 |
|
| Home | Current Issue | Print Article | Print Issue Policy | Narrow/Wide |
|
Volume 71,
Issue 1
The false prophecy referred to is that of Mr. Harold Camping, that the world was to end in September, 1994. It was a false prophecy. It was not merely a mistaken prophecy that might be corrected by adjusting the numbers in the mathematical puzzle that is the book 1994? Editorial Lessons from the Recent False Prophecy of the Date of the End of the World The prophecy itself was teaching about a great gospel-truth—the perfection of all of God's purposes in Jesus Christ—that not only had no basis in Scripture but also willfully contradicted Scripture. The Bible clearly teaches that no one, not even the angels, not even the Son Himself, knows the time of the second coming of Christ (Mark 13:32, 33). Thus does the Bible forbid and condemn the forecasting of the definite time of the end. The prophet, Mr. Camping, presented himself as the one man gifted and authorized by God in the last days to disclose to the world what Daniel had shut up and sealed in Daniel 12:4, 9. Camping ran, but God did not send him. As we will discover in the days ahead (I write on September 9, before the consequences of the false prophecy can become apparent), the prophecy will have destructive effects both upon the gullible souls who were deluded by it and upon the cause of conservative Christianity. The prophecy of September 15-27, 1994 as the date of Christ's return was false prophecy. Merely to call attention to the failed prophecy serves no good purpose. In view of Camping's reputation as a Reformed teacher, those who are jealous for the honor of the Reformed faith could desire that the prophecy be buried in oblivion: "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph" (II Sam. 1:20). But there are important lessons that Reformed Christians must learn from the debacle of Camping's failed prophecy of the world's end. Lesson 1. The Reformed Christian must reject those teachers of the Bible who practice allegorical interpretation. These teachers are as unreliable and dangerous as the teachers who deny the full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. The root of the monumental folly of the prediction of the date of Christ's return is Camping's repudiation, or ignorance, of sober grammatical-historical-spiritual exegesis. The Family Radio expositor of the Bible practices an arbitrary, fanciful interpretation according to which everything and anything in the Bible has symbolical meaning. Ahasuerus is a type of God. Israel's eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-bamea in Deuteronomy 1:2 represents and teaches that there were 11,000 years from creation to the coming of the Messiah. The deepest meaning of the 2,000 swine in Mark 5:1-17 is that there are about 2,000 years from the birth of Jesus to His coming again. This is profanation of the Holy Scriptures. This characterizes all the man's handling of the Bible. This is the death of a church and the ruin of the faith. Lesson 2. The Reformed Christian must insist on having teachers of the Bible, the "pastors and teachers" of Ephesians 4:11, who are trained in sound, solid hermeneutics (the science of interpreting the Bible) and exegesis (the practice of interpreting the Bible). This training is given in a good Reformed seminary. Many cry out today against the seminaries because these distressed saints suffer from products who are either incompetent or unwilling to teach the people the pure Word of God from a Bible believingly regarded as inspired, word for blessed word. God knows there is reason for this lament. But the solution is not sincere, but untrained, laymen with their English Bible and a Young's Concordance. Such teachers are as much an evil for the church and for the soul that hungers for the Word as are the graduates from the modernist seminary. Harold Camping is the living proof. Lesson 3. The Reformed Christian must demand that those who teach him the Word of God be called by God through the instituted church, be ordained into office by the church, and be subject, ever after, to the supervision of the church. This supervision must vigilantly be exercised not only by the elders of the local church but also by the pastors and elders of the denomination. Mr. Camping was never called by God's church and, therefore, by God Himself to be the teacher of God's church. He is not subject to the oversight of the church. He simply put himself forward as the teacher of the church by virtue of his having read the English Bible for many years and by virtue of his circumstances. He is on his own. Invariably, this spells disaster both for the teacher and for his disciples. The first seventeen articles of the Reformed Church Order of Dordt (which professing Reformed people, churches, and movements ignore to their own peril!) express the Reformed adherence to the biblical principle that pastors and teachers must be called. Lesson 4. The Reformed Christian must be thoroughly grounded in the doctrines of the Bible as they are confessed in the Reformed creeds and as they are faithfully taught by the church through the office of the ministry. Particularly, the Reformed Christian must know the truths of eschatology, the doctrines of the last things. The Reformed man or woman who knew the basic truths concerning the second coming of Christ was not, and could not be, deceived by Harold Camping. Christ cannot come until Antichrist has been revealed (II Thess. 2), and Antichrist is not Satan himself but Satan's man and worldwide kingdom (II Thess. 2; Rev. 13). Before the end, there will be great tribulation (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 13), and this tribulation is not spiritual apostasy but actual, physical persecution. Besides, no human being knows the exact, definite time of Jesus' coming. Jesus Himself said so. There is a good purpose with the false teaching of Harold Camping about the date of the coming of Christ. It is not the lame defense of his foolish prophecy that Camping began to suggest already before it was exposed as false by the event, the defense, namely, that, even though the date was wrong, his prophecy got many to think about the final judgment. Fact is, the natural effect of the false prophecy is that those who believed the prophecy and prepared to meet God on September 15-27,being bitterly disappointed, will give up on a second coming and a final judgment altogether. But God may use the evil of the prophecy to drive His people to the Scriptures to learn the truth of eschatology. There is need of this. Camping's is by no means the only error abroad in conservative circles concerning the end. More importantly still, the end is near. The signs point this out to faith. The great apostasy is well underway. All that remains is the rising of the man of sin and the establishment of the kingdom of the beast with its persecution of the saints. Then, the Lord will come down from heaven in the body, the dead will be raised, and the final judgment will sit. Not in 1994. Not at any knowable or predictable date. But soon. Of this we are confident. The coming of September, 1994 did nothing to quicken this hope. The going of September, 1994 did nothing to dampen it. - DJE |
|
| SEARCH STANDARD BEARER TEXT HERE Advanced Search Reset | ||
| BIBLE TEXT INDEX | ||