Posted on 03/19/2011 5:54:58 PM PDT by daniel1212
The CONCLUSION on CAMPING and his 2011 PREDICTION
“we have not followed cunningly devised fables” (2Pt. 1:16)
THE BIBLE GUARANTEES you do not need to heed a false prophet:
"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die [by stoning in the O.T.). And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." (Dt 18:20-22)
"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." (Mt. 24:36)
Overview
Harold Egbert Camping (born July 19, 1921) is the leader of an anti-church movement which engages in imaginative, esoteric eschatology (doctrine of the end times), and denies established Scriptural doctrines. He has already falsely claimed the world would end in 1994, but undeterred, he went on to
predict that the removal of all true believers from the earth — an event in the Bible known as the “rapture” (1Cor. 15; 1Thes. 4:4-17; 2Thes. 2:1) — will take place on May 21, 2011, followed by the destruction of the earth on Oct. 21, 2011.
Like many other false prophets before him, Camping invokes* the promise of Amos 3:7, that “the Lord GOD will do nothing, but He revealeth his secret unto His servants the prophets,” inferring that Camping is one, even if he denies he formally is one, and he states that the Bible guarantees his prediction.
While Camping claims to hold Scripture as the supreme authority for doctrine, yet, consistent with most “cults,” he misappropriates its authority, rejecting established truths and relegating all other visible churches as apostate, while fostering faith in himself and Family Radio as the uniquely correct interpreter of the Bible, and disparaging listening to church pastors. *(http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/judgment/judgment.html)
This rejection of all other churches is based upon Camping's conclusion that the church age, together with its clergy, and ordinances such as baptism and the Lord's supper, has ceased due to its failures and Camping's contruance of numbers in the Bible. He thus holds that it is impossible to be saved while remaining therein.
Instead of belonging to the visible church, those who wish to be saved are instructed to gather in groups and listen to him and Family Radio, which overall refuses to air ministries associated with the local, visible church.
In contrast to Christians who are in local churches, Camping's congregation who spread his message are likened by him to the 144,000 virgin male Jews of the book of Revelation. But in this case rather than following Christ, the Lamb of God, they are following Camping, the logos of deception.
History and Doctrine
In 1958 Camping was a member of the Christian Reformed Church and a construction company owner who invested in a number of radio stations. He later became the president of Family Radio Inc. In 1988 Camping left the Christian Reformed Church, and joined a local fellowship in Alameda, Ca. which he would also later leave
In 1970, Camping dated the Creation of the world to the year 11,013 BC and the Flood to 4990 BC. In 1992, Camping published his 551 page book “1994(?)” in which he states that Adam and Eve were born in the year 11,013 B.C., and that total years of Biblical history was 13,000-years. And that the devil was unbound in 1988, (p. 512) which was to be followed by a 23-year tribulation. However, Camping's believed God decided to cut the tribulation short, and Camping calculated that the return of Christ would likely take place on September 6, 1994, with 2011 being a fall back date, and declared that true Christians must leave their churches and listen to Family Radio.
Before making his latest prediction, Camping stated, “At the beginning of this study I said that during the last twenty years I have answered the question concerning the end of the world with the statement. ‘I will be very surprised if we reach the year 2000 A.D.’ After having done this study I now say equally carefully, ‘I will be surprised if we reach October 1, 1994.’
“By God’s mercy there are a few months left. However, if this study is accurate, and I believe with all my heart that it is, there will be no extensions in time. There will be no time for second guessing. When September 6, 1994, arrives, no one else can become saved.” (The end has come.” — 1994?, Harold Camping, p. 533)
Camping also stated, “There is no time left to trust your pastor or your church. You must trust only the Bible.” But since all who do not concur with Camping are damned, what he really means is trust him to interpret the Bible. (The end has come.” — 1994?, Harold Camping, p. 534)
When his 1994 expectation failed, Camping went on, with his grandfatherly voice, to make his present prediction, becoming increasingly imaginative and deviant in his eschatology and doctrine.
