I'm sure that most of you know by now that the Rapture was supposed to have happened yesterday. We made note of the time at work, 6:00 PM, then found out that it was Eastern time. We'd missed it by an hour, Missouri is in the Central Time Zone. There were no terrible sounds, no planes crashed, none of my co-workers ascended to the Heavens! Still many people were watching, waiting to see if the prediction would come true.
Harold Camping, a religious radio host, predicted that the Rapture would begin at local time on May 21, 2001. The Rapture was supposed to swipe the Globe, happening from time zone to time zone. As each zone reached 6:00 PM the Rapture would begin, some saying as high as 200 million people would be raptured. As the Rapture reached each time zone, Earthquakes greater than the Japanese Earthquake earlier this year were to rock the World. Camping said that five months after the Rapture, the World would finally come to an end in October. In the weeks leading up to the 21st, Media has given ample coverage of the reactions to Camping's prediction for the beginning of the end!
Well, it didn't happen, but that's OK! Camping had made a similar prediction in September of 1994, nothing happened then either. Several Christian groups had said in advance of the impending doom, that they were skeptical of the 5/21/11 date. Some even came right out to denounce, and criticize Camping's claims. I saw an interview with Harold Camping on Fox News when I was getting ready to clock in to work yesterday. He said people had asked him what if it didn't happen? He said, "I can't tell them that." It sounded to me like he was saying he couldn't tell them what if, because it was going to happen for sure. (This is just the felling I got, he didn't actually say that, only what I've quoted.)
Several media outlets tried to get in touch with Camping to get his story about what he thought about his prediction not coming to pass, but he was no where to be found. According to Wikipedia, Camping contacted his daughter on Saturday, the 21st. He said he was, "A little bewildered," that the Rapture hadn't occurred in earlier time zones in the Eastern World. Other than this, very little has been heard from Harold Camping in response to Saturday coming, and going without incident.
Now I know that Mr. Camping had a system, based off numerology, that was supposed to revel the time and date of the Rapture in the Bible. There have been many in recent years that has claimed there is a "Bible Code" that revels secrets of how the World will end. But I'm also pretty sure that the Bible also says that no one will know the exact time of the Rapture, or the end of the Earth. I know I've not read my Bible from cover to cover, some would say that makes me a bad Christian, but I think he's directly contradicting a few other things.
1) Isn't the Anti-Christ supposed to revel himself either before, or during the Rapture?
2) After Rapture, doesn't the Bible say that there will be ten more years till the end of
the World?
Like I said, I'm not a Bible expert, I might be wrong in these points I've made. If I am, please leave me a comment to correct me. I'm not trying to make fun of Mr. Camping, I think he probably did believe that he had predicted the Rapture. That's the problem with religion at times, things don't always work out the way we think they should. That doesn't mean that our faith in God is wrong! And I say faith in God, not religion. I think religion is often used for purposes that God would not like, but he give us free will to make those mistakes. I hope that people are respectful, the media doesn't make a spectacle of this, and that Mr. Camping doesn't let this waver his faith in God. Maybe the Rapture was supposed to be yesterday, but God changed it for some reason? I know some people would say I'm a nut for saying that, but we really don't know. That's one of the most interesting, yet frustrating things about God, we just don't know for certain. That is were faith truly comes in.
I do believe that there will be a Rapture some day, just not yesterday!
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