Camping's Judgement Day Prophesy Flops

Well, right about now Harold Camping should be counting his blessings that he is not in ancient Israel where Deuteronomy 18: 20-22 was a law of the land:

" 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. 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."

As I write this, it is early in the morning on May 22 in Jerusalem. So Camping's date setting for the world's end has failed to come to pass, just as scores of other's before him. All that remains to be seen is how much scorn will be heaped upon Christians and the Bible because of his misplaced zeal. All that remains to be seen? Well, not quite. There is still the issue of whether or not his followers will flee this false teacher or if they will regroup under the banner of a new cult, which would be the usual pattern for these things.

In the 19th century a preacher named William Miller predicted the second coming of Christ to happen between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When that didn't pan out, the date was delayed to October 22, 1844. Eventually many left the movement and those that stayed explained away the failed dates by teaching that it had been a spiritual return and not the physical one that the Bible teaches. Today this group is known as The Seventh Day Adventists.

The Watchtower Society also has a history of setting dates for Judgment Day. 1914, 1915, 1918, and then 1925 as each date passed without God's response to their prophesies. The most recent Jehovah Witness prophesy of the end was for 1975; another bust.

Not to be completely left out, Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon dynasty, prophesied that Christ would return either on February 15, 1891 or after that date (his statement apparently just ambiguous enough to dodge the bullet of being a failed prophesy - not to worry, though, he had many less ambiguous prophecies to prove himself a liar)

Are you starting to see a pattern between Judgement Day prophecies and cults yet? Time will tell whether Harold Camping and his followers will repent of their (good intentioned) heresy or go down the path of becoming a full blown cult.

In the mean time, It seems to me that Camping has not done any favors to those who are committed to sharing the Gospel. Most non-Christians, with the failure of Camping's predictions, go back to their default position described in 2 Peter 3:3-4

"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. "

So, the bottom line is this: despite May 21, 2011 not being Judgment Day, Judgment Day is still coming. We are all still sinners in need of a Savior. Don't let false teachers divert your focus from that either by their next prophesy or by the failure of their last one. Jesus is our only hope.