Community Corner

Local Clergy Refute May 21 Judgment Day Claims

Is May 21 really the end of the world, or wild claims from "false prophets"?

By now you've seen the billboards all over the county (all over the nation, in fact), including a couple along Highway 94 in Lemon Grove and Spring Valley. Maybe you've passed them and not given them a second thought. Maybe they've made you stop and re-evaluate things. But the message on the billboards is all too clear:

The world is going to end on Saturday, May 21.

(So much for that family trip to Disney World this summer.)

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The Doomsday warning is being spewed by 89-year-old Harold Camping, who founded Christian group Family Radio and who has predicted—through careful study of the Bible—that May 21 is indeed Judgment Day.

In an interview with New York Magazine last week, Camping said, “God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all.”

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Camping has incorrectly predicted the “end of days” before, for September 1994,  but he chalked up that snafu to miscalculations and incomplete Biblical research. He is adamant that Saturday is the day. He told New York Magazine that he's not even thinking about the possibility that he could be wrong—again.

“I’m not even thinking about that at all. It. Is. Going. To. Happen. Because I trust the Bible implicitly. The Bible is God’s word — it’s not from a man, it’s not from an organization of some kind where there’s plenty of room for error. It is the word of God,” Camping said.

Shame, too, since Justin Timberlake is hosting Saturday Night Live later that night.

So what do some of the local clergy think about Camping's claims? Mount Helix Patch posed the question to Rev. Peter McGuine of and Pastor Randy Yenter of Trinity Church in Spring Valley.

Rev. Peter McGuine
“Either we believe that Jesus is the Son of God or we don’t. If he is, then we must believe his words when he says that not even he knows ‘the day and hour’ of the coming of the Son of Man. If our Lord has no idea of the day and hour of his coming, then how would anyone else know?”

False messiahs and false prophets will arise, and they will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told it to you beforehand. So if they say to you, ‘He is in the desert,’ do not go out there; if they say, ‘He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be … Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. (Matthew 24:24-27; 35-36)

“As Christians, we are called to live each day as if it is ‘the day of the coming of the Son of Man.’ If we do, we have nothing to fear. His coming is to be welcomed, not feared. We pray for his coming each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, do we not?”

So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. (Matthew 24:44)

Pastor Randy Yenter
“I am planning to preach on Sunday the 22nd. I thought about showing up Sunday and telling the church that I didn’t plan a sermon because yesterday was the end of the world. But, that being said, I will have a few thoughts on the subject for my church. I guess the question is ‘Who do you trust?’ For me, I tend to go with Jesus on this subject.”

No one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. (Matthew 24:36)

“And the other thing I plan to say is that we should live every day like he was coming back that day.”

You must be ready all the time. For the Son of Man will come when least expected.  (Matthew 24:44)

“What I want to say is the end will come, and it won’t be Club Med, but Club Forever. Let’s live and love others so they too will be there with us.”


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