In 2001 Camping continued to teach, “this is the end of the church age,” and that “through Family Radio we can have this kind of fellowship,” and thus stated that “the gospel has never been sent out with more purity than it is being sent out now.” (cf. Open Forum, July 11,12, 2001)
Having dismissed the pastoral leadership which the New Testament places over the church, (Acts 20:28) Camping also rejected such commands as to baptize and observe the Lord's supper: “...the New Testament commands concerned with the ceremonial laws of water baptism and the Lord's Supper which should be obeyed within the churches and congregations until He comes can no longer be obeyed because God has brought judgment upon the institution of the church. Thus, God has effectively ended the possibility of the observance of the New Testament ceremonial laws of water baptism and the Lord's Supper.” (The End Of The Church Age And After, Chapter 13, page 232)
Camping did not stop there, but teaches that “the Holy Spirit is no longer working in the church” and thus “no one can become saved as the result of the preaching in that church.” (The End Of The Church Age And After, Chapter 8, page 107)
Having now rejected the full nature of the church, and transcendent commands given it, and sound rules of interpretation, Camping also went on to reject the eternal punishment of the wicked, imagining instead that text such as 2Thes. 1:8,9; Mt. 13:42,50; 25:41,46;Rev. 14:11; 20:10 refer to annihilation!
Methodology
Camping stated in an interview, "Because I was an engineer, I was very interested in the numbers," he said. "I'd wonder, 'Why did God put this number in, or that number in?' It was not a question of unbelief, it was a question of, 'There must be a reason for it.'" (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 1, 2010)
There is an obvious literal reason for dates and numbers in the Bible, with its extensive genealogies and historical records, and a few numbers can also have also denote things (such as 7 representing completeness), while only in a minority of times do they have prophetic significance, such as in Dan. 8:14. And self-evident rules of hermeneutics (Biblical interpretation) and the manner in which the Bible interprets itself limit these to what the context, etc. support. However, Camping has demonstrated that almost “any-digit-can-do,” a hermeneutic by which he can “prove” most anything he needs in order to fit his eschatological construct, in one may see a prophetic significance in every closet.
Many examples of Camping's numerology can be given, but one is what he extrapolates out of Jn. 21:1-14 in his book, “1994?.” The Lord had told His disciples, who were about 200 cubits out in the Sea of Galilee, to throw their net on the right side of the boat, resulting in a catch of 153 fish. Camping takes that to mean that the 200 cubits represent about 2,000 years between the first and second comings of Christ. (p. 503) Now as Camping believes that the most likely date for the birth of Christ is October 4, 7 B.C. when the Jubilee Trumpet allegedly sounded (p. 418), then he only needed to add 2,000 years, minus one year for the year 0, to get 1994. As for the 153 fish, Camping finds that 153 equals 3 times 3 times 17, and that “The number three signifies the purpose of God whereas the number seventeen signifies heaven. Thus we can learn that [the] purpose of God is to bring all believers that are caught’ by the Gospel into heaven p. 503,504).
As CRI also points out,
Camping’s book is also characterized by inconsistency. According to Camping, the seventy sevens of Daniel 9 are literal years, except for the last three and one-half. He calculates the years precisely up to the point of the death of Christ, which he says occurred in A.D. 33.He then turns around and says the last three and one-half years equal 2,000 years.
Camping takes a page to explain the subtitle “The Prerogative of God to Use Numbers as He Desires” (p. 403). This should be amended to say that it is the prerogative of Harold Camping to use numbers as he desires...(http://www.equip.org/articles/harold-camping-1994)
Biblical teaching on the church
Jesus Christ established the church in the New Testament, and promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it, (Mt. 16:18) because it was founded upon Christ, the sure foundation of the church. (Mat. 21:42; Mk.12:10-11;
Lk. 20:17-18; Acts 4:11; Rm. 9:33; 1Cor. 3:11; 10:4; Eph. 2:20; 1Pet. 2:4-8; 1Jn. 5:5; cf. Lk. 6:48; cf. Dt. 32:4, Is. 28:16) And which is made up of born again believers (1Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:13) who overcome by faith in Him, (1Jn. 5:5), and are led by pastors who are to oversee the church, (Eph. 4:11; 1Pt. 5:1) and who are to be obeyed. (Heb. 13:17)
In addition, the church is given transcendent ordinances and practices such as baptism, (Mt. 28:19; Acts 2:38) the Lord's supper, (Lk. 22:19,20; 1Cor. 11:23-26) corporate discipline, (Mt. 18:15-17; 1Cor. 5:4); collections, (2Cor. 8:ff; 9:1ff); anointing and healing of the sick, (Ja. 5:14,15) and ordination, (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5-7; Heb. 6:1) etc.
