The End of the World – May 21, 2011, October 21, 2011
AGentleman named Harold Camping, self-authenticated, caused a stir over the last few weeks with his dire predications of the coming of Jesus Christ, the end of the world, and the judgement of the wicked by God. While I do not want to give an obvious false teacher the legitimacy of addressing their points, I do want to take a few moments to address these matters before we pray.
First and foremost, we as a church believe in the imminent return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to Judge the living and the dead. Our own constitution reads as follows:
We believe in the second coming of Christ, that His coming in the air to rapture His Church, which is our blessed hope, is always imminent; that when He has first by resurrection of the dead and translation of the living removed from the earth His waiting Church, He will then pour out the righteous judgements of God upon the unbelieving world and afterward descend with His Church and establish His glorious and literal kingdom over all the nations for a thousand years (Zechariah 14:4-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; James 5.8; Hebrews 10:37; Jude 14-15; Revelation 19:11-¬16; 20:4-7).
As you can see, we do not offer a time frame for these matters beyond the general framework presented within the pages of Scriptures read and understood plainly. As such, we do not support the idea that such events are predictable. Jesus Himself warned against such predictions and predictors in such passages as Matthew 24:23-28, 25:13 and Acts 1:4-8.
Although we do not believe in predictions or predictors, we do affirm four important practical truths regarding this matter: 1) we are to live lives of Christian service and duty in light of Jesus' return (Mt. 23:42-51); 2) we are to live lives of Christian holiness in light of Jesus' return (1 Tim. 6:17-19; 1 Pet. 2:11-12; 1 Jn. 3:1-3); 3) we are to live orderly lives, maintaining our employment and caring for our family needs, until Jesus returns (2 Thess. 3:6-15); and 4) we are to love and long for His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 22:20).
If these events did show something, they showed that there are many who name the name of Christ who are neither loving or longing for the return of Christ. Such individuals ought to stand rebuked today and seek to change their orientation. It also demonstrated that Christian service is many times more sacrificially engaged in by the deceived than it is by the correct. We ought to stand rebuked by such today.
Further, we see the continuing relevancy of the Holy Scriptures in two ways. First, we see the power of the Scripture to bring the whole nation to a halt or to engage the nation, as this false interpretation lead the country astray these past few weeks. But we also see the continuing relevancy in that the very matters we tried to address from the book of Jude are shown to be an ongoing issue within the church. We need to pay heed to Jude's warning and description of false teachers every more carefully today.
Now as to Mr. Camping himself:
I did not get a chance to do a lot of research on Mr. Camping, but the information in one particular article did stand out to me.
The description in the article of his followers as "churchless followers" was intriguing to me for it demonstrated his own beliefs that the church was corrupted and that the church age had come to end. This allowed him to abandon the organized church.
Well, while Mr. Camping may believe the church age has ended, we, in fact, believe just the opposite. Jesus, according to Matthew 16 is building His church and the church age will not end until its builder says that it is over.
This does demonstrate one of the primary roots of error which is the discounting and or abandoning of the church. When the church is put to the side in a person's doctrine or practice, you know that such persons are in error.
But further, Camping's interpretations were unique to him and his followers. I have repeated over and over, over the years, Peter's words regarding private interpretations in 2 Peter. 1:20-21 and their danger.
However, not only were these interpretations unique to Camping's group, they were also convoluted and required their particular systems to understand or repeat them. We believe that the proper interpretation of the Scriptures while closed off to pagans, is readily understandable to the converted when studied properly (1 Cor. 2 and 2 Timothy 2:15).
It is for this reason that here at Berean the interpretations of Scripture we offer are both historically consistent with the church's interpretation throughout its history and even more importantly are grammatically and historically defensible from the pages of Scripture themselves.
Let me say this as a side note. Over the years, church, I have chosen to be a little bit more technical in interpretation of Scripture and to open up the curtain behind my weekly studies more widely than many pastors do. Such has lead to me being referred to by some even as bookish. And I do understand such a description and why it is made. However, my intent is never to impress you with my book knowledge, but to allow you to have an avenue to repeat my interpretation if you choose. If you ever desired to repeat my interpretations on your own, you could. And if you choose to affirm the interpretations offered, you would have an avenue for affirming them on your own.
We must be committed to Jesus' Word until He returns. We must minister His Word to others until He comes. We must live in light of His Word until His appearing.
Amen.