Who Should We Trust? Camping or Christ?

“A fool keeps on babbling. No one knows what will happen; who can tell him what will happen in the future?” (Ecclesiastes 10:14).

Recently someone left a tiny note/tract on my wife’s car in a parking lot: “Christian Bible Truth, world’s end! END = 10/21/11.”

“A fool keeps on babbling. No one knows what will happen; who can tell him what will happen in the future?” (Ecclesiastes 10:14).

Recently someone left a tiny note/tract on my wife’s car in a parking lot: “Christian Bible Truth, world’s end! END = 10/21/11.”

They left this tract on my car despite the fact that I’d previously written a column elsewhere entitled May 2011: End of the world or the end of Harold Camping’s credibility (finally)?[1] Okay, they probably haven’t been exposed to anything I’ve said or written, but I’ve been exposed to things their de facto “spiritual leader" has said and written. 

Now let me underscore one important point here at the beginning: The people passing out these notes and running these web-sites may legitimately be Christians. They may truly trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. I could never and would never dare to say they are not saved by the grace of God in Christ. Such a judgment on my part would put me in jeopardy of God’s judgment.

The little tract on my wife’s car listed two web-sites where one could go to read the group’s “argument” as to why 2011 is the year of Christ’s return and the end of the world. Of course, one of the web-sites was that of Camping’s Family Radio. The other web-site was wecanknow.com where it reads (and I quote directly since the site, ironically, contains some copyrighted material, even though the world is about to end): “This web site serves as an introduction and portal to four faithful ministries which are teaching that WE CAN KNOW from the Bible alone that the date of the rapture of believers will take place on May 21, 2011 and that God will destroy this world on October 21, 2011.” They assure the reader that “these dates are 100% accurate and beyond dispute.” (I need to remind myself to check and see if this article is still posted on May 22^nd.)

On this site we read: “Some realize that God knows how and when the end of the world will come, so they wonder if He tells us. Rather than turning to the Bible as the source of all truth for these answers, they turn to the churches and religious leaders.” Ironically, again, after they tell us they know all the pertinent dates, they then write, “Please take your time and browse through the teachings of Harold Camping, President of Family Radio" and then they suggest we check out some other web-sites "to read and listen to many faithful teachers give scriptural insight on the doctrines that God is teaching His people.” Hmmmm, does it not appear that first they say one should turn to the Bible alone as the source of all truth, not to religious leaders, and then they tell us that if we have questions we can turn to their religious leaders?

Recently, Pastor Robert Tarnoviski, of Bethel… the Church @ Franklin Mills preached a sermon entitled What Does the Bible Say About the End of the World? in response to all the questions about this date, this group, and their billboards.[2] He pointed out the danger of any group where one person is the person who knows it all and all questions regarding Scripture should go to them. I think more than one group might pop into our minds when we hear that. When everyone is instructed or told to listen to what that one “godly” or “wise” or “gifted” or “anointed” or "holy" or elevated person has to say, then WATCH OUT and BEWARE. “But the man has studied the Bible his entire life,” they often say. “Everything he says can be found in Scripture.” And yet Christ, in speaking to a group of people who ardently studied the Scriptures their whole lives, even to the point of memorizing the entire Old Testament, condemned their understanding by saying, “You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:27).

I am reminded of the words of the book of Revelation that say, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins” (Revelation 18:4). Meanwhile, if I understand it correctly,[3] Harold Camping has said that the church age is dead and people should leave the churches. “Camping teaches that all churches have become apostate and thus must be abandoned. He encourages personal Bible study and listening to his Family Radio broadcasts.”[4] Now who should we trust, Camping, or Christ who said, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18)?

And who should we trust on the end times? Camping who gives us a specific date on this year’s calendar or Jesus Christ who said, “But as for that day or hour no one knows it – neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son – except the Father” (Mark 13:32). But the authors of the above mentioned web-site go to great lengths to explain why what Jesus said is no longer the case. Yes, they say, the day will come like a “thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). But they then use 1 Thessalonians 5:4 to say that the day will not surprise everyone. They write, “Here we discover that there are some people who will not be caught off-guard by Christ's second coming.”[5] Yes, they are correct. But in context it is those who are in Christ who will not be surprised. As the NLT words 1 Thessalonians 5:4: “But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief.” This does not mean we will know the exact date of Jesus’ return; it means that we will have no “fearful expectation of judgment… that will consume God’s enemies” (Hebrews 10:27). We are ready for Christ’s return at any time because Christ has saved us and made us ready. “Those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). If John the Baptizer made ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luke 1:17), how much more so has Jesus Christ made us ready?

My wife, mulling over the verse where Jesus says, “No one knows the day or the hour,” asked me, “How is that not clear to them?”

I told her, “They seem to be saying that there was a time when no one knew, but now God is revealing something new that He did not reveal before. It’s as though what Jesus said then is no longer applicable today.”

“But anyone can say that for almost anything, then,” she astutely replied.

And she’s absolutely right. Such statements reflect the same error/sin of a plethora of departures from the Bible, all of which essentially say, “But today we have a better understanding of things than they did back in Bible times.” It is an arrogance that says, “We are more enlightened than the Christians of the last two millennia. We are even more enlightened than Christ was on some things.” It is the fatal error of the liberal churches. This is why we have groups today allowing women to be pastors, or saying that homosexuality is not a sin, or claiming that Jesus Christ did not rise bodily from the dead.

And the “new revelation”? Is it not the same claim of Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and the so-called “Jehovah’s Witnesses” made? “We’ve got a new book. A new revelation. This supercedes the previous. I know, because God has spoken to me and told me so.” Is this not, in a small way, the same error that many of the coiffed-haired TBN preachers purvey when they say, “God revealed to me… God spoke to me…”? Is it not, in a small way, the same thing the so-called “faith healers” do when they say, “God is telling me there’s a man on the other side of the TV screen who suffers from a goiter”? Beware! We see the same error repeated over and over and over again.

Every time I hear about the May 21^st, 2011 prediction or the Harold Camping-ites, I find that one particular verse pops into my mind: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6, KJV). The date-namers have become sidetracked. They’ve been inundated with times, numbers, and interpretations. They’ve been snow blinded by slight of hand. They’ve become lost in a fog and are in danger of derailing… And while I end mixing metaphors, let the Bible speak out a few final warnings to all of us:

“It is dangerous to have zeal without knowledge” (Proverbs 19:2).

“…things in these letters are hard to understand, [and they are] things the ignorant and unstable twist” (2 Peter 3:16).

Perhaps Camping missed that last line…