While Camping rejects baptism, the Lord told those that He commanded to baptize that he would be with them to the end of the world. (Mt. 28:18-20) In addition, the Lord's supper, another ordinance that Camping's “church” rejects as for today, is a remembrance until He returns, (1Cor. 11:26) while anointing of the sick and ordination specifically calls for elders.
And the church is revealed in the New Testament as a body consisting of believers with different gifts and offices, (1Cor. 12:4-11,28; Eph. 4:11) including deacons, (1Tim. 4:8) and is overseen by pastors, (Act 20:28; 1Pt. 5:1-14) these being elders/bishops. (Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5-7) Biblical obedience to the latter is required. (Heb. 13:17)
While the church is essentially a spiritual body, into which believers enter upon conversion, (1Cor. 12:13) there is no such thing as a world-wide invisible church without any visible local expression, to which God gave pastors, etc. so that they would not be deceived! (Eph. 4:11,14)
Camping also teaches that local churches no longer preach salvation by grace alone, in which it only occurs when God chooses to save a person (versus a person choosing to “accepting” Christ), as well as the rise of “signs and wonders” teaching, which he says adds things to God’s Word, in opposition to Rv. 22:18-19.
However, multitudes of local churches teach that God elects a person and makes him born again so that he can repent and believe, or that regeneration occurs as a consequence of believing, but that no one can come to the Lord Jesus unless the Father draws them, and enables and moves such to do what they normally would not, with both holding that justification is by faith, not by any moral merit of works.
As for miraculous signs and wonders, one need not believe God still does such in order to be saved, though regeneration itself is a miracle, but the fact is that we would not have a Bible or Christianity if God not done what Camping now forbids, (Jn. 5:36; 14:11; Heb. 2:3) and that such things are not adding to the canon of Scripture, but are a fulfillment of it, (Mk. 16:20) and are subject to testing by the Scriptures, as is preaching “the word.”
In so testing Camping and Family Radio by the Scriptures, we see that by him teaching that the Bible guarantees his prediction, it is Camping who is essentially doing what he charges the local church with, while he subtracts from Scripture things it commands, which are to be kept until He returns.
In addition to his doctrinal aberrations, Camping's extreme, esoteric eschatology follows the doomed trajectory of others, such as William Miller and Ellen White (SDA) or the so-called “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” who presumed to know the exact date of the Lord's return, and failed in every attempt, as the Lord stated that day was not revealed. (Mt. 24:36) (Camping makes plans for future business on earth: “Time has an end”.)
Many of the very Scriptures which Camping contorts to conform to his end-time construct were written to local churches, including the Thessalonians and Corinthians, which believers would be taken in the rapture if it had occurred. (1Cor. 15; 2Thes. 2) While an overall falling away will take place before that Day, the Biblical church with its local, pastored, baptizing bodies will endure, while those who deny this are actually part of the great falling away!
Now and not just May 22 is the time to “forsake the foolish and live” in obedience to Christ, versus the heretic Camping and his “cunningly devised fables.”
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To download the above as a ''8.5x11'' 3 column brochure, download PDF HERE. To print in most printers, first choose to print only side 1, and simply then pick up the last end of the paper that was printed and place it back into the paper slot, the blank side facing you, and then print side 2.
To fold, place the beginning of the message side down facing you so that the beginning (“The END of HAROLD CAMPING's..”) is under your left hand, and fold up and over just inside the last column line on the top. Make sure it is even. Then rotate the paper to the right, and fold the “Methodology” column under the beginning column and hard up against into crease. Note that use of space is maximized, and rather than doing more formatting now, space is really tight.
FRemail me if you have any excerpts of referenced material from Camping that further documents his errors.
Short interview with Camping here
Point-by-point refutations are a waste of time with a whackjob like Camping. Any Christian with more than a passing knowledge of Scripture will ignore him as the nutcase he is, and no amount of logic will change the mind of someone who is gullible enough to follow him.
He is actually quite notorious, and devoutly followed by too many, and I am bewildered why. Likely coming to a city near you.
Are you telling us that if May 21st passes without incident, Harold Camping is going to get stoned? (Pun intended). I thought he ALREADY WAS stoned when he made the prediction a while back. Oh well!
