{judgment day, anyone?}

It's almost 9:45 pm on Saturday and here I am blogging.

I'm sure many, if not all of you, have heard of the predictions made by Harold Camping, talk show host from Family Radio. He is claimed to have spent the past 50 years of his life poring over the Scriptures, in which he made an "accurate" conclusion about Judgment Day.

Only, it has failed to be accurate.

The day that he predicted? May 21. The time that he predicted that it would begin? 6:00 pm. The sequence of events? An earthquake such that the world has never, or will ever experience again, followed by the rapture of 200 million believers (yes, only 3% of the population). Finally, the people left behind were set to experience 5 months of judgment before God destroyed the world on October 21, 2011.

All across the globe, Camping's name is being mocked, as the predictions that he made have not come to pass. He made statements such as, "The Bible guarantees it." My heart is heavy for him. Harold Camping, a frail, 89 year old man, is what many are calling a false prophet.

In my opinion, he has attempted to play God, and has failed at it. Miserably.

I can't even begin to express my thoughts on his assumed certainty, but even more than that, I can't imagine making the claims that he did, only for them to prove untrue, while in the mean time turning people's hearts away from God and onto himself.

He has made a grave error, and he will be responsible for every heart that he led astray. As for the people who followed him (yes, he had his own "following"), it is my prayer that they would not turn from God as a result of this.

My friends, this incident has come to show that although the end times are near, no one, and certainly not Harold Camping, has the authority to decide the outcome of God's plan.

And that's what it is. Prediction versus Plan.

God has a plan for His creation. Harold Camping made a prediction. Predictions can be changed, whereas God's plan has been set in stone before the world came into being.

As many verses have been quoted in the past few days, I have heard this one more than any other:

Matthew 24:36 -- But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

In my own life, being a follower of Christ means many things to me, but this more than the rest: I am not God. I make mistakes. I fail, time and time again. I don't have a fraction of the knowledge that God possesses, so for me to do something such as attempt to predict the end of the world, I only make it more apparent that I am not God.

In the next few days, weeks, months and years, I pray that each one of you would keep your eyes, ears and hearts alert. The fact is that not one of us knows when Christ will be sent to collect His beloved. It could be tomorrow, it could be 10 years from now. And that is why it is so important for us to cling to the truth found in the Scriptures.

We must meditate on the Word, day and night. The enemy seeks to steal, kill and destroy, but Christ came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly, not that we should worry about our futures and miss out on the gift of the present. We do not have to fear tomorrow, for we are held in the hand of God today. Our future is certain. Our salvation is sealed. We need only look to the cross, and there, we will find truth.

Blessings my friends.

In Christ,