Eighty-nine year old religious broadcaster and Bible teacher, Harold Egbert Camping, has been predicting for some time now that Jesus Christ is going to return this Saturday May 21. I will assure you, in no uncertain words, HE WILL NOT! 

Camping is no light weight.  He is president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the United States as well as a website.  He claims that his teachings are now translated into 48 languages, and that he transmits into China on an AM station without getting jammed once. His office is flanked by satellite dishes in the parking lot that transmits his talk show, "Open Forum” all over the world, which includes about 55 stations in the U.S. alone, and assures his message is heard on every continent.

According to the San Francisco Examiner, employees at his Oakland Office run printing presses that publish Camping’s pamphlets and books, and some wear T-shirts that read, “May 21, 2011.”  In fact, they’re happy to talk about the day they believe their souls will be retrieved by Christ.  Apparently they are having some success. because Christian Newswire reports that people all over the world are terrified as we get closer to this manufactured ‘Dooms Day.’ 

However, others are treating it as a big joke. One poll says that 98% of the people surveyed do not believe that Christ will return on May 21, even after Camping has spent untold sums of money, possibly into the millions of dollars, and has caused untold damage to the cause of Christ.  But on the other hand, even if Camping could find another 14 million nuts like himself out of the 7 billion souls - 2% - of this old sin sick world to believe him, that would be quite a bunch of “coconuts” to take to heaven with him.  If he is right, it would be the greatest one-man evangelistic effort in the history of the world.  Preachers, how would you like to be that “dude” at the Judgment Seat of Christ?

Yes, the jokers are running rampant, as they always do when the doomsday boys hold up their signs that say, “Turn or Burn!” or “Are You Right With God,” or “Jesus is Coming Soon, Are You Ready?”  According to the May 19 Florida Toda,y a Facebook page titled “Post rapture looting” offers this invitation: When everyone is gone and god’s not looking, we need to pick up some sweet stereo equipment and maybe some new furniture for the mansion we’re going to squat in.”  Do you suppose they were too scared to use a capital “G?” By Wednesday afternoon more than 175,000 people indicated they would be “attending” the public event.” The event is also being mocked in the comic strip “Doonesbury” and has inspired “Rapture parties” to celebrate what hosts expect will be the failure of the world to come to an end. In the Army town of Fayetteville, N.C., the local chapter of the American Humanist Association has turned the event into a two day extravaganza, with a Saturday night party followed by a day-after concert. “It’s not meant to be insulting, but come on,” said organizer Geri Weaver, “Christians are openly scoffing at this.”

We are not going to waste print space to explain Camping’s complicated Biblical, numerological, and apocalyptical formula that he construes to come up with the Saturday date.  Anyone can go to his website for further entertainment.  But suffice it to say, Harold Egghead, I mean Egbert, was wrong in 1994 when he went through the same drill, except he wasn’t a world wide-media mogul then so he couldn’t do as much damage.

All of this confirms the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when He said to His disciples, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”  In fact he said, “…if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” 

I have been shocked at normally stable Christian believers who should know better that have been caught up in this foolishness.  A pastor in Melbourne, Florida met some friends at a local W-Mart.  When they left, they said, “See you in the rapture.”  Knowing that the pastor didn’t get the drift, they said, “You know, May 21.” 

This isn’t the first time that these predictions of the coming of Christ and the end of the world have been made.  Since the Lord Jesus predicted that he would return bodily to this earth to receive His Kingdom and rule over the nations, men have been looking for him in their life time and suggesting that world events surely determined that it would be soon.  Even his disciples asked him at the Temple Mount…”and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”

History has been replete with those who have set dates for the coming of Christ only to be mocked when they awoke the next morning and had to say to their followers, “Guess what? I miscalculated.”   Amazingly, many like Camping, set another date and their followers went with them into Stupidville again.  There is a website called The Datesetters Diary - http://www.raptureready.com/rr-date-setters.html - that gives a chronology of date setters for the past 2000 years.  Forty-eight since 1900.  Obviously they have all been wrong.  Be assured, one more will wake up wrong on May 22nd.

How can I make the bold statement that Jesus Christ will not return this Saturday May 21?  Because He said that he wouldn’t. He said to His disciples, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”  If our heavenly Father has told no man including the angels in heaven when the Lord Jesus is going to return, I don’t think he has let Harold “Egghead”, I mean Egbert Camping in on the secret.

The reason is very simple; he wants us to all be ready, for He may come today.  These clowns that are having their “rupture” parties, are no doubt like the crowd that laughed at Mr. Noah when he built an ark and said that it was going to rain when it had never rained before. Jesus said, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

I would still rather be Camping, with egg on my face, on May 22nd than this crowd of infidels and in-for-hells on that day when the Son of God really does return and they cry to the “…mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

For Dr. Dixon’s free booklet Twice Born that explains how to be Born Again and be sure of being prepared when Jesus comes again e-mail drgregdixon@earthlink.net. It is available by mail or on line.