You would think. But claiming to speak for God’s authority in such a way is a capital crime, and as seen in Jer 20 and 28, God can execute such sovereignly. May we all walk in the fear of the Lord.
I am blessed to be part of a small faith tract (etc) ministry, and though i am mostly here, the reports are that Camping’s crusaders are quite active. Which is why i put together the tract.
Some of his followers will give up on God, thinking everything is a hoax. But many will still believe in Camping. He will anounce a new revelation/calculation and his followers will eagerly accept this and forget his old predictions. You see, when people have invested in a false idea, it is hard for some to admit that they were fooled. So they will loudly proclaim whatever Camping’s next prediction becomes.
There is this mindset with millennial cults. They think they have God’s secrets all figured out because they are so smart and spiritual. The cult leader tells his followers they are special because they follow him and they know God’s secrets. You are an insider, you are not only one of the elect - you are one of the elite! Some people eat this up.
I was going to ask the same thing. I don't recall ever hearing of him.
Ok. I heard some of his clips from the link you provided..Fool me once... Besides being nuts and a charlatan, his voice is annoying.
See Daniel’s post 26.
I listen to his station for the music. Family Radio plays only traditional Christian hymns and gospel songs and eschews the "praise music" found everywhere else. But when it comes to theology, I hold to my Methodist beliefs.
A commonality of most cults, in the sense that their particular group alone has validity, under one leader or office to whom they give a implicit loyalty as a type of Christ, versus Mk. 9:39,40
Thanks for the heads up.
I think I’ve heard of Family Radio. I’ll have to look into it more and see if mr. mm knows any more about it.
In 1988 Camping left the Christian Reformed Church, and joined a local fellowship in Alameda, Ca. which he would also later leave
I posted this link in another thread: "JUDGMENT DAY, MAY 21, 2011? - HAROLD CAMPING & The UNTOLD STORY ". It has some information about the circumstances of Campings departure from the CRC. It's worth a read.
It looks like his date for the "end of the church age" is very coincidently the same or close to the date of his removal as a teacher in the Alameda Christian Reformed Church.
Pride and bitterness had so overcome Camping that he was able to declare that upon the year of his censure and departure from the church, God was done with the entire church, and from that time forward, God would only work in the “true believers” who were willing to take the stand with Camping and come out of the church. This is a severe warning of what can happen to those who reject the elders who rule with the authority of Christ. Over forty percent of the Alameda CRC, many of whom were employed by Family Radio, “went out” from the church and subsequently started their own “fellowship”....
In a scheme that rivals C.I. Scofield’s dispensationalism, Camping’s teachings are again inflicting fear and confusion upon many in the church. If anyone is to be saved, declares Camping, he must be saved “outside” the church since God has rejected anyone “identified with any church”.[7] What became of the ordinances of the church? Camping declared that since the church age ended and people were to leave the churches, the sacraments were also to be discontinued—an astonishing claim since the church is commanded to observe them until Christ comes (1 Cor. 11:26). Since Camping has of late rejected the doctrine of hell, anyone who does not repent by rejecting the church will simply be annihilated. The date Camping has set for the final judgment of the world is May 21, 2011.
Bad eschatology has consequences.
What happens to these weak minded people on May 22nd?
With history as a guide, some might go back to normal churches, many will bail out entirely, some will believe a recalibrated model and soldier on.
Campingite signs I've seen pictures of say "it begins May 21, 2011". They've got an out.
I remember being in a public place and overhearing a millennial enthusiast “witness” to someone. He said, excitedly, “Obama is the AntiChrist!” (he quickly rattled a chapter and verse Hezekiah 3:14 or whatever) then he said with confidence and ecstacy, “New York City is Babylon (another chapter and verse) and it will be destroyed in a nuclear explosion and it will happen this year!” I looked over at him and he seemed like he was beside himself with joy. This was, I think, two years ago.
That is what happens when some people who call themselves Christians get caught up in date setting and idle speculation. They don’t talk much about Christ. Instead they “witness” about some numerology trick they came up with or the latest revelation from their T.V. preacher.
Is that what they call themselves "Campingites"?
I don't know what they call themselves. Anyone know?
Harold’s camping and making predictions? Nice life if you can get it!
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