, God focuses our attention on the number 23."

"The number 3 signifies the purpose of God, and the number 4 signifies universality... "

"The number 23 is identified with the final tribulation period, when God's judgment comes upon the church. Therefore, one can understand why God gives the precise number 276 in the Acts 27 account: the ship represents the church. During the final tribulation, the era of the New Testament church will end, i.e., the ship is entirely destroyed.

"True believers within the church, represented by the 276 people aboard the ship, are saved... The number 276, which equals 3x4x23, represents the purpose of God that in all the world the believers who are present during God's judgment on the external church - during the final tribulation period - cannot lose their salvation..." (The Great Tribulation, pp. 149-150).

And if you do not believe him now, then you are outside the kingdom. Of Camping that is.

Countdown clock and refutation here: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Camping.html

PeaceByJesus said...

Make that Acts 27. Sorry.

But Camping also realizes some of the gravity of wrong predictions.

"It goes without saying that it is very hazardous to focus upon future dates about any matter, and certainly it would appear completely unwise in regard to the end of time. We immediately see the enormous risk of such an action. Throughout history, men have set dates and in every case, without exception, they were wrong in their prediction. Therefore, it would appear that anyone who dares to set any kind of a date for the end of time is virtually guaranteed to be wrong." 9"Time has an end")

And while he conveys absolute certainty now, when he wrote "Time has an end," he offered,

"Having said all of the above, the end-time dates presented in this study
are not being offered as absolute fact. They are being offered based upon our present knowledge of Biblical truth. Continued study of the Bible may result in correction being made at some future time if any errors have been made. We must never forget that the Bible is given not only to teach us doctrine but also to make correction in whatever doctrine we hold. Wherever we have correctly understood the Bible, however, the resulting date absolutely will be correct.

How then should we live in the face of a possible known date for the end? At Family Radio, on the one hand, we make decisions as if the end could be quite far away. For example, contracts are negotiated as if the future was altogether indefinite. We are the first ones to understand that we are not infallible in our conclusions, and that there may be correction at some time in the future. Yet, on the other hand, we fully realize the high likelihood that the dates set forth in this study are correct. Fact is, as we continue to study these matters, our conclusions are confirmed again and again. We find more and more evidence of the likelihood that 2011 could well be the end-time year. Thus, we are greatly stimulated to send forth the Gospel so that as many people as possible can hear the Gospel in the shortest possible time.

If this world is still in existence after the end of 2011, we will know that there is still much more we can learn from the Bible. Before that time, or at that time, we surely will receive correction from the Bible concerning any conclusions which prove to be in error."

http://www.timehasanend.org/public/thae_preface.html