After his failed prediction that the world would end in 1994, Harold Camping is again making bold predictions. He is now claiming that the world will end on May 21st, 2011. Should we be concerned? The answer is no. That is, we should at least be no more concerned about “May 21st” than we are about any other day, for the end could come at any time. According to Bible teaching, we simply don’t know and we have no way of finding out when the last day will be. It could be May 21st of this year, but it could just as easily be any other future date.
People of all sorts of religious backgrounds have made literally hundreds of end-time predictions over the years, and they have all failed. It is particularly strange for professed “Bible believers” to make such predictions, for the Bible plainly states that no one knows when the last day will be. Though Jesus did identify certain signs as preceding Jerusalem’s destruction by the Romans in 70 AD, He was quite clear that the “last day” [judgment day] is unknowable and unpredictable. He said, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).
Paul said, “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2). Peter said, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10).
The mark of a false prophet is failed prophecy (Deut. 18:22). One whose predictions fail is a false prophet. We shall learn the prophetic status of Mr. Hunt by 12 midnight on the night of May 21st.