Harold Camping
 
As of today, 4-23-2011, Denver is full of billboards announcing the Second Coming of Christ. They say, “Save the Date” and have a picture of someone marking his calendar (we certainly wouldn’t want to double book Judgment Day). The billboards boldly declare that the date will be May 21, 2011. 
These billboards are the work of Harold Camping, who has made a career out of making failed predictions of the Lord’s return. First he published his book titled 1994, in which he said the rapture would certainly take place on Sept.6, 1994, which will mark the close of the 23-year Great Tribulation. By February of that year his book shot to number 4 on the Christian Booksellers Association best-selling prophecy book chart. People were buying that book by the hundreds of thousands, and bookstores were having a hard time keeping them in stock. When September 6 of 1994 arrived and Jesus didn’t, rather than repent of being a false prophet Camping simply made another false prophecy. He recalculated and simply predicted a later date, then another, and another. If Jesus does not return next month it will mark a milestone in Camping’s career – 10 false prophecies about the Second Coming. He predicted Jesus’ return on…

September 6, 1994
September 15, 1994
September 25, 1994
October 4, 1994
December 25, 1994
February 25, 1995
May 3, 1996
September 6, 1996
no later than 2008
And now May 21, 2011

One has to wonder if the reason the Lord is tarrying is simply because He is waiting to return on a date that Harold Camping hasn’t predicted!

How does Camping handle the statements in Scripture that teach that no man knows the day nor hour? He simply asserts that at the time of Jesus that was true, but recently God has revealed the date to all who have the insight to interpret biblical numbers like Camping interprets them.
I have read through some of Camping’s literature to see how he defends his practice of claiming to know the date. His writing’s are filled with so many errors that I suppose not even the whole world could contain the books that would have to be written if they were all refuted. It is probably enough to simply provide an example of his method of interpretation and let it speak for itself. The following is from one of his booklets: 

An example of how we can discover spiritual truth by means of a large number that can be broken down into smaller numbers is given in John 21. There the Bible records the catching of 153 fish. The net did not break. The fish were all safely brought to land, which represents heaven, without the use of a ship, which typifies the local church. Spiritually, these fish represent all the true believers, the elect, who will be saved from hell, which is typified by the sea, after the church age is finished. The number 153 is divisible, which we see by the numbers 3 x 3 x 17 = 153. Spiritually, the numbers signify that the number 153 describes God’s purpose (3) to bring to heaven (17) all those whom God has saved from the wrath of God. Thus, the number 153 assists us in seeing the spiritual truths that are hidden in this historical event.

Obviously the meaning in Camping’s “interpretation” does not come from the text itself, but from Camping’s own beliefs, which he forces into John 21. How does he know 153 was intended by John to be broken up that way? Or that 3 represents God’s purpose and 17 represents heaven? Using this same method could we not make this the meaning: “The number 153 is 17 x 9. 17 represents the Second Coming of Christ, and 9 is the exact number of Camping’s past failed predictions about the Second Coming, therefore the meaning of Jn.21 is that those who follow Harold Camping are in a sinking ship.”

Harold Camping is not just a harmless nut making comical predictions. He is a wolf and an, by his own admission, an enemy of the Church. In his bizarre treatment of Jn.21 he makes a point about the fish being brought to shore without the help of the boat (which he believes is the church). He believes the church age ended in 1988, and that entire age was largely a failure.  Then, for 2300 days after the end of the church age (from 1988 until 1994) the Holy Spirit was removed altogether and no one was saved anywhere in the world. Then in 1994 the “latter rain” came and brought a great harvest of souls in the world, “but not in any church.” When Christ returns, then, anyone who cries out  to God for salvation can be saved, provided they are not affiliated with any church in any way. Camping’s literature is filled with attacks on the Church, and his primary goal is to draw people away from the Church and into his cult. Steer clear.