In January 1961, a few days before John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as president, he invited Billy Graham to spend a day with him in Key Biscayne, Florida. After a round of golf, Kennedy and Graham were returning to their hotel when Kennedy stopped the white Lincoln convertible he was driving by the side of the road.
“Billy, do you believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth one day?” Kennedy asked.
“Yes, Mr. President, I certainly do,” the evangelist responded.
“Then why do I hear so little about it?” Kennedy wondered.
Were Kennedy alive today, he probably wouldn't be asking the same question.
During Kennedy’s lifetime, few mainline Protestant churches discussed the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Fifty years later, however, televangelists, network television programs, movies and books like the "Left Behind" series — which has sold more than 60 million copies — have succeeded in placing the return of Jesus Christ in the public consciousness.
A 2004 Newsweek poll revealed that 55 percent of Americans believe in the Rapture, the snatching away of all Christians prior to the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ.
As a pastor who preaches often about Bible prophecy, I am grateful for the general awareness people have of the promised return of Jesus Christ.
But our culture’s newfound interest in the end times has a downside. Bible prophecy inherently attracts fanatics. As a seminary professor of mine used to say to our class, “Remember, wherever there is light, there are bugs!”
One of those fanatics is Harold Camping, the founder of the Christian broadcasting ministry Family Radio in Oakland, California. Camping has predicted that the Rapture will occur at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, followed by the end of the world five months later on October 21, 2011.
Family Radio has plastered billboards across the nation with the warning “Judgment Day, May 21, The Bible Guarantees It!”
Road trip to the end of the world
Readers should note that Camping first predicted the world’s end in 1994. He says he was wrong due to a mathematical miscalculation.
Now I am going to make my own prediction which I’m (almost) willing to stake my life on: May 21 will come and go without any Rapture.
How can I be so certain of my prophecy? The Bible itself says that no one can know the date of the end of the world.
Predicting the apocalypse
In discussing His return to Earth, Jesus told His disciples, “... of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36).
If God has not even revealed to his own son the date the world will end, I doubt he has revealed it to Harold Camping.
My hunch is that the date God ultimately has chosen is one that will not be plastered on billboards around the country.
What harm is there in an 89-year-old preacher making prognostications about the end of the world?
First, such predictions give non-Christians one more reason to discount the Bible.
For example, many secularists have dismissed the Bible because they assume that it teaches the world is only 6,000 years old. In reality, the Bible never makes such a claim about the Earth’s age. Instead, some well-intentioned Christians have misused the genealogies in the Bible to attempt to ascertain the date of creation.
Similarly, when next Saturday passes without a Rapture, some will say, “See, the Bible was wrong again,” when, in fact, it will have been Harold Camping who was wrong — again.
Second, predictions about the end of the world always lead some people to make foolish decisions. When a self-professed prophet named Edgar Whisenant predicted that the Rapture would occur in 1988, a couple I know responded by charging their Visa card to the limit with a trip to Disney World, believing the bank would be left with the bill once they had left the Magic Kingdom for God’s kingdom.
Obviously, things did not go as planned.
A look at the ways the world could end
Just as every teacher knows how unproductive and unfocused students are the week before school lets out, God knows how tempted we would be to neglect the responsibilities he has entrusted to us if we knew the date we would be raptured into heaven. That is why God refuses to show us his calendar and instead instructs us to focus on our assignment.
But the most harmful consequence of Camping’s false prediction is that it discourages people from making the necessary preparation for the real event when it actually occurs.
Remember the boy who cried wolf once too often? The villagers were so hardened to the boy’s false alarms that they were unprepared when the wolf finally arrived.
When May 21 passes and Camping’s prophecy is added to the ash heap of discredited prophecies, some will be tempted to join the chorus of cynics whom the Bible predicts will mockingly say, “Where is the promise of Christ’s coming?” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
Make no mistake about it. As Billy Graham affirmed to President Kennedy, Jesus is coming back some day. Over 1,800 verses in the Old Testament and 300 verses in the New Testament prophesy of the lord’s return.
Don’t allow the Harold Campings of the world keep you from making the necessary preparation for the end — whenever it may be.
